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Stockholm, Sweden: Mikael Blomkvist, investigative reporter for the Millenium magazine, is dragged to court by billionaire businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström on libel charges, crushed and drained for most of his life savings. Financial rescue comes in the shape of Henrik Vanger, who promise Blomkvist plenty of money and Wennerström’s head on a plate if he can solve the mystery of what happened to Vanger’s niece, Harriet, 36 years earlier. During his investigation, Blomkvist’ path cross with Lisbeth Salander, crazy ass bitch extraordinaire, who he quickly realize will become a priceless asset in the search for the truth about what really happened to Harriet Vagner.

Movies based on books make me skeptical. Peter Jackson did an amazing job with the Lord of the Rings movies, but many others have failed miserably when moving a story from paper to the silver screen. The only projects that tend to crash and burn more spectacularly are movies based on video games.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t director David Fincher first attempt at making a movie based on a book. His massive success Fight Club was based on a novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, and this time he has taken on the first book in the Millennium series by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. In this novel-to-movie-adaption I have an ace up my sleeve: I never read the book. Neither did I see the Swedish movie adaption. So I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from the unbiased viewpoint of someone who has managed to stay clear of some of the most popular Scandinavian books this century.

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This movie is seven years old, so why do I bother wasting precious calories on writing about it? Well, I should probably ask myself why I’m wasting precious calories on writing anything at all, but that’s a question for another day. The reason why I sat down to write a review of The Chronicles of Riddick is that, even though it was released way back in 2004, I didn’t actually see it until a few days ago. I did buy a Riddick Xbox game back in the days (not worth the money), but the movie slipped past me.

Since it happened to me, it might be that it happened to you as well: You never did see The Chronicles of Riddick. If that is the case, you’ve missed out on a hidden sci-fi-action-adventure-gem.

The Chronicles of Riddick is the story about Richard B. Riddick, who is trying to elude capture by mercenaries and eventually Necromongers, a race of conquerors traveling across space toward the so-called Underverse, a dark mirror of the normal universe where death has no meaning. Their leader, the Lord Marshal, commands his troops to overrun worlds and convert their inhabitants into Necromongers; those who oppose conversion are killed. Yes, that’s a pretty nice backdrop for what could potentially be a killer sci-fi-action-adventure right there.

I absolutely love the visual design in The Chronicles of Riddick. The attack on Helion Prime is spectacular, both visually and aurally, and every aspect of the Necromonger race is designed in great detail. Vin Diesel does an excellent job portraying Riddick, not through acting, but through being a huge pile of muscle who beats up everyone along the way. Even though Vin Diesel is without doubt the star of this movie, you’ll find a cast of familiar and not-so-familar actors and actresses who do all contribute to making The Chronicles of Riddick a movie you should see if you generally enjoy movies of the genre. The prequel, Pitch Black, might also be of interest, and there are rumors going around of the possibility of a third movie about Riddick.

There’s a vast universe being outlined in The Chronicles of Riddick. The movie, together with Pitch Black, spun off a book, a few computer games and an animated short film, but I can’t help but feel that we’ve only seen very little of the potential for creating an absolutely huge and very exciting universe based on not Riddick himself, but everything else in Chronicles. Let’s lock the guys who designed the Necromongers in a room for a few weeks and see what they can come up with!

You remember the bird flu, right? And the swine flu? Maybe you even had a flu shot. During the 2009 flu pandemic people died left and right with a total of 14,286 deaths. But the pandemic eventually passed and everyone with Gilead Sciences stock rejoiced as the huge Tamiflu stockpiles left over from previous flu pandemics could finally be used for something.

That we got away with only fourteen thousand dead was a combination of skill and luck. At some point a flu will come that will have a much greater impact on us that the swine flu back in 2009. It has happened before and it will happen again. In Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” it happens again.

We follow the pandemic through all its phases, from first contact on Day 1 to a vaccine is eventually developed and distributed. We do this through the eyes of many different people, all who are affected by the pandemic in one way or another. This is nothing new, but Soderbergh’s twist is that very few of the stories are interwoven on any other level than that they are related to the pandemic: Someone doesn’t meet someone else who change their life forever. Some of the people we meet actually go ahead and die instead, which is also very un-Hollywood and certainly very un-American.

Continue reading "Contagion." →