BlogalongaBond: Skyfall

Way back in 2011, my favourite film critic The Incredible Suit figured out there were exactly the same amount of months preceding the release of Skyfall as there were Bond films. And thus BlogalongaBond was born, in which international film critics from around the world (hence the international bit) reviewed one Bond film a month until Skyfall dropped.

Being the top bloke that I am, I convinced my then-girlfriend (now wife) to take part in BlogalongaBond with me, seeing as how she hadn't seen a Bond film before, or couldn't remember having done so.

Me: Congratulations! You've made it the end of BlogalongaBond!

Her: Whoopee.

Me: Thanks for watching every Bond film with me.

Her: Thanks for nothing.

Me: Oh, come now, grumpy. Surely it hasn't been that bad?

Her: To be honest, they all tend to bleed together a bit. There were stand-outs, obviously, and memorable moments... but don't ask me to name the best ones because I can't remember the names. They're all "Tomorrow Is Never Enough" and "You Only Live Another Day" and "Golden Thunderlove". Having said that, Skyfall is a good one to wrap up this painful project because it's probably the best one.

Me: Really?

Her: Sure. And if it's not the best, it's certainly well up there.

Me: What makes you say that?

Her: Well, it's got a great villain, who's actually really freakin' scary. He's not trying to do something stupid like start wars to sell newspapers or bite people with his metal teeth. He's just a psycho who likes to kill people. And he's got a weird face. And mummy issues. It's a perfect recipe for a bad guy.

Bond had let himself go a bit though.

Me: Silva is certainly memorable and disturbing. And Bardem does an outstanding job in walking that fine line of the over-the-top villain, balancing between chewing the scenery and underplaying things too much. What else did you like about Skyfall?

Her: Nah, that's it really?

Me: What? How can you say it's one of the best....

Her: I'm kidding. Jeez, relax.

Me: Sorry.

Her: I liked the new Q. And Judi Dench's M is always great, but especially in this one.

Me: What else?

Her: I dunno. I guess I just liked the fact it wasn't stupid. And that it wasn't seemingly edited by a blind toddler with epilepsy, like Quantum Of Solace.

Me: Yes, well, the less said about Quantum Of Solace the better. Casino Royale was far from stupid - is Skyfall better?

Her: Maybe. This one had a better villain.

Me: You didn't rate Le Chiffre?

Her: Who?

Me: The villain in Casino Royale. He wept blood. And pummelled Bond's nuts.

Her. Meh. He played cards - ooh, scary.

Me: But the nut-pummelling!

Her: Look, Silva's better. Skyfall wins.

Me: Ok.

Her: Are you agreeing?

Me: Not really, I still think Casino Royale is better than Skyfall. But this one is certainly more Bond-ish, which was one of your criticisms of Casino Royale. And I did enjoy that.

Her: So what are the downsides of Skyfall?

Me: I'm a bit torn over that. I liked that it took it's time, but it also felt a little slow in places. And it was nice to see a Bond movie with an actual narrative theme - old versus new - but it felt a bit overused.

Her: You're just being picky.

Me: Maybe. I have to say Skyfall looked stunning though. We've never seen a Bond fight that looks as good as the one staged in silhouette among neon signs, plus the whole last act in Scotland - probably the most unglamourous Bond locale we've seen - looks great.

"Remind me again as to why we're not filming in the Bahamas."

Her: Speaking of the last act, that pretty much blows up your theory about each Bond being a different guy who just assumes the mantle of "James Bond".

Me: Maybe. It could just be a coincidence that they found an orphan called James Bond to become James Bond.

Her: Oh come on!

Me: Whatever. Look, thanks for watching all those movies with me. I know you didn't enjoy them all, but I've enjoyed our little chats.

Her: Yeah, well, it wasn't a total waste of time.

Me: Agreed. So, now that you've seen all the Bond films... will you marry me?

Her: Are you serious?

Me: Yeah. Will you make me the happiest man alive and agree to marry me?

Her: Because I've seen all the Bond films?

Me: Well, no. But now that that's all out of the way, I just thought I'd propose.

Her: Hmmm. Sure.

Me: Really?

Her: Yeah ok.

Me: Cool.

(PS. Ok, so it didn't quite happen like that - there was a ring, a restaurant, and I got down on one knee - but we really did get engaged after seeing Skyfall and wrapping up our BlogalongaBond conversation. It was a few hours after, but you get the point, which is "how can you ask someone to marry you if they haven't seen every 007 movie?".)

That's the end of BlogalongaBond, but you can read my review of Spectre here.

Seven Psychopaths

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Martin McDonagh.

Cast: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish.

"So I went to this zoo in Tokyo and all it had in it was a dog.
One dog. It was a shit zoo."

IRISH playwright Martin McDonagh created a cult favourite with swear-heavy purgatory parable In Bruges.

For his follow-up, McDonagh again mines an alternative vein, creating another profanity-laden niche black-comedy that also finds Farrell in good form and should appeal to fans of In Bruges, despite being a very different beast.

Farrell plays Marty, an Irish screenwriter struggling to complete his screenplay for a film called Seven Psychopaths.

Offering him assistance is his annoying actor friend Billy (Rockwell), who has a sideline with his pal Hans (Walken) in dognapping and collecting the rewards offered by distraught owners.

But one of those owners (Harrelson) is not content with posting a reward - he wants to kill everyone who gets between him and his shih tzu Bonnie, drawing Marty into a world of real-life psychopaths that are far more terrifying and unexpected than anything he could have come up with for his script.

With its title being about a script of the same name, Seven Psychopaths gets into some very "meta" territory. It revels in its own post-modernity - in discussing the script within the movie, the film gets to embrace and ridicule cinematic conventions at every turn.

From the cliche of the final shootout to the role of women in movies, from the American fetishism of violence to the use of dream sequences in cinema, it cleverly skewers the tropes of Hollywood while gleefully carrying them out. For the most part, it manages to have its cake and eat it too.

It's also funny in an often dark way. One character's possible alcoholism is treated as a serious problem in the face of largely ignored violence, and an extended section involving characters trying to figure out how to end Marty's movie riffs on the insanity of movies such as The Expendables.

The cast is great - Farrell is good but overshadowed, becoming a headlining passenger along for the ride. Rockwell's idiosyncracies are hilarious, Tom Waits just about steals the show, and Walken and Harrelson each do what they do so well.

So why only three stars? As enjoyable as this movie is, there are holes. Some of its attempts at being clever come up as overly convenient. This could be tight scriptwriting, but in hindsight it feels a bit like cheating.

It stretches its post-modern "hey look at us mocking making movies while we make a movie" joke to breaking point, and despite it being satisfying at the time it's troubling afterwards if you start thinking about character motivations and backstories, and realise that it doesn't quite gel.

In my heart I want to give this four stars, but I know it's actually only a three-star movie. As fun and funny as it is, as incredibly cool and sneaky its meta-movie plot is, Seven Psychopaths is disjointed and doesn't make sense in places. Too many characters seem strange for the sake of being strange and there's a feeling that there may be one too many ideas in there as part of a desperate attempt to shoehorn in a couple more themes.