Gender Fuck Thursday: Break the Tie Edition

Tied! Untied! Tied! Untied! Tied! Untied! OK, you get where I’m going here, right? I’ve discussed my love of a nice tie – bow or neck – in the past. But the question always remains – tied or untied? Which is sexier? Often it’s situational. Start of the date: tied. End of the date: untied. Really, the great thing about a tie is its ability to be either or, whenever you want it. Fine, too much kumbatie for you? Then go ahead and decide for yourself. Tied? Untied? Delightfully loose like Noni? Some choices are just…fun.

Janelle MonaeTied, definitely tied.

Jane LynchWait, untied, definitely untied.

Noomi RapaceDammit. No, I mean it, tied.

Kate WinsletNo! I was so wrong. Untied!

Regina SpektorFine. I give up.

Monica BellucciI said I give up.

Hope SoloNow you’re just hurting me.

Naomi WattsOfficially dead.

Right, so what did you decide? Tied or untied? I know, both.

Vacation Vixen: Noomi Rapace

But I did not go to Sweden during any part of my vacation. Pity.

My Weekend Crush

Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth Salander. This much I know. She embodies the character with a silent ferociousness turning her into a coiled ball with sinew and vengeance. She is justice’s angry right hand. You don’t see many characters like her on screen. The bixexual hacker with a penchant for piercings and a scowl that won’t stop. Noomi’s transformation was remarkable and complete. She went from the conventionally girlie to this tiny, leather-clad rock of post-punk androgyny. In short, she blew my mind and made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for me. She is Lisbeth Salander. But she herself has said she no longer wants to play Lisbeth Salander.

Which brings me to the subject of the remake. Like everyone, I’m reluctant. When you love something in its original form, you are resistant to any reinterpretation. But then, you should know something about us Americans – we’re not terribly fond of subtitles, or foreign films in general. So that means a whole swath of the population has never met Lisbeth Salander, this remarkable heroine in the canon of film history. And they should, because women on screen don’t often get to be tough and avenging and guided by their own morality – or gay, for that matter.

So while I have real and unrelenting reservations, I am going to give the American The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a try. I am going to trust director David Fincher to bring this story to the masses. I am going to hope that Rooney Mara can embody her with the same fire and strength (check out her decked out as Salander for the first time in W magazine here). I am going to cross my fingers that Bond himself Daniel Craig will not overshadow the story and make it about him. I am going to do all of this because I think it’s a good story and I want more people to meet Lisbeth Salander.

But believe you me, I am also going to miss Noomi Rapace the whole damn time. Happy weekend, all.

Lights, camera, acting

Sometimes we forget that acting is a craft, and a difficult one at that. Actors become celebrities and then who they’re fucking becomes somehow more important than what they’re portraying. But acting, that grand game of make believe wrapped up in the fabric of basic human truths, is difficult. And great acting, well, that’s something almost otherworldly. It is making something out of nothing. In fact, acting may be the most basic of arts – to create using only our bodies and brains. No paint, no clay, no music. Just emotion.

But, like I said, sometimes we forget that amid the razzle dazzle and the gaudy glitz that accompanies acting. So it’s nice when someone like the New York Times magazine reminds us once again that acting is indeed an art – and a thing of beauty. Like they did with female tennis players, the Times has crafted an amazing multimedia package featuring 14 actors acting. The magazine asked the year’s best actors to “show us — in a few gestures and with a few props but without dialogue or story — what acting is. And here they are, striking some of the classic attitudes of cinema, turning their bodies and faces into instruments of pure, deep and enigmatic emotion.” In less than 90 seconds, all of them manage to transport us somewhere and make us wish no one ever yelled, “Cut!”

A look at a few of my favorites. See all of them here:

Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”


Noomi Rapace, Millennium Trilogy films


Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”


Chloë Moretz, “Kick-Ass,” “Let Me In”


Tilda Swinton, “I Am Love”

I can’t stop watching Tilda’s. I don’t think she is human, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Year of the Dragon

You know when you hear about how great something is for so long it feels like you’ve already experienced it and agree completely with its greatness. But then you actually take the time to experience it for real and you’re like: What, why didn’t anyone tell me this was so fucking great? But of course, they did. You were just were too busy/tired/preoccupied/frazzled/dumb. Yeah, that’s me with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Also, holy good God, Noomi Rapace.

Besides being a brutal, taut and well-constructed thriller, TGWTDT’s best feature is its introduction of the universe to the amazing talent that in Noomi. You Swedes probably knew this all long, but us in less fortunate geographic locales needed to see her transform completely into Lisbeth Salander to find a clue. Wow. I mean, damn. What is more emphatic than wow and damn? WAMN! I don’t know. But I do know that having seen interviews and pictures of Noomi outside her TGWTDT role and having seen her on screen, that’s am amazing bit of acting. She looks, of course, different (and, I might add, queerilicious), but her body too has been sculpted into one gorgeous mass of sinew and muscle.

Plus, oh kittens, that scowl. You know how much I love a sexy scowler. (Oh Lena, Lena).

If, like me, you have been remiss in seeing this film I would advise you forget whatever inferior film you are thinking of renting (Is that, are you…? No – no “Prince of Persia.” For one, Jake Gyllenhaal is in no way Persian.), and pick up “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” instead. Plus, how many other movies will give you a bisexual punk kick-ass hacker for its lead? Lucky for us, its sequel “The Girl Who Played with Fire” comes out on DVD next month. And this time we get to see Lisbeth do more than just wake up next to that hot lady friend of hers.

Though, while we’re on the subject, do we really need an American version? I like David Fincher as much as the next gal (except Benjamin Button...why...so...long?), but are we really that lazy that we can’t read the subtitles? And, while we’re still on the subject, (SPOILERS if you haven’t seen the film/read the books, seriously, don’t yell at me this seems like enough warning space for spoilers…) does the thought of Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara making with the sexy time together as the story demands fill anyone with an overwhelming sense of ewww? The problem in Rooney looks so much younger and more frail than Noomi. Which, to reiterate, is ewww. But, hey, maybe the kid will surprise me and make her own transformation into a fierce fire-breathing avenger filled with scowl and fury.

Or maybe I’ll just watch the originals again.