The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy

Noomi Rapace, her biopic, and as Lisbeth

Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Denmark - Sweden - Germany - Norway
Niels Arden Oplev, 2009 (7.8*)
I’m reviewing these together because after you’ve either read the novels or seen the trilogy, you realize it’s just one long story about the heroine, not three distinctly different stories.

Actress Noomi Rapace made a star of herself and created an indelible screen image in punk hacker Lisbeth Salander, the subject of this crime trilogy from the famous novels by Stieg Larsson. I haven’t read the novels, but like most transcriptions to screen, you lose a lot because you’re getting a lot of other artists to interpret a solo work from the mind of one person, and the medium is also being transformed from one of linguistics and the mind’s imagination to a series of images filtered through the minds of others – the screenwriters, the cinematographers, the editors, and the director. All form a collaberative committee on a film, overseen by the director’s vision, which often changes during the process.

Some may find these films a bit too explicit, they show a woman who’s the victim of abuse, and it’s not for the squeamish. Some found this exploitive, others found it a frank depiction of the misygony in society, and how women in general are the victims of sex crimes perpetrated by sadistic men – unfortunately there’s never a shortage of these at any time in history. For me, I found the films to be more about a woman empowering herself by using her brains and street smarts to stand her own ground. In many regards, I found these films similar to the theme of the powerful French film Chaos (2001), from director Coline Serreau, which I’ve called “the ultimate women’s power film”, and one which had me standing and applauding at the end.

The series begins with a man convinced a relative was murdered and he employs a disgraced journalist, expertly played by Michael Nyqvist, and a criminal computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, to help him unravel the mystery of some grisly murders in the distant past.

The first film won 13 awards (and Rapace won three for actress), including a BAFTA for films not in English (the equivalent of foreign language film at the Oscars). Rated 7.7 at IMDB, and 76 from Metacritics – that’s probably about right, though the cinematography and music are first rate, and actually make each film better. Some think it’s a bit long at 155 minutes, and there’s a longer 180 minute version from Sweden.

The Girl Who Played With Fire
Daniel Aldredsen, 2009 (7.2*)
The second in the series begins to unravel the mystery of Lisbeth Salander’s life. Her father may have been a Soviet agent, that’s part of the mystery. Journalist Blomkvyst of Millenium magazine (Nyqvist), who exposes the corrupton of the establishment, is investigating sex trafficking in Sweden, and the two themselves become the targets of the powerful in return

This film has more action, and is also compelling but is really setting you up for the concluding film, which provides closure to the entire series.

This film is not as compelling as the other two, and was only rated 6.9 at IMDB (fan votes), and 66 at Metacritics. This film and the third didn’t win any awards, and only garnered five nominations between them.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Daniel Alfredson, 2009 (8.0*)
[Rated 7.0 at IMBD and 60 at Metacritics]

This film was the most riveting of the three for me, perhaps because it was the least violent. Without giving anything away, it becomes a battle of wits between two viewpoints – to put it in normal cinema jargon, the good guys and the bad guys, but using their minds rather than weapons or martial arts.

However, depending on how you feel about certain issues, these sides may appear the opposite to other people. It’s almost like politics - if we agree with a rebel, they’re freedom fighters; if we disagree, they’re terrorists. That's why we have a legal system, at least for civilians.

We see the entire mystery unfold as the journalist uncovers the clues himself. Another long film at 147 minutes, it still didn’t seem overlong; it’s a complex psychological story that demands thorough examination and revelation. The third film brought closure to the story, and in an intelligent, credible manner. Those who stick with the entire trilogy should feel justified in the end.

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Inside Man

Spike Lee, 2006 (8.6*)
One of the best films for Spike Lee in years is also one of the best heist films ever made. Just when you think a tired genre has used up all it’s variations comes along a new one for a new generation.

Clive Owen shines here as a mastermind who has plotted the perfect crime. Christopher Plummer owns a major bank more noted for it’s top security vault boxes, where anyone with loot or other valuables to hide can sleep securely at night knowing their goods are safe. He himself has something to hide in his own bank, so he calls in Jodie Foster as a mysterious power broker to help him keep his own secrets. A safe vault, that is, until a screenplay by Russell Gewirtz comes along, or we’d have no film.

