W. (2008)

in a week that has seen a great deal of change in the oval office, i looked forward to spending a couple of hours looking back at the current admission in full knowledge that world politics was now devoid of the idiocy on display in oliver stone's current picture. "oh how we'll laugh!" i thought, and looked forward to seeing the film a great deal.

first things first. the good. josh brolin as bush is wonderful. his performance is inspired, if not up to his recent work with the coen brothers.

in all honesty brolin's performance is the one positive from the experience of seeing W. the main problem stems from the fact that the film doesnt seem to know what it is. a times its high drama, while at others its a second rate comedy, aiming at far too obvious targets using comedically unaccomplished actors. top of the pile of mediocracy is thandie newton, here supposedly playing condoleezza rice, although i personally dont consider a routine of tics and exagerated mannerisms to be much of a performance. i genuinely cant think of a worse performance that iv ever seen in a film, it brings the whole thing down to the level of a quickly produced saturday night skit.

im not the worlds biggest fan of oliver stone. jfk is a complete and utter masterpiece, one of the greatest films ever made, but aside from that i consider his body of work to be fairly lacking. his most recent work especially seems to lack the political bite that his earlier work had, which is particularly strange considering that his last two films have been about 9/11 (world trade centre) and george bush.

one positive thought that did come out of this fairly mediocre experience was the concept of time contextuality in film. let me explain - i saw W. two days after the new president elect was chosen, therefore my experience was much different to how it would have been had i seen the film two days before barack obama's victory.

quantum of solace (2008)

the follow up to casino royale, a film reviewed below and enjoyed immensely by this viewer, is perhaps best viewed with its predecesor fresh in the mind. as i had only seen casino royale for the first time two days prior to seeing this i appeared to enjoy it much more than the person i attended the screening with, who hadnt seen casino royale since its theatrical release two years ago. the story follows on literally one hour after the previous film ended. herein lies the first major difference between previous bond sequels, as its the first genuine- continuity driven sequel in the series. the concept works a charm, with quantum of solace feeling more like casino royale part 2 than a stand alone film. while many people have been quite vocal about this not being the direction that they personally would like to see the bond films going in, i have to disagree entirely. alongside the benefit of adding real emotion to the bond films, this new wave of bond flicks has added depth (although emotion and depth are largely the same thing, especially in this context). that is to say that i genuinely care about seeing the next film in the series, in fact i would hasten to add that im actually looking forward to seeing it, which is a first for me, as prior to this recent experiment in bond viewing i had little experience with the series. its worth pointing out that while i have enjoyed my brief flirtation with bond i still consider them to be very much throw away entertainment, and cant see myself ever taking them too seriously or being a real fan.

casino royale (2006)

the film that not only breathed life into a dead franchise, but actually made the franchise in question much more interesting, martin campbell's ''casino royale'' (not to be confused with the david niven film of the 1960's, although admittedly that would be fairly unlikely) may draw many lazy comparisons to the bourne films, but i feel that its much closer in tone to the french connection (1971). gritty reinvention is nothing new, but with the bond franchise it actually opened up one of the largely ignored aspects of the original source novels, at the same time as serving a major plot purpose - the concept of a wet behind the ears bond, that would sooner kill than slow down and react ''properly'' to a scenario is one that not only makes perfect sense structure-wise but also conceptually applies to a large number of the intended audience. the emotional engine that the previous films lacked is front and centre in casino royale, gone are the over the top gadgets and the carry-on style humour, a necessary sacrifice in this post-austin powers universe. put simply the bond series couldnt carry on as it had been doing prior to royale, the concept had dated so badly, and had been pastiched to death. it is the aforementioned emotion that is the narrative string that i look forward to following through this new generation of bond films.