REVIEW - Doomsday

When you're Britain's best genre director, eventually somebody's going to throw an awful lot of money at you and say, "What kind of film would you like to make?"

Apparently, Neil Marshall (director of Dog Soldiers and one of my personal favorites, The Descent) would reply to this question like this: "Well, I really like a lot of those neat post-apocalyptic films of the 70s and 80s. I'd like to nick different bits from a bunch of them and merge them with this persistent vision I have of a futuristic soldier fighting a medieval knight."

This is Doomsday.Rhona Mitra is Eden Sinclair, a cop with a prosthetic eyeball and a chip on her shoulder. She's in futuristic London, where a plague has started. The same plague that caused Scotland to be walled off many years before. Now, with the plague spreading, Sinclair is sent with a team of soldiers and doctors to go over the wall and hopefully find a cure.

What they find is basically a Mad Max movie with liberal dashes of Escape From New York, Excalibur, and any other post-apocalyptic film you've ever seen. The plague that ravaged Scotland wasn't one of those 28 Days Later deals, it just killed people. No plague zombies here. The survivors got...a little funny in the head...and probably watched an old VHS tape of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and thought it was a good idea. The final chase sequence owes more than a little bit to The Road Warrior, except with a Bentley instead of an oil tanker. If you played a drinking game whenever someone on screen had some tribal tattoos or a mohawk, you would die of alcohol poisoning before the third act.Marshall conned some good actors to do this show. Rhona Mitra used to be Lara Croft before they started making Tomb Raider feature films with Someone Else, and she's not completely unbelieveable as the action heroine. Bob Hoskins is reliable as always, Malcolm McDowell finds himself picking up another paycheck and starring in a film with his nephew, Alexander Siddig, who thankfully isn't playing a sympathetic Middle Eastern character as he has been recently typecast. David O'Hara is probably the standout guy here, with his strained voice and understated menace. You may remember him from years back as the crazy Irish guy from Braveheart. You know, "It's MY island!" That guy. He's pretty great here. Sean Pertwee is in the film also, and the older he gets the more he looks just like his dad.

Ultimately, the story is kind of thin and serves only to get us to the next action setpiece, of which there are many and they are, as is typical for Neil Marshall, well done. This is the kind of "turn your brain off" film that I can get into, since I am physically incapable of turning my brain off, but I can keep it busy by trying to figure out what film is being referenced/homaged/lovingly ripped off in a given scene.

Expect to have some fun with Doomsday, but it's not by any stretch the most spectacular film ever made. It's probably the best post-apocalyptic wasteland type film of the last ten years or so. It's fun without being completely retarded, and worth a look for fans of the genre.

REVIEW - Transsiberian

Alfred Hitchcock has been gone for quite a while now, but his genius still looms large over the film world. His films were tight, well-acted, and technically polished. We're still waiting for a director to approach this level of proficiency in suspense filmmaking (M. Night Shyamalan has been trying for who knows how long, but his insistence on gimmicks, dumb twists and wooden acting is holding him back), but if I had to choose, I'd say the closest thing we have right now is this guy named Brad Anderson. Perhaps you know of him? WELL YOU SHOULD.

Anderson started out making romantic comedies like Next Stop Wonderland (a delightful film starring Hope Davis and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Happy Accidents (which, despite it being something of a time-travel film featuring Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei, I still haven't seen). Both films were well-reviewed Sundance favorites.

His next film was the thriller Session 9, which was decidedly not a romantic comedy. The story of asbestos workers cleaning out an abandoned insane asylum is pretty crazy. He followed that with The Machinist, famous as "the film that Christian Bale lost all that weight for". Both films have some creepy, reality-bending elements to them and kept you guessing till the very end.

To recap: I've seen three of the guy's films, and really enjoyed all of them, and the one I haven't seen yet is a time-travel film with Marisa Tomei so I think it's a safe bet that one doesn't suck. So when Brad Anderson makes a film, as a general rule I will see it. I'm not sure there's a director that has the kind of batting average he has with me.

