Big Things Have Small Beginnings

I'll try and avoid spoilers but be careful, just in case.

I'd been super duper excited to see Prometheus since it was announced Ridley Scott was making another Alien (ish) movie.

The story was being kept secret. It wasn't to be a prequel but it was to retain some of Alien's DNA. This could only be a good thing. Alien is one of my favourite films. I could happily watch it on a loop, recite the script but still flinch when John Hurt's chest gives way and give up hope when Ripley can't get Mother to cooperate.

So, eventually Prometheus got a release date.

I'd tried to avoid any leaked storylines although I'd happily immersed myself in the viral marketing designed by Fox under the guise of the insidious Weyland Industries.  A corporation seemingly so benevolent, yet perversely evil.  We know more about this fictional company's selfishly evil future than it's past www.weylandindustries.com

The natural want is to compare Prometheus with Alien. I'll try to resist because Alien was dark, tense and claustrophobic whereas Prometheus is grandiose, epic in it's proportions. Entirely different in approach.

Essentially, Prometheus is about man doing what man does best. Exploring in a hope of answering our Ultimate Questions but biting off more than we can chew.  The film opens with sweeping landscapes that would put Peter Jackson to shame. Indeed, the beginning feels very Lord of the Rings as we are brought over vast mountains and crashing waterfalls before focusing on an 'Engineer'.  Before long we are transported to the less than glamorous Isle of Skye where we meet Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace).

True to form it is clear that Shaw is to be our main protagonist. Strong and determined yet vulnerable and inquisitive with just a little hint of Bjork. Shaw has reached into our ancestral history to find an invitation to our future. A map to the stars.......

Our first taste of space is a clever and poignant montage of the android David occupying himself whilst his colleagues are in hypersleep. Micheal Fassbender's portrayal of David echoes David Bowie's The Man Who Fell To Earth.  There's a measured intensity to Fassbender as he effortlessly acts everyone else off the screen. Deeper motives of the android are hinted at with a look or an innocent question.

This in itself is symptomatic of one of Prometheus' main problems. There are a great many hints dropped, questions stated that are not adequately explained or answered. Prometheus is no longer a stand alone film but the entry level to a new franchise.  This leads to Prometheus' other problem; awful pacing. This is a two hour film. The first hour sees tension explored and built subtly before, quite literally, all Hell breaks loose in a black oily mess.

There is a feeling that there is almost too much going on in the second half of the film.  There are parts which are painfully predictable.  Having said that, it's not as bad as George Lucas cramming three films worth of story into the last 40 minutes of Revenge of the Sith but you get the idea.  There are too many crew members on board Prometheus and it's hard to see many of them as anything more than cannon fodder. Although you're pleased to be relieved of an atrocious Scottish accent. Even Charlize Theron is wasted to a certain extent, her character, Meredith Vickers, begins to develop but then is simply overshadowed.  We hurtle toward conclusion and two scenes that are so disappointingly blatant in their set up of a sequel via some amazing set pieces and visual effects.

Prometheus is sumptuous, visually fantastic. The depth of the world Scott generates is more than impressive and for once not belittled by the now omnipresent 3D.  Costume and set design feel like they have been reverse engineered from Alien yet expanded and immersing.  Despite this there's a nagging doubt at the back of your mind. Was this really the film Ridley Scott wanted to make?  How much of it was cut to make it a neat two hours in length.

I enjoyed Prometheus, I enjoyed it a lot but then I was preprogrammed too as I've enjoyed practically all of Scott's past work and the Alien franchise as a whole. As a result I wanted more. Rather than be disappointed I'm now looking forward to the director's cut (there HAS to be one) and, hopefully, the sequel, where we'll get some real answers.  Let's just hope we don't end up in Zeta II Reticuli too soon.

The Jubilee and why I'm not that bothered

A few (or a lot) of you won't like this. This past weekend and it's extended bank holiday have all been about celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. So we got an extra day off, don't forget they stole May's second bank holiday, and squeezed down the Mall or in front of the tellybox for the promised extravaganza.

Let's just pause a second. You do know what you're supposed to be celebrating, don't you?

No. It's not the Queen's birthday.

