Q&A: I’m thinking about getting a tattoo, but my parents are aginst it. What is your opinion on tattoos?

December 24th, 2011

Question by Shannon S: I’m thinking about getting a tattoo, but my parents are aginst it. What is your opinion on tattoos?
I want to get a tattoo to reresent my grandfather but my parents do not want me to get one. I am on the fence in what to do, Help me out. What do you think i should do?

Best answer:

Answer by Amber R
i got my tattoos when i was 18 and my family was really against it but it eased there mind when i got them in a place where they could be easily hid if i needed them to be concealed (on the back of my right shoulder blade). plus mine are my daughters initals and a fairy under them :]

you should get one–just dont do anything too over the top and you’ll be ok..yours is for a good reason anyway!

Give your answer to this question below!

Movie review: ‘Tattoo’: Lean, mean suspense machine

December 24th, 2011

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is more than 21/2 hours long, yet it seems remarkably compact.

Director David Fincher (“The Social Network”) and screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Moneyball,” “Schindler’s List”) had a lot of ground to cover in adapting Stieg Larsson’s complexly structured best-seller to the big screen, and they succeeded in capturing the spirit and density of the novel with admirable fidelity and absolutely no wasted motion. This is one lean, mean suspense machine.

Fans of the novel will be pleased to know that it’s all here: the remote, bone-chilling Swedish setting; the revolting crimes perpetrated by an odious villain; the central mystery of what happened to 16-year-old Harriet Vanger, who vanished 40 years before the story starts; the supremely dysfunctional Vanger clan, stained by duplicity, bitterness, Nazism and worse; the disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), battered by a libel judgment, reluctantly rising to the challenge posed to him by Harriet’s devoted tycoon kinsman Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to uncover the truth of Harriet’s fate. And above all, there’s Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the titular tattoo.

A long list of Hollywood’s top young actresses coveted that part, but Fincher wisely decided to cast a relative unknown. He wanted someone with no associations to previous roles. That is to say, someone with no baggage who could disappear inside of one of the most extraordinary heroines in modern literature. He found her in Rooney Mara.

She had a small role in Fincher’s “The Social Network,” playing a no-nonsense young woman who forcefully puts Mark Zuckerberg in his place early in the picture. But nothing about her work in that movie prepares you for her portrayal of Salander. She inhabits the character fully.

With bleached eyebrows, multiple piercings, the coiling dragon adorning her back, and her punk-Goth black wardrobe, Mara certainly looks the part.

But it’s her emotional grasp that’s truly impressive. Her Salander is a terribly damaged individual who is damaged even more terribly in the course of “Dragon Tattoo,” and then exacts a terrible vengeance for what she’s suffered. She’s guarded, mistrustful, sullen and, crucially, brilliant when it comes to hacking into people’s lives via computer.

It’s those hacker skills that bring her into Blomkvist’s orbit as his research assistant, and it’s her identification with a string of horrifyingly violated women murder victims – their deaths constituting gruesome clues to the core mystery – that makes her relentless in her pursuit of the truth about what happened to the vanished Harriet.

As Blomkvist, Craig is rather too good-looking to be convincing as a rumpled journalist, but he has good chemistry with Mara, mixing admiration with a sense of bewilderment at her defiant strength and her sexual boldness.

With Fincher’s unflinching handling of Larsson’s dark material and with an insidiously propulsive score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Dragon Tattoo” moves with assurance and without too many Hollywood compromises.

Though, for a wholly uncompromising treatment of “Tattoo,” moviegoers who have not yet seen the Swedish-language version released in 2009 are advised to seek it out posthaste. While Mara’s is a fine portrayal, Noomi Rapace’s take on the character is definitive: ferocious, heroic and unforgettable.

Article source: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/23/1956308/tattoo-lean-mean-suspense-machine.html

‘Tattoo’: Lean, mean suspense machine

December 23rd, 2011

Director David Fincher (“The Social Network”) and screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Moneyball,” “Schindler’s List”) had a lot of ground to cover in adapting Stieg Larsson’s complexly structured best-seller to the big screen, and they succeeded in capturing the spirit and density of the novel with admirable fidelity and absolutely no wasted motion. This is one lean, mean suspense machine.

Fans of the novel will be pleased to know that it’s all here: the remote, bone-chilling Swedish setting; the revolting crimes perpetrated by an odious villain; the central mystery of what happened to 16-year-old Harriet Vanger, who vanished 40 years before the story starts; the supremely dysfunctional Vanger clan, stained by duplicity, bitterness, Nazism and worse; the disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), battered by a libel judgment, reluctantly rising to the challenge posed to him by Harriet’s devoted tycoon kinsman Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to uncover the truth of Harriet’s fate. And above all, there’s Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the titular tattoo.

