Sisters

Were it not for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Sisters would not be a good movie. But Sisters has Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, so it's a good movie. Not only do they elevate the material, they define it. These two are solid proof that not only can women be funny, they can be funnier than most. It's a privilege to live in a world where millions of dollars are thrown into a production that essentially equates to two friends goofing around and doing on camera what they'd be doing with their day anyway, in such a way that I feel like a part of the gang. Also, Diane Wiest uses the word 'cuntingly'. So there's that.

The Revenant

The grand, cosmic joke of Kanye West is that he knows exactly what you think of him, and he knows exactly what you're going to think of him after he steps into the spotlight again. That's the joke. Unlike Shia LaBeouf, this is true post-structuralist performance art, in that Kanye isn't interested in hearing your criticisms of him because he already covered that before the track/award show appearance/shoe happened. How can your criticism land when your thunder has been stolen? Of course, artistic self-awareness isn't worth anything if it isn't in service of some level of rhetoric, but scratch just slightly below the surface of Kanye's most recent musical efforts, and you'll find a man expressing his fears of being a father in the only way he knows how, because try as he might, he's kind of known by everybody. It's okay if you don't like him, but the joke's on you if you don't understand him. I didn't talk about it in my review for Birdman, but to me, the anchor of the film comes when Michael Keaton passes by a man on the street shouting a speech from Macbeth. "It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," he bellows, before turning to Keaton and asking, "Too much?" Birdman is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but it knows that it is, and it's more than upfront with you about that. More so, it's all in service of discussing the lengths an artist sometimes goes to for their craft, and whether or not that's a good thing. It's okay if you don't like Birdman, but the joke's on you if you don't understand it. Or, at least, that's what I thought before I saw The Revenant, a film that is the worst kind of bad, in that it left me questioning whether Alejandro G. Inarritu really did know what he was communicating with Birdman, or if, like the titular character, he too is nothing more than an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Birdman is a film that is loud and dumb for an artistic purpose. The Revenant is a film that is just loud and dumb. During its 150 minute duration, I lost count of how many times I wanted to jump behind the camera, place my hand on Inarritu's shoulder and say, "I get it, dude. I get it. You're very, very good at making a technically brilliant visual, and we're all super proud of you, but could you please get out of your self-aggrandised sphincter and make a fucking movie?" The general public had made up its mind about The Revenant before it had come out. Inarritu and Leonardo DiCaprio had done the press junket rounds, happily declaring that the film's ridiculously tough and gruelling shoot sent them over-time and over-budget in service of artistic vision, like a creator had never done that for their creation before. It's the movies, guys, they're all fucking hard to make. Oh, did Leo actually bite into a buffalo's liver, and actually threw it up immediately? Who gives a fuck? Never mind the fact that beyond you saying so, we don't know if that's true, did you even consider the fact that a grizzled mountain man vomiting up buffalo liver is powerfully uncharacteristic of a grizzled mountain man? Of course not, because you were too preoccupied with reveling in the fact that you managed to make an actor vomit for realsies to consider whether it had any artistic worth in your film. It opens with a long, drawn out attack on American colonialists by Native Americans, in which the camera, for the most part, doesn't cut. It's horrifically violent, and entirely unsympathetic, and for all of the wrong reasons, it reminded me of the opening of Saving Private Ryan. The difference between Saving Private Ryan and The Revenant is that Saving Private Ryan is using uncompromising technical brilliance to reflect how ridiculously fucking horrifying this conflict was, whereas The Revenant is using technical brilliance to reflect how ridiculously fucking brilliant Inarritu is. The camera refuses to stay still at any moment, because it's so desperate for your astonished approval that it can't waste a single second without demonstrating to you how amazing it is that the things they're pulling off were actually pulled off. Never mind the fact that it doesn't matter if you only filmed in natural light on digital because digital will make any lighting look fine, and never mind that the fact that you filmed on digital