Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

For the longest time I have been planning to buy Stieg Larsson's Millenium Series, but the scrooge that I am, I have never gotten around to buying the complete set. There are three books in the series (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest) and the first book has been adapted into a movie. I also have a copy of the movie in my netbook for quite a time now, but have just been putting off watching it after I have read the book. That's just the way I am. I would rather read the book first before watching the movie version. But since it seems that it would be quite some time before I chance upon a copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to show up in Booksale (a used books store), I decided to watch the movie instead.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009) is a Swedish film the original title of which is translated as Men Who Hate Women and stars Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist, respectively. Salander and Blomkvist work together to solve the mystery concerning the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, a niece of a wealthy family. Harriet's disappearance has remained unsolved for forty years and as Lisbeth and Mikael walk through the evidence again, they uncover some dark family secrets that could cost them their lives.
Since its release in February 2009, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has earned numerous nominations and awards in various international award-giving bodies for film and has become an instant blockbuster hit. The characters are all worthy of commendation especially Noomi Rapace who perfectly portrayed her role as Lisbeth Salander, an expert computer hacker with a dark past. I especially like Lisbeth's brooding character and the mystery of her past has added to the story's dark appeal.
For someone like me who loves a good suspense story, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo may be found to be a little wanting of satisfying plot twists and turns if compared with Shutter Island (which I loved too much). I find the premise a little predictable and not so surprising. In fact, while the plot slowly unfolded, I was reminded of some of Dennis Lehane's books like Sacred and John Sanford's Prey Series. However, for its portrayal of violence against women and incest and sexual abuse, the film is a useful springboard for intellectual discussion.
After watching this movie, I am all the more convinced that obtaining copies of Stieg Larsson's highly-acclaimed series would not be a waste of money. I am sure I would enjoy the story better if I read it from the book (yes, I am biased like that). Maybe I'll just wait until the bookstore goes on sale.
By the way, a Hollywood remake of the novel is set to be released in December 2011. Maybe by this time, I have already finished reading the book before I get to watch the movie.
Advisory: some nudity and sex scenes

Amazing Documentary

During the last days of world war two when Germany was near its end, a race on who will manage to conquer Hitler's bunker first was on the way. Capturing Hitler and all of the information surrounding his 3rd Reich was the ultimate goal of the allied forces. The Russians managed to reach it first in April 1945.
During that period of time the allied forces rushed to gather as much evidence as they could find in order to prosecute the German Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazis) for war crimes before they could destroy them. Hitler and his hierarchy was priority number one. All of Hitler's home tapes that had a detailed view of the Fuhrer's private moments were also found. Amazingly they were ignored since they did not provide any prosecuting evidence to the judges in the Nuremberg trials.
The significance of those personal tapes was far more important and revealing that anyone had imagined. It provides a glimpse in the personal life of one of the most evil men in history. Hitler's personal life was kept a secret during the Nazi regime from his propaganda chief (Joseph Goebbels) and people never knew the true person behind mask.
The documentary "Revealed: Hitler's Private World" tries to analyses the tapes and develop a personal profile behind Hitler, his interests and what he was discussing with his fellow colleagues and his lover (Eva Brown).
In order to conclude to this result, the investigative team had to overcome a major hurtle; the tapes recovered had no sound so the team could not tell what Hitler or the other individuals that appeared in the tapes were saying at that time.
Using cutting edge speech recognition technology, the team managed to map and identify the lip movements and match them with the appropriate German words; the results were breath-taking. I could not believe that the most evil person in history (according to me) had such calm personality. I was also astounded to see that Hitler was a big fan of Hollywood movies and he often watched and discussed them with his friends and colleagues.
Having watched a huge number of documentaries about Hitler, I have to say this is the only one that clearly captures the true personality of the dictator. Revealed: Hitler's Private World is one the best documentaries I have ever seen and surely one that cannot be missed. For World War 2 fanatics and people that want to get an inside view on what Hitler was like during his personal moments this documentary is a must.

Vampires, The Fiction of It All

Vampires have been considered a demon like creature that lives in shadows. In the past few years, they have become more popular, in teenagers especially. This "craze" began again when Stephanie Meyer released her bestselling series, "Twilight". Then the Vampire Diaries television show was released into the world only a few years afterwards. They both depicted Vampires as being these lustful and beautiful creatures and that they lived among us.There has been vampires in the fiction world ever since Bram Stoker released his book "Dracula" in 1897. But what really is the fiction behind it all.
Vampire mythology is even older than the fiction that was written in books. The mythology can be dated back to the 11th century when the Ancient Greeks and Romans "discovered" them. The vampires were called creatures from the deepest depths of hell. Most of the believers had their own theories on what a vampire actually was, whether it being a spirit possessing an unused corpse or it they were the unused corpse that relied on human blood in order to sustain their disturbing lifestyle. There is really one thing about vampires that always stays they same, and it's probably safe to assume that it will always be that way, and that fact is that the only way they can stay "alive" is if they have blood. Whether that blood be human or animal, they just need the blood. The devil has also been associated with vampires numerous times. There is many people who think that vampires were in fact the children of the damned or even of Satan himself.
This new craze of vampires has come into the world over the last 4 or 5 years, but basically they are the new thing. Most of the people who know some vampire fiction would also know the classics. The classics being, Anne Rice's series Interview With the Vampire and of course who could forget Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But the main thing that all of these followed was that vampires were beautiful creatures of the night who sucked the blood out of beautiful women who wandered alone. The thing that was so likeable about Interview with the Vampire was that the characters were very believable. They could cry and they could feel. But other fictional tales of vampires showed them as heartless brutes, who fed for no reason other than to feed.
Then thee is Dracula, the original vampire. The father of the damned and ''merciful death". Now most people know that Dracula did have some historical fact behind him as in his character was based on a bloodthirsty tyrant; Vlad the Impaler. Now in 1456-1462, "Vlad the Impaler" killed anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 political rivals, criminals and anyone else he considered "useless to humanity", mainly by using his favourite method of impaling them on a sharp pole. The main point of the connection was the disregard for humanity that they both had.
In the end we won't ever know what the truth behind the hysteria really is. the facts are clear that many people did believe and still do believe in vampires and their questionable existence, but for now who knows.