Transsiberian takes the high tension and mystery skills displayed in Anderson's last two films and brings it to that undeniably Hitchcockian setting of strangers on the train. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer are a missionary couple on their way from China to Moscow. Along the way, they meet up with a young couple (played by Edouardo Noriega and Kate Mara) who are nice but also as sketchy as humanly possible. And who shows up along the way but Sir Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretchmann as a pair of Russian cops who just happen to also be along for the ride. Chaos ensues.

The film mainly rests on the shoulders of Emily Mortimer, who is way more talented than her IMDb profile might suggest. Her character, Jessie, is a woman with a past, and while desperately trying to do the right thing, the wrong things just keep piling up around her. Woody Harrelson's Roy is a simple guy in the Woody from Cheers mold except with a train hobby, but Harrelson keeps him from devolving into some kind of stupid hick. Sir Ben Kingsley seems to be taking whatever roles are offered to him (he was in a Uwe Boll movie!) these days, but for once he's in a film that gives him something at least mildly challenging to do. He hasn't been this much fun since Sneakers, though he was much crazier in Sexy Beast. This is a more understated role for the legendary actor.

While ruminating on the film I am continually reminded of Hitchcock, as well as the old school film noirs. Plotwise, at least. Visually, it's pretty far from the traditional noir look, sort of a reverse noir with all the snow around and the leafless forests and generally bleak landscape that these characters inhabit. Frequently, I could see the film about to turn into something grievously stupid in the way that only Hollywood can, but Anderson is better than that and surprises us by going in a different, bolder, more interesting direction.

One might be tempted into thinking Transsiberian is another one of those Stupid First World Tourists Get What's Coming To Them sort of films - and maybe we're meant to think that way going in, and maybe it is (but only a little bit) - but it's much more than that. Check this one out, guys, it is a tight little thriller.

REVIEW - The Ruins

Editor's Note: This review contains medium-level spoilers.

Continuing on the theme of Nature Will Kill You films (and overlapping into the theme of Stupid First World Tourists Getting More Than They Bargained For in Third World Countries), The Ruins is at least somewhat plausible scientifically (I guess) and certainly psychologically tense; however, for my part, I thought the gore was a bit much.

Two young couples are on vacation at a resort in some Cancun-type place, and they meet this German guy who's brother is working on an archaeological dig way out in the middle of nowhere, not on any map (of course). They resolve to join the German guy so they can see some authentic Mayan temple stuff instead of getting drunk, which has apparetly gotten stale for them. They go out to the temple and immediately EVERYTHING GOES VERY VERY WRONG.

Apparently, this temple is just covered with this rare carnivorous vine. The locals know this, and try to stop the group from going near it. However, they don't speak English (or, conveniently, Spanish), so they just wave guns and bows and arrows and shout menacingly at the stupid American tourists, who of course think these crazy locals want money or their girlfriends or something. Chaos ensues, causing the kids to run up to the top of the temple, which is of course exactly what they shouldn't have done, and the locals stand guard at the base to make sure the kids never leave. The locals are smart. The kids, not so much.

I've gone on record previously about how I really don't care for these sort of torture porn horror films, and going in I didn't expect The Ruins to necessarily be one of these sort of films. I mean, the plot's pretty simple: a bunch of kids on vacation in Cancun go to a Mayan temple way off the beaten path and chaos ensues. I didn't count on all the ad hoc amputations and self-filleting. One of the characters gets the vine inside her and she freaks out and starts cutting herself up. It's kind of messed up. Not funny or anything, certainly not scary, just messed up. The worst part is that all this gore is voluntary on the part of the characters and in the interest of survival. He'll never make it out alive unless we break his legs, cut them off and cauterize the stumps with a hot frying pan. Great!

Much respect to the prosthetic effects guys who made all those fake limbs and stuff, it was very realistic!

The idea of the vines is probably the best part of the film. It acts like a vigorous carnivorous ivy, and the flowers seem to have auditory properties. Some people might not buy it, but scientifically I don't see it being too ridiculously far off from anything in reality. I mean, have you seen the stuff they find 10 miles down in the bottom of the ocean? At this point, I'd buy pretty much anything from nature.

