When the new TV-movie 24: Redemption begins, television super-hero Jack Bauer is in Africa, helping out at a school for orphans and trying to avoid a subpoena that would summon him back to the States.  However, this being 24, it isn’t long before a perfect storm of evil warlords, conniving businessmen, and some pretty bad luck result in Jack being stuck in the middle of a coup, determined to protect the school’s kids and get them safely to the American embassy.

And, hey, I sort of remember why I used to like 24 so much, back in the day!  

For the record, my position on 24 is as follows:  the first two seasons were pretty much genius (except for the occasional stupidity with amnesia and Kim Bauer in jeopardy); the first half of season 3 (Jack Bauer fighting drug lords in Mexico) was dumb, but the second half (which, as I recall, dealt with the potential release of a horrible toxin) was better; season 4 started off great with some interesting new characters (”Behrooooz!!”) but quickly got bogged down in ridiculousness; season five was pretty much the same; and season six was, for me, just unwatchable.

But this new installment is pretty entertaining.  Not phenomenal, mind you, but better than 24 has been for years.

What’s good?

The story is stripped down — gone are almost every familiar character and location.  This enables the writers to jettison all of the baggage of the last several seasons and concentrate on telling a tight, exciting story — Jack’s mission to protect the kids and get them to the embassy.  It’s a very linear action-adventure.  (The only two characters other than Jack who we’ve seen before are Powers Boothe as President Daniels, on his last day in office, and Peter MacNicol as his advisor Tom Lennox.  Frankly, I wish the writers had gone all the way and gotten rid of these two characters as well.  First of all they remind me of annoying past storylines that are far-better forgotten.  Secondly, both play one-note, unlikable characters.  Its good to have villains, but that’s not these guys.)

Wait, I was talking about what I liked!  Robert Carlyle does some great work as Jack’s old friend Carl Benton.  Its nice to see another character on 24 who is as capable and heroic as Jack.  I liked seeing Tony Todd (Worf’s brother Kurn from Star Trek: The Next Generation), although he has a very small role here as the evil Colonel Juma.  Hakeem Kae-Kazim gets a lot more time on-screen as the Colonel’s right-hand man, and he’s a lot of fun to watch.  Note to Powers Boothe: this is how you play a villain — not with over-the-top moustache-twirling, but with a scary, menacing intensity.  

There’s a lot of action — hand-to-hand combat, gun battles, a helicopter attack — and all of it is well-staged and very exciting.  What originally captured my attention about 24 was its intensity, its relentless action, and its production values — how each week seemed to be a mini-movie.  There’s a lot of that craft on display here.

What I keep coming back to is the simplicity of the story.  Without a lot of mysterious characters and sub-plots and double-crosses and evil Presidents and opening up sockets in CTU, this seems like a back-to-basics 24 adventure, and that is good.

So what’s not-so-good?

Well, while I have been praising the simplicity of the story, the down-side of that is that there really aren’t any surprises to be found in Redemption.  Ask my wife: I guessed pretty much every plot point well before it occurred.  And if the powers-that-be thought there was any suspense to be found in Jack’s decision at the film’s end (that sets up the upcoming season seven), then they were sadly in error.  Also, like Powers Boothe and Peter MacNicol, there were still too many demons of bad-24-past that reared their ugly heads here.  Once again we see Jack getting tortured.  Once again there are mysterious evil figures manipulating events for their own ends.  And, dear lord, once again we’re introduced to a mole in a position of power.  I have had it with moles on 24!!!  Every season there are like three or four moles!!!  Enough all ready, please??

Do I worry that season seven is going to fall right back into all the old traps that the last several years of the show have suffered from?  Yes sir, I do.  BUT, judging 24: Redemption as a production in its own right, I must say that over-all, I was rather pleased.  I had fun watching it, and from 24 I don’t ask too much more than that.

The folks over at aintitcoolnews have posted something very cool — a slightly tweaked version of the new Star Trek trailer.  It’s basically the exact same trailer, with one big glorious change made to the very last shot.  This isn’t a fan-made hoax, this is a real first glimpse at something cool from J.J. Abrams’ new movie.  Now, this addition to the trailer could sort of be considered a spoiler, so beware (although this particular plot point has been pretty common knowledge since the movie was first announced over two years ago, and I have no doubt that it will feature heavily into trailers that will get released closer to the film’s opening).  Anyways, it’s pretty neat, so check it out here.

I have a lot more to say about the Star Trek trailer, but I’m holding it in for now.  In the mean-time, there have been a LOT of words about the trailer written all over the web, and here are my two favorite pieces so far:  Devin over at CHUD (Cinematic Happenings Under Development) identifies a lot of the fears that long-time Trek fans like myself have over the new film, while Moriarty at AICN expresses a much more optimistic and excited view (which is where I’m at when I’m not getting insanely crazy over the idea that this new film seems to be ignoring established Trek continuity like the back-story that Robert April was the first captain of the Enterprise.)  OK, deep breaths…

In other news:

Wired Magazine has an amusing article on The Five Awesomest TV and Movie Spaceships.  I still think the refit U.S.S. Enterprise (from the first 6 Star Trek movies) is my favorite, but this fellow’s picks are pretty good, too.

There’s a neat new motion-poster out for the new Terminator movie.  See the thing in motion here (give the image a minute to get going), or click here to see a still of the poster’s final image.  Cool poster, but if this movie winds up actually being any good I will be stunned.

Can someone explain to me why Fox isn’t making lots and lots of X-Men sequels?  OK, the third one stunk, but it made a lot of money, right?  There are so many great X-Men characters and comics that are just waiting to be made into awesome films — what’s going on?  Instead, Fox is making spin-offs (there’s the Wolverine movie coming out this summer, inexplicably titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine; and they’re also working on an Ian McKellan-free Magneto spin-off titled, oh yes, X-Men Origins: Magneto), and now word comes that Fox is gearing up for an X-Men PREQUEL.  Read Variety’s story here.  A PREQUEL?  Ugh.  I am sick and tired of Hollywood’s current fascination with prequels.  Come on, make a real SEQUEL!  Give us the real Phoenix saga!  Give us Days of Future Past!  Tell the story of the Trial of Magneto, or the Mutant Massacre, or any one of a hundred other great tales from the comics.  Is Patrick Stewart too expensive to get back for more movies?  No problem!  Either re-cast the role, or just tell stories without him.  (Again, all Fox has to do is look to the comics for inspiration — Chuck was constantly getting written out over the years, because the writers had a hard time threatening the X-Men when they had an all-powerful telepath on their side.  There was a great storyline in the 80’s, when Xavier was in space or something, during which a reformed Magneto actually took over Xavier’s school before ultimately succumbing to his more violent impulses.  That would be a FANTASTIC movie!)  Same goes for Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Halle Berry as Storm… if Fox can’t get them back, either re-cast the roles or tell stories without them.  There are PLENTY of other mutants around.  It seems to me that some new X-Men sequels would be a license for Fox to print money, so I just don’t know what’s holding them up…

OK, deep breaths…!!