A gang enters the bank, takes hostages, waits for the police, then calmly and confidently ask for demands they know won’t be met. After awhile negotiator Denzel Washington, in one of his best roles, begins to get suspicious after awhile that this is not a real robbery, and that something else is going on.

There truly is something else going on, but to say any more would venture into spoiler territory. Suffice to say that Lee has breathed new life into an old genre begun by the French film from director Jules Dassin, Rififi (1955, bw), and that is the re-enactment on film of a well-plotted heist – which usually goes wrong, though not always. A realistic homage to this was the U.S. film Thief, with James Caan, directed by Michael Mann. This stereotypical plot has been well satirized often, most effectively in the Italian film Big Deal on Madonna St (1959, bw) from director Mario Monicelli, which had me in stitches (look for a line in it, “getting something to eat”, and you’ll know what I mean). Also it was parodied by the Jules Dassin comedy Topkapi, in which a partially smart, partially bungling gang steals a valuable dagger from that museum in Istanbul, a parody of his own classic serious film.

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The Player

Robert Altman, 1992 (9.2*)
[This is an updated repost of one of my favorite films about films]

Tim Robbins portrays a film producer looking for that next major hit project, who, through an anonymous blackmailer that sends him threatening postcards, becomes involved in a mystery, and his character degenerates into one who may actually stop at nothing to protect his ego and his wallet, and perhaps find love as well.

With the always delectable Greta Scacchi in his sights, who could blame him? He inadvertantly gets involved with her, with completely unforeseen events, through a screenwriter whose script he rejected. I liked the performance of Cynthia Stevenson as Robbins' low-key girlfriend within the studio, who often travels with him 'on business' - and who seems to be the perfect cynical match for her boss.

The Player is a perfect modern complement to Sunset Boulevard, as each presents the cynical and parasitic side of Hollywood and its shallow, self-centered denizens. Robert Altman's best film (for me) includes dozens of famous cameos (around 75), including 16 Oscar® winners, the most of any feature film (of course not including clip films like That's Entertainment). In fact, the dvd has a special menu of all the cameo scenes so you can quickly jump to the one you're seeking.

As another homage to cinema, the opening tracking shot is one of the longest in cinema history as a couple of film buffs argue in one shot of that about the longest tracking shots in cinema history. That has a pleasing circularity to it that will likely go over the heads of most viewers.

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The Spiral Staircase

Robert Siodmak, 1945, bw (8.8*)
Even though this now looks like a film of scary movie cliches, back in its time, it was one of those few films that made true cinema suspense and made it artfully. You might call this film an archetype of the modern psycho-killer film, and now it's been remastered.

A serial killer is targeting women around town that have various types of afflictions. A very young Dorothy McGuire, in the performance of her lifetime, plays a mute women, who, alone in a large house during a storm, begins to feel a hidden menace, as if she is perhaps the killer’s next target.

This is Siodmak’s best directing job to me, as it’s a beautifully shot early film noir, with lots of darkness and shadows casting eerie shapes across the living, as if the darkness itself is somehow grasping at the innocents. It’s not often that a film can maintain fear and suspense with any veracity, yet this film manages to and to also be re-shown often over 60 years later and after perhaps a hundred-thousand less artistic imitations.

The entire film was shot on a soundstage, which makes it even more amazing. It had the look of a small film, but it wasn’t - this was a David O. Selznick Production (Gone With the Wind), and co-starred George Brent and Ethel Barrymore.

It’s more often what you don’t show that is more menacing, our greatest fear is the unknown. I think Siodmak’s film is a very good example of that for most of these modern ‘horror’ filmmakers.

It's amazing to me that this film didn't make any of the film polls in our compendium, at all. At IMDB, it's average rating is 7.6, about .4 away from the top 250, so it's likely in the top 1000 there, which they don't post. Our compendium came up with almost 2300 films mentioned in all the polls put together and this wasn't listed once.