No. It's not 60 years since her father passed.

No. It's not 75 years of reign (Victoria fiddled that one).

Come on, you do know you're recent history don't you?

It's a celebration of 60 years of Queen Elizabeth II reigning as monarch.

OK, I'll admit that's impressive. 60 years and second only to Queen Victoria. This doesn't take away from the vast hypocrisy that now infects the UK population. Every day a large number of people will be critical of the Queen. She is, after all, only the Queen through genetic luck. The Queen and the Royal Family as a whole are emblematic of the rigid class system in the UK right now. As has been alluded to since the global economic crash there is now an even bigger gulf between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.  They've been called the 1%, they've been called Tories, they've been called upper class.  Yet now Facebook and Twitter are awash with people who are 'very proud to be British'.  The hypocrisy is becoming galling.

But nevermind our objections and hardships in the face of austerity, let's have a party to celebrate someone being alive and 'in charge' for a substantial amount of time. Now take a look at your granny. Did anyone give a shit when she notched up 60 years of being alive, or being a mother? No, mine neither.

We're all being told we will have to work longer, harder and it will cost us more. We all have to take steps now to look after ourselves come retirement. Be it at 68 or two days before the grave. So let's take a long weekend to whip up some bizarre hero worship of someone who was born into good fortune, land and wealth.  The Kardashians ears are pricking up.

It's interesting to note that this is one bank holiday weekend that the Government don't think will harm our fragile economy. Let's remind them of that the next time they roll out that excuse.

The celebrations began in earnest with a flotilla down the Thames. The BBC whipped into a frenzy as the rain poured and the crowds massed. Conveniently quietened were the stories of public transport systems creaking under demand. Not so easy to ignore were the stories of Work Fare 'volunteers' being made to camp under London Bridge before providing security. Say it quietly but don't forget the Olympics are coming.

And what of the Olympics? No pressure now on the organisers. Despite showering themselves in the glory of a broken ticketing system, dodgy sponsorship deals and white elephant building, they now have to follow the Jubilee weekend.

Undeniably the Jubilee celebrations have been a spectacle. The sight of Buckingham Palace drenched in the Union Jack will live in memories for a very, very long time.  The guest list for the concert less so.  Obvious highlights were Grace Jones and Kylie (purely for the outfit) but did we really need a cadaverous Cliff Richard or McCartney going through the motions? Just be grateful they didn't book Coldplay.

A firework and laser show that was reminiscent of Independence Day now means that the Olympic's opening and closing ceremonies will probably look like an episode of Art Attack with Kajagoogoo on repeat. We'll see.

I'm not overtly anti-Royal, I just see the Royal Family as anachronistic. The rest of the world love them and spend their cash coming to see their palaces, so that's a good thing I suppose. I just wonder if we'd be all that bothered if the Royal Family wasn't there.  The French and Germans don't seem too fussed.

Don't get any ideas Rupert

Brosnan gets a second run out as Bond in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies and he's comfortable in the role now, maybe a little too comfortable.

Bond via a brainstorming session for The Matrix

Having successfully kick started the franchise with GoldenEye Brosnan now takes an unhealthy step towards Roger Moore territory.  This sees Bond take a step back from the vulnerability coupled with ruthlessness that worked quite well in GoldenEye. It's been replaced by a dangerous case of checklist Bond as if the writers were on autopilot.

Number one on the checklist: a big, bold, stunt driven pre credits sequence. Once you accept that terrorists go shopping at what looks like an outdoor Costco for their guns/bombs/nuclear weapons, the pre credit sequence for Tomorrow Never Dies is pretty damned good.  Bond enters by giving a terrorist lookout a light and knocks him out with a punch and the line 'filthy habit'.  It's now that it clicks that Brosnan's Bond is the first not to smoke (for now). You half expect him to say 'just say no'  Anyway, the Russians have failed to notice a plane armed with nuclear missiles has gone missing and ended up at TerrorCo and now Bond has to escape before Chernobyl looks like a picnic. And escape he does from all those white Eastern European terrorists with their designer stubble. It's as if al Qaeda didn't exist in the 90s.