A long list of Hollywood’s top young actresses coveted that part, but Fincher wisely decided to cast a relative unknown.

He wanted someone with no associations to previous roles. That is to say, someone with no baggage who could disappear inside of one of the most extraordinary heroines in modern literature. He found her in Rooney Mara.

She had a small role in Fincher’s “The Social Network,” playing a no-nonsense young woman who forcefully puts Mark Zuckerberg in his place early in the picture.

But nothing about her work in that movie prepares you for her portrayal of Salander. She inhabits the character fully.

With bleached eyebrows, multiple piercings, the coiling dragon adorning her back, and her punk-Goth black wardrobe, Mara certainly looks the part.

But it’s her emotional grasp that’s truly impressive. Her Salander is a terribly damaged individual who is damaged even more terribly in the course of “Dragon Tattoo,” and then exacts a terrible vengeance for what she’s suffered. She’s guarded, mistrustful, sullen and, crucially, brilliant when it comes to hacking into people’s lives via computer.

It’s those hacker skills that bring her into Blomkvist’s orbit as his research assistant, and it’s her identification with a string of horrifyingly violated women murder victims – their deaths constituting gruesome clues to the core mystery – that makes her relentless in her pursuit of the truth about what happened to the vanished Harriet.

As Blomkvist, Craig is rather too good-looking to be convincing as a rumpled journalist, but he has good chemistry with Mara, mixing admiration with a sense of bewilderment at her defiant strength and her sexual boldness.

With Fincher’s unflinching handling of Larsson’s dark material and with an insidiously propulsive score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Dragon Tattoo” moves with assurance and without too many Hollywood compromises.

Though, for a wholly uncompromising treatment of “Tattoo,” moviegoers who have not yet seen the Swedish-language version released in 2009 are advised to seek it out posthaste. While Mara’s is a fine portrayal, Noomi Rapace’s take on the character is definitive: ferocious, heroic and unforgettable.
‘THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO’

* * * *

Cast: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgrd and Robin Wright

Director: David Fincher

Running time: 2:38

Rated: R; violence, sexual situations, nudity, language

Article source: http://www.theolympian.com/2011/12/23/1923730/tattoo-lean-mean-suspense-machine.html

Larsson’s partner: ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ merchandise masks novel’s point

December 22nd, 2011

The longtime partner of late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson says he wouldn’t have approved of merchandise being linked to this week’s release of a Hollywood adaptation of his bestselling novel, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

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Eva Gabrielsson said Monday that Mr. Larsson would have instead used the buzz around his work to call attention to violence and discrimination against women.

“We would never have sold any rights for merchandising,” Ms. Gabrielsson said. “It has nothing to do with books.”

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HM has released a Dragon Tattoo Collection, created by costume designer Trish Summerville, that it says is inspired by Lisbeth Salander – the tattooed anti-heroine of Larsson’s books and the film which opens Wednesday in the United States.

Gabrielsson and Larsson were a couple for more than 30 years, but never married. Larsson didn’t leave a will, so his brother and father inherited the rights to his works when he died of a heart attack at age 50 in 2004.

The two have rejected Gabrielsson’s suggestions that they are using Larsson’s legacy for profit, and say they will donate their earnings to causes he supported, including an anti-racism magazine that he worked for as a journalist.

Still, Gabrielsson expressed concern that the political dimension of Larsson’s books, including the feminist undertones, would be overlooked by the film’s hype. She claims Larsson wanted to show that gender imbalances exist even in Sweden, one of the world’s most egalitarian societies.

“The oppression of women exists everywhere, this incomprehensible discrimination,” she said.

In Larsson’s trilogy, Salander and journalist Mikael Blomqvist team up to solve serial killings and sex trafficking scandals. Rooney Mara plays Salander and Daniel Craig plays Blomqvist in the David Fincher directed film.

Mara suggested at a news conference last month that Salander isn’t a feminist, and doesn’t see herself as part of any group or subculture.

“Does she know what film she has been in?” Gabrielsson said, disbelievingly. “Has she read the books? Has she not had any coaching?”

Salander doesn’t fit neatly into any category, “but she is still part of a movement,” Gabrielsson said. “Her entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don’t advance in this world and in worst case scenarios are abused like she was.”

Gabrielsson said the feminist theme had been partly lost with the creation of the English title, which she thinks sounds like “a children’s book.”

