Monday, November 27, 2006

Bond, James BoooOOAAAGHHH!!

Hollywood moment: Talking to my agent, who's British, about the new Bond. Turns out he'd seen it at the Royal Premiere in London.

John: Well, that must have been cool.
Agent: It was fantastic, but ...
John: But what?
Agent: You know the scene where Bond's being interrogated by being ... you know. With the rope.
John: You mean the gayest interrogation scene in mainstream film?
Agent: Exactly. I realize, as this guy is whipping Daniel Craig's crotch with tarred rope, that this is the Royal Premiere. That right now the Queen of England is watching Daniel Craig get whipped in the balls.
John: That's surreal.
Agent: I can't imagine anything stranger.
John: Only if you heard the Queen say 'Hit him again.'
Agent: That would do it.
John: (queen voice) "Ahem! We demand you hit him again! Thrash him!"
Agent: Stop now.
John: (queen voice) "Have Daniel Craig washed and brought to my --"
Agent: Hanging up.

I can do no more than issue the standard review -- liked Craig, movie's thirty minutes too long. Nice to see Sebastien Foucan getting a little love. My favorite part of Jump Britain s watching Sebastien explain how parkour is an immigrant, working-class sport, how it changes the way you look at whatever shitty environment you're stuck in.

Go look up "parkour" on YouTube and prepare to blow an afternoon. This one's a good overall survey. in the mainstream, District B13 did a nice job of integrating the sport. Trailer here:



Gripes, compliments, comments on the latest Bond, feel free to post 'em below.

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved Casino Royale. Daniel Craig was fantastic, the best Bond since Connery, maybe the best ever. The movie was just so visceral and hardcore and we haven't seen that in a Bond flick since...ever? (Plus, Eva Green is absolutely gorgeous.) Can't wait for the sequel.

Loved the exchange between you and your agent. I imagine that would have been amazingly bizarre watching the movie with the queen.

Coincidentally enough, I just watched District B13 last night. What a fun movie. Maybe a little light on plot or character development, but it really grabs you right from the beginning and is pretty nonstop with the action. And yeah, all that parkour stuff was awesome. The movie is worth watching if only for the stuntwork alone.

Anonymous said...

I loved Casino Royale. Daniel Craig was fantastic, the best Bond since Connery, maybe the best ever. The movie was just so visceral and hardcore and we haven't seen that in a Bond flick since...ever? (Plus, Eva Green is absolutely gorgeous.) Can't wait for the sequel.

Loved the exchange between you and your agent. I imagine that would have been amazingly bizarre watching the movie with the queen.

Coincidentally enough, I just watched District B13 last night. What a fun movie. Maybe a little light on plot or character development, but it really grabs you right from the beginning and is pretty nonstop with the action. And yeah, all that parkour stuff was awesome. The movie is worth watching if only for the stuntwork alone.

Cameltrooper said...

I guess its better than Charles asking for Craig to be brought to him for some bizarre sexual encounter he probably calls "hide the royal jewels."

As for the movie, I Loved Casino Royale. It evoked a very "From Russia with Love" feel to it.

Anonymous said...

My big gripes with the film: (1) The stupid Ford product placement near the beginning, and (2) the ham-handed "this is what all that poker jargon means" bits. Other than that, I quite enjoyed it.

@1031:
Now go watch Ong-Bak. Another where what little plot exists is there solely to move the hero from one awesome chase/fight to the next; not coincidentally, Luc Besson was an executive producer.

bob said...

"My big gripes with the film: (1) The stupid Ford product placement near the beginning ..."

Not to mention product placement for the Sony Vaio computer, and the Omega watch, and the Sony Erickson phones, and the Virgin Air (complete with Sir Richard Branson getting frisked at the security checkpoint, and the Sony Bravia web ad, and all the Range/Land Rovers (oh yeah that's Ford too) ...

David Alexander McDonald said...

I can just see Brenda sitting there, sighing happily with the pleasure of fantasizing about Phil sitting right where Bond is getting his nuts cracked. "Don't spare the effort, good man; We are amused, quite amused!"

GM Doug said...

Doesn't Grant Morrison have a theory that there will be actual superhumans anytime soon? Never sure if that was just Morrison just throwing out a line to get the rabid fan boys all excited....

But then you see this Parkour and well... Some of those moves and jumps seem almost superhuman. Yes I know as a physicist I shouldn't go around thinking things like that... but still part of me hopes it's true.

