In my Melancholia review I stated that I have a pathological inability to give up on a film. However, I do have to admit that I gave up on a movie a few months ago. The film was The Girl Who Played With Fire. I don’t know why, but it almost put me in a coma and I had to stop halfway through. I never finished it.

Which is a shame because I really enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It certainly wasn’t a flawless film - the direction lacked imagination and it looked like it had been filmed for TV - but it was an enjoyable diversion. I guess I began to switch off once we got into the silliness of Lisbeth’s family tree.

As you’d expect, the Hollywood remake of Stieg Larsson’s novel is bigger, louder and glossier. But is it better? I would say in almost every regard, yes. The acting and the directing are far superior and Fincher’s version has far more tension.

A surprising element of watching the remake is realising how little of the original I remembered. I couldn’t even remember who the killer was, which is a pretty damning indictment of how little the original film stayed with me. Despite the heaviness of the violence, it turned out to be a pretty lightweight exercise.

So here comes Fincher to give the story the treatment it deserves. His film has far more weight and promises not to fade from the memory like a wisp.

The key scene for me is the torture of Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). I haven’t been that on edge for a while. Sure I knew he wasn’t going to die and yes I knew Lisbeth was going to turn up at the last second to save his life, but I still ended up getting an adrenaline rush. And unusually for me - I usually find it surprisingly easy to detach myself from moments of horror - I felt anxious when Blomkvist’s tormentor puts a plastic bag over his head. I’ve always found the very notion of suffocation horrific and Fincher prolongs the agony. And then with some POV shots, he allows you to step into Blomkvist’s shoes. It’s a wonderfully, horrifically powerful scene, which is made even more disturbing by the use of an Enya song. ‘Just kill me already! I can’t take any more of that pseudo-Celtic bollocks!’

Just as the scene is reaching breaking point, Lisbeth turns up and saves the day with a golf club. She smashes the man’s face and then chases him on her motorbike until he crashes his car and burns to death. Wait a minute, who’s James Bond here?

Of course Lisbeth is a pure male fantasy. A hot goth girl with a fantastic body and cool tattoos who’s as capable with a taser as she is with a laptop, who will hop on your penis for sweaty sex, save your life at the last moment, tenderly ask you permission to kill your tormentor, destroy your other enemy by embezzling billions of dollars by dressing up as an icy blonde and then spend some of the cash buying you an awesomely rad leather jacket. Oh, and she also likes girl on girl action. Who but a man could conceive of such a creation?

But even though she stretches every thread of credibility, Lisbeth is a fantastic heroine. Strong, resourceful and handy with a dildo, she’s kind of James Bond meets Batman meets Siouxsie Sioux meets Rain Man. Or put another way, she’s kind of a goth Sherlock Holmes. If Sherlock Holmes was a bisexual girl and wanted to relentlessly plug Apple products.

At the beginning of the film, we find out that Lisbeth has been declared mentally incompetent by the State and has been appointed a legal guardian. In a twist that would make Republican heads explode and have them bemoaning the evils of socialism, Lisbeth’s government appointed guardian turns out to be a colossal pervert. In return for favourable reports and continued wellfare checks, he expects sweaty blow-jobs and brutal assfuckings. Yeah, and you capitalists think that getting government assistance doesn’t have any strings attached!

For Lisbeth’s rapist, though, there’s a worthy punishment. Unbeknownst to him, Lisbeth videoed one of the rapes. And then just so he can know what it feels like, she tasers him, ties him up and rams a huge dildo up his hairy arse. She even kicks it a couple of times to make it penetrate him even deeper. What a girl! And then just as a little cherry on top of this sad, sweaty, bloody, quivering, sobbing man cake, Lisbeth tattoos his chest, telling everyone that he’s a rapist pig. Again this is borderline ridiculous but it works a treat.

What’s fairly surprising about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that it takes a while for our lead characters to team up. At first Lisbeth is busy with her perverted Benny Andersson look-a-like guardian and Blomkvist is investigating a murder for a wealthy businessman. The unsolved murder of the businessman’s grandniece occurred decades ago, but it still consumes the old man.

Of course the nuts and bolts of the murder investigation are probably the least interesting aspect of the film. When Blomkvist and Lisbeth do finally team up there’s a lot of staring at strategically placed Apple products and lots of rooting through files and photos. It’s perfectly entertaining but it isn’t anything we haven’t seen a million times before.

