Lazy Saturday and Lazier Sunday

Went into the city yesterday.  It's become habit to sit down and blog about my days in the city, but this particular trip was literally nothing to write home about. 

We're about to get into the super-busy Christmas rush at work, so that means free weekends to do Christmas shopping will soon be few and far between.  I conduct my Christmas shopping much like a military mission.  So yesterday was phase 1:  recon and intel gathering.  This phase largely consists of window-shopping, figuring out a budget, and pondering the question, "What am I going to get so-and-so?"  I've got a few good ideas, so the next phase - actually buying the stuff - should go OK. 

And of course, it's just not a trip to the city unless I spend too much money on DVDs.  Because I'm a sucker for all things comic-book-based, had to grab the Spider-Man reboot.  And since I'm a sucker for all things Pixar, had to grab Brave.  And that's pretty much my plan for the lazy Sunday afternoon.

And...ooo!  I saw Skyfall, aka the new James Bond movie.  It's so good, you guys.  In a way, this finally completes the reboot that began with Casino Royale.  James Bond finally gets a thoroughly modern villain in the form of a cyber terrorist.  Classic Bond supporting characters such as Q are finally re-introduced.  And while debates as to whether Bond is the right kind of hero in today's global political climate have been brushed off with glib comments in some of the recent films, in this one, it's openly debated by the characters and actually becomes a plot point.  It's also neat to see Bond's origins finally explored somewhat, although it does get dangerously close to Batman Begins at one point.  I'll elaborate more, but it gets into spoiler-territory.

I did find it a bit predictable, though, in how they were setting up certain parts of the Bond mythology to re-introduce.  Again, though, it didn't take away from the film.  And it resulted in some great touches and homages to the Bond films of the past.  

But yeah.  While I'm hesitant to call it the best Bond film, it's definitely the best of Daniel Craig's run to date. 

I'm going to share some of my favourite spoiler-filled bits of the film, so if you haven't seen the film yet, I'd suggest you click away now.  If you need something to click to, why not go to my main site and read my proper review of Skyfall?

Spoilers after the jump!


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So, as you've seen in the trailers, for a part of the film, Bond is assisted by a female spy named Eve.  After she almost kills Bond in the pre-credits sequence, she's reassigned to a desk job.  And whenever Bond's chatting with her in HQ, they share a very familiar flirtatious relationship.  So, at the end of the film, when she announces that she's decided to keep her desk job, it came as no surprise when she revealed her last name to be Moneypenny.  It became rather obvious to me that they were setting that up.

And as I said, loving homages to Bond films past.  A friend of mine passed along a review that said it was so full of references to Goldfinger that it would be incomprehensible to Bond n00bs.  As Goldfinger is one of my favourite Bonds, I was watching for it.  About the only big reference I caught to Goldfinger was a part where Bond needs a car, so he breaks into his storage locker and claims...his original Bond car, the Aston Martin DB5 given to him in Goldfinger.  And the Bond theme swelled in the soundtrack, and the Bond fanboys in the audience let out a cheer. 

And for those who always called Batman just James Bond in a cape, the best ammunition comes at the film's climax, which takes place at Skyfall, aka the Bond family estate in Scotland.  And we meet the kindly old butler gamekeeper who looked after the mansion and raised Bond when Bond was orphaned as a boy.  And when we're told that Bond hid in a cave underneath the Bond mansion for two days upon hearing of his parents' death, I was just like, "Oh, God.  Seriously.  They were watching Batman Begins when they wrote this, right?" 

I found it a little bit silly, but it worked.