As for Casino Royale... yes it's long but where do you cut 30 minutes out of the film? They already cut the airport chase sequence down. I think the length of the film was important to establish that this wasn't your usual Bond film with a paper thin plot (even if this does have a paper thin plot).

Craig was outstanding and actually looked like he could be a real spy and not a movie spy.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the parkour scenes are in the film by mistake. In one of the early script conferences, Sony execs said they wanted a lot of poker scenes in the movie, and a French writer misunderstood.

Anonymous said...

Hey,

I don't consider myself to me stupid - but right in the middle of the card game I became convinced that either -

a) the projectionist has got the reels out of order.

or.

b) the movie was using non-linear editing techniques.

And that RUINED the rest of the movie for me because I was trying to piece together exactly what had happened and why it had made no sense to me.

Not once did I realise it was a TWO DAY card game with a break in the middle.


I wonder if anybody else made that mistake?

doom

Anonymous said...

Ong-Bak is in my Netflix queue. I look forward to checking it out.

And sorry about the double post. Blogger hiccuped on me earlier.

Ian said...

Yeah, it's not half-an-hour too long. You've got to have that long, dreamy (ohgodthisisn'tgoingtoendwell) interlude with Bond and Vesper to set up the ending, and you need that ending. All five of us couldn't believe the damn thing was two hours, it seemed to zip by.

I saw B13 and Ong Bak the same night after we helped my brother move in, sitting around with four guys, a case of cheap beer and some pizza. An ideal setting to see both.

So, who's seen Crank? Because it's actually fantastic.

Anonymous said...

so...

you do a really good girl voice and apparently a really good queen of england voice, too? i'm getting a little worried here, rogers. maybe you're just a big fan of helen mirren?

oh, and just about every bond film after goldfinger has been about a half an hour too long, give or take. and i have blown many an afternoon watching parkour videos. could you imagine if the folks who had produced the daredevil movie had? would have been a much cooler aesthetic than that 'live-action anime' they went for instead. oh well. maybe if someone ever does nightwing or another character like that...

John Seavey said...

How to make the Bond movie shorter: Cut about 15 minutes out of the dreamy, lovey-dovey interlude (basically, cut it to a brief montage of them in Venice), and when she goes "shopping", instead of the whole runaround/chase/fight/suicide sequence, it cuts straight to her in the bank, trying to withdraw the funds...and they're not there. No money was ever deposited into the account. Vesper turns, and there's Bond and a whole mess of backup. He gives her an icy smirk. "You really thought the password was 'Vesper'?" he says.

(In general, I thought it was...average. The things everyone seemed to like about it--that it was more serious, less escapist action entertainment--was exactly what I thought the flaw was. If I want a deep, serious spy movie, I'll check out 'The Good Shepard' and see how that looks. When I go to a Bond movie, I want action sequences, car chases, things exploding, and witty quips. I got some of that in 'Casino Royale'...but not quite enough for my tastes, and the long, dull, predictable and draggy ending really left a bad taste in my mouth.)

All, of course, YMMV. I'm glad people liked it, at least.

Anonymous said...

I had to Google for Le Parkour after Warren Ellis used it in Global Frequency.

That's some impressive shit there. I guess I'm adding District B13 to my Netflix queue now...

Anonymous said...

District B13 is becoming quite a word-of-mouth phenom. I saw it a few months ago, and spent a couple of hours cleaning bafflement-drool out of the carpet. Excellent. Can't wait for Crank to hit DVD. Haven't seen the new Bond yet, but Layer Cake is on cable a lot this month, and I keep clicking on it and watching it from whatever point I come in all the way to the end. One of the best British gangster movies ever.

Anonymous said...

(Spoiler here) I liked the movie, but thought the latter part lagged a bit. I started getting restless about 30 seconds into each dragged out romantic scene. Plus, the scenes so obviously foreshadowed what was to come, sort of like flashing a big "watch out for Vesper" sign on the screen.

Anonymous said...

When folks say it was too long, they mean that there was an abrupt and noticeable change of pace in the last 30 mins. Of course, they were trying to set up the final plot twist, and you knew something was up, since Bond wasn't dead, and neither was Vesper.

So, as written, there is this strange change of pace and tone. Of course, this was motivated by Bond's torture and near-death. With the script as written, it was necessary.