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The Third Man

Carole Reed, 1949, bw (8.6*)
Grand Jury Prize, Cannes
[Our 800th film review]

Classic mystery-suspense film from an often overlooked director, who also directed the classic films Odd Man Out, the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), and my favorite, Joseph Conrad’s Outcast of the Islands, a moody and emotional existential drama about white men among tropical Pacific islanders in a hard to reach eden surrounded by ocean reefs.

In this story based on a Graham Greene novel, Joseph Cotton travels to post-war Vienna after hearing of the death of a friend, Harry Lyme (Orson Welles). In his search for exactly what happened, he begins to uncover a web of deceit, and perhaps finds out more than he bargains for when first starting out.

Beautifully shot in noirish black-and-white, it features a chase in the sewers that is reminiscent of that in the novel (and subsequent films) Les Miserables. I can’t reveal too much without spoiling an important part of the mystery for new viewers.

Probably the only negative here for me is the incessant zither music that is more akin to an outdoor café in Istanbul than a mystery – I found it totally intruding on the suspense of the film and also totally unnecessary, not adding anything positive to the experience of this film.

It’s a odd choice, as the only other music I remember in any Reed film was in the actual musical Oliver!, in which someone had the crazy idea of setting Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist as a Broadway musical! (“One boy, one boy for sale!”) It worked in a bizarre modern psychosis kind of way, but did win a directing Oscar for Reed himself, long overdue for better films. Still, all his work is worth seeing, he’s a master.

This is now 23rd all-time on our top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls, and is #68 on the IMDB top 250 (so the critics liked it even more than the public, it's higher on our compendium of polls).This was the Grand Prize winner at Cannes, and won an Oscar® for the cinematography of Robert Krasker.

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High and Low

Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1963, bw (9.0*)
Excellent crime thriller from the Japanese master director Kurosawa, in the tradition of his excellent police procedural Stray Dog (1949). A millionaire factory manager, played by Tashiro Mifune, has mortgaged everything to buy just enough stock to take control of his shoe company in order to maintain his high quality standards while other greedy board members insist on putting out a flimsy cheap shoe that will not last a year and forcing their customers to rebuy shoes more often.

That very day, the executive's son is playing with his chauffeur's son and they change cowboy and outlaw outfits, and a kidnapper abducts the wrong child by accident, but still demands a hefty ransom or he'll kill the child. So now Mifune must weigh the dilemna of losing his company by paying the money he needs to save the child, or sacrificing a child, who's not his own anyway, to save his career.

This film also becomes a police procedural as they try to narrow down the kidnappers location in a race against time, as they feel the child is likely to be killed in either case. Other than his classic masterpiece Seven Samurai, my favorite films of Kurosawa's are these gorgeous crime films in black and white, which are detective stories filmed like 40's film noir. His film Stray Dog caused a huge wave of popularity for these films in Japan in the 50's.

This is now # 449 on our 2011 Edition of Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net (all polls)

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Innocence

Lucile Hadzihalilovic, France, 2004 (9.5*)
This is an amazing, mesmerizing, hypnotic film, with some of the most beautiful images in cinema. Newcomer Lucile Hadzilalilovic has adapted a novella by Frank Wedekind (I believe it's translation from the French is "The Physical Education of Young Girls"), and has created a coming-of-age story in a myserious world all it's own.

Zoé Auclair plays a new arrival, Iris, at a secluded school for orphan girls hidden in a deep forest park, isolated from the outside world. The other girls welcome her, and reassure her with their calm, protective aura of self-reliance. She is most comforted by the oldest girl in her house, Bianca, played by the beautiful Bérangère Haubruge, who becomes like a big sister. In fact, all the girls are beautiful in their own way; you get the idea that maybe they've been selected for that reason.

It appears that the girls' schooling consists primarily of dance, and Oscar®-winning best actress Marion Cotillard plays the ballet instructor in one of her early supporting roles. Hélène de Fougerolles plays the only other instructor that both the girls and Cotillard seem to have interaction with, as the children are usually left on their own with the eldest (young teens) taking charge; they seem to respect the rules and maintain a self-disciplined civility.