She said the original Swedish title is “Man som hatar kvinnor,” — men who hate women. “In his (Larsson’s) world that was also the basic theme for these books,” she said.

Gabrielsson published her own book last year about her life with Larsson.

IN PICTURES: The 10 highest grossing films of all time

Article source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1221/Larsson-s-partner-Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo-merchandise-masks-novel-s-point

‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’: We Only Hurt the Ones We Love

December 21st, 2011

When you think about it, there really is nothing to like about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. What a nasty, gratuitous story it is — a tale of brutalized women from an unabashedly male perspective. Stieg Larsson’s ubiquitous airport-fiction novel is popular because of the very thing it claims to detest, namely a particular fascination with the extremes to which a man can punish a woman for her innate womanness. There is a mystery to be solved, of course, but really the prurient interest in the story is a page-turning, SVU-style curiosity about just how dark and sexualized and dirty the crimes have been. It’s telling that the book’s original Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women, was so perverted in international publishing. A fierce, telegraphing title is eschewed for something wry and sinisterly storybook — three books about the horrors suffered by women, one woman in particular, becomes a cutesy trilogy about a “girl,” a tough gal whose rough treatment seems inevitable, but who at least has the moxie to fight back. Victimhood is innate to the female experience, the revised title, and Larsson’s own writing, seem to be saying, but some girls have the balls, heh, to stand up to it. It’s a repulsive and brutally unfeminist notion, a kind of mock concern used to cover up a genuine dark and giddy and horny interest in the depravity of it all. The story almost seems to thank sexual abuse, there’s a furtively panting gratefulness, because otherwise there’d be no story at all.

Related: New ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Trailer: Less Zeppelin, More Exposition

This is not to say that terrible things do not happen to women in real life or that any fictionalized version of that is somehow innately exploitative, it’s just that one has to be curious about a society in which this particularly nasty story has been so popular. Popular enough to film twice! David Fincher’s new Girl With the Dragon Tattoo film is the second movie made out of this story, following a Swedish made-for-TV version that made a star of the actress Noomi Rapace, who played the story’s chief survivor Lisbeth Salander, a pierced and (duh) tattooed creature who exacts revenge and retribution with elan and cunning. Salander is that kind of creation, an exciting caricature that can be rounded out by the right daring actress who will become a star because of the bravery she’s brought to this punishing project. Rapace was the first to wander down this gruesome path, and thus has first dibs on the bragging rights in perpetuity, but boy what a splash Rooney Mara makes in Fincher’s film.

Related: The ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ Trailer Mystery

Darting onto the screen like a pale crescent moon, Mara is all hard-but-wounded stares and utilitarian movement. Mara’s Lisbeth, or probably any Lisbeth, is not a dancer; there’s an economy to her physicality that suggests she would never dance or skip or bigly wave hello because she wants to save her energy in case she needs to sprint away. She’s a rare creature spotted in the woods, one who could be dangerous if provoked, but mostly you’ll glimpse her for a brief second and then she’ll be gone. Larsson has created a fascinating, elusive entity in Lisbeth, and Mara steps into her skin with nerve-rattling intensity. To use a cliche, Rooney Mara IS Lisbeth Salander — quite thoroughly, quite terrifyingly. It’s the most mesmerizing performance of the year and this young woman deserves to be a big, big star.

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It’s a shame, then, maybe an oddly inevitable shame, that the movie that surrounds her is such cannily shot nonsense. Fincher is maybe finishing a murder trilogy with this film (itself part of a trilogy); his Se7en was a gorgeously grim look at the existential futility of trying to ward off the dark, Zodiac was about the lone crusaders who refuse to recognize that futility, and Dragon Tattoo gives us a couple of people who manage, against all odds, to actually find some resolution in all of this muck. For a movie about raped and murdered women (many raped and murdered women at that), it’s oddly hopeful. And it’s off-puttingly funny. Lisbeth, a taciturn private investigator who has suffered terribly at the hands of men, is kind of hilarious. She’s blunt and curt and tough, but in a cute lil’ puppy kind of way. One almost has to stifle an “Awww” even when she’s kicking a metal dildo up a rapist’s ass.

