Movie Roundup - Part 1 - Breaking Dawn & Skyfall

In another life, I ran a fairly well visited website that followed the awards show circuit.  I compiled all the critic's and guild awards leading up to the Academy Awards.  It was a fun time in my life and an industry that I still follow, but I am kind of happy to not be doing all that work.

One thing I became very good at was predicting who would win the Oscars, and a lot of times, I would do that without having seen the movies themselves.  After looking at patterns and reading the tea leaves, you get a good idea of what movies will be a hit with the aging Academy.  It is rather fascinating in a not world altering way, but I digress.

The movies this fall and holiday season seem to be a bit better than the slate we have had in previous years.  There are a lot of quality movies, even best of representations of well worn franchises, and I have been trying my best to get to the movies and see more of them.  Of course, I already have tickets to the midnight showing of The Hobbit.  I've seen four moves over the past few weeks.  Once I saw twice, and three I crammed into a marathon session yesterday.   I'm going to do a quick review of each for ya'll. I'm putting this in order of preference -- least to most.

Breaking Dawn, Part 2

I have a love and mostly hate relationship with Twilight.  I went to see the first movie to see what all the hype was about, and honestly, I enjoyed it a lot.  Catherine Hardwicke is a great director, and I thought she had some amazing shots and interesting viewpoint.  If you got past the teenage girl navel gazing  it actually was a pretty good movie.  I own it, and I do watch it occasionally.  This is not to say it is a great movie, but it doesn't offend me.

Then I read the books, or rather, I read the first three. They are TERRIBLE.  Whomever told Stephanie Meyer that she could write needs to be smacked.  At least JK Rowling, the author she is often compared to, improved quite a bit over the course of the Harry Potter series, but Meyer remained stagnant through all three books that I read.  Having them written in the first person was the first mistake, especially because I kind of wished Bella died, and not really having a good grasp on the English language (or apparently owning a thesaurus) was the second.  By the time it came for me to embark on the 800 pages of Breaking Dawn, I just couldn't do it.

Breaking Dawn, Part 1, despite the pedigree of Bill Condon (Dreamgirls), was not that great.  Even the vaunted vampire sex scene was boring, and so much of it was spent on the fairy tale, teenage girl masturbatory wedding fantasy, it just really didn't go anywhere until the very end, when Bella becomes a vampire after bearing an improbable hybrid child. Part 2 picks up right where the first ended, and you get the awkward first steps of a new vampire and all the navel gazing that goes along with it.  I will hand it to Kristen Stewart, who I actually like as an actress, she was definitely transformed by the change to a vampire, and she showed more life as an undead being as she did as a human being though the rest of the series.

Without going into any grand details, I actually did enjoy the movie.  It wasn't earth-shattering  and it was fun to see the different tribes of vampires and the different powers they had.  It was much more a sci-fi fantasy movie than the previous, and there is an all out vampire war that was pretty thrilling, although it ended up being a giant red herring.  If the producers had stuck to their guns, this would have been one of the better series ending movies I have seen.  Unfortunately, they decided to go the happily ever after route, which was rather insulting.

All in all, very passable  and it is the best movie of the series after the original movie, though that is damning with faint praise.

The biggest complaint about the Twilight Saga for me is that at it's root there is a good story there.  Unfortunately, the writer, much like George Lucas and Star Wars, in not capable of fleshing it out so that it is not a major mess.  Maybe in 20 years (who am I kidding 5) a reboot ... nevermind!

Skyfall

The superlatives you have heard are all true.  After the pretty disappointing Quantum of Solace, this is definitely a return to form, which I think I might actually like more than Casino Royale, though I really do need to go back and watch that one again before I can say for sure.

I really never got in to the Brosnan era Bonds, and I was happy to rekindle my love for the franchise with Daniel Craig.  He is very good here.  Whereas he was pretty much the blunt instrument M accused him of being in Casino, in Skyfall, we see a much more wry and human Bond.

It is a testament to how well the story was constructed by John Logan and directed by Sam Mendes that the main villain played by Javiar Bardem isn't introduced until very late in the movie, and Bardem's Mr. Silver is one of the best Bond villains in a very long time.  Bardem plays him as a playful, omnisexual megalomaniac, and if he hadn't just won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, I would say he was one the road to another.

Unfortunately, a blabber mouth co-worker spoiled the ending for me, and while I could smack him, all it really did was confirm my intuition about a plot point.  Knowing how the Hollywood Press works, I knew something was up with a certain character.

Even with knowing the eventual outcome, I would still give this high marks and a recommendation.  This is the Bond we know and love, and I hope they can keep it up for the next few Craig movies.

Next post:  Lincoln and Cloud Atlas