Casino Royale and Skyfall

James Bond: Vodka martini.
Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
James Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Skyfall marks the fiftieth year of James Bond in film but with the iconic franchise having already influenced generations of filmmakers, it was high time they influenced the franchise in return. When Daniel Craig was cast as the next Bond, the franchise took a dramatic turn away from increasingly unbelievable gadgets and gimmicks to a grittier, more realistic look at the life of a spy.

In Casino Royale, we see how Bond earned his 00 status and his first missions. This Bond is reckless and unfeeling, almost naive in his willingness to catch the rabbit at the expense of the deer, but calculating enough to sacrifice people like pawns and kill any loose ends. M speaks harshly on his extreme detachment but in reality it is one of his best qualities as a spy. It is his ego that gets him into trouble. He is willing to expose the actions of MI6 and even compromise his mission due to his belief that he knows best. But when he is humbled and must accept the help of the CIA due to losing the trust of MI6, he succeeds in his mission and is rewarded with the love of the woman he loves in return. However, just when they have agreed to go away together and leave MI6, he discovers that she made a deal with the criminals and is giving them millions of dollars that should have gone to Britain. In spite of his sense of betrayal, he tries to save her as she drowns but she chooses death. Bond learns that he cannot trust anyone, a lesson M commends, but as an audience, we learn that there is no more happy ending for Bond. There is no more sailing off in the sunset with a Bond girl in his bed, warmed by the afterglow of vanquishing the dragon and protecting the ignorant townspeople. In the end, he brought down a banker not a terrorist and all he has to comfort him in the darkness is his love of country.

In Skyfall (since we have banished Quantum of Solace from memory), Bond returns only to be wounded by friendly fire at M's command. He is missing and presumed dead, but after a cyber terrorist attack destroys MI6's headquarters (not so secret anymore), he returns from his beach bum life to serve his country and M, who is being blamed for the attack. Bond isn't the agent he used to be. He is older, out of shape, and suffering from old wounds, but M, relying on her own judgment instead of the tests, puts him into the field anyway. After a dazzling array of golden era Bond spectacle, we meet the flamboyantly dramatic mastermind, a former spy who is attacking MI6 with no greater desire than to get revenge on M who left him to be tortured by the enemy for months. Jaded, bitter, and more than a little crazy, Silva is everything Bond could have become after he was shot in the back. Silva has embraced the modern world and the new forms of terrorism it brings. He has no country, no greater cause, simply a grudge and psychopathic tendencies. He derides Bond's outdated sense of love of country and reliance on the physical versus the technological. Bond and the spy world he represents is a thing of the past, no longer wanted by the people they are protecting. But in the end both Bond and M prove that they are needed now more than ever in a world where enemies don't have faces or sometimes even names. They bring the fight to them and overcome Silva with more than the physical. They have the mental strength to beat the M-obsessed Silva and do what Q, in his pajamas, could never do. At the end of the film, Bond's world is restored in full to how it was in the books and original movies. He has Moneypenny at her desk and a new assignment from a new, male M.

By examining how the nature of espionage has changed since the Cold War, Sam Mendes manages to restore the Bond franchise to its former glory. He brings it new life while restoring the former elements that made it great. With these two movies we are left with a grittier Bond with more depth and realism than he has ever had. Fingers crossed the next film is just as good.

Cloud Atlas

"Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime; and every kindness we birth our future."

When I first saw the Cloud Atlas trailer, I knew it was something I'd have to see in theaters because for one thing, the trailer is beautiful and I love Tom Tykwer's work. But from everything I'd read, I knew this movie was taking a pretty expensive chance and that's something I respect. And even though this film wasn't for everyone, for me it paid off.

Cloud Atlas, based on David Mitchell's book, interweaves six different stories in six time periods and uses the same cast for each story. In 1849, Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess), an American lawyer, sails from the Chatham Islands back to America and must decide what to do with a runaway slave (David Gyasi) who has stowed away on board. In 1936, aspiring composer Robert Frobisher (Ben Whitshaw) tries to overcome his scandalous past by writing his masterwork, the Cloud Atlas Sextet. In 1973, spunky, young reporter Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) tries to uncover a suppressed safety report of a nearby nuclear reactor. In 2012, Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent)  tries to escape his nursing home after being put there by his brother (Hugh Grant). In 2144, Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae), a fabricant working at a restaurant, is freed by a member of the resistance (Jim Sturgess) and learns of the unjust treatment of her fellow fabricants. Finally, 106 winter after the Fall, Zachry (Tom Hanks), a primitive tribesman struggles with his darker side (Hugo Weaving) while guiding a technologically advanced Prescient (Halle Berry) to Cloud Atlas.

