Defiance

Defiance Poster
Originally uploaded by AsceticMonk

The Oscar nominations are coming out tomorrow and though at one time I wanted Defiance to be on the list of nominees now that I have seen it I can safely say that the only nominations I truly would enjoy Defiance receiving are for Daniel Craig & Liev Schreiber. Not that Defiance is a bad movie, but in a year that had movies like Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, The Dark Knight & In Bruges a movie like Defiance has its flaws pointed out instead of ignored.

What is truly remarkable is the story of Defiance; it is about a group of Jews at the outbreak of Hitler’s Germany and genocide that manage to evade capture by the Nazi’s by creating a settlement in the forests of Belarussia. It begins with four brothers and near the end of the war has grown to over 1,200 Jewish refugees. There story is awe inspiring, perhaps only equal to the likes of Oskar Schindler.

What is wrong with Defiance is the fact that parts of the story seem to be missing – it is as if the director trusted his audience to put two & two together too often, or that there were merely scenes still on the editing room floor waiting to be inserted into the film. A prim example of this is the romance between Tuvia & Lilka; she comes to the otriad, throws Tuvia a few meaningful looks and suddenly an ancillary character informs Tuvia that everyone knows that Lilka is hands-off. While not a killing point to the film, the leaps in story telling that occur do make Defiance slightly less than it could have been.

Defiance is an entertaining movie, but not a great one. I do believe that perhaps the film might have been helped if it was released in summer instead of Oscar season, but perhaps I can hold out hope for Craig or Schreiber getting an Oscar nomination.

Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Clayton Frohman & Edward Zwick
Tuvia Beilski: Daniel Craig
Zus Bielski: Liev Schreiber
Asael Bielski: Jamie Bell
Aron Bielski: George MacKay
Lilka Ticktin: Alexa Davalos

Gramov: How come it's so f---ing hard to like Jews?
Tuvia Bielski: Try being one.

From Russia With Love

From Russia with Love
Originally uploaded by CinefilSite

From Russia With Love is one of the Bond movies that I’ve never seen. It’s an early Bond film from before the gadgets, explosions and Bond girls got in the way of Bond. It’s a Bond film that really shows you why exactly Bond is the spy he was built up to be in fiction, why Connery is considered the best Bond to this day, and contrasts sharply with the Bond films of the past two decades and is a sharp reminder of why exactly is was necessary to scale Bond back to a movie more about the spy than the spies trappings – in essence why it was necessary for Craig et all to take Bond back to what everyone is calling a rip off of Bourne. Let me tell you this – the new Bond films are not imitating Bourne, they are emulating their predecessors.

Unlike the later Bond films From Russia With Love is a genuine spy movie, very convoluted in detail yet pretty perfectly worked out. Unlike a lot of other Bond movies what makes From Russia With Love unique is the self-awareness it possesses so early in the series – the villains want Bond out of the way permanently and they try to accomplish this by seeking a femme fatale on Bond knowing that he will be unable to resist a tempting and willing woman. What follows is a complicated plot that has Bond questioning everyone that surrounds him, falling for a woman that he knows he can’t trust, and trying harder than anything to foray through the foreign spy game of Turkey & Russia to win the game for England.

An early bond film cannot be discussed without discussing Sean Connery. While Connery is audibly Scottish, the bravado and charm he exudes as Bond makes it obvious that he is Bond body and soul. From the dashing smile to his ability to wrestle with a foe you never doubt Bond is anything but lethal, an opponent who is always several steps ahead of his enemy but waiting for them to make a move that will expose their entire charade and leave him the victor.

While I wholeheartedly feel that I need to see this movie again to really follow and appreciate it, I cannot recommend From Russia With Love enough to any Bond fan that hasn’t seen it or to anyone who wonders why the Bond franchise has been around for over twenty films.

Director: Terence Young
Writer: Richard Maibaum
James Bond: Sean Connery
M: Bernard Lee
Moneypenny: Lois Maxwell
Red Grant: Robert Shaw
Tatiana Romanova: Daniela Bianchi
Rosa Klebb: Lotte Lenya

Donald "Red" Grant: Is any of the opposition around?
James Bond: Not in any condition to be worried about.

Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace (2008) - Movie Wallpaper
Originally uploaded by GuitarBrother

“You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!”
Dr Evil – Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Dr. Evil may not have been a character in the Bond universe but he perfectly summarizes what the James Bond franchise had become; Bond was no longer about a badass British spy, but a man who had an invisible car, a watch that could shoot laser beams, drank an endless amount of martini’s and could bed any woman – and he happened to also be a spy. After 40+ years on the silver screen Bond had ceased being relevant and was simply a caricature of what it used to be. With Die Another Day Pierce Brosnan and crew tried to do something different with the franchise, but it was still far too farfetched to be ultimately different – Bond was getting overtaken by the likes of Alias and Bourne.

For 2006’s Casino Royale it was decided that the series needed a new angle, so not only was Pierce Brosnan out and Daniel Craig brought on as the “controversial” choice for the new Bond (why he was considered controversial for being blonde when Connery was a Scott and played the Englishman I have no idea) but the series was effectively “rebooted” starting at the beginning of Bond’s career. Casino Royale brought Bond back to the present, out of science fiction and made him relevant again.

That brings us to the latest Bond film Quantum of Solace which also brought on a series of “firsts” for the franchise – the film is the first direct sequel to the previous film, and maintained the same writers as Casino Royale. For once people behind the scenes were paying attention to the myth of Bond and not his gadgets – this is about the man and the spy not the explosions and the toys.

Quantum of Solace picks up literally where Casino Royale left off – Bond has captured Mr. White and brings him to M for interrogation. That’s where the fun starts, as we realize Bond is still clinging to Vespar’s memory Mr. White reveals that there is a large and powerful terrorist organization at play and manages to escape when an inside man tries to kill M. This starts Bond on his new quest to find this organization and figure out how it was tied into Vespar.

What I loved about this movie is that they were able to bring some of the loved elements of Bond into the film without making them feel like the cliché’s they were just a few years ago. For starters there is the very elaborate credits sequence at the beginning of the film, and the target shot at the end. There is also the wonderful homage to Goldfinger and we see Bond drinking a martini among other things. If you are a fan of the franchise you will spot the homage’s. I also enjoy that one of the Bond girl’s full names is Strawberry Fields, but that you never find out her full first name in the movie – just her last, I had to IMDB the movie to find out her name; it’s an homage to names like Pussy Galore without the cheesiness of actually having to hear it during the film and being forced to suppress the giggles.

I also am a giant fan of Daniel Craig. I first saw him in Layer Cake and when I found out he was Bond I was far too excited. I think that Craig is an exceptional choice for Bond and is probably my favorite right along with Connery. Craig makes me believe that Bond could not only kill a man but be the ladies man – both of which are critical to the essence of the character.

While I don’t think Quantum of Solace was quite as good as Casino Royale that is in no means intended as an insult to the movie. The film is a great addition not only to the Bond franchise, but to the body of film.

Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade
James Bond: Daniel Craig
Camille: Olga Kurylenko
Cominic Greene: Mathieu Amalric
M: Judi Dench
Mathis: Giancarlo Giannini
Strawberry Fields: Gemma Arterton
Felix Leiter: Jeffrey Wright
Mr. White: Jesper Christensen
General Medrano: Joaquin Cosio

M: It'd be a pretty cold bastard who didn't want revenge for the death of someone he loved.
James Bond: I don't think the dead care about vengeance.