David Fincher Pantheon: Splendor Cinema Podcast #85

Tomorrow Jon and I are recording our 85th Splendor Cinema Podcast, adding another director to our rapidly expanding "Pantheon" (previous entrants include Kubrick, Kurosawa and Capra). This time it's David Fincher's turn - so we'll be going through his (relatively small) filmography, rating our favourites. Jon wrote a short summary of Fincher's career and style on his blog and I promised to do the same. So here we are.

With the exception of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (which I saw in 2008 and am in no hurry to see again), I've seen all of Fincher's movies, from 'Alien 3' to 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', quite recently - many of them for the first time. The first thing I would say about him is that he's not what you might classically call an auteur (if such a thing even exists). He seems to me like a hired gun with a highly developed sense of style - a point seemingly reinforced by the nature of his next project: a big Jules Verne adaptation for Disney.

At one point in his career you might have been able to pinpoint a particular genre that he specialised in (the thriller), but some of his best films don't fit that mould comfortably even if they generate the same tense atmosphere - as is the case with 'The Social Network' and 'Fight Club'. In fact most of his recent choices - excluding the down and dirty 'Dragon Tattoo' - have tended more towards dramatic Oscar-candy, albeit with moodier-than-usual lighting.

Not that I'm complaining about his newer stuff. Personally, I like a degree of light and shade in my movies, so I find some of Fincher's most acclaimed early work near unwatchable (or at least unenjoyable): unremittingly grim, hyper-cynical and mean-spirited. In particular I'm referring to 'Seven', which is at times not even two steps removed from torture porn. The twist is predictable, the characters are no more than recognisable archetypes and the views they express (which are ultimately vindicated by the ending) range from nihilistic to downright anti-social.

Its champions will say it's "dark" - an overused catch-all term that usually assumes instant cachet to anything heartless (or anti-sentimental). But when everything and everybody in a movie is horrible, forgive me for not wanting to spend any time there. Even his take on the determinedly nasty 'Dragon Tattoo' has more heart than 'Seven'. I much prefer his two subsequent thrillers: 'The Game' (great, if implausible, premise and a sense of humour) and 'Panic Room' (great and slightly more plausible premise which uses limited space ingeniously).

But for me his greatest film to date is 'The Social Network': because it sees him marry his grungy vision of the universe and undoubted technical brilliance to what might otherwise have been a filmed stageplay. He elevates already great material, with Aaron Sorkin's Facebook entrepreneur story not naturally cinematic - clever as it is. By combining Sorkin's talky, smartest-guy-in-the-room internet nerds with the atmosphere and look of 'Zodiac', you get a really brilliant, intelligent, gripping movie. A fact not lost on the makers of 'Moneyball', who repeated the same trick last year.

Though even 'The Social Network' is not without Fincher's worst excesses. The slow-motion boat race in the middle may be an example of bravura technique, but it feels out of place and showy in the middle of that movie. This same over the top streak can be glimpsed in all of Fincher's films (perhaps with the exception of the unfairly maligned 'Alien 3'). For instance that pointless zoom inside the keyhole during the break-in sequence of 'Panic Room'. There are a million and one similar moments in 'Fight Club'.

Perhaps the one film where all these visual ticks and grand camera movements work completely is 'Zodiac', which uses lots of CGI (like pretty much all his movies) to allow for extremely elegant, long, otherwise impossible (or at least impractical) tracking shots. The best example of this dramatically tracks a single taxi cab across San Francisco zooming closer gradually from an aerial view until we're inside the car.

To hear Jon violently disagreeing with me about 'Seven' and for a little more depth on some of the films I've skimmed over here (like 'Fight Club'), download episode 85 of the podcast when it becomes available early next week.

In Defence of Rooney Mara's Sensitive Salander

The following contains spoilers relating to the ending of the recent David Fincher adaptation of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'.

I'm unable to sleep and - in lieu of any new films to review in the first few weeks of January (call me closed minded but I have no desire to sit through 'The Iron Lady' unless I have to) - I thought I'd spitball here about something that's rattling around inside my head. It relates to the very end of the David Fincher/Steve Zaillian version of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' - which I found far more interesting and exciting than the glorified TV movie that came out of Sweden a couple of years back. In fact I'm listening to the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack as I type this.

At the end of this new version - and I've no idea whether this is accurate to Stieg Larsson's original novel or not - punk, computer hacker, motorcyclist, bisexual, tattoo-loving Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), unseen and from a distance, looks lovingly at male protagonist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). She seems to want a future with him or at the very least some affection. However she sees he's leaving his office with a female colleague and rides off into the night, her hopes dashed - feeling betrayed and, we suspect, with any residual faith in men she might have had shattered.

I bring this up because a friend of mine took to Twitter tonight feeling "betrayed" that the "antihero succumbs to the Hollywood hunk" and I think that's a gross simplification. I get where she's coming from but I think she's wrong. And rather than explain why over a series of aggressive, timeline-hogging 140 character bursts I thought I'd do so here. This post is for you Abi.

I get why you might feel betrayed by the sight of a strong female character - whose raison d'etre is, pretty much, to give men the finger - seemingly smitten by Daniel "007" Craig at the end of the movie. Even those with the mildest sensitivity to gender politics will hear alarm bells ringing during that moment if viewed in those terms. But the more I've pondered this scene the more impressed I've become with the film - to the point where I feel driven to defend it at length and at 2am.

