The Woman In Black

DIRECTOR:
James Watkins
PRODUCER:
Richard Jackson, Simon Oakes & Brian Oliver.
CAST:
Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Cripps.

Ciarán Hinds as Sam Daily, a local landowner

Janet McTeer as Elizabeth Daily, Daily’s wife

Sophie Stuckey as Stella Kipps, Arthur’s wife

Misha Handley as Joseph Kipps, Arthur’s son

Liz White as Jennet Humfrye, The Woman in Black

Daniel Cerqueira as Keckwick, the carriage drive
Tim McMullan as Jerome, the local solicitor

Aoife Doherty as Lucy Jerome, Jerome’s daughter

Roger Allam as Mr Bentley, senior partner of Kipps’ firm

Victor McGuire as Gerald Hardy, a villager

Alexia Osborne as Victoria Hardy, Hardy’s daughter

David Burke as PC Collins, village constable

Ashley Foster as Nathaniel Drablow, The Woman in Black’s son

Jessica Raine as Joseph’s Nanny

BASED ON THE BOOK OF SAME NAME BY SUSAN HILL

THE PLOT:
A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.
THE REVIEW:
A wonderful enjoyable scarily exciting movie. The director has managed to bring an old supernatural movie to screen without making many changes.
He has made changes, but good ones. He has also managed to brig out the dark spooky-ness and the supernatural element of Susan Hill’s Book. The movie keeps you on the edge while watching it. Just when you think nothing is going to happen, something does.

The creepiness described in the book is hard to bring to the screen. The main horror element is the sounds of foot steps that is heard in the house in the swamp.

It was a little strange to see the kid who played Harry Potter come, play a person with a dead wife and a son. The movie is scary in all the right places. The Woman in Black is a kind of movie which scares the audience with creaking floor boards, distant figures, silhouettes and shadows in the window. This type of movie is rarely seen these days except in the Paranormal Activity series.

FINAL VERDICT:
A scarily awesome movie with a great cast and an awesome director who has brought to screen a traditional story to please the modern audiences.
8/10

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (English) *Spoiler-free*

Directed by David Fincher
Produced by Søren Stærmose, Ole Søndberg, Scott Rudin & Ceán Chaffin.
Screenplay by Steven Zaillian
Based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson.

The Cast:

Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist
Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander
Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger
Stellan Skarsgård as Martin
Robin Wright as Erika Berger
Yorick van Wageningen as Nills Bjurman
Joely Richardson as Anita Vanger
Goran Višnijć as Dragan Armansky
Steven Berkoff as Dirch Frode

The Plot:

Henrik Vanger employs libel-ist, Mikael Blomkvist, to search for the killer of his grand-niece Harriet Vanger. Mikael in turn employs Lisbeth to help him in the case. Henrik believes that the killer is one of the family members.

The Review:
IGN and DenofGeek were right. This is the most un-Hollywood movie I’ve ever seen. Daniel Craig’s Blomkvist and Rooney Mara’s Salander were so much better than Michael Nyqvists’ Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace’s Salander.
The movie is true to the book.
David Fincher has left out Lisbeth’s mother in the movie (She is not very important in the movie but just wanted to inform the readers).
The movie is not different from the book. David has centred the story more around Lisbeth itself. He has omitted out the useless characters of her mother and her non-hacker friends. David Fincher has made Martin better than the Martin in book. One major issue was that he has reduced the suspect pool for Harriet murder from the whole family to only Henrik, Martin and Dirch Frode. Harold, Isabella an Cecelia are not focused on at all. That just ruins the fun little bit. Not much but little. He doesn’t play around with the other characters.
Lisbeth, in the movie is more of a badass than in the book. She fights with the Laptop Thief. She also confronts her new guardian Nills Bjurman after tattooing him. Lisbeth, in the movie runs Martin off the road instead of him deliberately running into incoming traffic.
One very good thing Fincher has done was to make change the ending of the movie. This makes that movie even more exciting for the people to watch. As those who have read the book would not be expecting this.
Fincher’s take on the dark novel is much more darker. I throughly enjoyed being immersed into the movie. This movie is so much better and true to the book yet not a complete copy of the book. It’s a good balanced movie. It’s is much better than the Swedish version.
Nills Oplev, the director of the Swedish version, said “Why would they remake something when they can just go see the original?”. Well I think he hasn’t seen this movie nor his own. Or he has utterly lost his mind because this is so much better than his version.
Also, he took his own sweet time in getting Lisbeth into the search (1 hr 15 mins). He gave us enough time to absorb the intensity of the plot.

