Spectre

I’ve been reading the lot of different scalding takes on James Bond since I was able to see a private Ellensburg screening of “Spectre” with 12 of my closest Ellensburg friends (some of which were able to point out quite verbally that the Star Wars trailer was indeed for the new Star Wars movie).

A lot of these takes include phrases like “How this shit killed Bond” or “Why 007 is dead” or “The Legacy of James, why you should click my shitty thought-piece about how these Bond movies are kind of like other movies that are out this generation. Ya know? I made connections to different pieces of pop culture in a similar era. I’m a good writer, see?!”

The thing is, it doesn’t fucking matter. Yes, this is the first time a James Bond plot has intertwined throughout multiple movies. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Like the man in the Rolling Stone so eloquently put it, Bond adapts to the times. Whether it was Moonraker in space, Brosnan driving through a fucking city with a tank or Craig bringing his grittier persona to character, the point is, Bond is fluid. It has to be. Bond would not have survived this long if it wasn’t.

Now I am a canon junkie. I’m a franchise guy, I like big universes and I like references back to things. It’s gratifying to me. That’s why I can apologize for this movie. The main plot of “Spectre” to me served a similar role to “The Dark Knight Rises.” An unnecessary, but fun and satisfying conclusion to a series of films. Do people that say this movie “KILLS BOND” wish they hadn’t made “Spectre”? I don’t get it.

But besides the sort of contrived link to the past decade of films, which admittedly I’m a sucker for, I understand if people didn’t like it. But on it’s own, I thought it still offered a lot. Besides all the sweet helicopter action, as someone who has seen all the movies, and as a huge Bond fan, seeing Blofeld on screen for the first time since 1983 (and canonically for the first time since 1981), was FUCKING AWESOME. I feel like people don’t understand how iconic of a character he is. Just like Bond, he’s been portrayed by half a dozen actors, he has probably one of the most recognizable parody portrayals and I thought Christoph Waltz did a great job.

I did think the whole adoptive brother thing was kind of dumb and felt pretty forced, but I loved the torture scene. The cat was perfect, the watch explosion and the escape was sweet, and when Blofeld comes back with the scar, I lost my damn mind. Blofeld rules, and the fact that they brought him back for this movie, to me, makes up for a lot of the weaker, forced shadow organization stuff. Again, Blofeld rules. He’s got that cat, remember? Dr. Evil? Does no one remember?

I also really feel like Daniel Craig has quietly gone full circle from being everyone’s least favorite, to favorite Bond, back to being THE MAN THAT KILLED BOND. Please relax. In my humble opinion, he has been one of my favorite Bonds. Maybe it’s just because he’s the Bond whom I’ve grown my fandom through, but I definitely cared about him more than I did any other portray-er, and maybe that’s a result of the films being connected. Craig is great, and I hope he never comes back. (Unless he comes back for one in like 2043 that’s unofficial).

These were Bond films for the multiverse era, and that is OK. There is nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with people not liking it. Soon there will be a new Bond for a new era, and I’m excited and afraid, like I should be. I’m sure every generation’s Bond critics have declared the death of the franchise. Hell, who thought he could come back from the diamond man’s ice palace?

All in all, Spectre was a good, not great Bond movie. Probably ranks third for me in the Craig era behind “Skyfall” and “Casino Royale.” People just need to understand, not every movie will be the best movie ever, and just because you think something is kind of done, doesn’t mean it’s dead.

James Bond Will Return. He has to, cuz like, they make a lot of money, and stuff.

Skyfall

I was going to try to fit bone into the headline somehow…but with our recent conversations about 007 and his genitalia, but I thought this was more appropriate. Or inappropriate. That’s what you call diverse writing.

This was the first movie I’ve ever seen in a theater by myself. Well I wasn’t really by myself. I was surrounded by 200 elderly people hacking up their lung butter every time Bond was trying to make sexy lady moves. I couldn’t help but thing maybe that was why he wasn’t getting very lucky this time around.

Anyway, Skyfall is all about Bond and how he’s losing a step, becoming “old balls” if you will. After a near-death experience, Bond isn’t quite what he once was. He’s on edge, jittery. He’s lost his marksmanship, he’s lost as step physically and we find out that his upbringing was less than ideal, leading to some mommy/daddy issues.

