Skyfall (2012): Memorable Story and Characters

Our hope that 2012's Skyfall could make a good change in the James Bond series once more came true. Every Bond movie with Daniel Craig's participation brought a big alteration to the previously established course of the franchise. 2006's Casino Royale was the first big surprise, which rebooted the famous secret agent's story timeline and offered a non-conventional treatment of the character who was not capable anymore of saving the world effortlessly. 2008's Quantum of Solace was almost a U-turn again reinstating Bond as an omnipotent hero and lacking a good story. Finally, Skyfall accomplished another drastic reversal bringing the competent characterization and the good storytelling of Casino Royale back at the expense of Bond's invincibility.

After an unsuccessful mission to secure an important computer drive containing the names of British secret agents back from a man who has stolen it, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is considered to be dead, incidentally shot by his partner Eve (Naomie Harris). Months later the British government's upset with MI6 and particularly with M (Judi Dench) has reached the point to offer her a retirement due to the inability of MI6 to recover the drive. M prefers to stay until the issue is resolved. But it appears the government is not the only one wanting M's head as there is an explosion in MI6's headquarters. After the explosion Bond decides to return despite his unstable condition and possibly woolly attitude after being shot by his own colleague in consequence of M's instruction. Once he becomes a secret agent anew it appears the man having the drive (Javier Bardem) is not so unknown. His name is Silva and he has his own agenda for dealing with M.

As it becomes clear since the very beginning of Skyfall this time James Bond is not a powerful and invulnerable hero. This leads to a more interesting story, which the characters of Javier Bardem and Judi Dench also contribute a lot to. Javier Bardem is easily acceptable as a villain and he has already demonstrated in former movies he is quite capable of portraying bad guys. Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney also have memorable roles and they show good acting skills as usual. Having seen them in two previous Bond films, Judi Dench and Daniel Craig are what you would expect from them (which means good). And Ben Whishaw makes a decent appearance as Q. As a whole, the introduction of more personal sides of the characters furthers Skyfall's quality.

The cinematography is left in the hands of Roger Deakins and this makes Skyfall one of the most beautifully shot films in the James Bond franchise. There are plenty of lovely places presented in the movie (Istanbul, Macau, Shanghai, the Scottish Highlands and of course, London), which give you enough opportunities to appreciate Deakin's mastery more than once. The soundtrack is better than Quantum of Solace's score and this includes Adele's opening song. The direction of Sam Mendes is also great, which is of course easier when a good script is on hand.

To conclude, Skyfall is definitely a huge improvement over the former James Bond installment. It is probably not so surprisingly strong and pleasantly different as Casino Royale but it is a solid effort and deserves attention.

In Time (2011): Only the Poor Die Young

In Time is the latest brainchild of writer/director Andrew Niccol who you probably know from Gattaca. It is a high concept movie set in a dystopian futuristic society where people don't age past 25 and time is money. Literally. The more you have, the longer you live. Obviously this is an idea which doesn't bet on subtlety. And neither does its implementation.

In Time is direct and straightforward in a lot of ways. The world depicted has a clean retro-futuristic styling similar in this respect to Gattaca. The story is a take on Bonnie and Clyde with a robinhoodian cause. Its mythological grounds are well placed in this futuristic but almost timeless setting, which goes to some depth exploring the concept and its implications. Time related puns are probably too many, though. The movie shows some real obsession with them. They can be occasionally brilliant, but often a little too obvious. On the other hand, some of the more subtle elements derived from the literality of the "Time is money" reality are actually entertaining and thoughtful. The differences in the functional way the rich and poor dress, for example. Or how the rich are careful in their daily routines. You certainly don't want to die accidentally when there are millenia to lose.

The greatest strength of the movie lies in the stylish visual approach it takes in showing the world. Its decors have a role as important as the base idea and the story. Helping on the visual side is cinematographer Roger Deakins. This is his first digitally shot movie (images captured with the Arri Alexa) and he did a wonderful job. High profile cinematographers tend to stick to what they know best (film) and avoid risks. But In Time (together with Drive and The Social Network) shows that digital is now at least as good a medium for image capture as film. And probably even better on the technical side.

In regard to the acting Justin Timberlake is doing ok in the lead. He has certain physicality to his performance, which fits the role. Amanda Seyfried as his love interest and a partner in crime doesn't have much to do other than looking around with wide-open eyes. Cillian Murphy, as the Timekeeper, feels somewhat underdeveloped and not used to his full potential. On a second thought, this is true for almost all characters. Notable exceptions are Vincent Kartheiser as Sylvia's father and Alex Pettyfer as the leader of a gang of time thieves.