Much more fun is the development of the relationship between Blomkvist and Lisbeth. At first it seems like it’s going to be a mentor/tutor kind of relationship. But then in one scene Lisbeth makes a move on Blomkvist and they become lovers. Again this twist flirts with the ridiculous but like so much of the film it works effortlessly. Maybe I’m more accepting of how out of the blue everything happens because they’re supposed to be Swedish? Is it wrong of me to think of them either as relentless bed-hoppers, suicide victims or maniac chefs? ‘I’m a hurreeble-a xenuphube-a. Cheeckee in a besket!’

I don’t even care that Daniel Craig doesn’t attempt a Swedish accent. Frankly, I’d rather someone not try than try an accent and fail miserably.

Given the familiar elements of the murder mystery, the key hook for me was whether Lisbeth and Blomkvist would end up together. They make a great team and Craig and Rooney Mara have excellent chemistry. And given the tenderness that is opened up in Lisbeth by her love for Blomkvist, I had a surprising emotional investment in the characters (maybe this is why the torture scene is so tense). So I couldn’t help but want to slap Craig’s character when he decides to go off with his previous lover and business partner (played by Robin Wright Penn). Seriously? Between a blonde who has wrinkles that makes it look like she has a vagina on her neck and a girl who killed the guy who was torturing you, who managed to embezzle billions of dollars without any effort and who has finally opened herself up and bought you a killer leather jacket, you chose the blonde with a vagina neck! Well done Blomkvist, well done!

‘Ve-a cume-a frum zee lund ooff zee ice-a und snoo,
Frum zee meednight soon vhere-a zee hut spreengs floo
Zee hemmer ooff zee guds veell dreefe-a oooor sheeps tu noo lunds,
Tu feeght zee hurde-a, seenging und cryeeng: Felhella, I em cumeeng!’

It would be an understatement to say that Lars von Trier polarises audiences. It seems that half the people think he’s a genius, while the other half think he’s a talentless idiot.

I certainly belong to the former but Melancholia is a first for me - I experienced both ends of the von Trier spectrum in one movie. The first half is an appalling, crappy, half-baked mess while the second half is a powerhouse.

The first half details the wedding reception for newlyweds Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). The first time we see them, they’re in the back of a limo as the driver tries to navigate a narrow country road. He has difficulties trying to get his car round a particularly tight corner.

I immediately took a dislike to the couple. They make snide comments about the driver and then when they finally go to help him, it seems like they’re trying to have fun at his expense - both of them have a go at trying to get the car round the tight corner but it seems like Justine has never driven before; she can only giggle when she smashes the front of the car into a cinder block (at one point the driver begs them not to damage the vehicle).

They arrive a couple of hours late to their reception. Given these circumstances, you’d think the newlyweds would be apologetic and compliant. Instead they immediately run off to goof about in the stables. They behave like children.

The friends and family of these nitwits aren’t much better. Justine’s mother (Charlotte Rampling) is a contender for the most miserable person on the planet, Justine’s father (John Hurt) is the resident ‘comedian’ who thinks that it’s a great idea to fuck around with the waiting staff, Justine’s boss (Stellan Skarsgard) is a selfish prick who doesn’t attempt to hide the fact that he’s only interested in Justine for her ability to make money, Justine’s sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is dull and gloomy and Justine’s brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland) is a wealthy jackass. There’s a very high concentration of pricks.

The opening hour ends up serving as an anti-Deer Hunter. In Cimino’s film, the wedding reception helps us to identify with the characters and to form an attachment to them, so that when they’re exposed to the horrors of war, the pain is almost unbearable. In Melancholia, the reception seems to distance us from them.

It’s made clear that Justine is a troubled woman but her relationship with her new husband is so hollow and facile that it almost beggars belief. At one point he gives her a photo of an apple orchard - apparently he’s bought the land in the hope that they’ll grow old together there. But when Justine is called away from the room, she leaves the photo behind. So much for happily ever after.

But as thoughtless and uncaring as this is from Justine, her husband doesn’t really deserve any sympathy. At the end of the evening he tries consummate the marriage, but he’s about as smooth as a crocodile and Justine brushes him away. The man has all the charm and class of a sewer rat.

The film’s nadir occurs when Justine leaves her husband to gloomily wander her brother-in-law’s golf course. Following her is one of her boss’s lackeys. Rather than tell the guy to piss off, Justine pushes him to the ground and fucks him. The staging is horrible. Apparently the kid gets an erection in about two seconds and then we see Justine bouncing on top of him - it looks like she’s riding his stomach.