If it's good enough for Sean, it's good enough for you Pierce

Checklist item number two: an overbearing megalomaniac villain. Step forward Elliott Carver. Jonathan Pryce is forced to ham it up as William Randolph Murdoch as Carver seeks to engineer a war to gain control of a TV contract aided by a poor head henchman and an iPad predecessor that can do EVERYTHING.  The worst part of Carver is his catchphrase of 'delicious' not to mention his karate act.

 I might be wearing my PJs but I can spot a good headline

Carver's plans centre around a stealth ship. A handy bit of kit sailing around with the even handier ability of sinking a Royal Navy ship in Chinese waters only for it's wreckage to end up in Vietnam. Let's also ignore that the technology used to make the stealth ship invisible seemingly means it's radar doesn't work and so Bond and Wai Lin can float right up and knock on the door.

Further to trying to turn Brosnan into Roger Moore for the 21st century we have checklist item number three: a big henchman of limited acting ability. Mr Stamper. The producers missed a trick by not casting Dolph Lundgren as Mr Stamper and so we have an almost pointless character. Just some bleached blond hair running around in a tight T shirt. Don't even get me started on his hero worship of Dr Kaufman.  Even his death at the end is rubbish.

The checklist continues by throwing Bond into far off locations. We end up in China for the first time in a few years, presumably to remind the world that Hong Kong still belonged to the UK. The set pieces bouncing around the Far East are pleasant enough even if they are saturated in BMW product placement.

Brace yourself for the continuation of the checklist. Delving heavily into the Roger Moore book of Bond cliches we have Q developing a remote controlled car. Bond can now drive his BMW with a Sony Ericsson. What's he going to be able to do if he gets his hands on an iPhone?  Having said that Q's appearance is a genuine high point in the film. He's held with such affection we can forgive the crocodile submarines and talking cars.

Tomorrow Never Dies leaves you with the feeling that Brosnan's Bond may have peaked to soon with GoldeEye. This is Bond by rote, lazy and uninspired and it's more than apparent the film suffered from rushed rewrites and no basis in Fleming's stories.  Tomorrow Never Dies is littered with one liners and innuendo, from cunning linguists to celebrity overdoses.  There's a hint of tiredness as the film casts names in minor roles in the same way ailing US TV shows cast bigger and bigger special guest stars before being cancelled and so we see Teri Hatcher getting the gig ahead of a then fairly unknown Monica Bellucci.

 You can see why Brosnan had the hump Monica didn't get the part

Looking back, Pulp should have done the theme song and the producers can count themselves reasonably lucky they were up against Cameron's indulgent Titanic at the box office.  James Cameron's juggernaut proved that at least there was something that was truly terrible in the cinema.

James Bond will return but first he needs a nap to recharge his batteries. The next instalment needs to be made with a considered approach to get the series back on track. Thank God it's not the 20th movie of the series.

They say you should never go back

The Seventies are here and so is James Bond's seventh big screen outing.

The good news (thanks to the studio, United Artists) is that Sean Connery has come back. It only cost a then record $1.25 million some of which was used for charity. Mr Kidd and Mr Wint are good too and Shirley's back on theme tune duties. That's. About. It.

Diamonds are Forever is horrifically camp which probably explains why Adam West was considered for the role and the storyline is peppered with just plain stupid elements.

To begin with Connery is unseen as he pursues old enemy Blofeld across the globe. Obviously still upset at Blofeld's murder of his wife, Bond is very determined popping up in Japan and Cairo amongst other places before a rather plump and sweaty Mr Connery locates Blofeld and his attempt to use mud to make himself a plastic surgeoned double. It looks like the years since Connery last picked up a Walther PPK have been good to him and have taken the edge of his ability to deliver a decently pithy one liner and he now keeps a mousetrap in his pocket.

Sean Connery because he's not as camp as the other guy

Echoes of Goldfinger see a diamond smuggling scheme take centre stage early on. Several links of the smuggling chain are dispatched in entertaining ways from South Africa to Amsterdam. So far, so good but then the action shifts to Las Vegas. Gaudy and kitsch Vegas is home to elements that will plague the Bond series for much of the next decade. Tiffany Case and Plenty O'Toole are the early incarnations of Bond girls having daft names for the sake of it in an attempt at a euphemism. See also later, Dr Goodhead, Chu Mi and Jenny Fleck.  Don't even start on Bambi and Thumper. Just be glad Sgt J W Pepper hasn't reared his ugly head just yet.  In fact Las Vegas' image of all style and no substance is soaked into Diamonds Are Forever.

