The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

 

☆ ☆ ☆

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) – N. A. Oplev

A bit too sadistic for my liking but I guess there is no denying that the film succeeds in creating well-rounded characters, particularly that of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), whose backstory may be fleshed out further in subsequent films, I gather. The plot is a rather conventional whodunnit, with journalist Mikael Blomkvist hired by Henrik Vanger (of the wealthy Vanger Corporation) to solve the 40-year old murder of his niece.  There’s a family full of suspects to investigate, all living nearby on a secluded island off the coast of Sweden. But what makes things different this time is the use of technology (primarily by hacker Lisbeth) to track down and analyse clues.  One wonders how a supercomputer (or future A. I. program) would perform at this same task.  I guess it wouldn’t end up risking its own life in a confrontation with the villain of the piece.  As could be expected, the mise-en-scene here is all wintry grey which sets the mood but feels cliché at this point (or perhaps all of those Scandinavian Noir tv series came after this?).  David Fincher remade this film for Hollywood but I’m not sure whether it is worth taking a look (at some distant point in the future) or even whether I should check out the subsequent two installments.  From the books by Stieg Larsson.

  

Karami-Ai (The Inheritance) (1962)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Karami-Ai (The Inheritance) (1962) – M. Kobayashi

Kobayashi’s darkly comic and noirish tale of the quest of a dying executive (Sô Yamamura) to find his three illegitimate children and determine whether to include them in his will pulls no punches in its examination of human greed.  Perhaps his capricious act, which deliberately disadvantages his younger wife (Misako Watanabe; with whom his relationship is cold and distant), inspires her to plot with her ex-lover (Minoru Chiaki; also in her husband’s firm) to steal more of the inheritance (a sizeable sum). But this doesn’t explain why the dying man’s lawyer (Seiji Miyaguchi) and his assistant (Tatsuya Nakadai) also plot to gain some (or all) of the money, after being charged with finding one of the children (all of whom turn out to be less than virtuous themselves). Seemingly, he isn’t a very nice man. Only the executive’s loyal secretary (Keiko Kishi, first billed) stays pure-of-intention even as her boss takes advantage of her and treats her selfishly. With numerous surprising plot twists and a shifting set of alliances, the finale still comes mostly as a shock, even though director Masaki Kobayashi’s decision to frame the bulk of the story as a flashback gives something away (the surprise is in how she did it rather than that she did it).  Gorgeous in its black and white cinematography and nicely directed in that slightly ostentatious early 60s manner, this fills the gap between the director’s masterpieces: The Human Condition trilogy and Hara-Kiri.   

 

Longlegs (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Longlegs (2024) – O. Perkins

Director Osgood Perkins (son of Psycho’s Anthony Perkins) knew exactly what he needed to steal to make this serial killer horror film a success. But it isn’t quite stealing if it adds up to something new, is it? Let’s just call it another entry in the evergreen genre that includes The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Se7en (1995), and dozens of lesser entries. But Longlegs also takes some cues from horror films that include subliminal images, such as the Exorcist (1974) with which it also shares a demonic theme; keep an eye out. (Can it simultaneously be in the serial killer genre and the Satanic Panic genre?).  Maika Monroe plays the Clarice Starling role as a young FBI agent who discovers that tracking a serial killer unexpectedly reveals things about her own past (she’s also psychic, which adds an extra spooky dimension to proceedings).  Teamed with Blair Underwood’s Agent Carter, she draws clues together from the letters (in code) that Longlegs leaves behind (a la Zodiac, 2007) and the not-quite-coincidental details that link the cases (all of which involve a father killing his entire family, including a daughter born on the 14^th day of the month, and then himself). Eventually this leads to the killer who turns out to be a T.Rex-loving Nicolas Cage, unrecognisable in Buffalo Bill drag.  He’s weird, even weirder than usual.  The plot then moves slowly and inexorably to its conclusion.  Is it crammed too full with disparate elements? Maybe. Things mostly make sense if you are willing to accept a certain supernatural logic. Ultimately, it’s a solid entry to the genre but perhaps one step down(stairs). Worth seeing.

