Shaken, not Stirred
![[Print This Post]](http://www.rantlust.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-print/images/print.gif "[Print This Post]")
Agent 007 is back. It’s been three years of patient waiting. I have mixed feelings about the new actor selected to be James Bond: Daniel Craig. Both the pros and cons are that he is a relatively unknown actor (Layer Cake anyone?).
Craig has the advantage that we don’t expect much from him, so he has less pressure and could carve his own niche in the Bond pantheon. At the same time, the audience has to warm up to him just like they did with Pierce Brosnan (after all, he wasn’t that famous either when he signed on). One hopes that Craig doesn’t go the way of a Timothy Dalton (the worst) or George Lazenby (I haven’t seen the one movie he was in). He does have big shoes to fill.
Pierce Brosnan was the best James Bond in my opinion (I know, I know, Sean Connery is everyone else’s favourite but fuck them). He shall be missed sorely. Craig doesn’t have the good looks or the suaveness of Brosnan. I have only seen one movie of this actor - a boring movie called Enduring Love. (I don’t recall seeing him in Elizabeth.) He can act but can he be a lasting Bond?
Still I am glad that they didn’t choose one of the other rumoured names: Jude Law (too pretty), Colin Farrell (oh pleeeze), Ewan McGregor (not manly enough), Clive Owen (too rough), Heath Ledger (too Aussie) etc.
I am looking forward to the new movie – always been a hardcore bond fan. I love the gadgets, the man himself, the martinis, the women and even the baddies. Oh the baddies - who can ever forget Jaws? When you go to see a Bond movie, you leave your brain at home, sit back, relax, and munch on that popcorn while enjoying the fun ride.
If I were drinking now, I would have poured myself a nice martini: shaken, not stirred.
Hear, hear!
I am also glad that Farrel didn’t make the cut but I think Clive Owen would have made a good Bond. Anyway I am glad too that they finally chose someone. Now, who would be the next Bond girl(s)?
Having seen Clive Owen in “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”, I’m glad he didn’t lower his standards. OTOH, “Sin City” was pretty silly, too. The first segment would’ve been enough. Yeah, yeah it was from a comic book, blah blah blah..
I take it that you don’t like Bond movies from your comments. Understandable - a lot of my friends are like you. They hate these sort of full blown action movies and prefer “intelligent”, “thought-provoking”, “analytical” movies.
While I enjoy my “Mulholland Drive” (or any other David Lynch movie) as much as anyone else, I do enjoy my “Pirates of the Carribean” or even the occasional Hong Kong martial arts movie with equal fervour. Sometimes, I don’t like to “analyse” a movie too much and just have a good time with the silly action and the fun and frolic that the actors seem to have. This is similar to me appreciating trance music (no analysis needed) and Don McLean’s music (you can analyse “American Pie” to death) equally.
This brings up another point (probably better in a separate blog entry but…). I recently read an article about the difference between a critic and a reviewer for the Arts. This is a distinction that I had never thought of really.
We are all really reviewers and not critics. The article states that a critic is someone who actually spends time studying everything about the art (the history, the evolution, the styles etc.) and can talk at length about it. There could be some objectiveness in their criticism whereas we as reviewers, are definitely being subjective in our art appreciation.
This applies to both of us (I am assuming that tansen is not a critic) and I like my Bond movies and you don’t.
Speaking of Owen, I didn’t like “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” at all. He was good in it as usual but the movie was a slog and quite predictable (for an “intelligent” movie). A much better film was “Croupier” with the same director and actor. Check it out if you haven’t already.
Speaking of art appreciation, check this out:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3447696a4560,00.html
I don’t think “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is supposed to be an “intelligent” movie either, it’s just a typical revenge story combined with a Jack Higgins-type hero. I’ll go read the review on “Croupier”. I didn’t like him much in “Closer” either, so it’s definitely the role that I’m talking about here, as a reviewer of course, as you point out. One other thing I’d like to say is that I think many so-called classics are over-rated quite a bit. If I see it now and I don’t like it, I don’t see how it should be a classic, again to me as a reviewer. Especially with the crappy theater-style over-acting in some of them.
The very reason they’re called classics is because at the time of their making, they extended the craft of movie making in some way, and helped develop the aesthetics of film as we know it today. I love old b&w and silent movies myself, and if you approach them with an open mind, and actually take the time to learn about them, you’ll find that a lot of the modern film-makers borrow liberally from techniques pioneered by these people. In that sense, they’re like living museum pieces. They’re classics not because they can hold their own against the best contemporary movies, but because the best contemporary movies would not exist if not for them.
Just the other night, I watched “Birth of a nation”, D.W.Griffith’s epic about slavery in the South, the civil war and the birth of the KKK. He was the first director to realize that the art of movie making was fundamentally different from theater, and that excessive theatrical acting did not go well with the camera. In many such ways, his movies were pioneering works. That’s why, despite its extremely racist nature (the KKK used it as a recruiting tool), the movie is still considered a classic.
