Film – Page 6 – The Daily Opinion

Film Review: All About Eve

With movie award season being well and truly underway, all thoughts are no doubt turned towards that most prestigious film award of all – the Oscar. I happened upon a certain statistic recently which led to this review. Did you know that in the Academy Awards’ 85 year history, there are two films that hold the record for the most nominations? It probably won’t require too much head-scratching to bring to mind one of them because most of us past our teens can probably remember the night James Cameron hailed himself “King of the World” when his 1997 epic Titanic took home 11 wins out of 14 nominations. That’s a lot of categories to be up for and let’s face it, Titanic was, and still is, visually impressive. But almost half a century earlier, All About Eve was the talk of the town when it too was nominated in 14 categories. It would end that night of the 23rd Academy Awards show with winning far fewer statuettes than Cameron’s blockbuster (though 6 including Best Picture and Best Director is still an incredible achievement) however it would win one that Titanic wasn’t even nominated for – Best Screenplay. And All About Eve is still the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations, two in both the Best Actress and the Best Supporting Actress categories.

Funnily enough, the film begins at an awards dinner where Broadway’s latest, hottest star Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) is being recognised for her breakout performance in a critically acclaimed new play. Slimy theatre critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) watches the proceedings from his table and in a rather derisive voiceover, recalls how Miss Harrington’s star soared as quickly as it did.

Flash back a year and we meet Margo Channing (Bette Davis) in her dressing room after a night’s performance of a play. Margo is one of Broadway’s biggest stars, successful but inevitably jaded and aware that, at forty, her career has only one way to go. One of Margo’s closest friends Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) who also happens to be the wife of the play’s author Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) meets starstruck fan Eve Harrington outside the stage door and decides to make the young fan’s day by taking her backstage to meet her idol. Margo and her friends, including Margo’s young director boyfriend Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) find Eve and her reverence of Margo and the theatre in general charming and following a touching story Eve recounts about her difficult life to date, Margo moves her into her house and takes her under her wing as an assistant.

Everything’s peachy and everyone adores the lovely, helpful Eve. All except Margo’s maid Birdie (Thelma Ritter) who senses something the others do not. And it’s not long before Eve subtly begins to reveal her true intentions and nature. It’s all done with such a sweet humble facade but she slowly schemes her way to becoming Margo’s understudy and then, by cold, measured manipulation of Margo’s relationships with Lloyd, the writer and Bill, the boyfriend and director, she conspires to usurp Margo in the plays Lloyd writes for her. As the film progresses, we are witness to the full range of trials and tribulations that theatre folk are faced with as well as all the emotions that close friends and colleagues have to deal with.

At the end of the film, we return to its beginning at the awards dinner as Eve receives her trophy. So it’s clear she attains the fame and critical acclaim she so craved. But at what cost? Addison DeWitt, cynical as well as slimy, has dug into Eve’s past and uncovered skeletons she’d rather keep buried and so, in exchange for his silence, he informs Eve prior to the awards dinner that she now “belongs” to him. The final scene of the film mirrors the first in that it appears the ‘user’, Eve, is about to become the ‘used’ when another young starstruck girl, Phoebe, finds her way into Eve’s apartment with the obvious (to us, the audience) intention of insinuating herself into the now, shining Broadway star’s life. What goes around comes around.

The casting of this movie was inspired. Everyone is right on the money; it’s no wonder there were so many acting award nominations. George Sanders was ultimately the only winner and his portrayal of the charming but insincere theatre critic is masterful. Bette Davis was brought in after the first choice of Claudette Colbert suffered a back injury and had to withdraw shortly before filming began. Davis, who commented that the script was one of the best she had ever read, later admitted that when Joseph L. Mankiewicz cast her in this movie, he saved her career from oblivion after a series of unsuccessful films. Even Marilyn Monroe in an early role as young starlet Miss Casswell is terrific. Watch closely and you can definitely see signs of what would soon make her a star.

Together with Mankiewicz’s writing and directing, the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its release and even now, over 60 years later, it’s easy to see why. The dialogue is at times witty, at others moving but always sparkling and true and Mankiewicz paces the story perfectly. The movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes long but you’ll never know it.