Let’s end on a more optimistic note.

Can it be?  Do I dare to dream?  Is the long-rumored Arrested Development movie inching closer to actually happening??  Here’s what the Hollywood Reporter has to say, and some follow-up from Ron Howard.  I think I just blue myself.  

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I will be posting a new cartoon tomorrow, as well as (if all goes well), my thoughts on the new 24 TV-movie, Redemption.  So be sure to check back here after having your fill of turkey.  See you then.

In the weeks before Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk opened this summer, there were a lot of stories on-line and in various entertainment magazines about a dispute over the editing of the film between Marvel and star Edward Norton (who played Bruce Banner).  As the tale was told, Norton was fighting for a longer cut of the film that would include more character development, while Marvel wanted a leaner, more action-packed version.  

Ultimately, it seems that the latter is what was released to theatres.  And while I found the film to be fairly enjoyable, it certainly didn’t blow my skirt up the way Iron Man had the month before.  I also found it to be inferior to Ang Lee’s weirder, more cerebral 2003 movie The Hulk.  

But I was intrigued to read that the DVD of the new Incredible Hulk movie would include a significant number of deleted scenes (almost 45 minutes worth).  That’s not the same as having an extended cut of the film to judge, but I was still very curious to check out all of that additional footage to see if I felt those scenes’ inclusion would have strengthened the film.

Well (and I’m not sure if this is good or bad), with just a few exceptions I must report that they would not have.  What we have here is a fascinating study in film-editing.  There isn’t one scene, amongst the deleted footage, that is a complete “thank god they cut that” clunker.  Everything is good, and interesting.  There’s an opening opening to the film in which Bruce Banner tries (unsuccessfully) to kill himself; scenes that show us more of the life Bruce made for himself on the run in Brazil, including how he created the science set-up in his apartment; several additional scenes with Betty’s new boyfriend Leonard (whose presence on-screen suffered the most in the theatrical cut); several scenes with General Ross which shed some more light on why he was so focused on capturing Banner, etc. etc.  It’s all decent stuff.  

Probably the best scene is a monologue by Ross, in which he describes his awe at having seen a glimpse of god (in his encounters with the Hulk), and he compares himself to those great men throughout history who have dared to grasp such power for the good of mankind.  It’s a great moment of acting, and it makes his character a bit less of an evil-for-no-reason villain, while also making him even scarier as we glimpse his passionate dedication to the cause.

And yet, none of these scenes really would have added much of anything to the movie as a whole.  Is it sort of neat to see how Bruce made his centrifuge out of spare parts?  Well, yes, but the one brief shot of it in the finished film, in which the attentive viewer notices that it’s made out of a bicycle tire, tells the whole story sufficiently.  Is it interesting to get to know Betty’s boyfriend Leonard a little more, and to see the moment where he confronts Bruce?  Well, yes, but again that doesn’t really affect the plot of the movie in any way, or change how we feel about Bruce and Betty.  It just makes Leonard a little less likable, which to me sort of hurts his character.  It’s better for the audience to feel torn, as Betty was, between the two men, as opposed to our rooting too strongly for her to dump him.  (Although I do wish that the theatrical cut had managed to work in somewhere that the fellow’s name was Leonard Samson, as that character is a major player in the Hulk comics.)  Is it neat to see Bruce wrestle with his guilt in the alternative opening, and to see him Hulk-out in Alaska (or Antarctica, or wherever that was supposed to be set)?  Well yes, but here too that doesn’t add much to Bruce’s character, as we see plenty of his struggle with his intense guilt throughout the film.  And I think it’s better to start the movie with Bruce already hiding out in Brazil.

My complaints with the finished film aren’t at all addressed by any of this excised footage.  What are my complaints?  Well, first of all I object to Marvel’s rejection of the first Hulk film.  I love Edward Norton, but I preferred Eric Bana’s Bruce Banner; as I also preferred Sam Elliott’s Thunderbolt Ross to William Hurt and VASTLY preferred Jennifer Connelly’s Betty to Liv Tyler (who I usually really like found unconvincing here).  I also objected to the major change in the Hulk’s origin made in this new film.  In Ang Lee’s Hulk, Bruce Banner was accidentally dosed with gamma rays when he tried to save a hapless lab technician.  In this version, we learn that Bruce was testing a procedure on himself.  That makes me MUCH less sympathetic to him!!  While Ang Lee’s Hulk built more to an emotional climax in terms of Bruce’s relationship with Betty and with his father (a character pretty much invented by the film, played in full-on crazy mode by Nick Nolte), this new film just builds to a big fight between the CGI Hulk and the CGI Abomination.  The fight is a cool action spectacle, sure, but I just wasn’t that invested in those two green monsters beating the crap out of each other over and over again.  And the way the movie sort of turned the Hulk into a superhero at the end (sent out to stop the Abomination) seemed a bit silly to me.  I prefer the Hulk as a monster of uncontrollable rage, as opposed to a not-very talkative crime fighter.  

So, getting back to the discussion of these deleted scenes — I have to side with Marvel on this one.  While I wish they hadn’t been so quick to find fault with Ang Lee’s movie, with this new Hulk film they did make exactly the movie that they apparently wanted to make — an action spectacle.  Had those 45 minutes of scenes been kept in the movie, they just would have slowed the film down, without adding anything significant to the over-all story.  The scenes were all strong, but if the goal was to make a fast-paced action film, then they really didn’t belong.

I do hope, though, that the next wave of Marvel super-hero movies, coming in 2010, are more like Iron Man than this new Incredible Hulk.  Action and spectacle is good, but that’s not enough to make a truly satisfying film.

I’ve seen some very funny movies in the theatres lately, but let me tell you about the two best pieces of entertainment that I’ve seen this week:

Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith — Back in 2002, film-maker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, etc…) released a two-DVD compilation of the best moments of five lengthy Q & A sessions he had held at various college campuses.  This little slice of comic genius was called An Evening With Kevin Smith.  It is a raucous, profane, and relentlessly entertaining four hours spent learning FAR more than you probably ever wanted to know about Kevin Smith’s life, career, show-biz interactions, and sexual habits.  The kids ask Smith questions on all sorts of topics, and he answers with surprising honesty and brilliant humor.  The man is a spectacular story-teller.  There are so many gems to be found on this DVD set (one of the most-watched in my large DVD collection), but my two favorites concern Smith’s experiences filming documentary footage for Prince (”Chaka mad?  Chaka real mad!”), and his lengthy tale of the year he spent, in the late 90’s, working on a Superman movie script for Warner Brothers.  In addition to being one of the funniest stories I have ever heard (as Smith goes into painful, hilarious detail of the ins and outs of trying to get the relaunch made in crazy Hollywoodland), that tale also serves to explain (to me, at least) why so many big-budget Hollywood movies wind up being so awful.  Oh, and the epilogue to the story, about Smith’s public fight with Tim Burton, is a classic as well.  Oh, OK, and I must also mention the tale of Smith’s first hook-up with the woman who would become his wife.  This story might sound innocuous, but it has to be heard to be believed.  (Remember what I wrote before about Smith’s honesty?  Let’s just say that it is on full display here.)