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Uh, yeah, that happens! Sorry, I’ve forgotten to fill you in here. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is about a reporter, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), who has just been found guilty of some sort of journalistic libel after he accused a bigtime business man of being a criminal in a magazine article. Disgraced and disappointed, he accepts a take-my-mind-off-it gig investigating the forty-year-old mystery of a teenage girl who disappeared on the tiny northern island that housed her family’s estate. Christopher Plummer plays her once doting, now grieving uncle who just wants closure. In exchange for Blomkvist’s investigative services, he offers him money and, more importantly, hard evidence against the bigtime business man. Blomkvist moves to the island to do his work, and the cold case is slowly unthawed. Lisbeth comes into the main story, as Blomkvist’s research assistant, about an hour in, only after we’ve graphically seen her raped by a social worker and her subsequent revenge against him. Those sequences supposedly have weight when the whole trilogy is considered — the subsequent books delve more into Lisbeth’s background and psychology — but in this standalone film, which is ostensibly about the solving of a rather simple mystery, it sticks out as garish nastiness, rape as titillation. Fincher has never been terribly good to his women, but rarely before has he seemed so genuinely interested in their suffering. Yes this horrid scene is in the book, and so one could argue that Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian were merely being loyal to the manuscript, but as a separately autonomous film (there will likely be sequels but there are no concrete plans yet), it seems wholly unnecessary. I’m still struggling to understand why the rape had to be given such grand focus here — Fincher kinda seems to do it just because he can and wants to. There’s a weird and telling air of timidity to it, a slight flicker of uncertainty, but it happens anyway. “Should we really be doing this?” the movie almost whispers. And then it goes and does it, rather pointlessly when the greater film’s needs are considered.

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The actual guts of the movie are pretty basic murder mystery stuff. Fincher films investigation really well — here as in Se7en and Zodiac the amassing of evidence and research is built with propulsive forward momentum, we feel we really are figuring things out — but the end product of it all proves to be a frustrating MacGuffin. What was the gain of all of this? Nothing, really. The obvious villain (it’s clear from his first scene) is indeed the villain, and the crimes, of which there are many, are, as expected, awful. OK. People did and do terrible things, sure. That the action is set on a snowbound Swedish isle populated by old Nazis and family ghosts certainly makes the rote mystery feel unique, but ultimately this really is an episode of Cold Case. It’s that slight, it’s that inconsequential. All the assured, dark filmmaking is great and all, but it’s built on such a rickety, forgettable foundation.

Which, again, in no way justifies the sexual violence of the movie. It’s great and satisfying to see Lisbeth enact vengeance upon her abuser, but it’s done as such a sore-thumb bit of exploitativeness that we immediately feel guilty for liking it. Lisbeth is the best thing about the movie! And yet in the end she has so little to do with the movie. The promos for this film teased it with the ominous tagline “She’s coming.” And indeed she has arrived. I just wish her movie, the actual movie about her, would hurry up and get here too. It’s a strange feeling to not like a film and yet be dying for its sequel.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/girl-dragon-tattoo-only-hurt-ones-love-202451456.html

Govindini Murty: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twilight, and the Return of Women’s Blockbuster Films

December 20th, 2011

When The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hits movie theaters on December 21st, it will be the second major female-led franchise movie released in just over a month. The first, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I, has already earned over $640 million dollars worldwide since its November 18th release and has become the third-highest grossing movie of 2011 (after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon — and on a lower budget than those films). The remarkable success of the Twilight film series, with over $2 billion in worldwide ticket sales to date, proves that audiences will show up to see tentpole movies built around women. Now with the upcoming release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the spring/summer 2012 openings of Mirror Mirror, The Hunger Games, and Snow White and the Huntsman, audiences are being offered a run of female-oriented big-budget films unlike anything they’ve seen in recent years. After decades of lavishing resources on male-led action and comic book movies, Hollywood is finally making an effort to give women and their stories the blockbuster treatment.

In doing so, the film industry is hearkening back to what was once a strength of classic Hollywood: the blockbuster women’s film. Such films were high-quality productions that elevated the unique psychology, heroism and romance of women’s lives to the level of epic entertainment. The great era of this kind of women’s film was in the ’30s and ’40s when movies like Greta Garbo’s Queen Christina, Vivien Leigh’s Gone with the Wind, Marlene Dietrich’s The Scarlet Empress, Joan Crawford’s Mildred Pierce, Greer Garson’s Mrs. Miniver, and Bette Davis’ Jezebel enthralled audiences. Whether they told historical or contemporary stories, such films offered a ‘blockbuster’ vision of women’s lives — both in terms of the resources the studios devoted to them (A-list directors and casts, big budgets) as well as in the importance they placed in their heroine’s emotional journeys. Such films were a mainstay of classic Hollywood, filling box office coffers and building the careers of talented actresses. Further, these films inspired both women and men, for they successfully transformed the unique emotions and experiences of women into works of art with universal significance.

