Tag Archives: David Fincher

Booze Revooze: A Drinker’s Skewed View of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]

From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: Karen O covering “The Immigrant Song”


[Press 'Play' for The Shit]

Ramblings: Draggin’ Tattoo

Final Proof:  3 Shots

You know how you get drunk with a journalist? Sure they know how to drink and they pound them back before you can blink, but their bar chatter doesn’t matter ’cause it’s nothing more than radio static when they give you the facts and nothing but the facts, man, the facts are cold and not all that hard, in fact. Maybe what would be cool would be a little life, a little feeling, something with more dimension than the page because if you want to get involved with this guy you’re gonna need something deeper than drink and juicier to sink your teeth into than just paper. More than just words. Unfortunately, words is all we get with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Lisbeth Gives Good Head-lines

The first thing they teach you in preschool fiction classes is “Wipe your ass when you take a dump”. The second, and ultimately less important lesson is, “Show, don’t tell.” Then it’s, “Write what yo know,” but right now i’m talking about rule number 2. This means it’s better to describe someone eating their own tongue because they’re just that hungry rather than saying, “He was rather peckish.”

Steig Larson did a good job of this in his books that i even read for once, but the problem is that when you read the books you’re like, oh my god that was intense because he shows (and not tells) his shit so well. Unfortunately, David Fincher thought if he showed the book then he’d do the same but movies don’t work like that. What zoomed by in the novels tripped up the script so that the movie fell on its face. Fincher knew the rules in Fight Club and Se7en but forgot about it for real by the time he got to Zodiac.

What “Fincher? I don’t even know her!” did, basically, was make a page by page movie of the book, which was good enough if you know how to read, but… Imagine a camera pointed at the page of a book and you have to read the page and then the director asks you if you’ve finished and when you have he turns the page.

Obviously the movie wasn’t that bad or else i wouldn’t have given it 3 shots. Fincher filmed flipping pages very stylistically. You know what the biggest problem i have is with this? The fucking opening credits with the song i tacked on up top were as cool as hell, but after that the movie was a lot of characters explaining their motivation for doing shit. i don’t want to hear them talk about shit, i want to watch them do it.

On the other hand, the casting was spot on, which makes sense if he’s doing a word by word version of the novel, but still, the people on screen are exactly the people i had in my head when i was sounding out the words for the big fat books. One interesting side effect of this was Rooney Mara, an American actress, speaking English with a Swedish accent because the movie takes place in Sweden. Either she should speak Swedish or normal English, right? i mean, Fincher is making a movie about Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, so is he going to have Tom Cruise (or whoever) act with a French accent?

The final problem with this movie was the pacing. After 2 hours of explaining everything in minute detail, Son-of-a-Fincher looked at his watch and realized he still had half the book left so he went directly from 1st to 5th gear and rushed to get everything in so fast it looked like War & Peace as a 2 minute music video shot by McG. Nah, the problem with this Tattoo is that i can’t get it off and it can’t get me off either.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 3 Shots

An interesting combination if you ask me because i’m a fan of skinny waifish types but not in the overly tattooed or heavily pierced (except Mrs D who has a very beautiful half sleeve and a couple tasteful piercings) and Rooney Mara goes both ways here.

Except the funky accent thing that i blame the director, Mara does a solid job as Lisbeth Salander. She invested a lot of herself in the role and came off as believable in the part which there was no way i was gonna believe before the first shots of her started dribbling out over the internet.

Here’s a mix of the before and the after.

Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

You know how i know she threw herself into the role? She went all naked and didn’t even care who cared. Naked in the shower, naked twice in two different sex scenes and especially the second one. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, i know how you are, but if you don’t you can check out inside my drawers at the bottom of this post for a NSFW poster of  The Girl with Dragon Tattoo. Because i’m all about equality in posting, there’s also a NSFW picture of Daniel Craig in the bathtub being cocky.

Before that, though, Robin Wright was generous enough to be in this movie and act so well i didn’t even recognize it was her until i  got back home because she looked so much like i’d imagined the character that i forgot it was an actress and not Erika Berger herself.

Something this Wright can’t be wrong.

Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

More shots of her in the drawers, straight down there.

You know who else i found in TGWTDT? Joely Richardson and i’m not even kidding. She was the wife in Nip/Tuck and there and here in Tattoo she was beautiful as she was talented and that’s saying a lot. Check it out…

Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

There are some très Joely pix of her in my drawers if you care enough to scroll down to the very best.

Silken Butterflies

Lucky for us there were a lot of Silken Butterflies in this bad girl and i’m thinking it’s because the movie was shot in Sweden and you can’t swing a dead snowman up there without getting a little of the white stuff on some random hottie (and i’m talking about snow, you pervs).

