Spectre Extended TV Spot - Bond gets Belluci Up Against Wall

We all know that James Bond can be a bit of a grubby sex pest, but Spectre looks to be taking Bond's ways with the ladies to unprecedented levels of creepy. Or maybe Daniel Craig menacingly saying his name with his face only centimetres from Monica Belluci's face is meant to be sexy and appealing. I don't think it's just because I'm a dude, but if someone introduced themselves to me while I was backed up against a wall and had their nose about to touch mine, I'd be tempted to shove them backwards down the stairs.

The latest TV spot for Spectre shows Naomie Harris struggling to deliver some godawful sounding exposition about how the new film will link back to Skyfall, before revealing some stuff we've already seen in the previously released trailer. We get that awesome 'kite dancing in a hurricane' line again before a bunch of shots of the big action set-pieces.

Christoph Waltz is still purring from the shadows (and definitely not bald or stroking a cat), but the car chases, helicopter attacks and plane crashes look like they are going to be an absolute blast.

Sam Mendes has set the bar bloody high with Skyfall so it will be exciting to see if he can outdo himself with Spectre. Just please get Craig to back off Belluci. Anyone would think Bond had watched Irreversible too many times and is about to reenact its most bloody horrible scene by the way he's harassing her.

With this, The Martian and Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 all released in the same month, November is going to be a busy month at the cinema.

Bond 24 Titled Spectre and gets a Teaser Poster

Big things are about to happen in the world of Bond 24 so get watching below:

Sam Mendes calls the 007 stage ‘The stage where budgets go to die’

The title will be: Spectre

7 month shoot across the globe.

Sam Mendes mentioned the key new additions to his crew:

Editor: Lee Smith

Cinematographer: Hoyt van Hotema (Interstellar)

Mendes then unveiled the new Aston Martin DB10

Before he introduced his returning cast:

Rory Kinnear as Tanner

Ben Whishaw as Q

Naomie Harris as Moneypenny

The 'extraordinary' Ralph Fiennes as M

and Daniel Craig back as Bond

As for new cast members, it's a tantalising bunch: 

Andrew Scott as Denby

David Bautista as Hinks

Monica Belluci

Lea Seydoux as Madeline Swann

Christoph Waltz

And here is the teaser poster:

 

James Bond is the Job Seeker

Love a bit of Cassette Boy. Not sure how I'd missed this one but it's well worth a look. Cassette Boy cuts up bits of audio/visual material and makes them into his own brand of silly, often satirical humour. He's hit Harry Potter, Nick Griffin and Jeremy Clarkson in the past and with this video he takes on the modern Bond film.

Hit by budget cuts, it seems Danial Craig is going from posh spy to down and out wino in the new Bond films. He's a brand new hero for our recession hit times:

Skyfall Film Club Review

Following on from participating in the From the Red Carpet film club for Looper and Premium Rush, I joined in again for the discussion of latest James Bond flick Skyfall.

Some of my contributions included:

‘Probably my favourite Bond ever, but then again I’ve never been the biggest Bond fan in the world.’

On Javier Bardem's terrific baddie: ‘Personally I would say he’s easily ONE of the best ever. So sympathetic, and what an incredible backstory. I loved how it was such a personal vendetta.’

‘Naomie Harris is absolutely gorgeous, but the verbal sparring between them was a bit lame and it was a shame she had to be told what to do in the action scene at the start. She seemed pretty capable but could have been more badass.’

Check out the From the Red Carpet review of Skyfall here.

I absolutely loved the film.  I thought the opening scene was filled with spectacular action, the cinematography and production design was some of the finest of the year and the mixing of the old with the new made it a Bond for all audiences.  I can't see how it would fail to satisfy any Bond fan or anyone who just loves a good action film

Adele's theme is a classic and the opening credits were suitably morbid and beautiful. Bardem made a hugely satisfying baddie with a standout scene that made me care more for him than any other Bond villain in history and finally the other cast members slotted into place in very exciting ways for the future of the franchise.  I had hoped for the ending to get more emotional but this is a minor complaint.