Where these kids really lost me is when they made torches out of rags soaked in tequila and used them to go inside the temple instead of BURNING THE VINES. Priorities, guys. And once they think they have everything figured out, they still want to escape to civilization. I think if the locals want to keep you quarantined and are willing to take extreme measures to do so, maybe they have some knowledge about the situation that you maybe haven't put together yet? Also, there is, apparently, only one side to a Mayan pyramid. I guess?

The acting isn't bad. Jena Malone (Donnie Darko's girlfriend) and Shawn Ashmore (Bobby "Iceman" Drake) are two of the leads, and the cast does a pretty good job of encapsulating the insanity of being in a completely out of control situation. In these survival film situations, there is always the one who tries to take control of the situation, the one who questions that person, the one who can't handle things, etc., and The Ruins is no different. Except for the self-mutilation.

I think The Ruins might be okay for people who watch surgeries on the Discovery Health Channel all the time, or sado-masochists.

REVIEW - The Happening

Here is the latest in a continuing series of reviews of terrible films. We're taking the hit so you don't have to. You're welcome.

You see, what happened here was that M. Night Shyamalan thought he was Hitchcock. But he isn't.

Shyamalan "wrote" and "directed" this piece of celluloid retardedness. I put those in quotes because the actors involved in this - relatively talented people like Marky Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, and the lovely Zooey Deschanel - walk around saying the most retarded sentences I have ever heard. Most of the dialogue in the film sounds like George Lucas wrote the script, except there's no lightsabers or spaceships or robots to distract you. It's just terrible, terrible dialogue. And all these actors look like they'd like some direction on some of these line readings, but apparently none was forthcoming.

I was trying to figure out what exactly M. Night was doing while his actors were wandering around aimlessly in front of the camera (since he sure wasn't directing them), and I really don't know. The film LOOKS great, but more than anything else I'd have to say that's more the work of Cronenweth Award-winning cinematographer Tak Fujimoto than anything else. Fujimoto has always done great work, and The Happening is no exception.

An impassioned plea to the children of the future: if you sit and watch a bunch of Hitchcock films, then decide to reverse-engineer an amalgamation of them, please have the good sense to make one that is not completely retarded. The Happening is a good case in point of what not to do. Okay, so it's not the birds this time, it's some other natural element (you'll get no spoilers from me here but believe me, it's even dumber than it initially seems). Everyone is killing themselves! Things is crayzee! Here is a scene: Marky Mark and everybody got on this train and the train stops in the middle of nowhere. Everyone gets out. Marky Mark goes up to the conductors and is like, "What is the deal?" One of the conductors is like, "We lost contact." "With who?" asks Marky. "Everyone," says the conductor, as we see, in the background behing Mr. Wahlberg, fellow train passengers OBVIOUSLY AND CALMLY TALKING TO PEOPLE ON THEIR CELPHONES. Also, look how Wahlberg has this constipated face because he's trying to look like he's working on figuring out this predicament. Is that acting? Seriously? Listen, I'm not busting on the guy, I saw The Departed, Wahlberg's got some serious chops. WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE? That is undirected acting, people. RIGHT THERE.

There are plot holes in this film large enough to drive a truck through. And while I felt the casting individually was okay, I really didn't buy the relationships between the characters. Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher who is best friends with John Leguizamo the math teacher? I did buy that Mark and Zooey Deschanel were a couple dealing with some marital problems, since they seemed pretty mismatched to begin with. But hey, that's life, right? NO MR. SHYAMALAN, IT IS A MOVIE. Cast chemistry counts. M. Night also thinks it's somehow edgy or cool or maybe he's trying to appeal to the gorehounds when he comes up with all these various methods people use to kill themselves. Yeah, that thing with the lawnmower: totally unnecessary. Sometimes, Mr. Shyamalan, it's what you DON'T see. Didn't you used to know that? And all that stuff in the third act with the old lady? What the heck? And that cop-out "explanation" at the end? I mean, seriously?

