The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Wednesday we went to a showing of the American version of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Go with caution from this point forward since I do go into detail concerning the differences between the two movies and the book.

The American version was very good, although some different from the Swedish version.  Mara Rooney, the girl who played Lisbeth was more waif like then Rapace, but in the end I think just as good.  There are some things the American version has in it that the Swedish version doesn't and visa versa.

The rape scene was less violent in the American version and the retribution scene was different.  There is no dildo used by the rapist in the American version, at least that we are aware of and when Lisbeth returns to exact retribution and justice she brings her own dildo and uses it rather than getting the one he used on her out and using it on him.  Which I think makes her retribution look a little less like old testament justice, which if you think about it is meant to contrast, I think, with the very sick minds of the serial killers and their Bible verses justifying their killings.  Lisbeth's actions are obviously justified, particularly when one knows her entire history and relationship with the authorities. 

Towards the end after cutting down Mikael she asks him if she can kill Martin in the American version.  Then as she chases Martin his car blows up before she can do anything, which is different than both the other movie and the book. (Wrong about the book, although she did, I think, cause his death in that he purposely ran headlong into a truck while trying to escape her.)  Lisbeth actively participates in the killing of Martin in both the others, but not in this one.  This changes things, not so much that it ruins the movie, but it does change things.  In both of the others Mikael is the one who has the more conventional morality even with all his sleeping around. He does not approve of her assisting in Martin's death or even just letting Martin burn to death.  Having her ask permission of him and having him give it changes this dynamic and gives him more authority then either the book or other movie gave him.  I wonder if this wasn't an attempt by Hollywood, to make the movie a little more conventional.  You know somehow the girl needs the big strong guy for something even if it is only the moral authority to go out and kill.

In the Swedish version Lisbeth chases Martin on her motor cycle without a weapon and wearing the helmet that that doesn't allow you to see her, it makes her a kind of other worldly avenging angel, even though she exists in an otherwise real world (no matter how horrible). And you know that when she catches him she will exact retribution weapon or no.   In the American version she chases Martin, but doesn't put on her helmet and has the gun all of which makes things more realistic, but once again makes her less of a force of nature.

One of the most important symbols in this version is the bridge which is the only way on or off the Island of the Vangers.  It seems to play an important role in this movie.  I think that one of the themes that was mostly lost in both movies was the contempt Larsson has towards the capitalist class.  Oh well, you can't have everything.

Still after saying all this I did enjoy the American version.  The actors are excellent and in some ways it was closer to the book:  the ending, Mikael's daughter and her religious belief and how she not Lisbeth turned him on to the Bible verses.  Also, Lisbeth's employer and her first guardian are in this movie a little more, which should make them more interesting in the second and third movies.

Dos Passos and Hemingway

Went to Florida and because of a mix up with shipping I didn't have my computer for most of the time I was there (carried my ereader though).  Flew down for the first time (flying that is) for many years.  Went to help my mother after surgery, turns out it was unnecessary.  Still that's where I was for awhile, so.............

I read Hemingway Cutthroat by Michael Atkinson a mystery that takes place during the Spanish Civil War with Hemingway trying to find out who murdered this guy he knew, Jose Robles.  John Dos Passos gets him involved.  I thought the book was nearly completely made up, but it turns out that the murdered man was real and that he was a friend of both Hemingway and Dos Passos and was one of the reasons that Dos Passos began his turn from the left to his later position as an asshole.  In looking up stuff about the book for this post, it turns out that the incident was more or less as it was depicted in the book, I think.

I'm a sucker for mysteries and a sucker for a book(or movie) that drops famous literary names (or movie star names, Errol Flynn was there).  Perhaps that's why I liked Woody Allen's most recent movie.

Dos Passos doesn't have the major role in the book, that is of course Hemingway.  Hemingway up, Hemingway drink, Hemingway get laid, Hemingway drink some more, Hemingway get drunk, people try to kill Hemingway, Hemingway drink, Hemingway try to get laid again, Hemingway drink some more, Hemingway do some detecting, Hemingway drink. 

