6 posts tagged “daniel craig”

Photographed by Karen Ballard for Sony Pictures, as featured in Lucire

Thanks to Tanya, I managed to see Quantum of Solace early (relative to the rest of New Zealand) or late (relative to the UK and US). Verdict: bloody good. The newspaper critics who were being so negative were probably trying to show how superior they were to the rest of us by acting like tossers.
   Down sides: the title cards in typefaces that didn’t match their location. Mixing Scala with Helvetica at the end. Too-obvious Ford (Bronco II, Edge, Ka, even the bus in Bolivia and a lone Laser driving through the streets after Bond sees Leiter; plus a Volvo S40 and Daimler in Bregenz and Land Rovers and Range Rovers from a former Ford division) and Omega (who wears watches the way Giancarlo Giannini does?) product placement.
   Up sides: great performances all round from Craig and Dench in particular, Kurylenko is excellent as a modern Bond girl, and Amalric went around pretending to be Nicolas Sarkozy. Excellent action though a few of the cuts were a little tougher to follow. Even David Arnold’s music came on at the right moments. Custom typeface (I think) for opening credits and a refreshing change from the old style (greatest respect to Binder, Kleinman, Brownjohn). Gassner’s sets—I love glass (which is why I like Tati’s Playtime). I do not care if Craig never said, ‘Bond, James Bond’ or that the gunbarrel was at the end (it makes sense: it’s when this new guy “becomes Bond”) or if there was no Q and Moneypenny. None of that matters.
   This was a darned good film, and that was why the early Bonds worked. Broccoli and Saltzman didn’t go around in the 1960s with a checklist of what the Bond formula entailed, because there was no formula. That admittedly changed by Thunderball, but the first three were novel and fresh in their own right. They had a story to be told, a narrative. That was present in Casino Royale and it was present, with a lot of action, in Quantum of Solace.
   It also works, excepting the very last scene, if one had not seen Casino Royale, so I have no idea what some critics were talking about when they said they could not follow it if it were an independent film. Perhaps in their attempt to check off the Bond checklist (e.g. does he order a vodka martini? Does he get a gadget from Q?) they missed the plot.
   There was enough of Bondness, in my mind, albeit differently to what I grew up with: it took the idea of Casino Royale (this is Bond still new to the Secret Service, developing himself) and took it to the next logical step, which was the whole idea.
   Great story? Check. Adventure? Check. A chapter in the story of a man named James Bond? Check.

Darn, this looks good. From the BBC’s Film 2008, and the VO is, of course, Jonathan Ross.

This is looking very, very good. Then again, fast editing made the Pierce Brosnan Bonds look good, too. But I think Daniel Craig will pull this off very well.

For those of you who support Daniel Craig as James Bond, hop over to www.nationalmovieawards.com where you can participate in a people’s choice voting for your favourite actors, actresses and films.
   I highlight Daniel as he’s up against annoying types like Orlando Bloom (who still sounds like a form of marijuana grown in Florida) and Tobey Maguire (come on, Nicholas Hammond was the better Spider-man). Vote and put in a decent actor!
   The best actor votes are near the end—before that, there are categories for best animation and best comedy. There’s also a draw for tickets to the London ceremony.

I read some disturbing news: Hollywood is thinking of remaking Bullitt, one of my all-time favourite films, and putting Brad Pitt into the Steve McQueen role.
   I don’t have much against remakes. I am looking forward to Life on Mars set in Los Angeles, unlike a lot of my Brit friends who have not been this aghast since the Germans bought Rolls-Royce. I even went to see 2003’s The Italian Job set in Los Angeles, and told my Brit friends, who had not been that aghast since the Germans bought Bentley.
   But Bullitt?
   I’ve nothing personal against Brad. I like the social causes the bloke is getting into. But even he must be smart enough to know that there will be a certain proportion of Earth’s male population who think that this is sacrilege. We are talking Holy Grail stuff here. And there are more reasons against this idea.

10. Most straight men (and let’s face it, most gay men) would prefer Daniel Craig in the role.
9. The bad guys will not look as menacing in a 2008 Dodge Charger.
8. You cannot re-create the scene where Jacqueline Bisset drives Steve McQueen back into the City on 101 because they would be stuck in gridlock.
7. Because of his personal interests, Brad would spend too much time filming the architects’ office scene.
6. The crew would be distracted when Angelina comes to visit on set.
5. Bullitt and Delgetti would be arrested as terror suspects at San Francisco Airport for leaving their car and running inside.
4. That annoying creaking sound heard on the soundtrack (it’s the noise of Steve McQueen turning in his grave).
3. ‘Hotel Daniels’ on Embarcadero is now the site of the HQ for the Gap, and it would be seriously bad publicity to kill the witness there.
2. The serious risk that Robert Vaughn’s character will be played by Tom Cruise as a Scientologist seeking respectability.
1. No dude who has worn a skirt (Troy) can replace Steve McQueen.

The World Is Not Enough

The World Is Not Enough: found in the bargain bin at the Warehouse for $10. I notice the reissued Connery, Lazenby, Moore and Dalton ones are going for nearly double that.
   It’s probably because it’s relatively new in Bond terms that it hasn’t become a “classic” yet (remember how we viewed Moore and Dalton when Brosnan took over?). In it, Brosnan gives his best performance as 007, but really, it’s Sophie Marceau that brings it all home.
   The supporting cast is great: Robbie Coltrane, Bobby Carlyle and Judi Dench. Director Michael Apted describes his choice of Denise Richards (then considered the out-of-place American) as needing an actress who could cope with the athletic demands of the movie.
   As I listened to Apted’s commentary, I realized just how much work went in to this film. No wonder he had a separate audio track to the other crew (Peter Lamont, Vic Armstrong, David Arnold).
   It was a shame to go from the best Brosnan entry to the worst (Die Another Day, from my fellow Wellingtonian Lee Tamahori), but we Bond fans in New Zealand still have to wait for Casino Royale. A British colleague I lunched with yesterday tells me that she had already seen it at Tesco, for £8.
   What does seem out of place in a post-reboot era for James Bond is how the character in the 1999 film is so established as the world’s greatest secret agent. Those of us with clear memories of Daniel Craig as the new boy last year, playing a fallible 007, may find the earlier film almost odd, with Brosnan’s Bond a nearly too-confident agent.