In 2006, Smith released An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder.  While bearing a phenomenal title, this set contained footage from just two Q & A shows, and as a result it was a bit weaker.  (There was less material to draw from.)  However, that’s not to say that there’s not a lot of fun to be had.  The discussion of Jason Mewes’ “half-half-whole” technique (which I will not explain any further here) in particular is a winner, and left me anticipating the hopeful future release of a third DVD set.

Which brings us to Threevening.  This double-DVD contains footage from just one show, but its a doozy: Kevin Smith’s celebration of his 37th birthday with an almost five-hour Q & A in his hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey.  In this installment, Smith tells stories about the making of Clerks II and his involvement in Die Hard with a Vengeance, but the highlight is a tale about jury duty and an anal fissure that is over an hour long, shockingly graphic, and also fall-on-the-floor hysterical.  

My only complaint: for some weird reason, a significant number of questions (mostly the questions that lead to a short answer from Smith) were edited out of the main feature, and instead placed as “special features” on the second disc.  Why was this done?  Why cut up the show?  (The edits are done smoothly — when watching the main feature I had no clue anything was missing.  But once I discovered it I was irritated, as I would have preferred to just have the whole show presented intact.)  There are a LOT of funny and interesting questions and answers in these “special features” scenes, so if you pick up this disc, be sure not to miss ‘em!

Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II — In the running for the best 23 minutes of television ever broadcast is last year’s Robot Chicken’s Star Wars Special.  That installment of Comedy Central’s stop-motion animated series mocked (with great love and also brutal, brutal honesty) George Lucas’ beloved series, and every moment of the very short run-time was pure gold.  My favorite bits included an ad for Admiral Ackbar Cereal (”Your tongues can’t repel flavor of this magnitude!”); a meeting of the Death Star officers deciding the best way to survive working with Darth Vader; Jar-Jar Binks’ reaction when he meets his beloved friend Ani, now Darth Vader; Boba Fett’s taunting monologue to a captured, Carbonite-encased Han Solo; and of course the opening sketch in which the Emperor on Coruscant receives a phone call from Vader, informing him of the destruction of the Death Star (”They blew it up?  Who’s THEY??  What the hell is an aluminum falcon??”)

Seeing as how I’ve watched my DVD of that first special about ten times, I was overjoyed to hear of a sequel, which aired on Comedy Central this past weekend.  I am pleased to report that great brilliance is once more on display.  The new sketches include a look inside Anakin Skywalker’s mind when he was massacring Jedi younglings in Episode III; Jar-Jar as a spokes-person for Gecko Auto Insurance; Storm-trooper Take Your Daughter to Work Day; what happened to Boba Fett after he was eaten by the Sarlacc; the reaction of Imperial officers after the end of Return of the Jedi (”What do you mean, the rebels won?  We still have tens of thousands of ships, and we control countless worlds!”); and of course another great Vader-Emperor phone call, this time a parody of their scene in Empire (”What is my bidding?  How about I bid you to stop ramming my ships into asteroid fields!!”).  If you love Star Wars then you owe it to yourself to catch a re-run of this (or to pick up the inevitable DVD release).  You won’t regret it.

In the new comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, we witness the interesting collision of two comedy worlds.

Kevin Smith has been making raunchy comedies since his black-and-white, made-for-no-money-whatsoever debut film Clerks.  Although his subsequent films (Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Clerks II) have varied somewhat in tone (as well as quality), Kevin Smith has established a distinctive (and, for those of us who love his work, tremendously enjoyable) style to his films.  He has an ensemble of actors who have appeared regularly (Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck, Jeff Anderson, and many other familiar faces), and there’s a distinct cadence to his wonderful dialogue, which can be counted on to be chock full of obscure pop culture references, vulgarity and frank discussions of all-things sexual.  

It might not be so apparent, but Kevin Smith’s dialogue-focused films, featuring a lot of young people having one gloriously off-color conversation after another, were once quite ground-breaking.  (I can’t think of any movie, before Clerks, that had anything remotely similar to the famous “how many dicks did you suck” conversation.)  But in recent years it has been the films coming out from the Judd Apatow troupe (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, etc.) that have been taking up all of the comedy limelight, and pushing the envelope forward.  (Clerks is raunchy, but to me at least, Superbad is WAY raunchier.  Go ahead and re-watch the first five minutes of that movie and tell me I’m wrong.)

While everyone (myself included) has been singing the praises of Judd Apatow and everyone else involved in this recent wave of highly successful comedies, I don’t think quite enough attention has been paid to just how influenced these films have been by Kevin Smith’s work.  And so, as one watches Zack and Miri Make a Porno unfold, there is a lot of enjoyment to be found from the comedy circle completing itself, as we find so many familiar faces from the Apatow movies now starring in Kevin Smith’s latest film.  

The two headliners are, of course, Seth Rogen (who appeared in both Apatow TV series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, had a supporting role in The 40 Year Old Virgin, starred in Knocked Up, and co-wrote and co-starred in Superbad), and Elizabeth Banks (the “junk in the trunk” girl from The 40 Year Old Virgin who has been all over the place this year, most recently in W. and Role Models).  While several Smith regulars also appear in Zack and Miri, such as Jason Mewes (finally playing a character other than Jay) and Jeff Anderson (Randall from Clerks and Clerks II), Rogen and Banks also brought along several other actors from the Apatow circle.  There’s Gerry Bednob (Steve Carell’s shockingly profane Indian co-worker Mooj in The 40 Year Old Virgin) and, most notably, the phenomenal Craig Robinson (who had one scene in Knocked Up as the bouncer who wouldn’t let Leslie Mann and Katherine Heigl into his nightclub, and who has been knocking ‘em dead for several years now as the put-upon Darryl in The Office).

As one would hope from this “Worlds Collide” scenario, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a) very raunchy, and b) very funny.  Kevin Smith’s last two films, Jersey Girl and Clerks II, both got a bit too schmaltzy for my tastes at times.  Fortunately, while there is some solid emotion to the character arc of the two main characters (something really not present in most of Smith’s early works, with the exception of Chasing Amy), Smith does a good job at keeping the tone of his film steady.  There are a few more serious moments, but they feel earned, and another big laugh is always just around the corner.