My defence of the offending scene can be divided into two neat categories. Firstly, to lead with the more dispassionate rebuttal, I find this climax to be a tidy piece of screenwriting from Steve Zaillian. Basically he creates an ending where none truly exists (at least in the Swedish version). This is our hero at the culmination of her arc: will she find a last shot at redemption in Craig? Can she live a "normal" life now? Or will she always be a damaged, untrusting outsider? The answers are "no", "no" and "yes" respectively.

The open-ended Swedish film (below) seems far more cynical to me. It ended in a way which suggested (and indeed yielded) further episodes of a grim detective serial. It acted as a pilot for a formula TV series, making us wonder "what ever will the mismatched duo solve next week?" Zaillian gives his version a pleasing sense of dramatic resolution, even if the ending itself is not exactly heart-warming. It also ensures the film isn't totally nihilistic and totally black hearted, which I think is a good thing.

This rather sombre, hopeless climax sees Lisbeth potentially doomed to play this avenging angel character for the rest of her life. That she rides off into the darkness alone, and further embittered, is not, to my mind at least, a typical "Hollywood" ending.

Secondly, and more to the point, this ending absolutely satisfied me in terms of what it said about the character. This is not the blank psychopath - that walking revenge fantasy with spikey hair - as played (to perfection) by Noomi Rapace. Her only visible emotions were barely concealed fury and contempt for humankind. In Fincher and Zaillian's version Lisbeth is a genuine and troubled person. She is allowed to show fear and distress. She is even allowed to smile. She is tough, for sure, but she is also vulnerable and in need of salvation. You never had any doubt Rapace would kick everbody's asses, whilst you worry about Rooney Mara even though she is super-smart and (as evidenced by the attempted mugging scene) not exactly helpless.

Crucially, it does not escape her own notice that she is increasingly as depraved as those who've wronged her and this is the film's single biggest strength.

In the Swedish version (my only other frame of reference for the character) she is a sexual predator when she - out of nowhere - decides to sleep with Blomkvist. In the "American" version (a tricky term in itself, with the film shot in  Sweden with a predominantly Swedish crew under the stewardship of the same Swedish production company) this scene plays differently. Here is an undercurrent that this is another manifestation of her own history, as a victim of sexual violence. She gives up her body very casually, not in the manner of one who is free and liberated but as one who has been desensitised against the act.

I think an extra layer of depth is revealed if we consider her backstory too: Lisbeth has spent most of her life in the custody of the state because she once set fire to her abusive father (a history hinted at in the opening credits, which run like an S&M enthusiasts version of a Bond title sequence). In a creepy kind of way she comes to see Blomkvist as a surrogate father - further complicating that ending, I think.

The relationship between Salander and Blomkvist is pleasingly nuanced. She is hostile when she first meets him, so I don't think Craig's "hunkiness" has much to do with anything. What she seems to respond to is (obviously) his desire to bring a killer of women to justice, but equally the fact that he is a loving, gentle father. There are several scenes which show us Blomkvist's teenage daughter and these seemingly exist solely to form this link in our mind. He is paternal and she craves a daddy. When she asks his permission before racing off to kill the baddie near the climax, is this a sign of weakness on her part? Perhaps. Perhaps there's even a trace of sadism. But I don't think it's as simple as a woman supplicating herself to a man.

It's also relevant to mention three key details in passing. Firstly, Lisbeth solves the central crime story faster than Craig (who is pretty lost without her). Secondly she saves him from certain death after he sheepishly blunders into the murderers house. It is then Lisbeth who pursues the villain to his end, having the final say. Thirdly, it's even Lisbeth that does Blomkvist's regular job for him: clearing his name (he's a journalist who's been falsely accused to making his stories up) and putting a major corporate criminal in prison. Lisbeth Salander three, Mikael Blomkvist nil.

This brings me back to that ending. When Mara looks at Craig she isn't seeing that rippling torso from the 'Casino Royale' promotional stills. Or even a great man who saved the world (he isn't). She sees the one person who hasn't let her down. The guy who's been nice to her and the guy who, in many ways, offers a shot at the father she never had. Again: this is creepy. But whatever you can say about it, it's not exactly what one would term a typical, cop-out, "sentimental" Hollywood ending even if she ended up with the guy. Which let's remember: she doesn't.

But let's brush all that to one side. Let's dismiss all of the above and take the text at face value, ignoring for a second all the themes and the arc of the character. Let's say she is in love with hunky Craig and is simply crestfallen when he doesn't seem to return her affections. I leave you with these questions: How is that ending either phony or anti-feminist or "Hollywood"? Doesn't heartbreak really happen to people? Doesn't love? Don't women get their feelings hurt? Speaking from personal experience, I know men do. Now I'm off to bed.

'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)' review:

Having hated the Swedish film adaptations of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy" - a series of unspeakably nasty TV movies - I wasn't looking forward to spending another 2 1/2 hours in that disturbing world courtesy of David Fincher's new English language version of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. I never doubted Fincher's take would be slicker, more artful and, as a consequence, a more gripping experience than its European forbear, but I couldn't imagine taking any pleasure in the company of vengeful, anti-social computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (now played by Rooney Mara) and her boring investigative journalist friend Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig).