The success of classic women-led films is reflected in their status as some of the highest grossing films of all time. According to Box Office Mojo’s list of the all time highest grossing films (all figures are domestic, adjusted for inflation), Gone with the Wind (1939) is still number one with an astonishing U.S. theatrical total of $1.6 billion dollars. The Sound of Music ($1.13 billion), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ($867 million), and Titanic ($1.02 billion) also figure in the top ten list — and one could argue that Dr. Zhivago ($988 million) and The Exorcist ($880 million) owe much of their success to their strong female characters, as well. The success of these films shows that women and their stories have been a compelling draw in many of the biggest movies ever made.

Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the action movie rose in prominence — and a genre that naturally favors men over women took over Hollywood. The success of the male-oriented action film was used to justify spending less money on women’s films, and women were increasingly relegated to lower budget romantic comedies and dramas. This led to a vicious cycle in which the modest budgets given to women’s films led to modest box office returns that were then used as an excuse to spend even less on women’s films — completely contradicting the evidence of the successful women’s films of the classic Hollywood era. While some fine movies were made in this period — Norma Rae, Julia, An Unmarried Woman — much of the heroism, glamor, and romance that had characterized the great women’s films of the ’30s and ’40s was lost.

There was a brief resurgence of the blockbuster women’s film in the ’80s with Out of Africa, Terms of Endearment, and comedies like Romancing the Stone, but this promising trend petered out in the early ’90s. By the late ’90s, the film industry’s downgrading of women’s importance in the movies was such that when Titanic became a massive hit in 1997 — a film very much built around Kate Winslet and her emotional journey — the film’s success was instead credited to Leonardo DiCaprio and to the film’s special effects.

This mindset has led to another trend in contemporary Hollywood: the rise of the comic book movie. With the comic book movie, the film industry has became preoccupied with producing a never-ending stream of films based around male adolescence and coming of age. That’s fine for men, but there’s little there to relate to for women. On the rare occasion when a woman plays the lead in a big-budget comic book or video game movie — say Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider films, or Milla Jovovich in the Resident Evil films — her role is little different from that of a man. This is a shame because women are capable of a lot more on the big screen than simply wielding violence.

Women’s life experiences are different from those of men. We wish to be leaders and to achieve success in the world, but in our entertainment we also want romance, adventure, and emotional catharsis. When the Twilight movies came along, they answered this need beautifully. Twilight’s highly traditional storyline of a young woman falling in love with and taming a dangerous man has appealed to women for generations and dates back to the 19th century Gothic novel and beyond (as I describe in my analysis of the literary and mythological themes in the Twilight series). One sees this storyline in everything from the fable of Beauty and the Beast to novels like Jane Eyre and Gone with the Wind. Ultimately, this storyline serves as a metaphor for a woman’s heroic quest to overcome the forces of evil and find love and fulfillment in the world.

Thus, the entire focus of Twilight is on the emotional journey of Bella Swan and not the physical action (although there is action in the film). Though I find it hard to identify with Bella’s lack of career ambition, the single-mindedness of her determination to romance Edward Cullen in the face of widespread disapproval (and despite the fact that he is a vampire) demonstrates a feisty and independent spirit. This is the real ‘action’ of the film — not the external violence, but the internal drama — and this is what has proven so immensely appealing to millions of women. After all, how much action is there really in Breaking Dawn - Part I? The first half hour of the film is spent lingering on Bella’s wedding, while the second half of the film features Bella lying pregnant on a couch — with a brief honeymoon in Brazil in between, and a few scenes involving werewolves. And yet the movie has so far made over $640 million worldwide.

While the success of Twilight may be surprising to some, women’s lives and their emotional journeys have been the stuff of successful storytelling for millennia. For example, the rivalry of the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite plays a central role in the events of The Iliad, while the touching portrayal of Penelope’s honor and fortitude forms the emotional backbone of The Odyssey. The extraordinary depiction of Medea’s emotional journey in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica inspired the passionate figure of Queen Dido in Virgil’s Aeneid, which in turn influenced generations of storytellers. Fast-forwarding over a millennia, women’s lives and their complex characters figured in the birth of the modern novel, from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Even in Asia, the Japanese literary tradition was born in the work of female writers of the 10th - 11th centuries AD who explored women’s lives in poignant masterpieces like Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Hunger Games trilogies are being turned into major movie franchises because they too offer something more than simply action or violence in their portrayals of women. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo gives us a central character, Lisbeth Salander, who is fascinating both for her psychological complexity and her intelligence. The Hunger Games is compelling because its heroine, Katniss Everdeen, has to learn how to negotiate complex rivalries in order to stay alive in the games. In the upcoming Snow White adaptations Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman, the heroines are forced to confront the deadly jealousy and vanity of a wicked queen. Although there is action in all these films, it is the emotional journeys of the women involved that will likely be the main draw.