It’ll come as no surprise that the film turns up in numerous top 100 film lists, American Film Institute’s as well as others and the film is usually always selected to highlight Davis’ legendary career. In 1990, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

In short, All About Eve is the epitome of a classic Hollywood movie. It has every necessary ingredient and it’s brightness in the firmament of greatness grows with the passage of time. And unlike so many movies of today, it doesn’t rely on special effects, explosions or unfeasible action sequences to keep you in your seat. It’s a group of talented artists who came together to create, for us, something quite wonderful.

I’m not against Disney acquiring Star Wars. I dislike Star Wars needing to carrying on. At all.

So the Star Wars franchise has been passed onto another company. This company is the master of entertainment. It regularly churns out top notch animations through one of its subsidiaries and turned out one of the best superhero films of our life time, so far…and if you don’t count the Dark Knight Trilogy. Yes I am talking about Disney; the company synonymous with the two mouse ears has acquired the rights to this once great film franchise to the tune of over $4 billion (£2.5 billion).

What does this mean for the existing franchise? More importantly, what does this mean for the existing fans?

With the recent Star Wars prequels being reasonably successful at the box office but not very well received by critics or fans, one can only speculate how an actual Star Wars sequel may turn out. Can Disney insert some kind of Mickey Mouse Magic into this franchise?

The Star Wars Universe already has a few official story lines (not counting fan fiction) that are being or have been explored:
1. The Prequel Trilogy Story – revolves around Anakin Skywalker, Padme and Obi Wan Kenobi
2. The Original Trilogy Story – revolves around Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker
3. The Clone Wars Story – animated TV Series set between Episodes II and III of the Prequel Trilogy, focuses on the missions Anakin and Obi Wan get up to before Revenge of the Sith, as well as Anakin’s Paduan
4. The Old Republic Story – series of video games set many millennia before the events of the films (pictured above)
5. The Force Unleashed Story – video game series set a few years after the Prequel Trilogy but before the Original Trilogy. Revolves around Darth Vader’s apprentice
6. The 1313 Story – unreleased but announced video game revolving around the bounty hunters of the Star Wars Universe. Time period is undetermined

I think for the sake of the fans and the franchise, it would be pointless to milk any of the film stories anymore. With Disney’s experience with animation, The Clone Wars may get some type of boost but also risks become less mature and appealing to the adult fans even less. The Old Republic has a huge online following due to its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) nature. This particular storyline has many interesting characters that can be explored through film or anything else that Disney can come up with but at the same time, may anger the existing fans of the series due to possible misrepresentation or misinterpretation, seeing as the fans are able to control the actions of these characters in the game. The 1313 storyline is not yet known and if Disney decides to expand this, it would be rather foolish; however, the folks at Disney may be able to have input in the game itself. This leaves us with The Force Unleashed story or a totally new story to consider. The characters in The Force Unleashed were voiced by actors in real life who also lent their likeness to the game, so each character also looks like the person they are voiced by. This kind of makes it easy for a film to be made revolving around the same characters. However, being so close to either trilogy, it would seem too close to the existing movie storyline and cause some incoherence as well as seem like they are milking the films again. Finally, we have a new story. This can be either a reboot or new characters in a new setting. It also has the potential to be a series of films. Recently Disney has never passed up a chance to show the world that it can also make mature films such as Alice in Wonderland, Tron: Legacy and Secretariat as well as one of this year’s most successful blockbusters, The Avengers. Some have turned out to be franchises such as The Pirates of the Caribbean and the Chronicles of Narnia. There is no reason to doubt the potential quality of a new Star Wars story but the problem remains for Disney to tackle is how to make it unique whilst maintaining the same Star Wars feel.