Simplicity is both the strength and the fall of In Time. It has an interesting concept and an interesting world, which happen to be tied to a not so interesting story. The movie is quite blunt at times, and the occasionally sloppy storytelling doesn't help. Pacing problems (excuse the pun) are notable and the ending is rather weak.

With all of its shortcomings, choppiness and overt straightforwardness, there is something unique and distinct about Andrew Niccol's movies, which makes In Time worth seeing too. And it also happens to have a timely release, what with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011): A New Challenge for Spielberg

Steven Spielberg's commitment to Tintin probably raised an eyebrow or two. Apparently, he was acquainted with the original comic books by Hergé and became a fan sometime in the early 1980s after some critic compared Raiders of the Lost Ark to Tintin. And he held the rights for a movie adaptation for almost thirty years. The Adventures of Tintin is Spielberg's first animated movie. Interestingly, it is not done be his former company Dreamworks, instead it is made by Weta Digital. The project is in a lot of ways collaboration with Peter Jackson who is also a fan of the original series. On this movie Jackson is credited as a producer, but he will direct the sequel. A third movie co-directed by both Spielberg and Jackson is a possibility.

After seeing the finished product the comparisons with the Indiana Jones movies are easy to justify. The Adventures of Tintin is an old school adventure and, when it works, it is spectacular and channels the spirit of Indy Jones. But Tintin does not quite have the soul of it all the time. One can probably blame the technicalities of CGI for that. The characters are simple, often stereotypical and one-dimensional (much like in an Indy film), and that's a good thing in this case. The movie keeps a fast pace, blending adventure and action but has a tendency to prolong the action parts a little too much. And somewhat absurdly, the end felt both too fast and overstretched at the same time.

All imagery is rendered with realistic materials but, unlike Robert Zemeckis's efforts in this field, uncanny valley is avoided through character stylization which more or less follows the original designs of Herge. Colors and lighting are beautiful. Longtime Spielberg's director of photography Janusz Kaminski served as a lighting consultant on the project, very much like Roger Deakins did on How to Train Your Dragon and Rango, and the film-like quality of the lighting is readily apparent. The actual movement animations leave place for improvement, though. And character stylization in The Adventures of Tintin is too much on the Dreamworks side here and there (which is not a good thing for those who wonder).

The camerawork is vigorous. Apparently Spielberg did a lot of it himself. It seems like he got a new toy - the virtual camera - got swept by its freedom and could not stop playing with it. Sometimes this leads to breathtaking shots but the result is not always positive. The camera is often unrestrained and distracting. This, coupled with the occasional show-off on the rendering side, almost breaks the immersion at times.

The above may sound rather critical, but The Adventures of Tintin is actually a pretty good movie. It is probably the best animated film this year so far, together with Rango. It is good entertainment and has that cozy oldschool Spielberg feeling to it (well, most of the time, at least). Kids will undoubtedly love it. And on top of that, it features some crisp, competent and unobtrusive stereo 3D, as expected from a rendered movie.

Oscar Winners at 2011 Academy Awards: Another Year, Another Fail

Another year, another Academy fail. Not that anyone would have expected significantly different Oscar winners.

If there is a big Oscar winner at 2011's Academy Awards that's obviously The King's Speech with its 4 wins. While it's not the single film winning 4 Oscars overnight (the other one being Inception), all of The King's Speech statuettes have been won amongst the most important categories: Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. The King's Speech is a decent film. But it is also unworthy of at least two, possibly three of these Oscars. Because, you see, The King's Speech is flawed. And seriously so.

The King's Speech has a very potent premise and it starts quite well, vigorously exploiting that. It is pleasantly witty and sporting some likable characters, most notably Elizabeth and Logue. The acting of the three leads is strong throughout. All is good up to and including the first encounter of Logue and Bertie. Then the film quickly loses steam and (best) direction, and starts treading in circles. Luckily, the stupid substandard Freudian psychoanalysis crap is only superficially mentioned and not explored further, but we are not saved the mediocre court drama and the even more boring brother-son-king-duty stuff. On top of that, everything is presented in distracting wide-angle and self-indulgent framing and camera tilts. This translates The King's Speech into a movie undeserving to be among the Oscar winners in the Best Picture, Best Directing and Best Original Screenplay categories. Whether Colin Firth's Best Actor win is justified can probably be argued but at least it is not as grating as the other three awards. Rewarding Tom Hooper for ruining what could have been a great movie and granting that mess the Best Picture Academy Award is ironic. Especially in the competition of Fincher, the Coens and even Russell.

