men who hate women

have you read the girl with the dragon tattoo? it's the first one in the trilogy by the swedish editor who sent off the manuscripts to a publisher and then dropped dead or something? i read that the original title in swedish is "men who hate women." the other two books are called something like the girl who kicked the hornets nest and the girl who did something else. i wonder what the original swedish titles are there. for english, i like the titles they have. perhaps "men who hate women" sums the story up best, however.

but why am i talking about a book that i've never even read? i guess it's time to talk about the movie that i saw.

first let me say that sunday in concord was the ultimate rainy day. i did nothing but eat and lay around and play boardgames until after dinner, i went to see the girl with the dragon tattoo.

it's in swedish and dark and two and a half hours long. but you know how sometimes when a movie is really good, you wish it were longer? the girl with the dragon tattoo is great because it's really good and really long and it doesn't get too boring. maybe it never got boring. what was unbearable were some brutal rape scenes (when they say men who hate women, they mean it). there's also some revenge stuff and some not-terrible men. i'm always happy when there are good male as well as female characters. like oz and willow. i think they're good for their genders. anyway, there isn't too much violence.

oh, but what's it about?

a journalist gets into big trouble for calling out a crappy bigtime financial person, like a lehman brothers type maybe, and somehow they sue him and he has to go to jail in a little while for forging evidence that he didn't really forge and the story of this crappiness never really gets out. a hacker who researched the journalist for a third party super rich old man gets interested in his story and follows info on him with her hacking. the old man hires the journalist to investigate the disappearance of the old man's niece 40 years ago. it turns into a big serial killer mystery that dips into swedish nazi territory. meanwhile, the hacker (she's the girl with the tattoo) was in the looney bin for being an arsonist or something and so even though she's 25 she has to have a guardian to watch her funds. her guardian is a total sadist rapist, it's horrible. she gets some good hard candy (have you seen that one? it has juno and it's good) revenge on him. anyway, the hacker joins the journalist on the old man's estate and together they solve the mystery. they also have sex and get kind of close, and that's nice because the journalist seems like a good guy. i say seems because most of the men, except for the old man and the police chief, are just so awful.

it has a nice ending, which is good after so much brutality. the journalist goes to jail but the hacker proves that the evidence wasn't forged so he gets out and is villified. i recommend the movie and i ordered the book from the library, but there's a long waitlist. i know i just told you the whole story but it's like still worth it to see, i think. especially if you wait til the dvd, then you have time to forget or just have vague memories.