RLASKEY: words

I’ve seen a lot about this Steig Larsson character for a bit now, mostly with the bright yellow cover of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  I’m part Swedish, though I don’t know the language; and I assumed that because the book was popular that there must be something wrong with it.

The movie, however, looked rather interesting, and Netflix seemed to say that I’d like it.  Just finished watching it, and good lord I am impressed.  For the sake of history, it is worthy to note that I’m speaking here of the original, 2009 Swedish movie, not the American remake that supposedly is in the works.  re: Hollywood looking to copy yet another foreign film: well, screw that, again.

Acting, cinematography, locations, pacing, sound.. it all fit together incredibly well.  I was cringing heavily at certain scenes, and cheering at others.  What’s perhaps most interesting about the film is the way they thread dark elements alongside the plot while still retaining a balance.  As per my general form here, I’m not going to delve much more into the plot; though I’ll say that it’s rather essential to check this out when you get the chance.  Grab it, via Netflix, Amazon, or whatever other method you can find.

I hadn’t heard of the movie Ink before, though Allison had seen it on Netflix and it was available via streaming.  While not the most mind blowing production I’ve seen, Ink is a solid effort despite its budget and its slight lack of polish.

Visually, Ink is literally a city of filters.  I’m not sure what the footage looked like before processing, though it seems that it was all done on video, and at times without the best lighting.  To compensate, there’s a whole lot of soft focus, high-contrast, color shifted, and otherwise altered footage on screen.  On the whole there’s nothing all that awful about its presentation, though it seems more to be a polished amateur job.

Sound, similarly, has its holes.  There’s nothing particularly bad, though the mix and ambiance are a bit tossed together, and again it lacks the polish that it easily could have donned.

On the whole, the movie is a somewhat dorky production .. and yet I’m writing about it because despite all its faults, it’s still a solid story which is told in a creative way.  Hopefully, those involved have been able to cut their teeth and will be able to take a bigger bite with a more careful touch in the near future.  Until then, this is certainly one worth checking out, with the above warnings in mind.

Somewhere I had seen an ad for the tv show Lie to Me, and the concept intrigued me enough to check it out on Netflix.  Tim Roth, deception; sounded good to me.

Slogging through the first few episodes, I felt like I duped into another Numb3rs: some crap story telling sprinkled over a few scientific principles.  OK, so I am being harsh re: Numb3rs, though if someone really wants to say that it’s a decent show then go ahead.  I was a math major and just never felt it was well done, either in the writing or in the mathematics.

Lie to Me starts out a bit awkwardly in the same sense: there’s hardly any character development for the first few episodes, and the science part of it rains down like a ton of bricks.  The dialogue mostly runs, “You’re lying!” “No, you’re lying!” “No, she’s lying!” without much thought to the characters or motivations.  It’s rather interesting science, however, so I kept with it.

Half way into the first season, however, the claws of the show start to come out.  Tim Roth’s character gains depth, history, and back-story.  There’s some drama, not just in the run of the episode but from one to the next: characters intersect and the plot thickens.  I don’t want to give anything away, but by the end of it I’ve run into one of my more favorite shows on TV, and I’m really looking forward to biting into season 2 when it comes onto Netflix. Check it out, but be sure to stick with it: you won’t be disappointed.

No, I’m not writing about porn or some other sort of kink; I’m talking about the UK tv series that is only slightly available in America.  While the first season is available on Netflix, there are seven seasons in total which are not available for Region 1; and, therefore, isn’t around for the USA.

Bad Girls is a show about a women’s prison, both about the inmates as well as the staff that runs it.  The writing, the acting, and the camera work are all top notch.  It reminds me a lot of The Wire, though it doesn’t have quite the same polish or flash as the Baltimore epic: almost all of Bad Girls takes place in the prison, and there’s a very heavy sense of what it means to be stuck in a place for years on end.

What’s surprising to me is how good this show is, and how difficult it is to obtain in America.  If they were to market this and re-release, I’m sure it would be a hit.  Please check out as much as you can of this show; and let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can get our hands on more of it in the near future.

I wish; I wish; I wish I were no fish.

Watched Lost again tonight.  It’s one of those shows I wish I weren’t into so much; or at least haven’t put in so much time that I somehow feel obliged to keep it up.  It’s some cheesy soap opera type thing at this point, which just wrote itself into an awful hole.  I won’t give away any details, for those who are still holding on or haven’t yet arrived at this particular stage; though with that said, I’m waiting patiently for the pain to be over and the series to be complete.

I’m an American, from America; I’ve lived here all my life.  Even so, it is sometimes amazing to me as to what other Americans think or do.  A good case in point is the 2009 release of Brothers, a 2009 remake of the 2004 Danish Brødre.  Yes, we’re talking about a remake of a movie made five years prior.

The long and the short is that there is absolutely no reason to watch the American version; do yourself a favor and go for the original, 2004 version from Denmark.  Why?  The story and plots are almost exactly the same; albeit a bit more watered down in the American version.  Admittedly, the USA does introduce a certain amount of comedy, in that the child actors beat out the long-standing Hollywood names.  Additionally, the DVD feature on the American 2009 release also has a twelve minute piece on why they bothered to remake the movie.  My personal favorite was that they had to remake the movie  because not enough Americans had watched the original; to say nothing of the power of putting any sort of weight towards redistribution, re-release, etc.

With all that said, the movie is certainly very powerful.  Susan Bier deserves an incredible amount of credit for her work on the story, and for her vision in the execution of its telling.