For example, we got Anna Björk as Young Isabella Vanger who did a very good job acting young or maybe it came naturally because she looks as good as all this.

Then, because they got Silken Butterflies galore in this movie, we get Mathilda von Essen as Young Anita Vanger and this is where you need to start counting your blessings they had gobs of “Young” parts in the movie. This is what we were blessed with, for example.

Not to leave anyone out, there was also a Frenchie babe in this! Her name is Elodie Yung (told you they had a lot of Yung parts) and she played Miriam Wu who is the hottie who played with Lisbeth Salander and we even got to see them in bed and naked (especially Rooney/Lisbeth) the morning after they hooked up in the bar for what started as a finger bang and led to a full fledged bed explosion they didn’t show until the next morning when Daniel Craig stopped by Lisbeth’s place. Here’s what sucked Lisbeth in.

Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

For those of you who are more into Tat than Ooze, there was Daniel Craig. Which goes something like this.

Danny Has A Package For You

Daniel Craig in the Bar None

There’s a collage in the drawers that includes a NSFW photo of Daniel Craig going off half cocked.

A Smoke

Drink: 3 Shots

i was kinda surprised by this. Most of the drinking was incidental and had nothing to do with the plot so normally i shouldn’t be all going up to 3 shots but the sheer volume of the drinking and the drinking references caused my cup to overfloweth.

  • Wine at post trial cocktail party
  • Scotch while old guy tells story of mystery
  • Wine for dinner that same evening
  • Lisbeth arrested for intoxication [reference]
  • Wine (claret) at Martin’s dinner party
  • Emptying two mini bottles of vodka into a double on the plane
  • Scotch in tall glasses before the fire
  • Frode drinks scotch
  • Many references to alcoholism in the family

A Smoke

Rock & Roll: 2 Shots


[Press 'Play' for more intense Catherine-O / Reznor remake action action.]

And the first one was a bitter shot.

i’m referring, of course, to the rape scene. Because “Ha Ha Made You” Finch made a movie of the book he filmed the rape scene and it’s easier for me to read rape because i don’t understand all the big words so i can distance myself from it. i hate rape, no, really hate it. i hate it more than most people is what i’m saying so i got really uncomfortable watching the rape scenes here, but i also like to watch revenge stories so the revenge part was cool when Lisbeth got revenge. But not the rape part. i dunno, maybe it would’ve been better if the rest of the movie had the same amount of violence but, as it was, the violence stuck out like a sore loser.

The second shot comes from the tuneage, which was freaky cool because i liked it a lot in the movie but then when i came home and found it on the net and borrowed it, i didn’t like it so much except for the first song (the Zeppelin cover i put at the top) and the last song, the cover of Bryan Ferry’s “Is Your Love Strong Enough” which is just up there ↑.

Boring Technical Crap

Written by: 

Stieg Larsson (novel Män som hatar kvinnor)

Steven Zaillian (screenplay)

Directed by: David Fincher

Starring

Rooney Mara – Lisbeth Salander
Robin Wright – Erika Berger
Joely Richardson – Anita Vanger
Anna Björk – Young Isabella Vanger
Mathilda von Essen – Young Anita Vanger
Elodie Yung – Miriam Wu
Daniel Craig – Mikael Blomkvist

Bottom Line

Go for it if you read the book and want to see what it looks like. If not, go and see the Swedish version and tell me how good it was.

Al K Hall’s Drawers

NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW-NSFW

Yes, there are some bare boobs and Daniel Craig going off half-cocked. Only go deeper if you want to go Daniel Craig’s balls deeper.

Continue reading

About these ads

Booze Revooze: A Drinker’s Skewed View of THE SOCIAL NETWORK

[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]

From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – A Familiar Taste


[Press 'Play' for proof that Reznor nails the mood]

Ramblings: Unlike

Final Proof: 3 Shots

You know you get drunk with a geek? He’s nice enough and super intelligent and saves you booze and money because he doesn’t drink all that much but he speaks in code and operates on a completely different program. Drinking with him is interesting and the conversation looks good on paper but the night’s missing the same thing the guy and his laptop are: heart. Technically, he’s OK but ends up a little 2-dimensional and even if you admire his technique, you leave the bar with the feeling he made nice wallpaper but lacked the depth to make your drive hard. Geeks have more brain than balls, is what it comes down to. That’s what it was like with The Social Network.

David Fincher is a good director, you can tell because i liked some of the movies he did like Fight Club, The Game, Se7en and Panic Room. Course he also did Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Unfortunately, rum to my head, i’d have to say that The Social Network falls into the latter category of movies that are, like computers, technically perfect but have CPUs where their guts should be. There’s not enough humanity in The Social Network to make me care about any of these people and that just makes seeing this movie like watching an internet slideshow of someone else’s vacation. Beautiful shots and well-executed but who cares?

