Blonde Bond

If you haven't already heard, there's a new 007 film in the works, designated Skyfall, and concerns one James Bond in his mission to babysit M from her dark and mysterious past. There is also a certain technological genius and laser-watch enthusiast returning to the franchise, I speak of Q, who has been a sorely missed element from the Craig films. The simple mention of a new Bond film crawling out of the development hell it has been in for four years has me giddy for some super-spy action. On a whim I re-watched Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig's first two forays into spy-dom, and have decided to share my thoughts on the two.

I DO NOT claim to be a Bond aficionado, though I do own a majority of his pictures. I am missing the final volume of the "ultimate collection" of the first twenty Bond films which contains Dr. No, the first. Starting a marathon run of the films with going in order just doesn't seem like I'm giving the old boy a fair go, so I'm waiting on a more complete collection before attempting it. Until then I've only seen a handful of the movies in question and that was a while ago so the memory of the viewings has faded quite a bit. I understand examining the Craig films without having a more complete knowledge of the previous twenty at my disposal is a ludicrous idea. My counter-argument: tough.

Casino Royale
 I don't think continuity has ever been a major part of the Bond mythos. He changes appearance every so often, as do his contemporaries, and past events to previous adventures aren't all that important to what ever one he goes on. At least that what it seems like to me, a person with great but incomplete knowledge of his exploits. I suppose one could circumvent these continuity hiccups with stories of "James Bond" being a fabricated name of its own and is passed down from agent to agent, as we all know "M" is. I say all this because the idea of "rebooting" James Bond has always come off as unnecessary. Certainly he's needed freshening up, Die Another Day didn't impress ANYONE that I can think of. But did they have to call it a "reboot"? The audience sees how he attained double-oh status (the second is always considerably easier) and Daniel Craig is younger than the other Bonds, but he's not that noticeably younger.

Other than this, I can't really find anything bad to say about it. The movie does what it needs to, telling the first exploit of Bond and how his emotional armor formed, setting the stage for his suave and unattached demeanor with women. I'm trying to think of something I didn't like about Casino, other than the hard to watch torture scene, but disliking that scene has nothing to do with quality (more for the OUCH factor). Daniel Craig is brilliant in the role, as they always are. I've yet to see an actor that has never invoked feelings of "This guy is motherfucking James Bond" and I've only not seen George Lazenby's butt in the saddle, so we'll see how that works out.

Arbitrary Score: All-in A+


Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig's sophomore Bond exploit is something else entirely. Up until my most recent viewing, Solace has invoked boredom and confusion from me. Now, with age and wisdom, I have returned to it under better light. Not much better, but still better. The big problem with Solace is that it's not its own story. Every Bond film up until this one has been essentially self-contained and concerned with only itself. Quantum of Solace only exists to wrap-up some loose thread in Casino Royale. It is the first Bond sequel to actually be a sequel to another Bond movie. And because of that, it suffers. One must first watch the former to understand what is going on and then the plot zooms and meanders around some oil conspiracy nonsense until everyone not paying close attention is lost and without hope. And those that are paying attention are just as easily by the how uninteresting the story is.

While it is nice to see 007 do something that doesn't involve (deep breathe) SAVING THE WORLD the basic idea of rooting out Quantum, a SPECTRE for an new age, could have been more interesting. The competing plot of oil conspiracy and control in Bolivia takes away from this, unfortunately and the film comes off as confused about what the hell Bond is suppose to do anyway. He hasn't fought a multiple film spanning shadowy organization since Connery, if I remember right, and doing so again would be a pleasant callback to the career of the first Bond.

Quantum does have its strong points, even a not-at-all worth it plot can stop Daniel Craig and Judi Dench from their naturally lively and excellent performances and the action, while often jittery, works competently enough to not ruin the experience. All in all, it's not perfect, but if you want to see what follows Casino Royale it won't exactly ruin you day.

Arbitrary Score: Wraped-up C

Now let's have some Skyfall. Hopefully October won't take too long to get here.

