BEST FILM
Well, it was a fairly unsurprising Oscars this year, I think all my predictions except for Best Film came true. My fiancee remarked during the broadcast that it all seemed to be the same films... I have to admit that widening the Best Film nominee category to 10 pictures hasn't really done much to widen the Academy's scope for recognising unsung films. Having said that, I think nearly all the nominees (with perhaps the exception of The Kids Are All Right) were really great movies, so we're all winners in the end.
The King's Speech (full review)
I think the lack of a clear defining frontrunner (at least in the eyes of the wider public... in my eyes it was Black Swan) left the competition open for The King's Speech to do a mini-sweep due to it's traditionalist approach to prestige movie-making. Say what you like about any of the films nominated for Best Picture, but I don't think you can argue against The King's Speech having the broadest appeal. It's the kind of film that a twenty year old could take his great-grandmother to see and they would both walk away loving it in equal spades... I don't think you could honestly say that about many films. As much as I would've loved to see something else win I can't really fault the selection of this as the Best Film as the largest share of the Academy just simply saw it as the best film - the one that was the most entertaining, had the most worth, and engaged them in a simple and joyful fashion.
The Fighter (full review)
I enjoyed this one a lot but it never 'broke through' for me in the way that a lot of the other nominees did. Maybe my expectations of David O. Russell were just too high after his last two films (I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings). Don't get me wrong, this is a great film with some top notch performances and a healthy anchorage in reality, I just don't see it as Russell's best work as a filmmaker.
Winter's Bone (full review)
The dark horse of the Best Film nominees, this film was never going to win anything but it's great that it's been given some exposure as it means more people will go out of their way to see it. This is an intense and carefully observed crime film that mixes a realistic approach to modern hillbilly culture and a classic film noir format. It's a one of a kind, and it's worth checking out if you're in the mood for a different take on the crime genre.
The Social Network (full review)
I feel that this film is greatly overrated (and it seems the Academy did too, the biggest awards it scooped up were Best Score and Best Adapted Screenplay) but it is a step in an interesting direction for films, and it's worth seeing. I don't really get the cult of fanboys that David Fincher has attracted, I don't feel like he's made any great films since Fight Club. His output in the last ten years has been solid and fairly dependable, but Fight Club and Se7en remain the peak of his work as a director and I'm yet to see him create anything else of that calibre. The Social Network isn't just a film about Facebook though, don't let the subject matter put you off, it's a genuinely fascinating story.
Toy Story 3 (full review)
They should probably stop bothering to put animated films in the 'Best Film' category. While there's still a 'Best Animated Film' category I can't really ever see an animated film actually winning the Best Film section. If you were a voter and you voted for Toy Story 3 as the Best Animated Film then you're hardly going to vote for it again against regular films... and if you vote for it as Best Film overall then you'd hardly going to vote for anything else in the Animated Film category. It's all a bit redundant, isn't it? Anyway, Toy Story 3 is a fantastic film and quite easily the best 'third' film in a series ever... I think it actually eclipses the first two Toy Story films.
The Kids Are All Right (full review)
Not a crap movie but hardly worthy of all its nominations. I'm over these sort of curly-mouthed pseudo-indie flicks getting noticed at Awards time... no one would ever seriously vote for this as their favourite film of the year. I would've bumped this nominee off in favour of The Town. It's faintly amusing and Mark Ruffalo is a cool dude but it's only just 'all right'.
Inception (full review)
All the clips of Inception at the Academy Awards reminded of what an amazing film this was. If the snow-bound action sequences had been tightened up then this might've been my pick for Best Film. Everything about Inception - the cast, the concept, the way it mashes the heist genre with sci-fi, the fantastic music, the spinning top at the end - it just strikes a chord with me as something free-standingly original and memorable. My prediction for the Oscars in two to three years time is that Christopher Nolan's third Batman film will see him finally get some credit for the great genre work he's been doing, much in the same way that Peter Jackson got what was owed to him with the third Lord of the Rings movie back in 2003/2004.
True Grit (full review)
Another fantastic film that I'd love to sit down and watch again. I want more westerns dammit, I want to see the genre treated with as much respect and enthusiasm as the Coen Brothers gave it in True Grit. This is a plum slice of all the best aspects of Americana, wonderfully performed and with a great eye for detail. I could never see a western winning Best Film anytime soon, but it's nice to see True Grit getting some notice all the same.
Black Swan (full review)
My pick for winner. A brilliant and multi-layered piece of innovative filmmaking, this is the only nominee that I've watched more than once. Every single scene, look, inflection, whatever, makes up a beautifully constructed whole. This is one of those rare things - a 'perfect' film. It won't be to everyone's taste but then again great art never is.
127 Hours (full review)
I really liked this film but it just felt like filler amongst all the other nominees... it looked like an odd film to be nominated, which I guess is a good thing (and I guess that's the point of the 10-picture decision for the Best Film category), but at the end of the day it just wasn't going to win anything when it's up against more traditional types of Oscar-recognised filmmaking. The best thing about 127 Hours is James Franco's performance, I love that a cast member from Freaks and Geeks has come this far. I think a lot of people will watch this film and really like it but it just wasn't 'big' enough to ever be a serious contender at the Oscars.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale had this in the bag, though for some reason the Australian media kept going on about how Geoffrey Rush was our best hope for Oscar glory this year. Seriously... as fun as Geoffrey Rush is to watch, he already has an Oscar and his performance in The King's Speech isn't on the same level as what Bale did. It's like the Australian commentators didn't even watch any of the films. Actually, I'd go as far as to say they probably couldn't even name most of the nominated films.
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
I never really liked Bale that much (and it's got nothing to do with his offscreen behaviour), he always seems a little bit too attention-seeking as an actor. The Fighter is no exception to this rule, but the level of commitment he invested in this character is pretty hard to fault. It's almost a certainty that Bale is now on the pathway to a Best Actor Oscar at some point (both Kevin Spacey and Robert De Niro won Best Supporting Oscars before claiming the ultimate award), I guess I'll try to watch his future performances with an open mind but his voice is just so damn annoying sometimes! He also needs to stay away from turdish pap like Terminator Salvation (I actually liked this movie but Bale was the worst thing in it).
John Hawks (Winter's Bone)
Great to see this underrated television actor getting some attention but he was never going to win, was he? His performance in Winter's Bone was more subtle than his competitors but perhaps of a slightly higher quality. How do you measure these things? Hopefully his nomination will open up a few more opportunities for his talents. At least his loss means he'll probably be available for more episodes of Eastbound and Down.
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Did he really get nominated again? He didn't stand out for me in The Town, there were easily better supporting turns that deserved the nod this year (Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom would've been nice, though I don't think it's a performance that Americans really 'get'). Renner's nomination was one of those self-vindicating follow-up nominations that the Academy is so fond of giving.
