James Bond v. Paul Haggis

I went to see Quantum of Solace today. I’m not one to go to movies on opening day (yeah, I know how old that makes me sound); hell, I’m not really one to make it to most movies in theatrical release (the upcoming theatrical release of Ciao excepted, of course).

Why today?

Well, why not.

The fog lifted. The headaches suddenly furloughed themselves for the most part: can’t blame the botox nor the topamax because they haven’t had time to get started doing their respective thangs yet.

I felt like crap this morning, to the point of having to cancel a meeting I was very much looking forward to. I slept a couple of hours and woke up feeling much better.

So why did I go to see Bond? Well, I did love the last Bond movie. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond actor (Connery is Bond Legend). But that alone wasn’t enough. No, I’d read that the new Star Trek trailer was showing before the Bond flick, and I’ve been spending far too much time in the house since I got back from Pennsylvania, so I went.

*Squee!*

The trailer was soooo totally worth it. The shocking, sudden broad view of the Enterprise being built in the shipyard, all scaffolding and partial, but enough of a skeleton there to be unmistakably the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Sure, it’s different to any other Enterprise that’s ever been, but except for the original series’ ship, they’ve all been different.

It was the Berman-era Star Trek that brought the now-familiar glowy-red and glowy-blue motif to all Federation ships, a conceit and a foolish consistency to the point that it created horrible inconsistencies everywhere else in the Star Trek universe.

So for now I’m going to cut the director a break. It’s a beautiful ship and it’s the Enterprise.

Chris Pine is impossibly beautiful, nearly as much so as Paul Newman was in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

I can’t wait.

But back to the Bond flick. I know we’ve lived in this godforsaken MTV quick-edit era for nigh on 30 years now, but the opening car chase and the later climax scene are so scary they look like seizure-tests designed by Michael Bay.

But here’s the part that truly makes me want to barf. And god bless Giancarlo Giannini for trying so bloody hard to make Paul Haggis’ lines sound like something even a Bond-world human being say, but c’mon.

The setup: It’s an overnight flight. Bond is drunk. Mathis wakes up and talks to Bond, trying to console him about Vesper’s betrayal and death (this is not a spoiler, it happened in the last Bond movie).

Mathis: Do you want to try to sleep? I have pills. Bond: Pills? Mathis: I have pills for everything. Some make you taller; some make you forget.

Some. Make. You. Taller. Some. Make. You. Forget.

They fucking pay Haggis for this awful offal.