But of course the scene doesn’t work on a deeper level either. I get that Justine is supposed to possess a depressive personality. And I know that manic depressives are prone to wild mood swings and engage in self-destructive behaviour, but the acting and the writing just aren’t good enough. Justine just jumps from Point A to Point B to Point C without adequately communicating the inner turmoil that is leading her to behave like this.

There was one point in Melancholia when I was ready to completely write it off. After getting fucked by Justine, the lackey tells her that they should go into business together, saying that, after all, they’ve had ‘good sex’. [insert sound of a cosmic forehead slap ringing across the galaxy]

Thank fuck then that I have an almost pathological inability to abandon a film, because the second half is amazing.

The planet Melancholia is heading towards Earth. The official story is that it’ll just pass by. However, other people say that it’s going to smash right into the Earth and destroy everything.

The second half begins with a severely depressed Justine staying with her sister Claire at her enormous mansion. Justine can barely move and finds even the simplest everyday functions impossible - she can’t even raise her legs to get in the bath. Obviously distraught, Claire does her best to raise Justine’s spirits. In one scene she cooks her sister her favourite dish - meatloaf. At first Justine seems to enjoy it but then she begins sobbing, saying that the meal tastes like ashes.

Her marriage in ruins and her life a complete mess, it seems like Justine has already experienced her own private apocalypse. It’s only when a much bigger disaster begins to loom that she rouses from her slumber and returns to something like herself. When she’s already lost everything, what is there to fear?

Indeed, it seems that Justine openly welcomes the end of life on Earth. Like she’s suddenly become Werner Herzog or something, she proclaims that all life on Earth is evil and it deserves to die. And then when Melancholia does its fly-by of Earth, she welcomes it like a siren - in the un-Earthly glow of the rogue planet, she bathes nude in the river. Perhaps Melancholia is a welcome release from her terrestrial problems.

Claire’s husband John doesn’t believe that Melancholia presents any danger. He and his son watch the planet get closer and the fly-by is a cause for celebration. His son even invents a contraption that helps track the rogue planet. With a stick and a loop of wire, he’s able to see if Melancholia is getting smaller or bigger. As predicted, after the fly-by, Melancholia begins to move away. It seems like everyone is safe.

In the morning, though, there’s an eerie quiet. Claire goes to the stables and sees that the horses are completely still and calm. She then finds her husband’s body - he’s killed himself with an overdose. Claire rushes back to the terrace of her mansion, picks up her son’s invention and sees that Melancholia has come back and is closer to the Earth than it was before.

Claire’s reaction to the impending disaster is sheer panic. She has a son, a good home and a comfortable life, and she doesn’t want to lose these things. Justine on the other hand is icily calm. She even mocks Claire’s idea of having a farewell party with drink and music - the end of the world is imminent and you want to have wine and music; how bourgeois!

Justine realises that hysteria won’t accomplish anything and makes sure that her nephew experiences the least amount of trauma possible. She says that she’s going to make him a magic cave out of sticks and that it’ll protect them. After so much selfishness and self-absorption, she finally achieves a state of grace with this act of decency and kindness.

It’s quite amazing how tense the final half of the film is, especially as we already know the ending - the prologue gives it away. The spectre of death looms over everyone and the inevitability of their demise is crushing. We get to see all of their hopes dashed, we get to see them panic and struggle and flail around like insects avoiding a boot that wants to stomp them - it’s a psychologically stressful film, especially if you have a family; you’ll do anything to protect them but what if you’re completely powerless?

It’s also a fantastic decision to have such a small focus. At one point I wondered how the rest of the world was reacting, but what does it matter? We’ve already seen mass hysteria in disaster films - it’s never particularly interesting. But here we get to see a small group of people dissolve right before our eyes. They’re literally crushed by forces beyond their control, which reminds us of how precarious our own lives are. We have far less control than we think.

The only thing that keeps this film from greatness is the abysmal first half. von Trier doesn’t have to pander to his audience but some measure of likeability in his characters would have given it a bigger jolt at the end. Or not even likeability - I just need a better understanding of the characters and their actions. A better actor than Dunst would have been welcome too. Although I do have to say that she improves greatly in the second half.

But you can’t help but feel that von Trier is happy that these people are being destroyed. This is great if you’re into schadenfreude, but not so great if you want a deeper emotional resonance.