Whilst in Las Vegas Bond attempts to get to grips with the smuggling supply line by playing craps and taking in casino shows. His efforts culminate in a laboratory infiltration and posing as the greatly named Klaus Hergersheimer. When rumbled Bond escapes in a moon buggy. A moon buggy. Despite this Roger Moore still accepted the role. Following the moon buggy incident is the world's worst car chase. Twenty miles per hour around a car park.  Someone, somewhere thought this was a good idea.

 Worst escape vehicle ever

Before long Bond gets to the crux of the matter, only to find it's Charles Gray's Blofeld. Yes, Charles Gray, The Narrator who last had a knife stuck in his back in You Only Live Twice (his leg has also grown back). The crafty bastard now seemingly shed of his S.P.E.C.T.R.E is bent on using the smuggled diamonds in a laser toting satellite. As weapons go it's a bit crap. It's intense beam of diamond enhanced light makes things go red and wobble.  Needless to say Washington DC is on it's hitlist unless Blofeld gets his big bag of swag. Even Dr Evil wouldn't be this lame....

Bond pitches up at Blofeld's oil rig base in a zorbing ball. Blofeld is no longer worthy of a volcano lair and Bond is happy to roll around in inflated polythene rather than a sexy speed boat. Blofeld is defeated rather predictably and Bond gets to go cruising with Tiffany Case and dispatch Mr Wint and Mr Kidd with some brandy and a cheap thrill.

It's dispiriting that the best part of Diamonds Are Forever is Bond's conversation with a rat.

'One of us smells like a tart's handkerchief..............I'm afraid it's me. Sorry about that old boy.'

 I am NEVER doing this again. Never. Never.

Diamonds Are Forever makes me feel uncomfortable. Our ruthless yet charming spy is being reduced to a stunt man smuggling cheap innuendo. It's as if Carry On Spying went viral. The only hope is that the next incumbent of the role will bring a fresh start. Hope can be cruel sometimes. Diamonds Are Forever proves the old adage that you should never go back.

James Bond will return and this time he'll be ginger.

You took your time

We all know it's named after Ian Fleming's old house. We all know it's the first film not to take anything from the books. We all know it might be a little too slick for our liking but none of that matters. We've been waiting.

We've been waiting. Since 1989.

We've been waiting for what seems like an eternity, but now we have GoldenEye.

Legal wrangles produced the longest gaps between Bond films so far. Understandably Mr Dalton got a bit bored waiting and so gave up the role and nearly ten years too late the producers got Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan with his improbably coiffured hair and impressive jawline in the role he was born to play. In the time since License To Kill the Berlin Wall has fallen and Communism with it. Bond has lost his old enemy so we wait with baited breath to see who will replace the Russians and their KGB.

 That hair will NOT move

This was the first Bond film I was old enough to see at the cinema. There is something quite magical about seeing the gun barrel intro on the big screen but something less wonderful about the cinema goers who mockingly applauded Bond's mastery of the small plane after blowing up the chemical plant.  GoldenEye's best feature is the way it draws on previous Bond films. Brosnan is the suavest Bond since Connery, he still pitches the odd one liner a la Moore (thankfully not as cringeworthy) and retains a little of Dalton's grit.  Balanced against the traditions of Moneypenny flirting and the comic asides of Q are some new elements. First and most obvious is the new M, Judi Dench is perfectly cast and perfectly reminiscent of Bernard Lee's M. It's good to see Bond getting the telling off he deserves every now and then.  Try and ignore the fact Bond has a BMW now, add in some relatively unknown actresses as Bond girls Simonova and Onatopp and some exotic locations and we're all set.

