‘Skyfall’ IMAX Featurette
By Matthew Harkin on 2012-11-08
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John Logan on James Bond’s ‘gay past’
By Matthew Harkin on 2012-11-07
Skyfall screenwriter John Logan has discussed the apparent homoerotic subtext inherent in the James Bond series.The 23rd 007 film includes a scene in which Bond (Daniel Craig) is tied to a chair as former MI6 agent-turned-villain Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) unbuttons his shirt and makes a sexually-charged remark, to which Bond responds: “What makes you think this is my first time?”
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Logan said “Some people claim it’s because I’m, in fact, gay but it’s not true at all. Sam and I were discussing, there were so many scenes where Bond goes mano-a-mano with the villain, whether it’s Dr No or Goldfinger or whatever. There’s been so many ways to do a cat-and-mouse and intimidate Bond, and we thought, what would truly make the audience uncomfortable is sexual intimidation; playing the sort of homoerotic card that is sort of always there subtextually with characters like Scaramanga in Man with the Golden Gun or Dr No.
So we just decided that we should play the card and enjoy it.” -
Worth another shot… in October
By Helmut Schierer on 2012-11-05
Image by ‘Defence Images’/MOD/SAC Tracey Dobson (c)
No sooner was the September shot finished when virtually all hell broke loose. Not because of my flimsy prattle, it just happened to coincide with Adele’s main title song turning from ‘official rumour’ to official fact.
From that day onward October was riddled with the mortar impacts of the ‘Skyfall’ PR campaign. Adele’s song ‘Skyfall’ was officially supposed to set out into the big wide world on October 5th, but somehow a snippet of it ‘leaked’ a few days earlier – and met with an enormous demand, making the final release then a lesson in skyrocketing the iTunes Charts. It immediately went to No 1 in most of Western Europe and managed practically everywhere else in Europe to climb the top ten. When was the last time we’ve seen such happening to a Bond song? Actually – when was the first time???
As could be expected the song still isn’t everybody’s favourite, for various reasons I’m not qualified to write about even speculatively. My personal impression (and nothing else will you get here) was it’s perhaps a bit short on substance. And yet I haven’t been able to get the thing out of my system for weeks now, so it probably achieved what it was supposed to. Well done, Ms Adkins. Very well done!
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The 007th Minute is Forever – Jim is back!
By Helmut Schierer on 2012-11-02
Las Vegas Hilton by CaDeltaFoto/Larry Eiring (c)
Jacques Stewart is back, bringing you his take on DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER’s 007th Minute.
Suggested for mature readers above 40. Readers below must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or spouse.
Feel welcome to share your feelings here
Untroubled by any pretence at accuracy, the others in this series are available “on our website” which is always a lazy thing to say and assumes everyone has access to this posh Ceefax thing, but on the basis you’re reading this you must, so one must cease one’s snivelling, and onwards.
“Snivelling” though, delicious and underused word as it is, seems to be the emotion generated by the seventh Bond fillum. By no means universal – it was United Artists, and I can’t believe I’ve done that “joke” – but the current thinking, such as can be extrapolated from the internet amidst all the pørn and copyright infringement, has it as an aberration that does not follow faithfully the principal plot set up by On Her Maj. Given that continuity isn’t an express intention of the series – and would it have lasted as long if it were? I doubt it – is this actually a problem of the film as a piece of nearly-entertainment, or an imposition of a desire for continuity in hindsight? It’s not as if this film was a commercial failure by sashaying down its particular course. So used are we all now to clever / ludicrous / ultimately forgettable “story arcs” and box-sets of themes to scrutinise and pick over and type furiously about, that we may risk undervaluing the attitude that runs “sod it, it’s some light entertainment and I might actually enjoy it if I give both it and myself a chance”. Can we cope with something that has no particular motive other than what it shows us? Imposing a criterion that it can’t have sought to achieve can’t genuinely be a sustainable, nor fair, manner in which to approach it. It’s like kicking the cat because it can’t speak Gaelic or expecting The Actor Piers Brongnong to act. We may be expecting too much and if it cannot manage our retrospective, forty-years on, stampy-feet demands, one wonders whether that’s really its fault. I accept that if that proposition of blamelessness holds, the Pearce Brosmin example is not a good example. -
‘Skyfall’ – The biggest opening in UK Box Office History
By Matthew Harkin on 2012-11-02
SKYFALL breaks UK box office records!
EON Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment are delighted to announce that SKYFALL has taken an extraordinary £37.2 million in its opening week, overtaking Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 to secure the biggest 7 day gross of all time in UK box office history. In response to the amazing 7 day figures, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said, “We are very grateful to the Bond fans and all UK cinema audiences for making SKYFALL the biggest opening week ever during our 50th anniversary year.”
Thank you, Bond fans everywhere, for making SKYFALL such an unprecedented success!