However, there are mysteries - Bianca goes off to a mysterious location nightly, and says it's a secret she can't mention. A certainly elderly woman simply called the headmistress shows up once a year and selects one girl to take away. The entire park is surrounded by a giant stone wall, in effect making the school a type of prison. Rumors abound; one is that if you try to escape, you'll never be let outside again, and that's why Cotillard and Fougerolles teach there.

There are numerous literate metaphors used here. The film starts with water bubbling, and it is constantly in use throughout the film - the girls swim in a pond, there's a major rainstorm, a rowboat, also a bath. In literature, water can be for cleansing, baptism, or represent the troubles of the material world, such as floods, rough waters, raging rivers. The girls are often shown caterpillers, butterflies, and even dance a ballet as butterflies - the tranformation from girl to woman is an obvious metaphor, but it's done with artistic grace if not subtlety.

This is a very sensual film, the images are accompanied by touch, sound, even smell, and the audience is thereby immersed in the film more than just cerebrally. This is an amazingly poetic and beautiful piece of filmmaking, captivating the viewer by its own private world like few in cinema history .

Winner of 8 film awards, most for film or director at film festivals, but one for it's beautiful cinematography. If the Oscars® really represented the best films, this would have had 6-8 nominations, it's easily a better, more artistic dance film and woman's film than Black Swan. It's amazing that Hadzihalilovic hasn't directed any films since this one in 2004.

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Bad Day at Black Rock

John Sturges, 1955 (8.8*)
In one of the more bizarre crime films ever, Spencer Tracy plays a one-armed stranger who arrives one day in the near ghost town of Bad Rock, somewhere in the desert southwest. He is not the only Oscar® winner in this incredible cast - others in the town include Oscar winners Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennan, and Lee Marvin, and also features Robert Ryan (in one of his best performances), Russell Collins, Anne Francis, and Dean Jagger. Ryan, Borgnine, and Marvin all shine here as despicable bad guys; Tracy, in his dark suit and white shirt, is an open contrast to everyone else's languid casualness and bored apathy.

Tracy is mysterious about his visit, and the locals are all tight-lipped, unfriendly, and act very suspicious, especially when he names the man he is looking for, who is apparently long absent. As the story develops, the narrative evolves from mystery to thriller to crime. This is a short, fact, sparse film, without much dialogue or wasted footage. (Perhaps the real mystery of this film is why anyone would choose to live here in the first place)

This was one of the first films to openly deal with racism towards Asian-Americans, and as such it demands a place in the history of american cinema. It forces the viewer to witness those who take a moral stand vs. those who don't, much like a classic western. As such, it really is an updating of westerns, placing people in the same setting but a century later. The desert setting, and the resulting heat, work as metaphors for the type of ethical vacuum these characters live in.

The entire movie was shot in the Alabama Hills section of the Sierra foothills, near Lone Pine, California in the Owens Valley, east of the Sierras, with a view of Mt. Whitney in the background - it's a famous destination for campers and backpackers (I've been there many times myself - the sun setting on the Inyo Mountains, then rising on the eastern face of the Sierras makes the trip there a lifetime experience).

Nominated for three Oscars®, actor (Tracy, who won best actor at Cannes), director, and screenplay (Millard Kaufman), nominated for a BAFTA for best film, a director's guild award for Sturges. This film has only 7k ratings at IMDB, which is dreadfully low for a classic American movie. Ernest Borgnine won the Oscar® that year (55) for his performance in best picture winner Marty. Awards page at IMDB

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Witness For the Prosecution

Billy Wilder, 1957, bw (8.3*)  bw

This is my second favorite film of an Agatha Christie story (this was a short story, not a novel), after And Then There Were None from French director René Clair. I believe this story is unique for her, as it's a legal film, with the entire story unfolding in a courtroom, but it still has the Christie touch, meaning an unexpected plot twist that most can't see coming.

An excellent cast makes this film better than it would have been from the story alone. The impeccable Charles Laughton, a two-time best actor winner, here an aging attorney recovering from a near fatal heart attack, agrees to defend Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) in a murder case, in spite of the fact that his wife, Marlene Dietrich, is going to be a witness for the prosecution. Dietrich turns in one of her best dramatic performances, relying on acting in this film, not her beauty nor her sultry singing.