This isn’t groundbreaking the way Kevin Smith’s early films, and Judd Apatow’s recent films, have been.  Judging from the slow box office, this film doesn’t look like it’s making much of an impact on our pop-culture landscape.  But don’t let that keep you away!  It is thoroughly enjoyable film, and one that I can’t wait to see again when the DVD is released.

And if you’re looking to see something that I am quite certain you’ve never seen in a movie before, there is one scene fairly late in the movie that definitely fits the bill.  Oh, you’ll know it when you see it!

So Steph and I caught Quantum of Solace on Friday — What a fun time in a theatre!

The showing started off with several exciting trailers for some of the big blockbusters that will be arriving in the spring.  Quite a few of them didn’t interest me, such as Angels & Demons, the Da Vinci Code sequel (or is it a prequel?).  But there were two that sure as heck did.

That was the new trailer for Watchmen.  (See a larger version here.)  Watchmen is the beloved graphic novel (called by Time Magazine one of the 100 greatest novels of all time) that was published by DC Comics in 1986.  The first trailer was just imagery, whereas in this trailer we get to see some plot and a goodly amount of dialogue, giving us a slightly better idea about how these characters are being brought to life.  And so far, so good.  The trailer sells the movie on its simplest level — that of a murder mystery.  (Costumed “heroes” are being picked off, one by one — but by whom??)  That’s probably a wise choice, but I do hope that there winds up being a lot more to the movie than just that — I want the film to capture some of the complexity of the graphic novel.  

(Much more than just a whodunnit, Watchmen is a fascinating deconstruction of our modern superhero myths, asking how the modern world would be changed if superheroes really existed, and what would the people who chose to put on garish costumes and go out and fight crime really be like?  The plot is intricate, and the character arcs consist of brutal psychological realism.  Visually it is a tour-de-force, utilizing symbolism, recurring visual motifs & parallel structure to connect disparate scenes and ideas.  I could go on and on about Watchmen…. and I’m sure I will in a future post as the movie approaches!  Suffice to say, I am a bit nervous and VERY excited to see the finished film in March.)

Then there was this:

[UPDATED -- Click HERE to view a crystal clear official version of the trailer that just became available, or check out the shaky bootleg below.]

First of all, props to the Paramount marketing department because they totally fooled me.  I had read on-line that the first full trailer (there was a teaser released last Spring) would be shown with Quantum of Solace, and so I was watching carefully for it.  But when this trailer came up, starting with a kid racing a car through a desert, I thought “oh well, that’s not it, maybe the next one.”  It wasn’t until the kid said “James Tiberius Kirk” that I (and the rest of the folks in the theatre) sat up and started taking notice.  

As for the trailer — whoa.  Rather than going for stately majesty as the teaser did, this one went for bam-bam-bam action-sex-action.  Probably not a bad way to get people excited about Trek again, but it certainly wasn’t the tone I was expecting.  There’s a lot of exciting imagery in this trailer.  Unlike the last several Trek films, that were all made for a fairly low budget, this trailer screams big-budget-action-spectacular.  If that’s what the movie ends up being, I will be very excited!  All of the re-cast classic characters look great so far, especially Karl Urban as McCoy and Zoe Saldana as Uhura.  The brief shots of the Enterprise are very cool and look great, but since the ship is seen so fleetingly the concerns I waxed poetic about in my last post haven’t quite been assuaged.  I have a LOT of other worries as well, but let’s stay with the positive for now, shall we?  After the blizzard of imagery in the trailer came to an end, I said “wow — I need to see that again like 10 times as soon as possible!”  Not a bad feeling.

OK, whew, now let’s get to the main event itself — Quantum of Solace!  So, do I agree with the advance review my friend Josh Lawrence submitted two weeks ago?

Well, in some respects I do, but despite its weaknesses I thoroughly enjoyed this latest James Bond adventure — quite a bit more, I think, than Mr. Lawrence did.

What’s good?

The continuity —  As you all probably know by now, this film picks up right after the end of Casino Royale, and throughout the movie there are references to all manner of subtle plot points from that installment.  The two films fit together wonderfully, and they seem to be only the opening chapters of a much larger story.  This is a delightful return to the very origins of the Bond film series.  Modern Bond fans are used to the Bond movies being stand-alone adventures, with each film a complete story in and of itself with not much more connection to the films-that-came-before other than an occasional reference by Q or M to Bond having slept with a lot of women or destroyed a lot of expensive MI6 equipment.  But the Connery Bond films fit together to a much greater degree than that.  Each film was a complete adventure, yes, but in those early movies (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball) we watched as Bond slowly learned more and more about a shadowy criminal organization that was behind all the villains he was facing — SPECTRE.  It was only when we got to You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (and, sort of, in Diamonds Are Forever) that the stories finally built to a showdown between Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the bald, cat-stroking madman in charge of SPECTRE.  I have no way of knowing what future Bond movies will bring, but it certainly seems as if the events of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are just the opening gambits in a much larger confrontation between MI6 and a new SPECTRE-like criminal organization, whose name we only learn in the final moments of this new film.  That is very exciting.  (Note, for instance, that Mr. White remains at large when the movie ends… I very much suspect we’ll see him again…) 

Daniel Craig — Craig is once again terrific as Bond.  These past two Bond films have not been afraid to portray Bond as something of a brute, and I’m really enjoying this new, grittier version of this long-running character.  But it wouldn’t work if Craig didn’t bring tremendous energy, charisma, and intelligence to the role.  Craig’s Bond is a force to be reckoned with.

The action — For anyone who thought Casino Royale was too talky (for the record, that would not include me), it seems like the producers have set out to address your complaints.  The first 45-minutes of this film consist of one incredible action sequence after another.  I am a bit worried that Bond is being depicted as too much of a super-human, but boy are these fights and chases exciting and well-staged.  The ballet of violence between our man James and an MI6 turncoat who are both caught up in a tangle ropes and chains suspended from a high ceiling is a particular grace note.

The supporting cast — Judi Dench turns in another fine performance as the unflappable M; Jeffrey Wright is again great as Felix Leiter (although I really hope he has more to do in the next film…); and I was thrilled to see Giancarlo Giannini back as Mathis.  New additions Olga Kurylenko (as Camille, the major female lead in the film), Gemma Arterton (as agent Fields, and do stay for the credits to learn her mysterious first name!), and Mathieu Amalric (as the villainous Dominic Greene) all do solid work (although I must confess that none of them really stand out from the many heroes and villains we’ve met in all the prior Bond films).

