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.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Jacob: The war of the sexes is over. We won the second women started doing pole dancing for exercise.

There aren't many romantic comedies that deviate from the tried and true formula and fewer that do it successfully but Crazy, Stupid, Love manages to reach beyond two young attractive people overcoming their initial dislike to fall in love by looking at love and relationships at every stage of life. It uses an excellent ensemble cast and intertwining story lines to show that true love is not as easy as happily-ever-after and that sometimes we get lost along the way.

The story opens with Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) being told by his wife (Julianne Moore) that she has cheated on him and wants a divorce. While the connecting thread is Cal dealing with the separation and trying to win back his wife, it also follows the love lives of his family and friends. His son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is in love with Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), his babysitter, while she is in love with Cal. Shortly after his separation, Cal meets playboy Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) who has no interest in falling in love and instead tries to take home every pretty girl he meets including law student Hannah (Emma Stone). Meanwhile, Cal's wife Emily is struggling with her mid-life crisis while reluctantly dating her co-worker David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). All face more complicated, realistic situations that do not always lead to the perfect, happy ending but do reaffirm the fact that real love is worth fighting for.

SPOILERS

The movie covers the passionate, optimistic throes of first love to the heartbreak at the end of a 25 year marriage, and though it is all shown through a comedic lens, we understand the pain Cal is feeling. When his boss, after hearing him crying in the bathroom, realizes it is just a divorce and not cancer, he heaves a sigh of relief and reassures the rest of the office but it is obvious that Cal would have rather had cancer. Today, divorces are so commonplace that they are often shrugged off by onlookers as inevitable but for Cal it is a betrayal by the person he loves and trusts most. In his clumsy attempts to recover from his heartbreak, he befriends Jacob who teaches him how to pick up women effortlessly without guilt, love, or any consideration for tomorrow. Jacob suffers from the opposite problem from Cal. He believes love is for suckers but is horribly unhappy. As a result he tries to buy happiness and has all the unnecessary products we see infomercials for. However, when he does find love with Hannah, the shameful womanizing conduct he has shown to Cal comes back to haunt him as Cal, Hannah's father, refuses to accept him. Of course, Cal by this point is far from blameless as he has slept with several woman in an attempt to get over Emily but has just wound up hurting both of them more and widening the gap between them.

Emily, the cause of the divorce, feels guilty about it and even shows signs of wanting to repair the marriage but is disillusioned by Cal's behavior which includes using and lying to a woman he picks up at a bar (Marisa Tomei) who turns out to be Robbie's teacher. She is a casualty of love and it has obviously not been the first time as she is very bitter. She is one of the unhappy endings along with David Lindhagen both of whom suffered as a result of the Weavers' poor choices, something not often shown in romantic comedies. Neither of them are bad people. They are not smarmy, superficial, or self-serving. They are simply looking for love in the wrong places and wind up discovering they never found it in the first place.

The stories of Jessica and Robbie are less bittersweet. They may not get who they wanted in the end but for them it is the first of many romances. Each of them is pursuing the unattainable and because of their age and inexperience, they believe it is true love that will last a lifetime but that innocence is hopeful. It is this attitude that reassures us that Cal and Emily will survive, that Jacob can become a better person, and that real love does exist. If that kind of blind, headstrong, earnest love is possible, then there is a chance for even the most jaded like Jacob, and the most worn-out, like the Weavers.

Frankenweenie

Bob's Mom: What were you two boys doing up on the roof?
Toshiaki: SCIENCE!

I went to see this hoping that this would be Tim Burton's return to his former glory. It's based on a short he did when he first worked for Disney and ironically was the short that got him fired. The short is sharp, sweet, and had all the elements that made his early films great. Unfortunately, none of this really transferred to the film.

The concept is simple and should be charming. When Victor's dog and best friend Sparky is hit by a car, Victor uses the town's frequent lightening storms to bring him back to life. But when his fellow classmates discover his secret, they all begin to bring their pets back to life with disastrous results. So part of the problem lies in the fact that what starts out as a Frankenstein spoof suddenly turns into a monster movie during the climax only to abruptly return to the Frankenstein plot.

But the problems are greater than that. There are a number of potential plot lines that get introduced and then never resolved. Is the sinister Mayor up to no good and doing something that is causing the thunderstorms every night? Is Vincent's Dad right in thinking Victor should make human friends? Will Victor befriend his neighbor, Elsa? There's lots of opportunities for the story to gain depth and purpose but instead it devolves into a simple Frankenstein/Godzilla spoof. But in the end, the only message we are left with is that love is the secret ingredient in science and Victor was right in playing God and bringing Sparky back to life, two things that are questionable to tell children.

Even Victor is a sadly underdeveloped character. We know almost nothing about him other than the fact that he is a quiet loner who is good at science and loves his dog. I'm not even sure if he learned anything from the experience. Part of this is because we never really saw any relationships he had with other characters. In this sense, his classmates were more developed as we saw many instances of them interacting and showing their motivations. Victor, on the other hand, was a relatively generic, passive character.

All and all, Frankenweenie was closer in quality to Corpse Bride than Nightmare Before Christmas and proves to me that Tim Burton needs to take a break. If you want to watch a charming, light-hearted Frankenstein spoof this Halloween, watch the short.

The Woodsman

Robin: Birds are my friends. They know I watch them, but they don't mind cause they like being watched. If they know you won't hurt them.

I got this movie from Netflix but it sat around for at least a week before I got around to watching it because it doesn't really matter how much you like the cover or how good the reviews are, watching a movie about a child molester isn't something you look forward to. However, it turned out to be not about child molesting, but about temptation.