GoldenEye is essentially a revenge tale with a twist. An old MI6 colleague, Trevelyan, returns from the dead in an attempt to use a nuclear powered satellite (what else?) to initiate global financial meltdown and destroy the UK to avenge his parents.  Conveniently, Trevelyan will also get revenge on Bond who he blames for his facial disfigurement caused in the pre-credit sequence.  Ah yes, the credits.  The very credits which feature a girl who can deep throat a pistol.  In what I assume was a measure not to be too old fashioned the powers that be drafted in Tina Turner instead of Dame Shirley Bassey to belt out a Bono penned song. There are two things wrong with this. Firstly, it's a Bono song, it's a wonder his ego allowed him involvement. Secondly, I can't listen to any Tina Turner song without thinking of her 'dancing'.

Tina Turner should've taught Bono how to do this

Trevelyan is using renegade Soviet miltia to help him use the GoldenEye satellite to set off an EMP (remember Moore's explanation in A View to a Kill) to wipe out his emtying of every bank account he can lay his virtual hands on. He chooses Cuba as his base and so the hunt is on. After an altercation in a junkyard Brosnan finds himself bombing around St Petersburg in a tank to hunt Treveyan and save Simonova.

 Smashing up St Petersburg makes you thirsty

Despite an odd turn of events with a horse statue this is a very entertaining chase sequence (please ignore blatant product placement). It's no Bullitt but it's 100 times better than Connery in a car park in Diamonds are Forever. So we're off around the world again, destroying trains and squishing people with helicopters before a heavily choreographed fight inside Trevelyan's satellite's gearbox.

Sean Bean vs Pierce Brosnan in a good old fashioned fist fight is quite a good way for the villain to get his comeuppance. It's understated, no compressed air pellets, air locks or golden gunned duels.

Brosnan's debut was slick, entertaining and just the right thing to restart the Bond series after hiatus, let's hope it doesn't get silly in the future.

Bond has been substantially modernised.  GoldenEye was the first film in the series to use CGI. The franchise has been invigorated and hasn't gone too 'Hollywood' just yet, a good job then that John Woo turned down directing duties and the guest star roles haven't quite begun in earnest.

James Bond will return. Tomorrow or Today. Well, in the future and he'll have that bloody BMW too.



P.S.

GoldenEye was supposed to have been filmed at Pinewood but production clashed with Connery's First Knight. Instead production was moved to Leavesden, near Watford, now the home of Harry Potter World. So, basically, Harry Potter in Watford is your fault Sean Connery. I'll forgive GoldenEye that due to the fact it spawned the best computer game EVER and the only reason anyone bought a Nintendo 64.

Depression Awareness Week. Depression and me

I'll try not to be flippant about this, although that does tend to be my default position. But.

I'm depressed.

There, I said it.

I have been half my life.  I've hurt myself mentally and physically and have the scars to prove it.  This doesn't make me a depressive, it just means I have an illness. A treatable illness.  On and off for the better part of ten years I've been on various types of medication. Some helped, some didn't but the main thing is the medication now does to the extent that I'm coming off it.  My little companion in a blister pack right now is Citalopram. 20mg of the stuff in small, white tablet form taken once a day.  Much more beneficial than Fluoxetine for me.

Depression is an illness. Unfortunately, a damned annoying one. It's not like a virus or a broken leg so it can't be fixed with immunisation or a plaster cast. It can be controlled though and that's where I am right now. It's being controlled to the extent that I don't think about it.

My depression has varied in it's severity over the years and hasn't had a trigger or a predictable onset. For me it's an imbalance of chemicals in my brain. The chaotic lack of certain chemicals in my brain isn't anyone's fault and they mean that I don't feel the benefit of so called feelgood hormones when I should. So for me, SSRIs (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors) help. I don't know how and I don't particularly need to know how. Just like most people who drive don't know the inner theories behind the internal combustion engine.

Seratonin, probably my missing link

The hardest part of depression isn't the darkness in your head, the feeling of hopelessness or the lack of energy, sleep and appetite. The hardest part is frustration.  The frustration of being looked at like you're 'mental', the frustration of being misunderstood.  As someone who is depressed you get misunderstood by an awful lot of people, from friends and family to the doctors who you expect to help you.  That's why it's hard to tell other people, you don't want your friends to view you any differently and let's face it, it's not something you can slip into conversation with your boss.