The 2009 film played like a boring sub-Agartha Christie detective story with bagfuls of added sadism, as we watch see our heroine subjected to every kind of injustice, and are afterwards expected to relish her "eye for an eye" take on brutal sexual violence. Yet this version at least understands that two rapes don't make a right.

Despite Fincher's reputation as a cold hearted bastard behind the movie camera, his version of the story (as scripted by Steven Zaillian) is a little more humane and, as a result, infinitely more enjoyable even if it retains all of the original's most unpalatable moments. It helps that this Lisbeth doesn't spend the entire film looking either indifferent or angry at the world, as Noomi Rapace's did. She is every bit as cold, sullen, bad-ass and capable (in a fight and as an ace investigator) when she needs to be, living in an equally gritty version of modern Sweden, but Mara brings out more of the character's vulnerability and fear, playing her as a tragic figure - a lifelong victim of violence at the hands of sadistic men.

With Mara's nuanced Salander even showing some affection and warmth, as well as contempt for manfolk, we can see her as more than just a leather clad angel of vengeance, every bit as "evil" as those she despises. She is a person who we feel for: whose triumphs we enjoy and whose relationships we can invest in. She is in fact a much more interesting character than the story she inhabits - a motorcycle riding punk with a photographic memory and a past she'd rather forget.

Whilst there are stomach turningly nasty sequences, mostly of a sexual nature, less emphasis is placed on violence in this version and, when Salander is transgressive, we relate that more to her troubled back-story and precarious mental health, instead of being encouraged to view her as an anti-hero and potential outlet for fantasies of "fuck you" nihilism. Mara enjoys good on-screen chemistry with Craig - who makes for an almost equally engaging Blomkvist - whilst the presence of Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Joely Richardson and Steven Berkoff, in the ranks of the nefarious family of aristocratic former Nazis, gives the dialogue some heft.

The book's tired murder mystery storyline - with Blomkvist invited to a remote island by an old patriarch in order to investigate the 40 year-old disappearance of a young girl - retains some crippling structural problems: Blomkvist and Salander don't meet until halfway through, whilst three separate plot threads never really connect satisfactorily. Yet this rote whodunit benefits from the overall improvement in cast, atmosphere and some typically inventive directorial choices. Sound is especially key to its success, as aided by a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (fresh from Fincher's 'The Social Network'), this is consistently tense where the other film was just boring.

'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is out now in the UK, rated '18' by the BBFC.

Trailers: Fincher's 'Dragon Tattoo' Looks Good, But 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Less So

I really didn't at all like the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy": The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Personally, I found them to be more than a little nasty and I felt they were blandly made, with a television aesthetic.

However, David Fincher - hot off the excellent 'The Social Network' - has been busy making his own adaptation, which looks markedly better. The trailer below is pretty electrifying, helped a lot of fantastic editing to the beat of a really energetic cover of Zed Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" by 'Social Network' composer Trent Reznor and Karen O - who provided songs for Spike Jonze's 'Where the Wild Things Are'.



I may still dislike the tone and attitude of the eventual movie, but this is a fantastic trailer regardless and I'm now excited to see the film.

Less exciting is the latest trailer for 'Planet of the Apes' prequel, 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' - which stars Academy Award host and nominee James Franco, alongside Brian Cox and 'Slumdog' actress Freida Pinto. The trailer makes it look really boring, with shots of men in lab coats talking about genetics, intercut with the faces of unconvincing computerised primates. I don't really know who this movie is for, unless the franchise is much more popular than I realise.

To me it seems like the wisdom of the age dictates that all "properties" have to be continually "developed", and therefore we were give Tim Burton's lacklustre take on the series and now this (with a view to several sequels, I'm sure).

I'm not completely writing it off as it could be really good, but the trailer leaves me unconvinced.

May I'm mostly put off by the core concept: that a bunch of laboratory apes could overwhelm a well-equipped human army. This seems to me to be completely stupid. Just because the apes become more intelligent, I don't see why that means they aren't still gunned down en masse as soon as the trouble starts. I guess I'll have to see the film if I want to find out how they overwhelm the world of man. We know who ultimately wins after all.

The Worst of 2010?

After the unbridled positivity of my Top 30 Films of 2010 list it is now time to take a look at the reverse. What were the worst films of 2010?

The likes of 'Inception' and 'Toy Story 3' may not have lived up to my very high expectations, but neither are bad. 'Inception' was the year's most over-hyped, exposition-laden behemoth and 'Toy Story 3' was the film that most disappointed me (being a huge Pixar fan) - but they are both well made films and far from terrible. There were also (by definition) a lot of quite average films over the summer, such as 'Knight and day' and 'The A-Team'. Some were more fun than others but most were nevertheless passable. This list, a "top 10" (if you can call it that), is reserved strictly for the year's most risible wastes of celluloid.