Giant flying sea turtles from space? Really? This is the film that is raking in all the cash; the film that has fan boys drooling over their flabby, donut-enhanced bellies - a film with flying sea turtles from space in it?!?

I know this is hard to do, everyone, but sit back objectively and think about the last forty minutes of this film. Is this giant clusterfuck of shit really quality entertainment? Do you really enjoy watching enormous marine reptiles flying across Manhattan while being ridden by poorly rendered skeletal space monkeys? It’s like Transformers ate The Phantom Menace and exploded this sequence out of its distended rectum.

My hopes were minimal before the release of The Avengers but they rose significantly when every man and his dog (and sometimes his cat) told me how great the film was. However, my rising hopes deflated pretty quickly when the film began. Wait a minute, there’s an alien talking incomprehensible gobbledygook. And he looks like Skeletor! Oh, I know what’s happened. They’ve accidentally hooked up Masters of the Universe to the projector. Dolph Lundgren will turn up in a second in his furry loincloth and then we can fix this horrible, horrible mistake.

But Dolph Lundgren never appeared. You mean this is the correct film? Oh fuck me in the head with a pitbull; this is going to be a long evening!

Perhaps I’m being a little severe. The Avengers is most definitely not a horrible film. It’s just a crushingly mediocre one that has inexplicably been lavished with praise. I’m sorry but a half a dozen decent quips doesn’t make for a great movie.

Following the Skeletor nonsense, the film continues on shaky legs. Some eggheads gather around the film’s MacGuffin (some cube thing that can be used for cheap energy and which can create portals through space) and then everything gets a bit Stargate. The film’s bad guy, Loki, suddenly appears through a portal and proceeds to either kill or ‘turn’ people to his side. The way that he enslaves people is by prodding them with his gnarly space sceptre of convincement. One touch and they’re his drones. It’s all a bit rushed and doesn’t set the stage particularly well.

Thankfully the film improves significantly after this. Once Loki is out in the wild, doing his thing (being a colossal dick is what he does best), Nick Fury gets to assemble The Avengers. Where the film succeeds is in the inter-personal relationships between the heroes. The action scenes are a colossal disappointment and amongst some of the most boring stuff I’ve seen in recent years, but the friction between the protagonists and some of the humour that ensues is really well done.

There’s also some nice moral ambiguity. At the beginning it seems like Nick Fury’s espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is working entirely for the good of man. There’s this crazy guy loose in the world and they want to bring him down. But then we find out that S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the MacGuffin to develop super powerful weaponry against an alien invasion. One can see both sides of the coin. The negative: once you build these weapons, you can’t undo it; they’re always going to be there and they can cause your destruction. The positive: you want to protect yourself from hostile forces; you don’t want to be powerless. So like the atomic bomb; it might have saved us from an even longer war but it also opened Pandora’s Box.

There’s also a thread of hero worship that runs through the film. Agent Coulson (one of Nick Fury’s closest colleagues) is a huge Captain America fan and boasts of having valuable Captain America trading cards. After Coulson gets killed by Loki, Nick Fury shows the bloody Captain America trading cards that Coulson was apparently carrying on his person. This revelation lights a fire under everyone and allows Captain America and Tony Stark to get over their differences and work together as team. We then find out that the cards were never in Coulson’s pocket and that Fury used this as a way of motivating the team. It’s a pretty despicable act but one that is done for the greater good - this lie binds everyone together and allows them to finally act as a team.

I also enjoyed the film’s sense of humour. There are several parts that stand out. The clueless Captain America finally getting a reference because it relates to The Wizard of Oz (Captain America has been frozen in ice and so every modern pop culture reference goes over his head), Tony Stark making a quip about Shakespeare in the park as he, Thor and Captain America battle it out in the middle of a forest, and best of all, The Hulk beating the shit out of Loki.

This last scene was surprisingly hilarious. The rather pompous Loki tells the Hulk that he’s a god and that he won’t be bullied by such a dull creature. The Hulk then grabs Loki like a rag doll and smashes him repeatedly into the ground, calling him a ‘puny god’. The timing and the animation are magnificent.

Sadly this moment of comic relief occurs in the huge clusterfuck at the end of the movie. Towards the end, I really just didn’t care anymore. I just wanted the film over. Whedon tries to inject a bit of pathos by trying to convince us that Tony Stark might die but we all know that he’ll be fine. So therefore we have to endure about forty minutes of poorly designed pixels flinging themselves around. A bit of restraint can be a wonderful thing.