Which is not to say i didn’t feel anything during the movie. i felt jealousy that some computer geek is the youngest billionaire in the world while i’m way cooler than he is but keep sliding off the poverty level. It’s almost like our society rewards intelligent go-getters instead of slacking drunk dreamers with great ideas and a 6-pack.

The actors did decent jobs, just like programs in this software package, and the movie ran smoothly without too many bugs and very few glitches. Still, are more applications and fewer basics too much to ask for?

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

To get you in the mood for this section, i got some White Stripes on tap in the juiced-box and from the soundtrack.


[Press 'Play' for The White Stripes - Ball and Biscuit, then keep reading for biscuits and balls]

Sex: 2 Shots

PG-13, need i say more? There was some good stuff, like co-eds kissing each other and stripping because they were bussed into a rich kids’ frat party and everyone knows if you’re a chick you’ll do anything as long as you can hang out with rich kids.

Also at the beginning we get to meet Erica Albright (played ever so deliciously by the beautiful and even more talented Rooney Mara) dumping Mark Zuckerberg (played ever so well by Jesse Eisenberg). She plays Zuckerberg’s muse, whose dumping him inspired him to greatness even if he never got over it. Just after the nuclear dumping, he goes back to his apartment and writes a program making it possible for students at Harvard to compare girls’ photos and the rest is history.

i like Rooney Mara and not just because she’s a 25-year-old hottie with a hot sister (27-year-old Kate Mara who i exposé here). She’s a 25-year-old hottie–with a hot sister–who can actually act. (Also, Miss Demeanor is convinced 47-year-old David Fincher is on that Road to Rooney which explains why he put her in here and also as the lead in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.) Here’s a tribute to Mara, to Mara, “i love ya” to Mara:

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

i got tons of Rooney down in my drawers; scroll down until you hit pay dirty.

Another recurring role is that of the lawyer Marylin Delpy and Rashida Jones (34) portrays her with a perfect amount of guarded compassion. Plus, she looks exactly this good. Oh yeah.

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

Plus i got drawer shots of her all up in my drawers down there.

The only other hot girl in a major role is ex-Disney (maybe, but this is my blog and if i say it with enough authority it’ll sound official enough to start a rumor) child starlette but now 22-year-old real babe Brenda Song, who plays Christy, controlling whack-job girlfriend of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Here’s Brenda Song, who can give me any kinda job she wants.

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

Yeah, yeah, i got more drawer shots of her for a Song.

There’s this one scene with Christy (Brenda Song) banging Eduardo Saverin (played competently by Andrew Garfield) in a bathroom stall with Mark Zuckerberg banging Alice in the next one. Here’s the gorgeous and talented young lady they gave the role of Zuckerberg’s first groupie to, Malese Jow (at the tender age of 19-years-old).

Silken Butterflies

Speaking of Silken Butterflies (and if you don’t know what that means all you have to do is click on the link up there, yo), there were buttloads of Silken Butterflies in this movie. Case in point is the splendid Dakota Johnson (21) who is not only a sometime model but also the byproduct of gene splicing Melanie Griffith with Don’s Johnson. She does a totally smoking job as Amelia Ritter, Napster founder Sean Parker’s (Justin Timberlake) one night stand who wears Stanford panties and introduces Parker to “The Facebook”. Here’s what happens when Don’s Johnson meets Melanie’s Griffith.

Drawer. Shots. Scroll. Down.

Remember how before i was talking about hot girls doing the nasty just to get into the rick kinds’ club? One of them was the very sweet looking Alecia Svensen, who seems way too sweet to be so 2-dimensional.

To save time, whaddya say we go through the rest of these alphabetically, by first name?

For example, there’s the magnificent red headed Marcella Lentz-Pope, who has a way too brief appearance as Erica’s roommate and is the one who gets to break the news to her that Zuckerberger blogged about her and made crass jokes about her breast size.

Drawers. Trust me.

After that there’s Mariah Bonner as Tori, a hottie who dates Sean Parker (who i already told you is played by Justin Timberlake). 

Blah blah blah blah blah drawers.

Wrapping up the Silken Butterflies is the 18-year-old Shelby Young. Who really is. She plays K.C., one of the friends of the rich crowd. She looks as good as this and has talent to back it up.

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

For those of you who prefer Hard-drives to Software, there’s Justin Timberlake (29) who appears as Napster creator and brains investor in Facebook (for example, we learn that Sean Parker is the one who had the idea to drop the article from the beginning of “the facebook”). Timbers did a solid job with the role, blending audacity and insecurity perfectly to create the complex contradiction that is the essence of human existence. (Shit, sorry, accidentally got a little sober on your asses.)

