Posts Tagged ‘SKYFALL’

Meridian Hall: SKYFALL in Concert with the Motion Picture Symphony Orchestra.

TO Live and Glatz Concerts are proud to present Skyfall in Concert, produced in association with EON Productions and Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios (MGM) on November 25, 2023 at Meridian Hall in Toronto on November 25, 2023 at 7 pm. Daniel Craig returns as the legendary secret agent in the franchise’s most successful film to date. Now you will be able to experience composer Thomas Newman’s BAFTA-winning original score performed live by the TO Live Orchestra in sync to the picture!

Directed by Sam Mendes, Skyfall pits 007 against one of his most formidable foes…the ruthless cyberterrorist and former MI6 agent Silva (Javier Bardem). The action begins when a hard drive containing the identities of every undercover British agent is stolen. Bond’s mission to recover the stolen drive takes him from a thrilling chase across the rooftops of Istanbul to the violent underworld of Macau, and ultimately to the streets of London and the very heart of MI6 itself. As the stakes grow higher, his pursuit of the villainous Silva leads to an epic showdown at Skyfall Lodge, Bond’s remote family estate in the Scottish highlands.

Judi Dench returns once again as the steadfast M, and Skyfall introduces two familiar and beloved Bond characters: the ingenious quartermaster Q (Ben Whishaw), and the charming and resourceful Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris).

This event features the TO Live Orchestra conducted by Evan Mitchell.

Richard Crouse hosts a special preshow event before the screening!

Buy tickets HERE!

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6, 2015.

Screen Shot 2015-11-06 at 3.50.44 PMRichard’s CP24 reviews for Daniel Craig as James Bond in “Spectre,” the Charlie Brown reboot “The Peanuts Movie” and the Drew Barrymore cancer drama “Miss You Already.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR OCTOBER 23 WITH MARCI IEN.

Screen Shot 2015-11-06 at 10.11.18 AMRichard’s “Canada AM” reviews for Daniel Craig as James Bond in “Spectre,” the Charlie Brown reboot “The Peanuts Movie” and the Drew Barrymore cancer drama “Miss You Already.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Metro: From Craig to Connery, the debate over the greatest Bond rages on

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 10.37.09 AMBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Who’s your favourite James Bond?

Daniel Craig suits up again in the latest Bond flick, taking his fourth spin as the super spy in Spectre. The film’s overseas reviews have been very strong and it will likely dominate the weekend’s box office but who among us would call Craig the best Bond?

I have a theory that the Bond nearest and dearest to your heart is the first 007 you saw projected on the big screen.

Popular consensus tells us that Sean Connery, who played the role in six films spanning 1962 To 1971 and then once again in 1983’s non-officially sanctioned Never Say Never Again, is the best Bond. As cool as Connery was he isn’t my top of the pops. Dr. No, the first 007 movie, came out before I was born and Connery more or less permanently parked his Aston Martin around the time I entered grade two.

The Bond that made the biggest impression on me was Roger Moore. I know critically speaking he wasn’t the most beloved Bond. Pauline Kael once wrote about him, “Roger Moore is dutiful and passive as Bond; his clothes are neatly pressed and he shows up for work, like an office manager who is turning into dead wood but hanging on to collect his pension.”

I also know that hardcore spy fans considered Moore too well-mannered and pleasant to be effective, but he was my first, and I guess the first cut is the deepest because I still have a fondness for his breezy take on the super agent.

But that’s just me.

To get a broader picture I did a highly scientific Double-Blind Bond Peer Reviewed In House Clinical Trial  (in other words I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends) to determine the world’s favourite 007 portrayer.

The contenders were Connery, George Lazenby, Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Craig — everyone who has played Bond in one of the 24 officially sanctioned 007 movies.

Several contributors brought up others like Barry Nelson, who played James Bond in a 1954 television adaptation of Casino Royale. Also mentioned were David Niven’s turn as Bond in 1967’s Casino Royale and another actor who has never played 007. “Clive Owen,” suggested one poster, “once they get around to casting him in the next one.”

After eliminating the unofficial 007s and non-Bonds a team of experts  (OK, it was just me reading through the posts as Live and Let Die played on the TV behind me) sifted through the results.

Pollsters said Brosnan Is Not Enough to ’90s Bond Pierce Brosnan who came in dead last with just 1.9 per cent of the vote.

“I liked Pierce Brosnan because he embodied all the others combined,” wrote one positive poster. “Charm, humour, ruthlessness, cunning.”

Timothy Dalton earned 3.9 per cent with one respondent saying, “If there really was an agent who was an assassin with a licence to kill … it would be him.”

At 9.8 per cent, George Lazenby fared better than Brosnan and Dalton even though he only made one 007 film.

My favourite Bond came in third with 15.6 per cent, just behind Daniel Craig’s 21.5 per cent. “Craig gets me wanting to watch whereas the others are placeholders,” wrote a Facebook friend, “Sorry.”

By far and away, Sean Connery was the winner with a whopping 39.2 per cent of the vote. This comment seems  to sum up the reason why people like him. “Sean Connery because Sean Connery!”

Who is your favourite Bond? Chime in at @metropicks.

SPECTRE: 4 STARS. “makes strides for Bond Girls everywhere.”

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 10.39.55 AMFor many of us James Bond has been a constant. For more than 50 years a series of actors have taken on the role over the course of twenty-four officially sanctioned movies. He has been, by times a killer, a clown, a lover, a sinner and a saint. In “Spectre,” the latest edition of the Bond Follies, he is all those things and more.

