Today is Saturday, 28th January 2012

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Last Updated on Thursday, 26 January 2012 09:04 Written by jacko Thursday, 26 January 2012 09:04

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
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Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

It was Sunday night 22/1/12 and the 173rd SMEX Event. Before the film we ate at Brasserie 45. A new place for many of those in attendance but based on the enjoyment of the food I think there will be some repeat business. Those who dined at the restaurant were Adam, Else, Lissy, Tommy, Oleg and overseas guests Jacko (your special guest reviewer and school friend of Adam’s from Australia) and my fiancee Jessica. Once the meal was finished it was off to the Ringen Kino, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The film is based on the first of the Millenium Trilogy by Swedish writer Steig Larsson. The books have already been made into movies in Sweden but now it was Hollywood’s turn. Daniel Craig stars as Mikael who works at Millenium Publishing. We are first introduced to him after a libel court case with the result not in his favour. He is then approached by Steven Berkoff (Beverly Hills Cop and Rambo III fame) to meet with Christopher Plummer to discuss a proposition. Whilst this is in progress Rooney Mara (Lisbeth, she of the Dragon Tattoo) has her own issues to deal with. Mikael decides to meet with Christopher Plummer’s character to discuss the opportunity. He travels to an island that he finds is inhabited by relatives of Christopher Plummer’s character (a very disfunctional family) and soon learns the reason he has been asked to meet. A 40 year old mystery still haunts Plummer’s character, the disappearance of his grand daughter. Mikael in need of cash from the libel suit which went against him and with his curiosity piqued he starts to investigate the disappearance with all the family members suspects. Meanwhile Lisbeth sorts out her issues in a manner that is a little uncomfortable to watch and is soon involved in trying to solve the disappearance mystery.

There are lots of twists and turns with some more surprises and gruesome scenes. The mystery is resolved but leaves some unanswered questions. Stay tuned for the second film.

I have not read any of the books nor seen the Swedish versions. From the discussion after the film it was said the US film is closer to the book than the Swedish version. I caught a couple of scenes of the Swedish version a little later in the evening and there seemed to be quite a number of similarities including Lisbeth looking almost identical in both films and both using the same locations for certain parts of the film. The book is apparently more gruesome than that shown in the film.

Daniel Craig proves he is not just James Bond but able to play a different character and a believable one. Rooney Mara I thought did a good job as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in what was a complex character struggling with inner problems and how to deal with others. If she needs money next time just let her have it.

All in all a good thriller which in some ways reminded me a little of The Ghost Writer. If you enjoyed that film you would also enjoy this one. A good start to a very popular trilogy with the promise of more intrigue to come.

Hoff says: “Nice to see so many Aussies at SMEx, takes me back to the Baywatch days!”

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Last Updated on Monday, 23 January 2012 09:36 Written by belway Sunday, 22 January 2012 05:27

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
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Rating: 6.4/10 (5 votes cast)

Sherlock Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. didn’t disappoint in the last movie, so a few of us gathered to watch the sequel A Game of Shadows. I tried to find out if the last film was well received by fellow SMEXers, but it seems like SMEX didn’t see that one or somebody forgot to write a review.

Smex.me is packed with so many good reviews that it takes a bit of time to log in to smex.me and find out where we are supposed to meet. So when I had to do that (past the meeting time), I had time to go to both Billabong and Perrongen where nobody were waiting for me, before finding out. I ended being a bit late at Den Gamle Major. We still had time to have a beer with Jeremy who was back in town. Jerf had a voice as if he had been working for a sex hotline for the last weeks, which turned out to only be due to a week at CES with Opera.

The movie was cool, and Robert Downey Jr isn’t bad as Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law makes an excellent Dr Watson, probably better than Martin Freeman in the BBC series Sherlock. It seems like Guy Ritchie could have chosen a better schedule for his movie than in the middle of the airing of the series. I don’t think only Christian and I were comparing the series and the movie all the time, and thinking “oh, that was actually better in the series” or “but Sherlock would never invite Mycroft to his bachelor party, he hates him”, etc. Anyway, as it was action packed enough, I didn’t have time to think about that the whole time. As Anton said, it was easy enough to guess the Director based on the special effects, that not being a bad thing of course… They were nice, though a bit too long at times…
I will end the review with the one thing that I found really shocking:

Holmes follows Moriarty’s lecturing tour across Europe and mentions Oslo, Norway. However, in 1891, Oslo was named Christiania. It was not called Oslo again until the mid-1920s .

Nah, that was just stolen from IMDB. Gee, who thinks about that?

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2011 – The SMEx year that was

Last Updated on Sunday, 1 January 2011 10:03 Written by minch Sunday, 1 January 2011 10:03

2011 did not start well for SMEx. We had “the incident” with Oslo Kino where it turned out some people where managing to get refunds from their ticket machines by punching in some customer codes or something. Not only did it happen to us once but twice! The first time was a no brainer to get reimbursed, but the second time was a complete nightmare, but it turned out there was a fault with the Oslo Kino ticketing system, which our information helped them to track down.

Last year rather than rambling on I just jumped in with some statistics, and I see no reason not to do the same again:

This year will be known for the explosion of 3D on the big screen. We had at least nine out of the thirty movies we saw in 2011, in 3D. After compiling the list, suddenly the slightly more expensive 3D glasses, rather that the 20NOK Buddy Holly specials, doesn’t seem so silly. Maybe this year I’ll have to get a pair. Is 3D a good or bad thing? I think good. Finally they have started to get 3D right, and it’s not the old pick axe poking out of the screen 3D, but the let’s actually add depth to the picture type.

In 2011 we also skipped both of the film festivals that are in Oslo, Film Fra Sør, and Oslo International Film Festival this year. This was due to a slightly lower turn out for SMEx events this year, and we couldn’t find enough good movies to see. Both of these festivals require a “festival card” at extra cost which means you need to get that as well as pay for the movies. Even though the movies are slightly cheaper the festival card means you really need to see at least three movies per festival. I for one don’t think this is a good idea, the point of the festivals is to try and create interest in movies, especially different movies, and making them more expensive just keeps regular people away.

We forgot our birthday post in 2011 too! September 9th saw us pass SMEx’s 4th Birthday, Happy belated Birthday SMEx!

After a year of people consistently being late with reviews, we managed to create the slowest review in SMEx history. It was 331 days late, it seems we had forgotten to review The American, and realised after we were chatting before one event. Oh well better late than never!

Last year I mentioned I had seen all 140 out of 140 events, and now I’ve attended all 171 out of 171 events! Unbelievable!

Last of all a Happy New Year to all!

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