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
I've always had a soft spot for the Ruffster ever since I saw him in The Last Castle about a decade ago. He hasn't always appeared in the best films, but everything he appeared in was better for having him in it. He just has one of those charismatic faces and an earnest demeanour (that he did well to play against in The Kids Are All Right) that just pulls me into his performances... he always makes it all look so easy.
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Another entertaining performance from a brilliant character actor, it's nice to see Rush still getting notice as he's been plugging steadily away at a great range of roles since his breakthrough performance in Shine back in the 1990s. I think Geoffrey Rush's style of acting is very remniscent of the great British theatre giants (Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielguld, etc) when they took to film... they had a unique flair for visual and vocal shorthand that always made their characterisations rather distinct. I'm a fan of it, and Rush appeals to that in me.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I didn't really want to nail my predictions down for this one but I kind of thought that Leo would get it... she's getting on in her years and the other nominees were either foreign (Weaver and Bonham-Carter) or still young enough for voters to treat the nomination as a prize in itself (Adams and Steinfeld). It's predictable that Leo would get it, but when has the Academy ever really voted in a truly objective fashion? (IE. Without consideration for the actor's background).
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Another heartfelt and believable white trash performance from Leo. She was previously nominated (to everyone's shock) in the Best Actress category two years ago for the largely-unseen Frozen River. It's heartwarming to think that after slumming it in tiny supporting roles for at least two decades that she's now been flung into an elite pool of actors and actresses - it's something that will probably actually improve her career prospects. The role she plays in The Fighter is often hard to watch, she'll make you want to throw things at the screen, and in some ways the character is similar to Mo'Nique's Oscar-winning turn from last year.
Helena Bonham-Carter (The King's Speech)
Maybe I'm alone here but I just didn't really get the fuss over Bonham-Carter's performance in The King's Speech. Aside from a vague resemblance to the young Queen Mother there isn't really anything amazing about it. She does a good job, and she's generally a fairly underrated character actress, but I felt like her role was fairly throwaway (and justifiably so, the film's about the King and his speech therapist).
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
I was hoping she might win but the Academy is pretty safe with the way that they vote these days. Hopefully she doesn't slide into obscurity like Haley Joel Osment has, her work in True Grit is wonderfully bright and unusually crusty for a girl of her years. The memorable nuances of her character seemed to come so naturally to her... she was the unexpected highlight of True Grit.
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
I don't really see this as all that worthy of a nomination. Adams' best work is still her naive nun from Doubt. Her white trash angel routine in The Fighter isn't particularly noteworthy but it's always fun to watch people like Adams climbing up the tiers of stardom. A few years ago nobody knew who she is... she isn't quite a household name yet, but her exposure in a broad range of performances (just compare Julie and Julia to The Fighter) should see her break into the A-list relatively soon.
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
It's just amazing that she even got nominated. An Oscar nomination will probably be enough to change her life completely, she's the only actor nominated in any category at this year's awards who's never made a film in America before and that may well change now. Her role in Animal Kingdom was pretty cool but everything about that movie was pretty cool so it was strange to see her get singled out. Hopefully this nomination at least meant a few people went out of their way to see Animal Kingdom when they normally wouldn't have.
BEST ACTOR
For the briefest of brief seconds I thought that it was going to be one of those Oscar 'upsets' where someone like James Franco or Jesse Eisenberg gets it, but the old Firthster got his turn. You know, five years ago I would never have guessed that Colin Firth would get an Academy Award for Best Actor, so it's kind of cool in a way that he has this moment of glory. I think Eisenberg could've been bumped for Ryan Gosling's work in Blue Valentine, Gosling has been working pretty hard the last few years to push himself in interesting directions and Blue Valentine was some pretty huge work on his part. The only nominee in this category that I can't comment on is Javier Bardem, as I haven't seen Biutiful.
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
His role as the King was a culmination of all his inherently British characterisations in past films combined with a rare opportunity to truly shine. I loved his performance in The King's Speech, it really got you punching the air for him. It wasn't a bland performance but it also wasn't a 'big' or 'showy' performance, it was just great acting from an actor who doesn't always get the sort of roles that would best showcase his ability.
James Franco (127 Hours)
As I mentioned earlier, I love that a cast member from Freaks and Geeks is now an Oscar nominee. That's a pretty cool career trajectory. Franco's performance is so central to 127 Hours, the film depends on him from start to finish and he handles it with such wry aplomb and likeable humanity. I'm glad he didn't win because I know that he's capable of so much more and I'd love to see a few years of that hunger for an Oscar driving more interesting role choices in the near future. You should totally check out 127 Hours though if you haven't yet, Franco will make it a great experience for you.
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Even though he won the Oscar last year there's still no denying the great work he did this year as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. To take such an already iconic role and then own it so completely is no mean feat, and Bridges has entered a golden twilight in his career that's made him more well-known and revered than ever.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
As mentioned, I'm not sure this performance was worth a nomination but I do like Eisenberg as an actor, even if he is the thinking man's Michael Cera. His work as Zuckerberg in The Social Network is interesting and uncompromisingly grey, but it's problematic because the character (as written) has an impenetrableness that keeps him at a distance from the audience. I'd like to see Eisenberg playing more roles of this calibre though... at the least it'll differientiate his body of work a bit more from Michael Cera.
BEST ACTRESS
I felt like this was a shoe-in for Natalia Portman but I found it hard to watch Annette Benning at the ceremony because she probably felt like it was her turn to win it after being nominated three previous times. I know that's silly because I don't know these people, but I always feel bad for most of the losing nominees, especially if they've been around for a while like Benning has. I'm really happy that Portman won though, her work in Black Swan is one of the greatest screen peformances of all time.
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Portman's career has been all over the place... from a memorable beginning as the 13-year old assassin in Leon to some frankly appalling work as Queen Amidala in the Star Wars prequels, she hasn't exactly had a focused career. I didn't really appreciate her talents until I saw Garden State, where her acting was so quirky and alive that it was hard to believe she had been so wooden and flat in The Phantom Menace. Her work in Black Swan is simply astounding, I forgot that it was an actress most of the time because her character felt so real... the amazing part is that this film borders on fantasy/horror territory in such a way that it relies entirely on her performance to be convincing as a serious film. The level of commitment Portman invests in her character's physicality can't be underestimated either, it would've been very hard to nail the ballet aspect in such a professional manner.
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Winter's Bone is a great film, and Lawrence is suitably understated as it's heroine, but it's the kind of performance that doesn't seem all that impressive unless you see the real life Lawrence (a typically bright young Hollywood thing). Her character in Winter's Bone is an astute observation of reality, she underplays at every turn because it reflects how this character would really react if the film was reality. I like that the Academy can recognise stuff like this.
