The only downer for me so far is that Jesper Christensen won’t be returning to reprise his role as Mr White for part three. Apparently he gets bumped off by Bond in Quantum but Marc Forster decided to cut that scene. I think this is a shame as he was a pretty scary character, not only did he put a cap in Le Chiffre but he vanished at the beginning of Quantum and didn’t even bother to get up and leave in the opera scene which made him pretty intriuguing all round. I would think that Forster cut his death for a reason, but since his “supposed” outburst at the Berlin Film Festival he probably wouldn’t be allowed to take part even if he wanted to. Despite of course the fact he explained how his words got blown all out of proportion (likely, I’d say). Apparently we may see his death on a future Quantum director’s cut DVD, who knows.

For more info and speculation check out the pretty cool blog and fan-made posters here.

Slumdog Millionaire – 7
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 3
Hunger – 1
In Bruges – 1
The Duchess – 1
I’ve Loved You So Long – 1
Man On Wire – 1
Vicky Cristina Barcelona – 1
The Dark Knight – 1
The Reader – 1
The Wrestler – 1
September – 1
Wallace And Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death – 1

Now who won what (in order)…

Music

Slumdog Millionaire
A.R. Rahman

Sound

Slumdog Millionaire
Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp

Production Design

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo

Make Up & Hair

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Jean Black, Colleen Callaghan

Cinematography

Slumdog Millionaire
Anthony Dod Mantle

Adapted Screenplay

Slumdog Millionaire
Simon Beaufoy

Outstanding British Film

Hunger
Laura Hastings-Smith, Robin Gutch, Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh

Outstanding British Contribution to Film

Pinewood and Shepperton Studios

Original Screenplay

In Bruges
Martin McDonagh

Costume Design

The Duchess
Michael O’Connor

Film not in the English Language

I’ve Loved You So Long
Yves Marmion, Philippe Claudel

The Carl Foreman Award

Man On Wire
Simon Chinn

Best Supporting Actress

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Penelope Cruise

Special Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Eric Barba, Craig Barron, – Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams

Best Supporting Actor

The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger

Orange Rising Star Award

Noel Clarke

Best Director

Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle

Leading Actress

The Reader
Kate Winslet

Lead Actor

The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke

Best Picture

Slumdog Millionaire
Christian Colson

Fellowship

Terry Gilliam

Short Film

September
Stewart le Marechal, Esther May Campbell

Short Animation

Wallace And Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Steve Pegram, Nick Park, Bob Baker

Editing

Slumdog Millionaire
Chris Dickens

Animated Film

Wall-E

I’m so happy Danny Boyle is best director! :D!!! And Rourke and Winslet, great results!

Here’s a little vid of Twelve Monkeys (1995) one of my favourite films and (in my humble opinion) one of Gilliam’s best:

Quantum of Solace

Went to see this on Saturday and I was pleasantly surprised considering all the bad press it’s getting. I was entertained, which is the whole point now isn’t it? It does annoy me that critics have been so hard on it, because people do listen. They quote. It’s rare that a film does well with the general public when the critics have got their teeth in. If you want a job destroying creativity, why not become a demolition man? anyway, enough of that!

For the reasons which I’ll highlight in a moment it’s not on par with Casino Royale, but to me it felt like a fitting sequel.

QoS wasn’t all action. It had four or so action pieces, but enough dialogue and exposition so as not to be overbearing. What it lacks is the long poker game halfway through, but even this was in dispersed with action pieces (the machete fight on the stairs, Bond’s heart failure). There’s not a lot of build-up to action sequences in QoS either, e.g. foreboding in the form of Gettler (the one-eyed man)’s early appearance in the Venice portion of CR, but this reflects the nature of the beast. Bond is frantic and his insides are cut to pieces, he’s killing for the sake of killing to try and make himself feel better, but at the end of the day Vesper did it to herself so is it likely he’ll ever find comfort in this method? We see a rawer, shorter, bloodier Bond film here, but it does pack a punch.

QoS isn’t pitch black, but it is rather shady. Se7en is dark, this film just shows Bond running on adrenaline and hate, and by the end of the film I get the impression that some of this had been quenched, and Bond had found his quantum of solace, though we may have to wait until next time to understand precisely how he has obtained this. I could certainly see nods to Bourne, but it isn’t a Bourne rip-off.

I think QoS would have benefitted from being half an hour longer and I remember there being bad press about a scene involving horses (polo) a year or two ago as they filmed – was this sequence cut completely? I’d also like to know a bit more about Quantum (the organisation, SMERSH in the books), but that’ll have to wait until the next sequel. I like that the films follow on now.

I’m not going to go on about the action or the story so as not to spoil it all, but do go and see it with an open mind. You may just enjoy it! I’m already looking forward to the sequel.

if Casino Royale was a 9, in my opinion this would be a 6 or a 7.

Some particularly cool bits (without spoiling things)

the car bit
hitting some guy with a bike
the plane bit
taking photos
oil
axe-fighting
the other oil bit
the minority report-esque computer stuff
the dam thing (whatever the orangey building in the desert was)
all the place names having unique typography

…oh and considering Dominic Greene didn’t have the obligatory disfigurement he was all right (and at times, quite scary). Yelped like a girl in places though. I reckon if they do everything a bit more by-the-numbers with a few new bits next time people’ll love Bond all over again. Pick a safer opening song (although I rather like Another Way to Die) and reintroduce Q branch (I suppose) and all that malarky. It must be a bugger trying to please people when you have 20+ films and a legion of hard-to-please fans to satisfy. I certainly wouldn’t want that job!