Two more outstanding movies to report on. We finally saw Casino Royale today, and caught The Good German a little more than a week ago. Both film are really excellent although in very different ways.

Cate Blanchett and George Clooney bring outstanding performances to what may appear to be a rather mundane film. Steven Soderberg has truly captured the essence of a 1940’s film noir set during the Potsdam Conference at the close of WWII in Europe. Shot entirely in black and white using techniques and sometimes equipment from that era, the film stands out against the action-oriented films that dominate today’s theaters.

George Clooney plays his role with his typical excellence however the real star is Cate Blanchett. She brings an extraordinary performance that reminds me of Ingrid Bergmen or Marlene Dietrich.

The plot is not very complex and the pacing is a bit slow by comparison to Casino Royale. On the other hand, compare this film to something like The Maltese Falcon. Both films have intrigue, good guys, bad guys, and a women in desperate need of assistance. The Good German is an excellent film worthy of critical attention.

I doubt this film will appeal to a lot of people but if you should see it if you have the opportunity. The photography, lighting and acting is really something special.

For comparison, we saw Daniel Craig in the latest James Bond franchise film. This is the best Bond film in many years. Its packed with gritty action, a bit of cheesy dialog and a femme fatale or two. This “Bond Villain” is a classic megalomaniac but without the doomsday weapon. He is very smart however and has a great plan for personal gain to the detriment of the general populace. Although trivial, the backdrop of a terrorist organization updates the plot from the 1960s nicely.

I was reminded of Goldfinger quite often while watching this film (my two favorite Bond films are Goldfinger and Thunderball). The villain is powerful and wealthy but not so powerful as to be unbelievable. The villain’s plan for personal gain is not too fantastic – its possible it could actually work. The locations are beautiful; the automobiles and gadgets are even better.

The obligatory torture scene is a bit more disturbing than any other I can recall but the outcome is far superior. There is no magic involved and no special gadget that saves the day. The cheese factor is quite low for a Bond film actually, and very much appreciated.

Some have said that Daniel Craig is as good as Sean Connery. I’d have to agree, and this is certainly the best Bond film in a very long time. Gosh I hope they make another one as good as this one.

Last week we watched two very different movies: Inside Man starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen and directed by Spike Lee; and Brothers Grimm starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger and directed by Terry Gilliam.

Inside Man was a delightful heist story with a great twist. The players were fantastic and the time-shifted scenes of witness interviews added a great touch of intrigue. I found the side-story with Jodie Foster’s character completely unnecessary – it was obvious that the banker (played by Christopher Plummer) had a lot to lose from the heist, even if the specific thing to lose wasn’t blatently stated. The over-the-top “problem solver” character played by Jodie Foster really didn’t move the story along as much as the director probably thought it would. Even so, this was a great film.

The Brothers Grimm was disappointing. Watching the film you can tell the script had real promise but everything went very wrong from the second scene. The first scene was really delightful (it was the adventure in the barn recreating then destroying the local ghost) but after that it was pretty dismal. We found most characters were over-acted to the point of not being funny, and the entire movie turned out to be a mash-up of odd scenes adapted from classic fairy tales but sculpted around what cast members happened to be handy at the time. The only redeeming part were the wonderful costumes. If you also lost 90 minutes to this tragedy then you have my sympathies.

Eileen and I watched the 1978 movie Capricorn One last night. I haven’t seen this movie in many, many years while Eileen had never seen it. I don’t even recall how we got on the topic of this movie many months ago but Eileen was intrigued with the plot, so we finally watched it.

It was pretty much the same as I recalled although I was probably more critical of the direction and writing this time around. Exactly as I remembered, the acting was pretty lame. And just like I recalled, there were really huge holes in the “science” of the script. Could you really believe NASA would use the old Apollo gear to land on Mars? That old lander would crumple like tin foil under the Martian gravity. Who could really believe astronauts would spend months at a time cramped up in that small Apollo capsule?

Its still a fantastic concept, well scripted, and everything else works well enough to pull off a decent movie. Eileen enjoyed it too, she pointed out how well scripted it was. The pace moved along at the right speed and there was nothing unnecessary to the plot line.