The Oscar winners in Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor categories add even more ridicule. The Academy's preference for hyperactive roles with a hysterical tendency is utterly amusing. Academy members are like children in a candy shop. They go for the most colorful and noisiest stuff. Which makes Oscar baits so easy to pull on them. Both Oscar winners, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, seriously overact their performances. And while picking Bale for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award over the quiet menace of John Hawkes or the confident eccentricity of Geoffrey Rush is understandable, and to an extent, excusable, as Bale's attention-whore style overacting is mostly during the docu-shoot (a fact that, in a way, makes it acceptable), one can't really say the same for Melissa Leo. Every single alternative among the Oscar nominees for Best Supporting Actress would have been better than her, but apparently not noisy enough for the Academy: Jacki Weaver's measured performance in Animal Kingdom; the regal, yet warm, Helena Bonham Carter; the cocky and determined Hailee Steinfeld; even Amy Adams was less annoying in The Fighter compared to Melissa Leo. And while we are still at the candies, Alice in Wonderland's Academy Awards in the Best Art Direction and Best Costumes categories give us even more examples of the Academy's affinity for the bright and loud.

As we predicted here, Roger Deakins was once again denied his long overdue Academy Award for Cinematography. This time True Grit was not enough to make him an Oscar winner. Inception's merits in the field of cinematography mostly come down to the use of 35mm in VistaVision mode, adding 65mm to that, mixing in some digital, and executing a few difficult shots. In that regard, its Oscar award is not totally undeserved. Not that the Academy understands it, though. And they aren't less guilty of missing the beauty and superiority of Deakins' work. Still, it could have been worse. The King's Speech could have won the Oscar here...

To end on a more positive vibe, it was not mediocrity and epic fail only at 2011's Academy Awards. After all, Aaron Sorkin did win the Best Adapted Screenplay category, and Hans Zimmer's music was not among the Oscar winners again. And, erm, yeah, that's that then.

Discover more Oscar related articles in our Review Maze.

People with Multiple Oscar Nominations and Not a Single Academy Award

Continuing from our previous article on the Oscars and the Academy's omissions we are now going to talk about a few people who did get multiple Oscar nominations but never received an Academy Award.

This is formally inspired by the ninth Oscar nomination of cinematographer Roger Deakins (for True Grit) who doesn't have an Academy Award in his collection yet. The fact that this cinematographer extraordinaire and a long-time favorite of fellow cinematographers has been continuously neglected by the Academy is symptomatic of the way the Academy ballots work. A good chunk of the Academy members tend to vote for the bigger titles in the technical categories. Voting in these categories for their Best Picture favorite (if it happens to be nominated there) is common practice. Probably that's why Roger Deakins, who usually shoots smaller character driven films, never wins. Especially striking was that in 2008 he was double nominated for No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford but lost to Robert Elswitt's There Will Be Blood (admittedly, a fine looking film but hardly of the exquisite quality of The Assassination). As occasionally happens in such cases, the double Oscar nomination may have been a bad favor, actually leading to split in the votes. Unfortunately, 2011's Best Cinematography Oscar does not look like going Deakins' way considering the competition of The King's Speech (wtf?), The Social Network and Inception. The chance one of these three films seizes the Academy Award for Best Cinematography is huge, but one can never know for sure.

To add some more spice, let's have a quick walk through history for some other multiple Oscar nominees who never got the Academy Award.

Italian maestro Federico Fellini was nominated twelve times for Best Director or Best Writing but never won an Academy Award. This is not surprising. Foreign filmmakers working out of Hollywood rarely won Oscars (other than the Foreign Language category) due to the general unfamiliarity of America audiences (Academy members included) with their work. The Academy sought to offset this omission with an Honorary Award in 1992. Like if anyone cares about these. They remain a popular Academy device for soothing its guilty hive-conscience nevertheless.

Alfred Hitchcock received five Oscar nominations for Best Director. Even though he was a crowd pleaser he never really got much love from the Academy. Even a masterpiece in direction like Rear Window couldn't bring him the Academy Award (that year he lost to Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront). Hitchcock's technical and artistic genius was in a way rediscovered after Truffaut promoted him heavily as an example of the Auteur theory. Truffaut's book-interview with Hitchcock may have actually played a role when Hitchcock received the Honorary Oscar in 1967. Hitchcock's influence continues to be stronger in European cinema, the latest noteworthy Hitchcock inspired outing being Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer.

