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SPECTRE trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4UDNzXD3qA
Review by Joe Viglione
S.P.E.C.T.R.E is a good old fashioned spy movie souped up with superb cinematic majesty that we expect from a James Bond film, along with an equally magical score, (save the title song.) In this era where content is king, taking Marshall MacLuhan's "The medium is the message." to heart, the sophisticated underworld gang has gone high tech, with infiltration and ISIS tactics as the core of their violent tools of control.
Where Marvel Comic's The Avengers have H.Y.D.R.A., Bond has had S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and here with the ominous name it distracts the viewer from the underlying theme, that cutesy names such as Yahoo and Google make their harvesting of our information, even harvesting the psychology of the editor of this very blog, more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden hijacking a couple of planes ever could be. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. combines the recent threats of Al-Qæda and ISIS blowing things up and combines them with the potential threat of Google knowing your every move, before you make that move.
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Yes, Google / Yahoo / Microsoft - and their ilk - all Trojan horse in makup, cooking you slowly in warm water and harvesting your very soul before they turn up the heat, are not hidden from view as components of Bond's main adversary. The filmmakers just take the artistic license (to kill) and bring Ian Fleming deep into the new millennium.
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The face of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. needed to go into that arena more richly and doesn't, but what we do get of glimpses into their hideouts and lairs is sufficient. Of the non-Sean Connery / Roger Moore / Pierce Brosnan 007 films, SPECTRE comes in third behind George Lazenby's stellar On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Timothy Dalton's License To Kill. These three films, in particular, portray the better side of Bond on film and there's a good reason for that. They get right down to business and stay focused.
When S.P.E.C.T.R.E (the film) veers off of its mission, getting Law & Order SVU cutesy trying to tie the 12 year old James Bond as a quasi step-brother to Blofeld, it falls flat. Christoph Waltz (Benjamin Chudnofsky in 2011's The Green Hornet)
The photo of Donald Pleasance as Bond's main adversary on Wikipedia proves my point. More malevolent in this iconic black and white picture than any of the on-screen moments Waltz has. Anyone can be a sadistic torturer on film, it is the art of being "certifiable" - as Sean Connery called Maximillian Largo, the protege of Max von Sydow's Blofeld (Klaus Maria Brandauer's interesting but not convincing crazy madman from Never Say Never Again.)
If Brandauer had the psycho look of Donald Pleasance, or the dark mastermind approach of Von Sydow, Connery wouldn't have to describe it for us. Always better to have the actor channel Tony Perkins as Norman Bates or Glenn Close as the wench, Alex Forrest, in Fatal Attraction, to get the point across. Nothing needs to be said when you see and feel pure mania in action.
The scenery is gorgeous, the action is intriguing - you've experienced it all before, but it is done in spectacular new ways. Even the one humorous moment of Bond being chased by the bad guy and some old Italian singing in his car getting in the way, kind of sort of works. We'll give them that one brief comedic bit for it's only when the film stays true to its nature and remains serious that it works.
You'll see elements of the most recent Tom Cruise Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation movie in this, even the stark white of George Lucas' early THX1138, but these are subtleties (except for the Under Siege double moment,) and less in your face than, say, the Matrix.
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License to Kill and O.H.M.S.S. work because they are serious on every level. It is serious art, serious film making, a serious embrace of the essence of author Ian Fleming's intent. Sean Connery and Roger Moore, as much as they are the beloved duo that launched 007, become a nostalgic foundation, which is driving the purists crazy. Where 2012's Skyfall is the #13 movie of all time in worldwide revenue at one billion one hundred and eight point six million! Box Office Mojo predicts S.P.E.C.T.R.E. will top Skyfall.
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Sam Smith's theme song, "Writings on the Wall" is one of the weakest of any of the James Bond themes. It's a bore and has nothing to do with the film itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHoq1oj1oE It is not as inviting as Duran Duran's "View to a Kill," or Paul McCartney's classic "Live and Let Die" and certainly it can't touch Dame Shirley Bassey's "Diamond's Are Forever" or the finest of all the theme songs, the immortal "Moon River" ...I mean "Goldfinger." When put up against the best of the Bond themes, Smith's could be the worst. When listening on its own, it's a complete drag. What were they thinking? The images of a nude, gold Daniel Craig afire a la Al Pacino in Devil's Advocate. What they should have done was licensed Elton John's "Written in the Stars" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JjcdtE5Q3k especially with "Writings on the Wall" having little or nothing to do with the film itself.
23rd year speaking at oldest college radio convention on the planet!
Intercollegiate Broadcasting System
JV speaking at this event since 1992.
Another great year. See you in 2016...if the gangsters in Medford haven't done away with me...
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