This is the second novel by this guy with Hemingway as a sleuth trying to find out about the murder of a friend.  The first one being Hemingway Deadlights which many of the readers said wasn't as good as the one I read.  There is also the thing that Hemingway Deadlights takes place in 1956 while this one is in 1937, so I thought it would be better to read them not in the order they were written, but in the order they theoretically occurred at least.

But, if I didn't say it I recommend Hemingway Cutthroat as a beach book.  Something to get one's mind off Weimar as farce this time around.  A point in history where things certainly appeared as bleak as they do now.

Geezus

So I am wondering around the Internet and what do I behold, but the end times.  As somebody said, I'm going to be really pissed when the end comes not from the rapture, or a giant asteroid, or nuclear holocaust, but a god damn debt ceiling economic crash the final parts of which are ushered in by a second rate bag man for the Wall Street bankers, people we've been warned about for over a century. 

I guess we just didn't listen.  I'm waiting for a little while and then I think I'll drift on over to some of the Obama, Obama, sis boom bah, rah, rah, rah sites, that I offered to apologize to when Obama saved SS and Medicare and Medicaid and ask if they would consider apologizing to me.  Although I have had a short discussion with a guy on Facebook. I know him from law school and the Guild and he asked me "Who would you be able to support other than Obama?"  Obviously, I'm not going to vote for Bachmann or for that matter any of the sociopaths from the other party, but then why should I vote for a sociopath from the party I used to consider myself a member of?  In fact that attitude is just the one the democrats are counting on according to Greenwald today.  I have no doubt.  The other half of that is the blame will go to those who refuse to support the people who are screwing us right now, rather than the people (Al Gore/Florida anyone) who participated in the screwing.  Always blame the victim never the never the victimizers.

So any way what I had started to write about isn't at all what happened in the above two paragraphs.  Because, what I was really interested in writing about (well when I'm trying to forget that my world is falling apart around me through no fault of my own) is books or rather books and book stores.  We went to Columbus this week and I spent the morning in trainging and then we had planned on going a dropping by some friends a couple of places one can only find in a big city and one of the Borders since they are closing.  Went to one that I remembered and it was closed tighter than a drum we later learned it had been closed for a couple of weeks.  So we ended up going to another store and just kind of drifted around.  I hate to admit it, because I think I lose my leftist cred, but I like Barnes and Noble.  Although I do like local book stores and little places like that.

Where I grew up was mostly small towns with no real book stores.  Although one could get interesting paper backs at drug stores back when I was a kid.  Got Taras Bulba in a drug store, another had The 20th Maine.  The library would allow me to check out anything I wanted from the time I was about twelve so I could get their entire stock and since they had many of the major 20th Century American writers I got to read Hemingway, Faulkner, etc. 

Definitely not the cover that attracted me.

One of the more interesting stores that sold books in Van Wert was the Hospital store.  It was located down town and people would bring in what ever and the store would sell it and the proceeds would go to the Hospital.  People would dump off old books there.  I got a copy of Sartor Resartus there.  They  also had a number of paperbacks and back in the 50s and maybe the early 60s the covers of the paper backs were kind of risque, to put it mildly.  The cover did not necessarily accurately reflect what was inside.  Which brings me to how I became acquainted with Graham Greene.  I had heard of him, but wasn't really familiar with him.  I had seen the screen version of The Quiet American on the late show, the one with Audie Murphy.  So my understanding of Mr. Greene's politics was possibly a little off.  At any rate I saw a copy of The End of the Affair in paperback.  One can imagine what the cover looked like.  Boy was I shocked to find out it was the story of an incredibly depressed non-believing Catholic and his love for someone who might have been called a saint.  

The Catholicism didn't bother me and I identified with the depression, so I ended up reading most of his novels and a great deal of his non fiction work and found out that I also identified with his politics.