The theme song and opening credits — I stand with Mr. Lawrence on this one, in defiance of critics everywhere.  I rather liked the new song!  Is it one of the best of the Bond songs?  Certainly not.  (Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Thunderball… these songs are not going to be bested any times soon… I’d say Goldeneye is the best of the modern Bond songs, and that was a while ago already…)  BUT that being said I found it a very solid theme, and an enjoyable way to kick off the movie.  (And its WAY better than Die Another Day…)

OK, so that all sounds great!  So what’s not so good?

Well, in contrast to Casino Royale, everything in Quantum of Solace is a little more… shall we say, lightly sketched.  I have read a lot of accusations that Quantum is all action and no plot, and I don’t feel that’s the case at all.  BUT the character arcs here are much more simplistic, relative to the depth brought to Bond, Vesper, and others in Casino.  OK, Bond starts off the movie angry and ends the film by making the right choices, but did we expect otherwise?  I don’t really call that a character arc.  And what did we learn about Camille other than that she’s angry over the death of the family and that she is afraid of fire?  As for Greene, he’s an evil environmentalist.  And his name is Greene.  Get it?  

There are also some plot holes that, even on a first viewing of the film, were bothersome.  The opening sequence seems to take place almost immediately following the end of Casino Royale, and my impression was that the rest of the film follows very shortly thereafter, covering maybe a week of time at most.  And yet, when we first catch back up with Felix Leiter, very early in the movie, he already seems to be right in the middle of a new case totally unconnected to his involvement with Le Chiffre in Casino.  When exactly did that happen?  (ALSO he’s got a much bushier, scruffier beard than he did in Casino, which again seems to imply that he’s been involved in this new case for months, not a couple of days.)  Then there’s the scene in which Bond is unable to book a flight, because M has cancelled all of his passports.  He tries, and fails, to get on a plane.  Cut to the next scene in which he has managed to get to the island where Mathis is currently living.  Um, how exactly??  These sorts of problems nip away at the suspension of disbelief I need to maintain when watching a movie in which our hero is able to jump out of a burning airplane and catch up in mid-air with a falling damsel (who has the only parachute, of course!).  Oh, and then land hard on rocky ground only seconds after they open said parachute, but walk away with just a few scratches and their clothes dirtied.

This film also saw the return of some hoary old Bond plot devices that I’ve really seen enough of.  I’m thinking specifically about the two female leads.  One of them is an agent sent to control Bond who Bond quickly seduces, and the other is out for revenge because one of the film’s villains killed her family.  Hmmm, where have I seen those characters before?  Only in about 20 of the past 21 Bond films!!!

Finally, while I argued above that I really enjoyed how Quantum seems to be only chapter 2 in a much longer, multi-movie story, I did expect to learn a bit more about the criminal organization hinted at in the closing scenes of Casino.  And yet, by the time Quantum ends, all we have learned is its name.  (And come on, how many people didn’t guess that when they heard the title of this film MONTHS ago??)  And I wish Quantum had the same sort of “just wait, viewers — more to come” ending as Casino did.  I love it when I walk out of a movie, already primed for the sequel.  I really thought we’d get one more scene at the end of Quantum, maybe giving us one more tantalizing hint about this SPECTRE for a new millennium, but that was not to be.

Before I end, let me just mention one thing that has me very un-decided.  What did you all think about the iconic opening you-know-what being saved to the very END of the flick???  Interesting choice.

All in all, while not a perfect installment, Quantum of Solace is a very engaging and entertaining movie.  It is inferior to Casino Royale, which is disappointing, but I still think it ranks amongst the upper tier of the 22 (official) Bond films.  (Disagree?  Go watch Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, Octopussy, The Living Daylights, License to Kill, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day again, and then get back to me…)

I seem to be alternating between manic euphoria over the impending arrival of J.J. Abrams’ big-screen big-budget Star Trek relaunch/reboot/whatever, and tremendous pessimism that a film trying to re-cast the iconic roles of Kirk, Spock, etc., can’t possibly be good.

On the euphoric side of town, I have been breathlessly counting the days until the arrival of the first big trailer, which will be premiering this weekend.  And most of the cast pictures that were revealed last month were very encouraging.  (See my blog post from October 16th.)

Then Paramount released to Entertainment Weekly the design for the new Starship Enterprise.

Uh oh.

OK, so between the original Star Trek series from the ’60s, the movies, and all the subsequent TV show spin-offs, there have been a heck of a lot of different Enterprise designs out there.  My favorite is the one from all the original Trek movies (Star Trek: The Motion Picture through Star Trek VI.)

This is known in Trek parlance as the “refit” Enterprise, as it looks quite a bit snazzier than the Enterprise as seen in the original series.  

The reality is that the producers of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, quite rightly so, felt that the simple design of the original TV Enterprise wouldn’t hold up on the big screen.  The explanation given in the movie for the new look of the Enterprise is that the ship has been in drydock for two years, getting re-fitted with the latest tech.  It’s a bit of a stretch, but since the refit design is so magnificent people seemed to go with it.  

So that brings us to J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie.  Although the plot is still a tightly-kept secret, it seems to be the story of Kirk and the gang getting together as young officers, before they were on the Enterprise… or perhaps very early on in their adventures on the Enterprise.  In other words, it appears to be some sort of prequel to the events of the original Star Trek television series of the ’60s.  That would indicate that the Enterprise seen in the movie should look something like the second Enterprise pic found above.

Well, instead it looks like this:

Now, look, I need to hold back my judgement until seeing the ship in motion.  I remember seeing the first pictures of the X-Men in costume from way before the first X-Men movie came out… and seeing that first picture of Tobey Maguire in his Spider-Man costume… and both times thinking “oh my god, that looks horrible.”  And yet, in both examples, in the actual movie I thought the costumes looked just fine.  So one really shouldn’t judge one still early picture.

Still, I find the new design to be… well, pretty ugly!!  Forget the continuity problems of this Enterprise looking more like the refit Enterprise than the original one.  I can get past that.  (Although the writers and producers are being very coy about it, it’s possible that the movie will wind up being a let’s-start-from-scratch reboot of the story, as opposed to an in-continuity prequel.  So the Enterprise looking different is to be expected.)  But to me this new design just looks sort of weird.  It has all the elements of the classic Enterprise design — the circular primary hull, the cylindrical secondary hull, the two nacelles — but without any of the grace of the classic Enterprise look.  The secondary hull is pushed way too far forward, the nacelles look too big and bulky, and they don’t sit well on the pylons that connect them to the secondary hull.  And the pylons themselves look almost as if they were stuck on the ship upside down (with the wider parts attached to the secondary hull and then getting more narrow as they approach the nacelles, instead of vice versa).  Scroll back up to the first picture to see the graceful sweep back of the angled nacelles and the nacelle pylons, and then look at the stubby-looking things coming off the new ship.  

