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Colin Carman

~ Jane Austen Scholar & Culture Vulture

Colin Carman

Tag Archives: austin powers

Review: “Skyfall”

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

007, action, adele, austin powers, ben winshaw, berenice marlohe, daniel craig, dr. evil, from russia with love, halle berry, james bond, javier bardem, madonna, naomie harris, octopussy, ola rapace, pierce brosnan, ralph fiennes, robert shaw, roger deakins, roger moore, sam mendes, sean connery, skyfall, spy, timothy dalton, ursula andress

“Gold Bond”

Grade: A-/B+ (SEE IT)

VAMPIRES, LINDSAY LOHAN, AGENT 007: some things never die. After the franchise flatliner that was 2008’s “Quantum of Solace,” James Bond bounces back to life in the Sam Mendes-directed “Skyfall.”  It’s staggering to think that 45 years ago, the fifth Bond film appeared under the title “You Only Live Twice,” starring its originator: the incomparable, martini-swilling Sean Connery.  He set the gold standard for a Bond as slyly confident undercover as he was under the covers. “Skyfall,” starring the sixth actor (Daniel Craig) to embody Ian Fleming’s hero of the British Secret Service, proves that Bond has more lives than that white cat on the lap of Dr. Evil. “You expect me to talk? Connery asked Goldfinger in the eponymous 1964 film.  “No. . .” replies Auric Goldfinger – all together now! – “I expect you to die.”

Not going to happen. The twenty-fourth Bond installment, “Skyfall” marks Craig’s third turn as 007 and the role, like his tailored silver suit, fits him like a glove. The action sequence that opens “Skyfall” – followed closely by the opening credits in which Adele belts the title song over an opus of a music video – plunges the viewer back into that world of improbable but entertaining stunts.  Set in Turkey, a fight atop a high-speed passenger train recalls the iconic fight scene of “From Russia with Love,” and Bond, like Bourne, appears to plunge to his death after Eve (Naomie Harris) takes a shot but misses.  The order comes from the all-seeing Judi Dench (as M) who won’t see her beloved Bond again until the offices of the MI6 are incinerated in a terrorist attack.  Ralph Fiennes, likely to serve a larger role in the forthcoming Bond films – Craig is contracted for two more – and Ben Winshaw (as the gadget-geek Q) are superb supporting cast members. Behind the camera, the cinematography of Roger (“No Country for Old Men”) Deakins is opulently lush, notably in the Macau chapter.

“Skyfall” could be the best Bondarama since Pierce Brosnan hang up his hat in 2002’s “Die Another Day.” That’s when Halle Berry rose, Ursula Andress-style, like a bikini’d nymph from the sea and Madonna offered a bizarre cameo as a lesbian fencing coach.  Ah, the Bondian world is a strange world indeed.  Recall the goofiness of the Roger Moore years when, in “Octopussy,” circus clowns were killed for smuggling Fabregé eggs and, in “Moonraker,” Bond orbited the earth in a space capsule.  Bond’s world is basically a hetero-male’s fantasy world designed for his pleasure.  Pussy Galore, Holly Goodhead; need we say more? That’s why the queering of Javier Bardem’s villainous Silva gives “Skyfall” a much-needed edge.  When Silva interrogates the agent, he draws in close, strokes Craig’s chiseled face and legs, and tells him not to be nervous as it’s his first time.  “What makes you think it’s my first time?” Bond shoots back.  The scene made the woman seated to my left uncomfortable – or was it the bottle of champagne she and her husband had stashed under the seat? – but the audience erupted in laughter.  Clearly, Mendes and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan are having some fun with Bond’s archetypal straightness and forcing him (and us) to loosen up a little.

“Skyfall” also succeeds in large part because it looks back to the Cold War days – the reappearance of that classic chrome Aston Martin DB5 is a welcomed one – and because the conflict between Silva and MI6 is personally motivated. Bardem, whose yellowy wig is reminiscent of Robert Shaw’s peroxide coif in “From Russia with Love” (1963), was disfigured by another reckless call made by M and he’s out for revenge. Could Silva be based on Wiki-leaker Julian Assange?  He essentially duplicates the role of the killing machine he played in “No Country,” but he’s the right actor to simultaneously titillate and terrify.

Ever since Timothy Dalton took over as Bond in 1987’s “The Living Daylights,” an air of artificiality has hung over many of the later Bond films.  Product placement, mannequin-like models come (barely) to life, gadgets that are more Sky-Mall than “Skyfall” – many Bond flicks are like the golden corpses that litter 1964’s “Goldfinger,” roundly considered the best of the lot.   There is still no escaping some of these conventionalities.  Silva forces Bond to shoot a shot-glass, William Tell-style, off the head of a bleeding and bound Berenice Marlohe – a misogynistic spectacle indeed – and the final show-down at the Skyfall estate, where a young Bond grew up, is overlong and ultimately tedious.  Still, the backstory opens up some new territory for the franchise as it could continue to peer into Bond’s early years as an orphan in Scotland.

“Skyfall” is proof that a solid Bond – like a diamond – is forever.