And I have to roll my eyes if I hear another person say that this is the definitive interpretation of the Hulk. Sorry, but as maligned as it is, I still love Ang Lee’s Hulk. As far as comic book movies go, only Nolan’s Batman movies can light a candle to it.

But the people have spoken and the cash registers are bulging. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more Avengers to come, but I doubt I’ll be there.

I find it quite amusing that so many Americans were outraged that Lars von Trier had the temerity to criticise their country without having visited it. We do it all the time, don't we? Millions of us are quite content to sit on our sofas and criticise China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Israel and countless other countries without having visited their shores. And we're perfectly justified in doing so. So why should von Trier be vilified for criticising America from a few thousand miles away?

Well, of course, I don't think he should. He's perfectly entitled to his opinion, and those that cry and moan are symptomatic of America's biggest problem – its inability to take criticism without getting its pants in a twist. Surely every great country should thrive on criticism. It should help it grow and develop. But instead America seems to resemble a child sometimes, spouting unhelpful phrases like, "America: love it or leave it" or, "You're either with us or against us." Therefore a film like Dogville, one that refuses to revel in the hollow American Dream, is vital, and it's a film that should be embraced, not shunned.

What the detractors seem to overlook is the fact that Dogville could really be a small town anywhere. It may be the first part in an American trilogy, but the small town values with their prejudices and hypocrisy are universal; they're not exclusive to any one country. Everyone can relate.

The film begins and ends with a God's eye view of the proceedings and it isn't hard to imagine that von Trier is looking down on the characters, judging them. In fact, as Tom (Paul Bettany) himself says, everything is a game, a test, and von Trier is the one pulling the strings.

The game begins when Grace enters the town. The townsfolk are frightened, but Tom thinks it's a gift. He wants to see if Dogville has a problem with acceptance. At the beginning, the citizens are understandably cautious, but they're eventually placated when Grace proves that she can help them out. And so at the beginning she develops a good relationship with the town and its citizens. But even at the beginning the relationship is far from equal. She may like everyone, but she's essential a slave. Yet the townsfolk like her best like this, when she's happily subservient.

As the film progresses, the town is tested further. The police post wanted posters and accuse Grace of crimes that she couldn't have committed (as she was in the town at the time of the reported incidents). But rather than bring everyone together, the town gets cold feet. It wants to help, but only as long as it doesn't put them at risk. Therefore they decide to doubly enslave Grace to make themselves feel better. It's an extraordinary move, but one that is anything but far-fetched. Individuals are brave, but people have a worrying habit of proving themselves to be spineless.

And seeing as Grace affects the status quo, the townsfolk decide to take their frustrations out on her. The men rape her physically and the women rape her psychologically. In fact, the most upsetting scene isn't one of the numerous rape scenes – although Chuck's rape scene does prove the brilliance of the set, what with it showing everyone going about their daily business and turning a blind eye to what is going on - it is instead the womens' abuse of Grace and the destruction of her figurines. It's more than just a physical violation. It's a violation of everything. Her dreams are being smashed right before her eyes.

But why do the people of Dogville react this way? Surely their behaviour is an exaggeration. Well, it is and it isn't. Of course the film paints a bleak portrait of human nature that you might not find down your street, but I think that the film proves that we all have darkness present in us. It only takes the right conditions and the right buttons to be pressed for it to emerge. In the case of Dogville, it emerges for many reasons, but I think the main reason is because Grace shows everyone what they are. Before her arrival, everyone is happily stuck in a rut, but once she arrives everything changes. Everyone is faced with their mediocrity and everyone's lies are exposed. In one scene, McKay (Ben Gazzara), after having finally admitted his blindness, indeed thanks Grace for "showing us who you are", but during her time in Dogville she also forces Bill to realise his stupidity (by playing checkers for him), Liz her unattractiveness (by catching Tom's eye), Ben his loneliness (by providing for him), Chuck and Vera their unhappy marriage (by catching Chuck's eye) and Tom his cowardice (through his refusal to kiss her even though she's admitted her love for him). Needless to say, not everyone likes being exposed. It's hard to face yourself when you don't like what you see. And therefore the person that you're going to punish is the one that made you gaze at your reflection.

The ending is certainly bleak, but I think it forces us to take a hard look at ourselves. How often have we taken advantage of other people when we should have helped? How often have our intentions been selfish? And Grace's final actions suggest one thing to me: if you treat someone like an animal, you shouldn't be surprised when they treat you like one too.