Ten Statements About....SKYFALL (2012)

Yes, that is That Car...and this is That Bond...

"We are the last two rats. The question is do we eat each other....or eat everybody else."

1) Isn't it strange that we can see an out of focus man all the way down the hallway and instinctively know by the stance he takes that it's James Bond? While I'm still not decided on where I place Craig on the list of Bonds Through The Ages, you have to give him credit for creating a physicality for the character as distinctive as Connery's.

2) I love how, with the inclusion of one key item in the plot--an item that plays an essential role in the plot--director Sam Mendes gives us a way to work this film into continuity with the other ones, or to shore up the theory originally posited in the original, David Niven/Woody Allen/Peter Sellers starring version of Casino Royale.

3) Mendes, thank God, has chosen to buck the trends that previous film Quantum of Boredo--SOLACE! I Mean Solace! in its action sequences. The chase scenes, which are all innovative and fun in their way, eschews shakey cam, choosing instead to use unique color palettes and situations to make each one special....and indisputably Bondian.

4) While there may be some room for debate about whether Bond sleeps with the junior agent played by Naomie Harris (why she remains unnamed for the bulk of the film soon becomes apparent as the story develops), she's the first Bond Girl in a looooooooong time that I'd really just want to hang out with. She's loads of fun, very energetic and super-hot to boot.

I saw a super-villain drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's/
and his hair was....bizzare....

5) I am very glad that the franchise continues to acknowledge its connection to The Avengers with the inclusion of Ralph Finnes' Mallory...and I love how Mallory is set up to be that most awful of cliches for The Modern Action Film, the government dickwad, only for him to show a great deal more nuance than is originally thought. And it makes the transition that happens at the end all the more satisfying.

6) And even though we've got a really colorful villain in Javier Bardem's Silva, and a great Bondian plot that seems to channel at times both Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough...this film is, at its core, a film about the relationship between Bond and Judi Dench's M (who--in what I have to assume is another nod to The Avengers--is given the first name of Emma by Albert Finney's Kincaid). This film firmly establishes what has been hinted at in the two previous Craig entries--for Bond, M is a mother figure, and the person who guided him into full maturity as an agent....leading to these moments where Craig, Dench and Finney are standing together and look for all the world like a family unit.

7) And speaking of Javier Bardem--in this film, he gives us what we've been missing in this present cycle of Bond films....a truly maniacal, operatic villain who acts like he's in a Bond film. Everything about him, from his abandoned island hideout to his insane predilection for weird ass assaults (like, for example, trying to squash Bond under a subway train....no, really) to his hinted-at homosexuality and sadism towards his female companion seems straight out of the Ian Fleming playbook. He's so good there was a moment I almost wished we could see him escape.

(And there's no indication whatsoever that he's related in any way to Quantum--thank God the Broccolis abandoned the idea of this film being the end of a trilogy)

Not only is Naoimie Harris one of the sexiest Bond Girl of the
Craig era...she's the most fun!

8) I realize it's tough to replace Desmond Llewelyn as Q, but Ben Whishaw does an admirable job by blazing his own path...and it helps that the script by Bond mainstays Neal Purvis and Robert Wade along with John Logan manage to make Q (along with Mallory and Harris' character) active participants in the adventure proper.

9) But what is perhaps the biggest trick Mendes and the writers manage to pull is in making the bulk of this film take place in the most unlikely city of all--namely, London proper. I don't think there's ever been a Bond film that has taken so much advantage of Bond's homebase as a backdrop, and uses its unique qualities to fuel exciting action set pieces.

10) This also may be the one film that dig in the most to Bond's backstory...by returning to the Skyfall of the title, we get some real info on Bond's history, although I would have preferred it more if so much of that history didn't reek so much of being borrowed from Christopher Nolan's Batman films.

Overall...an excellent return to form for a franchise which was on shaky ground with the generic, American Action Movie Manque of Quantum of Boredo--SOLACE! I Mean Solace!. Fun from beginning to end, setting up the new direction for the next batch of films and never lagging for a second. Need I say...recommended?

For this outing I visited the AMC Fresh Meadows, which was part of a new pilot program for AMC that is trying to create a much homier atmosphere for the theater experience, complete with overstuff reclining seats (I wanted to bring mine home!), and exceptionally friendly staff. We managed to avoid most of the AMC Firstlook. Of the trailers, the most interesting was for Steve Soderburgh's thriller Side Effect, which starts out as a relational drama only to slide into Rooney Mara going bugfuck and killing people thanks to pharmaceuticals. None of the others really engaged me, not even the one for the long-delayed Red Dawn.