meant that all manner of post-production touch-ups would have been done to eliminate any inconsistencies or just-straight-up-shitty-bits, because look look look, the camera just ducked because Leo swung towards it, and then he nearly got hit in the head by a Native American, and now we're following the Native American on his horse until he gets shot and falls off, and we fall off with him, and oh look, let's go see what's happening over here whilst every character played by an actor with a name you might recognise is completely safe in spite of the fact that everyone around them is dying because they're exactly where they're supposed to be to continue this hollowed out husk that's masquerading as a narrative! It's an example of this film's staunch adherence to dazzling you with practical effects blended seamlessly with digital (except for the animals), powerfully heightened violence and viscera, and actors truly committed to screaming, shouting, spitting and snarling loud enough that you forget that this is all in the service of jack shit. Leo is mauled by a bear for a five-minute scene that exists for no reason other than to be the film's reason for Leo having a tough time for the rest of it. Such technically artistic devotion is poured into every scene that it numbs you to the possibility of actually being amazed. For me, the most self-congratulatory moment happened when the camera got closer and closer to Leo's face as he lay on the ground, face contorted into a comical rage, snot and blood and drool matted to his scraggly beard, as he breathed fast and ragged. When it feels like the camera can't get any closer, Leo's breath begins to fog up the lens (digitally, not literally, mind you), until it has entirely obfuscated our vision. It's a hell of a shot that means absolutely nothing. And that's where the problem lies. Remember, I've sung the praises of films that want to dazzle you with the real before. But also remember, earlier in this review I stated that your method is your own to define so long as there is a statement behind it. In that regard, The Revenant almost seems like it's making fun of its arthouse contemporaries by entirely neglecting its rhetoric unless Leo is having one of his multiple fever dreams that continually throw bricks at your head labeled, "What This All Means". In one particular stinker, he recalls a conversation he had with his Native American wife before she was murdered by French colonialists. She says that to know the strength of a tree, you look not at the treetops, but at the roots. "Yes," I replied. "Leo's a tree. He won't die because his roots are strong. I get it." Leo then finds himself standing in the middle of nowhere, inside of a demolished church. His dead Native American son, murdered by Tom Hardy and therefore the motivation for Leo to not die so he may murder him right back, appears and they embrace, until Leo blinks and finds his son has been replaced by a tree. "Yes," I replied. "His son is also a tree. He lives on in Leo, the other tree. I get it." Ah, but look again, and you will see that this tree has grown in the centre of the church. "Oh my god, yes," I replied. "God is a tree. God is the one true tree. I fucking get it." It gets worse, though. Either out of fear that the general audience wouldn't be able to keep up, or to once again point and laugh at the pretentious intellectuals who want to find meaning in a gross torture porn, the film ends with Leo literally stating the film's theme to you. After a so-fucking-long-and-outrageously-violent-that-it-becomes-funny fight scene between Leo and Hardy, Leo is choking Hardy to death. Hardy says something along the lines of, "You came all this way just for revenge? Well, enjoy it. Nothing you do will ever bring your boy back." Yeah duh, Hardy, but that's when Leo looks up and sees the Native Americans who have been tracking him from the film's beginning. "Revenge is in God's hands...not mine," Leo says, and pushes Hardy into the water, down river, where the Native Americans scalp him, cross the river, and leave Leo be. Hoo boy, not only has the film spent the majority of its duration being relatively respectful towards Native Americans before trotting out the old "noble savage" trope, and not only are we expected to believe that a group of people whose lives involve tracking took this long to find someone in the fucking snow, but we're also supposed to be amazed by these two lines of dialogue, in spite of the fact that they're revelations that anyone with half a brain could surmise within the first 30 minutes, or that anyone could know from watching any tepid, midday-movie revenge flick. Excess is the true killer. This film's unrelenting technical prowess numbs you to all of its shocks, which makes its cookie-cutter approach to narrative and symbolism all the more hard to accept. Sound and fury with nothing beneath truly does signify nothing. The Revenant is hard, cold, cruel, fake, and lame. The score was good, though.