This is what forms the core similarity between the contemporary women’s blockbuster films of today and the great women’s films of the classic Hollywood era. Whether it be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Mildred Pierce, these movies depict their female leads dealing with the central issues of love, friendship, betrayal, and ambition that women everywhere have to deal with in their own lives.

By lavishing big budgets on these women’s movies, Hollywood is acknowledging that women’s stories are worthy of being told on the grand scale. Epic roles in epic films give women the chance to exhibit crucial qualities — our potential for leadership, our capacity for honor, love, intelligence, and nobility. Such films also give men the opportunity to relate to women’s stories as if they were their own. It’s the least the movies can do to reflect the dramatic and consequential lives women are living today and have lived throughout history.

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/govindini-murty/the-return-of-the-womens-_b_1155106.html

How can I remove a blacklight tattoo?

December 19th, 2011

Question by Andy D: How can I remove a blacklight tattoo?
The tat artist who gave me the tattoo said its not really ink, more like tiny balls the react to blacklight. I’ve also heard that they dont always last. I dont know that there are different kinds, if thats the case I’m not sure which I have. You definately cant see it in regular light. Anyway I really need to get rid of it if at all possible. Any experts out there please share.

Best answer:

Answer by ash.wri
im just curious: why do you have to get rid of it if it only shows up in blacklight?

and idk…but it sure sounds cool!

What do you think? Answer below!

‘Dragon Tattoo’ writer’s Longtime partner says he wouldn’t have approved of film merchandising

December 19th, 2011

“We would never have sold any rights for merchandising,” Gabrielsson said. “It has nothing to do with books.”

HM has released a Dragon Tattoo Collection, created by costume designer Trish Summerville, that it says is inspired by Lisbeth Salander — the tattooed anti-heroine of Larsson’s books and the film which opens Wednesday in the United States.

Gabrielsson and Larsson were a couple for more than 30 years, but never married. Larsson didn’t leave a will, so his brother and father inherited the rights to his works when he died of a heart attack at age 50 in 2004.

The two have rejected Gabrielsson’s suggestions that they are using Larsson’s legacy for profit, and say they will donate their earnings to causes he supported, including an anti-racism magazine that he worked for as a journalist.

Still, Gabrielsson expressed concern that the political dimension of Larsson’s books, including the feminist undertones, would be overlooked by the film’s hype. She claims Larsson wanted to show that gender imbalances exist even in Sweden, one of the world’s most egalitarian societies.

“The oppression of women exists everywhere, this incomprehensible discrimination,” she said.

In Larsson’s trilogy, Salander and journalist Mikael Blomqvist team up to solve serial killings and sex trafficking scandals. Rooney Mara plays Salander and Daniel Craig plays Blomqvist in the David Fincher directed film.

Mara suggested at a news conference last month that Salander isn’t a feminist, and doesn’t see herself as part of any group or subculture.

“Does she know what film she has been in?” Gabrielsson said, disbelievingly. “Has she read the books? Has she not had any coaching?”

Salander doesn’t fit neatly into any category, “but she is still part of a movement,” Gabrielsson said. “Her entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don’t advance in this world and in worst case scenarios are abused like she was.”

Gabrielsson said the feminist theme had been partly lost with the creation of the English title, which she thinks sounds like “a children’s book.”

She said the original Swedish title is “Man som hatar kvinnor,” — men who hate women. “In his (Larsson’s) world that was also the basic theme for these books,” she said.

Gabrielsson published her own book last year about her life with Larsson.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/dragon-tattoo-writers-partner-chides-merchandizing-for-film-release/2011/12/19/gIQAqwhu4O_story.html?wprss=rss_celebrities

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ 101

December 18th, 2011

noomirapace.jpgNoomi Rapace wowed critics with her fierce turn as “The Girl …” in the Swedish trilogy.

You know it’s one of the biggest books of the last decade, when you see people everywhere from the beach to the doctor’s office with their head buried in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

You might even know the tragic story about how author Stieg Larsson died before his blockbuster Millennium Trilogy (”. . . Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”) was published. But how much more do you know about the book, and girl, who have taken the publishing world by storm?

In advance of Wednesday’s opening of the movie starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, here’s your “Dragon Tattoo 101.”

1. The original title of the “Dragon Tattoo” book in Swedish is “Men Who Hate Women.” The vitriol gives a not-so-subtle hint at the book’s very dark, very violent themes.

2. Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy books have sold a phenomenal 65 million copies in more than 50 countries, including more than 1 million e-books.

3. The David Fincher-directed “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” that opens nationwide Wednesday follows three successful Swedish film adaptations of Larsson’s books, all released in 2009.

4. The Swedish-language films were a big hit for Cleveland Cinemas when they played in town in 2010. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” played for five months, and “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” lasted for three months. The Swedish films were a worldwide success, playing in more than 25 countries outside Scandinavia.

5. The budget for Fincher’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was $100 million. Director Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was made for $13 million and took in over $105 million ($10 million in North America).

6. Noomi Rapace, who stunned critics (including this one) with her fierce turn as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish trilogy, earned the Swedish Guldbagge Award for best actress and nominations for several other European honors. She can currently be seen in her first English-language film, as a Gypsy fortune teller in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”

7. Director Fincher’s previous films include “Seven” (1995), “Fight Club” (1999), “Panic Room” (2002), “Zodiac” (2007) and “The Social Network” (2010). But he got his start directing videos for some very famous names, including Madonna (”Express Yourself,” “Vogue”), Billy Idol (”Cradle of Love”), Paula Abdul (”Straight Up”), Aerosmith (”Janie’s Got a Gun”), the Rolling Stones (”Love Is Strong”) and Nine Inch Nails (”Only.”)

8. The English-language production was filmed almost entirely in Sweden.

9. Daniel Craig was the first major star to be cast in Fincher’s film, as crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist has one character trait in common with Craig’s most famous role, “Bond, James Bond”: He’s a ladies’ man. But don’t expect much swanky martini-swilling this time; Blomkvist is a nose-to-the-grindstone reporter, not a superspy.

10. After multiple screen tests and competition from leading names including Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, the starring role of Lisbeth Salander was given to relative unknown Rooney Mara, who had a small role in Fincher’s “The Social Network.” Mara is also known for her lineage as football royalty. She’s the great-granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. and New York Giants founder Tim Mara.

11. Even star Craig was taken aback with the film’s ultraviolence. He told Esquire magazine in July: “It’s as adult as you can possibly make it. This is adult drama. . . . Fincher, he’s not holding back. They’ve given him free rein. He showed me some scenes recently, and my hand was over my mouth, going, ‘Are you [expletive] serious?’ ”

12. Actor Stellan Skarsgaard, who plays businessman Martin Vanger in the film, is the only Swede with a major role in the movie. He speaks English with a Swedish accent in it, as do the American actors. Brit Daniel Craig has his usual English accent.

13. Despite the extreme violence against women in his stories, Larsson considered himself a devoted feminist. He claimed to have begun his fight for women’s rights after witnessing a gang-rape of a girl when he was a teen. It’s speculated that his regret at not coming to her defense led to avenging angel Lisbeth.

14. Larsson imagined Lisbeth as a grown-up Pippi Longstocking (a Pippi who’d had a hard, hard life, apparently). Not only is her real hair red in honor of the children’s literature favorite created by Astrid Lindgren. Lisbeth uses the alias V.Kulla on her apartment building, short for Pippi’s house, Villa Villekulla.

15. Want the Lisbeth look? HM clothing has just launched a “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” line inspired by the brooding punkette’s style. Think lots of black, ripped T-shirts, leather leggings, fitted bomber jackets and lots of asymmetrical lines. Alas, the pieces will not be available in any Ohio stores.

16. The second two films in the trilogy are tentatively slated for release in December 2012 and 2013, with the same cast and Fincher directing.

17. Want to see the real Sodermalm area, the Kvarnen bar and other Stockholm hangouts where Blomkvist and Lisbeth uncover dastardly deeds and drink lots of coffee? Tours of “Larsson’s Stockholm” are popular tourist draws in Sweden. The Stockholm City Museum’s “Stieg Larsson — Millennium Tour” (www.stadsmuseum.stockholm.se) is one of the most popular.

18. The soundtrack to the new movie was created by former Clevelander Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails fame, along with English musician Atticus Ross.

19. Canton jewelry designer Dana Schneider designed several pieces for actors Craig and Robin Wright to wear in the film, including an oxidized silver chain for Craig and an “open flower necklace” for Wright. Replicas are available at Lingg showroom in Woodmere this week. Call 216-378-2666.

20. Wonder what happens to Lisbeth and company after the final Millennium book? Larsson completed about three-quarters of a fourth novel. The hotly contested text is on a computer possessed by his longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who is embroiled in a battle over his estate with his father and brother.