I took “classic” to mean a movie that can still be enjoyed. Without an open mind, or wanting to learn something. Though you obviously enjoy learning about movies, therefore this meaning also applies to you.
So, rephrasing, many of those classics suck, because many of them have bad acting. How’s that?
I think both of you guys are right. But, while I agree that the trendsetting movies that came before “extended the craft in some way”, they also really stand the test of time only if the movie can still be enjoyed. I didn’t enjoy “Birth of a nation” because of its subject matter.
As far as acting is concerned, I am not sure if we can really classify the acting in those old movies as bad. The acting was good for that time. A more recent comparison might be in the difference in special effects between the first three episodes (or rather IV, V & VI) of Star Wars and the recent three. The effects were revolutionary for their time but still pales in comparison with the latest movie magic.
While there might be many movies that suck from the past, I do think some of the greatest so called “classics” are well acted. A recent movie I saw for the first time was “To Kill a Mocking Bird” starring the incomparable Gregory Peck. But it wasn’t Peck who was extraordinary in that movie — it was the young actress who played his daughter. An acting effort similar to that of Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider. A classic that extended the craft of movie making and that can still be enjoyed. They are out there….
Absolutely. But the key word here is enjoyed. A lot of people still enjoy old movies because of the context in which they were made, as you point out, even if by current standards, some aspects of the movie may be sub-standard. Most people would agree that “To kill a mockingbird” is a great movie. However, ask about a movie like “Battleship Potemkin” or “The cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and you’ll hear some interestingly diverse opinions.
Looks like we’re all vehemently agreeing. In any case, these are such subjective topics that it’s really hard to argue one’s case.
On a related note, one of my colleagues recently asked me why I bothered going to plays, when movies as a comparable art form are so “obviously superior”. I must confess I had no answer to that one.
Heavy, dudes.
Going back to the post…I saw Layer Cake last night. Disappointing, to say the least. I actually liked Daniel Craig better in Enduring Love. Just because they made one good gangster-type movie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) — why do the British have to keep following it up with duds like this?
Your colleague is a dolt. Why don’t you tell him or her that acting in real time is quite different than in movies where you have hundreds of takes and editing to take care of your follies?
Heh.
I appreciate the fact that different art forms ought to be enjoyed within their own contexts. However, just to play devil’s advocate, why should someone who enjoys movies ‘put up’ with the necessary limitations of a play. Would plays as an art form have thrived if we had movies from the start?
As a curious example of limitations (in this case, self imposed), perhaps you have heard of the book Gadsby? If you haven’t, try going through it a little bit (link above) and try to figure out what is ‘wrong’ with it. Should be fun
I haven’t read it myself, but the book is an example of a lipogram - a composition with certain letters omitted. In the case of this 50,000 word book, it is the letter ‘e’. Think of it, a book which cannot contain ‘he’, ’she’, ‘the’. You must admit that this is a phenomenal achievement, but should that fact make me choose to read it as opposed to another unconstrained book, other than as a matter of curiosity?
Plays and movies are different art forms. I don’t see the lack of certain things in plays (special effects or slow motion or close ups) as a limitation. A good play is written to not use those props, and not having them does not detract from its enjoyment. As pure live presentation of the written word, plays are often superior to movies. If you’ve seen a good Shakespearean play such as Macbeth in the theater, and also the movie version, even a very good one (Orson Welles’s perhaps), you’ll see what I’m talking about.
It’s true that plays might not have come about if we had movies from the start, but that’s irrelevant. Movies have come about, and plays are still thriving, thank God for that.
Fair enough. So the superiority of a play is not merely because it does more with less (the point I was initially reacting to), but that it is also better suited in certain circumstances as a means of expression.
Why exactly is this? Is it just because you see and hear real people in a 3D setting, or is there something else? If there is indeed some other factor, do you think if two people of equal expertise in the two art forms made the same story, with no limits on costs and availability of actors, the play would still come out better?
At the risk of repeating myself — deja vu — heavy, dudes.
Why exactly? That’s a hard question. It could be the real life factor. I guess part of the reason is also that it’s written that way. The role of an actor in a play is to bring the words to life. The words are the main thing, and so when a play is made in movie format, the other ‘advantages’ of movies (closeups, camera angles, etc.) seem like unnecessary distractions from the main course. A classic example is the Orson Welles movie I mentioned earlier. As plays made into movies go, it’s an excellent one, made in a very minimal style, but still it does not match up to a live performance where the actor really gets into the role, and the words come to life.