I kind of want to write a paragraph or two here regarding Zooey Deschanel's eyes, since they are almost a character of their own in the film. I don't know if Shyamalan did it on purpose, or maybe Fujimoto saw a good thing and went with it, or whatever, but Miss Zooey has the biggest, most expressive, bluest eyes ever. Part of it's probably a color process thing, but most of it is just nature. Of course, if you believe this film, NATURE WILL KILL YOU, in which case I await my death at the hand of Zooey Deschanel's eyeballs.I'm not going to labor this, since people have already pretty much heard all about how terrible this film is. I just wanted to enlighten readers to the fact that, no, the mainstream reviewers didn't get this one wrong; The Happening is a seriously retarded film.

Editor's Note: ZOOEY, PLEASE GET A NEW AGENT. I MEAN, YES MAN? JIM CARREY COMEDIES NOW? COME ON, YOU'RE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT. Also, apparently congratulations are in order. Ben Gibbard is a pretty awesome guy, now more than ever.

REVIEW - Valkyrie

Finally, I got to see this film. I felt like it was never going to happen, after all the production problems, studio delays, negative press, Will Smith movies, general circumstances...it seemed like there was some kind of dark cloud hanging over the film. But the film is out now, finally, and I think I recommend it.

Let's get the Tom Cruise thing out of the way first. He is fine. He plays his typical heroic character. There is no Scientologist propaganda that I could detect. The accent thing was deftly handled. If you're not seeing this film because of Captain Xenu, you are doing yourself a disservice. His Claus von Stauffenburg, orchestrator of the final attempt of the German Resistance to kill Hitler, isn't the best work he's done since Magnolia or anything, but the man is solid and doesn't distract.

Valkyrie isn't so much a war movie as it is an old-fashioned caper film, with the slight adjustment that instead of figuring out how to rob a bank, etc., the protagonists need to figure out how to assassinate the dictator they work for. And when said dictator is as paranoid and unstable as Adolf Hitler, this becomes a bit more difficult. What is outlined in Valkyrie - what even those who might have learned about the July 20th Plot may not realize - was how close they came to staging a successful coup d'etat even without having blown the guy to bits.

Let's face it, Bryan Singer knows how to make a suspense film (The Usual Suspects), even one with Nazis and British character actors (Apt Pupil), and while it's true that I would keep him as far away from another Superman film as possible, Singer handles Valkyrie's ratcheting tension with a practiced precision. This is more impressive when taking into account the fact that we already know the film's outcome. It's not IF it happens (we know it happens), but HOW it all goes down that drives the narrative here.

As much as Tom Cruise is the main star of the film, Valkyrie is carried along by an excellent group of character actors, led by the always amazing Bill Nighy, who infuses his General Olbricht with that trademark lack of confidence he plays so well. The opportunistic General Fromm is played by Tom Wilkinson, just another in a ridiculously long line of awesome roles for him. General Zod himself, Terence Stamp, brings a quiet dignity to the role of General Beck. Kenneth Branagh is a bit underused as Major von Tresckow, and Eddie Izzard (no he doesn't wear a dress) shows up for a bit to do his part as Signal squad general Fellgiebel. Ian McNeice and Bernard Hill show up for a good ten seconds a piece. Thomas Kretschmann plays reserve colonel Remer with his typical understated menace, and Christian Berkel portrays Captain von Quirnheim, who shows up in the trailers so much because of his shiny bald head and glasses.

I bring up Kretschmann and Berkel because they also showed up in the German film Der Untertang (Downfall), about the final days in Hitler's bunker, based on eyewitness accounts. For anyone who has even the remotest interest in this sort of thing, I think it would be a great idea to check it out. It is a powerful film, but not exactly the feel-good comedy of the year, since there's lots of feeding cyanide capsules to kids and dogs and whatnot. (In German with English subtitles. Now available on DVD.)

Anyways, we were talking about Valkyrie, and the film succeeds at somehow managing to get you to root for Nazis, which is a pretty weird thing. 'But they're good Nazis, since they're trying to blow up Hitler,' the viewer justifies to himself. The motives of the characters in the film were certainly just and true, but one wonders about these guys in real life. Were their motives so pure, or did they just realize that the war was lost and they were trying to save their own necks? Some of the characters depicted in Valkyrie are historically known to have been vehemently anti-Nazi (particularly von Stauffenburg and most especially Tresckow), but others, well, not so much. We may never know the true motivations of every person in Valkyrie, but we can watch the film and cheer on the efforts of the characters as depicted, who all have the best of intentions. Hopefully, the film will inspire people to do some research and find out all the interesting things the film left out.

