Playing with Fire

So it looks like Daniel Craig is officially onboard to play Kalle Fucking Blomkvist in the English language film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That's good. I like Craig. I also welcome the news that director David Fincher plans on filming in Sweden. Evidently, he's been given the green light to make his movies as dark as Steig Larsson's novels, too.

The first of Fincher's trilogy is scheduled for release in December, 2011. In the meantime I intend to see the Swedish version of The Girl Who Played with Fire when it comes to Rockland, Maine, next week. Based on the early reviews, I expect that I'll emerge from the Strand Theatre still wondering what the point is of remaking these movies in English (except to make loads of money, of course).

Maine Lingo: Prit'near

Another in my occasional series of Down East colloquialisms:

PRIT'NEAR: Just about, almost. As in, "Melvin prit'near had a heart attack when he saw the bill for that pantsuit I bought over at Reny's."

Deer in the Road

I was returning tonight from one of my most enjoyable readings yet—a packed house, literally standing room only, at the Bailey Library in Winthrop—when a doe sprang in front of my car. People in the audience had just been asking me about my next novel, and I'd said it begins with a deer-car collision. I avoided the doe (or she avoided me), but my heart continued to race for a while, as much at the uncanny coincidence as the near-death encounter.

"I Write Like" Stephen King

Stephen King. Photo by "Pinguino"A new Web site has become the talk of the literary blogosphere. I Write Like has an intriguing gimmick: just cut and paste a sample of your writing into a text box, hit the analyze button, and an algorithm will tell you which famous author you write like. I pasted much of The Poacher's Son into the site and learned that my prose most resembles that of Stephen King. This was news to me, but I'm in good company: the New York Times fed all of Moby Dick into the program. It turns out Herman Melville also wrote like King. 

The Girl with the American Adaptation

David Fincher, the director of Se7en and Zodiac, has been hired to direct an English language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The script is by Steve Zaillian, who wrote Schindler's List, and Daniel Craig is rumored to be playing Michael Blomkvist. The part of Lisbeth Salander has not yet been cast.

Having just watched the Swedish version of Stieg Larrson's novel, I'm saddened by the idea that American audiences can't be bothered to watch movies with subtitles. It's more the shame because the film by Niels Arden Oplev is one of the finer adaptations of a (fairly complicated) novel that I've seen. There's absolutely no need for another version except to squeeze more money out of the worldwide Larsson phenomenon. I only hope to God that Fincher and Zaillian don't set their motion picture in the United States.