personal development plans: Attention film lovers!!

Thought I'd just mention a couple of fillums that are out in the flicks this weekend that I reckon are gonna be well worth the inflated price of cinema tickets and popcorn and crap sweets.

The first is adapted from the best selling novel by Swedish writer Steig Larsson The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I read the book a few months ago and after a slightly slow start was gripped by half way through. It's a story about the nature of corruption and abuse, and it's hero, Lisbeth Salander, is surely the most original character for years. I be can't be bothered wrting a review of it so i'll just copy and paste what some other folks have said about it -

Stieg Larsson is the best Swedish crime writer of the decade - Kristianstadbladeta violently entertaining trilogy...may it never end - Arbetarbladet A huge, 500-plus-page opus, a multilayered, multi-character tale by a writer of some considerable power. Full of social conscience and compassion, with great insight into the nature of moral corruption, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo just knocked me out. During the time I had my nose stuck in its pages, I was thoroughly consumed by the work, and in those periods when I had to put the book down, I found myself grumpy and anxious to return to Larsson's narrative A... when I finally put the book down, I was still unable to sleep, my head filled with the high-definition world that this author has crafted A... already I'm thinking this could be remembered as the best crime novel of 2008 A... This book shows how exhilarating crime fiction can be.Ali Karim, The Rap Sheet website.http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-of-grand-larsson.html""A...a publishing sensation, an accomplished crime writer who seemingly came from nowhere A...a memorable debut and deserves most of the hype with which it is being published in this country A... Crime fiction has seldom needed to salute and mourn such a stellar talent as Larsson's in the same breath - Sunday TimesThe ballyhoo is fully justified...At over 500 pages this hardly sagged...The novel scores on every front - character, story, atmosphere - The TimesWhat a cracking novel! I haven't read such a stunning thriller debut for years. The way Larsson interweaves his two stories had me in thrall from beginning to end. Brilliantly written and totally gripping - Minette WaltersAs vivid as bloodstains on snow - and a perfect one-volume introduction to the unique strengths of Scandinavian crime fiction - Lee Child

I've read a couple of reviews of the film and that's supposed to very good too. It's a twisting weaving plot and it doesn't pull any punches with graphic scenes of violence/ torture/ rape. It's Swedish with English subtitles but don't let that put you off you lazy monkies.

Here's the official UK trailer -

The next one is called Green Zone and is from the british director of the modern classic Bourne Trilogy Paul Greengrass. Greengrass teams up again with Matt Damon for whom Jason Bourne was a career defining role. If you haven't seen the Bourne films you definitely should, they are slick, fast paced, intelligent and stylish and make the James Bond flicks look hopelessly quaint. If he applies the same raw, visceral film-making style that made the Bourne films stand a class apart from the usual Hollywood action flick to the war in Iraq, the setting for this film, then this is sure to be a great piece of cinema.

Here a trailer -