Whatever you think about the moral quandary this film may produce in your brain, at the end of the day it's difficult to disagree with the sentiment, "Let's blow up Hitler." That guy was a jerk.

REVIEW - Seven Pounds (or, Will Smith Wants Himself An Oscar: The Movie)

Regular readers will be taken aback to see that on a day when both Benjamin Button and Valkyrie were released, I instead went to see the latest from our buddy Will "Aw Hell Naw" Smith. While I agree that I should probably have my geek license suspended, there were circumstances, guys.

So yeah, I saw this movie and I don't want to write about it too much. Will Smith plays a guy who has A HORRIBLE SECRET AND A DEADLY JELLYFISH. Rosario Dawson plays a woman with a horse for a dog (figuratively), a defective heart (literally) and a broken antique printing press (also literally). Woody Harrelson (who really doesn't get enough work, in my opinion) plays a blind vegetarian meat salesman. There are other people in this film also, and they all have problems that might be solvable if Will Smith...I'm not going to give it away, but there is, not a plot twist but a twist of the film's pacing that sort of manufactures what I guess could be termed a PLOT TWIST (all caps please), and if you haven't figured out what it might be, you need to see more movies.

I think I know how this film came about. Basically, Will Smith got a writer, sat him or her down, and told them that he wanted to win an Oscar so come up with a story that is super emotional and will allow him to gain some Serious Actor Points with critics and, hopefully, Academy voters. His is an affecting performance, and he may yet get a nomination, but it would have to be a weak field in my opinion for him to win. There might be some awards in there for the supporting cast, though.

Anyway, it's not a bad movie. It's pretty sad, especially at the end when everybody gets their problems solved except for Barry Pepper's character, I guess. He's another guy who needs to get more work. I'm really not the target audience for this sort of thing (not enough robots), but there are worse things I could have done with my evening, I guess. This is me trying to talk myself out of feeling bad for not seeing Valkyrie, basically.

Also, I thought maybe the film was called Seven Pounds because that's how much the human head weighs (or at least that's what that annoying kid from Jerry Maguire said), but if there was any explanation or reference to the title within the dialogue of the film, I must have missed it entirely. This is very possible.

So yeah, if you really like getting bummed out and wondering if a movie has the balls to go through with what its story sets out to do, and you find it believeable that Will Smith plays a guy who went to MIT, I guess it might be worth a look.

A Reason For Living

Venture Bros. Season 3. March 24.

If I have to explain what makes this packaging so MIND-BLOWINGLY, INSANELY AWESOME, then you wouldn't get it anyway.

Aaaahhhhhh! It is so PERFECT it hurts to look at it!!!

For those of you who missed Season 3 (I personally have a mysterious disease which allows me to only truly appreciate the show upon repeated viewings), check out the trailer shown at the 2008 New York Comic-Con, which my man James and I saw live because we were THERE! Pretty great!March 24. Mark your calendars. NOW.

REVIEW - The Wicker Man (remake)

Here is the latest in a continuing series of reviews of terrible films. We're taking the hit so you don't have to. You're welcome.

I have never seen the original Wicker Man, with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee, but this Nicolas Cage version has a reputation as being a pretty terrible film.

This reputation is well deserved.

The Wicker Man is full of plot twists you can see coming about three miles away. I mean really bad. Like, "I'm allergic to bees!" and GUESS WHAT HAPPENS. That kind of telegraphing, which is just the laziest thing ever. I'm not sure if the film is poorly acted or the actors are doing the best they can with terrible material. Technically, the film was well shot and it looks good, but holy cow is this movie a mess otherwise. Nicolas Cage plays a cop who is probably the worst, most inept investigator I've ever seen in a film, who gets a letter from his ex-fiance that her daughter is missing and could he help to find her. It surprises no one but Cage's character when he realizes like an hour into the film that the missing girl MIGHT BE HIS DAUGHTER! Retardedness ensues, like Cage being stung by a swarm of bees, Cage punching numerous women, and Cage attempting to save the day wearing a bear costume. These scenes are not (as near as I can tell) playing for laughs. Intentionally.