Spectre

I did something silly recently. Film Crit Hulk wrote a book on the James Bond movies, and I read it. That's not the silly thing; he's an incredible writer and I become a better human being every time I read his work. The silly thing is that I was so pumped on James Bond afterwards, the good and the bad, that I borrowed the boxset of all of them that I'd bought for my Dad one Christmas and spent the next couple of months watching all of them. My conclusion? Most of them are fine. Now, when I say fine, I'm neglecting all of the gender and racial issues deeply entrenched in their existence, partly because you can't judge a film's societal norms based on the societal norms of today, but mostly because that's too much of a topic for an analysis of just one. No, the films are fine, in that very few of them are what I would categorise as great, or even good. Most of them are just fine. They excel in practical stunt work, they mostly respect your intelligence, and even the really bad ones usually have a rad new song to boogie down to (I'm old, fuck you). That kind of changed in 2006 when Martin Campbell kind-of-but-not-really rebooted the franchise with Casino Royale (he kind-of-but-not-really rebooted the franchise with Goldeneye, too). Here was a film that was the antithesis of the few that came before it, especially Die Another Day. It opens with Daniel Craig as Bond beating the ever loving shit out of some poor fucker in a bathroom before drowning him in a sink, a far cry from the slick shots from afar Pierce Brosnan made look so easy. Here was a Bond who wasn't afraid to get angry, or laugh maniacally, or fucking cry when something bad happened to someone he cared about. It also sought to provide context for him being the "sexist, misogynist dinosaur...relic of the Cold War" that Judi Dench once so beautifully described. Its reason wasn't exactly the most sophisticated - Bond fell deeply in love with a woman who betrayed him, mostly for money, therefore he now hates women - but, y'know, baby steps. And you can't help but grimace, not grin in glee, when Bond quips to M at the end of the film that, "The job's done. The bitch is dead." This was a much-needed new step for the character that each subsequent film has attempted to dismantle or flat-out redefine all over again. Quantum of Solace was a series of setpieces that was a clunky attempt at climaxing Casino Royale's brilliant anti-climax and delivering to you the Bond of old. Skyfall was an utterly gorgeous film that concluded that a Bond that has feelings is for pussies, capitalising on this by having him quip that a woman who died holding a glass of scotch was a waste of the alcohol, having a woman who was his equal in combat at the beginning conclude that a secretary's life is more her thing after accidentally shooting Bond, and having Judi Dench bite the bullet to be replaced by cold, unfeeling Ralph Fiennes. Once again, it wanted to deliver to you the Bond of old, but this time, it wasn't a gradual shift towards it, but almost an apology for having the gall to think it could ever be different. Skyfall is the really ugly one, the one that capitalises all of the things that make James Bond hard to stomach. But they were fine. They had qualities that made them enjoyable, until now. Now, we have Spectre; a film that is not gorgeous, but bland and beige, all the better to crystalise and accentuate how monumentally it fucks everything good that came before it.

We're going to cover everything, but let's start with some specifics. One of the things that Casino Royale excelled at was subtle character beats that gave Bond and his counterparts layers of depth that didn't sacrifice or betray their legacy. When Bond finds Vesper shaking in the shower because the blood won't come off her hands, having just murdered someone trying to kill them, Bond sits down beside her and sucks on her fingers. It's a bit too sexual for the moment, but if you look past the literal, you see this sexist, misogynist dinosaur attempting to communicate to someone who he genuinely cares for that the death she caused was not her fault, but his. The blood is his to be responsible for. Fast-forward to the end of the film, where Vesper makes the decision to let herself drown in the elevator of a building crumbling into the waters of Venice to save Bond the pain of her living out the betrayal. As he tears at the iron bars of the elevator like a wild animal, she calms him by taking his hand and putting it against her mouth. Her blood is not on his hands. Not once are words used for these sequences, because they are not needed. An audience can rely on what they're seeing to infer what it means, so long as the camera is in the right place, of course. So, Spectre. There's a scene in Spectre so traditionally Bond-y. James is strapped into a chair, the Bond Villain (Christoph Waltz) sits across from him monologuing, and the Bond Girl (Lea Seydoux) sits off to the side, stripped of agency (truly stripped in this instance; she's a trained combatant who sits entirely unrestrained in an office chair within walking distance of both men, and won't get up and do anything because...woman?). The Bond Villain mentions a moment earlier in the film, where the Bond Henchman (Dave Bautista) used his steel thumbnails (you read that right) to gouge out the eyes of someone who was bad at their job. He says that in the moment between being eyeless and being dead, though the person was still alive, there was nobody inside their head. It's an interesting sentiment, and he asks if Bond noticed. Now, the way storytelling traditionally works, and certainly the case with James Bond being masculine power fantasies, James Bond is us. What he sees, we see. The camera does most of the heavy lifting for us here. What the camera sees, James Bond sees, and we see. Rewind to the scene in question. Did James Bond see this? No, he didn't. The camera wasn't interested in the man, but in the act, leaving focus not on the victim, but the perpetrator. There isn't even a moment devoted to Bond quietly reflecting on the act; he just casually continues looking stoic. What we have here is a collection of decent ideas with no clue towards how to execute them in meaningful ways. Just before this thoughtful rumination on existence and life, Bond and the Bond Girl receive their trademark moment of quiet/going along with the Bond Villain's power play as they are shown to their hotel rooms inside of the Bond Villain's lair. As Bond wanders the room carefully, he notices a framed picture on the mantlepiece of him and his adoptive father and brother. As the Bond Girl wanders her room carefully, she too notices a framed picture of her and her father. These are clearly tied to whatever power play the Bond Villain is engaging in, but never once are they ever brought up again. How displeased Chekov would be. But perhaps the worst of these moments, the one that really stings, comes when Bond is starting to cotton on to the idea that all of the past three film's events might be connected (yep). Tearing apart a secret hideout full of intelligence, he comes across a VHS tape labeled "Vesper - Interrogation", and he stops. Daniel Craig really solidly underplays this moment, as you watch the slightest hint of love, pain, and sorrow creep across his face (remember, Bond was never privy to this moment in Casino Royale, something he acknowledged tore him up inside), before the Bond Girl asks what he's found, he snaps out of it, replies, "Nothing", and tosses the tape violently onto the pile. The problem does not lie with the moment alone. The moment is fine - beautiful, even. The problem lies with the fact that the film sees no reason to make a thematic return to this ever again.