Disney’s move to acquire Star Wars is bold and one can only speculate at the motives behind it. The only way for the Star Wars Universe to live on through Disney is with original content but it must be unique and have the same shock factor that the original trilogy had. If a new film has a mediocre reception, the possible negative perception of the new direction would be uncontrollable and would harm Disney’s image; fans would begin to assume that Disney did not have best interests in mind for Star Wars during the acquisition and are just milking it for the money. With the quality and reception of sci-fi films improving every year with films such as Looper and Inception, a new Star Wars film should have a decent chance; emphasis is placed on the “should” because it also has all these great films to compete with. More often than not, a good film is often overlooked because it lay in the shadow of a great film of the same genre released during the same time, and a new Star Wars risks being one of those films.

Disney definitely knows how to make movies but let’s take a look at some of its other franchises. Star Wars fans would be very reluctant for their franchise to be preserved by the same group of people responsible for the likes of High School Musical or Hannah Montana. The acquisition could indicate that Disney is looking to use the rights to expand their theme parks and Star Wars themed rides would definitely make sense. There is always potential for more original content but the people at Disney must think to themselves, can this new idea function outside of the Star Wars Universe at all and stand alone as a film in its own right? If so, why not just leave Star Wars alone and make an original film instead. Should this franchise be milked even harder?

No. Star Wars should be left alone.

The Force Will Be With Us – Always!

So, with a little over $4 billion changing hands, George Lucas has sold his Lucasfilm empire to Disney, who have stated that a new Star Wars film will be coming in 2015 followed by another every two or three years after that.

I feel a great disturbance in The Force as if millions of voices across the globe have all cried out in pain. Of course, it could have been a huge collective ‘Hoorah!’ from fans but in my humble opinion (whatever that’s worth), for fans of the original three movies starring Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, this will likely come as sad news. I happen to be one of those fans and I have lost count of the number of times I’ve sat and enjoyed that original trilogy, usually comprising a marathon session during a holiday where every couple of years myself and a good friend would draw the curtains and, surrounded by a calorific selection of salty snacks, watch all three films back-to-back. It’s almost become a ritual.

And I, like many others, considered the prequel trilogy with Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman to be, at best, a mixed bag but generally very disappointing. So, to hear that sequels are possibilities that Disney is considering makes me roll my eyes and groan like a Wookie.

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are three movies that tell one simple yet epic story and like all good stories, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s that END that is of great significance here because at the end of the third film, everything is wrapped up nicely, all done and dusted. The nasty old Emperor and his Empire are defeated and all evil destroyed – even Darth Vader sees the light and changes his dastardly ways moments before popping his clogs – and the ensuing party with the Ewoks clearly looks like the dawn of a new era.

But now they’re telling us that in 2015, it’s likely a sequel will follow on from there and will involve the iconic characters of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo etc. Personally, I just don’t see how it would work. The saga came to a natural and logical conclusion in 1983 and I for one cannot see how anything other than hackneyed storytelling can resurrect the story from there.

Will I go and see this new episode when it comes out? I don’t know. Possibly out of curiosity I would, perhaps secretly hoping that the writers had found some miracle of continuance, something that makes complete sense in order that these characters can carry on fighting the Empire. The only problem/argument with that scenario is selecting the actors to play those characters. Answers on a postcard please….

The Results of ‘Skyfall’

Well, well, well. Look who came back from the dead with a vengeance! James Bond, a franchise that lasted years in the world of cinema, seen highs, seen very lows, proves once and for all that the world’s favourite spy is not about to keel over and retire like Bruce Willis in Red. No, there is no exit strategy, no pension plan and certainly no plans to escape in a remote beach and drink and fuck to oblivion. This Bond will always report for duty and, to the joy of every fan, Daniel Craig returns from the dead to do his job and do it well!

If you read my previous post, you know what my expectations were. I was waiting for violence, fast-paced action, genre focus and a villain you can shake in front of. I expected a remorseless Bond and an even more remorseless killer on his trail with the charisma to charm and terrify an audience at the same time. I expected realism in characters such as Q and humanity in characters such as M. Were my expectations met? You betcha they bloody were!

There is no doubt that this movie has been a completely different project from the start. After four years of budget issues, scripts and production failures, this Bond has become the most publicised chapter of the British Spy since Casino Royale. As I sat in the theatre and the adverts came on, I knew this was not a regular Bond film. Heineken, Nokia Lumia, perfume, cars, Sony Vio, Omega, all products you see in the movie, advertised non-stop for at least 15 minutes and at some point I was sinking in my seat in despair. What had this franchise become if it sold out so much to major companies? But then again, no franchise that has lasted 50 years can run on its own. It needs money and unfortunately had to swallow its legendary pride and try to support what would become its most celebrated chapter yet.

