In Which We Search In Vain For The Dragon

Waif in Ascent

by DICK CHENEY

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
dir. David Fincher
158 minutes

At my age it's very difficult to follow The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Facts refuse to cohere, statistics are my only refuge. After my second viewing of David Fincher and Steven Zaillan's adaptation of some Swedish novel, I was able to put together numbers that come close to representing the whole. Don't see the movie, just read this list. You'll save over two hours of your life, and when an enterprising detective asks if you have ever witnessed a rape, you'll be able to truthfully say, "Only metaphorically."

Number of times:

Rooney Mara raises her rear end ever so slightly in the air: 7

Rooney Mara acts like something doesn't hurt at all when it really hurts a lot: 24

Rooney Mara acts like something hurts a lot when it really hurts a lot: 1

David Fincher makes a character wear Nine Inch Nails merchandise in order to fatten his lover Trent Reznor's bank account: 2, but an annoying 2

Number of times:

You are reminded that Rooney Mara isn't a victim of sexual abuse and is actually heir to one of America's oldest fortunes: almost constantly

Robin Wright Penn's neck looks like what you might see inside the Grim Reaper's hood: 1, she wears a turtleneck for the rest of the movie (Sean Penn did this to her)

I whispered to Lynne, "the patriarchy did it" while we sat in the movie theater: 12 and once in the bathroom after the movie

Rooney Mara helpfully notes, "Harriet isn't a Jewish name" and Daniel Craig meaningfully nods: more than I could count

Number of times:

Lynne asked me what libel was: 1

A child appears in the diegesis: What's a diegesis?

Lynne made me revise my fanfic description of the sex between Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara before she would admit it was better than the original: 5 ("His coarse face brushed her face, and her face touched the place where she had stitched him up with dental floss, and she whispered, "The patriarchy", and his hands lingered on a copy of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, and he told her of how his hands had felt as they had gripped Robin Wright's neck, and how he would, in a moment, flip her into missionary because it was the only way he could come...")

Millennium magazine favorably compares itself to a print version of The Awl: 3 (it's also implied twice)

Number of times:

Rooney Mara gives a fawning interview about how Daniel Craig is super cool because he let her keep pens and lipstick in the massive crevices of his dimples: 161

David Fincher succumbs to the vicissitudes of Scott Rudin's verbal tirades ("YOU FUCKING MUSIC VIDEO SHITFACE!") and prominently features McDonald's product placement: 4

Mark Zuckerberg's Asian girlfriend cries herself to sleep: never

David Fincher regrets the third Alien movie: always

Number of times:

Daniel Craig smokes a cigarette and looks off meaningfully in the distance as if he is just newly apprised of the fact tobacco is a laxative: 15.5

I myself wept while thinking about what Daniel Craig did to Darren Aronofsky: 76

Lynne asked me "If that was libel, why isn't David Corn in jail?": 1

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is the former vice president of the United States and a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

"Impossible Spaces" - Sandro Perri (mp3)

"How Will I" - Sandro Perri (mp3)

"Changes" - Sandro Perri (mp3)