MOVIE - The Girl in the Spider's Web

R

Wide/Limited release

Viewed Monday 11/19/18 at Carlisle in a recliner...by myself....
IMBd:  6.1/10

RT Critic: 41   Audience:  46
Critic's Consensus:  The Girl in the Spider's Web focuses on the action elements of its source material for a less complex -- and only sporadically effective -- franchise reboot.

Cag:  3/Liked it somewhat

Directed by Fede Alvarez

Columbia Pictures

Based on the book by Steig Larson/David Lagercrantz

Claire Foy

My comments:  There were so many improbabilities and unreasonable happenstances in this movie that it became more than ludicrous.  However, if you didn't think about all of them, it was and enjoyable couple of hours.....  The actress that played Lisbeth Salander did NOT do it for me.  At all.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Young computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.

PICTURE BOOK - Karl, Get Out of the Garden: Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything by Anita Sanchez

Illustrated by Catherine Stock

2017, Charlesbridge

48 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.05 - 37 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  brown sketches of plants and animals on white

1^st line/s: "Karl Linne was in the garden again.  He just wouldn't stay out of it!"

My comments: 

This picture book, perfect for elementary age kids and a great introduction to classification in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade, is interesting and informative. I had no ideas that the classification system was created by a Swedish young man who had a love for flowers and became a college professor - in the early to mid 1700s. Fascinating! Excellent book. Includes an afterward, easy explanation of how the classification works, a timeline, and resource list.

Goodreads:  Do you know what a Solanum caule inermi herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incises, racemis simplicibus is?*
          Carolus (Karl) Linnaeus started off as a curious child who loved exploring the garden. Despite his intelligence--and his mother's scoldings--he was a poor student, preferring to be outdoors with his beloved plants and bugs. As he grew up, Karl's love of nature led him to take on a seemingly impossible task: to give a scientific name to every living thing on earth. The result was the Linnaean system--the basis for the classification system used by biologists around the world today. Backyard sciences are brought to life in beautiful color.
          Back matter includes more information about Linnaeus and scientific classification, a classification chart, a time line, source notes, resources for young readers, and a bibliography.

10. Still Waters by Viveca Sten

(Sandhamm #1)
Listened on Audible
Translated from Swedish
2015 Amazon Crossing
387 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 2/22/17
Goodreads rating: 3.64 (5255 ratings)
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Sandhamm Island, Sweden

My comments: This was translated from Swedish and is the first in a series of eight.  The first two have been translated but it doesn't look like the last six have been.  This was a good mystery, which I was very much in the mood for.  Set on one of the islands in the archipelago off Stockholm, Sweden, the story is told from two different perspectives, two adults who have been best friends since childhood.  Thomas Andreasen is a Stockholm cop.  Nora Linde is a mom and lawyer, married to a self-centered doctor.  Nora helps Thomas solve the mystery much more than any "friend" in the US would ever be allowed to do.  I would've been happy with a little less of Nora's life and problems with more focus on just the meat and potatoes of the mystery.  So I guess I liked 60% (the setting and mystery) of the book and didn't so much like 40% (the chick-lit parts) of the book..

Goodreads synopsis:  On a hot July morning on Sweden’s idyllic vacation island of Sandhamn, a man takes his dog for a walk and makes a gruesome discovery: a body, tangled in fishing net, has washed ashore.          
          Police detective Thomas Andreasson is the first to arrive on the scene. Before long, he has identified the deceased as Krister Berggren, a bachelor from the mainland who has been missing for months. All signs point to an accident—until another brutalized corpse is found at the local bed-and-breakfast. But this time it is Berggren’s cousin, whom Thomas interviewed in Stockholm just days before.          
          As the island’s residents reel from the news, Thomas turns to his childhood friend, local lawyer Nora Linde. Together, they attempt to unravel the riddles left behind by these two mysterious outsiders—while trying to make sense of the difficult twists their own lives have taken since the shared summer days of their youth.

Postcards from Sweden

2075.  Vatterledin, Sweden

Hello greetings from Sweden.  This road is next to me and is considered the most beautiful road.