10) Monsters, dir Gareth Edwards, UK

What I said: 'Monsters' is suffocated by constant exposition with people saying things like "so let me get this straight: we have 48 hours to get to the coast" and when we aren't having things we have just seen and heard simplified for us we are forced to spend our time in the company of a couple of morons. Andrew has, he tells us, seen the corpses of the aliens before on several occasions. The creatures are also on the television news or caricatured by informative children's cartoons whenever we see a television. The duo are aware they are heading through the infected zone, as a great many sign posts tell them so. They see the destruction of areas affected by the so-called monsters. Yet when confronted by them they are forever shouting (and I mean shouting) "what the hell is that thing", over and over and over again... The shouting doesn't stop even when their armed guards - who by the way are asked several times "why have you guys got guns?" (gee, I wonder why) - tell them to be quiet during one attack sequence. The pair just can't shut up... When they pass through a destroyed town they ask aloud "all these people's homes. But where are all the people?"




"Argh! So infuriating!" is the expression that best characterises my experience of watching Gareth Edwards' roundly lauded road movie 'Monsters'. The endless stupid questions and the pseudo-mumblecore intensity of its boring lead actors as they meander on an "emotional journey" that feels horribly contrived. We know that they have been profoundly effected by their trudge across alien-infested Mexico because they tell us so, but what they are supposed to have learned is not exactly clear. That humans are the real monsters? Yawn. The film was dubbed "Film of the Month" in the January issue of Sight and Sound, but it seems to me that a great deal of the attention it has received (in the UK press especially) has been owing to its director being British and operating on a very low budget (doing his own computer effects from home). The latter is laudable and exciting, but the film itself is boring, as are the hordes of dullards who cack on enthusiastically: "it's good because it's not about the monsters." Whatever that means.

9) La solitudine dei numeri primi, dir Saverio Costanzo, ITA

What I said: "I found the film extremely uninvolving for most of its 118 minute running length. It was greeted with a chorus of boos when it ended [in competition in Venice], and I may have been tempted to lend my voice to them had I not been lulled into a dazed stupor by that point... La solitudine was boring and its characters irritating. The first few moments of tension are interesting, but they come to nothing and you quickly realise that they never will. And with nothing to keep you involved, this unhappy jaunt through the world of two young depressives, becomes a chore."



I have managed to almost entirely erase having watched this from my mind. Whilst in Venice I saw over 30 films in a two week period and so some of them have become a bit of a blur. What I can remember is that it was beautifully lit, but uninvolving and it seemed to go on forever. I didn't really understand the characters or care for them and I was tempted to walk out (which I never do). There may be something here that I'm missing. After all, Nick James wrote in Sight and Sound magazine that it was "the one Italian film [he] saw with imagination" (I found 'La pecora nera' to be much more imaginative, personally). Likewise, one reader at Obsessed With Film commented on my review that "It was a beautiful, sensible film. Alice and Mattia are intrinsec [sic] characters, not to be tagged by social stereotypes like you do so lightly" and made light of the film's robust running time and slow pace saying that "it takes time and thought to truly say something about anyone." Fair point well made, but it didn't resonate with me at all.

8) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, dir Michael Apted, USA

What I said: "Michael Apted has stepped in for the third film [in the 'Narnia' series] and made something much blander. He isn't aided by the fact that a lot of this story takes place at sea and not amidst sweeping vistas, but even when action does take place on terra firma, many of the locations are much more obviously the result of CGI than in the other two films. The result is that even though the set pieces are on a grander scale - with a dragon battling a huge sea serpent around an elaborate galleon on a tempestuous sea at the film's finale - they actually feel smaller and less tangible... The film's pacing is also amiss, as the characters are each presented with moral trials which are overcome far too quickly and easily, the film just jumping from event to event without conveying any feeling of significance or genuine peril along the way... Narnia, as a concept and as a literary world, isn't a place I want to take my imagination... [But] even if you are one of the 468,916 people that "like" God on Facebook (correct at the time of writing) and worship the Narnia stories, 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is a tedious telling of this story."



The tedious dogma of the Christ-lion saga reached its nadir in 2010 with 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. Uninvolving and with ropey visual effects, it has exactly nothing to recommend it other than the fact that it's not one of the following seven films. I don't like this series of films, but even so 'Prince Caspian' was much better in every way.

7) Robin Hood, dir Ridley Scott, USA/UK

What I said: "[Russell] Crowe has less charisma than a hellish lovechild of Gerard Butler and Shia LaBeouf. He grunts and mumbles his way through the film, never really raising a smile, flattening any line which might be humorous as he marauds the English country side looking like a huge, bearded potato on horseback. Flynn might not have played a Hood mired in psychological concerns (“who was my father!?” etc etc), but he was watchable and charming, bringing the character to life in your imagination. Children could (and did) aspire to be Flynn’s Robin Hood, swinging on chandeliers and besting his enemies with his wit as well as his arrows. I can not conceivably imagine anybody growing up wanting to mumble there way through Sherwood Forest as Russell Crowe... Ok, so maybe that’s the point here: this Robin Hood is not for kids. It’s an adult version, with a tough, wilful Maid Marian played by Cate Blanchett (far from the courtly and mannered presence of, say, Olivia de Havilland) and a rugged “manly” hero in Crowe. Yes, I can see that Crowe is more convincingly a man who could have fought in the Crusades than Flynn or Costner or Elwes ever were. But is that an excuse for boring me with his mumbling presence? To paraphrase Benjmin Franklin: those who would give up essential entertainment to purchase a little temporary realism, deserve neither entertainment or realism."



