Quantum of Solace - Warning: Possible Spoiler Alert!

First of all, I'm not sure if I'll give anything away, but my parents have been known to comment that I may have said more than necessary ... so read on at your own risk!

We have just arrived back from an enjoyable evening out at the O2. To begin with, we had a tasty and satisfying meal at Gaucho. We started with a rectangular glass plate of scallops. This time, the scallops arrived as a heap of white, tender and cold baby scallops, mixed with sweet little orange segments, chilli, coriander and thin circlets of roasted purple carrot. Very different from our warm, seared scallops at Cafe Des Amis, and perhaps not quite as delicious, but succulent and tasty nonetheless. The chilli in particular meant that although the dish was cold, my mouth was quite hot by the end of it. However, Gaucho is not best known for its fish dishes; its speciality is Argentinian beef, which is brought to the customer on a wooden board, so the waiter can explain the cuts and show the amount of beef you get for each weight. I decided to have a Bife de Ancho (ribeye steak), while H had sirloin (Bife de Chorizo). Both medium on the rare side. I had a Bearnaise sauce; H had peppercorn. We shared chips and spinach. Absolutely delicious. My steak melted at the slightest touch of my knife, with the barest of blood oozing from the barely pink insides. Succulent, tasty, mmmmm. I think I had the best deal, although H made short work of his, too. We finished by sharing a pancake with vanilla ice cream and a caramel sauce. Highly recommended.

Anyway, you are probably not reading this for my food review. (Well, maybe some of you are!) But my main reason for writing is the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

First of all, the theme tune. I saw the premiere on TV, and was disappointed then. I've grown a bit used to it since then, but I still think it sounds vaguely out of tune, although I'm sure it's supposed to sound that way. H says it's supposed to sound like that, and the reason I don't like it is because it's not the sort of music I listen to, and it's more R&B. Now, we listen, I think, to quite a bit of R'n'B, and I think I like most music we listen to. And I'm sure there are other Alicia Keys songs that I like, it's just that this is a bit, well, out of tune sounding. The credits were okay, though. Quite traditional, lots of women and sand and guns.

Next, the plot. Ahem. I wish I'd rewatched Casino Royale before going to see Quantum of Solace! I was able to remember bits and pieces, and occasionally I would think, aha, that is related to Casino Royale, but I was a bit at sea in places. For example, I can't quite remember the details about why and how Vesper Lynd died (I mean, I can remember how she died, but not the events surrounding it). However, that didn't really matter, the main plot was fairly straightforward to follow, and where it was a bit incomprehensible or bizarre, it was still followable. (I don't think that sounds quite as clear as it should be!)

Thirdly, the girl. The main weakness with Casino Royale, for me, was Vesper Lynd. I just couldn't believe the relationship. That the whole plot for this film rides on Bond's love for Vesper seems a bit unbelievable when taken in context with the lack of chemistry in Casino Royale. However, since we never see Vesper this time, that's okay. Instead, Bond has a good, strong relationship with ... excuse me while I go and find out what she was called ... Camille. I don't think it's too much of a flaw that I did not really take any notice of her name, since she is a strong enough character without one. The other "Bond girl", Fields, was very familiar (I have just looked her up and discovered that she is Gemma Arterton, who was recently in St Trinian's, which I haven't seen, but that has made me realise she reminded me of Tess in the BBC's Tess of the D'Urbervilles ... yes, that's who she was). Although not a big part, I thought she was very good. And in many ways, she was also a more typical Bond girl ...

Product placement was one of my main grips with Casino Royale. Omega this, Virgin that, Ford the other ... He kept on using his mobile phone in very conspicuous ways, and as for using a laptop on a boat in the middle of the sea with your girlfriend to check into work ... well. I was a bit worried when I heard Mark Kermode mention product placement on his radio podcast, so I wondered if there was going to be a lot of it, and if it would annoy me. However, this time round, I didn't really notice it as much, even though I was looking out for it (which I wasn't first time round). The first - and only - time I really noticed it was when Bond was drinking in a bar in an aeroplane. Someone asked what he was drinking - the opportunity, in Bond's of old, to say, "a martini, shaken not stirred" - but here he didn't really care so he asked the bartender, who replied precisely, "Two shots of Gordon's, a shot of vodka ... (or whatever the ingredients are) ... and a thin twist of lemon peel", or something like that. I think he said it was shaken, and I think he said it wasn't a vermouth or something. Anyway, Gordon's got their placement. Then when Bond moved out of the way, you could see he was in a Virgin Atlantic plane. So another Virgin placement. Other than that, the product placement was not obvious. In the car chase we were aware that there was an Aston Martin being chased by a ... oh well, I noticed at the time, but I'm afraid I've forgotten. Someone else will need to watch out for it and remind me! Later there was a Range Rover, and a Ford was driven at some point, but those were the main things I noticed. Bond did use his phone a lot, it's true, and I can just imagine that Orange executive saying, "Let's have him taking pictures of the villains with his mobile phone camera!", but when he used it, it made sense - we all use our phones for taking pictures these days, don't we?! - and I did not notice what make of phone it was, because it wasn't important. I have to say, it does seem like there may have been quite a few placements there, but that's only because I deliberately wanted to mention them, and they did not seem out of place, so it wasn't a problem.

Daniel Craig. Still great as Bond. Still either the best or number 2 after Sean Connery ... still tough to place them! Craig's Bond is tough, gritty, violent at times, focussed. He also has a tender side, seen in a couple of unexpected places, which makes him human and likeable. This film continues the theme of trust, started in Casino Royale. He is still working out who to trust. As is M. And possibly the British government ...

