Bland, James Bland: The full report

Before anyone points out just how quixotic it is to rail against a movie that's already raked in more than $70 million domestic or call me some kind of elitist, don't bother. I love Bond movies and especially "Casino Royale," but this one simply didn't measure up on almost any front.

Since the movie clearly did, let's start with the theme song, which would be instantly forgettable if it weren't simply so awful. As someone who has just about every minute of "Icky Thump" seared onto my brain, I just can't imagine how Jack White, with vocals from Alicia Keys, could manage to come up with something so generic. Given the worldly appeal of the Bond franchise, I have to wonder if they even gave consideration to someone like M.I.A., a little rough for sure but much more interesting.

And after that, from the outset, you know there's gonna be problems with the action in "Quantum of Solace." I'm OK with the grand introductory set pieces being a thing of the past, especially since this one picks up immediately where "Casino Royale" left off and starts with a nifty enough car chase. But from there it just gets muddier and muddier, and giving full credit to my friend Chris Stanford for this line, I sure wish it hadn't delivered its camera work "shaken, not stirred."

Worst of all, it's just Bond imitating Bourne, and more specifically director Marc Forster imitating the apparently seizure-ridden camera antics of Paul Greengrass, and for such an iconic franchise that's just sad. Before I let this rant go, a challenge to anyone who liked this more than me (and I'm sure there a lot of you out there): Name one action sequence in "Solace" that sticks in your mind two days later (the opera house take was indeed pretty cool, but not enough to satisfy.)

All of which could be forgiven if the story from Paul Haggis and two others or the direction of Mr. Forster gave this latest Bond tale much urgency at all. I mean, we all know that Bond is out for revenge this time for the death of Vesper Lynd (the sorely missed Eva Green), but by the second (and not last) time we see Daniel Craig's Bond drop a body for no productive reason and Dame Judi Dench's M. chide him for it, it quickly gets little but old.

Much worse, the sinister plot being hatched by billionaire Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) is as ludicrous as anything ever cooked up in a Bond flick, but with all the fun drained out it's also just extremely monotonous. I don't want to give anything away, but like just about every story nowadays it's "green." I'm all for saving the planet, but is putting eco-plots in movies (and on NBC all week, apparently just to annoy me as I try to watch my new favorite spy "Chuck") really gonna make any difference?

And the by-the-numbers approach of this Bond installment is hardly helped by director Forster, who has the distinction of making easily one of my least favorite movies ever in "Monster's Ball" but also one I really like quite a bit in "Stranger than Fiction." Here, however, he's clearly overmatched, and not just in the action scenes. At least twice early on - I guess in an effort to move the story along - he has M. simply mention a new lead, and the immediate next image is that new cityscape, with it name plastered on it in case we viewers are, like Robert Downey Jr. explained in "Tropic Thunder," "full retard."

OK, I've certainly gone on long enough about what's wrong with "Quantum of Solace," so was there anything good? Of course. Daniel Craig clearly has the soul to pull off the new Bond we saw unveiled in "Casino Royale," even if his character here is almost completely devoid of it. And what little wit there is in "Solace" - formerly a very welcome attribute of Bond himself - comes almost exclusively from Dench, who can just be wickedly funny in any circumstance (watch "Notes on a Scandal" if you're somehow still not convinced.)

Finally, what about the babes, a key component of any Bond movie? Well, Olga Kurlyenko is certainly leggy and pouty enough to make me at least consider destroying the world. But what she isn't, and I fault the rather poor excuse for a story here again, is particularly sultry, removing almost all the potential sparks from her encounter with Bond. And the secondary babe would have been much more memorable had she been played by Christina Hendricks of "Mad Men" - as I mistakenly thought when I saw the first pics of "Quantum of Solace" - instead of the rather forgettable Gemma Arterton.

So, almost a complete miss for me, but with more than $70 million in the U.S. vault alone, Daniel Craig and James Bond will certainly live (not "die," as that awful theme song says; sorry to harp on it, but it's really just tremendously bad) to see a 22nd (I think I have that right) installment, and I'll certainly give him another chance. Peace out.