Ridley Scott's 'Robin Hood' was a cynical attempt to do for Mr."of Locksley" what Christopher Nolan did for Batman. It's a re-boot and, with it ending at the point where Hood becomes the vigilante woodsman of folklore, a tentpole for a series of these "gritty" and "realistic" movies. However, the differences between 'Batman Begins' and 'Robin Hood' are many. For one thing Russell Crowe is here at his mumbling worst and Scott is at his most flashy cheesiest (with lots of silly slow-motion action). It's the heart-rending story of a bunch of affable lords angry with the high taxation they are being levied (the world's biggest evil). Hood is their champion rather than that of the poor in this telling of the story. It's also full of allusions to the American Dream and the American Constitution, despite its setting in medieval England. Boring, self-important nonsense.

6) The Ghost, dir Roman Polanski, FRA/GER/UK

What I said: "Perhaps ‘The Ghost’ will age quite well as audiences grow more distant from the recent political past. Then the Blair references will seem more obscure and may add colour to the picture in giving it an interesting historical context. But as a film for this political moment (the upcoming 2010 UK election) the film’s cynicism about politics and its practitioners is at best unhelpful and at worst irresponsible. Many will say that artists have no responsibility other than to their own creative whims and they would probably be correct. But I still find ‘The Ghost’ a little distasteful all the same."



My distaste for Roman Polanski's "political" thriller - fancied by many as a possible nomination for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards - operates on many levels. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, I didn't find it thrilling or involving and I found the performances to be woeful (with the possible exception of Olivia Williams). It is slickly made, but totally conventional and not the sort of film you'd associate with one of the world's most highly rated auteurs. My other (more passionate) objection is ideological and possibly hypocritical (given my love of disputed biopic, 'The Social Network'). I hated the way it perpetuated received wisdom about former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as an elaborate, thinly veiled, character assassination. Pierce Brosnan played a sleazy, sinister Blair analogue who (last minute plot twist aside) is a puppet of the American government. I am not much of a fan of Blair, but this all seemed in bad taste to me. I am all for a serious film tackling the Blair years, but the use of the popular perception of the man within a fiction framework seemed at best cowardly as a way of making criticism. Worse still, in an election year it felt like a propaganda film seeking to discredit the Labour Party in general. I don't mind polemical films - in fact I quite like them - but making this attack with innuendo and half-baked conspiracy theories really bothered me. Especially as all dialogue relating to politics was so simplistic and unnatural.

5) Alice in Wonderland, dir Tim Burton, USA

What I said: "None of Carroll’s trademark wit and wordplay is evident in Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which is an especially great shame, as that is clearly the highlight of the original stories. It seems that when Burton starts re-imaging older properties, such as Wonka, ‘Planet of the Apes’ and this ‘Alice’ film, he invariably diminishes them. I very much hope his next film is smaller in scale and harkens back to his earlier days, when he seemed like a relevant (possibly even great) filmmaker. For now we can only sit back and mourn his artistic decline, whilst he and Disney laugh all the way to the bank."



The above video demonstrates everything you need to know. Tellingly it features two CGI enhanced Matt Lucases (Lucasai?) and they aren't the worst thing on screen. It was a moment (like the mid-battle wedding in 'Pirates 3') that literally made my jaw drop as it followed my thinking "this film can't get any worse can it?". Oh yes it could and it did, with Johnny Depp's embarrassing Mad Hatter celebration dance. Congratulations Johnny Depp and Tim Burton: you are now totally rubbish. One of the most interesting American directors of the early 90s and one of the best actors of his generation have well and truly hit an all-time low. First 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and now this? Jesus wept.

4) The Millenium Trilogy, dir Niels Arden Oplev ('Dragon Tattoo')/Daniel Alfredson ('Played With Fire' and 'Hornet's Nest', SWE

What I said: On 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest': "Lisbeth Salander has been through some truly horrible events: beaten up by gangs of armed men; repeatedly raped by her legal guardian; and incarcerated in a mental institution at the age of twelve as the result of a shady government conspiracy. Yet she is still a manifestly unlikeable creation. She is a charmless psychopath and when she is forced to defend herself against charges that she is mentally unstable it is hard not to feel like her despicable, paedophile assailants at least have a bit of a point - although their reasons for making it are obviously not on the level. Again, like [Uma] Thurman's Bride character [from 'Kill Bill'], Lisbeth is hellbent on bloody, callous revenge in a film which thinks old testament "eye for an eye" justice is for wishy-washy Guardian readers. It is true that the film always totally convinces you that these balding, sinister Vince Cable-alikes deserve every bit of what Lisbeth gives them, but therein is the reason I hate these films so much."



I am so glad to see the back of this whole wretched, hateful trilogy - if only for a year before David Fincher's own adaptation of Stieg Larsson's bestselling books is realised. They are black-hearted, right-wing, vengence fantasies of the worst kind, with horrible acts of sexual violence inflicted upon the central character so as to make us even angrier with the film's villains for whom anything goes. But aside from that, these three films are blandly made by a Swedish television unit and look like gritty ITV detective serials rather than films. Noomi Rapace is good as Lisbeth Salander, but that isn't enough to stop the whole enterprise from feeling so horid.

