You may be wondering if I’m talking about the book or the HBO series. Well, I read the book first, so the TV show paled in comparison, as is usually the case. I was optimistic at first, mostly because of the glowing reviews and comparisons to Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson undoubtedly won the hearts of purists and lovingly captured the spirit of the books. Unfortunately, the Game of Thrones TV series falls short of this benchmark. It’s not terrible, but not awesome either, the way LOTR inspired awe.

The screenwriters obviously took great delight in exaggerating and extrapolating on certain scenes and themes in the novel. It seems like there is some sort of mandate at HBO to maximize on vulgarity and shock value. I’m sure some people get a kick out of this, but if you’ve read the book first, it all seems so unnecessary.

As for the book, I can only say that it’s rooted in political intrigue without being mired down in politics. The characters are well fleshed out, but nothing genre-bending. I like long epic stories with many interwoven plot lines, and this exactly is what you get here. Perhaps my only real complaint is that the few brief battle scenes are often told through second-hand accounts instead of diving first-hand into the action.

I’ve just finished reading Clash of Kings as well, and there is a lot to enjoy so far in the Song of Ice and Fire series. I can’t say I’m looking forward to a mangling of this excellent second book on TV though. Not that I won’t watch it anyway.

Warning: this is not a movie for angry nerds. If you ponder over the concepts of multiple dimensions and consciousness and that sort of esoteric stuff more deeply, the purist in you will start to bristle. And don’t even start to go down the road of analyzing why a movie called Source Code has nothing to do with late nights coding in C+ at your Linux box. That said, this movie is such a wild romp through quasi-temporal what-ifs that you’ll soon forget these half-baked concepts.

Source Code is basically Groundhog Day on acid, except instead of Bill Murray, we have Russel Peters. Yes, you heard me, Russel “Somebody’s-gonna-get-hurt-real-bad” Peters has an excellent cameo in this flick. But the hero leading the charge through all the deja-vu moments is aptly played by Jake Gyllenhall, whose portrayal of a desperate soldier is wonderfully tempered with a bumbling humanistic quality.

I love movies in the vein of The Butterfly Effect and Momentum, so Source Code had me at “multiple dimensions” (although, as the inventor of the Source Code emphatically iterates: It’s not time travel, it’s time re-assignment). The director’s previous effort, Moon, was also a mind-bending look at an individual isolated by bizarre circumstances and trying to find out the truth of it all. I’d say he injected more adrenaline into this effort and has come up with a snappy and engaging thriller that is a must-see. Oh, and I loved the ending. 5/5 stars ]]> http://wordbit.freehostia.com/source-code-review/feed/ 0 http://wordbit.freehostia.com/my-review-of-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/ http://wordbit.freehostia.com/my-review-of-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:23:44 +0000 http://wordbit.freehostia.com/my-review-of-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/

I’m a little late to the party, but I finished reading this Swedish crime thriller last night. It’s been on the best seller lists for a while and thought I would give it a go. The story centres on a downtrodden journalist, Mikael Blomkvist as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a girl who went missing 40 years earlier. He gets some help from the gothic, autistic, troubled, grown up Pippi Longstocking character, Lisbeth Salander. She’s the one with the dragon tattoo by the way.

The title doesn’t have anything to do with the story. In fact, the original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women, which is a far more accurate description of a story populated with sadists, rapists, serial killers, and a combination of those. But that all comes later. Most of the first three quarters of the book is filled with a languorous stroll through textual analysis of old documents, family trees, aging photographs, and red herring interviews punctuated by the anarchy and violence of Lisbeth’s story. There’s also a vendetta against a banker mafia thrown in there.

This translation is crisp and uses sparse, yet vivid English. There is no miring in waffling prose here – the author cuts straight to it but still gives us plenty of atmosphere and tension. The balance between character development and action was perfect for me, but I could see some action-junkie readers starting to drift off if they expect a car chase or shootout on every page (there is only one of each of these in the whole book). Overall, this was a great read and I’m looking forward to the next two books, which are part of the Millennium Trilogy.