Never Mind Pop Film

The Descendants What it's likely to get nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor What I'd like it to be nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor

Alexander Payne has nailed the zeitgeist of the past decade and seemingly touched off again with this new one. The tale of one man's grief while pulling his family back together was the right amount of heart without reaching into the saccharin bag that too many films resort to.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
What it's likely to get nominated for: Best Actress, Editing, Score
What I'd like it to be nominated for: Best Actress, Best Director
We're in a reversal from last year where The King's Speech was almost the only feel good splendor in the field. This year Dragon Tattoo is the juxtaposed film against heart-warmers like The Artist, The Descendants, War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Daring the Academy to come out of the closet regarding their genre fetishism may prove too stron…

David Fincher doesn't need great source material to turn in celluloid excellence: The Social Network proved that if one does than something great will occur, but the originalDragon Tattoo novels are not such material.
The Swedish adaptation left me feeling cold back in 2009, but given Fincher's track record, I felt like I owed this film a shot. When the opening scene of the film opens with Vanger's phone call, I started to get antsy, is this going to be a shot-for-shot redux? No. No, it's not, the pulsing opening credits scored to Karen O's "The Immigrant Song" made me quite aware of that.
Harriet Vanger has been missing for the better part of forty years, given that piece of information the fact that Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) keeps receiving portraits from his niece is disconcerting. Enter Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). Facing a major libel suit and perhaps jail time, the last thing the journalist wants to do is add another opportunity to be…

It was mentioned online a few months ago, but we finally have it. The eight minute trailer for David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

In other 'Dragon Tattoo' news the Karen O cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" is available on iTunes and a 35 minute sampler of the soundtrack is below.

Still no release date, track names, or anything really, but we have the cover art now. And the soundtrack is still by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross so it will be worth the wait.

(Courtesy: The Playlist)

The muted tones of the latest posters are interesting, but could we get some color? Maybe even the trademark Fincher yellow?
(Courtesy: Imp Awards)

Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara seem to have made their characters their own breathing actualizations of Mikael and Lisbeth. The color palette ranges from amber-ish flashbacks to the cold stark winters of Sweden. And Christopher Plummer... could someone get this man a goddamn Oscar already?!

Full poster after the jump. Similar to last year's Social Network poster, but the story is in what you don't see. I don't know if this is ultimately all for a Best Picture push, though if it isn't then we still have this wonderful art.

(Courtesy: Mouth Taped Shut)

I'm a big fan of viral marketing, always have been. So when reports came out that David Fincher was releasing an additional trailer attached to a screening of Straw Dogs it seemed like a great idea. Then it came out the trailer was eight minutes long. Which given that 'Dragon Tattoo' isn't that heavy on plot may be a bad idea.


Here are /Film's Peter Scirreta's thoughts on the footage he saw:

The trailer is awesome. While some two minute trailers completely ruin an entire movie, this 8-minute piece gives you enough to understand the story but not so much that you feel like you’ve seen it all. Somehow it feels like just an enticing appetizer — a teaser trailer. So if you’re afraid of watching this if it is ever released more publicly, don’t be.


The look and tone is very sterile yet moody — a feel I would compare to Se7en, but shot on an updated version of the RED cameras that Fincher used to shoot The Social Network.

Now before you go buying a ticket to Straw Dogs t…

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Taut thrillers have been left by the wayside in recent years - action films and rom-coms are more sure investments - but here, a prize one, has been placed right into our laps. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) has been tasked with finding a mole in his agency. When men start dying the stakes cannot be higher. But who can you trust?
Drive Stuntman by day, criminal by night. Everything comes easy to (Gosling), whether it be flipping a car at exactly the right moment, or escaping hordes of police cars, nothing really frightens him. So when a score goes horribly awry, the adrenaline kicks in and the man paid to run goes on the prowl.
The Ides of March The cast alone should convince you to purchase a matinee ticket. Clooney, Gosling, Hoffman, Giamatti. Running for President is treacherous. The only thing more treacherous is ambition. When idealistic aide (Gosling) is convinced he can become a Kingmaker to charismatic (Clooney) a sure thing quickly unravels and everyon…

Damn you, David Fincher. I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and was left cold. Noomi Rapace did what she could, the supporting cast could have been carved out of a coffee table and it was a chore to sit through. Enter one of the best directors of the past two decades and now I'm curious. Fincher seems to be back in his Se7en/The Game punk mode and the trailer reflects that.

The leaked trailer - which might or might not a studio effort - leaves me anticipating more. Which is more than I could have ever expected after hating the original.

The Men Who Hate Women would have been more fitting.

Here's your look at Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig and David Fincher on the set of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo set in Sweden. If I didn't know that the picture on the left is Rooney Mara I would've never guessed that it was her.

Few books cause a worldwide fervor and so instantly see themselves made into films. Gone with the Wind, The Godfather are other members of this class, but none have had such a dark tone. Steig Larsson managed to capture a zeitgeist with his tale of a journalist and hacker fighting against Neo-Nazis to solve a decades-old-crime.

Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has been offered a great deal of money by respected industrialist Henrik Vanger to inspect the disappearance of his niece, who has been gone for forty years. The job offer would come across as odd if Mikael weren't currently disgraced after a libel suit went against him.

Still, Harriet's disappearance peaks Mikael's curiosity. He takes the elder Vanger on his deal, but Henrik's job offer comes with a warning: he will have to investigate the other members of the Vanger clan.

Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) makes her living on the outskirts of society. A computer hacker by trade, she trades in formal dress wear and a cub…