The chase scenes are great, real edge of the seat stuff, holding your breath for ages, finally able to breath out and then something else exciting happens. Lots of chasing, lots of fighting. Mostly this all seems very real. My only gripe would be that many of these scenes are so quick, with so much cutting, editing, on the move shots, that it is often difficult to work out exactly what is going on, who is doing what, where things are happening etc. This makes the film dynamic, but it would be interesting to compare it to a slightly slower, clearer cut.

Right. I've been back for an hour or two now, and it's definitely time for bed. So, my final, overall view? A very enjoyable and exciting film, one that made me feel happy, with just enough of a social conscience to raise issues in someone's mind without being at all preachy, Daniel Craig is excellent, and all is right with the world. Roll on 2010.

Bond gets Bafta nomination!

Not so much "You heard it here first!", but I thought I'd point out that H did say he thought that Daniel Craig should get an Oscar for his portrayal of the spy ... we're waiting to see what happens. However, Forest Whitaker is also up for awards, in his role as Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland", and we're still waiting to see that one ...

Obsessed by Bond

(The blog help has guided me to images that are licensed to freely share, or something. Not the biggest choice, but I wanted to illustrate this post!)

Just thought I ought to admit to being a bit obsessed by all things Bond at the moment. As you know, I saw the film last week, finished the book this morning, have spent the day watching Bond podcasts and listening to 30 second preview clips of all the Bond theme tunes. And even though I wasn't totally enamoured with "You know my name" as the title song, I've just been watching the video and learning the lyrics. Well, reading them ... learning might be taking it a bit too far. Would love to go again. Have also been reading the reviews. On the rottentomatoes.com site there are about 139 positive reviews to 9 negative ones (don't worry, I didn't count, they work out the statistics on the front page). And I'm still waiting for someone else to go and see the film so I can compare notes with someone else other than H, who is now saying how boring the plot was and how he can't remember it. So I told it all back to him, pausing now and again to make sure I wasn't embellishing it with incidents from the book. So would anyone out there like to go and see it again with me?!

At least I managed to get up to date with marking all the books of the pupils who were foolish enough to forget to take their books home with them to complete their homework. Which unfortunately for them is rather a lot, but fortunately for me not too many.

I still have a methodology and methods report to write though. Maybe tomorrow ...

The end of another week

I've just finished reading Casino Royale, and am about to get some marking done. It's been a relatively relaxed week this week at school. We were discussing contraception in Year 11 yesterday, and they were remarkably sensible about it, considering the group. The other Year 11 class, that was very badly behaved last time I saw them, all apologised (not necessarily too convincingly, or meaningfully, but at least it was a recognition that their behaviour had not been accceptable last time, and they could all see that others in the class had had their parents contacted about their behaviour). And most then worked quite quietly through the work on the sanctity of life.

Right. Better get some work done!

Casino Royale

We went to see James Bond last night. I enjoyed it. I'm going to post a few comments/reflections here - I hope this doesn't spoil your own enjoyment of the film if you haven't seen it yet! (And I definitely recommend seeing it.)

There were about five different allusions to different forms of gambling in the opening five minutes or so (a pinball machine that reminded me of fruit machines, putting money on the outcome of snake/mongoose fight, a game of cards, the stockmarket, and something else, possibly another reference to cards). So the scene was set.

I wasn't too taken by the music ("Remember my name" or something like that), but I did quite like the graphics for the opening sequence. I'd already read that there were no women in the sequence, apparently the first Bond film not to feature Bond girls in that opening credits, so I wasn't surprised by that; instead there were quite seventies-like drawings with the suits of cards being shot out of guns etc. Quite stylish, I thought.

One thing I noticed more than before was quite a lot of product name-dropping, which was especially noticable in the light of pre-Casino Royale advertising. For example, there is a scene where Vesper Lynd asks James Bond about his watch. "Is it a Rolex?" "No, it's an Omega," he answers, and you know he's about to say that because you've seen the Omega advert quite a bit beforehand. Bond doesn't ask for a martini - instead he asks for "two shots of Gordons", one of tonic, this and that and a slice of lemon. Or whatever makes up a martini. He specifies the champagne (although I can't remember what it was, not being a connoisseur of champagne), and of course there is the Aston Martin.

Well, what about Daniel Craig as Bond? I was convinced. Not only because of the long, lingering shots of Bond as he emerges from the sea, Ursula Andress-like, I should point out! He has a good mix of seriousness and lightness, his humour is witty, not too obvious, or too often, he is very physical - lots of running, jumping, chasing, falling, climbing, as well as fighting and killing. The torture scene is very physical too. The first chase scene, on foot, is very well done - although perhaps a bit too much like a Playstation game! I can see it working very well with a joystick.

H thought that Daniel Craig is so good he should get an Oscar; he also thought that this Bond was quite a "masculine" Bond, in that there are few women and few sex scenes; however, I pointed out that the long close up shots of Bond smouldering might be said to make this a more woman-friendly Bond, with the female viewers definitely in mind! The one weakness is perhaps the relationship between James and Vesper, which is strong in some scenes and not so in others. One good scene takes place as they both sit in the shower.

Finally, I was surprised to see Richard Branson very briefly - he was blurred, walking through airport security, over Bond's shoulder, and I whispered to H, "Look, it's Richard Branson!", but by then he was long gone. Thought I might have imagined it - however, afterwards, H said he'd read that Branson had a part as an extra, so I'm pretty sure, with that beard and hair, that I saw him. Which leads me to reflect on what part H might have had if he'd gone along as an extra when he had the opportunity during the summer. One of those sitting round in a tux watching the Baccarat game, perhaps? We'll never know ...

Hope you go and see Casino Royale, hope you enjoy it, hope you post your comments about what you thought!