The new film opens just days after the events of “Skyfall.” M (Judy Dench), Bond’s boss and confident, has been killed and 007 (Daniel Craig) is fulfilling her last request. He’s in Mexico City (just the first of many exotic locations in “Spectre’s” travelogue) to assassinate an Italian mobster through a crowded Dia De Los Muertos parade. It’s a wild scene—involving thousands of extras, helicopters, exploding building and a serious fall broken by a well-placed sofa—that sets the tone for the rest of the film; Big, loud and slightly silly.

Information gathered from the mobster’s widow (Monica Bellucci) leads Bond to Rome and a meeting of the super-duper, top-secret terrorist organization SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) led by evil genius Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz).

Back in London the new M (Ralph Fiennes) is defending the 007 program from C (Andrew Scott), a bureaucrat who snidely says, “We’re going to bring British intelligence out of the dark ages and into the light.” In other words, on-the-ground agents and their licences to kill are about to be replaced with drones and high tech surveillance and security. The plan is to unite the defence systems of the world and dispense with Bond’s human touch.

Meanwhile Bond is still globetrotting, now with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) on his handsomely tailored arm. She’s the daughter of a former SPECTRE member and just might hold the key to infiltrating the organization.

“Spectre” is worth a look for the scenery alone, and no, I don’t just mean Daniel Craig’s Tom Ford suits or Monica Bellucci’s jewels. From Rome to Tangiers to Mexico City and beyond the movie is a parade of beautifully shot tourism brochure-ready landscapes.

The stuff that happens in front of those landscapes is worth a look too. Director Sam Mendes keeps the pedal to the metal, tossing out implausible plot twists and action scenes with great regularity. City blocks blow up, airplanes chase automobiles and, of course, the classic ticking bomb makes an appearance. As usual the body count is high and there’s even a wild areal fight sequence before no more than four lines of dialogue have been spoken.

There’s all that and a lighter tone then the other Craig Bonds. The grim-faced 007 has been replaced by a slightly-less grim faced Bond. Craig isn’t channelling Roger Moore or anything quite so broad, but there are laugh out loud moments as “Spectre” simultaneously plays up to and satirizes Bond stereotypes. In one scene Dr. Swann and Bond fall into a surprise embrace. In any other Bond movie they would kiss and tumble into bed. Here she says, “Don’t think for a moment this is where I fall into your arms,” effectively satirizing the Bond as lady-killer stereotype and making strides for Bond Girls everywhere.

Too bad there’s no such reinvention of the Bond villain. As Oberhauser Christoph Waltz is a bit of a dud. His backstory is interesting and he certainly has evil intent, but he comes across here more as a bully than a supervillain. Waltz doesn’t come close to the menace he brought to “Inglourious Basterds’” Col. Hans Landa. He’s barely in the film but casts a long shadow… a long shadow that could have been much darker.

If there is a message in “Spectre” it has to do with new versus old. C represents a dangerous future where drones and surveillance put enemies at arm’s length. M and Bond represent tradition, a more gentlemanly form of killing where you have to look into the eyes of the person you’re about to off. It seems to be asking if James Bond is of the past, a dinosaur. I’d say no, not as long as the 007 movies are as entertaining as this one.

SKYFALL: 4 ½ STARS

SkyfallJust when it seems like everything that could possibly be written about James Bond and the 23 official movies chronicling his super spy exploits, along comes “Skyfall,” a movie that pays homage to the past, while redefining the future of the franchise.

After a mission in Turkey goes awry, James Bond (Craig) is presumed lost. His boss and mentor M (Judy Dench), declares him deceased, but when a terrorist hacker leads a deadly cyber attack on MI6 headquarters 007 returns to his post, tired, haggard and injured but eager to get back into the spy business.

Retrained—ie: various shots of Craig doing push and chin ups plus a word association game where Bond associates “murder” with “employment”—Bond is sent back into the field to track down the villain behind the attack. His investigation leads him to Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), a psychotic criminal mastermind in the best Ian Fleming tradition. Except that Silva isn’t interested in a ransom of “one mee-lee-on dollars” or aiding Soviet missile development. No, he wants something more personal and deadly—revenge.

The movie’s tone is established in the opening moments of “Skyfall’s” stylized opening sequence. It’s a psychedelic montage in traditional Bond style, set to a new Adele song that evokes the Bond themes of old—before they started hiring Duran Duran and a-ha to warble the opening numbers—but despite the nod to the history of the series, it feels fresh. A blend of old and new, it shapes the understanding of Bond as an old dog in new times, who, by the end of the film will literally and figuratively blow up the past to ensure the future.

It is the most thematically mature Bond movie yet—even the action sequences are a comment on old versus new, pitting Bond’s street smarts and savvy against Silva’s high-tech machines of destruction. A new Q (Ben Whishaw) spends more time behind a computer keyboard than devising gadgets.

Of course, most of us don’t go to Bond movies looking for subtext. We want a Bond girl, a fight scene or three, at last one cool gadget and a cackling villain.

“Skyfall” delivers on most of that. Bérénice Marlohe and Naomie Harris split Bond girl duties, while Craig battles bad guys, feeding one to a hungry reptile. As for gadgets, director Sam Mendes seems to understand that less is more. “Exploding pens?,” Q says at one point. “We don’t really go in for that anymore.”

As for the villain, Javier Bardem, who doesn’t show up for over an hour, makes a quiet but spectacular entrance, with a speech worthy of the best Bond villain. With wild blonde hair, and an uncharacteristically (for a baddie at least) understated demeanor he oozes Oedipal menace. He is a Bond bad guy for a new generation, and his presence is one of the great pleasures of the movie.

The connection between Bond and M lies at the heart of the film. For the first time their relationship is explored, revealing a deeper connection than has been hinted at in the past. Dench’s performance adds dimension to a relationship that has been taken for granted in previous entries.

A near perfect blend of old and new, “Skyfall” is a heady mix of action and intellect that will leave you shaken and stirred.