Though not one of Wilder's best (perhaps a little too 'Hollywood'), such as Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot (perhaps if it had started with an 's'), or The Apartment, it's still a very good mystery, and a good courtroom drama, and Wilder's only work with Laughton or Dietrich. Fans of Christie, or Laughton, who was one of the best actors ever on film, will not be disappointed.

Nominated for 6 Oscars® (Picture, director, actor for Laughton, supporting for Elsa Lanchester, who won the Golden Globe), 5 Golden Globes, and 5 other awards, and ranked #129 on the IMDB top 250, with a rating of 8.4, the same as I gave it - not quite as high for me as And Then There Were None.

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, The Fortune Cookie.

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And Then There Were None

René Clair, 1945, bw (8.6*)
This would have to be considered the definitive film of any Agatha Christie mystery novel. Other than changing the ending (yes!), the rest of this black and white classic is very close to her original novel Ten Little Indians (the title was changed to be more 'politically correct').

Ten seemingly random people, including a judge and a doctor, are invited to a remote island as guests of a mysterious Mr. U.N. Own (unknown, get it?). The island appears deserted, and a recording is played at dinner from the missing host, accusing them each of murder. Immediately, one of them is dead, and the game has begun. The guests begin to die one by one, while the remaining guests each accuse each other of being the killer, perhaps even the missing host.

Of course, if you know Christie, then you know the plot hinges usually on one unexpected twist that the reader (filmgoer in this case) will guess about until revealed at the end. This was one of the best of her novels (The Murder of Roger Akroyd being the other), and her fans and mystery fans in general will enjoy this film, even if their suspicions are correct.

The cast includes Oscar winners Walter Huston and Barry Fitzgerald, and also veteran character actors Misha Auer, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Roland Young, Louis Hayward, and Judith Anderson. This won best film at the 1946 Locarno Film Festival, it's only award.

There's actually a newer updated version from Russia, made in 1987. Some say it's more faithful to the novel, including the original ending; others say it's more ponderous and the subtitling gets out of sync.


Another good filming of a Christie novel is Billy Wilder's Witness For the Prosecution, which we will review later.

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Lone Star

John Sayles, 1996 (9.1*)

Excellent crime mystery is my favorite film of indie director John Sayles, who first came to prominence with the laid back indie reunion film The Return of the Seacaucus Seven. The strong point of this film is Sayle's terrific screenplay, which never feels contrived or manipulative. He manages to create a series of subplots and character depth that never overwhelms the main story. This film is nearly flawless in its execution.

Chris Cooper [photo below] is excellent as sheriff Sam Deeds, called in to investigate a decades old crime and corpse recently unearthed. The more he gets into the details of the crime, the more personal the story becomes. Sayles deftly shifts from the present story to the story of the past murder. Along the way Sayles manages to comment on many social issues, notably racism, politics, patriotism, inter-generational alienation, duty, and personal ethics.

The relationships seem realistic, the dialogue is concise and never strained, the messages never hammered home. Chris Cooper [photo below] became an acting star in this film, imo, and later won a supporting actor Oscar® for Adaptation (He's won 23 acting awards overall). The excellent cast also includes Elizabeth Pena, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey and Frances McDormand. Lone Star won 12 awards overall
Note: If you like this film, it would make an excellent Texas crime trilogy with the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men (2007, Oscar for best picture), and Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005). Another good film in the same locale is The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982) from director Robert M. Young

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Gorky Park

Michael Apted, 1983 (8.1*)
A homicidal puzzle turns into a Cold War mystery in this entertaining spy thriller. William Hurt plays a Russian detective, who is baffled by three bodies discovered in Moscow's public Gorky Park, which have had their faces removed to prevent identification.

