Now that we’re entering the summer movie season, we’re being allowed some sneak peeks of what to anticipate during the year-end holidays. Two big titles expected to dominate the box office look quite promising thus far.
‘The Great Gatsby’
It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that I’m a big fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel about the prosperous illegal activities of the “Roaring ’20s.” This latest adaptation from Baz Luhrmann, which marks the seventh time the story has been brought to the big screen, looks to be quite entertaining. Hitting theaters Christmas day, the romantic drama promises an amazing production design, and the cast is none too shabby either. Luhrmann isn’t known for being a great director, but he can be visually impressive. Take his stylish camerawork and pair it with a proven, worthwhile story, and we may actually have a strong film. We’ll have to wait and see.
‘Skyfall’
Finally, after a month of production stills taunting 007 fans everywhere, we get an awesome teaser trailer for the latest James Bond adventure, ‘Skyfall’. Ignoring the somewhat questionable title, which sounds too much like a videogame, the film so far looks like a significant improvement over ‘Quantum of Solace’ (which frankly is a much better title for a Bond flick). Granted, it’s meant as some kind of code word that catches Craig’s interest and sets things into motion, but still… Nevertheless, I love the mystery of the short preview and the way we’re given only small morsels on which to chew for a while. I can’t wait to see the next trailer.
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Josh Zyber
Very excited for Skyfall, despite its lame title and teal-and-orange-ness.
I’m not a Baz Luhrmann fan, but the Gatsby trailer is interesting visually.
M. Enois Duarte
AuthorDefinitely! I love the teaser, and I feel the same way about Luhrman. The only movie I care about from him is ‘Romeo+Juliet.’
Jason
I’ve been a fan of Baz since Moulin Rouge so I’m really looking forward to Gatsby and having been raised on Bond, Skyfall is a no-brainer even if I’m not a fan of the short blonde Bond.
Aaron Peck
I’m just glad we don’t have to suffer through another Marc Forster directed Bond film.
Josh Zyber
I honestly suspect that the incoherent shaky-cam action scenes in Quantum of Solace weren’t Forster’s fault. With this franchise, the director is largely a figurehead whose job it is to make sure that the production doesn’t fall apart while the Second Unit takes care of the action stuff. I’m fairly certain that the decision to do shaky-cam on that movie was handed down from Barbara Broccoli (because it worked for the Bourne franchise), and there was nothing any director could do about it.
Aaron Peck
It was evident that Forster didn’t know how to even storyboard a coherent action scene. The opening car chase and the rope sequence are perfect examples.
Although I’m sure you’re right, the strength and weaknesses of a film as a whole still fall largely on the director’s shoulders, studio puppet or not.
Josh Zyber
I doubt that Forster DID storyboard the action scenes. He was probably only called to set for the dramatic, dialogue scenes. The action stuff would all be handled by the Second Unit Director – in this case, Dan Bradley, who was hired specifically because he’d also done the Bourne movies, and that was what Barbara Broccoli wanted this one to be like.
But yes, it’s the director’s name on the movie, and he is ultimately responsible for the film as a whole.
JM
Sam Mendes is such a weird director for a Bond film.
Is 007 going to stare at a floating plastic bag for three minutes?
With a script by the playwright who wrote ‘Closer,’ and the two guys it took to type out ‘Johnny English.’
I guess if you point a camera in the general direction of Daniel Craig, shit just gets real.
All three Craig-a-Bonds have had trailers that killed.
And Javier Bardem might be the first Bond villain who isn’t a dink.
I am now highly anticipating the full lapdance.
Josh Zyber
Mendes is no stranger a choice for this than Michael Apted or, frankly, Marc Forster were. EON likes to hire acclaimed dramatic directors for these movies to give them an air of respectability. But as I said earlier, at the end of the day, the director on one of these is just a figurehead who has to do what the producers tell him to do. He’s there to keep the production running on schedule and for crisis management, not artistic license.
Same goes for the writers. Paul Haggis is the primary credited writer for the last couple of Bond flicks. Would you guess that at all by the finished product? There’s nothing of his style in either film (for the better, in my opinion).
JM
Barbara Broccoli is quite the little sausage factory.
I wish my family owned a film franchise that I could play with.
EM
I quite look forward another Baz Luhrmann film. Strictly Ballroom didn’t do much for me, but Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge! are treasures in my video library. Australia wasn’t really my cup of tea (I didn’t even see it until recently, though it’d been my intention to see it for a while), but I thought it had some good stuff. The music in the trailer makes me wonder: is this Gatsby going to be purposely anachronistic within its diegesis, à la Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge? Either way, the film looks to be nicely stylish.
As for the Bond film’s title, would Codename: Skyfall be an improvement?
Josh Zyber
“Codename: Skyfall” sounds too much like “Codename: Dragonfly,” the film-within-a-film in ‘CQ’. But if that meant that the movie were made in a ’60s psychedelic style, that might be interesting. 🙂
EM
My suggestion also made me think of Codename: Spitfire, a short-lived comic Marvel published in the late ’80s. I have mixed feelings about the comic and therefore about the association. But then, I’m not much of a Bond fan anyway.
I did see CQ recently. It’s an interesting film, though not so interesting as Codename: Dragonfly is…
M. Enois Duarte
AuthorActually, I think “Red Skies at Night,” which is one of the original title ideas for this movie, sounds ten times better. Then again, I’m biased since I really love the song with the same title by The Fixx. 😉
Aaron Peck
Whenever I hear “Red Skies at Night” I always think of the way Corey Feldman said it in ‘The Burbs’.