Movies – glasspearl.co.za

Recommended Weekend Movies: Netflix SA and Showmax

It’s been a long, long week. Deadlines and only about 2 hours of TV time this week, so hopefully I can fit in some movies this weekend. Last weekend I had the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on my watch list but didn’t get time to watch it so it’s back on my list for the weekend. I watched the Swedish adaptations previously and was looking fo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Showmax

This adaption of the first novel in the Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series stars Rooney Mara as a hacker, Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is asked by a rich businessman to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet. Salander, who’s already been hacking Blomkvist’s computer, secretly helps him uncover clues. Salander meanwhile has her own problem with a sadistic legal guardian.

The movie is directed by David Fincher and is 158 minutes long.

Trainwreck

Stars Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in what I assume to be a typical Judd Apatow film. A raunchy romantic comedy is what I’m expecting. Schumer plays Amy a magazine writer who loves to party and is who is sent to do an interview with a sports doctor named Aaron (Bill Hader).

The film is 125 minutes long and is directed by Judd Apatow.

American Hustle

Inspired by true events American Hustle is about two con artists played by Amy Adams and Christian Bale who is forced by an FBI agent, Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to help with a sting operation involving corrupt politicians.

The movie is directed by David O. Russell and is 138 minutes long.

Review: Irreplaceable You (Netflix)

Irreplaceable You is a Netflix movie about a woman named Abbie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who is in her early 30s and had just become engaged to her long-time boyfriend. She thinks she might be pregnant, but her doctor diagnosis with stage IV cancer instead.

Abbie’s a Type-A personality, a total control freak, so she tries to arrange a partner for her fiancee, Sam (Mikiel Huisman), for after she dies. From the first scene in the movie, we’re told that this is Abbie’s story. Which needed to be said, because we have no idea how Sam feels about his fiancee’s imminent death. He does get upset when he finds out that he’s planning for life after her death. Although he never gives the impression that he would have a tough time moving on. He actually never gives the impression that’s he’s madly in love with her either.

Abbie’s best scenes are with the Dominic (Timothy Simons), a nurse who sits with her through chemotherapy and Myron (Christopher Walker), a fellow cancer sufferer she meets at a support group for cancer patients.

I only found the Irreplaceable You emotional in the last 20 minutes or so and started tearing up after Abbie died. All the emotion of the movie is kept until the last few minutes.

It was the first time I’ve seen Gugu Mbatha-Raw onscreen and she’s beautiful to look at. I believe she has three more projects on Netflix which I’ll check out. However, I didn’t like either Abbie or Sam. Sam was almost a nonperson throughout the movie and Abbie was so shallow or up her own ass as Myron described her to his wife.

It was also kind of weird that Abbie showed little anger at the disease that was taking away her life or anger for the future she’ll never have. Other than obsessing over a partner for Sam, she seemed to have nothing left on her bucket list.

I would recommend this if you like chick flicks and tearjerkers on a Friday night. It’s a pretty harmless movie,

Recommended Weekend Movies: Showmax

So for this weekend, I’m recommending the Millenium trilogy – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. I streamed it from Showmax over the past two weekends and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Millenium series – which I’ve read – is by deceased Swedish writer Stieg Larsson and is about a hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). The first film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a mystery, a suspected murder. It introduces us to Lisbeth and her dark present and past. The other two were more of a political nature, also linked to Lisbeth’s past.

The films are filmed in Swedish with English subtitles and with Swedish actors. I don’t normally watch movies with subtitles, however, these movies were action-packed, fast-paced and engaging. I was not in the least bothered with the subtitles.

Each movie is just over two hours long.

There’s also an American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist which I think I’ll catch over the weekend to compare. It’s also available on Showmax.