This is where guys like John really earn their dough. Can you rearrange those moving parts to make it all tighter? Editing could take maybe 5 mins out, where does the rest come from?

Anonymous said...

I did quite like it. The excellent Madagascar scene did front-load the movie a little, and the palazzo collapse didn't quite hold up its end of the bargain.

The ending was a little fatuous, simply because you know things are gonna end badly between them, it's just a matter of when. You know that they're in love the minute the Swiss banker leaves. Have Bond type his resignation there. Then cut the whole From Here to Eternity on the beach. Then straight to Venice. You don't get a ton of time there, maybe 4 or 5 minutes, but it would still rev the pace a little.

And as much as I dig parkour, it's not exactly revelatory: Jackie Chan's been doing the same thing for decades.

Kate said...

The only thing more shocking, I think, than the tarred rope scene is the original incident, in Fleming's novel.

I took a critical studies class on Bond last semester, and I still remember the wave of cold nausea that washed over me when the villain reached for ... a wicker carpet beater.

Oh. My. God.

Orlando C. Harn said...

a) the projectionist has got the reels out of order.

or.

b) the movie was using non-linear editing techniques.

And that RUINED the rest of the movie for me because I was trying to piece together exactly what had happened and why it had made no sense to me.

Not once did I realise it was a TWO DAY card game with a break in the middle.


I had the exact same feeling. The guy said "Gentlemen, you have been playing for four hours. We will now take a one-hour break and return to the table." That sort of implied that if there was going to be another break, they would announce that one too. And the sudden cutaway from the poker game just as it re-started looked exactly as if it was cutting to Bond and Mathis recapping how the end of the game went. Then it went to Vesper in the shower, and again, it seemed like the game was over and they had lost. All four people in my party thought the reels were in the wrong order.

John Seavey said...

Thought about it at work, here's the answer:

No capture, no torture, no shooting. Vesper gets caught, Bond goes after her and rescues her, then tells her that when she was in danger, he realized he loved her more than he loves the spy game. Le Chiffre gets away, but when Bond and Vesper enter in the codes and dump off the money, Bond knows that Chiffre will have no choice but to turn himself in or spend his whole life running--so it's time for a well-earned whirlwind romantic getaway in Venice.

From there, things pretty much play out. Vesper goes "shopping", Bond finds out the money was never returned, and realizes that Le Chiffre got to Vesper while Bond was trying to rescue her, and convinced/forced her to sub in a different account. The whole fight/chase plays out, but with Le Chiffre there.

This, I think, is a major flaw in the movie--once Le Chiffre gets shot, there's nothing left to care about. The very fact that the movie keeps going clues us in that Vesper's turned...if she hadn't, the movie would be over because the Bad Guy Is Dead. Keeping him alive preserves suspense and tension and keeps the audience from wanting to leave.

Judges?

Anonymous said...

Different idea: After the embassy scene, have Bond simply find evidence of the airplane attack. Skip the whole first bond girl, the actions sequence, and all, and go straight to Le Chiffre's poker game. Than streamline the love sequence and interweave it even more with the poker tourney so that Bond and Vesper are lovers when Chiffre captures them. Lose Vesper's dangling plot husband. After the torture, have James quit even while reconvalescent. Go right to Venice. Lose the eye patch guy and have Mr. White put Vesper into the elevator, then send his minions to occupy Bond as he gets away.

Oh, and for god's sake, also cut the poker commentator shots for blind idiots.

Anonymous said...

John S,

I din't think it was over when LeChiffee died, you knew he wasn't the ultimate bad guy, it was whoever he was working for and who killed him. Remember the whole idea was to get him to flip on the guys above him when he was broke.

While I suspected that Vesper had flipped, that wasn;t a sure thing, it could very well have been an ending like "On Her majesty's..."

WHere I thought the movie could be trimmed was in the first half, once they got to the Poker tourney through the end was fine for me.

Anonymous said...

I showed District B13 in my French classes right before Thankgiving break, and it was universally adored by the students - I just wish I had a follow-up.

As for Le Chiffre biting it and the way the ending worked out... someone out there hypothesized that they're setting up the re-introduction of SPECTRE. And that could be seriously cool.

Parkour is not what Jackie Chan has been doing for years - Jackie Chan does choreographed stunts on film sets with professionals, traceurs do parkour anywhere they can. It's an urban movement.

Anonymous said...