Am I over-reacting?  Quite probably!!  I really hope to be back here on Monday, after having seen the new Trek trailer, singing its praises and once again filled with intense anticipation for the new movie.  And I’m sure some of you non Star Trek fans are looking at the new picture and saying, “I dunno, it looks like the Enterprise to me.”  So maybe this is much ado about nothing.  But for right now, I am worried that the makers of this new Star Trek movie are playing way too fast and loose with the core elements of the franchise.  Prove me wrong, J.J.!!

I am not very well-versed in Westerns, but I do know that I usually enjoy them when I see them.  When I heard that Ed Harris was directing the new Western, Appaloosa (only his second time directing, the first being the phenomenal Pollock), I was interested.  The terrific cast — Harris himself, along with Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger, and Lance Henriksen — sealed the deal.

Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Mortensen) are lawmen-for-hire who come to the town of Appaloosa to help rid the townspeople of a troublesome rancher named Randall Bragg (Irons).  Through fear and intimidation, and the occasional murder, Randall and his men have had the run of the town, pretty much able to do whatever they please.  But the townspeople have finally had enough, so they hire Cole and Hitch.  The two men have cleaned up plenty of frontier towns before, but this time a woman (Zellweger) is going to make things a lot more complicated. 

If that sounds like a fairly typical plot for a Western… well, it is.  Appaloosa is a rather traditional tale.  The filmmakers aren’t out to re-invent the Western – they’re just out to tell as good a Western as they can.

And for the most part they succeed.  The strength of this movie is the actors.  It is great fun watching Harris, Mortensen, Irons, and the rest of them go at it.  All are such powerful, charismatic figures — watching them bounce off one another is a great pleasure.  

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Ed Harris give a bad performance.  Last week I re-watched Glengarry Glenn Ross for the umpteenth time, and his farewell rant towards the end of the film (”What is this, courtesy class?”) is something I can watch over and over again.  Harris is the lead of the film here, in many ways the “hero.”  But he’s not afraid to show the cracks at the edges of his character.  Virgil Cole is a man who can fall into a rage when angered, who is not very learned, and who can make some bad decisions when a pretty lady is involved.  But Harris also imbues Cole with a basic decency as well as an abundance of inherent charm.  This is a man it’s hard not to root for (even when the film gives us some reasons why maybe we shouldn’t).

I have really been thrilled, over the past few years, to watch Viggo Mortensen in the various roles he has taken on post Lord of the Rings.  He was so spectacular as Aragorn that I could have seen him get trapped in that role.  But in films like Eastern Promises and this one, he has created really wonderful characters, each very different than that of Aragorn.  Mortensen has a quietude, and a gentleness, that is quite powerful to watch — particularly when playing a man who is, despite all that, a man whose life revolves around violence.  He’s dangerous, and tremendously engaging.

I’ve been a fan of Lance Henriksen ever since I first saw Aliens at probably too-young an age.  He’s an actor I always wish was in more films, as I find him to be consistently excellent (even in lesser roles).  He’s got a nice part here as one of a pair of gun-for-hire brothers hired by Bragg.  There’s a lot of life behind his craggy face, and like Mortensen there’s a dangerous sense that you never quite know what this man is going to do next.

The weakness, unfortunately, is Zellweger.  Its possible that the script is more at fault than the actress… but either way, she’s a rather unlikable character in the film, and that hurts the story.  Because for the audience to really be invested in the events of the second half of the film, I think we need to care a lot more about her character.  Now, I am not complaining that she is a flawed character.  Zellwegger’s Allison French is a woman who, basically, is always trying to be with the man who is “top dog” wherever she finds herself.  Now, that could be an interesting character trait.  As I wrote above, it is the flaws in Ed Harris’ Virgil Cole that make his character so interesting.  French’s weaknesses could be a compelling way to add some depth to the “damsel” role in the film… and that could set up some interesting sparks between her and the various strong male characters around her.  But, again, for any of that to occur I think the audience needs to care more about her, so that we’re saddened when she makes some of the choices that she makes in the second half of the movie.  Instead, I just found her to be distasteful, and sort of silly when compared to all the rest of the men who (except for Jeremy Irons’ Bragg) seem so honorable (even Lance Henriksen’s hit-man Ring Shelton, who is at odds with our heroes for most of the movie).

So is this a ground-breaking, monumental film?  It is not.  It is, however, a very entertaining story, populated by a number of very talented actors.  There’s nothing envelope-pushing here, but you know, sometimes a small tale well-told is enough.

Having recently read the book What Just Happened? by Hollywood producer Art Linson, I was naturally intrigued to find out that a movie based on the book was about to be released to theatres.  (Albeit rather under the radar, as no one I know of has heard of the film.)

Well, the film What Just Happened (without the question mark that was in the book title), directed by Barry Levinson, was indeed released last month.  It stars Robert DeNiro, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Catherine Keener, and Ribun Wright Penn.  And it’s directed by Barry Levinson, who helmed Diner, Good Morning Vietnam,  Rain Man, and Wag the Dog.  With such talent behind and in front of the camera, it’s somewhat disappointing to realize that the film is just mediocre.

The book What Just Happened? takes place over the course of several years in the life of Art Linson, during which he worked as a producer for 20th Century Fox and produced one bomb after another.  (Not intentionally, mind you!)  The film What Just Happened takes several of the best stories from the book and works them into the fictionalized tale of a week in the life of Hollywood producer Ben (DeNiro), trying to stay afloat as he deals with weasely agents, egomaniacal stars, and his own personal problems. 

There is certainly fun to be had in the film.  DeNiro is great, as always.  He invests Ben with a certain good humor and even — dare I say it? — some dignity.  He’s just a lot of fun to watch, as he subsumes the tough-guy persona he’s so often played on screen beneath Ben’s schlubby skin.  (I could almost imagine the part being played by Woody Allen.)  And Bruce Willis is a riot in the Alec Baldwin role.  While producing The Edge, Linson had a famous enounter with Alec Baldwin who, though he had been cast as the young hunky photographer in the film, showed up overweight and with a mountain-man beard that he refused to shave.  Well, no surprise, that conflict is a central one in the film, and the scene where De Niro confronts Willis is a gem.

But the movie isn’t quite the laugh riot I was expecting.  Levinson has often demonstrated as strong an interest in the dramatic storylines in his films as with the comedic elements.  In his best work, he’s able to balance the two to produce something really powerful.  Here, the drama and the comedy don’t quite mesh.  There are long stretches of the film without much to laugh about, but those dramatic stretches didn’t have the impact that I’d imagine Levinson intended, at least not for me.  I never became emotionally invested in Ben’s struggles.  

It’s certainly an interesting film — its rare to see a “suit” as the hero of one of these “inside Hollywood” movies.  And there are a lot of interesting performances.  (Every member of the great supporting cast listed above does strong work.)  But there’s nothing particularly memorable either.  I enjoyed seeing it once, but I doubt that this will be a film that I revisit often.

