First, we have the trailer for Daniel Craig’s new film, Defiance. It tells the story of three Jewish brothers who join with Russian resistance fighters, and save hundreds of Jews and other refugees in the process. While their story is truly heroic, we should never forget the real hero, Daniel Craig’s face, who’s rugged good looks and piercing blue eyes constantly inspires the good in us all.
Next month will see the release of Clint Eastwood’s latest, Gran Torino. In this film, the fault lines in Eastwood’s scowl deepen and seismologists predict that the right side of his face could slide into the Pacific within the next ten years.
Lastly, we have the trailer for the romcom (see what I did there?) The Ugly Truth. You’ll bust a gut as Katherine Heigl tries to convince us all that she really is leading lady material. Hilarious stuff, and romantic.
In honor of the new James Bond flick, this week we take a look at…
1. Free Running.
If there’s a point to free running beyond looking really cool and jumping over stuff, I haven’t found it. I’m not a pro like this guy here, but try it every now and then. Last weekend, me and a friend of mine went out, and after chasing each other through a construction site, ended up driving a bulldozer through an elementary school. We put kids out on the street. It was on the news. The school district is pressing charges. I think everything’s going to turn out alright, though. Damage was only about $200,000.
2. *gasp*
And then there was this funny part where… Bond is all like… ummmm… what?
3. HOLY S**T NO!
And this is where the movie took a horrible turn. I’m still not sure why I’m sticking this on a “Top 5 Things We Love” list. Maybe it’s because James gritted his teeth and took his beating with gusto. Maybe it’s because I was also once kidnapped by a gang of international criminals, stripped down and repeatedly hit in the soft stuff with a length of thick rope. Long story short, they mixed up the hotel rooms and took me by mistake. They were so embarrassed they comped my hotel room. I had a blast.
4. Rebels.
If it weren’t for generals in third-world countries nobody had ever heard about, Bond villains would never get anything done.
5. The crazy acid trip thing.
At the beginning of every Bond movie, James drops some glue or pop or whatever it is the kids are doing these days, and suddenly naked chicks start dancing and playing cards explode out of thin air. After more than forty years, we just kind of accept it.
And, this week, a bonus number 6…
6. “The name’s Bond. James Bond.”
There he is. His girl is dead, so the entire world’s in trouble. It’s all good, though. Once you see how suave he looks in that suit, you’ll WANT him to shoot you in the kneecap.
That’s all for this week! Want to see a movie reviewed? Write us at move.it.move@gmail.com.
James Bond is back! And this time, he’s walking through the desert in a suit. Aroused? You bet we are!
Quantum of Solace, or as I call it, QoS (I really don’t), picks up an hour after Casino Royale left off. Bond’s got Mr. White locked in the trunk, or boot, as the Brits say, of his car. Uponst interrogation, White reveals that his organization, Quantum, which was responsible for blackmailing Vesper Lynd in the last movie, has people everywhere and is much more dangerous than anyone had imagined. He’s proven right a moment later when one of M’s personal bodyguards attacks both M and Bond, as White makes his escape. Intelligence on the agent takes Bond to Haiti, and puts him on the trail of a ruthless businessman and one of Quantum’s major players.
I’ll admit that, aside from these last two, I’ve only seen four or five Bond flicks, and while it’s possible that I’m horribly unqualified to pass judgment, I feel completely confident in saying that Daniel Craig is the BEST. BOND. EVAR. Seriously. See you later George Lazenby. Take a hike Pierce Brosnan. Craig’s work so far has been fantastic. He’s brash and arrogant, and at the same time substantive and, you know, believable. It also hasn’t hurt that the filmmakers turned the character into a British Jason Bourne. So, I <3 Daniel Craig. Of course, he’s only as good as his costars (or is he?). Olga Kurylenko doesn’t light my fire like Eva Greene, but she and Craig have a lot of chemistry and work very well together. Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini and Mathieu Amalric round out an impressive cast.
In spite of all this, Quantum didn’t quite live up to its predecessor. I felt like there was a big chunk of this movie that was moving back toward that sort-of-ridiculous, over the top James Bond we had come to expect before Royale was released. This wasn’t because Bond was driving around in a rocket-powered Audi that could travel through time, but because this movie had more than its fair share of crazy car chases, fight scenes and snarky Bond rejoinders, all at the cost of story and plot.
What I really liked about Casino Royale was that it felt like they were taking James Bond, who had really turned into a caricature of himself, and were turning him into a real, fleshed out character. There was the British spy who looked good and banged anything that walked on two legs, but we saw that there were reasons for his shameless womanizing and for how closed-off he really was. This movie has a LONG way to go to match the ridiculousness of some of the previous films, but the filmmakers are going to need to be careful and reel it in for the next one (coming in 2011!). If I were them, I’d also be careful not to overload the movie’s plot. After a while, all those names and exotic locales start to blend in to each other.
I’ve heard that Craig is signed up for as many as five films, and I hope he does every single one of them, as he’s probably the best thing to happen to the franchise since Sean Connery. I give this one a solid B+. If you don’t count yourself amongst the Twilight crowd, and I seriously pray that you don’t, get down to the multiplex and check this one out in all its high-definition, dolby digital glory.
