Movie – Show Me Love (aka Fucking Amal) (1998)

Show Me Love is a Swedish coming of age film.  It is the story of two very different teenage girls.  It’s also a really sweet story of first love.  The film ended up being the most popular Swedish film of that year.  It was also critically acclaimed, winning four Guldbagge Awards (the “Swedish Oscars”) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress jointly shared by the two leads.  It won awards from several other countries, too, although it did not receive an Academy Award nomination, perhaps because of controversy over its title.

Movie and Book – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Author Stieg Larsson was the Editor-in-Chief of the Swedish magazine Expo.  He completed three novels, and had a fourth partially written, when he got a publisher to buy them.  Unfortunately, he died soon after this.  As a consequence he was never able to finish what he intended to be a six book series.

The three completed books were published and became very popular in Sweden.  They were later translated into other languages and became very popular around the world, especially in the U.S.

Movie and Book – The Girl Who Played with Fire

Author Stieg Larsson was the Editor-in-Chief of the Swedish magazine Expo.  He completed three novels, and had a fourth partially written, when he got a publisher to buy them.  Unfortunately, he died soon after this.  As a consequence he was never able to finish what he intended to be a six book series.

The three completed books were published and became very popular in Sweden.  They were later translated into other languages and became very popular around the world, especially in the U.S.

Movie and Book – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Author Stieg Larsson was the Editor-in-Chief of the Swedish magazine Expo.  He completed three novels, and had a fourth partially written, when he got a publisher to buy them.  Unfortunately, he died soon after this.  As a consequence he was never able to finish what he intended to be a six book series.

The three completed books were published and became very popular in Sweden.  They were later translated into other languages and became very popular around the world, especially in the U.S.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Books and Movies (aka The Millennium Trilogy)

“Are you trying to tell me that Salander turned up at [the] cabin and all by herself beat the shit out of the top echelon of the Svavelsjo Motorcycle Club?” – Jan Bublanski, The Girl Who Played with Fire

The books of the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) have been very popular the last year or so.  There is going to be an American movie of the first book that is scheduled to come out at the end of 2011.  In the meantime, there have already been movies made of all three of the books in their home country of Sweden.

I have seen all three movies and read all three books.  I will be writing recommendations for them together, since they are tied so closely.

When it comes to movies made from books, the book is almost always better.  There is a chance to go into more depth on the characters in books, or to include events that need to be cut for a movie’s running time.  In the case of these three stories, I actually prefer the movie over the books for two of them.  I will explain in the posts.

You can find my posts for these movies and books here:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

On to the reviews…