One of the main reasons why Spectre is so godawful at thematically concluding on the interesting things it raises is because it's so preoccupied with reminding you of what came before it. I can say this with some level of authority, given how recently I watched all of the previous films: this is far and away the most self-referential Bond film to date. Now, here's the dangerous game of being self-referential: it has to also have contextual relevance with the scene in question. Has to. If it does have contextual relevance, then one of two things happen:

1. The audience member doesn't know what you're talking about, but it's a subtle reference that doesn't affect their ability to enjoy the film.

2. The audience member does know what you're talking about, and it's a subtle reference that reminds them of why they love the franchise in a way that also complements this new experience.

Inversely, if it doesn't have contextual relevance, then one of two things happen:

1. The audience member doesn't know what you're talking about, and as a result, it's clumsiness affects their ability to enjoy the film.

2. The audience member does know what you're talking about, and as a result, it's clumsiness affects their ability to enjoy the film.
You can probably hazard a guess as to where Spectre falls on this spectrum, and I don't need to go into exhaustive detail on every ham-fisted hark back on a better film, especially when you can read it here, but also especially when there's one that trumps them all. Speculation went wild when the title of the film was announced, as SPECTRE is well-known as the shady organisation behind pretty much all of Bond's exploits in the early films, helmed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. When Christoph Waltz was announced as the villain, yet again, speculation flew around the internet, because surely that means, given the fact that the Broccoli estate had regained the rights to the character and organisation, that he will be playing Bond's former nemesis. Suspiciously defensive in its rhetoric, the filmmakers were all too quick to remind you that his character's name was Franz Oberhauser, nothing more. Remember Star Trek Into Darkness? Remember everyone watching Benedict Cumberbatch's reveal in the trailer? Remember everyone collectively responding, "So...he's Khan, right?", only to be told, "Uh, no...he's clearly credited as John Harrison, doofus."? Remember watching Star Trek Into Darkness, spending 50% of the film wondering how long it's going to take for the reveal to come, into the point of exhaustion? Remember when Cumberbatch bellows, "I...am...KHAN!", and remember how you reacted? Returning to my above criteria, you may have reacted in one of these two ways:
1. You had no idea who Khan was beforehand, and therefore you don't understand why so much time and weight is being devoted to this character having another name, because as far as you can see (and you are right), it has nothing to do with the overall narrative.
2. You did have an idea of who Khan was beforehand, and therefore you knew that Benedict Cumberbatch was Khan, and you couldn't understand why the film would spend so much time trying to tell you otherwise, because as far as you can see (and you are right), it has nothing to do with the overall narrative.
Fan-service exists because fans do want to be serviced, but they want it in a way that doesn't distract or detract from the experience at hand. J.J. Abrams himself admitted that keeping Khan a mystery was a bad move. Why in the fuck then does Spectre walk down the exact same path? In a lot of ways, it winds up being a dumber delivery of the trope, because it takes two-thirds of the film for the reveal to come on the heels of an all-too-obviously signposted subplot that directly tells you without ever saying the words that Christoph Waltz's character is Bond's foster brother. So, given the fact that he's also obviously Blofeld, you spend two-thirds of the film waiting for it to catch up to you. Unless you don't know who Blofeld is, in which case the amount of time devoted to Christoph Waltz monologuing that he died in the avalanche that also killed Bond's foster father and has been reborn as Blofeld, coupled with Bond's response, "Catchy name", leaves you entirely in the dark, confused by the clumsiness.

