The past few months are a bit of a blur to your humble reviewer -- my clearest impressions of the weeks since mid-October are of the amenities and indignities of the United gates at LAX. Imagine how Christmas-y that was!
And yet. And yet, we did get to a batch o'movies... some losers, some of the year's finest, but all pretty much fun. So here goes, with a round up of movies from the past few months -- starting with those still in the theaters: Casino Royale and Children of Men.
"Bond. James Bond." Has an introduction ever more smoothly blended seduction and danger? And has a franchise even been in more need of an overhaul?
Casino Royale takes us back to the days when James Bond was just your run of the mill (heh) MI-5 agent, kind of a loose cannon, but still oozing charm. M promotes her golden boy (and in this case, he is golden, played by the blond Daniel Craig) to 00 status, and the games begin. Director Martin Campbell restarts the Bond story with gusto, throwing Bond right into the action (something about international finance) and the lovin' and the double-crossing Bond babes. Daniel Craig is a Bond for the new millennium -- smooth enough for double O, but with that hint of rough trade that the young Sean Connery brought to the role.
Instead of relying on wacky gadgets, this Bond is packed with physical action -- I haven't seen this much Bond skin, ever, nor can I remember Mr Bond getting so much stuffing beat out of him. Whatever, it works. The movie is exciting, sexy, mostly coherent, which is light years ahead of the last few Bond efforts. Eva Green (previously seen in the Crusades howler Kingdom of Heaven) brings some brains to the usual Bond beauty role; she's not the womanly challenge that Ursula Andress (Dr No), Honor Blackman (Goldfinger), or Maud Adams (Octopussy) were, but she presents James with a worthy partner in the love and war departments. She's not disappointing in the way Heather-husband-stealing Denise Richards was in The World is Not Enough, but on the other hand, you're kind of glad she won't be in the next Bond effort. There's only 1 woman for Mr Bond, and that's M -- the rest of us will just have to wait for the next installment. And that better be soon!
A few years back it seemed Australia was putting all its hunks on screen -- now that torch has been passed to England. Exhibit A, Daniel Craig. Exhibit B thru Z: Clive Owen. Handsome as King Arthur, sympathetic as that loser doctor in Closer, dirty but still noble in Sin City...he's like England's ambassador to the world of women who love tall, dark, handsome, slightly rumpled guys (raise your hands, you know you're out there!). And now he's on screen in director Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men.
Wow. This is a very dark vision of a future 20 years hence; civilization is breaking down around the world (only Britain, where the story is set, soldiers on, as the subway video ads proclaim) due to all sorts of vaguely hinted at causes (terrorism, environmental calamities, lower and then nil birth rates). The conceit is that no children have been born since 2009 (no one really knows why); without a new generation, folks just go wild with the nukes, the suicide pills, the terror, the general don't-give-a-damn that probably would result when there's no reason to care about tomorrow. Britain is maintaining by roughly rounding up and deporting all illegal immigrants (many from 3rd-world countries, but also many from EU countries, which one gets the impression were overrun by Islamo-terror and saw their economies collapse).
Theo (Clive) is a well-worn, cynical mid-level bureaucrat, getting high with his friend Julian (Michael Caine) who's dropped off the grid, coasting through life in London while the world dissolves into chaos just past the white cliffs of Dover. Life gets interesting when his ex-wife (Julianne Moore), a leader of an underground group, comes looking for everyman Theo's help in smuggling a very special immigrant out of England.
So there's action, grit, gore, a bit of humor, and lots of very relevant social commentary. As in this season of Battlestar Galactica (yeah, I have to plug it again-- catch up with season 3 on Jan 15 during the all-day marathon on the Sci Fi Channel), by taking the story out of the present and the 'news' they manage to boldly go where the mainstream media don't dare (but of course should): our definition of the other, how we treat them, and what it says about ourselves; the morality of insurgency and occupation; what it means when a civilization loses its values in pursuit of saving itself. Don't go see it for a few laughs!!! But it's worth contemplating and reminded me, ultimately, that every baby is a miracle and deserves a decent chance at life.
Cuaron gets special props for creating such a cinematic tour de force. The movie deserves to be seen in a theater; the details are so fine (and sometimes witty; a newspaper plastered on a wall headlines Charles taking the throne) and the world created so real that it's eerie. The scary part is that there's nothing improbable in this future; it feels like a natural extension of any number of events going on today. *Shivers* It's only a movie, right?
Oh, yeah, happy new year, everyone!