3) Miral, dir Julian Schnabel, ISR/FRA

What I said: "It’s hard to argue with in terms of politics and sentiment: Israelis and Palestinians should live side-by-side peacefully and atrocities have been committed by both sides (though the film, perhaps reasonably, shows rather more perpetrated by the Israelis). But the thing is, Miral is just so contrived, so false, so cravenly seeking out approval, that it lacks impact and says nothing that isn’t either obvious or trite. The fact that the majority of the cast are speaking (at least what sounds like) their second language, only makes things worse. It is a far cry from the Wire-esque likes of 'Ajami', with a complete lack of authenticity. The sets look cheap, the make-up used to age actors – as the film spans the decades – is wholly unconvincing and the non-Arabic actors speak with hammy accents, reducing their parts to caricature."



I never want to see this again. Ever. It is well-meaning in its sympathetic depiction of the life of Palestinian people living in Israel, but it is far too simplistic and manipulative an account. The dialogue often feels as though it has been written for an educational programme for schools rather than for a feature film, as characters tell each other very basic things that they should probably be expected to know already. The acting is hammy and the film looks cheap. Schnabel's last film, 2007's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', saw him nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. He can be certain of no such honour this year.

2) Sex & the City 2, dir Michael Patrick King, USA

What I said: "Carrie is a relationship columnist of international renown and acts as a sort of female version of the James Bond wish fulfilment fantasy. At one point she walks into a “wardrobe” bigger than most people’s bedrooms (and full of expensive designer clothes) and I distinctly heard two disparate ladies in the audience say “cool!” ‘Sex & the City’ is to women what ‘XXX’, ‘Fast and Furious’ and Danny Dyer movies are to men, in that they are not really for women at all: just for stupid people. If Samantha is deluded and slightly nauseating, then Carrie is just downright hateful. She makes her husband go out with her to a party, ditches him for her friends and then drags him home when she sees that he is starting to have fun (talking to Penelope “why am I here?” Cruz). For their anniversary her husband buys them both a flat screen television for the bedroom (getting a derisive chuckle from the ladies in the audience) but his intentions are decent and even romantic: he wants to lie with her and watch “old black and white films” in bed. She is indignant and, in the manner of an ungrateful child, says “a piece of jewellery would have been nice”. What a horrible person (but then Bond isn’t much better as a role model for male behaviour). Carrie and her friends feel like the subjects of an MTV reality show."



If you've seen the above clip you'll know that "culturally insensitive" isn't really an adequate description of 'Sex & the City 2'. Neither is "bad taste". But that is not why it's so high up this list. It's on this list because it promotes a hateful set of stereotypes about relationships, both sexual and Platonic. The "girls" are materialistic and bitchy to the extreme and the film itself is tacky and garish. The only reason it isn't number one is because there are times when I wondered whether or not the whole thing was intended as a satire of itself. I'm fairly sure it isn't and that we are supposed to love these characters and their antics, but the thought kept me entertained regardless. There is little left to say about 'Sex & the City 2' that isn't said by the above clip or my earlier review, so I'll leave it at that.

1) The Expendables, dir Sylvester Stallone, USA

What I said: “Take it off!” bellow Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke, pleading with Jason Statham to remove his shirt. Earlier, in the same scene, Rourke tells a topless Stallone he has a body of steel. “Why don’t we both just stop jerking off?” Bruce Willis suggests to Stallone a few scenes later before testosterone levels reach their peak as Arnold Schwarzenegger enters the room and begins eyeing up his one-time rival. They trade flirtatious manly banter for a few minutes before Willis takes exception, saying “you guys aren’t going to start sucking each other’s dicks are you?” Welcome to The Expendables, a faintly homoerotic ode to all things macho and a poignant elegy to the 80’s action picture: a time when a man was measured by the size of his biceps and where… well, as Rourke asks one girlfriend, “what’s your name again sweetheart?”



The delicate blend of homoerotic knob-gags, manly punching and heart-rending pathos seen in the above clip typifies 'The Expendables'. It is the male version of 'Sex & the City 2' as it plays to the very worst, basest elements of humanity and to the grossest of cultural, racial and gender stereotypes. My original review earned me a lot of angry comments earlier this year (being called a "human cancer" is still my favourite) which lead me to write an article explaining the tone of my review for those bereft of a sense of humour. But whether or not it's right to insult a film's potential audience as I did in my review, 'The Expendables' remains a film for hardened dunces everywhere.

Dishonorable mentions go to the following films: 'The Way Back', 'Round Ireland With a Fridge', 'Showtime'. 'Clash of the Titans' (which was guest reviewed by David Bierton) and 'Le Concert'.

'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' review:

Noomi Rapace is back as that girl with the dragon tattoo and a penchant for playing with fire. This time, apparently, she has developed a taste for kicking hornets' nests. Although those with chronic cnidophobia need not look away for this is a metaphorical nest and, as with her previous adventures, the hornets are sexually violent men in positions of power as opposed to big, angry wasps. 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' is the concluding part of a series of Swedish-made film adaptations of Stieg Larsson's widely adored Millennium Trilogy novels, which follow the bisexual, ace computer hacker Lisbeth Salander as she attempts to bring to justice the various men who have wronged her - like a goth version the Bride from 'Kill Bill'. As in the previous installments, she is aided by top investigative journalist and full-time man-whore Mikael Blomkvist (Mikael Nyqvist).

