Spectre

For our AGM we try to choose a popular film to attract people to the one meeting we need to have each year. After a disastrous first AGM which we scheduled AFTER a screening and which went on and on we now have the meeting first and then screen the film.

When we had chosen Spectre we had not realised that it was quite so long - so it was a late night. I enjoyed the film very mucht, and agreed with most of the reviews that I'd read, but felt that the escape from Blofeld's lair in the desert was a bit of an anti-climax after so many of the earlier magnificent set pieces.

Here are my notes:

Spectre

 UK 2015                      148 minutes

Director:                      Sam Mendes

Starring:                        Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw

Awards and Nominations

• Won Academy Award for Best Original Song
• A further seven wins and 23 nominations

“If nothing else, the spelling of the title should tip you off that this is a thoroughly English movie franchise. Bond is back and Daniel Craig is back in a terrifically exciting, spectacular, almost operatically delirious 007 adventure – endorsing intelligence work as old-fashioned derring-do and incidentally taking a stoutly pro-Snowden line against the creepy voyeur surveillance that undermines the rights of a free individual. It’s pure action mayhem with a real sense of style.”

Peter Bradshaw

James Bond (Daniel Craig) attempts to thwart the plans of Spectre to hijack a global surveillance network and discovers that the organisation, led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) was behind the events of the previous three films in which Craig has starred as James Bond. Familiar characters such as M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw) and Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) re-appear along with Andrew Scott as Max Denbigh, the head of a rival to MI6.

Spectre is the twenty fourth James Bond film and the fourth starring Daniel Craig. The story is original, but incorporates source material from Fleming’s stories, most notably the character of Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) whose father is a background character in the short story Octopussy. The screenplay reunites scriptwriters John Logan (who wrote Skyfall) and Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who had worked on five previous Bond films) together with British playwright Jez Butterworth who had made uncredited contributions to Skyfall. The name SPECTRE comes from the novel Thunderball, but as Fleming had incorporated elements of an undeveloped film script into his novel this led to decades of copyright litigation, with the issue only being resolved in November 2013. It was this same dispute that allowed Sean Connery’s belated reprise of the role of Bond in Never Say Never Again (1983), in effect an updated remake of Thunderball (1965).

Sam Mendes had originally turned down the offer to direct Spectre after the success of Skyfall but he changed his mind as he found both the script and the long term plans for the franchise appealing. The film had a budget of $245 million making it the most expensive Bond film made, and it grossed $880.7 million, making it the second highest grossing Bond film after Skyfall and the sixth highest grossing film of 2015.

Sam Mendes has recently ruled himself out of directing the next Bond film and to date Daniel Craig has not confirmed that he will play Bond again. Amid the inevitable speculation about both director and leading actor one interesting potential choice of director that has emerged is Susanne Bier, who in addition to directing The Night Manager (2016) for the BBC had previously won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film for In A Better World. Some critics have suggested that Tom Hiddlestone’s performance in The Night Manager was an audition for the role of Bond, although in recent interviews he has downplayed the rumour.

Here's the trailer:

 

Skyfall

I missed Skyfall at the cinema, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing this: somehow it doesn't seem quite right watching a James Bond film for the first time at home on TV.

Here are my notes:

Skyfall

 UK 2012                      143 minutes

Director:                      Sam Mendes

Starring:                        Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris

Awards and Nominations

• Won two Oscars (including Best Original Song for Adele) and three Oscar nominations (including Best Original Score)
• Won BAFTAs for Outstanding British Film and Original Music (plus nominations for Javier Bardem and Judi Dench as Best Supporting Actor and Actress)
• A further 25 wins and 51 nominations

“In this 50th year of the James Bond series, with the dismal Quantum of Solace (2008) still in our minds, Skyfall triumphantly reinvents 007 in one of the best Bonds ever. This is a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon, with Daniel Craig taking full possession of a role he earlier played well in Casino Royale, not so well in Quantum -- although it may not have been entirely his fault. Or is it just that he's growing on me? I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I expected in Bond No. 23, but certainly not an experience this invigorating."

Roger Ebert

When M’s past comes back to haunt her Bond’s loyalty is put to the test.  MI6 itself comes under attack and it becomes Bond’s mission to track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost to him.

Skyfall is the 23^rd Bond film and many critics hailed it as possibly the best ever, with the only real challenger being the 2006 version of Casino Royale, which followed closely the plot of Fleming’s first novel.  Skyfall has no direct link to Fleming’s work but shares two of the writers who worked on Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace and is true both to his spirit and the series (Skyfall is the name of Bond’s family estate in Scotland).

Sam Mendes made his name with the Oscar winning American Beauty (1999) and followed this with Road to Perdition (2002), Jarhead (2005) and Revolutionary Road (2008), all made in the US.  There was some surprise when it was announced that he would direct Skyfall, but Daniel Craig had worked Mendes in Road to Perdition and had made the initial approach with regard to the Bond film.  Mendes had also worked with Judi Dench early in his career when he had directed her in a stage production of a Chekhove play.  In Skyfall he gives her a role, almost a co-starring role, worthy of her talent which is reflected in the BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress, although Anne Hathaway won the award for her role in Les Miserables (2012).

It has recently been reported that Sam Mendes has declined an offer to direct the next James Bond film in order to focus on his theatre work, although the film’s producers have not discounted him directing another Bond film at some point in the future.

 Here's the trailer: