Skyfall (2012) dir. Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomi Harris, Judi Dench

By Alan Bacchus

We finally have an exciting director at the helm. With that said, it comes after a series of increasingly disappointing pictures since Mendes’ celebrated American Beauty, so we can’t help feel the perception of his involvement as an attempt of career rejuvenation. Well, it worked. There’s an added skip in Mendes’ step, as he delivers a film with all the energy and aggressive action, as well as a sense of the cinematic, that is missing in every other Bond film.

The idea of using only adequate technical directors to helm these now 23 Bond movies always irked me. Why did it take so long for the MGM and EON production team to realize film was a director’s medium, not a producer's? Tom Cruise, as producer of the Mission Impossible films, knew this. I guess the reasoning was that the franchise was bigger than the director, and that an auteur vision could scramble their money-making formula. The one-off success of Casino Royale notwithstanding, this ignorant view has resulted in a franchise continually stymied for creativity and freshness.

Long gone is the usual opening circular frame of the gun’s viewpoint that traditionally opens these movies. Instead Mendes cuts right into his first action sequence, the theft of the film’s maguffin, a stolen file listing all the MI6 names and their aliases (not unlike the stolen NOC list in Brian De Palma’s Mission Impossible). As 007 chases the villain through the streets of Istanbul, it’s all monitored and controlled from London’s MI6 office via satellite surveillance. The end of the sequence sets up the film’s central premise, Bond as a rogue agent outside the comfort zone of the tech gadgetry we’re used to seeing – an organic, grassroots Bond, if you will, with only his wit and guile as his weapons.

This concept plays out in several forms throughout the film – at first working as a missing agent presumed dead; then after a devastating terrorist bomb, which destroys their building, the entire department is forced to work in a WWII bomb shelter with Cold War-era tools; and lastly in the third act a retreat of sorts to a completely threadbare Bond, as he confronts his enemies in a Straw Dogs-like siege in isolation.

Mendes’ employment of one of the world’s best cinematographers, Roger Deakins, is another signal of the reboot mindset of this Craig-era Bond. Casino Royale had already discarded most of the bubble-gum elements of the Brosnan Bond. But under Deakins' visual guidance we finally have a film with some memorable evocative imagery.

The Shanghai action scene is most memorable, but Deakins' underwater imagery and the fog shrouded field chase in Scotland are emotional and haunting. And almost every action scene is directed with seemingly in-camera reality. Though there were hundreds of personnel credited with CG effects, for the most part computer effects were invisible to my eye – an admirable production constraint considering the ‘anything’s possible’ abilities of today's CGI.

The final act is also an inspired climax. After a tremendous gunfight in downtown London, Mendes and his writers turn the film inward, engineering a smaller scale actioner, a confrontation which recalls the dramatic finale of High Noon or Witness, or as mentioned, Straw Dogs – references that complete Mendes' wholly cinematic Bond film.

***½

American Beauty (1999) dir. Sam Mendes
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

How well does American Beauty stand up today? Remember back then when this multi-Oscar winner, TIFF audience award winner was shit hot? Sam Mendes was shit hot. Same with Kevin Spacey. As Spacey’s career declined (or at least diverged away from film, and more towards theatre) and Mendes career declined, not to mention Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, so it seemed did the reputation of film. Now there seems to a large base of American Beauty haters out there. What gives?

Back in 1999, the film seemed to speak to a new generation of youth. Alan Ball’s brilliant script which told the story of several suburbanites searching for the meaning in their lives, meaning which came from different places for each of its characters.

Perhaps the source of the new hatred for this film comes from the fact that many of the characters, scenes, motifs, themes etc so quickly became part of pop culture lexicon - over exposure, if you will. The satirization of suburbia for instance was nothing new, but under Mendes/Ball’s skewed microscope we saw something new about ourselves we hadn’t seen before. Now, there are innumerable films and TV shows about the subject – arguably more on TV than Film (ie. Ball's own Six Feet Under, Weeds, The United States of Tara to name a few).

What American Beauty still manages to do brilliantly, even from today's cynical eyes, is manage the black comedy with melodramatic tragedy, both in healthy portions.

Wes Bentley’s iconoclastic performance still holds up. His eyes are still mesmerizing even if his character has now become a cliche. Though not a traditional ensemble film Mendes and Ball manage to make almost every supporting role unique, memorable and anything but stock characters. Think about the gay neighbours, both named Jim. These guys can now be considered the stock gay characters, but back in 1999, their characterization by Sam Robards and Scott Bakula were ahead of the curve and funny. It also disarms us to the reveal of Chris Cooper’s character’s homosexuality, which is not treated as a whimsical gay stereotype, but dark self-loathing.

Mena Suvari and Thora Birch can be considered ahead of the curve in terms of complex high school satirical characters. Kevin Spacey, unfortunately, doesn't. He didn’t seem to broaden his acting skills on film since Beauty and looking back his performance, despite the Oscar victory, it feels the most on the nose. His transition from meek ner-do-well to confident uber-mench is telegraphed without much subtly.

The dreamy existential tone works in moments. Jane’s lame pep rally cheerleading sequence is still funny on a number of levels – first the bored expression of Thora Birch exemplifies the role she feels she’s trying to fill as a teenager, and the reason why she becomes so taken with the mysterious neighbour. And Mendes' orchestration of Lester’s dream sequence, as edited by Tariq Anwar and Christopher Greenbury and shot by Conrad Hall Jr., still looks magnificent.

I could use without the Sunset Boulevard narration which opens and closes the film. It doesn’t ring as profound anymore, dated and forced, if anything. But of course Ball was going for an homage to those noir films of yesteryear, like Boulevard or Double Indemnity. Maybe ten years from now, it’ll become relevant and trendy again. American Beauty is still a very good film.

American Beauty is available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment