Man on Film: Skyfall

Just as with the Anna Karenina review, I'm putting this one out there in a most triumphantly half-assed manner. Enjoy if you can. 

For the most part, I think I get what they are trying to do with the rebooted Daniel Craig and beyond James Bond franchise. To their (in this case, "their" is a vague person/entity that I don't really care to look deeper into, but surely it's some genius at Sony Pictures) credit, I can sort of get behind the choice to try to make James Bond a more human character with a backstory that builds some emotional capital in the audience. The James Bond of old seemed content to peddle sex and gadgets with little concern for grounding the series in something resembling the real world.

In Skyfall, the powers that be brought in a bona fide director to man the helm of what one assumes (and again, maybe I'm wrong, as I don't care to get too bogged down in the details of what is going on with this franchise) to be the final of the origin trilogy for the character. I think it's safe to say that Sam Mendes is the most esteemed director* to take on the character, and there is definitely a visual sophistication here that was absent in Casino Royale or especially anything that preceded the most recent three films.

*Though Lewis Gilbert did direct the original Alfie, Roger Spottiswoode did Air America, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Turner & Hooch, and The Best of Times, Michael Apted was responsible for Gorillas in the Mist and The Coal Miner's Daughter, Lee Tamahori directed Next, and Marc Forster was the man behind the wheel for Finding Neverland and Monster's Ball.

Unfortunately, even when blessed with the presence of the inestimable Javier Bardem as the villain, Skyfall just doesn't quite accomplish what it seems to attempt. For starters, the film is overlong. I don't have a problem with a film running long if it doesn't feel long. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was 130 minutes and clipped right along. Skyfall felt long. It plodded along for much of the film's latter half. And while it does the admirable thing in trying to extricate the films from the gadget-fetishism that made them camp and thus relics from a bygone era and gives the franchise a new great Quartermaster in the form of Ben Whishaw,  it still feels just a little less contemporary than it's trying to be.

To its credit, Skyfall does spend much of its downtime building emotional backstory, giving weight to the third act and finally allowing Judi Dench to feel like her presence isn't merely a squandered luxury. I suppose it seems a bit two-faced to complain about the film's run-time while at the same time crediting Mendes & Co. for infusing an emotional weight largely absent from the previous incarnation of the franchise, but you can have a film with a little less wasted screen time.

I've already prattled on far longer than I had intended, so I'm going to wrap things up here. I will say that Skyfall was significantly better than Casino Royale, which was so bad that I refused to even bother with Quantum of Solace. It is very far from the best thing I've seen this year, but there were plenty of worse films. Mendes showed he could do the massive action film with Skyfall. Hopefully this gives him the latitude to be able to do whatever he wants after this, damn the consequences, even if it's a follow-up to the criminally underrated Away We Go.

Prick Tunes: "All My Days" by Alexi Murdoch

Last Monday, I was unable to convince TSLF to go to Alexi Murdoch's show at Antone's. Throwing him up in this space doesn't make up for not getting to see him, but I do love this song.

As a lead-up to that show, Murdoch was in studio on KUT (Austin's NPR affiliate). The audio for the appearance can be found here, and there is a downloadable MP3 of the segment at the site. Don't worry, it was in the afternoon, so there's no need to concern yourself over having to listen to John Aeilli talk at a musician you like. Jay Trachtenberg handles the interview and allows Murdoch to talk of his past, knock Los Angeles, and wax philosophical about the songwriter's experience. I can't recommend listening to this enough.

As a primer, here's "All My Days," which was heavily featured in Away We Go.

Man on Film: Away We Go

Well, I'm back.

I successfully avoided the internet almost entirely for the past two weeks--a detoxification if you will.

I guess we'll see how my 70-hour-per-week work schedule and the acquisition of a PS3 affect my output from here on out.

But let's move past the apology.

The Special Lady Friend and I saw Away We Go on Thursday.

We both really liked it.

Perhaps it is that the subject matter spoke to us, as thirtysomethings (I'm less than a month away...) who have yet to carve out their niche in adulthood, but this film was pretty great.

Sam Mendes's last film, Revolutionary Road, looked less than appealing to me. As his first feature film since 2005's solid-if-not-amazing Jarhead, Revolutionary Road struck me from afar as a suburban melodramatic period piece pandering for Oscar nominations.

With that in the back of my head, I went into Away We Go with virtually no expectations. I had only a vague idea as to what the film was going to be about. I knew Minnie Riperton's daughter would be in it. I knew it had John Krasinski. I may or may not have known that Dave Eggers (who I have mixed feelings about) and wife wrote the screenplay.

So with the lack of expectations I had for the film, I have to say I was enamored with Away We Go.

Krasinski and Rudolph aptly embodied the malaise of the go-nowhere thirtysomethings who have fallen astray of the socially-ordained life path. As their unmarried-and-expecting couple strikes out to find their place in the world, hilarity, hijinx, and self-realization ensue. Mendes has for the fifth straight time, made a film entirely unlike every other in his filmography. This is at the very least a sign of a skilled director, as this is at least four of five films that has excelled in their respective genres.

To say I was surprised by the wit, heart, and understated nature of the film would be an understatement. Perhaps it was the Juno-esque ad campaign that set the sights so low, but Away We Go was not saddled with horribly unrealistic dialogue, a cast of caricatures, and an irritatingly indie-pastiche soundtrack. Enriched by a subtler soundtrack almost entirely consistent of Alexi Murdoch tunes, the soundtrack compliments the film without distracting. No performances stick out as being anything less than on point.

Maybe having read this reaction will set your expectations impossibly high, but I cannot intimate to you how utterly surprised and delighted I was by this film.