 

Foxy Brown (1974)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Foxy Brown (1974) – J. Hill

Earlier this year, I read Quentin Tarantino’s book about his favourite movies when growing up (Cinema Speculation, 2022) and while Foxy Brown wasn’t explicitly mentioned, parts of the book read like an ode to blaxploitation.  It isn’t coincidental that he later chose to revive Pam Grier’s flagging career by casting her as the lead in Jackie Brown (1997), one of his best movies (thanks to Grier and the late Robert Forster).  Surprisingly, blaxploitation is one of my blind spots, so I decided to check out this classic – and for all its obvious datedness, it holds up.  Grier plays Foxy whose brother (Antonio Fargas) is a drug dealer but whose boyfriend (Terry Carter) is an undercover narcotics agent. After the latter is gunned down, she plots her revenge by going undercover in the “modelling agency” run by drug ring kingpins Miss Katherine (Kathryn Loder) and (chief baddie) Steve Elias (Peter Brown). When her cover is blown and she’s shot up with heroin and subjected to unwanted attention by henchmen out at the ranch, she escapes and enlists the local neighborhood action committee (also focused on wiping out the scourge of drug dealers) to help her get her revenge.  Expect sex and violence and a superbad Pam Grier.

 

Ghost Stories (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Ghost Stories (2017) – J. Dyson & A. Nyman

I’m always searching for a supernatural chiller that lives up to my expectations, but, alas, Ghost Stories did not. Co-director (with Jeremy Dyson) Andy Nyman stars as Prof. Philip Goodman, a psychic debunker who is provided with a series of three cases that an earlier debunker could not prove false. The three stories are then re-enacted as Goodman interviews each participant (providing a framing device much like those used in the horror anthologies from Amicus Productions in the ‘60s and ‘70s).  Although the re-enactments do offer some spooky moments – they tend to fizzle out, leaving viewers wondering why they were so likely to be truly supernatural.  Worse, Goodman ends up inserted into some of the stories and then the framing device concludes with what is meant to be a clever twist.  I’ll keep searching.

 

Angel on my Shoulder (1946)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Angel on my Shoulder (1946) – A. Mayo

Paul Muni mugs a lot as the gangster sent to hell but then returned to the land of mortals by Mephistopheles (Claude Rains) who wants to ruin the career of do-gooder (and gubernatorial candidate) Judge Parker by inserting rough-edged Eddie Kagle into his body.  Of course, it’s a comedy, as Muni gets to perform a bull-in-the-china-shop routine as others act shocked at the noble judge’s transformation.  Rains is sly and arch as the Devil (with a few tossed off one-liners) but his schemes do not play out as planned when Kagle accidentally improves the judge’s popularity. Naturally, with the help of love interest Barbara (Anne Baxter), Eddie begins to see the error of his ways and turn from bad to good.  That’s how it goes in movies like this (especially with the Hays Code in effect).  As directed by Archie Mayo, it's a trifle, never laugh-out-loud funny, but pleasant enough – and who doesn’t love a movie that takes a trip down to Hell (fire and brimstone included)?

 

The Last Adventure (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

 The Last Adventure (1967) – R. Enrico

Wim Wenders listed this on Letterboxd as one of his top ten movies of all time.  I had never heard of it so thought I should rectify the situation.  Pairing Lino Ventura and Alain Delon in 1967 certainly raised my hopes of a J-P Melville inspired film but instead this is a breezy (but sometimes jarringly brutal) bromance about a pilot and a mechanic/adventurer who together with a sculpture artist who works with found junk (Joanna Shimkus) seek sunken treasure in the Congo.  Although of normal length, the film seems to fall into three separate parts, each of which might be a film unto themselves.  First, we see how Shimkus becomes the third wheel to Ventura and Delon’s relationship, focused on their attempts to develop and test a fast engine for a plane or racecar.  Second, we’re off to the Congo (after a brief racist interlude not unlike the one in Antonioni’s Eclipse) where the trio meets Serge Reggiani and hunt for the treasure while being hunted by various mercenaries.  Third, we’re back to France with the denouement taking place at Fort Boyard (called “Fortress Island” here and that is exactly what it seems – incredibly scenic and well shot), for a more typical action movie ending. As directed by Robert Enrico (who filmed the wonderful An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, 1961, from Ambrose Bierce, used in the Twilight Zone), the widescreen affair almost seems like a silent film at times – many montages and I guess no words needed to follow the action.  Combined with the “road movie” plot, I guess it is no surprise what Wenders saw in this.  But despite the best efforts of all concerned, the result still feels rather languid to me.