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Casino Royale (2006)
A New Bond...
In this film the arrival of Daniel Craig as James Bond signals not only a change of actor in the lead role but also a complete reinvention of the Bond franchise. Gone is the jokey approach; there's no Miss Moneypenny or Q, no gadgets, no long car chases and no master criminal about to take over the world from a secret hideaway full of countless minions to be summarily despatched by our hero in the final 20 minutes. And for this reinvention the producers have, appropriately enough, adapted the very first Bond novel by Ian Fleming so this really is a new beginning for 007 in every respect. Now, I have to admit that I haven't taken a great deal of interest in the Bond films over the years – after the early Sean Connery ones they became little more than glossy spectacle, all style and minimal content. With this film being heralded as a new approach I was keen to see what they'd do.
I'm not sure the plot was any more important than the earlier glossy movies – though it's a complicated affair, centred around Bond playing a long, high-stakes poker game with, amongst others, Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen), a banker to terrorist groups throughout the world who is himself at risk from his customers. What I found more interesting was the redefining of Bond himself as a ruthless but fallible hero. This Bond bleeds when he's beaten up and screams when he's stripped and tortured. Craig plays the role as a combination of toughness and vulnerability and we have a sense of a complex psychology working beneath the brutal exterior. The pace is fast-moving and the action gripping throughout, although I felt a couple of the set pieces went on just a little too long. But the final shoot-out in a building in Venice undergoing renovation made for an exciting climax. The acting is polished without being remarkable, and Eva Green performs well as Bond's lover Vesper, but it's Daniel Craig's film and he carries the mantle well. James Bond has now truly arrived in the twenty-first century.
Mildred Pierce (1945)
A Superior Noir Melodrama
A film noir melodrama, Mildred Pierce is perhaps most famous for being the movie that sensationally rescued Joan Crawford's career and brought her back to box office success and the stardom she had experienced in the 1930s. Her performance in the title role won her the Oscar for Best Actress. The story, adapted from a James M. Cain novel, is straightforward enough: Mildred's love for her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) leads her through a series of catastrophes which she not only survives but uses to transform herself into a highly capable, wealthy and successful businesswoman. Unfortunately Veda is so thoroughly selfish and grasping, the more she gets the more she wants, as Mildred eventually realises (not before time, we the audience are thinking!). The story begins with a murder and is then told in flashback for much of the film's running time, as we gradually learn of the events which led to this violent climax. Crawford's melodramatic style works well in a movie which combines soap opera with noir thriller. Directed by Michael Curtiz and shot in classic expressionistic style by Ernest Haller (whose cinematography was also nominated), with a memorable score by Max Steiner, the film is a triumph of the talents who produced it. As the men in Mildred's life, Carson, Scott and Bennett all play their parts well and Ann Blyth is suitably repulsive as the daughter from hell. But the most telling line in the movie is left to Mildred's business associate Ida (a peerless performance by Eve Arden): "Personally, I think alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."
The Money Pit (1986)
Tiresome
"Reminiscent of Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House" says the publicity, along with the line "an hilarious comedy". Well, Steven Spielberg may have been the Executive Producer and comic actor Richard Benjamin may have directed it, but I'm afraid "The Money Pit" is a complete misfire. As others have noted, it's one joke (couple buy their dream house only to discover too late that it's falling apart) stretched out over an hour and a half. Lots of sight gags which initially raise a smile but soon wear out their welcome when they're endlessly repeated with only slight variations. The script fails to build up sympathy for the two leads and the actors struggle to make any of it credible or interesting. Give me Mr Blandings any day.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)
Worth Sticking With
Not sure what I was expecting when I started to watch this coming-of-age drama, but it certainly wasn't what I got. It doesn't quite know what it wants to be, beginning as it does as a comedy, developing into a Stand By Me-type rite-of-passage drama and culminating in tragedy, having embraced comic-book animation along the way. It tries too hard to be too many things, which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff here. It will remain one of the more curious choices for Jodie Foster, cast as a hard-line nun, but perhaps this is explained by the fact that she also co-produced. Well acted by all the young cast though and worth a look.
Air Force One (1997)
Entertaining Thriller
I calculated that Harrison Ford must have been in his mid fifties when he made this film, which made some of his action-man heroics displayed here pretty hard to believe. But then, Wolfgang Petersen's film isn't the sort of movie which is built for analysing its reality or logic. It's a reasonably well made thriller, a plane hostage drama with seasoned ingredients one has seen many times before - there's nothing really new here. Gary Oldman comes on board to demonstrate how well we Brits can play ze ruthless killerz with ze foreign accent and Glenn Close pleases in a role which doesn't offer her much to work with. The "Get off my plane" line is a (literal) killer though, and made me laugh out loud.
Cabin Fever (2002)
A Missed Opportunity
Tacky horror movie which in the right hands and with the right screenplay might have become a horror classic, but as it is it's an undisciplined mess. Director Eli Roth presents us with familiar characters and situations and a plot which lacks the fine tuning necessary to suspend disbelief long enough for us to question the logic of why people do what they do. The geography is a problem too - at some points the kids appear to be in the middle of nowhere, at others they appear to be just across the way from various homesteads which might potentially offer assistance. There's a presumably deliberate attempt to evoke a sense of the menace of "Deliverance", but the hillbillies seem more like caricatures than characters. I appreciate this was intended as a horror-comedy, but it didn't really work for me.
The Avengers (1998)
Dire
Big screen re-makes of old TV series always run the risk of being despised by fans of the original, but even making the usual allowances I have to say "The Avengers" is about the worst I've seen. I think they attempted to capture the quirky, surreal world of the series, but missed it by a mile. Fiennes and Thurman are all at sea, and even Connery, an actor who generally acquits himself well whatever the film, gives an embarrassing performance. The interplay and dialogue between Steed and Mrs Peel lacks any kind of subtlety, wit or charm and here is cruder - some of the exchanges feel like they belong in a Carry On film. As for continuity, it's virtually non-existent. Patrick Macnee's brief "appearance" as an invisible agent hidden in the bowels of the ministry building seems strangely appropriate - almost as if he couldn't bring himself to actually show his face. In short, it's a mess. While they're all still alive, why doesn't someone get Brian Clemens to write a "reunion" screenplay for Macnee, Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, Linda Thorson and Joanna Lumley? I can see it now - they all meet up in Steed's nursing home (a home for retired agents), where someone's bumping off the residents....
An Alligator Named Daisy (1955)
Disappointing Daisy
With a cast of stalwart British character actors and pleasing photography of 1950s Britain, I had hoped and expected to be more entertained by this film. Unfortunately I found myself glued to it for the wrong reasons - I couldn't quite believe how awful it was. I must have watched thousands of old films and am always ready to make allowances for them being products of their time, but this was really hard going.
As others have noted, a major problem is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be: a gentle romantic comedy, a slapstick comedy or a musical. I was a bit gobsmacked when Jeannie Carson suddenly broke into song about 15 minutes in! It's not believable on any level, either the storyline itself or the fact that Daisy never appears to have an ounce of menace in her at any time. Other aspects which defied credibility included the casting of suave Donald Sinden as a songwriter (a songwriter for God's sake!), the fact he has Diana Dors for a fiancée and doesn't appear to have the slightest interest in her (I mean, Diana Dors! Come on!) and a ludicrous scene in a song publisher's office. The whole thing's silly in the worst possible way.
If I had to pick a favourite scene it would be the one at the very beginning with that wonderful actor Wilfred Lawson - after that everything went downhill in a big way.