Robert Altman was nominated seven times (five Oscar nominations for Best Director and two for Best Picture) but lost to the likes of Steven Spielberg, Milos Forman, Ron Howard and Clint Eastwood. He surely had some tough luck meeting serious competition in the years he got nominated. And guess what? Right...he got an Honorary Award in 2006. Well, it was the least the Academy could do to honor his unorthodox methods and contributions to filmmaking: loose scripts, non-linearity, free improvisation, overlapping dialogue. He even fought with the studios to get R ratings for his films in order to keep children out of the audience because they wouldn't get the movies, a commendable trait in a strong business-minded environment as the film industry.

And to finish this off we are getting back further in time. One of the biggest stars of screwball comedy, Irene Dunne, was nominated five times for Best Actress (all leading roles). And she is the only one in this company that did not receive a Honorary Award. Back at the time comedy was not so rare in the acting Oscar nominations as nowadays but performances in drama were still favored. Perfection of comic timing apparently was not enough to win her an Oscar. Ironically, her most critically acclaimed role was in a drama feature (I Remember Mama) which also garnered an Oscar nomination in 1949. But, really, it is the fact she did not receive the Academy Award for her performance opposite Cary Grant in the seminal screwball comedy The Awful Truth that is most infuriating.

Discover some interesting facts about the Academy Awards or search for other movie articles in our Review Maze.

Academy Award Nominations 2011: Best Animated Feature Oscar Nominees Criticism, Part II

Follow the link to read the first part of our article Academy Award Nominations 2011: Best Animated Feature Oscar Nominees Criticism, Part I.

In recent years the category for Best Animated Feature has been dominated by Pixar productions. Which is perfectly understandable. Pixar have been at the forefront in the field of 3D animation, both technically and storytelling-wise. And their rivals were constantly lagging behind. Pixar's superiority was just a fact of life. The norm. One of those things that's silly to question. And Toy Story 3 is no exception here. The mature themes and their handling were even acknowledged with an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Second in a row for Pixar after Up. And also pretty much cementing Toy Story 3's win in the Best Animated Feature category, but this is another story.

How to Train Your Dragon is undoubtedly the best Dreamworks animation so far. Undoubtedly, it's also a worthy Oscar nominee. As all other Dreamworks productions it is a little bit uneven technically, mostly in the way it handles its realistic environments versus the stylized characters. But one can't help but notice the positive influence of visual consultant Roger Deakins in the way the movie is "shot": the fluid but restrained camera and the live-action-like lighting. In view of the forementioned Pixar excellence this little twist is commendable as an effort for differentiation. The end result is beautiful to behold, with night scenes and interiors being especially gorgeous.

What is the problem then, one might ask?

See, it is pretty obvious: that's the glaring absence of Tangled amongst the Oscar nominees. Tangled might be the most refreshing thing to happen to 3D animation since its advent. With the way it mimics the movements of the classic Disney animated figures. And with the way it boldly shuns away photorealistic rendering (which is Pixar's domain, anyway) in favor of hand-drawn simulation and then enhancing that with established modern techniques like global illumination (overemphasized for a richer look) and subsurface scattering. Tangled is really the missing link between photo-realistic 3D done the Pixar way and Disney from the old days. Surely, it deserves to be amongst 2011 Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature. Well, one could probably do with less singing, but, hey, it's Disney...

Now all this should be quite obvious to the Nomination Committee, or at least to a part of it. While Pixar and Dreamworks go evolutionary, Disney have gone radical. One possible reason for the omission of Tangled among the Oscar nominees in this category may be the fact Pixar and Disney are one company now. And with only three slots available the politically correct decision is probably to promote studio diversity in the Academy Award nominations. With the box-office success of Toy Story 3 and its apparent appeal (as pointed to by the Best Picture nod) favoring it over Tangled is understandable. Another possible explanation is philosophical and concerns the very foundations of the Best Animated Feature category and how the submissions for Oscar nominees are judged: Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon could just happen to be better films. But then again, this is not the Best Picture category, this is the category for Animated Features.

So maybe just bad luck for Tangled then. In a better year with five Oscar nominees the movie would most certainly get an Academy Award nomination. Yet, this is not a consolation or whatnot. The point is, the Academy has once again taken a wrong step. Unsurprisingly.

Read our opinion about 2011 Oscar winners. You might also find interesting to read about people who got multiple Oscar nominations but never received the Academy Award. If you like animated films, you may check our Top 5 3D Blu-ray movies article, where naturally you'll find some animations listed. Or just browse the Review Maze for more reviews.