Annette Benning (The Kids Are All Right)
Benning is a great powerhouse of an actress but her characters always inevitably annoy the crap out of me, so I'll never be on board with her fanbase (if she has one). She does a believable strong-willed lesbian in late-middle age, but it's the sort of character that feels designed to showcase her particular set of talents. As much as she probably deserves an Academy Award at some point (and it would need to be soon as her star has faded somewhat in recent times) I think I would've hated it if Portman had been overlooked in favour of her.
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Kidman gives it her best shot in Rabbit Hole but I find it hard to get past the Hollywood 'glam' that she brings with her to the role. I think Kidman will find it very difficult in the imminent future to remain in the A-list (she's already slipped a bit) due to her inability to let her looks fade with age. The work she's had done on her face and her inbuilt aloofness will lock her out of high quality films if she doesn't find a way to become a more identifiable figure for regular audiences.
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
Williams does a great job with a hard role in Blue Valentine, her nomination was probably reward enough - the film she's in and the kind of performance she gives isn't the sort of thing that's 'big' (sorry to keep using that word) enough to gain appropriate notice, but hopefully this means she'll continue doing work of this calibre.
BEST DIRECTOR
I don't know about Tom Hooper getting Best Director... I would've picked him as the least likely choice for Best Director. People are talking about David Fincher's 'snubbing' as being of Martin Scorsese-like proportions, but I think David Aronofsky did the most revolutionary and inspiring work of the nominees. As great as The King's Speech is, the direction is fairly bog-standard for the most part. I think the Academy voters sometimes have a hard time seperating 'Best Film' from 'Best Director' (which is the fault of the directors for continuing to trumpet auteur theory as evidence that they are a film's ultimate author) but what can you do?
If I were to describe the 'plot' of Blue Valentine to you - couple breaks up as we see flashbacks to how they got together - well, it would sound banal and uninteresting. I wouldn't really want to see a movie about that, so maybe you don't either. But this isn't a film to take at face value - it's a masterclass in script structure. In essence we have two stories playing out, the creation of a relationship, and it's collapse. Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are a young working class couple with a five-year old daugher named Frankie (Faith Wladyka). We start the film with the beginning of the relationship's breakdown... it's a marriage in stagnation, Cindy feels trapped and numb whilst Dean reaches for affection in escalating frustration. As we begin to learn the current dynamic of the couple the filmd also starts cutting back to their pre-marriage lives and the story of their blossoming love.
In a way it's quite a harsh film. We fall in love with them falling in love, their courtship is sweet, unabashed, entrancing... and at the same time we have to watch their love in the present as it degenerates into this complicated and vaguely unpleasant thing weighed down by their shared past. The brilliance of the way the past and present scenes are sequenced is that the details that we first see or hear of in the present are later given relevance and resonance by the scenes set in the past. The film simply couldn't work in a linear fashion. Instead it's a big cycle, as out of step with real time as Dean and Cindy become out of step with one another.
Williams is effectively givin two vastly different performances - the cold, uncommunicative characterisation of the present, and her hopeful and adorable youth. Ryan Gosling is equally good as Dean, giving a thoughtful and real performance of a hopeless romantic starved of love. This might be an intensely subjective interpretation on my part (coming at the film from the perspective of a man means that, in this case, I identify more with the male character) but Dean is a real life hero. His attitude to their child and the non-mention of what he did for Cindy and Frankie gives him the higher ground in my view, making it hard for me to empathise too much with Cindy. However, this is beside the point, picking sides doesn't achieve anything - the dissolution of a marriage is what it is, people often can't help the way they feel and Michelle Williams therefore has the harder part to play as the emotionally shut-down Cindy. These are real people making real mistakes, Blue Valentine never glosses over that - it takes the ugliness of reality as much as it take the beauty too.
I found one subtle aspect of the film incredibly interesting... the formative years of Cindy and Dean's respective childhoods are only alluded to in almost throwaway dialogue, but their backgrounds are a big part of why their relationship turns out the way it does (just like real life). Cindy's promiscuous youth and the influence of her bullish father as the dominant male role model in her life links into her unfulfillable desire for a connection and subconscious expectations regarding manhood and masculinity. Meanwhile, Dean's motherless childhood feeds into abandonment issues and associated insecurities that lead to jealousy. It's an interesting (and largely unsaid) subtext that deals with how broken homes may or may not affect the development of a child - Dean was raised in a broken home and turned out to be an inherently good man and father, whereas Cindy's parents remained together and she turned out to be a psychologically damaged individual (presumably) due to the pressures a loveless marriage put on her parents. This suggests that, despite Dean's wishes, staying together might not be the best thing for their daughter Frankie. It's a thought-provoking suggestion, the film never pushes it to the forefront but it's there all the same.
We've always had films about the dramas of real life, it's just that they're more realistic now and not crafted by artifice into exaggerated Hollywood melodrama. Blue Valentine is deceptively simple in execution but the way that writer-director Derek Cianfrance has steered partially-improvised performances and his award-winning script into such a carefully constructed and effective film deserves high praise. It's a funny and devastating examination of true love, bittersweet as a 'blue' valentine.
TRIVIA: To further heighten the 'reality' of this film, Ryan Gosling actually worked with a moving company to get into character. The guy who plays his co-worked Jamie (James Benatti) was his actual co-worker, and not an actor.
DIRECTOR: Derek Cianfrance
WRITER/SOURCE: Loosely autobiographical script by Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis.
KEY ACTORS: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Faith Wladuka, John Doman, Mike Vogel.
RELATED TEXTS:
- Derek Cianfrance's previous film was Brother Tied, an obscure indie feature-length made all the way back in 1998. The success of Blue Valentine means that his next full-length project, Metalhead, won't take as long to make.
- Allmovie.com compares Blue Valentine to The Hungry Ghosts, a drama about dysfunctional love by Sopranos star Michael Imperioli.
- I saw some tonal similarity to the film Pieces of April, a digitally-shot indie film about a fractured family coming together for Thanksgiving.
- The 1980s Meryl Streep films Heartburn and Falling in Love also deal with marriage break-ups and relationships, but they're a lot more 80s and neither of them is a particularly good film so I wouldn't go out of your way check them out.
- For other good films about the harsh realities of love, see (500) Days of Summer and Closer.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nomination Best Actress (Michelle Williams)
Golden Globes - nomination Best Actress - Drama (Michelle Williams) and Best Actor - Drama (Ryan Gosling).
Independent Spirit - nomination Best Actress (Michelle Williams)
Sundance Film Festival - nomination Grand Jury Prize.
