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....WRATH OF THE TITANS (2012)

"I am a Titan!  Behold My Wrathy Goodness!"

"You want me to say it, brother? You want me to say I'm afraid? Doesn't that go without saying? When mortals die, their souls go somewhere - there's no place where gods go when they die! There's nothing, just oblivion..."

1) Now I'm not sure if it was because I came in a minute or two late, or if it was because I had not seen the first film in this iteration....but there are moments where I was totally lost, and couldn't figure out who was who, what their relationship were and what the actual plot was. After a bit, I found it best to just not worry about this and let the silliness wash over me.

2) Even though there were a couple of moments where I was shocked at how aged she looked, on the whole I was extremely happy seeing Rosamund Pike running around in battle armor and being all shouty---however, I definitely preferred her as a redhead. And while we're on the subject of Rosamund Pike....

3) I know Pike's Queen Andromeda is in this film primarily so Perseus has someone to snog (what, you guys couldn't get Gemma Atherton back?)...but the script by Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson (off a story by the two of them and Greg Berlanti) seems to leave the character arc that brings them both together woefully underdeveloped. It's almost like we're supposed to assume that Andromeda's had the whim-whams for Perseus all this time, and was waiting for his wife to pass on.

4) As much as I dislike CGI, I have to admit that there are some moments here that are pulled off very well. The flying sequences with Perseus astride Pegasus, in particular, were very striking in the way the horse seemed to be using its canter to move itself through the air. There's a definite sense that this CGI team is putting thought in the weight and movement some of these creatures have.

5) That being said....wow, The actual Titan that's being all Wrathy is a confused, badly designed mess. Of all the monster sequences, it's the most disappointing as I simply had no idea what the Hell was happening.

"This is....SPARTA--I mean a Giant Hand!"

6) Okay, we get it--you guys think the little robot owl in the original Clash of The Titans sucked....dragging it out again to have Bill Nighy's Hespestus yell at it is just, well, gratuitous.

7) I know there are a number of people, including my friend and partner on BiTD Derrick Ferguson, who think Sam Worthington is a real cool action actor. I just don't see it. He seems cut from the same Generic Historic Fantasy Hero cloth as Geoffrey Butler in 300 and Henry Cavil in Immortals. Hell, he actually comes off as somewhat underwhelming at times.

8) You know who else is underwhelming? Edgar Ramirez' Ares. A villain like this is supposed to be sly enough to trick Zeus and Hades and be nasty enough to give Perseus pause....but truth be told, Ramirez comes off as a petulant child (which, let's be fair, he is) with not enough guile and cleverness to fool me, let alone the three patriarchal Gods of Greek Myth. And it also doesn't help that his moves don't ever come off as a surprise--the script sets things up so neatly that when Ares rocks up to slaughter his worshipper about halfway through, we're so well prepared all we can do is yawn.

It is Rosamund Pike dressed as a warrior queen about to lead
a band of Grecian bad-asses in beating you up.  Your argument
is no longer valid.

9) I think I'd rather watch Liam-Neeson-In-A-Spangly-Robe instead of Liam-Neeson-In-Dungeons-And-Dragons-Cosplay-Robes.

10) The thing I find the most amusing is that the characters with the strongest arcs here aren't Perseus and Andromeda...it's Zeus and Hades. Now maybe this is because Liam Neeson and Ralph Finees are such good actors they dug out a character arc where there was none, but I have to admit I got involved with the reconciliation of these two beings in the form of men, and loved how a major portion of the climax is the two of them standing side by side fighting for mankind.

Overall...even though there are some grace notes provided by Neeson, Finnes, Pike and others, you can never quite escape the sense that this is not bad, it's not good...it's just Product.

Ten Statements About....THE AVENGERS (1998)

NO!  No kissing!  You're supposed to be British!

"A man with an umbrella is a man praying for rain."

"And a man without one in a fool. Never trust the weather, Sir August."

1) Ralph Fiennes was born to play a modern John Steed. From the first moment's walk through the British Village O' Danger to the last scene's champagne toast, Fiennes channels the same sort of calm and controlled charm that Patrick MacNee exemplified in the television series.

2) However, Uma Thurman is...not very good. It's obvious she's trying hard to capture the same sort of sophisticated sex appeal (Or 'man appeal,' which is how Emma Peel got her name), but we never get anything more than the sense that she's a girl playing dress up. Sure, she looks swell in some of the outfits, and there is a degree of chemistry between her and Fiennes, but she never clicks as Emma. One wonders if originally cast Nicole Kidman could have done better.

3) There are two fundamental problems with the film as a whole--and they're both sort of clashing with each other. Primarily, there is the fact that this is a film based on a property whose sole attraction to many of its fans is its inherent Britishness...and yet, distinctly American tropes are being imposed on this very British thing. Thus, the whole 'there's a mole in The Ministry' subplot and, more importantly, the overt romance between Steed and Peel feels very, very out of place. Hell, the big kiss in Act Three practically screams out how wrong it is in the context of what came before it.

4) But arguably a bigger problem is that director Jeremiah S. Chechik obviously loves the television series a lot--so much so that he painstakingly retains so many of the quirky elements of the series, not realizing that what we're able to accept in forty-five minute doses (street scenes totally devoid of people; a determination not to place the locations in any sort of context save for when absolutely necessary; set pieces for no reason except that they're set pieces) can seem strange and bizarre in a ninety-minute dose. In making the film seem like an episode of the regular series writ large, Chechik ends up making the film impenetrable to anyone not intimately familiar with the source material.

5) Wow...you cast Eddie Izzard, an incredibly talented comedic actor with a wonderful voice...and you stick him in a role that maybe amounts to ten minutes and one line (said line being 'Oh, Fuck')? Really, movie? Really?

"I Keel You!  I Keel You!"

6) The story goes that Chechik's original cut was two hours and change, and Warner Brothers insisted that he cut the film down to its extant 88 minutes. I do have to wonder if that extreme editing job is the reason the film is riddled with continuity problems where characters appear and disappear at will.

7) I know a lot of people loathe Sean Connery's turn as main villain Sir August deWynther...I rather like him. It's obvious that Connery is having a ball playing a mad scientist who thinks nothing of dressing his employees up in teddy bear outfits. I just wish they concentrated him as a meteorologist and not decided to make him an all-purpose crazy scientist who also cloned Emma Peel as an act of obsession, as that element just muddies the water.

"All those in favor of recategorizing Fuzzy Wuzzy as
not Fuzzy say 'Aye."

8) It's odd that Chechik included the element of Mother and Father, who were more integral to the series' last season, features of the at the time very, very inexperienced Linda Thorson as Tara King (Yes, I know Mother was introduced in the last episode of the Emma Peel run, but that episode was pretty much a pilot for the King run, so....). Yes, I understand that it was so we could have Father be a traitor in one of those uniquely American elements I was talking about, but it still comes off as odd.

9) You gotta give Chechik credit for finding a way to give us a Patrick MacNee cameo in such a way that he interacts with Fiennis while not overshadowing him. Hell, MacNee's scene as Colonel Jones is one of those elements that feels the most like the television series.

10) Maybe because of the aforementioned editing job, there are long stretches where the individual scenes themselves work in and of themselves, but they make no sense narratively when strung together.

Overall...a real mess that, truth be told, I still find pretty entertaining at times...only to be brought down by some of the choices made that were obviously designed to net Warner Brothers a big budget franchise. Pity we'll never know whether to put the blame at the feet of Chechik or the producers....