How do you make a character like James Bond relevant and exciting again? Turn him into Jason Bourne, and get Daniel Craig to play him. Mission accomplished! Check out the new Quantum of Solace trailer below.
We’re on a British gangster high over here, so this week we take a look at Matthew Vaughn’s film…
1. Chief Miles O’Brien
We here at The Move are big Star Trek fans, so it’s always nice to see one of the actors go on to do something that’s not a Lifetime movie of the week.
2. Morty beating the hell out of Freddy.
Everybody likes a good, old fashioned beat down. This one was especially satisfying after we learned that the dirty bum who walks around with bits of his breakfast on his shirt and asks people for money is the guy who got Morty stuck in prison for ten years.
3. Michael Gambon’s line to Daniel Craig.
“You’re born, you take s**t. You get out in the world, you take more s**t. You climb a little higher, you take less s**t. ‘Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what s**t even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.”
Of course, Michael Gambon could have sung Enya songs and it still would have sounded cool.
4. Tammy.
What is it that makes hot women want to hang out with the bad guys, leaving everyone else out in the cold? We’re not sure, but we’re looking into it.
5. The dignified, glamorous gangster lifestyle.
Seriously, that cake looks awesome. If we could all wear nice clothes and eat at expensive country clubs and never get caught for our more clandestine activities, we’d all sell drugs. Probably in England.
Normally that would be the end, but since our readers have had to go without for two whole weeks…
6. Red shirts.
We all want to roll with the big dogs, but we can’t all be as cool as Daniel Craig. These guys are too goofy for their own good and scream out, “I’m going to die!” from their very first scene.
We hope you enjoyed this week’s 5 Things, and remember, cocaine is bad. Until next week.
Ideas for future articles? Send them to move.it.move@gmail.com.
Disclaimer - Although I found the movie very entertaining, what was REALLY great about it was how it destroyed my faith in organized religion. I don’t know if that’s what the producers were shooting for when they made it, but there you are.
Drunk off the sweet success of franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, film studios have been snatching up the rights to popular children’s/fantasy books in pursuit of their own god, the almighty dollar (not to be confused with the one and true God, whom the filmmakers obviously hate). I think Compass succeeds where a lot of these other movies have failed. The themes the story explores are a lot more adult, although (from what I’ve read) a little simplified for the movie version. These are books I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, so I really can’t comment on what they’ve changed and how much they’ve changed it
The movie is surprisingly short (about an hour and forty-five minutes) for a story like this, and as usual there are many different players, all pursuing their own agendas. The film’s protagonist, Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), is an orphan living at Jordan College in a parallel world. Lyra and everyone else in the world are accompanied by a daemon, the physical manifestation of their soul in animal form. Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), is a scholar at Jordan who is planning an expedition to the north to study a substance called Dust, which he believes can bridge the gap between parallel worlds. His expedition is being opposed by the Magisterium (read the Catholic Church), who goes so far as to try poisoning him to prevent it. Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) represents a faction of the Magisterium that’s been kidnapping children and performing experiments, splitting children from their daemons in an atempt to keep them from ever knowing sin. Mrs. Coulter is planning her own expedition to the North, and takes on Lyra as her assistant. This works out nicely, because Lyra’s friend Roger has just been kidnapped and taken to the Magisterium’s super-secret base — you guessed it — in the north. If all of this sounds confusing, it is. With stories like these, there’s always a ton of backstory that needs explaining, and here, Compass‘ cup runneth over (to borrow a phrase from the Bible, which after seeing the movie, I recognize as one giant lie).
On their way, Lyra finds out that Mrs. Coulter isn’t exactly on the up and up and sets off on her own. Along the way, she meets up with witches, aeronauts, Gyptians, and an armor-plated polar bear (who really shines in a scene that’ll be sure to send your kids home crying). The movie ends kind of unexpectedly, although you’ll see how the next two films are being set up. I don’t think we’re going to be seeing any movies in the near future that live up to The Lord of the Rings, but The Golden Compassis one of the better ones that’s trying to. As said, the themes are a little more adult, and the story and its characters are really interesting. Even though I haven’t yet read the books, I enjoyed watching it all unfold onscreen. Even though the movie has a lot going for it, it does suffer from a few shortcomings. There IS a lot of backstory here, so a lot of time is spent explaining it. Also, there’s a lot of book condensed into not a lot of movie. Every obstacle the characters face is resolved without a lot of effort. So hopefully we’ll see an extended DVD version eventually. That makes up for it a little, but still, you go in expecting more. Kids will love it. Adults, give it a 50/50 chance.
From what I’ve heard, New Line has a lot riding on the success of this movie. “A lot” being the future of New Line studios itself. I don’t think there’s much reason to worry though. A movie like this seems guaranteed to do good business, especially with the Holidays coming up. The movie’s shorter run-time allows for more showings in a day, and there will be a lot of kids who want to see this. I give it three and a half out of five stars. It would have gotten more, but it DID turn me into an atheist, which I’m not really sure is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m waiting for the next movie to tell me which.