Spike VGAs 2011 Wrap-Up

They were surprisingly not terrible this year. The "show" part wasn't completely terrible, but the real low point was the teabagging thing they decided to do. Ugh. It also hogged up A LOT of the show itself, leaving the actual awards to be pushed in at the last minutes and book-ending the "comedy".

The "awards" part was actually acceptable. Skyrim brought home GOTY, not my first choice, but it is a respectable one. The only gripe I had with the winners was Arkham City winning Best Xbox Game. Obviously the category doesn't refer to exclusive Xbox games, so I guess they meant Best Game Released on the Xbox Overall? But then why did Skyrim bring home GOTY, since it was also released on the Xbox? That's the only really bothersome thing about the winners I have though. Which is a huge surprise. I was expecting to come off more disappointed than I did, so that's something.

It looks like they have a good system for choosing winners, but they need to cut the crap with overfilling the show with skits and whatever. This is an award show, not Saturday Night Live.

P.S. I'm sure they forgot to mention Best Team Sports Game, but no one seems to care.

Shakespeare in Love

Now THIS is a Shakespeare movie.

Unlike Anonymous, which should have focused on Shakespeare and the author of his works, Shakespeare in Love remains entirely focused on the relationship between Shakespeare and his "dark lady". It remains coherent and engaging, even for a romantic movie. And the actors all do a fantastic job, especially Paltrow who completely deserved that Oscar. If there's anyone out there reading this, I recommend watching this movie over Anonymous. Already seen it? Watch it again.

Score: A

Anonymous

The movie being sold in trailers and posters is not the movie in theaters. Do not be fooled.

The latest work from Roland Emmerich suffers from being all over the place. It's trying WAY too hard to be something it didn't have to be. Including massive conspiracy silliness and political intrigue in a movie about William Shakespeare seems unnecessary to me. Speaking of which; if you are making a movie ABOUT SHAKESPEARE IT SHOULD BE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. Or at least sell it differently. Like: "Anonymous: Actually More About Ben Jonson than William Shakespeare".

Seriously, I get how its more or less following the story of Edward de Vere and how he supposedly wrote all of Shakespeare's work, but good lord does the movie have a hard-on for the ridiculously confusing political plot and Ben Jonson. He's a good writer and all I just think the movie should have focused more on de Vere and Shakespeare's lives. Like how Shakespeare's son died, drastically altering his life and work from that point on. Maybe could have worked that in. Or how Queen Elizabeth regularly attended the plays in question at the Globe itself, adding a bit more depth to the plot. Nope, instead we have 130 minutes of boring political crap that no one wanted to see in the first place.

And how they deal with Chris Marlowe's death is the most ridiculous piece of crap I have seen this month. Bean in mind I just saw a movie about puppets raising money to save their sketch comedy show from an oil baron with help of Hollywood celebrities.

Arbitrary Score: Fraudulent D

South Park: The Game

Well now there's this...... oh where do I begin.

1. I hope to Almighty Odin they get a better title.

2. This kind of thing is WAY out of Obsidian's range. They're a company who's been known for picking up the sloppy seconds of other, better companies or have had massive amounts of unluckiness when making their own game.

3. A "Self-insert" character is the least engaging idea in the whole of the videogame industry. They tried and failed in Ghostbusters, X-Men Destiny, the Penny Arcade Adventures, and countless others. And by "failure" I mean trying to make the self-insert character engaging. In all accounts, I'd much rather be playing as any of the established characters over some guy.

I adore South Park. I thinks its the best adult cartoon ever created and I really, really, hope this game turns out well. I'm just cautious about it is all. The only good thing about this is Trey Parker and Matt Stone are overseeing every aspect of the game personally, but games are a totally different medium from cartoons, movies, and even theatre. At this point it could go either way.

Love that cover, however. There's something pleasing about seeing South Park on the cover of GameInformer. And it looks like Token is a blacksmith. Tee hee hee.

I will also mention that this was written before any real information was given out about the game other than "its coming" with a brief description. I plan on making a follow-up when more information is available.