The Most Beautiful Movie of the Year - Which is Also a Bond Movie

Skyfall (2012) / UK / Out in cinemas now / Directed by Sam Mendes / Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan / Starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw / 143 mins

First off, I'll have to admit that I'm no Bond expert. To be honest, the only reason I ever gave Bond a second thought was because I saw a poster of Casino Royale and fell in love with Daniel Craig. I was 11, then, and I thought that Casino Royale was the sexiest film I'd ever seen. Since then I've only bothered to see Quantum of Solace, so really, I don't qualify to be giving Skyfall a review on its James Bond merits. However, this is a different kind of Bond film. It doesn't really live up to the womanizing, slick agent, gadget powered thing that I've pretty much always recognised Bond films as being. This is a film directed by Sam Mendes - who has built a name for himself by directing such drama powerhouses as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road - and most importantly, it is shot by Roger Deakins, who can make anything look beautiful. What we have here is James Bond on the brink of physical collapse, terrorist plots, and mostly an existential drama. However, it still has the familiar tropes of a James Bond films, which makes it one of the more intriguing projects of the year.

Skyfall takes on a whole different branch to the previous blonde Bond outings, instead 'killing off' Bond in the opening scene. However, while Bond manages to survive this 'death' and live off the grid for a while, he is brought back into the spy game when M (Judi Dench) and MI6 begin receiving threats - and the MI6 headquarters get bombed. Bond is launched into trying to find a stolen hard-drive which could break MI6's operations, which leads him to former agent Silva (Javier Bardem), who is bent on taking down M.

My Movie Biography: Extreme Obsessions and My "Favourite Directors" in 2007

So after telling (some of you) all about 2006, I'll move onto 2007 as we edge closer to my third blog birthday. Hopefully you enjoy this entry...

2007 was definitely a blossoming year for movies and I. Here are the most exciting things that happened:

• After going through that rough patch with Jake and Heath, I fell in love with Daniel Craig, all because that poster of Casino Royale was pretty hot. Once I was helping out at a horse show, and when I got bored I would get cinema showing times texted to me because they had Casino Royale in them. I mean, that was true love. I didn't see Casino Royale until three months after, but I did love it. I even bought the book, just because it had Daniel Craig on the front. 
• I bought my first Empire magazine issue. It had Lord of the Rings on the front. I read that issue five hundred times. It is just about in tatters. Now I have over five years worth of issues of the magazine.
• I saw my first R16. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I used to be the biggest advocate for not watching movies underage. People would tell me about how they watched R16s and then I'd give them a huge lecture about how they shouldn't have watched those movies because they were too young and that is against the law. Had my mother not insisted that we watch Psycho, then I probably wouldn't have seen any R16s until I was 16.
• I really loved that film, though. She showed me The Birds, and I loved that one just the same. Alfred Hitchcock became my first favourite director. 

• Even though I am dipping my toes in horror this month, when I was 11, I used to be a huge horror fan. I saw Carrie, and it became my favourite film. Okay, it was more of an obsession. I saw it one Wednesday night, and after that, I would not stop talking about it. I had to know every piece of trivia, I had to read the book, I watched some of the scenes over and over again on YouTube when my parents weren't home. I even did an entire speech on Sissy Spacek, even though I had only seen Carrie and Coal Miner's Daughter. It was a pretty exciting speech. I got into my first school speech final. Ever since then, I've been in every school speech final. It took me until 2010 to win one, and then I managed to get the speech prize again last year (but there wasn't a final...just a prize for whoever had the best speech). In a way, Sissy Spacek harboured my need to be awesome at speeches every single year.
• Another horror that I loved in 2007 was The Ring (the remake). I had it on videotape (oh the irony), and I watched parts of the movie every morning before school for weeks.
• In this year, I became convinced that I needed to make a DVD collection. I would save up my pocket money, and I'd be all ready to buy some ex-rentals from the shop, but Dad said that I could just "get them out when I wanted for free". So I didn't get any. For my birthday, however, Dad bought me The Devil Wears Prada on ex-rental, and I watched it over and over and over again. Words cannot explain how much I love that film. But I used to hate it when Andy started prioritising her career over her boyfriend, so I would always skip that part. Basically, I would watch it mainly for the clothes, and then I'd try and buy the same clothes from the Warehouse. That didn't go according to plan.
• I saw Mean Girls at some point through this year. I videotaped it off the TV (my main method of watching movies back in the day). That tape had the first few minutes cut out, so while I watched the film billions of times, it wasn't until when I bought the DVD that I saw those first few minutes. Even now they still seem really foreign. 
• I started my job at Blockbuster in 2007. I felt so cool. I didn't get paid though. CHILD LABOUR!
• Another obsession I had in 2007 (jeez, there were so many) was with Grace Kelly. Which of course introduced me to more Hitchcock films, which legitimately meant that I could call him my favourite director. But yes, Grace Kelly lived an interesting life...which I know because I read three different biographies on her.