Sam Mendes took up the challenge of directing and pushed to make this Bond the most memorable one yet and it shows in his work. For a man who has American Beauty, Jarhead and Revolutionary Road in his curriculum, he made this film very much his own. One of my expectations, especially coming from Mendes, was the fact that such a talented director could turn this Bond into a film with heart. It is quite obvious that most Bond films have the action, have the girls, have the drinks but some have just lacked the key characteristics of most spy and film-noir movies. The use of shadows, music and camera focus, all these things have been lacking since Roger Moore, with a few exceptions in the early Brosnan era, so Mendes, a man who manages to play with genre in magnificent ways, brought back the shadows to suit the spy. His way of filming has never been seen in Bond before as he shot magnificent set pieces but never took his camera away from Bond. The place has to be owned by the man, not the other way around. His use of shadows and light is truly gripping, culminating in a final scene when a massive fire in the background seems to reflect the mood for every surrounding character, in one way or another. The sets are sublime either way and one of them, the surprise of the film, is just breathtaking and bigger than life. However, as big as it is, Bond still owns the ground he walks on, only by sheer force of presence and Mendes makes damn sure of that. The director has said in interviews that he put all his efforts into this film and because of that, he does not want to do another. I say that he has done his job in a fantastic way and that he left the director’s chair with enough material to make more Bond films for the next 10 years at least. For that, well done Mr. Mendes.

Now, without too many spoilers, I would like to get into the content of Skyfall. I had many questions as I walked into the cinema. The eternal ‘what’s Skyfall?’ question, followed by the intrigue surrounding Javier Bardem’s villain and the ever rising question of M’s past in MI6. Well, needless to say, all questions were answered and no further questions were raised. The entire movie is completely separate to the previous two, kickstarting the franchise in the most nostalgic way possible. In this film, if you are like me, a huge fan of 007, you will laugh and you will not believe your eyes. Old friends are back, friends thought dead since the 90s, new friends arrive and look ready to follow Craig to the next adventure and Bond looks like his old self again. As a friend said, ‘This film was written by the ultimate fan-boy’ and even though I hate to agree, he has a point. This is an hommage to Ian Flemming’s work and goddamnit, its just beautiful to see.

Craig and Dame Judy Dench hold the reins of this movie more than any other character and it’s about time M got a voice and a gun to shout and shoot her opinions away. Dench, playing M since Goldeneye, did not just play a sour, old woman that hates men. She portrays M as strong because she battles against invisible demons everyday and Bond seems to be the only one by her side who sees them and fights with her. In Skyfall, M’s demons are no longer invisible and they are the most terrifying yet. We finally see M crumbling under her past and struggling to keep a hold of her work before it is take away from her. Dench and Craig have shared incredible chemistry onscreen ever since he got the role and they seem to maintain a mother-son relationship in this chapter that becomes the heart of this film. Dench’s M will remain one of the most memorable characters that grew in darkness, awakened by the ballsiest woman ever to grace the screen within this boy’s world. There ain’t nothin’ like that Dame!

Since Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye, MI6 has not experienced evil from the inside but this time evil has come seeking revenge, in the form of Silva, a ghost, like Bond, who wants to materialise again to kill the person who made him the monster he is now. Javier Bardem is no stranger to villain roles, one of them got him an Oscar! With the most appalling haircut in the history of cinema, he scared entire audiences with his role as Anton Chigurh and now he is back to make us shake in our boots. His performance fully lived up to my expectations! The poise, the charisma, the traumatic background story, the mannerisms and that smile, on the corner of his mouth, just made him hands down one of my favorite Bond villains. There is one scene in this film, approximately in the end, where Silva walks forward, a trail of utter destruction left behind him, yet he just does not notice it like we do. To him, this is not destruction but only a means to an end and his end-goal is much more important to him than Bond, MI6 or even his own life. This purpose is made grand and even justifiable at times, as Bardem gives logic and sense to this demented man. He makes him sound and look like a martyr and till the end, that’s what audiences will see him as. A martyr and a victim, tormented by the people he most loved.

