Rolling Stone says The Girl Who Played with Fire is being released this week somewhere in America. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is still playing at our local art house in Menlo Park. The S.F. Chronicle concurred, but called it Dragon Tattoo in one of the reviews (not in the photo caption) and said it starred Lizbeth Salander instead of Noomi. Suddenly my copy of Fire isn't as cool, so to stay ahead of the curve, I watched Hornet's Nest. Gotta keep avante garde, you know.

Hornet's was quite good, picking up right where Fire ended. It doesn't have the visceral punch of the two previous films, despite opening with a brain operation, and it's a little predictable, but the trilogy is a well told story and Lizbeth finally finds justice. That's such a relief. Tattoo sets the hook, Fire rocks with the best fights, best sex scenes, and best mag cameo ever, and Hornet's winds it all down to a happy ending. Noomi is excellent again but hospitalized and incarcerated for most of it, which detracts from her dynamism. All in all, a great trilogy - a tad long-winded, yet satisfying until the last. I'm very eager to see what Noomi does next.

YOU MUST SEE THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE. It's the most martial of the trilogy and you can cheer out loud when you see our mag cameo. But if you don't see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it's like see The Empire Strikes Back before seeing Star Wars: A New Hope. It's not absolutely necessary to see Hornet's, but if you see the first two, you'll probably get hooked and have to see it.

I'm grateful for Yellow Bird and I'm honored that our mag has a cameo. Millennium reminds me of our mag a lot. As a publisher, my life is so like Blomquist's, except instead of guns, it's swords and rope darts. Seriously, I could totally empathize with what he went through. That's like my typical work week.