Whilst the first two parts of the trilogy worked as more or less standalone episodic detective stories, this final chapter picks up exactly where the second installment left off and heavily references events and characters from the first two films throughout. With Lisbeth spending most of the film either in hospital, in prison or on trial, 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' is also much less action packed than the previous films. That is not to say that this entry lacks scenes of violence, but it is a far cry from the 18-rated original and, tellingly, the film's most horrific sequence is a scene lifted directly from that first movie, played to a courtroom courtesy of a clandestine recording.



Lisbeth Salander has been through some truly horrible events: beaten up by gangs of armed men; repeatedly raped by her legal guardian; and incarcerated in a mental institution at the age of twelve as the result of a shady government conspiracy. Yet she is still a manifestly unlikeable creation. She is a charmless psychopath and when she is forced to defend herself against charges that she is mentally unstable it is hard not to feel like her despicable, paedophile assailants at least have a bit of a point - although their reasons for making it are obviously not on the level. Again, like Thurman's Bride character, Lisbeth is hellbent on bloody, callous revenge in a film which thinks old testament "eye for an eye" justice is for wishy-washy Guardian readers. It is true that the film always totally convinces you that these balding, sinister Vince Cable-alikes deserve every bit of what Lisbeth gives them, but therein is the reason I hate these films so much.

Lisbeth's violent, sociopathic actions are understandable: after all they are being committed by a troubled individual who has received constant abuse at the hands of these wicked individuals. But these villains aren't human beings: they are monsters. Again, much like Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' films, as well as the likes of 'Sin City' and 'Death Wish', these films use sexual violence as a pretext for enabling us to indulge in guilt-free revenge fantasies that play to the very worst of our nature. I'm not excusing myself here. I too get that sense of vitriol when I get to see the rapist, paedophile, Nazi man get seven shades of shit kicked out of him: but its not a feeling I choose to nurture. Not to mention there is something very contrived and cynical about the way we are manipulated in films like these to feel so reactionary as unambiguous hate figures are offered to us just as the Aztecs offered still-beating human hearts to their gods. There is nothing interesting about straight-up monsters as characters either. Which is why all the best actual monsters are given human characteristics and their own set of internal conflicts (Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Beauty and the Beast). The baddies here are pure evil and as such they are totally boring.



I will say this for 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest': Noomi Rapace again completely disappears into the role of Salander, physically and emotionally transforming herself. The films best moment is when she walks into the courtroom to defend herself against charges of mental incompetence dressed in some sort of black leather, chainmail garb and sporting a huge mohican. This is the character giving the finger to the trial, refusing to back down on who she is just to conform and make things easy. It is also a gesture of supreme confidence. She is telling her persecutors that she can do as she likes because she knows she will win. That is where this story is strongest, as (although I'm not her biggest fan) in Lisbeth Salander there is a protagonist unlike any other, even if the dreary world she inhabits is from generic-revenge-thriller-land.

I have been eagerly awaiting this film for a few months now. Having really disliked the first two movies, I was getting a little sick of seeing that same poster image in cinemas for the third time in the space of a year and longed to put this whole seedy, dour, sadomasochistic enterprise behind me once and for all. Sadly this doesn't mark the end, as David Fincher is now busily helming an American adaptation of the same set of books. Although you can at least be certain that, whatever the American version is like, Fincher's film will feel less like a post-watershed episode of an ITV3 drama and more like a feature film.

'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' is out now in the UK and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'The Girl Who Played With Fire' review:

In my review of the first of the Swedish-made adaptations from Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', I remarked that its original Swedish title ('Men Who Hate Women') was perhaps a better fit with the material. Certainly that film saw the hacker-punk heroine, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), repeatedly sexually assaulted, raped and otherwise kicked around – the violence depicted with unflinching grit and unsettling realism. True, the film also allowed Salander to enact extreme and brutal revenge on her rapist. But in the main, Salander is a women beaten and abused with uncustomary regularity – at least for a leading lady.

Well the sequel, 'The Girl Who Played With Fire', allows Salander to exact a little more pain on her (male) assailants. She knees them in the balls, tasers them (also in the balls), shoots them, threatens to hang them, and so on. And the men deserve it, such as they are here. Or at least that is what we are so clearly being telegraphed to think. One man - who has paid for sex with prostitutes and so is evil - is easily distracted as he talks to Salander's friend, ace investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), eying up a jogger and then a young mother as she pushes in baby along in a stroller. Men in this world are sleazy characters who deserve the roughest treatment, and often receive it to our vengeful satisfaction.



It is strangely reminiscent of Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' in some respects. Obvious plot parallels include the fact that Lisbeth has been sexually assaulted and takes the law into her own hands, as well as the fact that this film features a scene in which she is buried alive. But it is also reminiscent of Tarantino by way of its old testament bloodlust and in the way that it equates literal female strength with female empowerment. It is, much like 'Kill Bill', a film written and directed by men who (in my view erroneously) believe they are acting as equal opportunity crusaders. Instead they are simply perpetuating violence and playing up to the worst aspects of human nature: showing them on the screen and appealing to those instincts in the audience.