Eileen was the first to notice one of the actors was Sam Waterson, we know him better for his role in Law and Order and while he didn’t have a lot of screen time here he didn’t embarrass himself. Ditto for OJ Simpson, who would later go on to embarrass himself in other ways. Other actors we recognized by face, even if not by name, included Elliot Gould and James Brolin. Both gave excellent performances.

We were also reminded of similarites with many Hitchcock films. The most significant feature for me was how most violence was kept off-screen. People were killed, you knew they were killed yet it wasn’t necessary to show it. In fact the characters never really said that anyone was killed, you just knew it happened and the story moved along.

Many movies made today suffer the flaw of assuming audiences are stupid. Modern sound tracks are amplified to provide hammer-like cues telling us when to be sad, when to be scared, and when to be tense. Most of these movies are so full of special effects that you never really get to see really talented actors practicing their craft – if there are any really talented, rather than just popular, actors casted at all. Every detail of the storyline has to be played out as if it was being spoon-fed to an infant. It was refreshing to see one of these older movies that didn’t suffer these flaws at all.

We borrowed this film from our local library so it didn’t cost us anything but still gave us an evening of enjoyment. If you’ve never seen this movie then you should try to catch it someday.

We watched Serenity last night. This is the fifth time I’ve watched the movie: twice in the theatre, twice on DVD and now again with our friend Alan. He was visiting last night, he was curious to see it again, and of course I was happy to oblige.

I really loved the original Firefly series. I wasn’t a huge Joss Whedon fan before, and didn’t watch Buffy or Angel regularly at all. But Firefly was really interesting; maybe because it was set in a dark, space-faring future it was more appealing to me than vampire hunting.

There are lots of reasons why Firefly never took off (it only lasted half a season) but none of it had to do with the quality of the story, or the quality of the acting, or the quality of the directing, or the quality of the photography. You can blame FOX if you want: they didn’t run the pilot episode first, they put it into a late Friday night time slot, they didn’t do enough promotion, etc.

My opinion: the story is too sophisticated for the audiences that tune into FOX, or any broadcast television programming for that matter. Compare Firefly with the new Battlestar Galactica. Both have large casts, extensive sets, special effects, and complicated story arcs. But if you put BSG onto FOX (or NBC, for that matter) it would flop. Broadcast television simply does not attract the type of audience that wants stories like Firefly.

Anyways, I digress. What I really wanted to write about is what I thought was good and bad about Serenity. Its easy to start with the good stuff. The direction is very good, its revealed in every shot. Sets are complete. Dialogue is just right. Lighting is perfect. Actors deliver the emotional punch on cue. Everything is correct.

The entire movie is filled with great dialogue; the actors are good (not great) but the dialogue smooths over the points of bad acting. The original casting was really good. A whole bunch of unknown actors, but each was well matched to their role. And clearly the cast gets along well.

Mostly you have to appreciate the photography. In the first scene where you see Mel and the ship’s crew, its a four and a half minute continuous hand-held shot. No cuts. You are introduced to all the characters on the ship as well as the ship itself in one long walk-around tour. That is very atypical: most shots are 30 seconds max, and often much shorter. The classic technique calls for quick cuts to keep up pacing and often used to create a frantic setting.

Yet this shot really works. The Serenity ship set is huge and complex. During the walk-around the interactions between characters are established immediately. You see the contrast to the Alliance world (first portrayed in the opening scenes). You feel the hectic pace as the ship is shuddering through its landing cycle. You sense the depth and complexity of the crew’s relationships. And its funny. The dialogue is sharp, witty and clean.

The camera work is good; there are plenty of interesting shots from interesting angles and nothing feels out of place. Joss Whedon used hand-held work to maximum effect in both the original series and in the movie. Many of the special effects shots are done with the same feeling. You often will see the “camera” focusing in on the external view of the ship hanging in space. The shot is entirely computer-generated. The ship doesn’t exist, the “camera” isn’t a real camera, and yet it still feels like a wobbly just-coming-into-focus hand-held shot. I’ve noticed the same thing happening in BSG. It adds a sense of realism too.