And that is it for today I guess.

Happy Monkey Trial Day To You

Well happy Scopes Monkey Trial Day.  I saw the movie Inherit the Wind while in high school, I think and become absolutely fascinated by Clarence Darrow and that trial.  Later I found out that the authors of the play kept it off the stage for a few years so they would miss the McCarthy nastiness.  Still later I learned that the ACLU had given lists of their members to the FBI during that same unpleasantness. 

So the movie and the ACLU kind went down hill in my mind, but never Darrow.  I still am nearly totally impressed by him even with the new "evidence" that he really did bribe juries in some of his labor trials.  That movie and the books I read about Darrow were probably a major influence on my choice of professions (well, OK Perry Mason was on TV every week while I was growing up, and who wouldn't want to be Raymond Burr with a secretary like Della Street back then, or for that matter now?).

I read the book Six Days or Forever by Ray Ginger when I was either in junior high or a freshman in high school.  I got to meet Ginger's ex-wife Anne Fagan Ginger when I was in law school, when I was going to NLG events.  I never had the nerve to ask her about her ex-husband (I didn't know they'd divorced then) and his writing.  It was probably better that way.

At any rate that book Six Days or Forever, started me reading about Darrow and I went on to read Irving Stone's book Clarence Darrow For the Defense.  That book introduced me to Darrow's other cases and particularly to his defense of various labor leaders and his involvement with the early unions.  An eye opener for a teenager who was growing up in republican mostly rural Ohio in a moderately conservative family. 

So my politics can be directly blamed on: Clarence Darrow by way of Robert E. Lee (the playwright not the general), Jerome Lawrence, Ray Ginger, and Irving Stone.  I am a perfect example of why there should be greater censorship of what children are allowed to read and see and some sort of limitation on what books are permitted in the libraries of this great country of ours.

Whatever

I read the news today, oh boy.  if Firedoglake is correct AARP has thrown its weight behind destroying what is left of the American "safety net."  It is another example of the way an organization is able to gain power for a purpose and then the managers essentially sell out their people.  With the exception of a few unions, I think that every progressive organization I am familiar with has done that. 

I don't mean to imply that AARP is or ever was progressive, but its purpose was to lobby for the elderly and to support their needs.  It has become little more than a corporation that has a lot of things to sell old people.  And another lobby for the corporations.   

I move on and see that the Greek prime minister is "shaking up" his cabinet because of the riots against the austerity programs his old cabinet put into place at the direction of Rulers of the Universe.  There is of course no indication that there is going to be any change in the austerity programs.  Which I guess is another example of the old saying:  "in a democracy the people do eventually get the government they deserve" being wrong.   

Our government is busy throwing around its dick in ways to further the wants of our personal ruling class, there is no cost benefit analysis that involves any rational evaluation of our nation's needs, but rather if there is any, it is one that involves the needs of the corporations who really run this country.  There may not be even any remotely rational cost benefit analysis at all.  Look at all the stuff all around concerning the world wide caliphate that is just around the corner, which will be caused by the alliance of the liberals and Muslim fundamentalists.   Our excuse for continuing to bomb the Afghans, I guess.

I also see that the president's people have decided (not that I mean to imply that they have just decided) that the Austrian School knows how to handle recession and depression and Lord Keynes is just silly.  I'm really not that well educated in economic issues although I've taken a few courses, so I may be over simplifying things, but what the hell.  The 30s in the United States never happened, WWII never happened we never spent ourselves out of a depression with a lot of deficit spending which we they mostly paid off with huge taxes on the wealthiest.  Never happened, doesn't work.  It is as if these people are jumping around with their fingers in their ears going nah,nah,nah I can't hear you.  They have decided what they need and in order to give lip service to the idea of democracy, they dress it up in a dress.

Of course there are books that argue that what happened really didn't happen it was all an illusion.  Crap.

Right at the moment the only country I can think of that is any different is Iceland, but then they no longer have anything we really want, so they are allowed to go their own way.  There may be the other problem (as far as our government is concerned) of the people being highly educated and so relatively impervious to our bullshit.

On the other hand this gives me a chance to segue into a brief movie review of Jar City, an Icelandic murder mystery I saw last night after another blogger on Balloon Juice recommended it and Netflix was streaming it.  Like most of the mystery movies and mystery books from that part of the world that I have seen it is bleak and depressing and very good.  (For a long time I thought that all Australian films were good since those were the only ones they exported to the U.S., but I was younger then.)   I understand that they are in the dark for six months out of the year so I guess I can understand that they are a kind of brooding race.  But in any case it was good and none of the people in it have to pay their bankster's bills for them.  And it gives me a reason to post the trailer and a kind of way to end this rambling:

Sick and Movies

Still sick and I feel like I'm either Camille or Doc Holiday.

Watched The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest last night and today.  I'd seen them before and I liked them, but wanted to see them again.  I've read all three books and it was interesting that certain scenes that I thought were in the movies weren't there, but some how I'd incorporated them into my memory of the movies.  I mean they were so clear that I actually saw the actors who played them in the movies in my memory.

After watching the movies it occurred to me that if this was a movie about the United States right now it would end with Lisbeth beeing being stripped down naked in a psychiatric hospital and all the staff of Millennium would be in prison.  Pretty fucking depressing.

More Not Politics and From Here To Eternity

One click in.  Thanks Slobber and Spittle.

So at any rate in my attempt to alienate the two or three people who actually read what I rite.  We picked up and watched the movie From Here to Eternity the other night.  It had been years (decades?) since I had seen it last and my wife never had.  It held up very well.  Since the novel even as it was originally released was quite a bit too explicit for the movies it was interesting to see how they did it.  No V.D. as we used to say it, nor S.T.D. as is the current acronym would have it nor any whores.  But still the writing and acting are so good that I cannot imagine another version ever being made.  The acting of the five main characters (and Fatso Judson) is close to perfect.  The writing, given the limitations of the time, is as good as one could, I think get.  Debra Kerr and Donna Reed both play against type, so that casting increases the impact of the movie for those of us who remember particularly Donna Reed as the perfect mom.

It started me thinking about other movies from books which haven't been remade because they are so good.  The Maltese Falcon, I think.  Which incidentally was the third version of the book to be put on film.  Gone With the Wind, perhaps although the book and the movie are so racist that I can't see it being remade is just for that reason alone.  But to be fair the movie is as good as it gets if you look at it as just movie making, and ignore the accepted racism of the period, although I no longer am able to do that.

I suggest the T.V. version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, but I suspect that will be remade again and again no matter how perfect one version is just because for some reason they seem to think the story can be improved on for the movies. (Looking this up on Amazon, I see there is a Jim Carey version, I'll pass, thanks.)  Although the Scott version follows the book nearly page for page.  There are constant remakes of Call of the Wild and The Great Gatsby, but those all "improve" on the book, so none of those are much good.  With the exception of the Clark Gable version which is so far removed from the book, that the movie stands on its own.  I'm told that the James Dickey version is true to the original book, but I have not seen it, and I'm sure that won't prevent it from being remade.

I'm probably showing my parochialism limiting myself to American movies of novels written in English, but there you go.  My ADHD or ADD (now called something else, I guess) kind of limited my ability to learn foreign languages (or at least that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it) and I seem unwilling to put forth the effort now.

Bah Humbug

Things are too  much with me near and far.  For some reason this article pushed me over the edge.  Or perhaps just further over the edge.  I have no desire to help anybody or vote for anybody in the up coming elections, although maybe that is their (you know: them, those, whatever) plan.

We had a friend over for about four days after she put her adult daughter into rehab.  Very frustrating.  The friend would explain to us how she had to watch and control everything her daughter does in order to keep her safe and off the drugs.  This is the third time the daughter has been arrested and at least her second (I think more like fifth or sixth) time relapsing.  The mother insists that the Court "must" do certain things and if she just tells the judge, well he will understand. 