Review: “Fright Night”

20 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

alpha dog, anton yelchin, austin powers, bromance, christopher mintz plasse, colin farrell, craig gillespie, david tennant, dracula, edward scissorhands, fatal attraction, fright night, glenn close, horror, illusionist, imogen poots, las vegas, monsters, muriel's wedding, nosferatu, role models, russell brand, sexuality, summer blockbuster, terminator, tim burton, tom holland, toni collette, true blood, twilight, vampires

“Sucker Lunch”

GRADE: B (RENT IT)

GARLIC? CHECK. HOLY WATER? CHECK. Wooden stake?  Check.

The power to resist the black Irish wiles of actor Colin Farrell as the vampire-next-door?  Not so much.  Farrell is surprisingly well-suited to the role of Jerry, a seductive bloodsucker who, like the Las Vegas housing development in which he suddenly appears, drops out of the sky and into his neighbors’ necks.  As the film makes plain, Vegas is a regular Mecca for our fanged friends: it’s another City that doesn’t sleep and chockfull of transients.  The opening aerial shots of a colorless community of townhouses in the Nevada desert – think of the homogenous rows of homes in the Tim Burton classic “Edward Scissorhands” (1990) – immediately establishes a sense of vulnerability.  It’s only a matter of time before something dark and demonic turns this Pleasantville upside down.  Enter Colin Farrell stage-left, or is it stage-fright?

I’ve been thinking about Dracula’s eyebrows lately.  For an academic article I’m preparing on the hair of nineteenth-century literary monsters, I focused on this description from Bram Stoker’s genre-generating classic, Dracula (published on May 26, 1897):  “[Count Dracula’s] eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion […] The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.”  Farrell’s got the bloodless pallor and Groucho Marx brows to play the part perfectly.  He’s Nosferatu with a six-pack.

From northwestern Romania to Sin City, from the Count to an average-joe like Jerry whose sexy surface masks something truly sadistic underneath.  A bloodsucker with a quotidian name like Jerry is, of course, played for laughs in the teen-friendly “Fright Night,” but it’s Jerry’s kids (the kids of Hillcrest Bluffs, Nevada, that is) that make this horror-fest feel fresh and intermittently funny.  Principally, there’s Charley (played by Russian-born Anton Yelchin of “Terminator: Salvation” and “Alpha Dog”) who is pursuing a new friend group, and a new girlfriend named Amy (Imogen Poots), at his high school.  He’s finding his childhood friend Ed Lee (the perfectly cast Christopher Mintz-Plasse of “Role Models”) hard to shake, and like a gay teen version of Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” he keeps showing up at inopportune times, threatening to expose his nerdy past if Charley won’t hunt vampires with him.  He seems to say: I won’t be ignored, Charley.

This is the endearing core of the script, and though Ed doesn’t last long (at least amongst the human realm), he is one half of a teenage bromance seldom seen on screen.  Ed’s sexuality may be an adolescent question mark, but when he succumbs to Jerry in a swimming pool, feebly holding a crucifix in the air as if that’s gonna save him, Farrell moves in, holds him in his arms, and says: “You were born for this.  It’s a gift.”  If you’re like me and can’t abide the “Twilight” series and its sentimentalization of virginity, try HBO’s hit series “True Blood” (now in its fourth season) on for size.  You’ll never look at vampire narratives, so ubiquitous these days, and not remember that vampires are thinly veiled metaphors for sexual otherness (gay, lesbian, trans, fill in the blank).  It unsurprising, then, that when Charley and Ed fight to the death later in “Fright Night,” Ed holds his former friend tight and says: “Is this good for you? I’m feeling pretty homo right about now.”

Every Hollywood cast should be so lucky as to have the amazing Toni Collette (as Charley’s mom, Jane) around for just-add-water credibility.  Sure, she went mainstream in “The Sixth Sense” after the camp classic, “Muriel’s Wedding” of 1994, but she returns to the undead themes that made her big back in 1999 and with winning results.  Charley and Amy stand back as she flirts unabashedly with Jerry (gardening in a Brando-esque tank top) and confesses “I’ve had man troubles.  I’m not getting suckered again.”   Another notable cast member is Scotsman David Tennant as a Midori-swilling Vegas illusionist named Peter Vincent.  His performance is an obvious satire of Russell Brand (aka Austin Powers 2.0) and it gives the movie some teeth.  Charley comes to Vincent for advice on how to kill vampires, saying “I know what you do is an illusion.”  Tennant replies: “By illusion, you mean bullshit.”  Pause.  “Fair enough.”

Based on the original 1985 film written by Tom Holland, the retooled “Fright Night” (directed by Craig Gillespie and re-written by Marti Noxon) will entertain you right up until its slightly limp last act.  The film peaks after a car chase with a terrified Charley, Jane, and Amy running from Jerry, but once Toni Collette is hospitalized, “Fright Night” flatlines.   It’s not Farrell’s fault, nor is it his numerous costars’.  The problem lies in the fact that, by 2011, we’ve seen it all before.  Vampires have never been more en vogue and that’s because, like the mafia (Hollywood’s other favorite preoccupation), they operate invisibly amongst us, recruiting and romping in blood.  By now, we hardly need to be told that what happens in Vegas decays in Vegas.

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