How this feeds into the ugly cycle of attempting to set a new table by treading old ground is that the film spends so much time believing it's playing with your expectations on Blofeld that it has no time to actually establish him as Bond's arch-nemesis. That's not to say that the pieces aren't placed on the board, because they are, but they aren't moved at all. Let's go through them. Blofeld is Bond's foster brother, as mentioned. When Bond's parents died, he was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and because Papa Oberhauser spent a bit more time with the kid whose birth parents had just, y'know, fucking ceased to be, little Franz was overcome with jealousy at the analogous 'cuckoo' who had landed in their nest and was pushing the eggs out. Franz's response? To push the eggs out first. He caused the avalanche that killed his father, and 'killed' himself, because if he can't have his dad, then no-one can. Is the film then about Bond coming to terms with his troubled upbringing and seeming character trait to utterly annihilate the lives of anyone he comes in contact with, through the lens of this person who has devoted their lives to annihilating his right back? No, the two characters barely acknowledge their prior history. When Blofeld has an opportunity towards the film's end, believing his nemesis to be dead, he doesn't say something tonally resonant like, "Farewell, brother." He says, "Goodbye, James Bond," like he's nothing more than this week's secret agent trying to fuck up the fun. The film also doesn't have time to delve any deeper into their relationship, because it's too busy detailing how, after the avalanche, Blofeld presumably laid low for a solid decade or three waiting, building SPECTRE, biding his time helming a shadowy megacorp that has the money to literally steal bodies of water until he can comfortably shift that wealth towards ruining the life of the orphan who, it would seem, stole his. Yes, that's right, Blofeld and SPECTRE, have been behind it all. Everything that has happened from Casino Royale to now, has happened underneath the guidance and funding of Blofeld and his cronies. "You've come across me so many times, yet you never saw me," Blofeld muses at a point where the film still thinks it's playing coy with his identity. Yes, you're right, Blofeld, I never saw you, because what you're saying doesn't make a fucking lick of sense. Putting aside the fact that the central conflicts in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall are relatively unrelated and unique, there was some world-ending shit in them; some stuff that, should the villains have been successful, would have kind of put a pin in Blofeld's plan to be the one to put Bond in the ground. Did he know that Bond would prevail? Did he engineer the scenarios so that it would be impossible for Bond to lose? Who fucking cares? When Blofeld describes himself to Bond as "the author of all [his] pain", the only aspect that this provides emotional resonance for is the idea that Blofeld engineered the death of those that Bond cared for, and even then, that's a bold insult to everyone involved in those deaths, none so much as the victims. And the reason I'm sticking on this for so long is because the film does not. Like being Bond's brother, the film has no time to develop the idea that Blofeld was behind the previous films beyond having Christoph Waltz state that he was behind with as much gravitas as he can lend in the 90 seconds he has to devote to it. Towards the film's end, Bond marches through the ruins of MI6, set up as a budget Scaramanga-esque funhouse reminding him of all the deaths he was directly or indirectly responsible for, before coming across Blofeld behind a pane of glass. Sporting a fresh scar down his face (because he's Blofeld, see? Do we have your approval yet?), Bond taunts his new look. The two trade barbs for a short while before the film remembers that they have one of the greatest character actors working right now in their film and gives Christoph Waltz something to do. He stares into Bond's eyes, with a look of pure hatred, before breaking into a fit of giggles and exclaiming through the laughter, "Oh, I've really put you through it, haven't I?" No, not really, Blofeld. You've only said that you have. Because, you see, this isn't all that Spectre is trying to accomplish. It also wants to, as I mentioned at the start of this paragraph, put a cap in setting the table for the new Bond so that the adventures following have a well-established tone and identity. A noble mission, were it not for the fact that this had already been done. Casino Royale set a really nice table for a dinner party, before Quantum of Solace blew through wanting to chuck a few extra useless pieces of cutlery on everything, followed by Skyfall concluding that this table is far too touchy-feely and too damn respectful of women. Each concluded with the notion that this, now, finally, is the Bond that will carry us forward. Spectre seeks to do the exact same, staying the track of Skyfall not just in wanting to excise as much gravitas to the character, but also in walking the exact same narrative throughline. Let's do a thought experiment. I'm going to elevator pitch you a film, you tell me if it's for Skyfall or Spectre:
Right, so this new hotshot of the British government thinks that Bond is old news, trumped by the age of information. He's a figure of significant power, meaning Bond is going to have to come up with a way to contend with him that doesn't involve bullets. But, wait! On top of that, he also has to deal with the sins of the past, as a shadowy character holding a dark secret has emerged, threatening to destroy the life of Bond and everyone he holds dear. To confront this demon, Bond is going to have to go back to the one place he'd thought he'd left behind forever: home.
How did you go? Don't bother telling me your answer, because you're right. Broadly speaking, Skyfall and Spectre are the exact same film, seeking to serve the exact same purpose. You could put forth the argument that, in a way, all of the films prior to Casino Royale are technically the same, but at least they had the respect to be vague about whether or not they were occurring within any kind of canon. Spectre desperately wants to wow you with its notion that a single entity was behind the near 10 years that came before it, but can't be bothered respecting your intelligence enough to think it through.