(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)
The Mission
M (Bernard Lee) dispatches James Bond (Roge rMoore) to Harlem, New York, to investigate the murders of three MI6 agents. The murders have been connected to Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), the dictator of a caribbean island named San Monique, and a Harlem gangster named Mr. Big. Soon Bond is tracking one of the largest heroin smuggling operations the world has ever seen, and finds himself facing an array of jive-talking gangsters and voodoo fanatics.
Jimmy Bond Yo!
Roger Moore begins his reign as the definitive 1970s James Bond in this film, giving a fitting but different interpretation of the character. He doesn't go out of his way to be distinctive but still manages to put his own self-assured stamp on it. It's a more chummy and lighthearted performance than the previous Bonds, and Moore has great fun with a polite 'old boy' routine. His wisecracks are less smug than Connery's aloof characterisation, like they're more of a nervous habit or a mechanism designed to charm the opposition. In Connery's hands the wisecracks always sounded like they were strictly for Bond's own amusement, whereas Moore turns them into something a bit more practical or reflective of the character's psyche.
Bond's house is the typically classy bachelor pad one might expect from a superspy, complete with polished oak furnishings and a luxurious espresso machine (quite futuristic for the early 1970s). He goes to great lengths to hide his girl when M comes calling in the middle of the night, and has now taken to wearing black leather gloves. He also smokes cigars now (even while hang gliding!), can drive a bus and a speedboat, knows how to interpret tarot cards, and is savvy with a fishing rod.
Villainy
Yaphet Kotto plays Kananga, a seemingly righteous black tyrant who turns out to be the head of a rather lucrative heroin business. He's fairly humourless and cold-hearted, and has also taken to disguising himself as a Harlem druglord called Mr. Big. His masterplan is to distribute a billion dollars worth of heroin across America in order to jack up demand. As Mr. Big he has a rather pimptastic headquarters hidden behind a false wall in a Harlem restaurant. He also has a warehouse and crocodile farm near New Orleans, and (predictably) keeps a vicious pet shark in his lair back in San Monique.
Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris) is Kananga's main henchman - a genial giant with a robotic arm and penchant for chuckling as he goes about his violent business. He's one of the more interesting henchmen the series has created up until this point. Other henchmen include Whisper, a fat man with a beard and a hoarse voice, and Baron Samedi (the iconic voodoo figure in top hat and skeleton paint).
Buddies and Babes
Felix Leiter (David Hedison) makes his fifth appearance in the franchise as Bond's CIA man. They have a professional and easygoing working relationship but Leiter still gets exasperated by the trail of destruction Bond leaves in his wake.
Bond's main girl in Live and Let Die is Solitaire (Jane Seymour), a tarot card-reading employee of Kananga with the power of second sight. She's rather fey and naive, and lives in fear of losing her powers due to Kananga threatening to kill her should this ever happen. Bond becomes her way out, though at some points in the film it isn't entirely clear who she is loyal to.
Bond is also seen enjoying the company of Miss Caruso (Madeline Smith), an Italian girl he picked up at the end of his last (unseen) mission, and double-agent Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), a rather green CIA agent warned against Bond's womanising by Felix. Bond also gets help from two token black good guys - CIA agent Harold Strutter and Quarrel Jr (the son of Quarrel from Dr. No).
Locations
It's the grand tour of 70s blaxploitation locales, with the film set equally in Harlem, New Orleans and the island of San Monique (the first fictional country to be featured in the series). Harlem is mainly represented via a smokey restaurant-bar called the Fillet of Soul and crumbling New York slums, whereas New Orleans brings with it the requisite street-jazz, swamp shacks, crocodiles and redneck sheriffs. Jamaica stands in for San Monique, a fictional nation that brings with it all the stereotypical trappings of voodoo - snakes, sacrifices and Baron Samedi.
Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade
Bond gets a special magnetic watch from Q that can be used to unzip dresses and draw metal objects closer. It also doubles as a small circular saw. 007 also carries a bug-detecting device and a gun that shoots compressed gas pellets.
Always resourceful, James Bond takes care of a rather nasty snake by lighting his aftershave with a stogie. He always gets out of a rather sticky situation by using a group of crocodiles as stepping stones.
Licence to Kill
Echoing Connery's first fatality in Dr. No (a spider), Moore's first kill as James Bond is the brutal frying of a snake courtesy of a makeshift flamethrower. It's mentioned that he kills one of Mr. Big's men after scuffling with them in a Harlem alleyway but this is probably unintentional as Bond seems to just knock the goons out by dropping a ladder on them. More impressively, he blows up a man and his speedboat by using a tin can full of gasoline and some precious boat-driving. He also shoots dead two men during a voodoo ceremony, throws another into a coffin full of deadly snakes, and force feeds Kananga a gas pellet that inflates him to death. Finally, in the film's epilogue, he throws Kananga's chief hencman through a train window.
Shag-Rate
Roger Moore's first scene as James Bond is a post-coital one, courtesy of Miss Caruso, an Italian agent he picks up on an unseen adventure. He later spends the night with Rosie Carver, and shags her again in the forest after a spot of lunch. Last but not least, he uses Solitaire's belief in tarot to convince her that they're destined to be lovers, and beds her as a means to getting information. She then requests a second round, despite Bond admitting some duplicity on his part.
Quotes
BLACK CABDRIVER: Hey man, for 20 bucks I'll take you a Ku Klux Klan cookout!
BOND (after hearing Felix Leiter's voice coming from a special cigarette lighter) A genuine Felix lighter. How illuminating.
CARVER: I'm afraid I'm gonna be useless to you.
BOND: Oh I'm sure we can lick you into shape.
BLACK CABDRIVER: Well hello Jim, what's happening baby? Just ease back now Jim - relax. Mr B wants to see you.
KANANGA: Did you touch her?
BOND: Well, it's not the sort of question a gentleman answers.
KANANGA: What shall we drink to, Mr. Bond?
BOND: How 'bout an earthquake?
How Does It Rate?
One of the funnest Bond films to date, the series get dragged into the 1970s with a renewed sense of humour and the confidence to try something a bit different. Made during the height of the blaxploitation era, this is James Bond getting amongst hip black cats and black magic. Instead of foiling a plot to rule the world he's up against heroin dealers and voodoo-inspired fear tactics. It's a great turnabout after the rather stale Diamonds Are Forever - it's good to see the series off in a fresh new direction away from SPECTRE and Blofeld, and with an enthusiastic leading man in the form of Roger Moore.
Whereas the 1960s Bond films build on cold war fears of nuclear destruction, Live and Let Die uses the 1970s white fear of post-civil rights black anger as inspiration for its villains. It's a little problematic in the sense that there's an implication that all the black characters are in league with each other, like it's a black conspiracy (witness the character of Rosie Carver, and the likeable jive-talking taxi driver who turns out to be another one of Mr. Big's employees), but the danger of actual racism becomes somewhat irrelevant once it's revealed that Kananga's grand plan isn't to hold the world to ransom or exact revenge on white oppressors; he simply wants to sell a crapload of drugs. In this sense it all feels a little bit silly, the film is very much a product of its time and feels slightly unique for a James Bond film, but this is also a big part of its charm. The Paul McCartney-penned theme tune really seals the deal too, with the music being used as a dramatic sting for certain sequences to great effect.