In the course of his investigation he discovers that the upper levels of government are stonewalling his efforts - it seems that he may have uncovered an uncomfortable conspiracy. He crosses paths with mysterious American businessman Lee Marvin, who has a few skeletons in his closet, even if he's not responsible for these murders. Joanna Pacula provides the proper eye candy and romantic interest, while Brian Dennehy provides his particular brand of homicidal bravado (he was a real assassin in Vietnam, often killing targets with a knife).

Maybe not a bona fide classic, but still a better mystery than most that are filmed nowdays, and one with some unique and unforgettable images, especially toward the film's climax. If you enjoy all these new forensic investigative police drama, here's one that takes place in Russia, and in a large-budget film with a couple of previous Oscar® winners in Hurt and Marvin.

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Birth

Jonathan Glazer, 2004 (8.2*)
One of the more interesting romances in all of film. Nicole Kidman plays a young wife whose husband is out jogging one morning and suffers a sudden fatal heart attack. While still recovering a decade later and with no new love, a young boy comes into her life who knows intimate personal details of her love life, and he claims to be the reincarnation of her dead husband.

This is one of the more compelling and unique mystery films of the decade due to the understated tone maintained throughout the film. The entire story is made credible thanks to an amazing performance by young Cameron Bright as the young Sean. Kidman is excellent as usual, and her penchant for choosing interesting and creative screenplays remains intact here. Lauren Becall, Anne Heche, and Arliss Howard all have small supporting roles.

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Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck, 2007 (8.4*)
Well, he may not be much of an actor, but dang if Ben Affleck didn't turn out to be a pretty good director. This is a mystery thriller in the Hitchcockian film noir tradition, and pretty well directed for a debut effort.

This story is about a missing girl, a lack of progress by law enforcement, and the dogged determination of Ben's private detective brother Casey Affleck, who doesn't really act much (which may be a good thing), stars as a man determined to use detection and knowledge of the streets to find the truth. The pace is pretty well maintained, the cast is competent, not exceptional, but does include Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

It's apparent that Ben's talent lies behind the camera, and hopefully he makes more tightly crafted crime mysteries, there are so few that are well done these days. A more recently directed effort is The Town, from 2010, another crime film.
Winner of 19 awards overall..

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Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir, Australia, 1975 (8.6*)
Moody and at times surreal, this is based on a true story around the turn of the last century when a group of Australian schoolgirls disappeared while on a simple country outing. Master Australian director Peter Weir made his mark with this spellbinding, small, and austere film. It's a great example of doing a lot with a little, without letting the director or process interfere with the story itself.

Weir always makes films worth seeing, such as Fearless, Witness, Dead Poet's Society, Mosquito Coast, and Master and Commander. In this small gem, many think he made his finest film. It's certainly one of his most unique.

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The Usual Suspects

Bryan Singer, 1995 (9.1*)
Told in flashback form in this brilliant Oscar®-winning script by Christopher McQuarrie, this is a crime story like none other. A witness, Oscar®-winner Kevin Spacey, is a lone survivor to a gang massacre at a dockside ship, and he tells a harrowing tale to police detective Chazz Palmentieri.

The story begins with a lineup which gathers together five career criminals, aka 'the usual suspects', which allows them to plot a major heist together, and it is this story we learn in the tale told by Spacey. The excellent cast makes this story a gripping mystery - Kevin Pollack, Gabriel Byrne, Benecio del Toro, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin play the criminals, with Palmentieri and Dan Hedaya the detectives.

This is a creative and unique story that you won't easily forget, with twists you can't see coming, and this film is now permanently entrenched in the crime hall of fame. Now #25 on the IMDB top 250, rated by viewers.

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Sleuth

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972 (8.1*)
This engaging mystery play by Anthony Shaffer becomes an acting tour-de-force for it's two stars, Laurence Olivier, as a man whose wife is having an affair with a younger man, and Michael Caine, as the wife's lover. Olivier invites Caine to his home for a drink and what follows is an intellectual game of oneupmanship as the two battle wits in what is perhaps the best performances of each actor as they skillfully play off each other and the incisive repartee.

