Skyfall (2012) Film Review

James Bond is James Bond is James Bond. What new is there to be said about it? He’s charismatic and charming. There’s a bad guy who is seemingly unstoppable. There are a lot of explosions and (spoiler alert) Bond eventually comes out on top.

I was really disappointed by this film. I’m not sure why; it was everything it was supposed to be. But it did very little for me.

As I was watching something else explode (and I do love seeing things exploding onscreen. I don’t think I’ve seen anything explode for real. I’d probably like that too) I was trying to nut out what it was. Daniel Craig wasn’t doing it for me. Instead of having that cheeky twinkle in the eye that Bond is supposed to have, his eyes just seemed dull and dead.

As for the plot, if you’ve seen a trailer, you know that Bond is shot early on and believed to be dead. Of course, this is a Bond film, so we know he’s not. But it still would have been nice for the suspense to have been drawn out somewhat more, rather than him reappearing so soon.

Plus, all I’ve heard about this film is how amazing Javier Bardem is as the bad guy, but even that didn’t work for me. Everything felt really by the book and flat. Ah well, soon there will be another Hollywood action film that will blow me away.

Roger Deakins was nominated for an Oscar for Cinematography and was nominated for a BAFTA for Cinematography

Thomas Newman was nominated for an Oscar for Music (Original Score) and won the BAFTA for Original Music

‘Skyfall’ was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song – Motion Picture

Skyfall won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film

Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers were nominated for an Oscar for Sound Editing

Scott Millan, Greg p. Russell and Stuart Wilson were nominated for an Oscar for Sound Mixing

Scott Millan, Greg p. Russell and Stuart Wilson, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers were nominated for a BAFTA for Sound

Javier Bardem was nominated for a BAFTA for Supporting Actor

Judi Dench was nominated for a BAFTA for Supporting Actress

Stuart Baird was nominated for a BAFTA for Editing

Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock were nominated for a BAFTA for Production Design

The Shipping News – The Movie (2001) Film Review

I read The Shipping News last year and found it a dense read that I could not predict translating to film. I was extremely impressed, when I finally got around to hiring it, at how well the story was told. In just under two hours, the film captures the essence of the book; all of the characters, including the character that is the house when Quoyle and his family find themselves living.

There was a couple of immediately noticeable changes that I worried initially could be a problem; in the film, Quoyle only has one daughter and the dog is missing altogether. However, whilst both of those characters serve important roles in the book, they are not missing in the film.

It is a long and slow film, and usually, that’s what I complain about. I still think that the plot of the majority of films can be told in an hour and a half, but it’s almost as if ‘film’ has heard my complaint and is sending me all of the good long films. This film couldn’t have been a moment shorter; if anything, it could have been longer. However, there were single shots in the film that covered many pages of the book and encapsulated everything about this.