(no subject)
GoldenEye: from 1995, the first James Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnan.
My thoughts:
* I kept coming up with paper topics. "The evolution of feminism as reflected in the James Bond films" or "The changing concept of masculinity as embodied by James Bond." I wrote a paper in college about how Dr. No reflects the Playboy ideal of masculinity, so maybe that's why. I was amused by the nods to female competence and to the sensitive man of the 1990s.
* I don't dislike Pierce Brosnan, but he's no Sean Connery. Connery always gave this impression, no matter what was going on around him, that he was above it all, like the whole world was his own private joke. Brosnan has all the Bond moves technically correct, but he's like an automaton. There's nothing beneath the exterior.
* Two X-Men! Alan Cumming and Famke Janssen were both good in their roles. And both kind of hot back then.
* They totally got the casting wrong. If they'd switched Sean Bean's role with Pierce Brosnan's, it'd have been perfect. Sean Bean could've pulled off that Connery thing of "more going on beneath the surface." (In my fantasy world, young Sean Bean perfectly embodied Jaime Lannister in the epic ASOIAF movies, then went on to become the best James Bond ever.)
* The hand-to-hand fight at the end was very well done. I get bored when there's lots of random disconnected violence, but there was actually some drama and characterization going on with this fight (the rivalry between former friends Bond and Trevelyan).
* If I'd have written the movie, it would've been all about the relationship between Bond and Trevelyan. This film took pains to make sure there was no subtext between the two; that they hated each other now and that neither regretted having to kill the other. (Okay, there was one scene of Bond looking angsty which was quickly healed by the hot chick of the week, and nothing from Trevelyan, who they went out their way to show was totally nasty and irredeemable now by having him sexually assault random-hot-chick.)
Of course, I'd have done the opposite, and made it clear that Bond and Trevelyan still totally cared about each other and missed their friendship, but that their duties to their respective ideologies came first, and so it would've been all about the angst. And hotness. And ho!yay. *sigh* Actually I'm rewriting the movie in my head right now, and my version is so much more interesting....
My thoughts:
* I kept coming up with paper topics. "The evolution of feminism as reflected in the James Bond films" or "The changing concept of masculinity as embodied by James Bond." I wrote a paper in college about how Dr. No reflects the Playboy ideal of masculinity, so maybe that's why. I was amused by the nods to female competence and to the sensitive man of the 1990s.
* I don't dislike Pierce Brosnan, but he's no Sean Connery. Connery always gave this impression, no matter what was going on around him, that he was above it all, like the whole world was his own private joke. Brosnan has all the Bond moves technically correct, but he's like an automaton. There's nothing beneath the exterior.
* Two X-Men! Alan Cumming and Famke Janssen were both good in their roles. And both kind of hot back then.
* They totally got the casting wrong. If they'd switched Sean Bean's role with Pierce Brosnan's, it'd have been perfect. Sean Bean could've pulled off that Connery thing of "more going on beneath the surface." (In my fantasy world, young Sean Bean perfectly embodied Jaime Lannister in the epic ASOIAF movies, then went on to become the best James Bond ever.)
* The hand-to-hand fight at the end was very well done. I get bored when there's lots of random disconnected violence, but there was actually some drama and characterization going on with this fight (the rivalry between former friends Bond and Trevelyan).
* If I'd have written the movie, it would've been all about the relationship between Bond and Trevelyan. This film took pains to make sure there was no subtext between the two; that they hated each other now and that neither regretted having to kill the other. (Okay, there was one scene of Bond looking angsty which was quickly healed by the hot chick of the week, and nothing from Trevelyan, who they went out their way to show was totally nasty and irredeemable now by having him sexually assault random-hot-chick.)
Of course, I'd have done the opposite, and made it clear that Bond and Trevelyan still totally cared about each other and missed their friendship, but that their duties to their respective ideologies came first, and so it would've been all about the angst. And hotness. And ho!yay. *sigh* Actually I'm rewriting the movie in my head right now, and my version is so much more interesting....