A new (old) spy I've finally found, and a dastardly plot against "The Wizard of Oz"?

First off, a bit of news to digest (if you can).

Before I spill any bile on his vision, let me just say I like John Boorman a heck of a lot. Best known for "Deliverance" - which I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to watch again - and "Excalibur," I'd have to say I prefer to those "Hope and Glory" and, most of all, "The General." If you haven't seen this flick starring Brendan Gleeson as Irish robber Martin Cahill, I really can't recommend it highly enough.

Now, however, it seems that Mr. Boorman is more than a little deep into a CGI-animated adaptation of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." I'll let that sink for a second before I have anything at all to say about it.

I've included a shot of the concept art of Dorothy, courtesy of AICN (where you can see a heck of a lot more.) I had hoped until a few years ago that, even with all evidence to the contrary, there still were at least a few classic movies that were truly untouchable. Silly me.

Boorman, in fact, is far from the first person in recent memory to take on this magical saga, but it just might be the first one I'll give a chance to. If I have my info right, Todd McFarlane had been toying with a really sadistic take on the tale (no thanks!), and there was "Tin Man" on Sci Fi, which couldn't hook me even with the presence of Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cumming.

So, why give John Boorman a chance? Well, I've never read L. Frank Baum's original book (a rather serious shortcoming on my part), but from what Variety had to say about this Boorman is sticking closer to that work and will come up with quite a different tale from the original movie (can you imagine, for example, that the Tin Man was a munchkin? Wild.)

Besides, I have to confess that I had the pleasure of seeing "The Wiz" in New York when I was a kid, so I guess there really isn't anything that's all that sacred (but please keep your hands off of "To Kill a Mockingbird"!)

A late comer to the party with "Chuck"

I watch far too much TV already, so I'm always hesitant to commit to any new series just to have them snatched away just as I was getting into the game. It seems that "Pushing Daisies" may be gone after its 13-episode run ordered so far, and while I won't be terribly surprised, I will miss it dearly.

And it's that fear of TV commitment that kept me from ever tuning into NBC's "Chuck" despite mounting evidence that it was really, really good. Now, with two of my co-workers - Stephanie Hartley and Karen Ludwig - practically begging me to watch it, I've finally given in (and, to be as crude as possible, it has been a rather long while since a woman begged me to do anything, so how could I resist?)

Since everyone already has spies on their minds with Daniel Craig back as James Bond in "Quantum of Solace" (and I will indeed be checking that out this weekend, despite some really bad early reviews), I thought I'd offer a very late plug for "Chuck," which is much funnier and just plain fun than I ever would have imagined.

I'll be catching up on it this weekend thanks to Netflix, but if you think you can just picture a modern "Get Smart" starring slackers and a seriously hot Yvonne Strahovski as reluctant spy Chuck's (Zachary Levi) handler (no need to be crude there, people), you should tune in too (though most everyone who would like this is probably well into it already.)

And, though I promised the makers of the sensational documentary "In a Dream" that I would review it soon (and I will!), I'll just wrap this up with the latest TV spot for David Fincher's upcoming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (because I really do have to get to what is still my paying job.) Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday.

Tidbits: Wes Anderson news, a flashy new Bond trailer and, yes, a poll!

Though I've never bothered to put a poll on here before now, it's not because I don't care about the opinions of the few people who are kind enough to stop by here from time to time. I simply don't like to mess with the template too much because I'm most likely to just screw it up!

However, with the Fall season upon us, I've finally broken down and bowed to my lame duck president's command to spread democracy around the world and do my little part. It's not the most scientific poll, since you can vote for more than one movie, but I hope it provides a few seconds of diversion.

As I made clear in my Fall preview, the three movies that get me the most geeked up would be, probably in this order, "Slumdog Millionaire," "The Brothers Bloom" and "Miracle at St. Anna." I can't wait to see what everyone else thinks.

