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MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
January 3rd, 2011
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
DAVID FINCHER's FIRST ARTISTIC FLOP
 I've
never thought that I will live the day when I won’t like a David Fincher movie
because I am one of his most ardent fans. But, after watching
his version of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo based on the Swedish best seller, this day has come. His pride was his downfall in
this case. I imagine Fincher and his screenwriter (Steven Zaillian) wanted to
make the movie a lot different from the one directed by his Swedish counterpart
Niels Arden Oplev. And, by doing so, they
removed the chief things that worked in the previous version.
Don’t get me
wrong, the Fincher rendition is very competent -
well done and fast paced - and if you’ve never read the book or seen the Swedish movie you’ll
greatly enjoy this thriller. But if you’ve
seen the Swedish version (see photo below), it will feel like a thriller like any other. Out of
respect for this incredibly talented and accomplished director, Roger Ebert gave him three and a
half stars; but faring against the Swedish movie the accurate score would be half.
Okay,
so what went wrong?
First
off the movie’s lead roles are awfully cast. In Stieg Larsson's book and in the Swedish
film, Mikael Blumkist and Lisbeth Salander are like Yin and Yang, except that the man is the Yin and the girl is the Yang. Daniel Craig, the newest James Bond, is a strong Yang, coming with
exactly the opposite image of the character he’s supposed to play. Too tough, too ‘action hero who makes the
girls swoon’ type, too comfortable with danger, like Ebert greatly put it. Fincher could have had Craig try a composition role -- make him gain a few pounds, grow
longer hair, look more physically weak, more affectionate and emotionally
vulnerable; in short give him an anti-James Bond demeanor, and the warmth and normalcy that Lisbeth, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,
lacks. But this would have been too much like the Swedish version directed by Niels Arden Oplev, and Fincher ditched the idea. As for Rooney
Mara, she has all the tattoos, black leather outfits and nose piercing in the
right places, but she lacks the fascination and bitch power of Naomi Rapace. She comes across as shy, not shut down, with moments of madness, the washed out eyebrows seem to wash out also her personality, and she warms up too quickly to Daniel Craig, who seems more indifferent than intrigued. That is because the screenwriter wants them to meet only at the middle of the film so there's less time to develop a nuanced rapport. Her entire story line is less developed besides the hacking part, relegated to playing
distant second fiddle to Daniel Craig.
Secondly, the movie is too grimly lit. And we all know Fincher is a genius when it comes to movie lighting, so it is obviously done on purpose. In this film he tries to resolve his incapacity to
convey mood and depth of emotion by directing the actors (or by having the best screenplay), with lighting solutions. Much of the film is drowned in either cold, grey light, or in sloppy, new dogma kind of 'non light', making many scenes rather tiring to watch, and too blatant attempts at manipulating mood.
Thirdly, and finally, for the sake of Hollywood style fast pacing,
David Fincher kills the delivery of the most suspenseful scenes which are rushed,
chopped, intercut, undeveloped, and, in comparison with the Swedish original, too busy and less engrossing.
I
watched the movie in Europe, shortly after I had a conversation with a film
professor who was telling me that the chief difference between American and
European movies (and books) is that American movies (and books) are all about plot and fast pace, whereas the European movies are mostly conveyors of
inner worlds and states of mind.
The best works of art achieve both, but it happens all too rarely mainly because the 'market' pulls into two different directions. My friend
was so much on the mark though, if even one of my top three favorite American directors
alive (the other two are Woody Allen and Oliver Stone) couldn’t strike the
right balance in his rendition of the Swedish blockbuster psychological
thriller.
I
am certain that David Fincher’s movie will do great at the box office because it has
all the ingredients to draw people in.
But in my view this movie is a sign that it is time for Fincher to try
to shed some artistic skin and renew himself as a director; or maybe just ask his Hollywood producers to give him more freedom, and stop breathing big budget action flick formulas down his neck.
Alexandra Ares is a journalist and the award winning author of My Life on Craigslist, Dream Junkies, and The Other Girl. She has a Ph.D. in performing arts.