None of this matters though if the action setpieces are super rad and it all looks great, though, right? Well, bad news there, champ. As I briefly alluded to earlier in this piece, the film is beige. I mean that literally; every modicum of colour has been drained out digitally, leaving you with a monochromatic mess of a movie. The film opens in Mexico during the Day of the Dead festival, one of the most colourful world events we've got. I challenge you to cite me one colour that popped during that segment. Even from a technical standpoint, this setpiece is underwhelming. In spite of it maybe seeming like the first few minutes, in which Bond and an unnamed woman wander through the streets, into a hotel, up an elevator shaft, into a hotel room, where Bond exits through the window onto a rooftop to gain a vantage point for his target, were achieved in a single take, to me the edits were all too obvious. Not that this would usually be a problem - if anything, this is CGI used the way it's supposed to be - but it serves to highlight just how ultimately uninteresting and disengaging this all is. The worst of it comes when Bond ends up chasing his target into a helicopter, which results in a wrestling match between him and the pilot above a gigantic crowd of innocent people. The helicopter swirls and backflips, maneuvers achieved practically, and you'd imagine that the camera would pull back as far as possible in these moments to offer a sense of scale and space in relation to what lies below, right? Nah, get as many close-ups of the chopper as you can, that's what the people want! Ugh. It boggles the mind that, following Roger Deakin's absolutely stellar work on Skyfall, that the response wasn't to at least stick a little to his blueprint of offering different colours and cinematography for each setpiece, but to bring in Hoyte Van Hoytema (whose work on Let the Right One In, her, and Interstellar is thoroughly interesting to look at) to do the exact opposite. It makes sense to want to do something different. It makes no sense to actively work to be uninteresting. In spite of the overt, unnecessary references to From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Octopussy, the fight scene on the train winds up being the only setpiece in the film that is compelling, because it seeks to achieve something that is artistic. Prior to it, Bond and the Bond Girl are having a drink and flirting playfully. The music swells and soars with them, getting more emotionally drunk on them with every quip and retort. As it crescendos, Bond notices in the reflection of the cocktail shaker the Bond Henchman approaching, too fast for the music to adapt. So when he arrives at the table and kicks it up into Bond and Bond Girl's face, all the score can do is stop. It's a damn good dramatic beat, made all the more resonant as the sound effects of each punch, kick, swipe, stab, and crash is turned up louder than at any other point in the film. Here, unlike the rest of the film, in treading worn ground, it seeks to shake it up, to offer a different angle or interpretation of it. Putting aside the fact that it further reduces Bond Girl's agency by making her the character the Bond Henchman slaps around to emphasise his villainy in spite of her spoken ability to be able to handle herself in a fight, it's this one shining moment of brilliance that makes the rest of the film all the more disappointing. They understand their craft here, so why not everywhere else? Fuck, it features the biggest practical explosion in a film to date, and the scene is rendered hokey and unbelievable because its supreme lack of understanding of spatial awareness places Bond and the Bond Girl in front of the blast, the fucked up field of view obfuscating the carnage and rendering it fake.

In spite of how it may seem, I don't enjoy being this negative on a film. I especially don't enjoy being this negative on a film that belongs to a franchise that, in spite of its problems, I genuinely have an affection for. So, I feel compelled to conclude this piece by getting positive. Does this film do anything well? Yes, of course it does. A lot of people worked on it, and they did a good job, my pointless harping on theming and rhetoric be damned. Film criticism often attributes everything, good or bad, to a director, something I'm just as guilty of as anyone else, but sourcing behind the scenes footage of big productions like this demonstrate just how much hard, relatively thankless, work goes into it, and those people should be commended. Something else the film nails is the music. Thomas Newman delivers far and away the most interesting score for a Bond film yet, that ducks and weaves amongst familiar themes whilst carving interesting new ground, along with Sam Smith's utterly gorgeous and haunting theme song. As far as performances go, Daniel Craig continues to carve out a unique persona of the character, in spite of the numerous narrative beats that attempt to undermine that, Lea Seydoux brings a crazy good intensity to her character when she isn't a plot device to be thrown around or put under the spell of Bond's magic dick, Christoph Waltz puts his all into his role even if he's given nothing to do with it, and in spite of the fact that he could never replace Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes is an unbelievably good actor, and pretty much steals all of the film's laughs, of which, mercifully, there are quite a few. I think that summation of performance highlights Spectre's biggest problem, however, and that is that it is, like most that came before it, fine. It only seems worse because it's fresh, and because of the quality of its direct predecessors. These aren't new issues to the Bond series, however, and in a lot of ways, Spectre sits comfortably amongst the more reviled Roger Moore entries. But even those, as I've mentioned, aren't the worst that cinema has to offer. They do the job, they just don't transcend it. So why does Spectre hurt this much? Because, for a while, we'd moved past this. Casino Royale and, to a lesser degree, Skyfall, had proved that Bond films can have the depth and artistic sophistication of many of its contemporaries, without sacrificing the ingredients that make them what they are. They proved that nostalgia, when restrained, can contribute to something new, something positive. So it's a shame to see Spectre so assuredly jump three steps backwards into idiotic fan-service that nobody asked for and bullshit retconning that spits in the face of what came before it. If a 4,500 word essay isn't enough to communicate it, allow me to conclude with this: Spectre is a lot of things, but more than anything else, it is fine. And there's nothing sadder than that.

