Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

So What’s With The Title?

I actually quite enjoyed Quantum of Solace in spite of the title. The movie actually works as a series of high-fueled action pieces set in impossibly photogenic locations (in Bond films squalor looks exotic) strung together by flashy gadgets and vehicles (although the gadgetry has been turned down several notches), sexy women (why only women?), foppish villains, the oh-so-magnificent Dame Judy Dench, and Daniel Craig, possibly the most physical and vulnerable Bond in ages. With him, Quantum morphs into both an action and a drama movie.

As for those who got lost in all of the huffing and puffing, wondering if they should have crammed for the movie by watching the previous film Casino Royale, the answer is—duh, just pay attention. All you needed to remember is that Vesper got killed, and there’s a bigger organization behind her killing.

I liked how in the new Bond order, the heroes and villains are almost interchangeable. Especially poignant for me is the scene where Bond’s ally, Rene Mathis, ruefully reflects on the certainty of youth, how easy it is to know right from wrong; as one grows older though, friends and enemies are a lot more difficult to distinguish.

But what really sealed the deal for me with this movie is the death of one of the females that Bond, ah, bonded with—she ends up dead in bed covered with oil. This is a tip of the hat to Goldfinger where a girl ends up dead in bed covered with gold paint. Crude oil or petrol is also called black gold; also, the position of the body mimics that of the 1964 Bond film. I must admit after seeing that scene, my enjoyment of this latest installment of the Bond franchise grew by quantum leaps.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i still don't get the title and i still like the old bond films. they're sexier and more... kitsch.

BUT... the opening credits still rocks as ever.

jamie da vinci! said...

i would think i would have enjoyed this movie. unfortunately, we saw it on the first weekend it came out. we got seats on the third row from the screen and i had vertigo within the first 3 mins!

to think that i absolutely adore daniel craig, because of that opening car chase (that i got to observe in such detail), i think i now want an aston martin more! ugh... that's soooo hetero! ahahaha!

joelmcvie said...

@JAMIE: Don't worry, you're not alone. The butch hetero side of me loooves cars, the faster and sleeker, the more turned on I am. I'm actually after the form (pero unlike a girl, I like my cars very studly). But the details of what's under the hood, as well as the tinkering and all the dirty mess, I leave it to the experts (I could change a tire though).