I can’t help but think that the reason why we Americans are getting Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels a year behind the rest of the world is to give Hollywood time to prepare their own version of the movies. But if you don’t want to wait, the Swedish version of the first installment is in theaters right now. I went to check it out this weekend, and here’s what I’ll tell you.

Noomi Rapace as The Girl With
the (very sexy) Dragon Tattoo

Normally, I’m quick to advise against the Americanized version of a foreign film, as they tend to range from the unnecessary (Insomnia) to the offensive (Vanilla Sky). But even though this film is Swedish like the book, it’s still an adaption, and one without the benefit of the author (Stieg’s dead). So what’s the draw? Why bother?

It’s hard to predict what the American version will be like, but at least it will be filmed in English, meaning you won’t have to scan between the subtitles and picture. It’s also certain to have prettier actors, though I’m not sure I’d list that as a benefit. Me, myself, I am always excited by a movie where the people look like people, not like the plastic mannequins that line Sunset Boulevard. Not that Noomi Rapace is hard on the eyes, mind you. She’s a bit of a crime, really, being far more attractive than the character described in the book.

No doubt the biggest difference will be in realization of the book’s theme. A literal translation of the original title would be, “Men Who Hate Women.” In the Swedish movie, this is realized in a fair number of shocking scenes (right out of the book) that I can’t imagine any American producer signing off on. This violence, and how women deal with it, was the whole point of the book. We should expect, however, that like the original title, it will be lost in translation. So if you’re hoping to see the book faithfully realized onscreen, it’s probably worth living with the subtitles.

That said, perhaps the best argument is that the Swedish version is both good and in theaters right now. Considering how terrible this summer’s movie line-up has been so far, that alone should be a winning argument.

On this appropriately gray California day, it became official: our next governor is either going to be Mr. Jerry Brown or Mrs. Meg Whitman.

Former governor Jerry Brown

As anyone in the country can tell you, California is in an extreme financial crisis right now. This would seem to favor Harvard MBA-holding Whitman, as it’s hard to imagine J. Brown even balancing his own checkbook. But, while on the surface of it, Meg’s (may I call you Meg?) track record is impressive (read: eBay), dig deeper and you see that she built a company that’s plagued by bad decisions, and is right now being choked by a plethora of lawsuits. And what exactly did she do to contribute to the company’s financial success in the first place? She didn’t found eBay, and she didn’t do anything particularly creative that people attribute the company’s success to. In fact, her successor’s first job was to clean up several billion-dollar mistakes she had made that would have sunk any other company.

The reality is, eBay survived in spite of Whitman’s helmsman-ship,
Meg Whitman, eBay employeewhich is a testimony to the strength of the idea behind it. As for Meg herself, she’s the Ben Affleck of CEOs: just in the right place at the right time.

So why, at the time of California’s greatest need, do we get stuck with two such miserable gubernatorial candidates? Why would financial wizards like Carly Fiorina choose the senate when her talents are so desperately needed in the Sacramento?

Well, not for nothing, our reward to the financially talented Schwarzenegger—who practically killed himself trying to balance our budget—was to dump on him mercilessly for not making enough progress. And, knowing that prospects ahead are even grimmer, no one with half a brain would seek a job that, at best, will make you the subject of constant ridicule.

So guess who that leaves us with.

Apple has been doing a lot of advertising for their iPad here in the San Francisco region, and we’re all quite sick of it. But one modern-day Ethan Allen decided to take some action:

You can’t quite see it in picture, but they smashed a hole in the plexiglas to rip the poster out.

Back when I was in college, one of the ways we would study the great writers of all time was to write snippets that mimicked their style. As I hope one day to become a bestselling novelist, I decided to undertake this exercise using Stieg Larsson, author of the world-wide blockbuster, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, as my subject.

Here goes:

What do you think?

Sadly, if this were college, I would have failed the assignment. The problem is too much plagiarism—I copied most of the above, word-for-word, right out of the book.