Bridge of Spies

It's not an especially amazing time to be America right now. Ever since the concept of terrorism belted down the doors of common understanding almost 15 years ago, the country has seen a political shift that is arguably starting to reach its boiling point. We continue to amass information of these shifts; we know the lengths to which the government is going to in order to spy on its domestic citizens and allies, we know the lengths to which the government went to get information out of people who had the misfortune of being of the same nationality as a few zealots, we know that a day hasn't gone by that a domestic citizen hasn't pumped lead into another domestic citizen. The list of atrocities goes on, and yet the discourse isn't, "Where the fuck did we go wrong?", but instead a staunch adhesion to the values the country was founded upon, the political equivalent of one child telling another on the playground that they're stupid, to have that child retort, "No, you're stupid." It wasn't always this way. I don't need to be another Aaron Sorken-penned monologue reminding you of how great America once was (for one, he's a much better writer than I). The problem with this approach is how often it takes place in the present, and so the reminiscing is inevitably contrasted more negatively against the current state of affairs. I imagine it would have been tempting to any other director to do the same with Bridge of Spies, a Cold War-era reminder that the old trope of the gee-whiz great American hero was not rooted in fiction. It would have been tempting to reflect a conflict so dependent on behind-closed-doors subterfuge and deceit against today's conflict of out-in-the-open torture and sporadic, explosive violence, especially when the end goal of both was, and is, acquisition of information. Nobody does it like Steven Spielberg, though. What does Spielberg do? He reminds us that the old trope of the gee-whiz great American hero was not rooted in fiction by showing us a gee-whiz great American hero refuse to abandon the ideals of his homeland, in spite of all the officials who are pleading with him to see otherwise. He also reminds us that he's our greatest living director, by filming a movie that in anyone else's hands would be banal, middle of the road fair like The Imitation Game, but in his is profoundly, overwhelmingly positive, and uplifting, and sweet, and damn it all to hell, so fucking gloriously mediocre.

Nobody shoots a dinner scene like Spielberg - that's an objective observation. Let's set the table (heh): James Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer, has been recruited for his gee-whiz great American hero qualities to provide legal defence to Rudolf Abel (Mark Ryland), an Irish Soviet Spy in all but his own admission. The intended goal of this is to demonstrate to the world, the Soviets mainly, that America stands by its Constitution even in the most dire of circumstances. And what better way to communicate this than with a gee-whiz great American hero who will play the part and yessir Abel all the way to the electric chair, after his "fair trial", of course. Here's the thing, though: James, unlike his higher-up counterparts, is a little too gee-whiz. He actually believes in The Constitution, you see, and plans to actually give Abel proper legal defense. The nerve. Sitting down to dinner, he tells his wife Mary (Amy Ryan) that he's considering taking the job, even though he's clearly going to take it. Mary is livid and terrified at the notion of what her husband representing a Communist in court might do to his reputation and their safety. You see, all it takes is a healthy dollop of fear and anxiety of what might happen to cause humans to throw idealism and belief structures to the wind. This alone around a dinner table would be enough for any other director, but nobody does it like Spielberg. Happening simultaneously with this argument, James is consoling his daughter, Peggy (Jillian Lebling), who was stood up by a boy at school, and James is discussing the realities of terrorism with his son, Roger (Noah Schnapp). Halfway through this, James's assistant, Doug (Billy Magnussen), has dropped by with a tower of legal books for the two of them to pore over that night, and when Mary questions why James's assistant is bringing over legal books for a case James might not even be taking, Doug happily reveals that they are taking the case, and are really excited. But it doesn't end there: James and Mary invite Doug to dinner whilst James and Mary continue to argue, James and Peggy continue to talk about boys, and James and Roger continue to talk about the Red Fear. Then they say grace, and wordlessly, James extends his hands for everyone to join. Mary doesn't take it. James grips air expectantly, pleadingly. In the last second, Mary extends her hand, lightly runs her fingers over James's palm, and places them back on her lap. She disagrees with everything he is planning to do, out of fear, but stronger than that is the love she has for him, and her knowledge that he is, ultimately, doing the right thing. And in the face of all of the terror and danger that is potentially going to be thrust upon them, she recognises that it is a necessary risk to uphold the right values. But she needs to communicate to her husband the weight of that risk, so she brushes his hand instead of holding it. The subtle brilliance of Steven Spielberg has always been within his refusal to be subtle. When Chief Brody's son asks why his dad wants a kiss in Jaws, there is no subtext, no rhetoric. Chief Brody wants a kiss from his son because he's exhausted by, and terrified of, the gigantic shark waiting out there in the water. James needs his wife to touch his hand because he's exhausted by, and terrified of, the knowledge that soon America will be watching him try to prove that their legal system works because it is built upon honor, and decency. And if an American nuclear family can't display that decency in their home at the dinner table, what hope is left?