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
December 1st, 2011
ROMANIANS ARE SMART
In Observance of December 1st, the National Day of Romania, the country where I was born, take a look at a FUNNY VIDEO part of an international campaign called Romanians Are Smart, ran by McCann Erickson in Romania, winner of the 2011 Grand Prix for Advertising at the International Cannes Festival, the world's most coveted communications awards. Romania was the big winner at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as the local branch of creative agency McCann Erickson won two Grands Prixes in the promo/activation and direct categories for its American Rom campaign for client Kandia Dulce. This is Romania’s first Grand Prix, though it has won a few Lions in the past.
The creative team of the agency, headed by Adrian Botan, also received two Gold Lions. This is a quite convincing proof that indeed Romanians are Smart.
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
FALL/WINTER ISSUE
2011
The MODERN AMERICAN
ESSAY
by Alexandra Ares
The modern American has gone a long way... astray, hasn't he?
I am in the New York City subway greatly enjoying The American by Henry James. Written in 1877, it describes a self-made millionaire American
visiting Paris in search of a wife. Although the snobbish highborn Parisian
families for whom work is a shameful endeavor look at him with disdain as a
vulgar example of the nouveau riche, by today’s standards there isn’t an ounce
of vulgarity in the person of Christopher Newman, Henry James’s American.
There’s an enchanting integrity and thoughtful eloquence about this character.
Meeting and falling in love with a young widower Madame Du Cintre, he asks her
to marry him after five or six innocent morning visits, and when she asks him
not to mention marriage and anything too personal for six months, he complies,
keeps seeing her a few times a week, while also befriending her family. The
book portrays a wholesome American innocence and practical intelligence, in
contrast with a corrupted and snobbish old Europe populated by a good for
nothing top 1 percent of nobility. Now fast forward 144 years
to today’s date...Read More
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
THE ORANGE DRESS
Short Story and Translation
by Daniela Albu
Grandmother, do you like my new orange dress
that mother bought me for the ball?"
Ana could not answer her. She
hated that color... Read More
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
MY TWO CENTS
by Alexandra Ares
THE Wall Street Protest AND THE BELATED, MEEK American Spring
Manhattan Chronicles supports the OWS Movement and thanks the protestors for camping on the asphalt jungle, enduring rain, snow, storm, cold, lack of comfort, dirt, police, and so much unwarranted scorn. This is not to say that we have anything against the people who work on Wall Street, and who are in most cases highly educated, super bright overachievers, and even Wall Street itself which is a New York staple, like the Empire State Building, Central Park, or the famous hotdogs and bagels. We're against a greedy, short sighted current business model that hurts the long term interests of 99% of Americans. Wall Street is a genius yet blind machinery of making big money, and something should be done to help make a more sensible correlation between certain fast and furious big profit schemes and their long term effect on the prosperity of the American citizens, who are otherwise getting bankrupt.
Just one small case in point: all the medical procedures in the US, from dental fillings and crowns to cat scans or surgeries cost tens and hundred of times more than in other countries, although they employ identical equipment, materials, and facilities. Why? And how come 'the free markets' drive all the prices not down but up? From where normal people stand, the free market system is bloated and rigged. Who should fix it and doesn't? The doctors make more money, the hospitals make more money, the insurers make more money, 'the medical system' and its underwriters make more money, Wall Street is happy, while everyone else in the country who needs them is bankrupt. American folks are forced to have insurance in order to pay these astronomical and artificially inflated medical bills, if not they get into grotesque levels of debt. The result are national health affordability and indicators lower than in Cuba! I grew up in a poor European country and yet I've never heard of a single person to go bankrupt because they needed college education or medical care. This stuff was quite affordable even if one did not have medical insurance or financial aid, as most people didn't. The costs were correlated with the wages normal and poor people made. Nothing so sensible here, and why not? What does this say about a country so rich like the USA?
Crossing Park Avenue
in the 90s the other day, on my way to a book store on Madison in the 90s, I finally ran
into the (in) famous Wall Street protesters. They were a meager, quiet bunch, painfully small and irrelevant against
the backdrop of majestic Park Avenue buildings. So far off from reaching
the critical mass needed to accomplish a REVOLUTION, and, as it usually happens, the police comically outnumbered
them.