• Probably the biggest obsession I had in 2007 was with Hairspray. When I say I was obsessed, I was OBSESSED. I mean, I know that 2007 was considered a great year in cinema because we had films like No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Gone Baby Gone, but come on, Hairspray was actually the best. It is just so funny, lively, colourful, inspirational...the full package, really. Wanna know how obsessed I was? At work we had some thieves around the place, so we had to change over the cases to more secure cases on the new release wall. This was one of the most boring, systematic jobs ever. There were over 1000 cases to change. It took an entire week, working from early in the morning to late in the afternoon. Honestly, if I was on the payroll, I could have got at least $500 for this. But what did I ask for? A Hairspray soundtrack. Which was like, $23. Maybe I should just remind Dad about that time and get what I truly deserved...
• The last "obsession" I had in 2007 was actually fairly embarrassing. Pulp Fiction was on TV late one night, so I taped it. I then watched it. I then became obsessed with it. The catch is that I DID NOT UNDERSTAND PULP FICTION. I watched it again in 2010, and it was like seeing a whole new film. No jokes. In fact, all I think I took from the experience was Mia's overdose, Mia and Vincent dancing and Quentin Tarantino's appearance in the film. Alas, those three scenes made QT my "new favourite director". Which is really embarrassing. I did try to watch Reservoir Dogs on Christmas Eve but my mother told me to turn it off because it had too much swearing in it. So I didn't see it until 2010.
• Alas, I did get a portable DVD player in this year. Which meant that I could watch movies filled with swearing and stuff without my parents ever finding out. But for some reason, I never finished watching Reservoir Dogs. Obviously, Quentin Tarantino was my "favourite director".

Check back tomorrow for 2008 in review. How about you, who was your first favourite director? Did you ever have extreme obsessions with movies?

Evil Shall with Evil be Expelled.

Film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Year: 2011
Director: David Fincher
Written by: Steve Zallian
Starring: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson, Yorick van Wageningen, Goran Visnjic, Steven Berkoff, Geraldine James. 
Running time: 158 min.
This is out in New Zealand cinemas on January 26th.

It is a tough life being a remake. Moreso if it is a Hollywood remake. There are the endless comparisons to the original. Then there are the differences between the two: if it is too different, people hate it; if it is shot for shot, people also hate it. And if Hollywood remakes a foreign film, then the makers get slammed for encouraging the lazy people who can’t be bothered reading subtitles. Yes, usually remakes don’t fare too well, but there is the occasional exception. David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one such example of that. However, there is an exception to that exception: Fincher has made it very clear that his version isn’t a remake of the 2009 Swedish hit. Instead, it is an adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular posthumous novel. A novel which has sold more copies than The Very Hungry Caterpillar. When you put things into perspective, a lot of people would like to adapt this book, but I’m glad that Fincher was the one to do it.

"How's your thirst for adventure, Captain?"

Film: The Adventures of Tintin
Year: 2011
Director: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish
Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Daniel Mays, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones, Joe Starr, Cary Elwes.
Running time: 107 min.

I was quite sceptical about going to see The Adventures of Tintin since I had no background knowledge on the ginger-haired journalist. Sure, I may have flicked through a couple of Tintin books at my school library as a kid, but I can't say I was ever that interested. So like The Muppets, which I saw less than an hour before this one, I was in for a completely new ride in what is quite an old adventure. And just like The Muppets, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Right from the moment when we were introduced to Tintin (who is voiced/played by Jamie Bell), getting his painting done (and the painting looks just like Hergé's original drawings, which would have been quite cool for many fans) while his cute dog Snowy investigates a wallet-thief, I already felt quite entertained. It was like a warm fuzzy feeling as Spielberg pulled me into his beautiful cinematic arms and didn't let me go until the credits started rolling.