I’ve read the book and seen the Swedish version. Now I’m comparing them and finding out that the David Fincher version is better. He has removed the part where Henrik tells Mikael that Harriet tool care of him when he was a kid. And he hasn’t given Mikael any jail time.

Final Verdict:

A awesomely Dark and thrilling mystery which is true to the book yet not a complete copy of it. David Fincher is a genius. Very very rarely movie ls adapted from books, are better that the book it self.This is one of them. Its just one point ahead of the book. But sadly he reduced the suspect pool. So…. 8.5/10.

Quotes:

Henrik Vanger: You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet – my family.

Mikael: Henrik promised me Wennerström’s carcass on a plate. This is not even the plate.

My review for the Swedish Version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

*Note: This review was posted on 6th February at 20:27.. The time is a reference to Leviticus quote:

“A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you, must be put to death by stoning.”

The Spoiler filled review.

Ringer Season 1 Episode 11 “It Just Got Normal”

Created by Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder.

The Cast:
Sarah Michelle Geller as Bridget Kelly/ Shioban Martin.
Ioan Gruffudd as Andrew Martin
Kristoffer Polaha as Henry Butler
Nestor Carbonell as FBI Agent Victor Machado
Zoey Deutch as Juliet Martin
Zahn McClarnon as Bodaway
Justin Bruening as Tyler

The Story So Far…..
Bridget Kelly and Shioban Martin are twin sisters who share the same face. Bridget is running away from a Mob boss and goes to her sister Shioban for help. There Shioban commits suicide and Bridget takes the life of her sister. But she doesn’t know that her sisters life is as bad as hers.
While in Paris Shioban is still alive and is plotting to kill Bridget. In Paris she befriends Tyler. Later we find out that he works for Martin/Charles, her husbands company. In Paris he pays for her Room in the hotel. Tyler travels back to America to meet with Andre Martin. There he meets Bridget as Shioban and thinks that his Shioban has come to America.
Meanwhile, Malcolm gets kidnapped by Bodaway and is given drugs. He runs to Bridget for help. Bridget befriends Charlie a Sponsor for Narcotics Anonymous. He actually turns out to be Shioban’s man. Whom she has planted in Bridget’s life.
Shioban, before going to Paris was actually having an affair with Henry, her best friend, Gemma’s Husband. Bridget breaks it off. Later in the series, Gemma is kidnapped and Malcolm suspects its Charlie.
In Episode 10, Charlie kills Gemma, though Shioban warns him against it. She then kills him.

The Story of Episode 11:
Bridget hosts a fundraising event that her friend Greer is holding for Juliet’s school and learns that Greer knew one of Siobhan’s deep dark secrets. Back in New York, Siobhan finds out that Bridget has settled into her former life more easily than Siobhan had expected, and she is determined to change that. Meanwhile, Malcolm accepts and offer to work for Andrew at Martin/Charles so that he can keep an eye on him, and Henry mourns Gemma’s death.

The Review:
A very creepy and awesome episode. What I like about it is the creepy twin encounter at the beginning of the episode that leads in to an awesome close of the episode. The best episode in the season so far. Can’t wait for the twelfth episode. Which comes next week. Sadly I won’t be providing a review for it as the season finale for my blog is on 6th of February.
Sarah Michelle Gellers return to TV was just brilliant. Hope this continues.