In other news that's not about, well, me, it seems that Wes Anderson is jumping on the French remake train. Before I slag the man at all, and since I haven't talked about him for quite a while, let me state that I just about unequivocally love Mr. Anderson's first three flicks, with "Rushmore" being just about a perfect comedy and "The Royal Tenenbaums" being even better. (The Criterion edition of "Tenenbaums," by the way, is one of the very best in the collection, and well worth a rental to sift through the extras about how Anderson and his crew concocted the Tenenbaums' weird little world.

His last two flicks, however, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and "Darjeeling Limited," just left me pretty cold (though that collection of David Bowie songs in Portuguese by Seu Jorge is still in fairly heavy rotation on my car CD player.) He's listed as being in "post-production" on Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" because, well, apparently every director in the world gets to make at least one animated movie, and now (in a rather severe case of burying the lead) comes news about a "new project" he's writing and possibly directing for Universal.

And if you're gonna pilfer from the French, I suppose you could do a whole lot worse than Patrice LeConte. I haven't seen the work Anderson is set to take on, "Mon Meilleur Ami," but that will change in a few days when it comes from Netflix (last night I watched "In Bruges," and I can attest that while it's often entertaining in its wordplay, it's just one of the strangest little flicks I've ever seen.)

In LeConte's 2006 film, French everyman Daniel Auteuil plays "a cranky antiques dealer who learns at a dinner with his closest acquaintances that none of them really like him because of his harsh manner and selfishness. When his business partner bets him a valuable vase that he can’t produce a best friend, the dealer tries to get an amiable cab driver to pose as his buddy," according to Variety.

As someone who finds himself fairly cranky as I get older, that sounds like it could be a lot of fun to me, and just might give Anderson the boost he needs to get back in my good graces (because I'm certain he's lost a lot of sleep about that!)

And now, since this has clearly has gone on long enough, I'll close with the promised "Quantum of Solace" trailer, which at a full two-and-a-half minutes is just a lot of fun. It looks like it starts out as a pretty straightforward revenge flick about the death of Vesper (the mesmerizing Eva Green), but of course spirals into a lot more than that, and like "Casino Royale" just looks like an old-fashioned Bond flick in all the best ways. Enjoy, and have a perfectly bearable Thursday.



P.S.: There's also a spot of sad news out there in that writer Gregory MacDonald has died at age 71.

MacDonald, a prolific mystery writer, was best know for his "Fletch" novels, two of which I read and four of which were made into flicks. I love the novels and movies for their goofy spirit and because Fletch, the journalist-turned-globetrotting author, is just a great character (and the last time Chevy Chase was truly funny.)

Before he died, MacDonald apparently collaborated with Harry Stein on the script for another "Fletch" flick, "Fletch Won." Since that one, if it ever were to happen, is rumored to possibly star Joshua Jackson in the role of our hero, it's perhaps best if it just stays dormant (though you'd have me interested with John Krasinski from "The Office".) Rest in peace, Mr. MacDonald.

Alll hail Fall: 12 movies I can't wait to see

With the movie summer officially coming to an end this weekend, it only seems appropriate that "Bangkok Dangerous" with Nicolas Cage is the only movie truly opening wide this week.

I'll probably give that one a chance, and we also get caught up this week at my multiplexes with "Brideshead Revisited" and "Henry Poole Was Here." The latter flick just sounds like the definition of sappy, but The Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore - who I almost always trust - gave it four out of five stars, so I might just have to give that one a chance.

Today, however, it's all about the Fall, and the potentially great movies it brings with it. We start out, thankfully, with a new Coen brothers flick, and there's even better stuff coming after that, so let's get right to it. (Please note that these opening dates are sometimes only for very limited openings and are always subject to change.)

Sept 12: "Burn After Reading"
The only review I've seen of this one so far was in The Hollywood Reporter, and they panned it as snarky and not terribly funny. I've yet to meet a Coen brothers comedy I didn't like (and yes, I even have time for "Ladykillers"), though, so I'm definitely in - even if it does look like Brad Pitt's gonna go what Robert Downey Jr. described in "Tropic Thunder" as "full retard."