Despite some terrific trailers that had me excited, most of the reviews I’ve read of Oliver Stone’s W. were decidedly mediocre.  Nevertheless, I was very curious, so I decided that I needed to see the film for myself.

And I’m glad I did – I found the movie to be tremendously entertaining!  As you’ve all heard by now (this is the one element of the film that most critics have been excited about), Josh Brolin is terrific as George W. Bush.  Brolin walks the fine line between imitating the President and inhabiting him.  This isn’t just Will Ferrell playing Dubya on SNL.  Not to knock Mr. Ferrell (who is a comic genius!!) but Brolin brings powerful life to his performance.  And this is critical, because Stone is asking the audience to spend two hours with this man who, ultimately, the movie evaluates as a failure.  That could make for very unpleasant viewing!  But Brolin, along with Stone, is able to balance the humor and the intense gravity of the situations throughout the film.

Stone has an interesting task in helming a biography of a sitting President, without the benefit of a decade or so of hindsight.  Most thinking Americans have their own opinions and evaluations of George W. Bush (I know I do), but it’ll be interesting to see how we look back on this man in 20-30 years.  Stone’s hypothesis (along with screenwriter Stanley Weiser) is that Bush is a man always chasing after his father’s approval, and always falling short.  Is this the truth?  It’s hard for me to say, but Stone certainly crafts a compelling case.

As George Herbert Walker Bush, James Cromwell (L.A. Confidential, Babe: Pig in the City, The Green Mile, and of course he’s also Jack Bauer’s papa) is a towering figure, and the strained relationship between these two men is the centerpiece of the film.  We feel the elder Bush’s love for his son, but more strongly do we feel his profound disappointment.  Many of the reviews I’ve read expressed some surprise that Stone’s film wasn’t more critical of George W Bush.  I’m not sure what movie those reviewers were watching, because to me this film is an evisceration of Dubya.  No, he’s not protrayed as a complete incompetent caricature.  But to me the figure-person for the audience, and for Stone, is George Herbert Walker Bush.  When he evaluates his son as a failure, that to me is what we the audience are supposed to feel — that evaluation is the statement of the film.  As I said, in that respect it feels like an evisceration.  As the film reminds us towards the end, this isn’t just a game — real people’s lives, literally, have been affected by this man. 

But don’t get me wrong, the film is not a somber, depressing polemic.  (Well, you might feel depressed about the past eight years, depending on your political leanings… but if you do, you probably did well before seeing this movie!)  Much of the fun of the film is found in the many talented actors portraying all the well-known people in Bush’s circle.   Let’s start with Richard Dreyfuss, who is magnificent as Dick Cheney.  (The scene in which he lays out his ideas about where all the events in the Middle East are heading is the scariest thing I’ve seen in a movie theatre all year.)  Toby Jones is a riot as Karl Rove.  Then there’s Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush.  To me this was one of Stone’s most surprising casting decisions, but Banks pulls it off.  She brings a lot of charisma and intelligence to the role, and she really sells Laura’s affection for Dubya.  (Although the film never really demonstrates just what exactly she sees in him.)

Possibly the most devastating depicition of any of these Bushies is Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice.  She’s been picked on by many reviewers, and I will admit that of all the performances, hers is the one that leans closest to caricature.  To refer back to the barometer I used earlier, this is the performance that would fit in most easily on an SNL skit.  But to me that is what’s so striking about it.  When we see Thandie on screen, she does usually draw laughs.  But what a powerful attack on Dr. Rice that is, what a condemnation of her role in the Bush White House!  No, she is not a well-rounded character in the film… and perhaps that is a weakness.  But this film isn’t about Condoleeza Rice, it’s about George W. Bush.  And while I was a bit surprised at the disdain which the filmmakers seem to be showing towards Dr. Rice, if that was their aim then Lord knows they succeeded.

There are so many other actors deserving mention:  Bruce McGill (you’ll recognize him from a great many roles in movies and on TV — but to me he’ll always be Al the Bartender from the Quantum Leap finale) as George Tenet; Scott Glenn (The Right Stuff, The Hunt for Red October, The Silence of the Lambs) as Donald Rumsfeld; Jeffrey Wright (Syriana, Casino Royale) as Gen. Colin Powell; Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) in a small role as Ari Fleischer… and many, many more.  What an ensemble. 

This movie isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about George W. Bush.  But I don’t think that was Oliver Stone’s intention.  What he’s done is give us his opinion about what makes Dubya tick.  You might agree, or you might disagree.  Either way, I suggest taking what’s seen in the movie with several generous grains of salt.  This isn’t fact — this is Mr. Stone’s opinion.  But has he wrapped that opinion up in an entertaining package?  To me, he certainly has, and that is what makes W. worth your time, and your hard-earned ticket money. 

Check it out (if you can still find it playing in a theatre near you), and let me know if you agree!

Well this is very exciting!  I am quite pleased to welcome our very first guest reviewer to this site.  Josh Lawrence, who is currently making his home in jolly ol’ London, has sent us his thoughts on the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace!  This is an special sneak preview, as the film doesn’t open here in the States until Nov. 14th.  (Please note that Josh’s review contains minor spoilers, but nothing that hasn’t already been revealed in the trailers or in the many articles that have been published promoting the film.)  

So, what did Josh think?  Take a peek!

To say that Quantum of Solace is the 22^nd installment in the Bond franchise is a bit misleading: the new film (already released in the UK) should truly be seen as the second film in a new genre of Bond films starting with the excellent Casino Royale.

In Casino Royale, a quasi-prequel with Daniel Craig in the title role, we see the virtual apotheosis of Bond, from a rough fighting machine who earns his “license to kill” to the determined professional who shows resolve and firmness but also a new humanity in his pursuit of the organization behind the villain Le Chiffre. The film’s closing, with his iconic introduction as “Bond, James Bond” delivered a phenomenal punch, conveying that Bond is now truly a double-o agent and leaving audiences breathless for the next installment and his pursuit of those responsible for Vesper Lynd’s death.  

Quantum of Solace, a title that does not any more sense after one sees the film, is sadly a real disappointment in the wake of Casino’s compelling story which marked a new, grittier direction for the series.

The story picks up in the minutes after the previous film’s ending, with a promising fast-paced car chase, as Bond scrambles to transport his prisoner, Mr. White, to a hideout in Sienna for questioning.  It is a rough chase, reminiscent in its sheer violence of the porcelain-crushing bathroom brawl in Casino, and could lead one to believe that Aston Martins are an adequate substitute for military-grade Humvees. 

Sadly, it is the first of many violent, eventually excessive chases: over 106 minutes the audience is treated to several more car and motorcycle chases, a boat chase, and an imagination-stretching plane chase/dogfight. 

