My first response to Bill Desowitz‘s James Bond Unmasked was “what in particular has been masked about the Bond series, or about the actors who’ve played him over the last 50 years? Haven’t they all spoken out at one time or another, and with a fair amount of candor?”
But after reading his interviews with all six Bond guys — Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig — a satisfying sense of summation or completion kicks in. A finality as far as it goes. The gang’s all here. Has anyone spoken to all six and put them together in a single volume?
Desowitz and I spoke a day or two ago, or just after seeing Skyfall at the Grove. We covered most of the basics, the lore, the stories. Connery, Lazenby, Moore, etc. (I even mentioned my visit with Moore on the Pinewood Studios set of For Your Eyes Only.) Here’s the mp3.
It took Desowitz ten years to interview everyone and write it just so, proofread, pull the art together and so on. He’s been telling me about it for a long while. I was sent a copy a few weeks back, but I didn’t start reading until Skyfall was fast approaching.
Desowitz spoke to Connery on the set of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or about ten years ago. He reports that Connery, normally unenthused about discussing the Bond series and evasive for the most part, was in a receptive frame of mind because it mentally took him away from the frustration and unhappiness of working on Gentlemen, and particularly under director Stephen Norrington. A ten year-old interview obviously can’t be called fresh or new, but has Connery spoken to anyone about Bond since?
Framing-wise nothing gives me more pleasure than extra headroom and legroom. So it’s pleasing to know that the IMAX version of Skyfall (opening a day before the 11.9 general release version) will offer 26% more information than the 2.39 to 1 image that I saw two nights ago at the Grove, and which will be shown in non-IMAX theatres nationwide. It looks like something between 1.37 and 1.66.
2.39 to 1 general-release framing.
4 x 3 IMAX framing.
Skyfall opens in several overseas territories on Friday, 10.26, and in several more countries a week later. United States ticket-buyers won’t be the last to see it, but they’re almost at the end of the line.
“We shot 2.35 but because of the size of the chip, you’ve got so much space top and bottom that basically I shot it for both formats,” Roger Deakins recently toldBill Desowitz. “There are one or two shots where I had to put a dolly track in or maybe there’s a boom in shot. But the IMAX was clean and the image quality is fantastic because you’re using the full size of the chip. So I had seen a lot of tests and was blown away by the IMAX. We did a 4K finish and it’s down rez’d to 2K after that. It quite surprised me, the fantastic quality.”
Until Lewis Beale reminded me this morning about Curtis Hanson‘s Chasing Mavericks (20th Century Fox/Walden Media, 10.26), I hadn’t paid the slightest attention. It wasn’t even a blip, although I’m told that an LA screening may happen tomorrow. It’s unfair to generalize, but by today’s yardstick the more “inspirational” a sports drama seems to be the worse it probably is. I think I could live with never seeing another film about a young, starry-eyed athlete looking to capture a dream ever again.
Obviously this story of late surfing legend Jay Moriarity (who died just before his 23rd birthday on 6.15.01) didn’t pan out. And it reps a hard-luck episode for Hanson (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, 8 Mile, In Her Shoes, Too Big To Fail) as he was unable to complete directing chores due to heart troubles. Michael Apted oversaw the last two weeks of filming.
The trailer tells us some of the inspirational lines spoken by Gerard Butler‘s Frosty Hesson character (and written by Kario Salem) are agony. I can’t understand how Hanson, who knows from good dialogue, didn’t refine or rewrite or just toss them out.
The only surfing dramas I’ve felt anything for were John Milius‘s Big Wednesday, Kathryn Bigelow‘s Point Break and John Stockwell‘s Blue Crush.
Why did Moriarity have to have five syllables in his last name? Why couldn’t he settle for four? Four was good enough for Drew McWeeeny when he was known as “Moriarty.” People don’t like five-syllable last names.
