Last night Fujian Gal and I went to see Casino Royale at AMC Boston Common. [While we were there we ran into someone rather unexpected, someone else's ex-bf, with a possible date?] The movie was being played in auditorium 2, which is rather big--not like the small screens on the upper level. For some reason they played the old trailer for Apocalypto, and not the most recent one. There was the Marshall U. football movie trailer, which Fujian Gal might be interested in; she also wants to see the upcoming Will Smith movie in which he plays an aspiring stockbroker.
What can I say about Bond? While the movie was ok, and certainly better than previous Bond movies that were over-the-top, still at its core Bond is the somewhat bizarre fantasy of a British civil servant. Bond has been trying to maintain its relevancy for a long time now in its choice of villains; while the updating of Casino Royale may have been successful for the movie audience, my biggest gripe was that it was still too unrealistic. Of course, by its very nature a Bond movie cannot be realistic, and I am just reacting to that. At least with Bourne it is somewhat more believable that Bourne is going one-on-one with his opponents, since he is not on an operation, he is just fighting for his survival. I suppose it may be more palatable for us to watch a movie in which it is clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. If it becomes ambiguous (which probably better reflects reality), then our reaction will be different (as was the case with Munich).
Some of the same criticisms can be levelled at 24, but at least Jack Bauer is not the lone hero; he actually has a support team and other agents working with him. Still, while re-watching the first 3 seasons, I do find that the show loses some of its freshness and the lack of realism becomes more apparent. I'll watch season 6, but I doubt I would ever purchase the dvds...
Daniel Craig wears the role well. (Nonetheless, the use of stunt doubles is apparent during the chase scene at the beginning of the movie.) If there were another activity besides movie-going that would promote friendship I would eagerly turn to it; at least the Catholics at ND have their parties and tailgaters. It is difficult to be festive without being settled to some degree.
Evidently there is a Beverly Hills Cop movie in the works... it's amazing how movies like Beverly Hills Cop or Revenge of the Nerds got made in the first place. I can't imagine people would be willing to pay for full-priced movie admission to see these movies now, but there were plenty to do so back then. Their cultural worth is practically 0.
"Exciting today, boring tomorrow."
2 comments:
There was one thing that bothered me about Bourne Identity that I didn't really become consciously aware of until I watched History of Violence: namely that Bourne's amnesia felt too much like a cop-out. 'Hey, he's a nice guy now,' as if on a whim. Moral efficacy of killing children to maintain plausible deniability aside, the trigger-staying child of Bourne felt like too much of a MacGuffin for my tastes. At least with Supremacy, he wanted to be left alone but was getting progressively angrier that nobody would let him be.
"Killing doesn't bother you much, Mr. Bond?"
"If it did, I wouldn't be very good at my job."
Perhaps a glib response, but one that makes the Bond movies more interesting in my mind than Bourne -- as opposed to a humanistic awakening to niceness, Bond's journey through the movie is a process of shutting off parts of his personality. Since he's flawed going in, it's not a simple question as to whether he's emerged a better person for the experience -- half hitman, half monk, no ego in the equation. Certainly parallels of Batman Begins.
I don't think it was a cop-out, since he refrained from killing the children, even though he was supposed to. He was already having difficulties with his first kill (the Russian in Bourne Supremacy)--evidently he wasn't sociopathic enough for the job. Whether the CIA would have accepted him into the program if they had done a good psychological profile is another question. I would be surprised though if the intelligence agences recruits people who like killing to become assassins--it seems more likely that they try to get 'normal' people and appeal to their sense of duty.
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