Now for the bad. The concept of Mr. Universe was terrible, as it provided no real value to the story. As a plot device, was full of contradictions. Supposedly ships couldn’t be observed descending into the planet’s atmosphere, yet somehow communications signals were able to travel in to and out from the planet’s surface without interference? Planet-side there were very large structures, a landing strip, etc. and yet the whole place was inhabited by a single person (plus love-bot)? Mr. Universe is an unsophisticated character, a simple and shallow plot device that doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. Dumb.

The ending was decidedly poor. Mel had no reason to let The Operative (the villian) live; out of character for Mel in my opinion. The Operative had no real reason to “see the light” even after watching the video about Miranda and the effects of the Pax. As a deadly instrument of the Alliance, he already accepted that extreme measures where often required. He certainly had no motivation to allow the Serenity crew to escape. He should have ordered the Alliance forces to take prisioners. And he certainly should not have visited Mel prior to the ship’s departure. But all of that was completely unnecessary for the storyline.

The crew could have escaped without running into the Alliance at all. It would have left the story in the same place it started: the crew was on the run at the start, the crew should have still been on the run at the end. Essentially, the movie could have gone from the big “River vs. the Reavers” fight directly to patching the ship and flying away. Let The Operative die, or let Mel kill him with his own sword, that would have been better, and move on.

Oh well, no movie is perfect. This one was very good though. Likely there are people who disagree with my opinions. But they are wrong. :^)

Friday night I cooked dinner again, beef steaks from the local butcher with Bernaise sauce and a tomato salad. We opened a bottle of Cambria 2004 Pinot Noir which was worth remembering. Yummy!

We were pretty lazy on Saturday. I did some design work on an electronics project (a custom USB device for robotics) while Eileen cleaned her office and worked on her next book. Later in the afternoon I caught an episode of the new BattleStar Galactica. It was the third episode of the second season, and excellent as expected. I’m still not exactly sure where the religious storyline is going but I’m willing to hang in there to find out. I also realized I missed episode two. I was quite unpleased I had missed that episode. I was willing to buy the episode, I figured it was worth a few bucks for the instant gratification. The iTunes Store does carry BSG episodes, but its not for sale in Canada. Stupid. So I set off to find a viable download online. It took all night to get the episode using a BitTorrent feed (that link takes you to the software, not to the torrent download, but whatever). I eventually watched the missing episode and it was really good. Better than I expected, and I had high expectations. Also let it be known that its time to bring television show downloads to Canada. Are you listening, Apple?

Meanwhile Eileen went out to dinner and a film with our good friend Allison while I stayed home to watch the Canucks. They went to see Memoirs of a Geisha and raved about it. I want to go too so she’ll have to sit through it again. Apparently this won’t be a hardship at all. Eileen got home in time to see the end of the hockey game. Enough said about that ugliness!

Sunday was a bit more ambitious. I made breakfast: scrambled eggs with cream cheese and scallions, turkey sausages, toast and tea. We read the New York Times and phoned my mother to catch up on her news. Seems everything is going well with her despite an injury to her spine (two damaged vertebrae that will take some time to heal). I worry about her as she lives alone, but seems to be doing ok. Eileen and I are planning a visit in May. We’re waiting for the end of winter; spring arrives late in Michigan compared to Vancouver. :^)

In the afternoon we attended the first birthday party for Tobias’ and Sharon’s daughter Isabel. They served monkey cake (not made from real monkeys) and we had lots of fun catching up with them and their friend Pidge. We met lots of other nice folks too. Eileen and I realized it’s been a long time since we’ve seen either Sharon or Isabel and she is getting big (Isabel, not Sharon). She already tears around the house like she owns the place, and just about ready to start walking. Just great!

Sunday evening was spent watching The Constant Gardener. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are wonderful actors that bring true passion to very passionate roles. Its a deep story but the pacing is off, at least in the first two thirds of the film. Still worth viewing though, as the last third is simply amazing. The background scenery is simultaneously stunning, frightening, intriguing and inspiring. Eileen rented the DVD this time and I’m really glad she did. I probably would not have rented it, as you might remember I was always going to prefer using the video on demand service. I found the DVD extras really informative especially the section that described how and where it was filmed – they filmed in Kenya, often in places that were not “dressed” as sets. They filmed real people in their real villages as part of the backdrop to the actors in the foreground. Stunning, unique and welcome.

And then it was Monday, and back to work.