Long Post Alert! Save Yourselves! Batten Down The Hatches! (etc etc)
On work: ... awkward. We've become flooded with remaindered books to put out, just in time for the holidays, and we don't have enough time to put the suckers out. Plus: the holidays coming up so quickly means that we have to start putting holiday music into regular rotation (arrgh!! Not the Christmas Chipmunks album again!!!). On the bright side: a two volume set collecting the entirety of Marcel Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past" showed up the other day, causing me to squeal with glee at its cheap price tag.
On movies: last night I saw Casino Royale, which was easily the best Bond film to come out since Goldeneye.
What was great: first off, Daniel Craig is an EXCELLENT Bond. He's got the wit, he's got the looks and physicality for the role, and most importantly he looks like a killer. He's menacing and imposing in ways that previous Bonds (especially Brosnan) just couldn't even begin to pull off. He lacks the cool poise of a Brosnan, the detached primness of a Moore, but makes up for it by displaying a certain desperation, a hollowness in his acting (when previous Bonds had a drink, it was to make them look cool and sophisticated; when D. Craig takes a drink, it looks he NEEDS a drink). By trying to stay truer to the book version of Bond and by not trying to ape Connery's iconic portrayal as much as past Bonds, I think Craig has a chance to really reinvent and reinvigorate such a tired old character.
To be honest: I love Bond films. Even the cheesy-ass Roger Moore ones. Love 'em. That said, a restart and revamping of the series was long overdue, and Casino Royale gets the basic idea of such a revamp right (mostly). I love the fact that the main villian isn't trying to take over the world. Future Bond films should stick to that smaller scale. In this day and age, thanks to Austin Powers, there's no way you could do a "I'm going to take over da world!!!" villian and not have people think about Dr. Evil. There's barely any gadgets in the film, which was a good idea; as much as I love some of the goofier toys Bond's used in the past, that tired schtick needed to be put out of its misery at some point. The antagonistic relationship between Bond and M is a nice change, as well; here's hoping that future outings will have Judi Dench venting more of her withering contempt at Bond. The card game sequences: excellent (and I could tell I was in a theater full of fellow poker buffs: whenever certain hands were played, I could hear people in the audience gasping in surprise, and I could even hear a couple of aspiring card sharks in front of me muttering "fold, just fold dude" during certain sequences).
As for Bond girls: Eva Green = hotness (watching Casino Royale almost makes me want to watch The Dreamers again... almost).
And finally on the positive front: the chase scene in Madagascar towards the beginning of the film was worth the price of admission alone. An incredible sequence, probably the best action scene in a film this year. Some of the stunts were just mind-boggling.
The Down-Side: first off, Chris Cornell should not be allowed to write and sing Bond songs. His "You Know My Name" was just terrible, terrible, terrible shit. Ditto for the standard animated Bond credits opening sequence: looked more like an iPod commercial than a Bond intro. My other beef with Casino is that it almost had more fake endings than fucking Lord Of The Rings. There were at least FIVE moments in the last forty minutes of the film where I expected the camera to pull away, the music to swell, and the film to end. The problem with these fake endings is that anyone with half a brain in their head knows that the film can't end that way, so why even do these fake dramatic bits? There were far too many scenes of Bond and his lady lounging on the beach and being lovey-dovey. I'm not opposed to lovey-dovey scenes, but we don't need fifteen minutes of this shit when you have another 20 minutes of story to deal with. Aside from the awkward last half of the film, the rest of it was very well done,
Last bit on "Casino": my friends and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of a pack of All-Cocks. Before I continue, I should explain what I mean by All-Cocks. A couple of years ago, I went to a Polysics concert at Modified Arts. Prior to the Polysics playing, there was a pack of dudes who kept shouting "HALF MAN... HALF MACHINE... ALL COCK!" during the opening acts. The All-Cocks are the worst kind of hecklers: they are members of the "We-Think-We're-Clever-Although-We-Really-Aren't-In-The-Least-Bit-Clever" school of heckling. The memory of those loud, obnoxious cunts at the Polysics show is so vivid that I can't help but refer to any subsequent "clever" hecklers I meet as All-Cocks. And the guys sitting behind us were All-Cocks. They kept making hushed little asides to each other during the film, which was annoying enough, but the point that they went over into all-out All-Cocks territory was when on of them screamed in the middle of the film "AND THAT IS WHY YOU DON'T TRUST WOMEN!!!". No shit: screamed this in the middle of the film, while his co-horts giggled at his brazen bullshit. Cackled like a pack of lobotimized hyenas. I desperately had to repress the urge to shout somethin' nasty back at them, because these were the kind of inconsiderate assholes who would be willing to carry on a loud verbal argument in the middle of a packed theater. Later on, they made near-consistent "pow pow" noises (imitating the gunshots of a silenced pistol) whenever a certain character was onscreen, and one of them later shouted YEAHHHHHHHHH and started giggling hysterically during a very dark and somber moment.
I despise All-Cocks. I hope people like that die horribly slow deaths one day. I hope their deaths are being commented on by other hecklers as it is happening, just so that those miserable fucks know how obnoxious it is to have some random prick offer their unsolicited witticisms during an inopportune moment. I was almost as pissed at the dudes hee-hawing throughout Casino as I was at the two dudes who sat in front of me during "Irreversible" and cackled with laughter during the rape scene (a ten minute rape scene, grim as hell, and these clowns were LAUGHING at it).
And that is all that I'm going to write right now. I've been doing a lot of reading recently, but I'll save my rants on books for another post.
