"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" - the movie & some thoughts on

Hear's the story....
Twice a month, I go to a local independent bookstore for a writing critique group and all winter long, we were sitting in the mystery section of the book store and without exception I ended up sitting across from a display of the 'Millennium' trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, The Girl who Kicked a Hornet's Nest) by Stieg Larsson. Sidebar: Sadly, all three books were published posthumously. Tangent: Let me admit, I am not a follower, sometimes to my detriment. When something gets too much hype, I tend to shy away. I am overcoming this idiosyncratic prejudice as I keep getting proven wrong in my irrationally stubborn behavior. For example, (I do start at the series beginning - just excessively late) I didn't start reading Harry Potter books until the 4th or 5th was released - love them all; the Twilight books, not until the last one had just released - mostly love them and The Host; The DaVinci Code, not until it had been out for two years or better - love it and now mostly anything Dan Brown writes; any many more books, movies and music. The point here is, I was actively not even glancing their way because I'm a dope and what made me change my mind and eventually give them a chance was someone whose opinion I trust implicitly telling me to get over it. Tangent over - I was not looking at these books. I saw them, I heard the talk, and I acted like a dope.

Two days ago, a friend (THANK YOU, J) loaned me the DVD of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had no idea what it was about having stupidly never read the jacket of the book. I watched it last night. I didn't even start it until midnight. So, now I'm tired having stayed up until 2 AM watching this really good movie. I thought they sounded literary (nothing wrong with that - but not really my groovy thing) - they aren't (again with the dopiness) - the books are murder mysteries with this excellent uber-smart, emotionally broken, hacker chick named Lisbeth. Now, I have to go read all the books and see what else is in this book that didn't make it into the movie, followed by the two sequels so I can eagerly anticipate their movie releases. I get so tired of being wrong.

This was a cool-ass movie. It's in Swedish, so yes, you have to watch with sub-titles unless of course you're fluent in Swedish. But, please don't let that slow you down. It's got a sexy smart heroine, a smart charming hero, action, murder, mystery, suspense, Nazis, sexual abuse, corruption, deceit, justice, sex, nudity (if case you need those last two to motivate you some), good acting and a good story. But not for the faint of heart - it has some heavy themes running through it and doesn't shy away.

I am publicly admitting my problem as a 1st step toward recovery - hopefully, I will resist all prejudicial dopiness in the future when someone is talking something up (probably, there's a good reason it's being talked up). Definitely see the movie, read the books.