I'm not sure what this film was going for. If it was parodying the original, it doesn't really have that "winking at the audience" tone. Also, I don't think The Wicker Man's really well-known enough of a film for someone to parody as a mainstream film. As a straight-up remake, it strays a good bit from its source material in both contents and execution. Further confusing things is this statement from an incredibly long interview between Spike Jonze and Moriarty from Ain't It Cool News:

Moriarty: Yeah. And I think far more self-aware than most people think. Like I think some people think Nic is in this vacuum and doesn’t realize how crazy some of his performances are. I got the feeling he was totally aware of how people perceive things. We were talking about THE WICKER MAN, and he was like, “How do people call that an unintentional comedy? I’m in a bear suit kicking Lelee Sobieski in the throat. I know it’s funny.”

Spike Jonze: He just takes it so seriously that nobody knows how to take him. Like PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, I was like, “What is that?” Like I was 15 so I didn’t really know.

It's good to know that even Spike was confused.

So, what is it? Is The Wicker Man an intentional comedy? Is Nic Cage acting in a comedy, but director Neil LaBute is shooting a horror film? Is this some kind of genius move on LaBute's part to be a meta commentary on the retardedness of modern horror remakes? The endless permutations of unlikely excuses lead me to the conclusion that nobody knew what the final product would be, and they got a film that's only useful to laugh at when edited down to about two minutes of insanity on YouTube. And here it is:

Now you've literally seen all that The Wicker Man has to offer with regards to entertainment value, unless you want to see the very satisfying ending; Nicolas Cage being burned alive along with farm animals inside the titular Wicker Man is probably the best ending any Cage film could ever hope for, and it is totally earned. So to spare you the effort of seeing the film just for that, why not just show it to you:

It will likely surprise no one that the little girl setting fire to Officer Nic Cage's character is in fact the cop's daughter. She's setting fire to her dad, who only came to find her! IRONY!

Also, keep in mind when watching these clips that THIS MAN WON AN OSCAR FOR ACTING.

I'm not even sure this film is suitable for "bad movie night" or something similar, just because it's so frustratingly stupid. It's no fun to watch a film with a protagonist that is so insufferably retarded that the viewer is pleased to see him immolated. Avoid this film at all costs, though its YouTube spawn are definitely worth checking out.

Editor's Note: The author has a deep and abiding distaste for the work of Nicolas Cage; however, he freely admits that Cage's performances in both Matchstick Men and Adaptation. were very, very good. This is likely due to the roles playing to Cage's particular "acting style", if one were to call it that. Adding to that, an unreferenced source has quoted Cage himself that in the case of Adaptation., Cage "ignored every acting instinct [he] had and trusted [director] Spike [Jonze] completely". This, in the opinion of the author, is a novel little concept that might serve Cage well in future projects.

REVIEW - Quantum of Solace

I know this review is late, but I'm playing catch-up here.

As Quantum of Solace begins, you wonder if the action is ever going to let up. We go from one action set piece to the next, all with the Bourne-style jittercam we all know and love, with precious little time to catch our breath and get acclimated. It's a little thing called in media res, and pretty much all the Bond films use it. It's pretty great as a structuring device. And since Quantum of Solace is pretty much a direct sequel to Casino Royale, structurally I guess you could look at Casino as an Act I for Quantum. They really are one long movie, content-wise.

But for some reason (lack of sleep?) I was amazed at how from the opening of Quantum it just never lets up; I don't think there's more than three minutes between each action set piece until like half an hour into the film. The pace seemingly never takes a break until we're so neck deep in plot that M absolutely has to stop Bond from killing people so they could talk about it.

From there the film gets into international intrigue, a supposed environmentalist is actually doing terrible things behind the scenes, etc., but honestly the plot really isn't the plot. James Bond is pretty pissed off about things in general is the plot. The rest is just a reason to get him here or there. I think there was room in this story for a more involved plot, like Casino Royale, but since this is either Act III to Casino or Casino was Act I to Quantum,...I have just confused myself.

