Double O Countdown: Skyfall

We made it to the end. I don't know how my fellow bloggers who post on a daily basis manage to find time to do so. It has been an exhausting four weeks. Everyday I have been scanning the films, compiling a list, capturing shots, finding images to share and it was always so much because I wanted to look at everything. It has all been worth it. This post is going up the morning of the day I will be seeing the new Bond film "SPECTRE".  I hope it has helped wet your appitiete as much as it has mine.

"Skyfall" is just about perfect in my mind. I have seen haters out there who have had the audacity to say it is a bad film, they have no idea what they are talking about. This movie is packed with things that action film lovers will want to treasure, that Bond fanatics like me will geek out over, and it has qualities that film professionals have honored in numerous ways. Here are the Double O Seven ways it did it for me.

001  Adele gives Shirley Bassey a run for her money.

The title song is lush, mysterious and romantic. It kicks in with a chorus that is dramatic and brings the intensity level up very effectively. That it is played over some spectacular title images adds to it's luster.

002  Judy Dench Classes up the film like you can't believe

This was the biggest role for Dench in the series, she plays it tough and has just the right amount of vulnerability in the key scenes. She gets to participate in the climactic battle at Bond's ancestral home and she is completely believable. In the opening, she is unsentimental in risking Bond's life in pursuit of the Macguffin.

When the HQ of MI 6 is attacked and a half dozen are killed, she is a isolated figure with the world against her.








She has to defend herself at a public hearing where she will be humiliated for political reasons, still she does not give an inch.

As she and Bond flee London to draw their nemesis into a fight away from others, she is not alone, but still feels the weight of the world and the isolation with 007 at her side.

003  Let's Hear it for the Movie Magician Roger Deakins

He makes beatiful images even more beautiful, see the reds pop in this image.

The lighting and shadows in some scenes recall the glory days of post war film noir.

Shadows that tell the story as well as the pictures and words do.

Backlighting for effect and hiding the face of the character in the bright red light from a fire, awesome stuff.

Composition is another of the arrows in his quiver.

I know "The Life of Pi" was beautiful, but Roger Deakins was robbed at the Academy Awards this year.

004  Once again, the villain makes the movie.

Javier Bardem as the betrayed and bitter ex-agent Silva, is all quirky body movement and lilting articulation when he speaks.

The story he tells of his Grandmothers Island and the rats is creepy, but watch the way he tries to get to James by delicately manhandling him.

Of course Jame's response was classic bravado with a twist of humor.

Even when he is captured, Hannibal Lecter-like, we know that he is a snake that is too dangerous to let live. A terrific character matched by a terrific performance.

005  Fan Service from Aston Martin

I'm only slightly kidding when I say I may have peed myself when the lights go on in the garage. "Goldfinger" is my favorite Bond film, but this one proves there is always a chance it could be replaced. At least as long as a car with Machine Guns and an Ejector seat in in the mix.

006  The New M

Ralph Fiennes is well cast as a younger but mature new head of the Secret Service. He also know how to handle himself as he shows in the attack on the public hearings.

He starts off in the film as an uptight prig but turns into the wise and knowing heir to the Evil Queen of Numbers.

As he and Bond meet in the very last scene, and Bond addresses him as "M", my heart soared and I anticipated the new film every day for the last three years.

007 The Perfect Summary of 007

He kicks ass, chases the bad guys around town on every kind of vehicle you can imagine, shoots a bucket load of bullets, and still cares about how his clothes drape properly.

If you don't jones on this shot, why are you reading any of this?

James Bond Will Return in "SPECTRE"

Double O Countdown: Quantum of Solace

A slight misfire from the EON team after the success of "Casino Royale". Maybe it suffers from comparison to it's companion piece, or maybe it is the dour villain and odd subject. I got the feeling there was a political statement here somewhere, but it was not clear what they wanted to say, and people don't go to a Bond movie for the message. It does have a revenge theme to it that I like, and there are a few sequences that work pretty well, but my guess is that they had the wrong director and an incomplete script. Camera movement can't solve weak story telling. Here are seven things I liked about the film despite it's weaknesses.

001  Hotel Hell

The lavish hotel that the evil general and the main villain Dominic Greene occupy at the end of the film,the Paranal Observatory's ESO Hotel, gets burned up in a fire in the middle of the desert, when the macguffin of the story is water. Go figure. It looks pretty spectacular though.

002 Agent Fields leaves the story.

The beautiful British spy contact that Bond woos while in pursuit of the villain in the story, ends up dead, covered in black oil. An image that recalls the horrific end of an earlier innocent in "Goldfinger".

003  The last gunshot of the foot chase originating from an interrogation of Mr. White.

This was a daring shot while hanging upside down after a vigorous chase and fight. Bond dropping near to the ground and then struggling to grab a gun just at his fingertips works visually because of the camera work.

004  Euro Weenie Roast in the Desert.

Bond demonstrates that he lacks the Quantum of Solace that would allow any humanity to survive. After he interrogate Dominic Greene, he abandons him in the middle of the desert, with no water to drink (irony) and only a can of oil to quench his thirst (spite for the death of Agent Fields). It is one of the brutal acts of 007 that makes him an intriguing and not always pleasant companion at the movies.