This film was absolutely beautiful and did not for a moment feel like its three hour run time. They also managed to take a group of actors, many of whom haven't been in a good movie in years, and push them in often drastically different roles to show a character develop not over the course of a life but of civilization. The stories rely heavily on two major themes, reincarnation and the weak struggling against the strong. The trailer portrays it as a love story, but in actuality it is so much more. It shows the rippling effect of one's actions, good and bad, throughout time as well as a person's ability to evolve and improve as they become the person they are meant to be. Tom Hanks, for instance, changes from a sinister and conniving doctor in the first story to a family man who is able to overcome his fears in the last story. Jim Sturgess changes from a coward into a revolutionary. Others, on the other hand, consistently make poor decisions throughout their existences and remain their baser selves. While reincarnation is not a belief commonly held in the West, it is an excellent metaphor for how we grow and change over our lives. Even the smallest kindnesses have a great effect that can ripple throughout time and change the world in ways we cannot imagine. This is definitely one that will require repeat viewings so see all the connections.

Sunset Boulevard

Norma Desmond: There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk, talk, talk!

If there's one thing Hollywood loves, it's movies about Hollywood. There are a lot of films that poke fun at the ridiculousness of the industry, the self-centered people, and their disconnect from every day life, but there are few that speak of its cruelty. Hollywood is not kind to its former stars and there is no film that shows this better than Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard.

Joe Gillis (William Holden), an out-of-work screenwriter, stumbles onto retired silent film star Norma Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) property while trying to avoid some creditors. She hires him as a live-in screenwriter to help make revisions to her lengthy, poorly written screenplay about the life of Salome with which she hopes to make her comeback. Originally hoping to just make a quick buck, he agrees but soon he get roped into her life as a kept man and must cope with her delusions of fame and glory that have long since faded. It's a cynical and sadly realistic look at the price of stardom and the loss of adoration and love.

SPOILERS

The story becomes all the more poignant when you learn that Gloria Swanson was, in fact, a prominent silent film actress whose career waned after the rising popularity of talking pictures. Even more telling is the fact that she did work with directors Cecil B. DeMille and Erich von Stroheim (who plays her former director/husband turned butler) and her "waxwork" bridge friends were also former silent film stars that never successfully transitioned to "talkies." While they may not have been driven to madness, they were treated just as poorly once they lost popularity and were soon forgotten by the industry they helped to create.

On another level, this shows the detrimental effect fame can have on a person. Max (Erich von Stroheim) talks about how Norma was a fresh-faced, innocent girl when he discovered her, but as she became more famous, she became more demanding and difficult to work with, not because of spite but because of the pressure she was under. She was changed by her fame and then shunned by the same people that made her what she was. Max's own sense of responsibility is so great that he cannot bring himself to tell her he is the one who writes her the fan letters. Even DeMille finds it impossible to tell her that the studio wants her antique car more than her. And her desire for a return is simply motivated by wanting to work again, to be needed, to have purpose and return to the days when she was happy. Before she was isolated by fame in an empty mansion with only a butler and a dead monkey.

Joe is another person who protects her out of pity with the added incentive of a comfortable life, but when confronted with the choice between an honest life and continuing on with Norma, he realizes that he cannot stay. He does not deserve to find happiness with Betty (Nancy Olson), but he cannot help Norma continue in her pathetic delusion. Unfortunately, at this point we clearly see that Norma is just as guilty as those around her. She refuses to see the truth and when confronted with it, the only way she can cope is with madness. The final scene is one of the most memorable in film not because of her madness, but because of our complete pity and sympathy for her. She is what we never want to become, someone who sacrifices her future to her past, someone who chooses the dream over the reality. In the end, she is left with nothing but her delusion. She will always be alone in an empty mansion on Sunset Boulevard.