You could call this an experimental play, as it's an all dialogue piece for two actors, and it's underlying uniqueness is also perhaps it's major weakness. Rather lengthy at nearly three hours, if one tires of the one room setting or the voices of Olivier and Caine, then there's really no escape within the film. However, there are enough twists in the plot puzzle to keep more mental movie fans riveted throughout as the film is basically a crime mystery.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz is the brilliant director of 1950's best picture and director winner All About Eve, which also featured two actors sparring throughout, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter but also a terrific supporting cast.

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Winter's Bone

Debra Granik, 2010 (9.4*)
Grand Jury Award, Sundance
Excellent southern gothic story, being called 'film noir', about a teenage girl hunting for her dad, who has disappeared before a court appearance after putting up their Ozark mountain shack and land for a bail bond. Since he's a meth cooker, many feel that he's either fled to avoid prison, or has been fed to some pigs. The film hinges on the terrific breakthrough performance by Jennifer Lawrence, nominated for many acting awards this year.

Jennifer gives a touching performance as a girl, Rolly Dee, who has to take care of two younger siblings who don't get enough to eat. She teaches them how to survive without her, typical backwoods skills like hunting and cleaning squirrels for dinner. To complicate matters, her mother is now catatonic and is still at home. This is a rough life that is all too typical all over the south; in fact, this is so close to my Georgia mountain homeland that it's almost unbearable.

Terrific indie actor John Hawkes is perfect as her uncle, who provides the only real adult support that she gets. Even more memorable is actress Dale Dickey [photo rt] as a scary distant relative who warns her not to come around their place anymore, as many who visit the meth dealers domain don't leave.

Already a winner of 10 awards, with 27 nominations, including the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Winter's was directed and co-written by Debra Granik [photo lt], who has a wonderful touch with keeping the story and the actors understated, which adds to the realism and therefore the story's impact. In upcoming ceremonies, Winter's Bone is also nominated for 7 Indie Spirit awards, including best feature, director, actress, screenplay, supporting actor and actress - and 7 Satellite awards. It should receive some Oscar® nominations, if justice is served: picture, director, screenplay, actress for Lawrence, and supporting actress for Dickey. The film has a rating of 90/100 at Metacritic, which compiles critics ratings - this would place it in the all-time top 100. Lawrence is being compared to Streep, and Granik to Kathryn Bigelow.

Update: Winter's Bone received Oscar® nominations for best picture, actress (Lawrence), adapted screenplay, and supporting actor (Hawkes)

Young Jennifer Lawrence in a breakthrough performance

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Mystic River

Clint Eastwood, 2003 (8.6*)
This is another riveting movie from director Clint Eastwood, one of his best. Sean Penn plays a distraught father whose daughter is murdered, and his emotionally powerful performance won him his first Oscar® for best actor. Tim Robbins is also excellent in a supporting role, and also won an Oscar®. The fact that each one turned in the performance of their careers is likely due to the directing of Eastwood.

It's hard to describe this film very much without giving away too much. Suffice to say that it's a homicide mystery with a terrific cast overall, and due to the emotionally charged performances, it's one of the better films of this genre in recent years. Eastwood really hit his stride after 2000, directing arguably his best works, beginning with this film.

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Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly, 2001 (8.4*)
This version is the longer director's cut
Welcome to a "Harvey" from hell. Disturbed teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) doesn't get along too well with anyone in his hellish life. His one friend is Gretchen, who, for some reason, agrees to date him. His psychiatrist discovers hypnosis can help unlock his secrets.

Donnie survives a bizarre accident, perhaps due to supernatural events, which of course will change anyone's life. His ally seems to be an imaginary rabbit named "Frank", which in this case is not quite so harmless and comical as Jimmy Stewart's friend. It sometimes causes him to do not quite the right thing.

This fantasy, bordering on science fiction, is also a mystery, a combination which has made it a cult favorite. Penned by director Kelly, it is a unique vision in recent cinema.

Currently #132 on the IMDB top 250 films, rated 8.3 (not sure I'd rank it this high, but it does have a cult following by now; the highest ranked film at IMDB has a rating of 9.2, because these are the averages of tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers, with 10 the top rank that can be given)

Winner of 11 awards out of 21 nominations, from film critics and festivals.

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