 Drink up Mr. Greene, you're a dead man anyway.

005  A Different End to a Knife Fight

Bond gets jumped in a hotel room and has a brutal but very quick fight to the death with his attacker.

When he finally takes the knife away and uses it to kill his enemy, it is not in any sense typical. He does not stab his opponent in the neck or heart, he jams the blade into his thigh, severing the femoral artery and watches and holds his enemy as he bleeds out quickly.

Another harsh moment in the life of a spy.

006  Rene Mathis

Giancarlo Giannini returns as the French spy master Rene Mathis. After being suspected in "Casino Royale" of selling Bond out, Mathis was roughly taken into custody and questioned. His dignity and affection for Bond evaporate. Bond needs his assistence and brings him back into the fold for this story.

Mathis is the only companion to ever see Bond drunk, and he listens to the bitter tale of woe and advises James as a friend in spite of his temporary animus. This scene takes place in a Virgin Atlantic Skybar.

The French intelligence agent has contacts in the South American country they land in, but they turn out to be unreliable. Mathis finishes his too short tour of duty in the franchise, in an ignominious way. The film makers should have planned a better end for him.

007  The Opera

The best scene in the film involves Bond flushing out the members of the secret group "Quantum" while they take a meeting during a performance of Tosca.

An innovative set and the Bregrenz Culture Center are the backdrop for this innovative trap. Bond has tapped into the meeting via radio and as he listens in to the transactions, he interupts with a smart ass suggestion that the group should meet somewhere more private. When they hear that an outsider has been listening in, several of the rats reveal themselves unintentionally by abandoning what they see as a sinking ship.

As they get up and leave in the middle of the performance, they are easy targets for Bonds camera equipped cell phone.

as he points and shoots, the images are shot back to Tanner at MI 6 HQ and the computer there scans faces and starts to make identifications.

Bond encounters the head rat on his way out and Greene sends his killers after Bond.

Of Course we know how it will ultimately turn out.While the performance on stage plays out, Bond gets the best of the body guards, one of whom turns out to be there with a high ranking member of the British political class. And the plot thickens.

James Bond will Return in "Skyfall"

Double O Countdown: Casino Royale

I can safely say there is nothing about this film I don't like. If I could break my own rules, there would easily be a dozen moments to highlight, although it might be simpler to just list all two hours and twenty four minutes of the film. The villain is perfect, the girl is perfect, the resolution is devastatingly perfect, and the final line is the most perfect of all. It is not just an over reaction to the sad state the series was in from the last film, it was the complete overhaul of the concept and the integration with the established that makes this movie work. This was Ian Fleming's first Bond novel and it took forty years after he died to bring it to life, I'm so glad they waited to get it right.

001  A Real Bond Moment and a Touch of Humor

The re-boot of the series takes the stories in a decidedly more serious direction. It was easy to worry that the more somber 007 would ruin the joie de vivre of the movies. It turns out, there is still humor here, it is just a lot more subtle. A single self referencing smile blows the cool demeanor of the character for just a moment as he soaks in the situation he finds himself in while wearing a brand new tuxedo.

002  Torture

From the demented mind of his creator, James endures the torture scene that created the whole aura of sadism around the series. It is brutal and hard to watch, but it is also a test of wills between two very dangerous men.

003  Least Worst Alternative

After chasing the bomb maker across half of Northern Africa, and catching him with great difficulty, James is confronted by the entire security force of an African Embassy with guns pointed at him. He seems to give up on the captive, pushing him toward the head man on the staff, but quickly makes a choice that cause all kinds of trouble but one which was the least worst he could choose.

Yep, that's our man.

004  The Free Running Chase

The bomb maker sniffs out a trap and starts to run, Bond follows. A terrific action sequence that is capped off by the previous point but which deserves it's own slot on the list.

 

He is not as smooth at the running style as his prey, but 007 is determined not to let his man escape.

005 The Black and White Opening

The re-boot starts off like a spy film from the 1960s. Not the glamorous Bond films but the John Lecarre type. Dirty, tough and Black and White.

How did he die? Not well

The Second is easier.







And then a real switch, the gun barrel logo is integrated into the scene and a new era starts.

006  Vesper Lynd [Spoilers] 

Eva Green is the most desirable Bond girl and she is a femme fatale. She is clever and emotional and just the kind of a bird with a wing down that Fleming imagined his hero would fall for.

Bond fantasizes that he can leave his job and live with the woman he loves in any way he wants.

 The dream of normalcy is enough to blind him to the clues of her perfidious nature.

The moment of betrayal hits him as hard as the rope lanyard that Le Chiffre used on his testicles.

Even with that betrayal, he does all he can to save her.

007  The Final Line

They make you wait for it. Director Martin Campbell who revived Bond with "Goldeneye" a decade earlier, does it again with a brilliant shot, just the right amount of a pause, and then Daniel Craig's delivery of the introduction that fills all of our spy dreams.

"The names Bond..."

James Bond will Return in: "Quantum of Solace"