Sept. 12: "Tyler Perry's The Family that Preys"
I've always had tons of time for Tyler Perry, even if he did make a slight misstep earlier this year with the rather pedestrian "Meet the Browns." Here, he's got Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard in his first flick to cross the color line in a big way, and I'm betting it will work just fine.

Sept. 26: "Blindness"
Anyone who's been here before (and hopefully there are a couple of you) knows that I often list, when pressed, Fernando Meirelles' "City of God" as my favorite movie, so I'm certainly looking forward to his take on the novel by Jose Saramago. I read the book earlier this summer, and I have to warn everyone out there, this is going to be a really bleak affair, even with Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Gail Garcia Bernal all on board.

Sept. 26: "Miracle at St. Anna"
There are three flicks on this list that I'd give a gold star because I want to see them even more than all the others, and this is the first. Even if he is motivated at least in part by his squabble with Clint Eastwood, what I've seen so far of Spike Lee's World War II epic leads me to believe this will be among his very best, putting it in rare company indeed.

Oct. 17: "W."
Just because there's a 60 percent-or-so chance that this will just suck beyond all reason doesnt mean I'm not intrigued. Of all the crazy casting in Oliver Stone's deconstruction of our lame duck president, I think the best will be Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice and, even better, Toby Jones as Karl Rove.

Oct. 24: "Synecdoche, NY"
When he had the filter of director Spike Jonze to control him a bit, Kaufman still delivered one of the most delightfully odd flicks I've seen with "Adaptation." Here he takes the reins himself for this tale of a director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) struggling to build a life size replica of New York City and at the same time deal with the various women in his life (Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams and Emily Watson are apparently among them, so I really can't feel too bad for the guy!)

Oct. 31: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"
What I've seen so far of this Kevin Smith flick starring Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen indicates it will be funnier and have more heart than anything he's delivered in years. That doesn't mean, of course, that it won't be deliriously crude too, so if you watch this redband trailer at work, certainly do so with headphones on!



Nov. 14: "Quantum of Solace"
What can I say about Bond? Not much, but I'll definitely be there to watch when Daniel Craig returns to the role with a bevvy of new babes in tow.

Nov. 26: "Milk"
Harvey Milk certainly seems to be an odd figure to have two competing biopics out there, but this one from Gus Van Sant reaches the finish line first, and I'm betting it will be the superior flick (and I admit I can't even remember who's doing the other one.) Here, you've got Sean Penn as the San Francisco pol Milk, and also Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna all on board. If I can make one DVD recommendation, you can do a whole lot worse than Van Sant's "Elephant," even if it only has about 12 words of dialogue in total.

Nov. 28: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Danny Boyle is sorely in need of a winner after the simply tired "Sunshine," and I'm giving this one my second gold star as my vote of confidence. Shot all over India, the only thing I know for sure is that it's about a very poor dude who strives to become a contestant on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" so he can win the heart of the gal he's smitten with. If that sounds a bit crazy, I'm hoping the outcome certainly turns out to be that and a whole lot more.

Dec. 19: "The Brothers Bloom"
The inspiration for this list was actually this pic of Rinko Kikuchi as "Bang Bang" in Rian Johnson's sophomore flick, which gets my final gold star. If you haven't seen his first, "Brick," do so ASAP. Here he's got Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as the titular brothers and con men, Rachel Weisz as their latest target and Kikuchi as their explosives expert. In my mind, I'm already there.

Dec. 25: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The final entry goes to David Fincher's take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald character who ages in reverse through the 20th century. Early word is this will be a very mainstream flick that bears few of Fincher's signature touches, but it takes place largely in Baltimore (and damn well better have been filmed there!) and co-stars one of my favorite actresses in Taraji P. Henson, so I'm definitely in for this one as a Christmas treat.

Honorable mention
Here, in no order of preference or chronology, are the flicks that might have made this list if I had all day to work on it: "Towelhead", "Choke", "Flash of Genius", "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist", "RocknRolla", "City of Ember", "The Road", "Australia", "Frost/Nixon", "Revolutionary Road" and "Valkyrie".

And there you have it. Please feel free to let me know of any I might have missed, and have a perfectly bearable Wednesday.