Walter (Kevin Bacon) returns to his small hometown after being released from prison for molesting two preteen girls. He tries to lead a normal life, working a factory job and keeping to himself, but in spite of the help he receives from his brother-in-law Carlos (Benjamin Bratt), his new girlfriend Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick), and his psychiatrist (the incomparable Michael Shannon), Walter feels his old urgings returning. His willpower is further weakened by the hostility from the community around him and the thinly veiled threats made by Detective Lucas (Mos Def). In a town where everyone mistrusts and despises him, Walter must struggle to not repeat the mistakes of his past to prove to himself and those around him that he is more than his weakness.

This movie is difficult to watch because of the subject matter and Kevin Bacon's performance is spot on for the weird, single guy you would keep your child away from at the park but part of what makes us so uncomfortable is that all of us on some level can relate to this character. At his core he is a man who struggles with his own weakness and the temptation that surrounds him everyday. He hates this weakness so much that sometimes it consumes him but as the temptation grows he feels powerless to withstand it. His situation is remarkable because his weakness is so strongly against the societal norm that he is rejected, taunted, and threatened, but all of us have weaknesses we battle with, feeling that we lack the strength to improve ourselves and hating ourselves just a little when we succumb.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This film presents that struggle in black and white with a crime that disgusts everyone, even the protagonist. We even see his internal struggle through his observations of another child molester who lures little boys into his car with candy. Although despising the child molester and worrying about the boys, Walter cannot bring himself to alert the police and even tries to reason that the boys are getting into the car because they want to. It is only when he finally gives in to temptation and tries to convince a little girl named Robin to sit in his lap that he realizes the harm he is doing.

Robin enjoys bird watching in a secluded park and does not have many friends, but is friendly to Walter when he starts a conversation. When he asks her to sit in his lap, she tells him that his father asks her to sit his lap too and starts to cry as Walter figures out that she has been molested before. In the face of this gentle, quiet girl who possesses an innocent wisdom, he finally sees the mark of his actions, the internal scarring that is done even if there are no outward signs. In the ultimate temptation, she offers to sit in his lap, but he has finally found the strength to overcome his weakness. That night, overwhelmed with self-hatred and desire to right the wrongs he has done, he mercilessly beats the other child molester as he drops a boy off by the school yard, symbolically destroying the evil inside of himself.

The title comes from a speech given by Detective Lucas during one of his visits to Walter. He mentions to story of Red Riding Hood where the Woodsman rescues the girl by cutting open the stomach of the wolf so that the girl tumbles out without a scratch. After the horrible acts of violence he has seen committed on children, he feels that there is no woodsman in the world. This is the story of Walter trying to change from a Wolf to a Woodsman. But as he saw, it is not just external damage that hurts children. It is the internal damage everyone inflicts with their own weaknesses, sins we sometimes feel will only affect ourselves. In some ways we are no different than Walter. In all our actions we are either the woodsman or the wolf and God help us if we are the wolf, because there are so few woodsmen left.

Millennium Actress

Kyoji Ida: She must be over 70.
Genya Tachibana: She'll never grow old!

This is a movie I've seen a couple times before but it was recently brought back to my attention in a conversation about animation for adults. It's defiantly beyond a child's understanding, something I should know since I was too young to appreciate it the first time I saw it. Add in the cultural differences and it can be a bit challenging to watch. But there is such a wealth of depth and symbolism that it's worth embracing the surrealist elements and letting go of the need to fully understand what's real and what's not. After all, this character's journey transcends time and space. What is Real matters less what is True.

As a girl, Chiyoko meets an injured painter and revolutionary who is being pursued by the police. She hides him for the night and in return, he gives her a key to "the most important thing there is." After he disappears, Chiyoko becomes an actress so that she can find him again. Over the course of her long career, she searches for him in every country and every film she is in. The desire to return the key to her first love consumes her life and dictates every choice she makes.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This is a story about love but it is not a love story. She spends her life chasing after a man she hardly knows and declares that she will always love him, ignoring the men who are actually present in her life. After all, she is not really in love with him, just the idea of him, a perfect, unattainable love that represents everything she hopes for. This idea consumes her so that she is searching for him not only in her life but in her work and in every story she hears. He is always present in the shape of the key he gave her. After losing the key, she retires and goes in seclusion because the loss of hope is tantamount to death.

But she is not the only person in love. Genya Tachibana, the director of the documentary being made about her life has been in love with her since he was a lowly crew member on one of her films. He worships her as true fan, finds joy in her joy, sorrow in her hardships, and even protects her from the knowledge that the man she searches for is dead. He is also someone who is in love with an idea, as are all fans.

This desire to be loved and the unwavering loyalty from afar has defined the careers of some actresses, most notably Marylin Monroe. Like Chiyoko, Monroe spent her life searching for a perfect love that she was unable to find, or possibly just unable to accept. And like all actresses, she is frozen in film, ageless even in death. Her legacy will last forever. But it is narrow minded to look at Chiyoko's story simply in relation to other actors. We all have an idea of a perfect love that we search for and like Chiyoko, our search extends to all aspects of our lives. The film's blending of fiction and reality echoes our memories of our own lives. We may not remember the facts as they actually happened but we remember the truths that we learned from those experiences and it is those truths that shape us.

Chiyoko journey is the journey of humanity. It is timeless and ageless. It is present in every person, every memory, every story. It will not end even in death because an idea cannot die. It is what unites us and drives us forward, from before the feudal ages of Chiyoko's early films, passed the space exploration of her later work. Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress explores our quest for love and suggests that sometimes the journey is enough. It is the journey that makes us human.