Perhaps one way in which this film is unique, is in its completely de-sexualized depiction of Rapace's character. She is tough, resilient, cold: seldom smiling and seemingly unable to take any joy from life. Even during sex scenes she is never presented to us as an object of desire. This is brave and certainly sets this film, and this character, apart from the likes of Uma Thurman's heroine in 'Kill Bill' - who more traditionally plays up to a male fantasy image. However, this does help to make Lisbeth fairly unappealing as a character. There is no beauty in the film, and no humour at all. There is no lightness here to counteract the shade, no relief from the constant onslaught of nasty, perverted men. This world is so ugly that it is hard to understand why anyone would want to survive in it to begin with. There is no humanity and the characters are less than two-dimensional. Sure, Lisbeth has a "back story" and with it a straightforward psychological justification for her actions. But nobody else, especially the antagonists, can make any claim to depth.



On the positive side, this sequel is marginally less dull than its predecessor, although it is still overlong and suffers from monumental pacing problems (it takes around 40 minutes before Lisbeth is falsely accused of murder: the central plot catalyst this time around). It is also less TV-like in its aesthetic, possibly aided by the change of director, with Daniel Alfredson (brother of 'Let the Right One In' helmer, Tomas Alfredson) stepping in. It is also less of a formulaic "whodunit", detective story. That element remains, of course, with Blomqvist frantically trying to prove that Lisbeth is not the killer. But this film is more full of action and incident. There are many more fights, there is a car chase and a genuinely tense and gripping finale (or I imagine it would have been had I cared about any of the characters at that point).

Whilst the first film felt like it could have been a one-off episode of a detective series - albeit with much more graphic sex and violence than you'd usually find watching Angela Lansbury - this film feels much more like part of a longer story. It leads neatly into the upcoming film ('The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest') with an 'Empire Strikes Back' style ending, and follows on from a few threads established during the first. But, for me, 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' is an ugly film about a deeply unsympathetic character who at times seems only a second away from becoming Jigsaw or 'Se7en's John Doe - she is certainly capable of being just as sadistic as the men she despises. For some that maybe the appeal. Lisbeth is certainly not a fragile victim and she gives as good as she gets. But, call me old fashioned, I'd sooner not get my kicks from seeing men or women taking theirs.

'The Girl Who Played With Fire' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out on general release across the UK.

'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' review: On men who hate women...

The original Swedish title for this film (and for Stieg Larsson’s original novel) is perhaps more appropriate than that given to English language version. ‘Men Who Hate Women’ is almost an understatement here as we are shown scene after scene of violence (both sexual and non-sexual) towards women and perpetrated by a number of men (young and old).The films titular girl, Lisbeth (played by Noomi Rapace), has her own personal reasons to be hostile towards men, whilst the plot itself centres on the search for a man suspected of brutally murdering a number of young women. But apart from the frequent graphic scenes of rape, nudity and realistic violence the film bears a striking resemblance to a well-made TV detective serial rather than to a feature film. This isn’t because the film looks cheap, as it looks fairly expensive from a technical point of view, but it just feels as though it has a televisual style to it rather than a cinematic one, and so I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that the production team behind it (Yellow Bird) is behind TV’s ‘Wallander’: a detective show staring Kenneth Branagh.

The plot is contrived and conventional by TV whodunit standards: Mikael, disgraced investigative Journalist (played by the sincere and compelling Michael Nyqvist) teams up with Lisbeth (a “punk” computer hacker with a criminal past) to form a mismatched detective duo. They are called upon by an ailing old man to solve the disappearance and suspected murder of his great-Niece, which took place back in the 1960s. Along the way they encounter a number of suspicious, humourless relatives who gather around in plush drawing rooms and say things like “This is preposterous! You have no business being here!” and generally refuse to co-operate with the investigation. I don’t know if/how any of the story plugs into the next two films of the trilogy (which has already been shot and is awaiting release), but the film, as it stands, operates as if it were a standalone story in an episodic television series. Next week: an unrelated murder in another small parochial town of upper-class twits, and so on.



This isn’t to say that ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ is bad, however. In fact, it is quite good television. Danish TV director Niels Arden Oplev has done a decent job with the material, even if he is over-reliant on montage during the scenes where evidence is being examined. In fact, for a 2 ½ hour film it is fairly tightly put together and held my interest reasonably well. Refreshingly, the violence is not mined for slickness or cool and is always suitably jarring and grisly, whilst Noomi Rapace isn’t fetishised as the girl and the scenes of sexual violence are allowed to be truly awful. The film presents a seedy and disturbing picture of modern Sweden as a place full of corrupt officials (to put it lightly), little public order (Lisbeth is brutally attacked in a public subway by a gang of young males early on in the film) and of ageing Nazi sympathisers. It’s a far cry from the usual image of an efficient and well-run, if bland, modern Sweden and whilst I can’t vouch for its authenticity, it is interesting to see. Indeed, last year’s much-lauded ‘Let the Right One In’ gave a similarly bleak representation of Sweden as a place full of disconnected alcoholic people, nasty school children and equally appalling weather.

If you are in the mood for a solid crime thriller (and you don’t want something a bit mad like the superior ‘Shutter Island’) then I would recommend you go and see ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’. However, I’m not sure how this film will play to the ITV 3 crowd as it is less cosy than your average hour with Angela Lansbury or David Suchet and involves considerably more rape and a less clean picture of murder. However, women who hate men are in for a real treat!



'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' can still be seen in cinemas across the UK (and indeed the world) including the Duke of York's in Brighton where it continues its run until Thursday. It is rated '18' by the BBFC and a heavily censored version will be airing on ITV 3 next week (if there is any justice).