It's not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, the speedboat chase becomes an excuse for a series of gags and the over-the-top comedy character of Sheriff J. W. Pepper (Clifton James). Some of the formula beats are getting a little predictable too - the last minute appearance of the chief henchman after everything seems done and dusted is starting to feel old, but these are really just minor things. I love the way Moore just breezes into the role like it's always been his, I love the music and the way the whole film leans so heavily into the blaxploitation genre, and most of all - I love that final shot of Baron Samedi on the train!
Visit my James Bond page.
DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Tony Mankiewicz, based on the novel by Ian Fleming,
KEY ACTORS: Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Julius Harris, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Clifton James, Geoffrey Holder, David Hedison, Earl Jolly Brown, Roy Stewart, Gloria Hendry.
RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming, which was actually the 2nd James Bond novel.
- Jamaica was previously used for location-filming in Dr. No.
- James Bond had previously visited the United States of America in Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger. He previously visited the caribbean in Dr. No and Thunderball.
- The blaxploitation sub-genre was at its most popular from 1971 to 1977... the two main films often credited with kickstarting it are Sweet Sweetbacks Badasssss Song and Shaft. Often popular or acclaimed blaxploitation films are Cleopatra Jones, Super Fly, Across 110th Street, Coffy and Blackula.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated Best Song (Live and Let Die)
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai has become such an ingrained part of pop culture that it's hard to come at it from a completely objective angle. Modern viewers will recognise well-worn archetypal characters and tropes of action-adventure filmmaking, and as a result may miss the inventiveness of Seven Samurai due to how cliched a lot of it has become. With this in mind, it's actually quite amazing that a lot of Seven Samurai still has that dynamic spark and survives as a truly wonderful epic of medieval Japan.
The story is quite a simple one... desperate farmers learn of an impending attack from bandits and decide to hire some samurai to protect their village. The first portion of the film follows the assembly of the seven samurai, each one drawn to the villagers via promises of glory, altruism and acceptance. It's the progenitor of what has become known as 'getting the band back together' (courtesy of The Blues Brothers), a protracted sequence that introduces us to each of these wildly different characters and their motivations as they band together. After that it's a story of pathetic farmers and the adventurous Samurai who team up with them, the incompatibility of their world views, and the bandit onslaught that will test the mettle of them all. The film plays through this story with several interwoven subplots, many of which have since become an intrinsic part of many action films.
The greatest aspect of the story is, without a doubt, the samurai of the title. The ronin are presented like the rockstars of feudal Japan, a self-sufficient caste of elite individuals who live by an honour code that sets them above regular folk. A lot of the main dramatic thrust of the film comes from the friction that arises between the samurai and the farmers... for instance, a samurai acts in accordance to their conscience (to some degree) and won't kill a prisoner of war who begs for mercy. A farmer on the other hand will do whatever it takes to survive... a farmer will lie, hide their food, kill a wounded stranger for his possessions, and happily take revenge on those who have wronged them (despite their pleas for mercy). A samurai doesn't know the sufferent a farmer endures though, and therefore has no conception of what drives them live outside of honour. This tension comes to a head via the relationship of the youngest samurai and a farmer's daughter.
Seven Samurai explores what it means to be a real samurai. These are heroes with doubts, humility and personal pain - a Japanese mirror for the increasingly adult characterisations that were coming to bear in American westerns at the time (the 1950s). Kurosawa uses groundbreaking techniques such as slow motion and horizontal wipes to keep the action fluid and interesting. He's also able to hold up such a relentless cacophony of action and battle scenes due to the level of depth he invests in the characters and the way he delves into the very philosophy of warfare itself. At first it's the farmers we feel sorry for, but by the film's end our sympathies lie with the samurai - a lonely caste whose only currency are their lives.
Of the seven samurai the standouts are Kambei (Takashi Shimura), the experienced and easy-going leader of the group, Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi), the cool-as-ice master swordsman who hates killing, and Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), a real dickhead and a samurai-wannabe who turns out to be the most complex character of them all. Mifune actually provides equal doses of comedy and pathos... I mean, how can you dislike a film where a samurai prances around in a historically-accurate costume that leaves his arsecheeks completely bare? Like the best adventures, it's a story of humour, sacrifice, courage and friendship.
DIRECTOR: Akira Kurosawa
WRITER/SOURCE: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, inspired by historical research undertaken by Kurosawa.
KEY ACTORS: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Seiji Miyaguchi, Isao Kimura, Yoshio Inaba, Bokuzan Hidari, Kamitari Fujiwara, Yoshio Tsuchiya
RELATED TEXTS:
- Remade as the western The Magnificent Seven, and later as a sci-fi film called Battle Beyond the Stars. The western inspired three sequels: Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven and The Magnificent Seven Ride, as well as a late 1990s television series also called The Magnificent Seven.
- Seven Samurai was Kurosawa's first samurai film, he would go on to make several others, including: Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, Hidden Fortress, Sanjuro, Kagemusha and Ran.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominations Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
BAFTAs - nominations Best Film, Best Actor (Shimura) and Best Actor (Mifune).
Venice Film Festival - won Silver Lion award. Nominated for Golden Lion.
I can imagine some people coming to this indie drama thinking it was another Ben Stiller comedy vehicle and being more than sorely disappointed. Ironically, this in itself is quite amusing. Stiller's Greenberg is like the most infuriating of his awkward comedy creations, with the pointed different that the world around him is a more realistic reflection of our own. This means that no one is laughing, least of all the audience, leaving Stiller's protagonist the dark and bitter flipside of his usual neurotic characters. It's an organic evolution of his earlier dramatic work in The Royal Tenenbaums and Permanent Midnight, but there's also a sense that Stiller is building himself an escape tunnel from typecasting, like he's starting to feel his way down the Bill Murray career-revival route just in case the public suddenly grows tired of Meet the Motherfocker or whatever his next blockbuster will be called.
Greenberg isn't a Stiller vehicle though (despite the title and star billing). It continues writer/director Noah Baumbach's exploration of dysfunction and misanthropy in due course, and is as much about the character of Florence (Greta Gerwig, who is fantastic by the way), whom Greenberg collides with during his L.A. sojourn. Greenberg is a post-nervous breakdown man in middle age, the letter-writing black sheep of his family, who returns to L.A. after a long absense to look after his brother's house. Once there he meets Florence, his brother's housekeeper and a vulnerable young woman who treads a fine line between ultra-nice and just having no self esteem. Florence is such a doormat that it will take a very special kind of arsehole to push her to change. Greenberg is just that arsehole.