Luckily, she lives about 130 miles away so she ended up with another lawyer in her home city.  The guy did a great job for her daughter on her first charges getting her a great deal, and now the daughter may have screwed it up.  It is of course, not the daughter's fault, but rather the guy she was with.  Having some experience in that area both professionally and personally I tried to explain to the Mom the way things are and simply couldn't get through to her.  One of the counsellors at the rehab asked her how that was working for her.  My friend thought he was rude.

The one fun thing was that she brought her four or five pound chihuahua with her (well it would have been more fun if she had house trained her dog).  Watching my 180 pound St. chase her dog and then her dog turn around and chase the St. was hilarious.

I'm disappearing into the written word again, trying to run away from the here and now I guess.  I love my e-reader, although I might have gotten a Nook if I knew what I know now, but the Sony is great.  I downloaded Gore Vidal's Lincoln which was just released in e format (if it is available on one e format, it is usually available on all of them).  Then last night I downloaded James Jones' From Here to Eternity.  Of course, From Here to Eternity has all the original four letter words and the homosexual bits put back in.  I also see that there appear to be several of Faulkner's novels coming out in e format within the next week.  That and finding both Canadian and Australian sites which have (what are in those countries) books that are out of copyright and I am in hog heaven especially when one combines them with Gutenberg.org. 

Not my guy, but pretty much the way it was.

The Air Castle That Was Blown Up

So my last post on WikiLeaks most recent leaks until Assange gets taken before some Swedish tribunal for something hopefully resembling the last scene from The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. But in Googling the title I see that the Swedish title is more accurately translated as: The Air Castle That Was Blown Up, perhaps even more apropos. OK, OK, but the damn thing is playing out so closely to that movie that I just cannot get over it.

I watched Greenwald and Aftergood (what a great name) debate the WikiLeaks thing on Democracy Now (yesterday streaming on the computer thingy). First, Aftergood who has a (kind of) organization that pushes for (apparently) more openness in American government seemed to be really jealous. Here he has worked for years within the system and he is barely noticed. I had heard about his organization, but not a lot. He had apparently going through FOIA requests and the proper court channels gotten some information, but none that appeared to really get a lot of interest outside the belt way types. He was angry about what WikiLeaks had done and how they had done it.

In fact Aftergood (insert own sarcastic comment here) simply lied and said that WikiLeaks had published a blue print for a nuclear bomb, the only one ever publicly published. That was simply, apparently not true. Then he went on to argue that some of the leaks shouldn't have been leaked although others were apparently alright. One of the leaks that he chose to mention that was bad and shouldn't have been leaked, was the one which revealed the German politician who gave the U.S. Ambassador detailed notes about what went on in the formation of the current German government. Since the German was essentially a spy for the U.S. it reveals a terribly America centric point of view and another way Aftergood would be more than willing to censor what the average citizen knows.

Essentially, it is an argument that someone must always stand between the people and their government's secrets. The Wise Men (mostly men) know what the hoi poli need and should know. We're just arguing about who those Wise Men should be. Clearly Aftergood believes that he is one of those Wise Men.

A second point, though. I've been wondering whatever is causing the completely unrestrained rage which has been expressed by the ruling class of at least this country, if not the world. The ruling class as I mentioned before being the media types (perhaps; they at least are given to think they are part of that class and encouraged to believe it), elected types, appointed types, wealthy types, and it now appears the educational types (those who hope to move on to jobs in the government or think tanks). They are the Wise Men (even if some of them are women). Assange is not (nor are you, by the way).

This unrestrained rage does seem to be kind of strange coming as it does at the release of diplomatic cables rather than at the release of the military stuff of a few months ago. I do not mean to imply that there was no anger at WikiLeaks and real rage from those in power, but it didn't seem to take hold as it seems to be this time. It is certainly being pushed more aggressively by the media than it was before, and I think that might be because the media are starting to realize that WikiLeaks is making them look like the ineffectual bumbling handmaidens of the rulers that they are and that they always knew they were, but were able to deny it to themselves up to this point maybe.