Not long after the trial begins, James is riding the train to work. Everyone but him has a newspaper, and everyone but him is reading op-eds labeling him a traitor. It's a grey, dreary scene, but for the one woman wearing red (only Spielberg could reference his own work so simultaneously gratuitously and elegantly), who stares and glares deep into James. How are they to know the truth that James could only have known after being afforded the chance to sit and talk with Abel; that he's naught but a man, who did a job, and did it well, and will continue to do so. It's a quality deeply entrenched in that so-elusive American Dream James is determined to uphold the potential of, but when mainstream media and the threat not of what has happened, but what could happen, has affected the general public so deeply, so profoundly, how could anyone fault the woman in red for gazing upon him with such scorn? It's not too difficult a stretch to connect that with today's state of affairs, is it? So, how does James prove to the world that what he fights to maintain is worth fighting for? Well, when a U-2 pilot is shot down over Soviet territory and is taken into custody (where the Soviets torture him for information, a nice contrast to the relatively civil treatment of Abel, and to the actions of the US government on supposed enemies 50 years later), James is sent to Berlin to negotiate a trade. On his way to the negotiations, his jacket is stolen by foreign youth. James does not waver. By walking through Berlin without a jacket, he catches a cold, one that stays with him through the rest of the film, and to any other person in a strange place attempting dangerous acts, would be a sign to throw in the towel. James does not waver. The negotiations begin to go well, until the US government gets word that an American student has been arrested as a spy at the Berlin wall, detained by the Berlin government. One American prisoner to the Soviets, one American prisoner to the East German government, one Soviet spy to negotiate with, wanted by both parties for different reasons. James kicks his gee-whiz great American hero powers into overdrive and attempts to organise a trade for both of them. Those he's negotiating with and the powers that be of the United States tell him to give up his idealism and go for the soldier; the bigger bargaining chip of the two. James does not waver. Every life is worth risking your own for. He talks, and he talks, and he swindles, and he pleads, and he begs, and he threatens, and he does not waver, and he gets them both. On Glienicke Bridge, James and Abel are reunited as the trade takes place, and Abel tells James to look for how he is treated when reunited with the Soviets. If they embrace him, he will see his family again. If they show him into the back of the car, he will not. Abel seems to know how it's going to go before he reaches the car. He knows this is a war built upon mistrust, and he will be tortured and killed for his unwavering service. But without his devotion to his service, what else did he have? To that end, what else does James have? When James comes home, offering gifts and souvenirs to his family to uphold the ruse that he was away on a fishing trip, and he heads upstairs, and Mary and the kids turn on the news to see the two American lives that James fought to save, and Mary goes upstairs to find him passed out face down on his bed, a line of drool leaking out of his gaping, snoring mouth, how can your heart not soar at the grand reminder of the potential of human decency? And if that's not enough, the next day James is once again on the train heading back to work, as any gee-whiz great American hero does after saving the world, and once again everyone is reading the paper, including the woman in red, sitting in the exact same spot. Only this time the op-eds praise James's journey into the mouth of the beast to get our boys home. The woman in red looks up at James, and the corners of her mouth delicately twitch into a smile of gratitude and regret. But no apology or thanks is necessary. All James did is show everyone what America used to do, what America needs to remember it used to do, what America needs to get back to doing. Sometimes a nuanced critique layered in subtext isn't the right thing to do. Sometimes you need a brick to the face. Nobody does it like Spielberg.