Film Shapes

I caught  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Kobe and this marks the first film I've seen in 3D. Probably the last also. At least until the technology improves to a level where I don't need to wear heavy, head-ache inducing glasses over my existing specs. But more than the lack of comfort, I don't think 3D actually brings anything extra to a film - I'm sufficiently 'immeresed'  if the film is good enough. And it darkens the picture somewhat as well. The HFR (High Frame Rate - 48 frames per second as opposed to the regular 24) was another oddity. Now I'm not sure if this was just the HFR or the 3D/HFR combination but the pictures seemed rather fake looking, especially at the start. Kind of like a presentation of some new ultra-clean medical imaging system or a Terminator show at USJ Osaka. Too sharp for these eyes. They need a bit of grain. So onto the film itself. Some pundits have derided it for being too long. I disagree with this but they'r...

Dodging newspaper and podcast reviews as well as YouTube trailers is fairly easy but it's more difficult to avoid spoilers when a preview is shown ONE MINUTE BEFORE THE FILM STARTS. Twats. Anyway, onto the film itself. Skyfall is Daniel Craig's third Bond effort but not his best - Casino Royale still holds that mantle. It's hard to talk about this movie without bringing the previous two in as comparisons, but I'll try. I enjoyed Skyfall but rather less than I had imagined I would. I think one of the reasons was the storyline, which seemed a bit old hat. Without giving too much away, the villain (a brilliantly camp Javier Bardem) seems based on Sean Bean's character in Goldeneye. Bondies will get the reference. The M-centric part of the plot worked in a kind of oedipal, 'mummies boys' sort of way, with both Bond and Bardem's Silva hovering around Judi Dench, albeit with different motives. But the MacGuffin that begins the film buggers off halfway...