Another reason for this completely uncontrolled rage is the sheer number of cables that make the writers look like middle school children back biting each other: "She's so fat," etc. It is one thing to be shown to have killed people for no good reason, but that you have the power to do it, it is quite another to be shown to be merely petty.

Book Report

I've stared reading The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and wow is it good. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in writing.

Sunday Stuff

Went to a local writers conference yesterday in Coshocton, Ohio. OK, I guess, although I did not know that I had signed up for a class in Scrap Booking. Well OK, I had thought I'd signed up for a seminar in "Memoirs." I should have realized what it was about when I walked in the room and saw this huge three ring binder with all these plastic sleeves. By the time I realized what it was it was too late. There were only about fifteen people in the room and only two of us were men. Also, I would have had to have walked across in front of the room between the speaker and the participants to get out. It would have been rude and obvious. A little too rude and obvious, I'm afraid.

Today mow the yard try to finish setting up the garden, put up the purple martin house, and wash the dogs; not necessarily in that order. Yard, garden, and dog washing are done. The chow is not amused.



We watched Byron a BBC TV movie about Byron (what a shock, eh?). I did not think it was possible to make a story about Byron boring. Everything of any real interest happened off screen. I guess I should have figured that out also, when in one of the first scenes Byron says something to the effect "While I was in Greece I swam the Hellespont." No need to show when you can tell I guess.

If there had been some insight into his creativity there would have been something to recommend it. As it was he might as well have been some guy who inherited wealth and didn't have to work at it so could spend his time being a prick. As that may be beyond the moderately explicit sex scenes with his wife (not much), Lady Caroline Lamb (not much), and his sister (a little more, but still not much) there was nothing to recommend it. Pretty I guess. I think there may have been one short poem, perhaps two of his spoken during the entire three hours. Shelly makes a brief appearance and then drowns. We kept watching it thinking that it had to get better finally near the end we decided that "By god we were going to watch it to the end no matter how bad." So other than that I can whole heartily recommend it.

Maybe some beasts later on.

Great Gatsby

It's the anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby. What a wonderful book. Reading the New York Times article about high school students reading the book is painful. I guess that everybody identifies with Gatsby at that age. But from the Times' article it doesn't seem that the kids are aware that Gatsby's green light is really empty and false. On the other hand they are kids, although I would have thought that the teachers would have attempted to point something like that out to them.

In thinking about it though Fitzgerald was about as close to seeing life as Gatsby did as an author could get to a character. It is kind of surprising that being so much like Gatsby he could step back and look at him through Nick's objective eyes. So maybe I should not be too hard on 16 year old kids who don't see the futility and (dare I say it) existential emptiness of Gatsby's light. Particularly since the author both did and didn't, himself.

The 1974 movie was really pretty bad. Robert Redford was good as Gatsby, but Mia Farrow was no Daisy. She was awful. The script wasn't particularly good either. When a relatively short book like Gatsby or Call of the Wild or A Christmas Carol is made into a movie it really is better, I think, to keep very close to the original (which can be done with these short books) rather than to try to "open it up" or "improve" on it. The movie is rarely better for the changes.

Saturday at the Bookstore

So went into Columbus and went to a book store, something we really don't have much of here. A Walden's and a used book store (the used book store is really very nice). Picked up another book on Linux (I will learn it, damn it.)

Then got back and started reading the two books we've got for the two book clubs we're part of. The mystery book club: We'll Always Have Parrots and the Quaker book club: Karen Armstrong's: A History of God.

I'm already a little irritated by Armstrong's definition of atheist. I would say that at least atheists don't insist on capitalizing their belief.

OK, I'm on my way back to the book. Perhaps we will watch the Ruling Class tonight too.

Just going hog wild for culture today, I guess.