If this sounds a bit like some previous Bond flicks—those wonderfully campy films that feature lots of chases, gadgets, booze, beautiful women and sexual innuendo—you are onto one of the central problems of Quantum: while it is unmistakably a dark, fast-paced film in the spirit of Casino, it is as if the producers deconstructed the earlier Bond films and borrowed sporadically, and not terribly well, from the rest of the franchise. Here, what purports to be a serious film is undermined by out-of-place bungling CIA agents, gratuitously exotic locales, throw-away lines, and a direct homage to the most famous scene in all Bond history, none of which individually or collectively do much for the movie or plot. One gets the sense that the director/producers couldn’t decide what kind of Bond film they wanted to make.

The plot, too, leaves much to be desired.  In what is possibly the most overused Bond plot-line, 007 finds that his pursuit of the evil organization/real killers puts him at odds with MI-6. And so, to use the parlance of our time, he goes “rogue.” 

Bond, of course, never solves a caper all on his own, and must enlist a bit of eye candy to win the day.  Enter Camille, the tough ex-Bolivian agent, who is coincidentally on her own personal vendetta after some of the same people Bond is chasing, in her case trying to avenge the brutal death of her family (isn’t this the back story for every Bond girl?). Though we are meant to believe that there is a close connection between Bond and Camille—they understand each other since both are avenging lost loved ones—our hero is still mourning Vesper too much to move on, or get it on, with his partner in pursuit.  Again, though, the directors seem to want it both ways: while the story line was best served by a solitary, brooding Bond, he ends up seducing a reasonably attractive girl in a transaction that feels businesslike.  The scene, devoid of flirtation or fun, only disrupts the story. 

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the film is the poor delivery on Casino’s promise: that Bond is on to a huge, secret criminal organization and that in Quantum he will start uncovering more information about their work. Diehard Bond fans speculated (and hoped) that Bond’s pursuit would lead him to S.P.E.C.T.R.E (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), the bad guys behind everything in the Bond world.

The lead villain, Dominic Greene, is, however, not terribly imposing; his most evil feature—the way you know he is the bad guy—is his really wide, weird eyes.  No tears of blood, or special scars, or a preternaturally calm white kitten sitting in his lap—instead he looks like the guy sitting next to you at temple in Westchester. Greene is a fake environmentalist, who builds clever alliances to manage natural resources. Without spoiling the movie, let me just say that what passes for a big twist as his motivations are revealed, is, in a word, stupid.

Beyond the awkward influences of previous Bond movies and a weak plot, there a few other gripes worth mentioning. The dialogue can be heavy-handed and George Lucas-esque. Too often the characters tell what they should be showing. The product promotions, always prominent, are not much fun: seeing the villain entourage move around in Ford Edges is groan-inducing. And some of the references, like a general who only takes bribes in Euros and the environmentally-related theme, seem so three months ago. 

Fortunately, there are a few bright spots. In one of his broodier moments, Bond is joined at a bar by a friend who asks the bartender what Bond is drinking. The bartender recites the ingredients of a drink that serious fans will recognize: a Vesper. That bittersweet moment, watching Bond try to dull his pain with a drink named after the cause of his sorrows, is expertly done. 

The theme song is also quite good, belted out by Alicia Keys and Jack White (of the White Stripes).  It is very much a modern Bond anthem, and it will get you excited for the rest of the film.

Finally the acting is for the most part excellent. Daniel Craig does his best within the parameters, and Judy Dench, as M, is superb—too bad she is in such a flat role this time around. 

In the end, though, the film does not meet the very high expectations set by Casino Royale, or for that matter by the Bourne movies or The Dark Knight.  If the Bond movies are going to go in a new direction, then they need to compete on that level. The film is not dreadful—this is not a franchise-destroying Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Phantom Menace—but it just is not as good as it could or should be. 

And if they can’t deliver a new Bond, I’d just as soon go back to the movies peppered with gadgets, villains, booze, and humorously named female characters (but please, no invisible cars).  After all, how else would I know how to dismantle an imminently exploding bomb (cut the red wire), which part of the Caspian to source my caviar (North), or the proper temperature for serving hot sake (98.4 degrees)?

A pretty slick new trailer for the seventh season of 24 is on-line here.  After a dreadful sixth season and a two-year hiatus, it’s hard for me to muster up much enthusiasm for the return of this once-great show…but the trailer is snazzy, and hope springs eternal!  We’ll see…

Joss Whedon updates his fans on the status of his new show Dollhouse here.  There have been a lot of rumors about trouble on this show, and Joss sets the record straight in his always hilarious style.  I’m not exactly reassured, but a new Joss Whedon show is something to anticipate, so I’m hoping for the best.  Hope it lasts longer than the killed-WAY-before-its-time Firefly.  Sniff.

Speaking of sci-fi, as we count the days until the the final batch of Battlestar Galactica episodes being to air, the web-site Galactica sit-rep has a pretty thorough update on all things Galactica.  Check it out here.

You’ve all probably heard that Terrence Howard, who played Tony Stark’s buddy Rhodey in Iron Man, has been replaced by Don Cheadle for the sequel (coming in 2010).  Entertainment Weekly has an interesting theory as to why the change was made, and you can find that here.  Whatever the reason, I’m disappointed by the switch, as I really enjoyed Howard’s performance in the first film and hate this kind of continuity change mid-series.  That being said, Don Cheadle is a tremendous actor, so this could be worse.

Let us end with the greatest and weirdest story I’ve read in a long time.  Is Fox planning on re-making Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the FOURTH of the five original Planet of the Apes films)???  Check out this story.  I can’t imagine that a) this will ever get made, and b) that if it did, it would be any good.  Still, what a bizarre and wild idea!!!

Lots of movie and DVD reviews coming in the next few days… and tomorrow, we have a special guest reviewer from across the pond give us his thoughts on the new Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace (which doesn’t open here in the States for two more long weeks)!!!  See you then!

This past weekend my wife Steph and I threw our third annual EZ Viewing movie marathon.  This has become a yearly tradition for us, in sort-of celebration of my birthday.  (I was inspired by the idea of aintitcoolnews webmaster Harry Knowles’ annual 24-hour Butt-Numb-A-Thon, about which I’ve been reading for years.)  During EZ Viewing we screen five films, using a projector to create a “big screen” effect.

Here’s this year’s selection:

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Glengarry Glenn Ross

Iron Man

My Blue Heaven

Star Trek III

An eclectic mix, to be sure!  But all five are movies that I absolutely love to death, (and several of which I’ve written about on this site before).  Getting to watch them with my friends on a big screen was a blast.  Can’t wait ’till next year!!

I’ve got a lot of blog posts to catch up on in the coming days.  I’ve seen a bunch of films, new and old, over the past few weeks that need reviewing, and I also have some fun links to share with you all.  So I’ll see you right back here tomorrow, OK?