There was a lot about Greenberg that hit a little too close to home for me, and for a lot of the 'slacker' generation it may be a bit too much to bear. There's something pathetic about someone of Stiller's age living the aimless lifestyle of a 19-year old, he exemplifies those who get left behind whilst all their friends and peers have families or embark on careers. This is slightly horrible but, in a way, the film made me feel a lot better about myself as a person. I wish it didn't and it kind of sucks in that respect... as far as films go, it's the most convincing argument for 'selling out' that I've ever seen (the film even directly addresses this with a subplot about Greenberg turning down a record deal in his youth) and this makes it a rather cynical and blackhearted piece of storytelling.
On an idealogical level (and this is mainly in relation to Stiller's character) I think I hate this movie - it's a dreamkiller and the more I think about it the more depressing it gets. If Noah Baumbach didn't already have the rather cool job of being a filmmaker then I'd label the whole thing a self-indulgent justification for turning one's back on art and creativity. As it stands, it's just a slightly weird and incredibly conservative ode to the sheep of the world. I'm not ragging on the positives of family life or the idea of settling down - the film doesn't really address any such thing due to placing it's entire narrative within the P.O.V. of Greenberg. It's just not a very enjoyable experience to see a talented creative team take all the negative aspects of a lifestyle choice and then use them to build such a cringeworthy portrait of wasted youth, selfishness, and bitter adulthood. As much as I might agree with what the film says, the idealist in me still never wants to see it actually said out loud. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much.
I admire Baumbach for putting difficult characters like Greenberg at the centre of his films but it unfortunately also means that I just don't enjoy the experience, especially when it's done in such a smarmy yet earnest fashion. It might redeem itself through intellectual stimulation for some people but since I don't really like what it has to say it still falls down for me. Definitely an acquired taste.
DIRECTOR: Noah Baumbach
WRITER/SOURCE: Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh
KEY ACTORS: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh
RELATED TEXTS:
- Baumbach has written and directed two other films, The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding.
- I think there are more than a few superifical similarities between the character of Greenberg and Steve Coogan's eponymous character from the British sitcom Saxondale.
- The Wackness is a similar mash-up that combines coming-of-age with a mid-life crisis, only it's a lot more entertaining.
AWARDS
Independent Spirit - nominated Best Cinematography, Best Feature, Best Actress (Greta Gerwig) and Best Actor (Ben Stiller).
The Hustler is often ranked amongst the greatest films ever made, and is often also flagged as being Paul Newman's definitive performance and the role that truly made him a screen icon. It also features on-the-ball performances from Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie and George C. Scott. All four leads in the film were nominated for Academy Awards for their work here, and the film overall was nominated for 9 Oscars, winning one for Art Direction and another for cinematography.
'Fast' Eddie Felson is a pool shark. He pretends to be a travelling salesman but actually makes his money hustling barflies - tricking them into playing against him for money, and subsequently cleaning up. Eddie has a real skill when it comes to pool games, and he seeks to prove himself to be the best when renowned pool player Minnesota Fats (Gleason) comes to town. The two duke it out in a marathon 40-hour session, with alcohol and sleep deprivation eventually getting the better of Eddie. Eddie becomes obsessed with beating Fats... he falls in love with a lonely drunk (Piper Laurie) and recieves some financial backing from the depraved and soulless Bert (George C. Scott), and slowly grows colder as his need to beat Fats consumes his soul.
What starts as an engaging and entertaining film about pool becomes something substantially more. Newman's portrayal of the cocky and charming hustler gradually gives way to the dirt underneath. It becomes clear that he is a 'born loser' - no matter how much Eddie wins he will never really be a 'winner', his obsessive nature ensures this and the ways in which he sabotages any other success that comes his way (including the possibility of true love) paves the way for one of the most tragic endings in 60s filmmaking. The rest of the cast is similarly in tune with the text, Laurie's pathological loner hits all the right marks and Gleason brings presence to a role that requires exactly that. George C. Scott in particular is remarkable as the cold-hearted Bert, reminding me just what a great and underrated actor he was.
The film wanes a little in the middle, but it's a neccessary dip that shows us Eddie's gradual consumption by obsession. The film has some great black and white cinematography, and the direction is beauiful... we get lurid, jazzy montages with scenes half dissolved over one another, conveying the passing of time with a bourbon-soaked lackadaisical quality perfectly in tone with the film's themes of greed and glory. The Hustler offers a sleazy and completely identifiable depiction of greed, a small-scale story that shows us the nature of an unhealthy lust for winning in a way that's relevant to our own everyday lives. It shows us what it means to be a 'winner' or a 'loser'. Newman's 'Fast' Eddie Nelson doesn't know when to quit. The price he pays is too high, but he learns it the hard way.
DIRECTOR: Robert Rossen
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Robert Rossen and Sidney Carroll, based on the book by Walter Tevis.
KEY ACTORS: Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Michael Constantine, Vincent Gardenia
RELATED TEXTS:
- The 1959 novel The Hustler, by Walter Tevis. Tevis continued the story of Eddie Nelson in a sequel novel, The Colour of Money, in 1984.
- Martin Scorsese adapted The Colour of Money into a film 1986, with Paul Newman reprising his role and teaming up with Tom Cruise.
- The Hustler also inspired the Steve McQueen vehicle The Cincinatti Kid, which is basically a retread of the same story but with cards instead of pool. The modern card-playing film Shade also echoes themes from The Hustler.
- Other films about pool or hustling include The Sting, California Split, Stickmen, Poolhall Junkies, White Men Can't Jump, The Baltimore Bullet and The Baron and the Kid.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. Also nominated for Best Actor (Paul Newman), Best Supporting Actor (Jackie Gleason), Best Supporting Actor (George C. Scott), Best Supporting Actress (Piper Laurie), Best Director, Best Writing and Best Film.
BAFTAs - won Best Film and Best Foreign Actor (Newman).
Golden Globes - nominated Best Actor - Drama (Paul Newman), Best Supporting Actor (Jackie Gleason) and Best Supporting Actor (George C. Scott)
Sometimes it feels to me as if the Europeans were able to appreciate the talents of Hollywood's classic stars more completely than Hollywood's own studio system did. The trend for the 'Golden Era' of Hollywood was to find and create certain archetypal stars who could then be cast and re-cast over and over again in the same types of roles, exploiting a formula designed for tried-and-true financial gain. As these superstars fell out of favour or grew too old to fit the moulds they helped create, they would sometimes look abroad to Europe in order to keep working.