Toby,

As a sport, parkour is as cool as all get out and something completely unique. I will totally give you that.

But parkour ON FILM is precisely the same thing as what Jackie Chan does: Choreographed action performed by professionals in a controlled setting.

Anonymous said...

Parkour in real life is dangerous. Some kids got severely injured. But it would have been great to take to the (small) screen the Global Frequency issue with the girl running on rooftops, right John?
Bye, AntoBlue

Anonymous said...

the movie was cool and at first i thought that i wouldnt enjoy it cos i love pierce Brosnan but now i cant wait for the next one. In england it was rated 12A which i think was stupid cos it should be atleast a 15 for obvious reasons. The torture scene was damn funny tho! I think that they should've explained the poker stuff more and what i dont get is how did vesper know how to connect the heart equipment to revive him? she did it in like 5 seconds without reading instructions or anything!?

Anonymous said...

Fantastic movie. As others have said, remeniscent of Connery. Good character development, and background on Bond. Interesting that they did a reboot of the continuity, putting Bond's first 007 mission in the present. Damn you superboy-prime!

Anyway, despite the wingnut reaction to Craig's recent comments, this series has potential. Hopefully they can keep up the quality of the writing (as fun as some of the past movies have been - roger moore - they were not paragons of writing). Going from the Moore-era Bond-as-wonder-boy (continued throughout the rest), his skills were shown off by tracking down and breaking into M's house (and getting her password, etc). I also liked the origin of his drink preference.

Time - I thought it long, but not overly long ala King Kong (or the Pirates of the Carribean-DMC movie). I never noticed product placement, since brand names mean squat to me (I could care less what kind of computer he uses, and I can't remember any Ford placement). Have to see it again to see what people mean.

Geoff Thorne said...

Sometimes I like it when I get to just go to the movies. No critical eye, no notions of how many drafts it took to get it right, no half-heard tales about the escalating dirty tricks campaign being waged between the studio and the director and the leading man's personal life coach.

Just go, eat my damned popcorn and bask.

I liked Casino Royale. I liked every tiny little thing about it and that's it.

Sometimes you just have to let art...flow.

Anonymous said...

Now I've actually seen it. Good movie, with nitpicks as follows:

(1) Do we really need that French guy telling Vesper (and us) what is happening at every stage of the poker game? He was always sharing useful tidbits like, "Bond just pushed his chips to the middle of the table. If Le Chiffre has a better hand, Bond will lose everything!" Jeez. He's like the John Madden of hold'em.

(2) Too much cutting from shot to shot during the parkour chase. We see a guy jump... and then we cut to a different shot of him landing somewhere. It made it look like typical Hollywood stunt work, instead of parkour.

(3) It rehashed the conspiracy theory that someone sold airline stocks short to profit off 9-11, when the orders in question were actually part of a options trading strategy by investors with no ties to Al Qaeda.

(4) That scene with the rope was just WRONG. Eeeyarghh.

Lindsay Stewart said...

i was 50/50 on the film. i loved that bond could bleed and be beaten down and when it came to blows, he looked like a man whose job it was to do very nasty violence. pierce brosnan was a head waiter, not a stone killer.

but the poker scene dragged and dragged. i understand poker has become a phenomenon on the teevee but jeebus. i too found the writing/cutting of the endless card game confusing. and really, what the hell is bond doing playing hold 'em? ah well, i suppose the barrage of product placement wouldn't have been complete without a nod to every last possible trend.

there was a lot to enjoy in the film but there was certainly a half hour that could have been cut out, tightening the pace and making some of the vague plot points tighter. all that said, i think it is a move in the right direction for the franchise and i look forward to mr. craig's next outing.

Anonymous said...

John Seavey, that's definitely much tighter. Frankly, since we didn't actually SEE LeChiffre's body, it was quite possible that he was still alive. I kept expecting him to show up, figuring this was some complicated ploy for the money.

Anonymous said...

To save you an afternoon, get an eyeful of parkour in under nine minutes:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=515642196227308929

Before it was formalized and called parkour, it was called skylarking and sailors did it in the rigging (or whatever they had).

My father has fond memories of skylarking in the South Pacific when he served in WWII.

Anonymous said...

Nice!

Anonymous said...

I'm very glad I went to see District B-13 in the theater, as it seems to have kept my action-film street cred up-to-date.

Anyone else think it odd that one finds the best action movies around at the art houses these days? (And in one week runs?)

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