My first experience of GPs was a bad one. I was young and having trouble sleeping. I was a teenager and so wasn't able to put a name to what I really felt. I was told to make sure I got enough exercise. What wonderful insight, you can't buy that knowledge! And so I descended into denial and ultimately got worse. The next trip to the GP was infinitely more successful, unfortunately for me, it happened a bit later than it should. In the meantime there had been a flirtation with overly heavy drinking and non prescription drugs. I was reaching out for something to help me cope in the absence of actually coping. I still do have a problem with alcohol. Eight years after major difficulties with the demon drink I still have to be careful. It wasn't alcoholism but it was close.

Depression didn't cost me friendships, jobs and help destroy relationships. It was my frustration at not being to adequately explain myself and the misunderstanding of the illness in general that did these things. I'm not being a victim, I being honest. I've managed to rebuild a lot of the bridges I strafed with napalm back then and am altogether much more 'level' than before.

The reason Depression Awareness Week is important is to help people is to get people talking about depression. Talking about it the only way to build understanding, remove stigma and help people recover and get on with their lives.

Seratonin. Manic. Bipolar. 9.2%. Black Dog. S.A.D. Prozac. Therapy. 1 in 10.

Throwing statistics and euphemisms at people won't work. We just have to talk about it.

Moody Bond. This is my angry face.

Bond quits the service (properly this time) after Leiter gets munched on and Bond is pissed off. Very pissed off.

 My name is Bond, Angry Bond

Leiter, who now works fighting against drug lords in Florida finally gets his man, the evil Sanchez, on his wedding day. Not bad for a bloke who seemingly hasn't aged since New Orleans and Live and Let Die. Unfortunately for Leiter, Sanchez is adept at bribing the polizei so gets sprung by Big Ed Hurley from Twin Peaks and sets about making him fish food. We'll neglect that this part of the storyline is lifted from the Live and Let Die novel shall we?

He disagreed with something that ate him

It's OK though as Timmy's come good in this one even if it's just because of the swearing.

OK, that's a bit unfair, but Licence to Kill is the first Bond to get a 15 rating and this can only have come from the 'shit' and 'bullshit' that litter the script. Having said that this is a much more grown up Bond film than we've seen in a long time despite the ill advised use of a stuffed swordfish and a nuclear powered electric eel. All but gone are the one liners and ridiculous set pieces as we're pumped up on vendetta. Although we do still get the obligatory yellow underwater vehicles.

Bond shows himself to be remarkably resourceful as he sets about getting his revenge by infiltrating Sanchez's organisation as he appears in full SCUBA gear without a blink to help him half hinch $5 million from Milton Krest. Bond picks up the strangely androgynous Pam Bouvier on the way to Isthmus City where a run in with some Hong Kong heavies gets him admitted to Sanchez's private circle.

It's here we see Bond discover Sanchez has developed away to dissolve cocaine in petrol to make it easier to smuggle. I dread to think of the price of a litre of 5* Plus, but it'll be a touch more than £1.48. In the background we have a very young Benicio del Toro, before he got his teeth done, a moonlighting Q, a bloke out of Die Hard and a very heavily made up TV evangelist.

No, I'm not Englebert Humperdinck

You'll never watch the God Channel in the same way again. Out the back of Holy Bonkers Town is Sanchez's drugs facility where he invites his clients for a tour before they stump up vast millions of dollars for petro-coke. Bond goes along for the ride and is issued with a little face mask. The little face mask is to protect the party from inhaling too much product and chatting shit at 40 mph for the rest of the film.

Bond's cunning disguise is soon rumbled by del Toro which leads to some good old fashioned arson to end Sanchez's operation before an unusually good chase involving oil tankers.  The tension is kept up before Sanchez goes stereotypical with a machete and Dalton gets to homage George Smiley with his present from Mr and Mrs Leiter. Sanchez meets with one of the franchises most unpleasant demises.  That'll teach him for trying to escape in such a crap car. Robert Davi based his performance on Casino Royale's Le Chiffre and stayed in character in true method acting style throughout. I wonder if he kept the lizard.

James Bond will return, after some boring legal tussles and an inordinate length of time. This time he'll be coiffured to perfection.