Daniel Craig returns as the craggy-faced-yet-somehow-still-handsome secret agent 007, in a foul mood and seeking revenge for the death of Vesper Lynd and various other happenstances that the bad guys trouble him with. A lesser actor would just stomp around throwing stuntmen into breakaway furniture, glaring madly on occasion, maybe drooling a bit; but Craig has gone to the H. Ford School of Punch-Selling and Wry Comments. He's a good actor. Bond's still a "blunt instrument", but you can see in his eyes the flash of human-level intelligence, the gears turning.

He carries the entire film completely; his co-stars aren't really in the film all that much. The regular recurring characters pop in and out of the story as needed: M shows up with some exposition/dramatic tension; Felix Leiter has a bit of information here and there; Rene Mathis gets a few character moments; not much else. They're all pretty good, though I wished Jeffrey Wright's Leiter was able to do more with his character, but the point of Leiter in the film was that he couldn't do anything because of his retard boss, who was almost a plot twist himself: is he really as stupid as he seems?

Most Bond films follow the formula of two attractive females, a bad guy and a henchman. Olga Kurylenko plays a Bolivian with a chip on her shoulder and a general to assassinate, and Gemma Arterton is criminally underused as Miss (Strawberry) Fields of the British consulate, who apparently enjoys walking around La Paz in cowboy boots and a raincoat AND (apparently) NOTHING ELSE. This is a plot point that was sadly underdeveloped. Mathieu Amalric, who was so amazing in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, has very little to do here apart from act like a shady businessman with a slight ego problem, but within the New Bond Universe he's at least one step closer to a Blofeld-style villain. His henchman does pretty much nothing except wear a stupid haircut and get tripped down a flight of steps. We are miles away from Richard Kiel or even Herve Villechaize on the henchman meter here.

I've read some criticism regarding the framing of some of the action sequences, and I was all ready to say "Yeah, whatever," but it's true. Some bits and pieces were tough to follow geographically. Usually it's an editing issue when this happens, but in the case of Quantum I think they could have used more wide shots instead of the constant tight close-ups of Daniel Craig's steely resolve. This is more than a minor quibble, but ultimately it didn't ruin the film for me.

Jack White and Alicia Keys do the opening theme song. It's okay. I think I actually liked Chris Cornell's work on the last one better; but really, without getting into a huge discussion of Bond themes, there's not much that holds a candle to the old Shirley Bassey stuff.

Ultimately, I thought Quantum of Solace was pretty okay, though not quite up to the high water mark set by Casino Royale. Here's hoping they can keep these films interesting without descending into Bourne-retread territory.

Leave Tom Cruise Alone!

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Why am I going all Chris Crocker in defense of Xenu-guy? Two reasons:

1) I'm sick of hearing about him.

2) It's distracting from the real issue at hand.

His new film Valkyrie is coming out at the end of the month, and all people can talk about is "Gee, that Tom Cruise is still pretty weird." Or, I really like how MSN's Celebrity Buzz put it in their byline: "Can Valkyrie help put Tom Cruise back on top? It's a risky film to make, and not just because of the sensitive subject matter. Cruise has been trying to rehabilitate his image, and few PR experts regularly advise donning a German army uniform to engender warm feelings."

Why is it every time the press gives any space to this film, it's always OMG TOM CRUISE IS PLAYING A NAZI? Are people not paying attention to the fact that this film is about a bunch of guys who TRIED TO BLOW UP HITLER? I was unaware that efforts to assassinate a mass-murdering dictator might be "sensitive subject matter". I would think we'd all be on board here.

Granted, it was a tumultuous production, but much of that was generated by the press to begin with. And yes, there are all sorts of accents in play here. But would you rather have another K-19 situation, where Harrison Ford spectacularly tried on a Russian accent? Listen, more than anything else Tom deserves to be in this film because it's his job to play the hero in films and he happens to look JUST LIKE THE DUDE HE'S PLAYING.

Ultimately, what I'm saying here is that I want to see this movie and I'm tired of everything being about TOM CRUISE IS A NAZI more than anything else. It's character assassination, and it's taking valuable gossip press space away from Anne Hathaway.

On High Definition, Blu-ray, and the Future of Home Entertainment

Editor's Note: GUYS, WE ARE BACK AND WE ARE BACK HARDCORE.