Can a case made for a growing suspicion that any film costarring Butler is either bad or underwhelming or minor or cursed? Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen, The Bounty Hunter, Machine Gun Preacher, Playing For Keeps, Movie 43…all negligible.
An apparently non-professional critic named David Claytonwrote the following on Rotten Tomatoes:
“All these surfing films are the same — deep philosophy & respect for the waves, spectacular footage as boards & surfers race inside massive walls of water, but the story is landlocked & caught up in simplistic, melodramatic plot devices. This one’s based on a true story & the performances by leads Gerard Butler & John Weston are fine. I just wish the conventional romance, dealing with daddy issues, bullies & an alcoholic mother were skipped over since they leaden the plot with very predictable outcomes. I did enjoy the 90’s soundtrack (haven’t heard Butthole Surfers & Mazzy Star in a long while!), but coming from acclaimed directors Curtis Hanson & Michael Apted, I hoped for so much more.”
From the Wiki page: “Born in Georgia in 1978, Jay Moriarity and his family moved to Santa Cruz, California, soon after his birth. His father was a Green Beret parachutist and a surfer, who introduced his son to surfing when he was 9 years-old. He immediately took to surfing and quickly became a respected surfer in Santa Cruz. Not limited to either a shortboard or a longboard, he was known as a versatile surfer who appreciated all aspects of surfing. This appreciation was rooted in an overall love for the ocean, seen in his accomplishments as a swimmer, paddler, diver, and fisherman.
“Achieving success in surfing as a youngster, he became increasingly interested in surfing Mavericks, north of Santa Cruz in Half Moon Bay. After intense physical and mental training with his mentor and close friend and Mavericks regular Frosty Hesson, he began surfing Mavericks at 16 years of age, and soon became a respected regular in the line-up.
“In 2001, Moriarity co-authored a book with Chris Gallagher entitled, The Ultimate Guide to Surfing.
“Moriarity died a day before his 23 birthday on June 15, 2001, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of the island Lohifushi in the Maldives, drowning in an apparent diving accident. In Lohifushi for an O’Neill photo shoot, he went free-diving alone but was not seen after. A search party recovered his body late Friday night. Moriarity left behind his wife Kim Moriarity.”
“Every one of us, every person here, every human life presents a negotiation between public and private identity,” Cloud Atlas co-director Lana Wachowski said four days ago (10.20) in San Francisco during a speech at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser. “Invisibility is indivisible from visibility; for the transgender this is not simply a philosophical conundrum — it can be the difference between life and death.
“Years later I find the courage to admit that I am transgender, and this doesn’t mean that I am unlovable.
“A few short weeks ago after my coming out, the three of us — Tom Hanks, Andy and I — were being interviewed, one of the reporters ventured away from the subject of the film towards my gender. Imagine that, a reporter. My brother quickly stepped in [and said], ‘Look, just so we’re clear…if somebody asks something or says something about my sister that I don’t like, understand that I will break a bottle over their head.'”
That’s Andy for you! He’s the blunt-spoken one, the “aahh, fuck this” guy, the blurter, the Wachowski who’s impatient with bullshit in any form.
This is all very moving. It’s a very good story to tell and to hear. But would Lana, who (along with Andy) had been living a media-averse, media-intimidated, Thomas Pynchon– or Terrence Malick-styled life for the last 12 or 13 years, have told it if she didn’t have a movie to sell? Probably not.
It’s always crass and callow when a film-junket interviewer or reporter tries to steer a film conversation toward the realm of tabloid revelation, but it says something about the island that Lana lives on that she would say “imagine that” about a reporter doing this.
This wasn’t just an emotionally moving speech but a highly significant one from a major artist. The Hollywood Reporterwaited four days to post a video and a transcript of Lana Wachowski’s remarks because they had it slotted as an 11.2 magazine piece (which is weird), but why didn’t somebody else run with it earlier? Or did I miss something?
I still didn’t care for the portion of Cloud Atlas that I was able to force myself to watch in Toronto. It would be through, professional and responsible of me to see the whole thing, but I’m not looking forward to doing that.
I despise Brightcove embed codes. If I could eradicate these codes from existence by saying a prayer and clapping my hands three times, I would say a prayer and clap my hands three times. I won’t post them because they always screw everything up on the site.
“Over the last few years America has been knocked down,” Clint Eastwood‘s new Romney ad begins. He doesn’t mention that the financial meltdown of 2008 was largely brought to us by a rightist corporate takeover of this country, facilitated by the Wall Street deregulation under Bush (and yes, by Clinton also). The fair-deal, free-enterprise America that Clint grew up in has become a South American-style patriarchal society in which a tiny elite live like pampered sultans while everyone else scrimps — a social scheme authored by Republican scum.
Clint’s solution? American needs to go more corporate, more white bread, more Republican.
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.
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.”
I have to say this carefully as I don’t want to sound unappreciative or ungrateful. The new Criterion Bluray of Roman Polanski‘s Rosemary’s Baby (10.30) is a very high-grade thing. It makes the 1968 classic look as lustrous and scratch-free as it did when it first opened. And it sounds crisp and full and clear as a bell.
And the disc includes a well-polished, smoothly cut documentary — “Remembering Rosemary’s Baby” — that includes face-time with Polanski, Mia Farrow and former Paramount studio chief Robert Evans. I think I liked the doc better than the film because I’ve seen the film too many times whereas the doc is fresh and new as far as it goes.
So what’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong. It looks totally fine except…I’m not even sure I want to say this because I don’t mean to sound like a Bluray peon. All right, eff it, here we go: Baby Blu looks like film, and I was sorta kinda hoping for a blend of celluloid and digital enhancement that would somehow take it beyond what it was when Polanski signed off on the final answer print. No, I don’t want a “shiny” Spartacus– or Patton-level DNR deal, but I wouldn’t have minded a little DNRing. Just a tiny bit of sweetening, just a tad. But that’s not what the Criterion monks do. Their Blurays of older films always look like celluloid running through the gate of a Norelco DP-70, and sometimes that’s fine and sometimes it’s mildly disappointing and sometimes it’s a little “meh” and sometimes it’s great. This is one of the fine ones.
I only know that the Baby Bluray doesn’t have that special plus quality, that look of “whoa!…this looks better than ever!” that Blurays sometimes provide. Criterion’s Sunday Bloody Sunday Bluray has that look, or at least it looks significantly better than I’ve ever seen it on a home screen before. But their Rosemary’s Baby Bluray, truth be told, looks roughly the same as it did when I bought the DVD ten or 12 years ago and played it on my Sony 32″ analog flatscreen. And it looks roughly the same as it does when I play the Netflix version on my iPad 3. And it looks about the same as it did the last time it played on Turner Classic Movies. And it looks roughly the same as when it opened in Boston’s “combat zone” on June 13, 1968.
The Rosemary’s Baby Bluray, in short, wasn’t mastered with the idea of taking your breath away, or at least the idea of taking away the breath of someone like myself, a Bluray-worshipping, semi-sophisticated cineaste and ex-projectionist who doesn’t mind a little tasteful DNRing. It’s made for the grain dweebs who will say “whoa, really nice grain structure!” It looks like it’s being projected at the Criterion theatre a week after Bobby Kennedy was killed with a first-rate projectionist in the booth. Grain purists like Glenn Kenny will probably be happy, and I’m not putting Kenny down when I say this. So I’m not “complaining.” Really. It’s fine. I’m just saying “it is what it is.”
I’ve given up on seeing Rosemary’s Baby at 1.66 in my lifetime, but I would have been just a tad happier if Polanski and Criterion guys had at least used a full-screen 1.78 to 1 aspect ratio and given it just a bit more height instead of faintly cropping at the tops and bottoms in order to give it a 1.85 aspect ratio.