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

The dude who really impressed the hell out of me, though, is this guy called Armie Hammer and i really wonder if that’s his real name and his parents really named him after baking soda. (Ugh, just did more research than you’ll care to hear about…in a nutsack, “Armie” is really “Armand” and was named after his great grandfather, the philanthropist “Armand Hammer” who may, in fact have been named after the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.)

Way more interesting is the choice that Fincher made to cast one guy to play real life twins. Here’s a shot of the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, and some anonymous guy drinking a beer who’s not me.

So Fincher made the choice to use one guy to play both brothers and the bet paid off big time. Miss Demeanor and i were both shocked to learn that it was only one guy and not twins who played the role. So here’s what Armie-Man looks like.

In another bold and surprising move, Armie is the first guy i’ll let in my drawers and not just because he’s kinda cute and i’d pro’lly do him if i was drunk enough and he was wearing a scotch suit. Nope, it’s because there are so many Bar None shots i can use of him that i gotta put them somewhere and that’s just what the drawers were built for. Stay tuned and look out below.

A Smoke

Drink: 1 Shot

While alcohol wasn’t a key factor in the film, there was enough of it here that i gotta give it at least a solid 3 shots. Sure, it’s easy to spray your movie full of booze references when you’re talking about university aged kids in college and shit, but still…

From my notes, then:

  • Erica [Rooney Mara] with beer at the beginning. She doesn’t drink the beer. Age? [In fact, at 25, she is over legal drinking age.]
  • Tons of beer in the fridge and all over at the Final Club party
  • Mixed drinks and imported babes at the Final Club party
  • Whiskey at Final Club - Phoenix
  • Lots of college booze in apartments

  • Mark Zuckerberg is buzzed when he hacks Harvard’s computer and develops a program to compare coeds’ looks
  • In this same scene, he also blogs insults about Erica and she can never forgive him
  • Erica drinks wine later in the restaurant
  • At a restaurant with Sean Parker [Justin Timberlake], he asks the underage Christy [Brenda Song] what she’d like to drink and she nervously replies, “Appletinis”. To which Sean responds by telling the waitress, “We’ll have four of those,” much to Christy’s delight.
  • Drinking game interview where the candidates have to drink whiskey shots while hacking and the two who do the best win the internships
  • Cocktails in the trendy club in Cali

  • Champagne at rowing event
  • Homemade margaritas at house with facebook team
  • Party at house, teenage girls doing a good job of acting drunk

A Smoke

Rock & Roll: 2 Shots

Two shots and they’re all Trent Reznor, my patronizers. Yep, Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, did the soundtrack to this puppy along with some English guy named Atticus Ross (who programmed and/or produced a lot of Trent’s shit in the past). It’s not “Head Like A Hole” but it fits the tone of the movie perfectly.

i already gave you the sample up top, in the intro to this bad boy. Plus i hooked you up with The White Stripes before we got into the buzz kills. Polishing off this post like a five dollar hooker on her last knob of the night, here’s another song from the film and the juiced-box: The Beatles – Baby, You’re a Rich Man.


[Press 'Play' for a not so subtle reminder of Zuckerberg's status]

Boring Technical Crap

Written by:

Ben Mezrich (book The Accidental Billionaires)

Aaron Sorki (screenplay)

Directed by: David Fincher

Starring

Rooney Mara – Erica Albright

Rashida Jones – Marylin Delpy

Brenda Song – Christy

Malese Jow – Alice

Dakota Johnson – Amelia Ritter

Shelby Young – K.C.

Alecia Svensen – Girl at Phoenix Club

Marcella Lentz-Pope – Erica’s Roommate

Mariah Bonner – Tori

Jesse Eisenberg – Mark Zuckerberg

Andrew Garfield – Eduardo Saverin

Justin Timberlake – Sean Parker

Armie Hammer – Cameron Winklevoss / Tyler Winklevoss

Bottom Line

The Social Network is not so “social” and too much “network”. Still, you could see it for Reznor’s soundtrack and a lesson in the technical aspects of film making.

Al K Hall’s Drawers

Rooney Mara (25)

Rashida Jones (34)

Rashida Jones in the Bar None

Brenda Song (22)

Dakota Johnson (21)

Shelby Young (18)

Marcella Lentz-Pope

Mariah Bonner

Armie Hammer (24) in the Bar None

 

Jessica Stroup & Armie Hammer Deep Inside in the Bar None

Armie Hammer in the Bar None

Haven’t Had Your Fill of the Booze Revooze? Click here for another round.


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