By now, many of you loyal readers out there must be wondering what the deal is with this high definition digital stuff going on at your local electronics retailers. I am going to try to explain this as best as I can, and try not to slide into gushing hyperbole with regards to my new HD television set.

Yes, I got one. Yes, it is awesome. No, you can’t borrow it.

Basically, high definition is the future. The price is really starting to come down on these things (though in these difficult economic times, it may still be out of reach for many) and with that whole thing where the FCC got paid off to allow everything to go digital, now is probably the time to start checking these TVs out. Heck, you can use it as a big computer monitor if you want, it's got a jack for it in the back. Pretty neat! Here are a few tips from wiser fellows than myself, who have advised me in the following mystic arts of HD specs:

1080p. I cannot stress this enough. 720p, 1080i, they are garbage. Do not consider a TV that is not 1080p unless you are purchasing a cheap gift for someone you don’t like, like John Travolta. 1080p is the most important spec.

After 1080p, there are a lot of other specs you can look into if you want to get a higher-end TV. A good idea is to look for a TV with a speed of 60 – 120Hz. This spec will likely be found on the more expensive TVs. Contrast ratio used to be important, but a lot of brands are now saying 1,000,000:1 which makes no sense and now the spec is pretty much useless. Samsung and Sony, the two best brands to buy, might still use sensible contrast ratio numbers; 50:000:1 would be pretty good.

As far as brands, Sony and Samsung are probably your top brands. LG is creeping up there, as well. I’m told that Visio makes a pretty good TV, but has nonexistent customer service if there’s ever a problem.

Okay, so you went out and got a high-def TV set and it’s all awesome, but now what?

There are a number of options.

Are you a cinephile who watches an average of 5 – 10 films a week and desperately needs the best picture possible? Get a Blu-ray player. The prices have gone down considerably, and now the newer models can be connected to the internet to download firmware updates. These updates are important, since Blu-ray is still an emerging technology (read: it's STILL not ready yet and they're working on getting the bugs out with running changes. Also known as The Microsoft Method). Also, you don’t need to throw away your old DVDs, because the player will upconvert them to as HD a picture as it can. Pretty neat! I have not watched the upconverted Star Wars Holiday Special. I am afraid.

Are you a gamer, or do you hope to be? Get a PlayStation 3. PS3 has (supposedly) all the best games, and plays Blu-ray discs. Also, you can jack it in to the internet to download those pesky firmware updates.

Are you going to watch crazy amounts of sporting events and occasional films? Digital cable or satellite may be for you! However, my experience with satellite has shown that reception is affected by weather conditions and forest creatures, and some friends of mine have AT&T’s digital cable and it is The Worst Thing EVAR. But hockey looks AMAZING in HD. Holy cow.

But for the average consumer who doesn’t care a whole lot about any of this stuff, I would suggest not purchasing a Blu-ray player. Basically, Blu-ray is shaping up to be another LaserDisc, a relatively expensive prestige format. List price for Blu-ray discs are exorbitant at best; $39.99 for Fantastic Four? Are you serious? Even at discount places like Best Buy or Amazon, you’re looking at $27.99 for Iron Man. If you look around you can find some deals, but I don’t think the format is going to catch on unless the prices for the media go down considerably.

The best bet for the average person with a new HD set would be to purchase DVD conversion player. They retail for around $100 and will upconvert your DVDs to approximate HD. It’s not as good as Blu-ray, but it still looks pretty amazing and the average person won’t notice the difference.

Another reason why the average person shouldn’t get a Blu-ray player is Moore’s Law. Within the next few years (if the infrastructure doesn’t break down completely), broadband will be at a bandwidth capable of effortlessly streaming HD media off the interwebs. NetFlix has already started making this service available, and even some Blu-ray players now have integrated NetFlix players, as does the Xbox 360. The only problem with this option is that the bandwidth isn’t available everywhere to do this yet. If you’re fortunate enough to have some kind of crazy fast broadband service, I’d say go with this option immediately. But Moore’s Law says that it’ll be everywhere soon, so for those of us who have to wait, streaming video is the future!