As mentioned in my previous post, the Bond girls in this movie are not vital in any way. Naomi Harris’ Eve does not start the plot by shooting Bond, it was M who gave the order. The same goes for Berenice Marlohe’s Severine so it is quite obvious that the only Bond girl in this film is M herself. With the most screen time and the call to action, M is the one woman who can team up with Bond and stand up to him like a man. Truly a wonderful turn to the role of M and a duet that does not cease to amaze. Ben Wishaw, the man that has been in the shadows of cinema, waiting, participating in mostly independent films like Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, I’m Not There and Bright Star, took Q and made him cool again. Since the late Desmond Llewelyn, there has not been a Q (let’s all collectively forget John Cleese and his buffoonish portrayal) since Die Another Day. Now, then new, young and kinda cocky Q is about to get seriously techy with 007. Since the Quartermaster needs to keep up with the latest gadgets to give to agents (return the equipment in one piece, my ass!), it is only natural that this generation’s Q looks and sounds like a nerd. Ben Wishaw made that nerd the most interesting new character in the movie, along with Ralph Fiennes, who seems to look angrier and angrier as he gets old. His role is minimal but vital and he provides intrigue within MI6 and the lasting question of whether he can be trusted or not. But then again, the spy genre wouldn’t be very good if questions didn’t arise every couple of minutes to keep audiences on their toes.

Finally let’s talk Craig. The man who returns from the dead and looks like absolute shit. Well, we get to see a lot more of our legendary spy and just like I expected, he is broken down and made to look closer at his friends and his superiors. Draped with lies and deceit, his life is still a mystery to the audience and M might just have something to do with it. Craig lets the audience in on secrets that even Flemming might not have thought of, and that is to the credit of the scriptwriters and Craig himself, who goes much further into his character than his predecessors. He gives a stellar performance, even though his lines seem to be way too cheesy at times, thus ruining the mood in certain scenes. In a way, he tries to emulate other Bonds again, something he rightly chose not to do, so hopefully this is not going to become a habit. This movie has cemented him as one of the best Bonds in the movies and hopefully the next outing will not take four years! We fans do not want to wait that long after such an ending!

Has this film exceeded my expectations? Nope, it answered them and that is rare in a film nowadays. Everything I could hope for was there, amazed me and now I cannot wait for this franchise to continue. Even if Craig decides to leave Bond, he will always be remembered as the man who gave it new life and a new image that fits our generation and for that we all have to, at least, show him gratitude. As my last comment, I would like to leave you with this clue (SPOILER ALERT): The credits and the song? Linked to the film in a major way!! Enjoy the show!

My Expectations of ‘Skyfall’

Right, so tomorrow I am going to see the new James Bond movie, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judy Dench and Ben Wishaw. It has garnished very good reviews so far but I have not read any of them. With this movie, I am not leaving anything to chance! I need to go in clear-minded and as neutral as I can be. I have read some interviews here and there but for some reason, I had no desire to know more than the snippets of information I got from the trailer and the few words exchanged by Mendes and Empire magazine. The story goes thus: Bond is accidentally shot by Naomi Harris on the roof of a train, he fakes his death to drink a lot and play with scorpions and Judy Dench has to write his eulogy. Then out of the blue, MI6 is compromised, bombed and sensitive information on all agents is leaked on YouTube. The man who did so is called Silva and has a major grudge against M, something Bond does not like so he returns to England to save the day. However he really looks old and weak. Is he a match for the evil Silva and is he brainwashed by M? What’s Skyfall? Who is Silva? Why is Q using realistic technology? Hmmmm…the questions seem to multiply as I type.

So what are my expectations on this movie? What Bond movie do I expect from this day and age? What things am I hoping they improved after Quantum of Solace?