However, it was interesting to notice
that everyone, from passers-by to the
numerous police forces, smiled at them, with this facial expression that seem
to say: Thank you for doing what we don’t
have the courage to do. We admire you for this and wish you the best of luck.
We don’t do what you do only because we feel helpless, we don’t think it
will make any difference and because we are a bit lazy to interrupt our lives and unsettle our comfort. Yet we all agree with you: This country’s
problem is not Big Government, but Small Minded Congress, we all live under the
velvet dictatorship of a Congress (latest approval rates hovering between 10- 14%) that stopped representing
the interest of the majority of people long ago; and we are all either desperately or numbingly incapable of doing anything about it.
I returned home thinking how
I don’t care about changing the world anymore. All because it seems so darn
difficult. And how I thank all these people for doing what they do and enduring what they endure while sleeping night after night on the asphalt foregoing basic hygiene. Many years ago I was out in the streets of Bucharest rioting against the communist dictatorship. Have I gotten too old and jaded about fighting for social justice? And for even believing in it? Perhaps the next Congress and the next US Presidents should all be under the age of 35,
not above it, an age where people are still foolish and daring enough to stir
the status quo and do great things.
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
People's Corner
9/16/2011
TIME FOR AN AMERICAN SPRING?
 People's Corner features poignant commentaries on the issues of the day made by readers of major newspapers, opinions which we believe are often more interesting and on the mark than paid opinion piece journalism. When most of the normal folks can come up with common sense solutions more sensible and comprehensive than any acts passed by the Legislature and the Executive, who are supposedly the smartest guys in the room, we all know it is time for an American Spring.
POLL: Only 12% of Americans are happy with the way
Congress is doing its job, tying the all-time lowest approval rating set back
in 10/08 at the height of the economic crisis. 8 in 10 of those polled do not
plan to vote for their incumbent in the next election.
"Congress is out of touch
with the American people and continues to give them the exact opposite of what
they want. Poll after poll shows support for raising taxes on the wealthy,
eliminating loopholes and subsidies for corporations, significantly reducing
military spending, protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and
putting America back to work by investing in education, infrastructure and job
training. How can we have a sound economy when manufacturing accounts for only 10 percent
of the economy while the financial industry takes 40 percent of profits? (Read more...)
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES on 9/11 ANNIVERSARY
An Imaginary Dialog
THE ART OF WAR applied in AFGHANISTAN
by Alexandra Ares
9/11/2011
 Today New York
City commemorates 10 years since the tragedy of 9/11. Ten years since the U.S. economy started to go down in the dumps, and roughly 10 years since the White House and the Congress started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which killed more people than the terrorists, and
inflicted massive economic damage and debt upon all of us.
Since I am by no
means a war specialist, I turned to the greatest warrior-philosopher of all times, Sun Tzu, who,
two thousand years ago in China, compiled THE ART OF WAR, still regarded as the bible of military and conflict strategy. So I conducted an imaginary interview with Master Sun and the generals who subsequently commented on the Art of War, to see what they think about our decade long war in Afghanistan.
MC: Master Sun what do you think about USA's decade long war in Afghanistan?
 MASTER SUN (544-496 B.C.): I have heard of
military operations that were clumsy but swift, but I never seen one that was
skilful and lasted a long time. It is never beneficial to a nation to have a
military operation continue for a long time.
MC: Why?
MASTER SUN: When
you do battle, even if you are winning, if you continue for a long time it will
dull your forces and blunt your edge.
General JIA LIN (618-906): Allow me to chip in. Even if you prevail others in battle, if you go on too long there will
be no profit... If you dull your forces and blunt your edge, sustaining
casualties and battle fatigue, then you will be exhausted.
General ZHANG YU (960-1278): When you are spending a great deal of money on a military operation, if
the army is in the field for too long, your budget will not be enough to cover
the expense.
MC: No kidding! You guys are very wise. So what do you think our government should do?
General LIU QUAN: A large
scale operation involves enormous expense, which not only breaks you down in
the field, but also exhausts you at home. Therefore a wise government does not
keep its army in the field for long.