What I most loved about it was how it went from such huge epic globe-spanning stuff at the start to an incredibly personal and restricted story by the end.  I leaned more about Bond than ever and setting the action in one location for much of the final half was genius.  I hope Sam Mendes will be back for more.

 In other news, please go vote for The Master to be this week's film club pick as otherwise it's Twilight!

What did you think of Skyfall everybody?  Feel free to post links to your reviews in the comments!

Prequel gets Sequel

Big news today!  Bond 23 gets a title... wait for it... Skyfall!  Wow!  As usual this means nothing to me.  It's just another random naming of a Bond adventure that will inevitably lead to another completely average theme song and a much more interesting trippy opening credit sequence featuring sillhouetted women posing suggestively with guns... or something.  Slightly more promising than the underwhelming title is the news that Javier Bardem will be following his creepy turn in No Country for Old Men with a stab at a Bond villain.  Oh and apparently Bond may have a beard in this one.    Being directed by Sam Mendes could be reason to get very excited or it could be a reason to go; Bond? The director of American Beauty? WTF???

Forget Bond.  The real big bit of news for today is the signing of Andy Serkis to the Rise of the Planet of the Apes sequel.  Recently I suggested here that this might be the first prequel ever to not suck.  After getting all excited by the trailer, I was not disappointed by the film and actually really hoped that there would be more to come in this franchise.  The prequel spent so much time setting up a great character in Caesar (played perfectly using performance capture technology by Andy Serkis), that it only just got to the rising of the apes in the last few minutes of the film.  The scope for the sequel is epic.  I can't wait to see how these apes are going to bring an end to the rule of us pesky humans on this planet.  It should be two hours of (guerilla/gorilla) warfare!

The signing of Serkis means the return of the prequel's anti-hero Caesar.  This is a character easy to empathise with and root for, the CGI playing second fiddle to Serkis' motion-captured performance.  Go read this excellent post on why Serkis should get an Oscar nomination for his work!  It remains to be seen if James Franco will return, though despite being the hero and a great actor to watch, it was Caeser's story that needed to be continued as he leads the revolution.

Anyway, despite the ever increasing reliance on franchises, sequels, prequels and the ever-diminishing originality in Hollywood, this is a sequel to a prequel that will hopefully be a pleasure to see rise at the box office.

Check out Serkis at work in the video below:

Pointless or Perfection?

David Fincher. Director of classics Fight Club and Seven. Director of multiple academy Award winner The Social Network. Director of great films Zodiac and Panic Room. Director of um... other films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alien 3 and The Game.

But now comes Fincher's remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo:



Why remake a film from 2009? Because it's Swedish, subtitled and you've got to read it! Like Let The Right One In/ Let Me In and Infernal Affairs/ The Departed before it, this is another Hollywood cash-in to piss off fans of the original and delight people who don't read films.

Wierdly, Fincher's even kept Swedish accents in this one. Rooney Mara looks as though she may be as cool as Noomi Rapace when playing icon Lisbeth Salander but still, isn't this completely pointless to people who can read?

This is an outrage! Why must Americans remake anything with foreigners in it? Can they really not stand the sight of the rest of us?

But Fincher's a legend, a genius, a perfectionist. Does this mean he wants to perfect the 2009 Swedish version? Is he going to put his own stamp on it? Is he going back to the source book? It doesn't look like it. It looks beautifully shot (as you'd expect from Fincher and his obssessive and controlling collaborations with cinematographers) and the score sounds like a treat (continuing his collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). But the original was dark enough and I can't see how much darker Fincher can make it. The poster is sexed up from the original and the cast look great but no better than the original cast.

With all the projects Fincher has circled in the past, including Fertig and Rendevous with Rama, it seems a shame to be wasting all us Fincher fans' time on a pointless remake. I hope this wasn't the biggest pay cheque. I hope this is Fincher trying to bring us something fresh out of a story he thought needed to be told perfectly. I hope this lives up to the promise of the trailers and finally gives us some indication of why it needed to be remade!