I have a confession to make. I was never a Daniel Craig fan until very recently. When I saw he would take the mantle from a very confusing Pierce ‘Bond’ Brosnan (remember Die Another Day), I was very sceptical. Actually who the hell am I kidding? I hated the idea! I was absolutely repulsed at the guy. He was not handsome like Connery, he looked too old and too noticeable (in that he was built like a house). All that muscle seemed to somehow make his brain smaller by each passing frame. My mom used to describe the great Hercules as ‘All muscles and a brain like a sesame seed’. I am afraid my mind only screamed that saying when I saw Craig in the first shot of Casino Royale. And yes, I was one of those people that had something against the blonde hair! Yes, I, like a lot of people, am a creature of habit at times and when that habit is broken I start complaining. Like you can sit here, reading this, and tell me that never happened to you. Plus, I can say that the concept of a prequel depicting how Bond got his 00 status was not that intriguing to me. I was born and bred on Connery and Moore, already seasoned spies that have been in the fucking and killing business for a long time. Why would I want to see a character that had started so high in his career go down 10 levels and be a rube again? But then again, I pride myself in giving a second chance to anything that I feel I might have not understood or had disapproved of, from the start. I also pride myself in this particular case to have made the right decision. If not I would not be sitting here writing about Skyfall.

My Bond has always been Sean Connery. Primitive, smooth but not very discreet, resourceful, witty (but not as much as Moore) and seemingly motivated by selfish reasons. If you look at his missions they all seem to end up on a beach most of the time, kick-started by a girl or a photo of one (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball) and not once has he shown any sign of actual patriotism. He did this for the fun of it and the kicks (chicks) he got out of it. His look defined a generation of spies. The tuxedo, the signature drink, the cigarette at the end of his lips as he utters his name, like it’s a gift from God (not him, just his name). He had the fighting skills to beat up his enemies, had the talent to land a falling plane safely (although Timothy Dalton took the whole plane stunt to a whole different level in The Living Daylights), attach himself to a harness and grab the girl before flying away thanks to a taxi-plane, had the luck to be let out of an incinerator just in time, and had a Nemesis in Ernst Stavro Blofeld, SPECTRE mastermind and bad guy to the bone! Not many Bond nemeses would come along later on that would be as amazing as this man. Meddling in Cold War relations, NATO nuclear missiles, the diamond business, stealing whole spaceships with another spaceship that is hidden in a fake volcano. The dedication alone is just beautiful. Shame he had to leave the stage so early on and in a less than adequate way for his persona(For Your Eyes Only).

After Connery, the forgotten and underrated George Lazenby took over, however I will be completely honest, he has not left any particular trademark as Bond. I was very young when I saw On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and was very sad that Bond got married, until the obvious little glitch on the way to the honeymoon. Lazenby was not a big part of my idea of Bond and realistically neither was Roger Moore. Something just did not sit right with me and his Safari suits, his little one liners and his weird missions. However, Moore had the immense privilege to be in films where the focus was put on the villains. Yep, all sorts of villains and megalomaniacs but hell, they were the pinnacle of sneaky, malicious, crazy, napoleonic figures and had the best henchmen. Don’t believe me? Let’s tally: Kananga and Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die), Fransisco Scaramanga and Nick Nack (The Man with the Golden Gun), Carl Stromberg and Jaws (The Spy who Loved Me), Hugo Drax and The Cat (Moonraker), Aristotle Kristatos and Locque (For your Eyes Only), Kamal Kahn and Gobinda (Octopussy) and finally Max Zorin and May Day (A View to A Kill). I remember all of them as clear as day; Hugo Drax setting the dogs on Corine Dufour, Jaws chewing some cable car wire in Rio, Nick Nack loyal to his master till the end, Gobinda crushing dice in his fist, reducing them to powder in front of a very worried Moore. If the Connery era defined the spy, the Moore era defined the villain.