MC: Do you have anything to add Master Sun?
MASTER SUN: When a country is impoverished by military
operations, it is because of transporting supplies a distant place. Transport
supplies a distant place and the populace will be impoverished.
MC: Would you please comment further on this Generals?
General CAO CAO (155-200 C.E.): Only transportations of provisions itself
consumes twenty times the amount transported.
MASTER SUN: And those who are near the army sell as high
prices. Because of high prices, the wealth of the common people is exhausted.
General JIA LIN: Wherever the troops gather, the prices of
goods all soar. Since people are greedy for exceptional profits.
MASTER SUN: So when power and resources are exhausted, then
the homeland is drained. The common
people are deprived of seventy percent of their budget, while the governments
expenses for equipment amount to sixty percent of the budget.
MC: This is all very interesting generals, but we are running out of timespan. In conclusion?
General WANG XI (early eleventh century): Therefore long military campaigns are a
plague to the nations. MC: Master Sun do you have one last piece of advice for American foreign policy?
MASTER SUN: To overcome others armies without fighting is the
best of skills.
MC: Thank you all.
Spring-Summer 2011 Issue
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES INTERVIEW
DARKO LUNGUNOV, Winner of Tribeca Film Festival
Director of HERE AND THERE
 Serbian born first time director Director Darko Lungulov and Producer George Lekovic generated significant buzz about the film through a guerilla marketing campaign that included everything from pioneering crowd funding to a surprise event in Union Square, featuring The Balkan Brass Band, Zlatne Uste, which played its unique brand of music in Union Square Park as Lungulov spoke with onlookers about his film, which Eric Hynes of The Village Voice called “Unexpectedly sublime, like the odd intimacy of wearing gifted pajamas and a friendship forged over a two-liter of beer. Watch the event here.Spurned on by this campaign, the New York run at the Quad was completely sold out.
Manhattan Chornicles talked to Darko Lungunov about what happened after winning the Tribeca Film festival in 2009. Read More...
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES
IN TRANSLATION: FICTION by Adriana Ichim
Excerpt from the novel
SUPERMODEL BETWEEN EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE
Adriana Ichim is the first Romanian supermodel who left Romania during the communist regime and became famous in Italy as a model, actress, business woman and lover of celebrities and bilionaires. This frag-ment of her best selling memoir published in Europe describes her first trip to Italy, which unravelled both her life as a model behind the Iron Curtain and her first marriage. It is not a tell-all-memoir, but a captivating novel of certain, although slightly uneven, literary merit.
Rome, 1979< div>
I got off the plane and immediately felt dizzy because of the multitude of people; seemingly millions of hurrying people who knew exactly where they were going. I... well, I searched through the crowds for something or someone to help me get out of that place. ...Read All
IS AMERICA BETTER OF PROMISCUOUS?
What Craigslist Tells Us About Sex and America
Ever wondered what Craigslist tells as about sex and the real America? I had to write a novel about it in order to find out. It’s wild. How did we get here?
