Day: October 23, 2012

I think Sam Mendes‘ Skyfall is one of three or four best James Bond films ever made, and easily the best one starring Daniel Craig. (Yes, better than Casino Royale.) It rids itself of some of the tired 007 cheese and starts afresh and has an actual theme (the old giving way to the new) and goes a little bit darker, especially in the final act. Actually a lot. I think it’s as good as From Russia With Love or Dr. No, and that means something coming from me.

And Javier Bardem is definitely the funniest and most flamboyant Bond villain since…I don’t know who. Chris Walken? And he doesn’t even show up until the film has been running for 65 minutes or so. And it has the best opening credits sequence since…I don’t know, Goldfinger? Thunderball?

But I have to leave for an early screening and haven’t time to get into it. Tomorrow. This has been one of those lazy, frazzled days in which I can’t seem to dig into anything or push out sentences that amount to anything at all. Here, at least, is my favorite review so far, written by Indiewire critic and 007 aficionado Bill Desowitz

“James Bond films have always been about looking forward and back at the same time, but never more so than in Skyfall, which is both a homecoming and a breakthrough for the 50th anniversary,” he begins. “In fact, it’s all about exploring the old and the new. That’s the central metaphor; it’s embedded in every ambiguous moment. It was worth the extra year taken to craft the script, do the prep, and hone every delicious detail into an organic whole.

“Of course, it helps to have Javier Bardem as a flamboyant baddie with a personal grudge that’s right up there with Dr. No and Goldfinger, or cinematographer Roger Deakins providing such visual elegance. It’s not just a matter of making Bond more relevant. [Director] Sam Mendes has deconstructed Bond so well with screenwriter John Logan in order to elevate him dramatically.

“You have to know the rules before you can break them. Or in this case, transcend them. As a result, Mendes has not only made a great Bond movie but also a great movie. Period. Forget Bourne. Bond is now as thematically rich as The Dark Knight.”

I’ve just watched a few portions of the new Vertigo Bluray that’s part of Universal’s Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection, and I can report that the aubergine tint in James Stewart‘s brown suit — a fairly persistent element in the DCP version that I saw on the Universal lot last August — is now a mostly tolerable, off-and-on thing. It’s become a mood suit that sometimes drifts into faint aubergine brown, depending on the source of light.

The suit is solid brown in sunlight or shaded-sunlight scenes (Stewart following Kim Novak in the car, spying on her at the Mission Dolores cemetery) and aubergine-tinted when he’s indoors in Midge’s apartment or inside the McKittrick Hotel. So it’s still a slight problem but not much of one. I’m done with it. I can live with it, I mean. Yes, I wish the suit was pure brown all the time but the likelihood of the Universal guys re-doing Vertigo properly is very slight so we just have to live with it, and it’s not that bad anyway.

Here’s an alternate take in which I pass along the same observations but in a slightly different way. I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon (except for work out time) sampling these Blurays. Can’t wait. I have a date with aubergine-tinted brown suit destiny!

Last night I chose to see Sam Mendes‘ Skyfall (best Daniel Craig Bond ever, and one of the top four or five 007s ever made) rather than catch the third and final Presidential debate live. As good as Obama sounded last night I just don’t think it matters to the people I’ve respectfully referred to as “low-information dumbasses.” They don’t want to know from debates, and they just want some of that Romney money. Vote for Romney, receive your Romney rebate check ($2789.00 per U.S. citizen) in the mail within 60 days, and doom the country to the judgments and regulations of a rightwing Supreme Court for decades to come.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Stanley Kubrick exhibit will open on November 1 and stick around until 6.30.13 — a full eight months. The first U.S. hosting of the Kubrick show is the same Stanley Kubrick exhibit that I attended at the Paris Cinematheque Francaise in May 2011. Why New York has been bypassed thus far is a mystery. Production designer Patti Podesta hasl designed the LACMA show.

A discussion of Kubrick’s films between LACMA curator Elvis Mitchell and former Kubrick producer Jan Harlan will also happen on Saturday, 10.27, at 1 pm.

Jordan Hoffman: “Gotta be honest — Robert Downey Jr.‘s carefully rehearsed way of sounding off the cuff is starting to get on my nerves.” Wellshwood: “I’ve been feeling this way since at least the first Sherlock Holmes flick — a movie that mainlined green poison into my veins.”