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I actually loved the fact that it wasn't marketed as a gay movie. It was a film about deceit, impersonating, obsession and mindfuck that just happened to be gay. I think it was a great positive message of our evolution as a society, that a movie can be a gay movie without making a big deal out of it. It's become that mundane, that incorporated.

I saw Quantum of Solace last weekend. I think this film's biggest role is to set up a new secret world organization for Bond and MI6. I understand they can't use SPECTRE any more because of the lawsuits with Kevin McClosky, so I guess this is designed to create a new threat, supposedly suited to modern sensibilities, although the explanation given by Mr. White in the beginning of the film somewhat parallels Dr. No's explanation of SPECTRE in the 1962 Bond film.

Speaking of Mr. White, the villain here (and I'm not really giving anything away) is Mr. Greene. I do so hope that if they stick with this premise long enough to get to Mr. Pink that he says something about wanting to change his name. There's also a deposed dictator and some corrupt officials. Unfortunately, none of these villains is particularly interesting or noteworthy. And I've seen the same schemes in other films and TV shows, so I found nothing new here.

What I thought was odd was that they didn't really use much of the Bond mythos. You expect certain things in a Bond movie -for better or for worse- and they aren't here for the most part. So this is just another slam-bang action film along the lines of many that you've seen recently - Bourne, Transporter, etc. The Bond films often borrow from whatever is popular at the time which this time includes head-ache inducing car car chases, somewhat hard-to-follow fights and in-your-face camera angles. The girl is fairly irrelevant IMO, except as a device to move the action along. While Bond's underlying motive has little to do with the main story, hers is better integrated. They did have a nice role for Felix Leiter. The saving grace here is that at the end, they imply by the final scene that 'James Bond will return' to his standard characterization in the future.

Craig is pretty good, although he doesn't have much to say. There is none of the delightful character development of the first film for him, so he goes around looking fit and grim. He makes a very Connery-esque Bond, though. I think the next film will really be telling for him. M shines in her role. Once again they have decided to give her a more active role, which doesn't really fit Fleming's characterization of the service at all, but it fits the recent action film mold.

I look forward to the next film. This one was pretty irrelevant to the series IMO. It is a decent action flick though.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I cannot wait for the next film - as long as it has nothing to do with Quantum Of Solace.

So instead of watching Night Digger I watched an old Universal film called The Invisible Ray not one of Waxman's better efforts. The story of Radium X with Karloff and Lugosi. He was just called Karloff. Not a bad film.

Max Payne

What a mess of a film. Absurd from start to end. A real shame.
As for the score by Beltrami and the other two guys, totally forgettable. If any, the last cue, the typical dramatic finale cue by Beltrami (like T3´"Radio" or Underworld Evolution´s "The Future").

1 out of 5



Flight of the Phoenix, The Omen and Max Payne. Seems we´ve been in a John Moore mood today

All reviews I read ( two actually ) said it was shite ( but in more letters )

I recently watched Raiders of The Lost Ark after having bought the 4-movie DVD boxed set. Up until now I hadn't any of the movies in any format and I thought that it would be safer to buy them now.

The movie looked great and the children seemed to enjoy it. I was wondering if this version of the movie has been tinkered from the original theatrical release?

The exception to the rule.

The problem is games are interactive, movies are passive, that's like trying to convert an apple into an orange, it's just not doable to mix the two, however on occasion someone who actually plays the games is involved with the movie...

Indeed it is. With all the letters.

Funny? A friend recommended it to me too!? What's it about?

Black Friday with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde film about an english professor who ends up with the brain of a gangster. A pretty decent low budget film with a Salter score that was mostly from his previous monster films about the Mummy and Frankenstein.

^ I found Thomas Glorieux's clip from Doomsday quite quite captivating in his "Action Unleashed" game last week.

Was that the only good bit in the whole score or what? I was already considering getting it. That clip alone ranked at least a 2 or 3 out of 5 in my book.

RV: Planet Earth, the first 2 episodes
Birds of paradise were amazing, but seeing that shark jump out of the water, whole, to catch a seal was just about the most jaw-dropping thing I'd ever seen. And I have even more respect for George Fenton's score now.

I could never tire of watching it. Stunning, stunning, stunning.

Have you seen the snow leopard episode yet? I don't think anything else on television has ever held me so captivated.