09/09/2012: Father's Day [2011]

I was extremely excited the other day when I got my copy of Father's Day in the mail. The film has spent the last year screening at festivals and events, but like any low-budget, "tasteless" and extreme grindhouse films it never received a wide enough theatrical release for me to see it. Tonight I got my chance, as I watched Astron-6 make a movie truly worthy of the grindhouse and with Troma Entertainment behind them there were no limits.

14/07/2012: Salon Kitty [1976]

Last night I decided it was time to dive back into the world of Naziploitation once again with Salon Kitty. As always, any naziploitation film is rife with controversy but this one is actually grounded on some interesting historical facts. While sure all the excess of sex, nudity and Nazism is bound to ruffle some feathers, it is interesting to see a film that doesn’t exactly draw to many lines, and is in fact an Italian production. Overall, for a film I can’t compare with anything else, I would say Salon Kitty is quite an interesting watch.

17/06/2012: Picasso Trigger [1988]

It is time for round 3 with Andy Sidaris, as I set out onto unviewed ground with Picasso Trigger. Or at least I thought I hadn’t seen it before. According to my IMDb ratings, and some fuzzy memories I have in fact seen it before. Unfortunately it clearly wasn’t as memorable as the first two, but Picasso Trigger still has its moments, be they humorously bad or terribly good.

13/06/2012: Species [1995]

When I put on Species, I really wasn't expecting a modern day alien sci-fi B-movie. But that is what I got and I was by no means disappointed. With a solid plot and a particularly interesting and surprising cast, Species was a nice bit of entertainment for a Wednesday night. Now I only wonder if the rest can maintain that same feeling.

10/06/2012: Hard Ticket To Hawaii [1987]

I really can’t believe that I have now watched Hard Ticket To Hawaii three times. It was the first Andy Sidaris I watched, and I had watched it once again in with my friends after a couple of us had watched it individually. Now that I have the whole Andy Sidaris collection, I refrained from skipping it and watched it over for the nostalgia. After this, all of the Andy Sidaris movies will be no ground, and I have no idea what to expect.

10/06/2012: Basic Instinct [1992]

After watching Sharon Stone's outstanding performance in Total Recall I decided to check out Basic Instinct again. I'm not sure if I've seen it before, Michael Douglas crime movies seem to kinda muddle together. I do know that I have seen Basic Instinct 2, although I can't even remember who is in that one. Either way, Basic Instinct is one of the best crime thrillers there are.

02/06/2012: Malibu Express [1985]

I have until this point only seen two Andy Sidaris movies in my life. However, watching those outrageous movies with my friends is some of my fondest movie memories. So, when I saw Girls, Guns and G-Strings on Amazon for $5, I did not hesitate to throw it in my cart and pick up all 12 of Andy Sidaris's B-movies. Now I will spend the summer sharing them with some new friends, and hopefully they will enjoy them as much as I did years ago.

05/05/2012: Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Shieks

In my review of The Night Porter I praised it for turning a story straight from an exploitation movie into a much more powerful and important piece of filmmaking. However, exploitation films are many a persons guilty pleasure, and there is no character more memorable than Ilsa.

13/01/2012: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo [2011]

So I finally got out to see TGWTDT in theater last night, surprisingly it's still playing for the 3rd? week in a row now. Now first off, I went in there having seen the Swedish trilogy, so I already new what the basic plot was.

The biggest difference in the movies is the feel to them. The original, is extremely story driven, with the actual visuals of a good quality, but nothing spectacular. I found the original had the bonus of being in it's intended language, with actors who I didn't know as 007, who I only knew as the characters, and who did a great job.
The remake is clearly a high budget American production, The visual level is a step up, with the camera angles, cuts/edits/shifts, and overall visuals clearly of a higher quality then the original. However it has the problem of a well know cast, I find, if I know the actors well, I can sometimes only see them as that. I spent the whole movie comparing, and trying not to see Bond.

The opening sequence of the movie is quite a CGI marvel, but the symbolism in it can only be recognized by those who new what they were watching. I think that was one of the problems with the remake, although having seen the original trilogy I didn't experience this. I thought however that the story was less explained in the remake, especially the clues, which are the heart of the mystery. The Swedish one does a great job of showing you the clues and letting you piece them together along with Mikael. The remake I found did a little of the work for you or otherwise didn't always show enough, in a couple glimpses of the clue to allow you to piece it together.

I'm not sure if anyone is aware of the movies raw brutality when they go to see it, not having read the book or seen the original. The remake, didn't tone anything down from the original, still keeping the grueling rape scenes and violent imagery. I know that almost everyone around me physically jumped when Mikael almost gets shot (I knew it was coming) which was good. Also the entire audience laughed when Lisbeth appears on screen with her Fuck you you fucking fuck shirt. They also laughed when Lisbeth asked Mikael permission to kill the killer, which I wasn't sure was really what was intended there.

The biggest controversy (might be a bit strong of a word) over the remake was whether Rooney Mara would do as good a job as Noomi Rapace. While Mara does a great job, and some say does a better job, I still prefer Noomi Rapace's version of Lisbeth to Mara's.

Overall, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a very high quality movie that matched the original but both have their merits, the real test will be when the entire trilogy is remade and we can compare again. Currently I like the Swedish version the best, it is better in storytelling and mystery, while the remake has the advantage of a Hollywood budget, and distinguishes itself that way. If you like the originals I recommend you watch this and if you've only seen the remake I highly recommend the original to help with the at least two year wait for the next two remakes.

Since when could they have bare breasts on movie posters?

Link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568346/