On work: ... awkward. We've become flooded with remaindered books to put out, just in time for the holidays, and we don't have enough time to put the suckers out. Plus: the holidays coming up so quickly means that we have to start putting holiday music into regular rotation (arrgh!! Not the Christmas Chipmunks album again!!!). On the bright side: a two volume set collecting the entirety of Marcel Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past" showed up the other day, causing me to squeal with glee at its cheap price tag.
On movies: last night I saw Casino Royale, which was easily the best Bond film to come out since Goldeneye.
What was great: first off, Daniel Craig is an EXCELLENT Bond. He's got the wit, he's got the looks and physicality for the role, and most importantly he looks like a killer. He's menacing and imposing in ways that previous Bonds (especially Brosnan) just couldn't even begin to pull off. He lacks the cool poise of a Brosnan, the detached primness of a Moore, but makes up for it by displaying a certain desperation, a hollowness in his acting (when previous Bonds had a drink, it was to make them look cool and sophisticated; when D. Craig takes a drink, it looks he NEEDS a drink). By trying to stay truer to the book version of Bond and by not trying to ape Connery's iconic portrayal as much as past Bonds, I think Craig has a chance to really reinvent and reinvigorate such a tired old character.
To be honest: I love Bond films. Even the cheesy-ass Roger Moore ones. Love 'em. That said, a restart and revamping of the series was long overdue, and Casino Royale gets the basic idea of such a revamp right (mostly). I love the fact that the main villian isn't trying to take over the world. Future Bond films should stick to that smaller scale. In this day and age, thanks to Austin Powers, there's no way you could do a "I'm going to take over da world!!!" villian and not have people think about Dr. Evil. There's barely any gadgets in the film, which was a good idea; as much as I love some of the goofier toys Bond's used in the past, that tired schtick needed to be put out of its misery at some point. The antagonistic relationship between Bond and M is a nice change, as well; here's hoping that future outings will have Judi Dench venting more of her withering contempt at Bond. The card game sequences: excellent (and I could tell I was in a theater full of fellow poker buffs: whenever certain hands were played, I could hear people in the audience gasping in surprise, and I could even hear a couple of aspiring card sharks in front of me muttering "fold, just fold dude" during certain sequences).
As for Bond girls: Eva Green = hotness (watching Casino Royale almost makes me want to watch The Dreamers again... almost).
And finally on the positive front: the chase scene in Madagascar towards the beginning of the film was worth the price of admission alone. An incredible sequence, probably the best action scene in a film this year. Some of the stunts were just mind-boggling.
The Down-Side: first off, Chris Cornell should not be allowed to write and sing Bond songs. His "You Know My Name" was just terrible, terrible, terrible shit. Ditto for the standard animated Bond credits opening sequence: looked more like an iPod commercial than a Bond intro. My other beef with Casino is that it almost had more fake endings than fucking Lord Of The Rings. There were at least FIVE moments in the last forty minutes of the film where I expected the camera to pull away, the music to swell, and the film to end. The problem with these fake endings is that anyone with half a brain in their head knows that the film can't end that way, so why even do these fake dramatic bits? There were far too many scenes of Bond and his lady lounging on the beach and being lovey-dovey. I'm not opposed to lovey-dovey scenes, but we don't need fifteen minutes of this shit when you have another 20 minutes of story to deal with. Aside from the awkward last half of the film, the rest of it was very well done,
Last bit on "Casino": my friends and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of a pack of All-Cocks. Before I continue, I should explain what I mean by All-Cocks. A couple of years ago, I went to a Polysics concert at Modified Arts. Prior to the Polysics playing, there was a pack of dudes who kept shouting "HALF MAN... HALF MACHINE... ALL COCK!" during the opening acts. The All-Cocks are the worst kind of hecklers: they are members of the "We-Think-We're-Clever-Although-We-Really-Aren't-In-The-Least-Bit-Clever" school of heckling. The memory of those loud, obnoxious cunts at the Polysics show is so vivid that I can't help but refer to any subsequent "clever" hecklers I meet as All-Cocks. And the guys sitting behind us were All-Cocks. They kept making hushed little asides to each other during the film, which was annoying enough, but the point that they went over into all-out All-Cocks territory was when on of them screamed in the middle of the film "AND THAT IS WHY YOU DON'T TRUST WOMEN!!!". No shit: screamed this in the middle of the film, while his co-horts giggled at his brazen bullshit. Cackled like a pack of lobotimized hyenas. I desperately had to repress the urge to shout somethin' nasty back at them, because these were the kind of inconsiderate assholes who would be willing to carry on a loud verbal argument in the middle of a packed theater. Later on, they made near-consistent "pow pow" noises (imitating the gunshots of a silenced pistol) whenever a certain character was onscreen, and one of them later shouted YEAHHHHHHHHH and started giggling hysterically during a very dark and somber moment.
I despise All-Cocks. I hope people like that die horribly slow deaths one day. I hope their deaths are being commented on by other hecklers as it is happening, just so that those miserable fucks know how obnoxious it is to have some random prick offer their unsolicited witticisms during an inopportune moment. I was almost as pissed at the dudes hee-hawing throughout Casino as I was at the two dudes who sat in front of me during "Irreversible" and cackled with laughter during the rape scene (a ten minute rape scene, grim as hell, and these clowns were LAUGHING at it).
And that is all that I'm going to write right now. I've been doing a lot of reading recently, but I'll save my rants on books for another post.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
doolittle:
thats the same reason i thought it was funny at first, i was totally set up for expecting an anti drug commercial, then they made it REALLY blue and talked about women getting beat up. so fucking odd.
takesatraintocry:
If my socks came full of cash I'd wear knee-highs. Not that I don't already.