Ten Statements About....COLLATERAL (2004)

In this movie, Jason Statham is not the baddest mofo in the
room...

"Tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody's killed people that fast since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Did you bat an eyelash, Max? Did you join Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save The Whales, Greenpeace or something? No. I off one fat Angelino and you throw a hissy fit."

1) You know why I truly like this movie? Michael Mann takes three actors I honestly don't care for, two of which I think are truly lazy in their choice of films and their performances...and wrings performances out of them that thoroughly blow me away.

2) And it's not just the performances. Notice how Mann chooses to use a dark, deep color palette for the majority of the film--not because it looks cool (which it does), but because it makes Tom Cruise's Vincent, with his grey hair and suit, stand out from everything else, an unwelcome interloper in Max's world.

3) Of course, before Vincent makes the scene, Mann takes his time not only setting up Max's world but letting the scene between him and Annie unfurl at a leisurely pace. This opening conversation does two things--it actually establishes a chemistry and a selfish reason for Max to want to save Annie later, and also ties into the whole theme of coincidence that seems to run as an undercurrent in this film. That Jada Pinkett Smith and Jamie Foxx are able to dial themselves down so that we get a sense of these two people as people, and understand why Annie might have an attraction to Max, gives that aspect of the film a veracity so many other thrillers don't bother to establish.

4) Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Tom Cruise's performance here is the way you get a sense that Vincent has some strange form of feeling (respect? like?) toward Max. It's not exactly conveyed in a conventional way, but see how he encourages Max to stand up to boss or builds Max up in his mother's eye--this is one professional recognizing another and endeavoring to help him out. Hell, even that sneering monologue where Vincent mocks Max for never really intending to get his limo company off the ground can be construed as a pep talk to motivate him to move forward with his life.  Even after Max tries to sabotage his agenda, Vincent seems somewhat protective of him (he doesn't carry through on his promise to kill his mother even hen Max actively hinders him).

Two professionals in a taxi cab...but it's not confessions
that are fueling this trip....

5) Of course, would this film have worked if Cruise wasn't willing to let go of his own vanity and let his real self show up on screen...and such a simple thing as showing up unshaven with grey hair severs the man on the screen to our perception of Cruise as a star. And similar de-glamorization happens with our other leads.

He may look like an ally...but this film
isn't about wrapping things up into
neat little packages...

6) Another thing I love about Mann--he loves actors who look like real people, not actors. Who else has used Bruce McGill as often as he has? Even the smallest roles--Javier Bardem showing up as a crime boss for a single extended scene, or Debbie Mazur and Bodhi Elfman popping up to argue in the back of Max's cab seem like real people, which adds to the realism of this world Mann is presenting.

7) And speaking of McGill's Pedrosa--I appreciate how the script by Stuart Beattie builds up both his and Mark Ruffalo's Detective Fanning's role...only to have them unceremoniously killed off during the sequence at Fever. This just emphasizes the whole coincidence theme, and makes Vincent come off not as the cool, collected pro he passes himself off as, but as a chaotic force of nature.

8) I have to say--while I can accept the use of many of the songs in the film since they're ambient noise tied into specific locations, the sudden appearance on the soundtrack of that one ballad after the coyotes cross the street in front of Max's cab briefly shocked me out of the film. It's not just because it's so out of character with James Newton Howard's bluesy film noir score, but because it's the one note of artifice in a film that up until then has tried to keep its feet somewhat in the realistic.

9) I had always heard that Peter Berg started his career as an actor--but I never recognized him as such until seeing him here...and ironically it's his character's inability to accept Fanning's insistence that there's a pattern to the events of this night that saves him.

10) And one of the great things that Beattie's script does is makes Max's motives selfish on some level. Yes, he is doing something heroic when he throws Vincent's briefcase containing his agenda onto the highway--but only after he feels ashamed by Vincent's lying on his account. Yes, he tries to stop Vincent by causing a car wreck--but only after Vincent mocks him. Yes, he works hard to save Annie--but there's always the nagging feeling that he does so because he knows and is attracted to her, as opposed to the previous victims.

Overall...a magnificent little thriller with echos of noir fueled by the exceptional performances by Cruise and Foxx (and to a lesser extent Pinkett Smith), a clever, smart and philosophical script by Beattie, and Mann's excellent muted direction.