Europe was a wildly different environment to Hollywood. Even the most acclaimed European directors were often in awe of America's command of the film world, but they were also without the restrictions enforced on Hollywood by McCarthyism and the Hays censorship code. I'm talking about this because The Swindle features a lead role that was originally written for Humphrey Bogart. It would've seen the increasingly frail Bogart playing a lonely, petty con-artist. It's a great role and perfectly attuned to his screen image but with the added benefit of not being restricted by the rules and hallmarks of mainstream American filmmaking in the 1950s. Unfortunatel, Bogart died before the film was made (I'm not even sure if he had accepted the role), and the character went to another American actor, Broderick Crawford (but more on that later).
Augusto (Crawford) is an ageing conman in Rome, living from day to day whilst making moderate scores. He has a rich man's lifestyle, with little regard for how he spends his money. It's starting to become increasingly clear to Augusto that his life is worthless without anyone to share it. He has no true friends, and his dreams of owning his own club are dismissed by his peers. A chance meeting with his estranged daugher ignites a sense of humanity in him. It's a tinge of conscience that's too little too late though and might just cost him what little life he has left.
Crawford was an interesting actor for his time. He won a Best Actor Oscar for All the King's Men in 1949, a role of a lifetime that flung him onto the A-list despite the fact that he looked more like a bloated boxer than a leading man, and had just about as much manners. He enjoyed a string of decent (if typecast) roles in the early 1950s before the offers ran out. Hollywood might not have known what to do with him but director Federico Fellini puts him in a role here that's wringing with pathos and makes great use of Crawford's natural cantankerousness. His status as an outsider is used to good effect amongst his Italian co-stars, further highlighting Augusto's loneliness and ineffectiveness in relation to the other subplots.
The Swindle is often considered one of Fellini's lesser works , seeming a lot more toned down and minimalistic than his usual style, but this film still demonstrates his mastery of human character and ability to find truth in the mundane tragedies experienced by those who live life in society's corners. It feels episodic and almost aimless at times, but all the subplots help contribute to Augusto's climactic realisations, and lead up to the decisiosn that will... I dont want to say 'alter' his destiny because it could be that his crummy life was always going to lead to a similar fate, but the beauty is in watching Augusto's feeble mind come to a point of self-actualisation. The whole film is a lesson in manipulating audience empathy, what happens 'next' becomes of little importance, it's about a certain middle-aged emptiness and about as good a mix between gutter realism and wiseguy philosophising as you could hope for.
DIRECTOR: Federico Fellini
WRITER/SOURCE: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli.
KEY ACTORS: Broderick Crawford, Giulietta Masina, Richard Baseheart, Franco Fabrizi, Sue Ellen Blake, Irene Cefaro, Alberto Di Amicus, Lorella De Luca
RELATED TEXTS:
- The Swindle is sometimes considered part of a Fellini trilogy of films about loneliness and social isolation, the other two being The Road and Nights of Cabiria.
- For other films about conmen, check out The Grifters, The Sting, Paper Moon, Matchstick Men and Catch Me If You Can.
AWARDS
Venice Film Awards - nominated Golden Lion award.
(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)
The Mission
After disposing of Blofeld (Charles Gray) once and for all, James Bond (Sean Connery) is called upon to infiltrate and bust up an international diamond smuggling ring after several mysterious murders in South Africa. He follows the trail of dead bodies and missing diamonds to Las Vegas, where Blofeld is alive and well and building a diamond-powered laser satellite that will enable him to extort copious amounts of money from the world's governments.
Jimmy Bond Yo!
Sean Connery returns as James Bond to little fanfare. He's visibly aged, with greying temples, and takes an easy stride through his familiar role - either too comfortable or too tired to really push his performance. Bond is ruthless in his pursuit of Blofeld at the film's beginning, presumably because of Tracy's murder in On Her Maesty's Secret Service, though you wouldn't know it as no real references are made to it and Connery resolutely refuses to weigh the character down with angst.
Bond is a bit of a smug know-it-all when it comes to wines and sherries, and he has a reputation amongst crooks as some kind of unkillable superman (see Tiffany's shock when an undercover Bond pretends he has just killed 007). He looks thoroughly unimpressed with Shady Tree's standup routine, and knows his way around a craps table.
Speaking of crap, he gets it kicked out of him by two female thugs. Presumably this is because he's so conceited that their hostility takes him by surprise, or (equally likely) he's not comfortable brawling with women.
Villainy
Blofeld's involvement in this film initially seems to be restricted to the pre-title sequence, though this turns out to be a sleight of hand designed to surprise the audience halfway through the film. In the interim the main villains are Mr Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr Kidd (Putter Smith), a pair of Hale and Pace-like hillbilly hitmen who chuckle like Beavis & Butthead and seem to be gay lovers (I'm not joking about this part, they can be seen holding hands in one scene... it's a little bizarre and feels like a poorly-aimed joke). Glover and Smith deliver all their lines over-emphatically, as if every one of them is a hilarious dark-humoured joke. It probably doesn't help that Putter Smith (a jazz musician) had never acted before and would rarely act again.
Blofeld (in his third and final appearance as Bond's main adversary) is played by Charles Gray this time, who gives the most boring performance of all the Blofelds. The character still wears a nehru-styled suit and has a fluffy white cat, but is no longer bald. He smokes cigarettes in a holder (much like the Penguin from Batman) and (directly contradicting the character in On Her Majesty's Secret Service) says that "Science was never my strong suit". Overall he's very British and affable, and no mention is made of the murder of Bond's wife in the previous film. He also has a rather glitzy office in a building called the Whyte House, disguises himself as a rather ugly lady at one point, and (for once) resists the urge to tell Bond his plan before executing it.
Blofeld's henchmen (besides Mr Wint and Mr Kidd) include Dr. Metz (Joseph Furst), an Einstein-like scientist, and two gymnastic females named Bambi and Thumper.
Buddies and Babes
The main Bond girl for this outing is Tiffany Case (Jill St. John), a member of an American diamond-smuggling ring who teams up with Bond after she realises her life is in danger. She seems fairly capable and on top of her job at first but inexplicably becomes a little ditzy once she turns 'good'. Bond also attracts the attentions of Plenty O'Toole (Lana Wood), a hanger-on at a Vegas casino who gets murdered when Blofeld's men mistake her for Case.
CIA man Felix Leiter (Norman Burton) also makes an appearance as Bond's American liason. By now (after teaming up with Bond in three other films), he's more than familiar with 007's modus operandi and seems rather weary about the whole thing.
M (Bernard Lee) is eager for Bond to get back to his regular spy duties after the Blofeld mission seems tied up. Q (Desmond Llewelyn) meets Bond in the field (Las Vegas) where he takes delight in using a new electromagnetic device to scramble and set off some slot machines.