794.  Sweden

This is the map of the south part of Sweden.  Regards.

577.  SWEDEN

“Bookbinding of Christoffer Schneidler (1721-1787), Stockholm, Sweden. The book: F.Kahl "Christliche Betrachtugen"”
Sept. 11, 2016 - A strange day...This day is in my thoughts both in your country, but also in mine.  2003 our minister, Anna Lindh, got murdered.  Both two historical sad memories for Sweden.  Taila

20. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

#1 Millenium Trilogy
translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland
13 unabridged cds whilst driving back & forth from work and around town when not in work...
2005 Knopf
 465 pgs.
Very adult Murder Mystery
Finished
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating:5
Setting: Sweden, starts in Stockhilm,but mostly on the coast more up north

First line/s:  "It happened every year, was almost a ritual.  And this was his eighty-second birthday.  When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then  picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morrell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna."

My comments: Oh my, I'm SO glad I read this.  I've seen both versions of the movie - totally enjoying them both - but the book was incredibly different, more so than the usual book-to-movie translations.  Unsettling, yes.  Thought-provoking, yes.  A twisting-turning-terrible mystery to solve, yes.  I loved being able to get into Salander's head, even if it was only a little and only for short amounts of time.  I can't wait to read the next one! (Which I'll probably listen to, because the narrator was wonderful.)

Goodreads synopsis:  Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there's always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

MOVIE - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

MOVIE - The Girl Who Played With Fire

Mesmerizing - but not as good as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Released 7-9-10
R (2:09)
Sunday 8/22/10 with Shane at the Loft
RT: 66 cag: 88
Director: Daniel Alfredson
in Swedish with subtitles
from the book by Stieg Larsson
Noomi Rapace & Michael Nyqvist

Lisbeth Salander is implicated in three murders. She tries to figure out what's going on without any help, but slowly her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, puts clues together as well. She's such a loner....and for good reason. This story is entirely linked to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I can't imagine you'd know what was going on if you hadn't seen that first installment. It's exciting, interesting, and easy to follow. However, it didn't grab me up quite as much as the first one did. Still good, though.

There were several places that the subtitles were in white on such a light background that they couldn't be read. This was frustrating, and made you come out of your own mind to realize that you were reading along while watching a movie....you weren't part of it. Disconcerting.

MOVIE - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Wow. An incredible, topnotch movie.
Released 3-19-2010
R (2:34)
6-13-10 at the Loft
RT: 86% cag: Do I Dare Rate This as My Highest? 97%
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
In Swedish, with subtitles
From the book by Stieg Larsson

NOTE: There was some incredibly graphic violence in this movie that was extremely disburbing.

But, WHAT A MOVIE! Incredbile storytelling, fantastic acting, setting and tone and mood that just worked perfectly together. Within ten minutes I wasn't even realizing that I was reading subtitles. And since I come from a Swedish background, hearing the lilting accents, checking out the countryside, and even having one of the small towns included that are part of my own family history was pretty cool.

Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, was set up, charged with libel, and as the film begins, has been sentenced to six months incarceration. He has six months before he has to submit to this. So when a wealthy industrialist and CEO of a powerful family conglomerate hires him to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of his much-loved niece, Harriet, he takes on the job and moves to a cottage on the Vanger property in northern Sweden, away from the craziness of Stockholm.

Lisbeth Salander is a 24 year old computer hacker with lots of baggage, a trouble past, and a dozen reasons to be sullen. She has dozens of piercings, a huge tattoo on her back, and a cigarette constantly between her lips. Her new probation officer is a sexual predator that is one of the nastiest I've ever seen portrayed. But Lisbeth is smart. She retaliates. And since she was the researcher that helped put Mikael away, she realizes that he's innocent and keeps hacking into his harddrive to see what he's up to.

Well, the two stories come together when she joins him to help him investigate.

So we are really examing two scenarios - hers, and their investigation. What a story, so well told. This movie does it justice. I've heard talk they're going to do an American edition. Why? I don't think they could top this one.

I'm really glad I didn't read the book before I saw the movie. The suspense was wonderful. But NOW....I wanna read the book!