Tag: Swedish

REVIEW: Flickan som lekte med elden [The Girl Who Played with Fire] [2009]

Jared Mobarak

“You treat your friends like dirt. Its as simple as that.” Taking place more than a year after we’ve left Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Flickan som lekte med elden [The Girl Who Played with Fire] begins with two halves of a sprawling story soon to bring them back together. For the first two-thirds, I’d almost say one doesn’t have to watch the first installment of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy because this entry has its own case of…

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REVIEW: Män som hatar kvinnor [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] [2009]

Jared Mobarak

“They always think I’ll show mercy” There is no better director in Hollywood to helm Stieg Larsson’s Män som hatar kvinnor [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] than David Fincher. It is the perfect mix of Zodiac’s journalistic detecting and Se7en’s dark, religious-based murders. I can only see one problem—Niels Arden Oplev has already brought an adaptation to screens and it is every bit as good as it can be. Would Fincher bring someone uniquely his own to the project? For sure he would, and I’ll admit that I eagerly…

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REVIEW: Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick [Everlasting Moments] [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“No one ever died of a bit of the belt” What a gorgeous poster, and frankly a gorgeous film despite its hard look at love conquering abuse, alcoholism, and the shattering of dreams. Sometimes two people find themselves forgiving each other, not out of weakness, but out of the underlying powerful love bonding them. Academy Award nominee Jan Troell’s new film Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, or Everlasting Moments here in the states, is a slow unveiling of what it was like to live in Sweden as a below Middle Class…

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REVIEW: Låt den rätte komma in [Let the Right One In] [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“Squeal like a piggy” I still have no idea what has made vampires so in fashion this year, but I am kind of glad they are. Sure you’ll get the mainstream, watered-down stuff like Twilight, but along with that are the surprises like HBO’s “True Blood”. Let’s go ahead and put Sweden on the list of fresh takes as Tomas Alfredson’s Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In), adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his own novel, is quite unforgettable. Not since the Russian supernaturally inclined Night…

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