Thankfully this is all just in time for homosexually-charged Javier Bardem to get a list of all the MI6 agents and starts pickin’ em off one by one. As if Bond didn’t have enough shit on his plate, he’s gotta deal with this now. At this point in the movie he’d only gotten laid once.

So basically I felt that two over-arching themes “pop, pop”ed out to me in this installment. The first was the old, “I’m getting too old for this shit” shit. I really had a hard time buying into this, since it seems like the series was rebooted to have Daniel Craig portray a younger Bond. We’re only three movies in for heaven sake and he’s already too old for this shit? I wonder at what point in the Roger Moore was getting to old for the shit. Maybe he never did. Although in Craig’s defense, the toughest thing Moore ever did on-screen was…look handsome? Nah, probably the clown thing.

The second theme I saw…well it’s hard to put a finger on. The film was basically trying to tell us what the James Bond franchise is all about. I watched the 60 Minutes interview with Craig the other day, and they asked him why the movies weren’t as campy and fun. He basically said that they had to earn that right. They literally leveled the franchise, because Die Another Day was so bad, that they had to start from scratch.

You can see in this movie, they slowly are starting to add the themes back in. Tastefully I might add. We have Q, but he doesn’t give him that much cool stuff, he’s merely introduced. We see a couple of one liners. While not the greatest, they still made me feel fuzzy. I smiled and felt apart of the movie as a Bond fan. There’s some other great moments that harken back to the days of Connery, but I won’t spoil too much.

Lastly, the thing that made this movie great was they reminded us that no one in Bond is irreplaceable. The reason the franchise has been able to survive for this long is because although actors may come and go, characters, positions, themes…all the reasons we keep coming back for more are still there. Bond is still Bond, and while Daniel Craig isn’t my favorite 007, he’s growing on me fast. At least he’s not emotionally stunted George Lazenby.

Moneyball

Moneyball was an interesting experience for me. When I first heard they were turning the hit book into a movie, I was halfway through a book entitled The Book. That book is a straight up text book read, and although it’s extremely well written and interesting, it is definitely not an easy read. There are no stories, no background, no people or characters, just numbers. Pages and pages of charts and tables, while educational, can lull you to sleep.

That is always the false impression I’d gathered from people talking about Moneyball. So when the rumors of a movie came out, I didn’t think it was going to work, but I was still very excited. Because, you know, baseball.

When started the book, I was amazed. Not that it was the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but it wasn’t a textbook! There were characters! Michael Lewis does a great job setting the scene of Billy’s past, the draft room, the video room, it’s all clear in my mind. There are, of course, more number heavy sections, like when he’s explaining fielding metrics and the different statistic companies that arose independently. But all these gory details could easily be eliminated for the big screen without taking away from the book, and it worked well.

The only real problems I had with the movie were when sometimes it was a little too obvious that they were cramming ideas from the book into made-up scenes from the movie. The most obvious part to me for instance, was the whole David Justice being old balls. In the book, it’s easier for Michael Lewis to just explain to the readers who David Justice is, and how his balls are old and slow. But without a narrator, they had to try to cram it in by having some bimbo TV reporter be like, “Hey, I heard you suck and are old as balls, is that true? How are you going to be able to play with such old balls?”

I’m paraphrasing obviously, but the way the TV reporter acted took me right out of it, because TV reporters are little pussies, and would never say something that direct and upfront. Maybe if they had an old crusty columnist, it would have worked better.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Brad Pitt in the role, even though he won me over more and more as the movie went on. I thought the movie as a whole kind of portrayed Beane as dumber than he really is, and I felt it made him seem like every idea was Jonah Hills, even though I thought Beane had been interested in Bill James before he met DePodesta, but I could be wrong.

Overall, I really liked the movie, and when it comes to baseball movies, it’s probably my favorite. It combines my interest with sabermetrics and my love of baseball, to something I think we all love, a good underdog story. Despite how I can’t stand the A’s and how boring they are and how they are, or the fact they are division rivals, it’s still a great movie and I’m glad it came together how it did.