It used to be that religion was the safeguard of ethics or, at the very least, an inspiration for people to seek the angel within, and not just give in to the always-lurking animal side; then, a growing number of people outgrew the idea of organized religion and said that one could lead a moral life without being religious. So far, so good. But slowly, our messy democracy Obama talked about in his last State of the Union Address, and the free speech that made Larry Flint a free man, took over our sex lives and changed everything. It made the wildest degree of promiscuity socially acceptable in America. It is non-judgmentally called exploration or experimentation. People holding on to old-fashioned values are billed as square. The media hypes the sex, lies, and all the dirty digital tapes. Is this something good? Is it bad? Where are we going to draw the line? Is there going to be any line? ...Read All
LITTLE PEOPLE
It began one morning. He had woken up very early. He was sipping his coffee. A book, still closed, lay beside him. A strange and powerful feeling he had not experienced before took possession of him. It seemed that an imperious, confused, but dictatorial voice was barking orders in brain. Open the book and read! He began to perspire. His head began to ache, and a shiver went down his spine, all the way to his slippers. He felt as if he was being pushed by something he couldn’t identify. Read! He could neither understand, nor oppose whatever was happening to him. He took the book, opened it, and tried to read. But, far from fading away, the anxiety amplified. Words became garbled and began to eat each other. A sort of anxiety was clutching at his soul like a claw. His fingers were shaking, holding the book. The text became an amorphous mass of letters. He closed the book and stared at the wall in front of him. He was feeling alone and endangered, powerless and vulnerable. ...Read All
OPINION by RAPHAEL GOLB, Ph.D.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Scandal
You Can Put me in Jail, but You Can't Shut me Up
 On March 5, 2009, Raphael Golb was arrested and charged with "identity theft" and with engaging in a "fraudulent scheme to influence a debate." Thus began one of the most hallucinatory criminal prosecutions of recent years. The government's action came as a response to an email and blogging campaign that Raphael undertook four years ago, in which he criticized the conduct of various influential individuals and institutions involved in an ongoing controversy over the manner in which the Dead Sea Scrolls are being presented to the public. After a two-week trial in September, 2010, Raphael was found guilty and sentenced to spend six months at Rikers Island, on the grounds that he used pseudonyms and satire to mock his adversaries and to "influence a debate." The court of appeals stayed the sentence, and Raphael has appealed the trial court's decision. His appeal brief was recently filed. As a supplement to the appeal, Raphael's personal account of his trial and its background makes for a compelling read and introduces us to the darker side of the academy. Read All...
Translations by Corneliu M.Popescu and Peter Grimm
GLOSS
Days go past and days come still
All is old and all is new,
What is well and what is ill,
You imagine and construe;
Do not hope and do not fear,
Waves that leap like waves must fall;
Should they praise or should they jeer,
Look but coldly on it all. ...Read All
ODE IN SAPPHIC METER
That I'm doomed to die I believed it never;
Always young and clad in my mantle I wandered,
Dreaming eyes uplifted for ever fixed on
Solitude's starlight. ...Read All
An ARGUMENT for TOUCH-TONE GOVERNANCE
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a touch-tone application on our computer screen for voting for or against all the local, state and federal matters that affect us? Stuff like real estate taxes, other taxes, how our tax money is being used, disadvantaged kids, streets clean-up, wine in supermarkets, signal in the subway, war and peace or the latest debate on the Ground Zero mosque?
I was very, very excited and happy to become a US citizen years ago. I was under the impression that once a citizen my voice was going to matter...Read All
MEN of a CERTAIN AGE
Most men over a certain age are like peaceful COWS, many are like scared RABBITS, a few are like unlikely PEACOCKS and only one-in-a-million are still pure breed MUSTANGS… Read All
INTERVIEW
ADAM RAPP
Don't WAIT
for anyone to
ANOINT you...
Pulitzer finalist playwright, controversial young adult novelist, high-energy musician, screenwriter and filmmaker speaks to Manhattan Chronicles...Read All
FLESH of WORDS
When I came to America I felt like Columbus. I was conquered and I was conquering...
CULINARY Successes
in AMERICA
What’s wrong with cookbooks: the recipees. No matter how perfect they are or how much asidousness goes into them they will never be anything except a small part of the culture they come from...Read All
STORY BY DANIELA ALBU
MESSAGE in a BOTTLE
The dress was gorgeous and absolutely how she'd imagined it to be: absolutely flawless... Read All
LOST IN TRANSLATION
 BOOK EXCERPT by VASILE ERNU BORN IN THE USSR
I left the country in 1990. To paraphrase Vladimir Mayakovsky, I could say: read this and envy – I too was once a citizen of the Soviet Union... Read All
 POETRY by DINU GRIGORESCU TAMING THE
WORDS
In the circus of words
Open non stop---
Of beasts ---
The music is suave
Concave,
The bald,
Soprano
(from Milano)
A surreal atmosphere
Of a ball,
A carnival,
Sensational! ...Read All
MANHATTAN CHRONICLES ARCHIVE (Selections):
SUMMER 2011 ISSUE
FALL 2010 ISSUE
SUMMER 2010 ISSUE
SPRING 2010 ISSUE
WINTER 2010 ISSUE
 FALL 2009 ISSUE
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GLIMPSE by 