Having said that, the advantage with movies is that you know what you’re getting (if you’ve seen it before or read the reviews or seen a preview or something - in other words, the experience is completely repeatable). With a play, it’s quite possible that you pay through the nose and end up with a crap performance. Sometimes actors flub their lines, sometimes they’re just bad actors. I once travelled all the way to Ashland to watch ‘Julius Caesar’ and watched in horror from the front row as an appalling actor butchered, buried and then danced in awful histrionic posturing on the grave of the role of Brutus. I wanted to kill the bastard, and half the audience would’ve fought me for that privilege. That was an occasion when a movie would’ve served me better.
As an interesting aside, when movies first came along, people did not really know how to use the new medium, so the earliest movies were just plays performed in front of a static camera. Would such a movie be better than the live play? I would say no, but I’m sure one could convincingly argue otherwise. After all, you do get the best seat in the house for a fraction of the price!!
Was that for the Shakespeare festival up there? We once stayed in Ashland while on a road trip to Seattle and had said to ourselves that we should come back for the festival. If the acting is this bad, I am glad that we haven’t actually made it there for the festival.
The so-called televised or filmed theater still makes its appearance once in a while. For instance, a movie which a lot of people really enjoyed (I am not one of them) was the Nicole Kidman starrer Dogville which was shot entirely in a studio. The whole movie takes place on the stage but the camera is not a static one.
I agree. I saw Dogville after reading a review, but it’d have been better if it’d been shot as a regular movie.
It was not my intention to prejudice anyone against the Ashland festival, which is quite a phenomenal event. My point merely was that depending on who’s playing, it’s quite possible to get a bad actor, or one who interprets a beloved role in a manner totally unacceptable to you. In this particular instance, let me add that the rest of the cast was superb.
[...] rsonally, this is a movie I would like to see. The cast includes Eric Bana who I like, and James Bond-elect Daniel Craig, who seems to appeal to many on this list. There is e [...]
A bit of information I didn’t know. The famous Bond Theme was originally intended for a musical (which never happened) based on V.S.Naipaul’s A House For Mr. Biswas. On BBC and NPR.
As if one wasn’t enough, Lars Von Trier, the director of Dogville is back with “Manderlay” (supposedly there is a third one coming too). Despite the presence of Bryce Dallas Howard, the movie is being slammed down already. The New Yorker has a scathing review (scroll down) here. (”The best part about ‘Manderlay’ is the end.”)
The fabulously beautiful French actress Eva Green has been chosen to play femme fatale Vesper Lynd in the new Bond movie. I saw her in both Bertolucci’s brilliant “Dreamers” and Ridley Scott’s forgettable “Kingdom of Heaven.” She shone in both movies and I look forward to seeing her as a Bond girl.
Fans of the series now lament the choice of Daniel Craig to play 007.
Ok - I’m ticked off by this blatant anti-shortism. What’s a short guy to do these days?
I agree. We need to create our own mini-Bond: 003.5. I take heart from the fact that the biggest (albeit freaky) movie star in the world is also the shortest leading man in Hollywood.
Daniel Craig has managed to woo the critics. The movie, “Casino Royale,” is probably the best reviewed this year (even better than “Borat” or “The Departed.” Even the usually conservative Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal is heaping praise on the man:
Eva Green also gets praise as an unusual Bond girl. The New Yorker calls her a Bond woman (”an unnerving blend of the fleshly and the spectral”) to distinguish her from the floozies that have come before.
And when asked whether he would like his martini shaken or stirred, our new Bond responds: “Do I look like I give a damn?” Nice.
I always loved the old snow skiing chase scenes for some reason, any chase scene that takes place on snow is good. Any time you mix compact machine guns with skiing, THAT IS REALLY GOOD.
This might come back to haunt me but I’m going to say it… “Casino Royale” is the best Bond movie ever. Daniel Craig is here to stay. My only problem with this movie, which I saw yesterday, was that it was a bit too long at 2hrs 24 minutes. There is a long drawn out poker scene which could have been trimmed. There are hardly any gadgets (no sign of Q but an Aston Martin DB7 does make a cameo appearance) or sex in the movie (it even passed the censors in China). Eva Green is indeed superb as Vesper Lynd. The stunts feel real and gritty, more like a Jet Li or Tony Jaa vehicle. The action scenes in this movie reminded me of a fabulous French movie I saw recently called “District B13.”
And unlike “Borat,” which underwhelmed me after reading all the positive reviews and going with high expectations, the critics made a good call on “Casino Royale.”
The best movie I’ve seen this year: “Little Miss Sunshine”.
Since kinnum has already hijacked this post with the previous comment…
I saw “Little Miss Sunshine” a few days ago and thought it was a good movie but not the best one I saw last year. The girl in the movie, Abigail Breslin, has a chance to become the youngest winner in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Oscars. Though she faces some formidable opposition such as Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Hudson. Alan Arkin as the foul-mouthed grandfather in the movie also got nominated.
IT’S NOT ILLEGAL!!!!!!!