Who combined both? My close favorite and the Bond I found the most gritty till Craig came along, Timothy Dalton. It took two movies and one Colombian drug lord to show that Dalton knew how to deal with trash. He fed rotten CIA agent Killifer to a great white shark and ignited Franz Sanchez to the sky to avenge his best friend. There was not that much dedication to avenging his dead wife was there? That’s probably because in the 80s there was no room for tact within a spy’s lifestyle. This was a time of violence and Timothy Dalton was the violent Bond. The one that looked like a remorseless killer, the darkest side of Bond yet. Brosnan took the darkness to the next level but his movies suffered from scripts that could not cope very well in the post-Cold War era. The last great Bond in my opinion can only be Tomorrow Never Dies because it contained a realistic Bond and an extremely plausible villain in Elliot Carver (read Rupert Murdoch. Huh? Who said that?). The death of Paris Carver shocked me when I first watched it, as well as the frigging monster of a man that killed her! It was also surprisingly the first Bond I ever saw in English because all the VHS copies we had at home were all dubbed in French. To this day I can quote you From Russia with Love in both English and French. Funny how that turned out!

Then came Craig. Following my six years of objecting, complaining and turning down all positive reviews about the actor’s portrayal, I looked at him differently. I scrapped all the Bonds from my mind and looked at a man, a spy, a borderline sociopath working for an organization that does not approve of him but believes in him (God bless you M) and battling the enemies of the country that trained him and made him a ghost for the rest of his life. Craig played just that. He played the man all of the previous Bonds could not play because of time, place and context. For every era comes a different hero and Daniel Craig successfully embodies this generation’s anti-hero with a heroic purpose.

For Skyfall my expectations are simple. Craig’s Bond almost lost credibility with the latest outing but through no fault of his acting. Surrounding issues such as script, villain and Bond girl made this 007 chapter bearable but I expect Skyfall to take Casino Royale and transpose the major characteristics of the other movies. So far, the villain looks properly old-school and it helps that Bardem, like a lot of kids, grew up with Bond. If his villain reaches the charisma the previous ones had (namely Emilio Largo, Max Zorin, Franz Sanchez and Elliot Carver) then that would culminate to an unforgettable character like Ledger’s Joker in the latest Batman franchise. The arrival of a new Q deserves attention as well, since that means that this shit is about to get technological, something Craig’s movies have not explored yet. From the trailer, I am thinking Big Brother surveillance and tracking to get to Silva. M and MI6 look like they have a lot more secrets than a regular secretive agency and they all look human, prone the error (only their errors seem to have graver consequences than the regular Joe). This humanity culminates with Bond. I want to see him suffer, confused, double-crossed and run down, not for any other reason than to see him rise up from the ashes and stand, proud and angry. I do not hold much hope for the Bond girls. This seems to be a man’s adventure with little around him to distract him long enough from his ultimate goal. Finally, I expect from Mendes to turn this film into a thriller, fast-paced, structured, respectful of its genre and a film that you would want to see like you would want to see Dr.No, again and again. But this time Craig has to face real an present evil that would terrify you, me and the whole audience. I want a Bond you hate to love, a Bond that will laugh at his enemy because he does not care whether he lives or dies so long as he gets the last word! A Bond that represents this era of confusion, violence and fear, that he vanquishes through fire and blood, because in the end, it is the only way this current world deals with its evils.

Film Review: Out of the Past

While it may be true that for some of us, Mamma Mia! or There’s Something About Mary is the best film of all time (Are you sure?), it’s likely that any film aficionado with an eye for quality will draw up a reasonably predictable list of movies that has a certain resemblance to another’s. Of course, there may be the odd obscure title included in there somewhere on account of some personally preferred artistic or inventive merit but generally the same titles will crop up again and again. These lists, and there are countless of them online, are a great way to create a ‘watch-list’.

It wasn’t one of these lists that brought me to watch Out of the Past but rather a moment of web surfing that brought to my laptop screen a poster of Robert Mitchum nonchalantly lighting a cigarette while a demure Jane Greer inspects his ears for wax. The truth is, I’d never heard of this film before but having enjoyed noir-ish revelations with The Killers and Double Indemnity, both of which I watched for the first time a couple of months ago, I felt confident that I was about to view another classic. It came as no surprise to subsequently see all three of these films feature in high positions on numerous lists of best ‘noir’ films ever.