Locations
Bond's pre-titles pursuit of Blofeld takes him to Japan and Egypt, but these exotic locales are represented by indoor sets most likely filmed in England. Early scenes in the story hint at a South African setting (which, inevitably, would've been better for the film) but 007's mission instead takes him to Amsterdam, Holland (chiefly represented by it's canals) and Las Vegas, America. The Vegas setting brings us casinos, chorus girls, cheap entertainment routines, the circus and the desert.
Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade
Bond has a finger-trap set up in his pocket that severely damages prying hands. He also carries a compact grapping gun that he uses to scale the outside of a skyscraper.
Our favourite agent also disguises himself as a diamond-smuggler named 'Peter Franks', chiefly aided by specially-applied fake fingerprints courtesy of Q. He gets the jump on the real Peter Franks by posing as Dutch elevator-man and speaking in broken English.
Bond also bluffs his way into Blofeld's test base using nothing more than charm and confidence, and even does that trick where you put your arms around yourself and pretend to be making out with someone (I would've thought he was a bit above those sort of primary school shenanigans, but I guess not). He also knows how to flip a car up onto two wheels on one side, which is pretty cool.
Licence to Kill
Bond drowns a man in some kind of medicinal mud dersigned to assist with plastic surgery, and pushes a Blofeld-double into a superheated pool of the same substance. He sticks another Blofeld henchman full of scalpals, throws a diamond smuggler down a stairwell, and kills another Blofeld'-double with a grappling gunshot to the head. Last (but not least), he kills Mr Wint by tying a bomb to him and throwing him into the ocean.
Shag-Rate
For the first time, Bond is seen getting romantic with only woman. Tiffany Case shags him as a means to finding out the whereabouts of some diamonds, patently unaware that James Bond is made of sterner stuff.
Quotes
JAMES BOND: My name is Franks. Peter Franks.
M (to Bond): We do function in your absence, Commander.
JAMES BOND: Anyone seeing you in that outfit Moneypenny would be discouraged from leaving the country.
JAMES BOND: That's a nice little nothing you're almost wearing. I approve.
JAMES BOND (suprised by thugs in his hotel room after bringing a girl back there): I'm afraid you've caught me with more than my hands up.
JAMES BOND (to rat in a concrete pipe): One of us smells like a tart's hankerchief... (he pauses) I think it's me. Sorry about that, old boy.
BLOFELD (considering targets for his new superweapon): If I destroy Kansas the world might not hear about it for years.
How Does It Rate?
Quite easily the worst Bond film of the series yet. The prologue - whilst the first truly 'pumping' action pre-titles sequence to a Bond film - feels like a cheap way to resolve the tragedy of the previous film. No mention is made whatsoever of Bond's dead wife... I understand that this is probably for the good of the film but when you have something as uninspired as Diamonds Are Forever, well, it might've been in their best interests to pursue the shocking ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
It doesn't help that the film's budget had to be cut in order to pay Connery's salary either, the climactic oil rig battle is a bit of a fizzer and Bond isn't even seen doing anything particularly heroic in said battle - instead he just messes around with a crane for a bit.
Also, what the hell happened to SPECTRE? This is an organisation that we saw using elaborate training grounds in From Russia With Love and employed a range of dangerous fanatics... now they seem to be faceless goons ruled over by Blofeld, using increasingly ridiculous methods to try and kill Bond and always giving him the chance to escape (witness the scene where he's knocked out and left in a concrete pipe... why wouldn't you just shoot him?!?) The very last scene, featuring an eleventh hour attack from Mr Wint and Mr Kidd (who disappear from the film altogether for an hour once Blofeld shows up) is unneccessarily wacky and ends the film on a rather sour note with one of them incompetently setting himself on fire (Bond doesn't even have to touch him!) whilst the other does a ludicrous somersault into the water after Bond gives him an explosive wedgie.
Overall, poor form - and a very good reason for Connery to end his involvement with the series then and there.
Visit my James Bond page.
DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankkiewicz, based on the novel by Ian Fleming.
KEY ACTORS: Sean Connery, Charles Gray, Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean, Bruce Glover, Putter Smith, Norman Burton, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Joseph Furst
RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming, the fourth of his James Bonds novels, on which this film is only partially based.
- The idea behind the film was to recreate the success of the earlier American-set James Bond film, Goldfinger.
- Blofeld also appears as the chief villain in You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
AWARDS
Academy Award - nomination Best Sound.
This is one of those indie-ish Oscar-bait dramas that deals with a taboo issue in a slightly confronting and serious way (think Little Children or Crash). In this case it's about parents dealing with the death of their child, the ways this can define who you are and how it impacts on a marriage.
We pick up the story of Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) nearly a year after the death of their fur-year old son. Becca is yet to start moving past the tragedy, she's built a shell around her pain rather than dealing with it or starting the healing process. This also means that Howie has been shut out, an dhe tries to get his wife to join him for group therapy sessions involving couples in similar situations. Becca isn't really interested though, she seeks out Jason (Miles Teller), the teenaged driver who accidentally killed their son, and begins a strange friendship with him. Meanwhile, Howie finds a possible intimacy with Gaby (Sandra Oh), a woman from the support group.
The 'rabbit hole' of the title is a graphic novel written by the character of Jason, which becomes a kind of metaphor for grief, isolation and disorientation. This aspect of the film didn't really go in the direction I expected... I guess, in a way, it's all part of the film's commentary on grief and the way people deal with it in different ways. The film's roots as a play are fairly evident in this respect - it's low on incident and high on angst. Ultimately, it's boring and a bit rubbish.
Kidman's Oscar nomination for her role doesn't really feel justified, and Eckhart has the more sympathetic part to play but it also just as forgettable. Kidman just doesn't convince as a dowdy housewife... who the hell gets stuck into their gardening whilst wearing full make-up? How can the audience be expected to identify with someone who makes creme brulee for breakfast, or a middle-aged man with an abtastic body? It's just not realistic... I understand that Hollywood is glamourous and about showing us beautiful people so we can escape from the humdrum of our lives, but it's not right for this kind of film. If Eckhart and Kidman want to convince in a hard-hitting drama than they need to put a bit of effort in to look the part. It's unforgiveable, really.
DIRECTOR: John Cameron Mitchell
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by David Lindsay-Abaire, based on his play.
KEY ACTORS: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest, Miles Teller, Tammy Blanchard, Sandra Oh, Giancarlo Esposito
RELATED TEXTS:
- The prize-winning 2006 play Rabbit Hole, written by David Lindsay-Abaire and originally starring Cynthia Nixon.
- Two other films that deal with grief and emotional survival are Ordinary People and The Sweet Hereafter.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nomination Best Actress (Nicole Kidman)
Golden Globes - nomination Best Actress - Drama (Nicole Kidman)
Independent Spirit - nominations for Best Actress (Nicole Kidman), Best Actor (Aaron Eckhart), Best Director and Best Screenplay.