Article source: http://www.cleveland.com/movies/index.ssf/2011/12/the_girl_with_the_dragon_tatto_1.html

H&M Hit Over ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Clothing

December 17th, 2011

VIDEO: Preview the highly anticipated film based on the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

Lisbeth Salander is a rape victim, an abuse survivor and a heroine in the “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and the fictional character will also become a style icon if the clothing line by HM is any indication.

The clothing line that sold out in Los Angeles in ten minutes, according to the designer, is under fire by blogger Natalie Karneef who wrote a blog item titled “An Open Letter to HM from a Rape Survivor”: “…HM, you have created a line of clothing based on her character: a woman who has suffered a lifetime of abuse, who is violently raped, and who is hunting down a man who violently rapes and kills other women.”

“Lisbeth has been through hell, and her clothing is her armor. That’s her choice, and it’s an understandable choice. But you glamorize it, putting a glossy, trendy finish on the face of sexual violence and the rage and fear it leaves behind.”

HM did not return our request for comment. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, a spokesperson for HM wrote, “We have read the open letter by Natalie Karnefwe apologize if she or anyone has been offended by the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo collection by Trish Summerville – this has not in any way been our intent. The collection is based on and inspired by the film and character Lisbeth Salander and though we think Lisbeth is a strong woman who stands up for her ideal, we are not trying to represent her specifically.”

The spokesperson continued, “Our goal is to rather offer a collection that we see in today’s trend picture that will appeal to many customers. We do not view this collection as provocative-it contains pieces that are staples in many people’s wardrobes: jeans, biker jackets and t-shirts. It’s all about how you wear them. We encourage our customers to find their own personal way to wear our products.”

The brand also came under fire last week for using virtual models to sell apparel online.

The 30-piece Dragon Tattoo collection that ranges in price from $9.95 to $199 is the work of Trish Summerville, who worked as the costume designer for the David Fincher film. The costume design for the Swedish trilogy was done by Cilla Rorby.

Summerville declined to comment for our story.

The clothing line is a marriage of grays and black is made for mass consumption. In the past, HM has done collections with Madonna, Stella McCartney and other famous people.

“I doubt that HM’s desire to create a clothing line based on the Lisbeth Salander character in ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ has as much to do with glamorizing rape culture as it does with capitalizing off of what’s sure to be a blockbuster film,” said Julie Gerstein, style editor for The Frisky, a woman’s lifestyle blog. “As it is, basing a collection off of a dystopian nightmare of a story hardly makes for a strong and well developed fashion line. It seems more of a marketing decision than a statement on rape culture,” said Gerstein.

At issue is not HM glamorizing rape, says Karneef, but “glamorizing surviving rape.” The release of the line comes days ahead of the Dec. 21 opening of the English speaking version of “Dragon” starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

“My fear is that people will watch the film and have this impression of the heroine and what she endured to be that person,” Karneef told ABC News. “I did not go through what she went through but I don’t want people to not acknowledge how much [rape] destroys a life. Any type of abuse breaks a person down.”

“It’s really easy to say ‘yeah, she is cool’ but what [Lisbeth] went through is really disturbing,” she continued.

Salander is an unlikely heroine, or anti-heroine, who’s Goth or grungy threads may be born as a result of her history or from her lifestyle. A computer hacker, the fictional character was made famous by the late author Stieg Larrson in his novel “Män som hatar kvinnor,” which translates to “Men Who Hate Women.” (The title was changed to Dragon Tattoo for the foreign audience.)

The book is a part of the Millennium series that brought to life the Salander character after the author was allegedly wracked with guilt after witnessing a gang rape or, as a former colleague stated, it came from a desire to create an aged and dysfunctional Pippi Longstocking-like character.

“The piece was not meant to be about how I dress or how anyone else dresses or even the film,” Karneef told ABC News.

And, with nearly 1 in 5 women in the US being a victim of rape, according to a recent survey by the CDC, Karneef says it’s important that people think about the issue.

“It was supposed to lead you to question the association of a clothing line with a victim of rape and abuse.”

“I think it’s a negative connection to make with fashion,” the 34-year-old Montreal resident told ABC News. “I wanted people to think about before they went out and bought the clothes.”I think they’re trying to reach people that see her as a hero and my fear is they’re trying to target people who aren’t going to think about what’s behind why she is the hero that she is,” Karneef told ABC News.

“I fear people will think that what she ’s been through is not a big deal. That’s a prevalent line in our culture: ‘Get over it.’”

Article source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/girl-dragon-tattoo-clothing-line-launches-criticism/story?id=15165315