Robert Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, owner of a gas station in a small out-of-the-way Californian town. His romancing local girl Ann Miller (Virginia Huston) is not viewed well by her parents who are mistrustful of him and sure enough, when a tough guy turns up at his gas station, it becomes apparent that Jeff has a past. This henchman, Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine) informs Jeff that his boss, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) wants to see him and after some glorious dialogue, Jeff reluctantly agrees to the meeting. That night, after picking Ann up for the drive to Whit’s lakeside retreat, he tells her all about his past.

The next section of the film is told in flashback with Jeff narrating the story of his mysterious past as a private investigator. Together with his partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie), he was hired by Whit to find his girlfriend Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) whom he claimed had shot him and run off with $40,000 of his dough. Using his investigative talents, Jeff traced Kathie to Acapulco but on meeting her, fell for her charms and her pleads of innocence and decided not to hand her over to Whit, who would likely have punished her for something she claimed she didn’t do. Instead, the two headed north to San Francisco where they attempted to live together as inconspicuously as possible, out of sight and reach of Whit and his henchman. But (isn’t there always a but?), one day they were spotted by Jeff’s old partner, Fisher, who demanded a heavy payoff for his silence. A fight broke out between the two men, which Kathie brought to a sudden end when she shot Fisher dead. She then drove away, leaving poor old Jeff to cover up her crime. In doing so, he came across her bankbook which had an entry for a $40,000 deposit.

Back now to the present where Jeff and Ann arrive at Whit’s home. Before turning the car around to drive back to town, Ann forgives Jeff for his past and hopes he will return safely to her once his meeting with Whit is over. Jeff is surprised to see that Kathie is back together with Whit, who for his part, displays genuine delight in seeing Jeff again and wants to hire him for one more job in order to make things even between them. The job entails breaking into Whit’s lawyer’s office to steal documents that include income tax records proving Whit guilty of tax fraud, a fraud which his lawyer is using to blackmail him. Jeff refuses the job, suspecting a set-up, but Whit insists and so after trying to warn the lawyer, Jeff returns to the man’s office to find him dead. Now Jeff’s job is to locate the documents, which also include an affidavit from Kathie swearing Jeff was the one who killed Fisher, as well as to prove that he is innocent of the killing of the lawyer but with a henchman on his tail and a femme fatale who switches allegiance more times than Lady Gaga changes outfits, he needs to use all his street-smarts to stay alive. It’s all mildly convoluted, as the best crime dramas are, but well worth paying attention to.

Released in 1947, Out of the Past was directed by Jacques Tourneur, a man perhaps better known for low-budget horror films such as Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, rather than hard boiled crime films but he had a great team around him, many of whom had already worked together for RKO on numerous pictures. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes) from his novel Build My Gallows High with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain. This point is clearly evident from the superb dialogue so typical of the genre but here somehow a little less contrived and more natural. Don’t forget, James M. Cain was the genius behind, among others, Double Indemnity.

The role of gumshoe fitted Mitchum as comfortably as the raincoat and fedora he wore much of the time and it’s easy to see why he would later go on to portray Philip Marlowe. He breezes through this film with a cool self-assurance and a likability that make you (almost) overlook his potential for violence. Jane Greer’s femme fatale, with her baby face and deceitful eyes, smoulders, like the best of them and Kirk Douglas plays the gangster with controlled intensity – sure, he seems charming enough but you wouldn’t want to be around when he looses his temper.

For a film noir, the locations are worth noting too. Yes, we get the usual nighttime cityscapes and atmospherically lit bar rooms and office interiors, trademarks of the genre, but we also get out into the wide open Californian countryside as well as sunny Acapulco. The way cameraman Nicholas Musuraca captures this variety of locations lifts the film well and truly out of the murky pool where a high number of the genre languor.

In 1991, the film was included in the US National Film Registry as being deemed, “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. Also, it will doubtless come as no surprise to learn that it features highly in many of the American Film Institute’s 100 Years of cinema lists. For me, it’s a recent discovery I’m very thankful for and yet another reminder that the ’40s was an awesome decade for movies. It’s one that has aged extremely well and one that will encourage me to continue scanning the Internet and the lists of films people consider the best ever made.