No Apologies: The World is Not Enough

by Rob DiCristino

Yup. I like the Bond movie with Denise Richards.

Pierce Brosnan’s turn as James Bond has always been a hard sell. Most Bond fans agree that his take is the most milquetoast, a kind of neutered mix of Sean Connery’s gruff brutality and Roger Moore’s distinguished charm. Brosnan himself admits that he never quite got a feel for the character, and the mostly-uninspired writing across his four outings certainly didn’t help. Still, GoldenEye pulled the franchise back from the brink of death long enough for the Craig era* to reinvigorate it (and then ruin it again), so we owe Brosnan’s films some consideration. That said, what do we really remember about them? We remember Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies. We remember the invisible car in Die Another Day. Perhaps least fondly, we remember nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. And while it’s true that TWINE has its problems — its very own metric fuck-ton of problems — it benefits from some fun supporting performances, an unconventional Bond villain, and yes, Denise Richards in a tank top.

The World is Not Enough finds James Bond wrapped up in yet another convoluted world domination plot, this time putting him at odds with his momma bear, M (Dame Judy Dench). It seems that M’s college buddy, millionaire industrialist Sir Robert King (David Calder), whose daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau) was the victim of a kidnapping, was killed over some stolen documents which led to the heist of a nuclear warhead. Keeping up? Good. Bond identifies the anarchist Renard (Robert Carlyle), Elektra’s kidnapper, as the brains behind the operation. Little does he know (but eventually does he figure out) that Elektra sports a massive lady boner for her kidnapper and has decided to rage against western democracy and screw over the people who left her to die at his hand. She and Renard boost a submarine and plan to trigger an explosion that would destabilize Turkish infrastructure and give Elektra a monopoly on local oil pipelines. Bond saunters into battle, flanked by scientist Christmas Jones (Richards) and his old KGB friend, Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane).

Look, this movie is dumb. Nothing anyone does makes any sense, and, to make matters worse, it’s one of the most shoddily-made Bonds of the modern era.* It’s lousy with obvious stunt doubling and weird continuity errors. There are times when the editing is actually bad enough to ruin a scene. It stretches credibility even more than the usual Bond film: 007 tears up his shoulder and then goes skiing, which is literally the most specifically-strenuous shoulder-related sport he could have engaged in short of pitching an inning of baseball. Did they do that on purpose, or was no one paying attention? Anyway, the film may be dumb, but it’s dumb in that great Bond fashion: it’s got a submarine plot that recalls The Spy Who Loved Me, a ski chase that evokes On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and a weird boat-on-land gag that invites comparisons to Moonraker. Whereas most '90s entries aggressively tried to push Bond into the mass-media-diamond-laser-digital-age, this one threw back to something a little more straightforward: a guy has a bomb and wants to blow things up with it.

That guy, Renard, is also one of the most interesting villains in the Bond canon. He took a bullet to the head and kept trudging along even after it lodged itself in his brain and cut off all sensory perception. He can’t taste, smell, or feel anything, including pain. He knows full well that the bullet will kill him and just wants to use his remaining time to make a better world for his lady. In a franchise built on the megalomaniacal plans of villains lusting for Unlimited Power (including, we discover, Elektra), a bad guy with a death wish is an interesting spin. Granted, he doesn’t really do anything with that power aside from punch glass and juggle volcanic rocks, but it makes his catchphrase, “You can’t kill me! I’m already dead!” more interesting. There’s also something really tragic and compelling about his love story with Sophie Marceau’s steamy femme fatale: they were both so shocked by her father’s refusal to pay her ransom that he decided to help her get revenge. It’s almost admirable, really. They’re both lost children cast off by the powers-that-be.

The film also features the last appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Bond’s irascible tech genius, Q. The Q Scene has always been a important part of the Bond mythos; his rapport with 007 mixed the withheld affection of a father with the reckless abandon of the crazy uncle who lets you fire his gun. It never mattered that Llewelyn’s range as an actor was limited; he was always a reassuring bit of series continuity. He made it feel like home. TWINE finds the quartermaster on his last, wistful legs, grooming John Cleese’s “R” to take over. Cleese took the role a little too far toward parody in Die Another Day (a misstep that was thankfully rectified in the Craig era*), but his bumbling comic relief in this film creates a wonderful opportunity for Bond and Q to say goodbye and reaffirm their mutual respect. After four decades of bickering, Bond opens up enough to ask his mentor not to leave him. He does, but it’s a warm and graceful exit made especially poignant by the actor’s death just a few months later.

As for Bond himself, there’s an interesting (though underdeveloped) thread about his reluctance to kill in cold blood that pays off when he’s forced to murder an unarmed woman. Brosnan has neither the presence nor the material to pull it off as well as Connery did or Craig eventually would, but at least someone in the writers’ room remembered that the best Bond movies are the ones that give him some kind of arc. It’s also worth noting that Robbie Coltrane totally rules as Valentin Zukovsky, a recurring character who should have recurred a lot more often. Finally, there’s Denise Richards, who — it has to be said — really isn’t that bad. Her presence might feel ridiculous, but her actual performance is no worse than any of the others in the film. Christmas Jones is a shitty character with absolutely no emotional latitude. It’s not like they could have thrown Tilda Swindon in there and suddenly she would be a revelation. She’s like everything else in The World is Not Enough: sloppy, awkward, but somehow oddly satisfying.

*(era)

F This Movie! - eXistenZ

Patrick and Cait Cannon have to PLAY the game to find out WHY they're playing the game.



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Also discussed this episode: Moonlight (2016), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Monkeybone (2001), Manchester by the Sea (2016), The Girl on the Train (2016), Elle (2016), Rabid (1977)

A Movie I'm Thankful For: American Movie

by Mike Pomaro

I like to think of myself as an open book. Ask me a question, and I’ll give you an answer. Almost nothing is difficult for me to talk about. Almost.

This is where American Movie, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary directed by Chris Smith about Mark Borchardt, a 30-year old man from Wisconsin with not a dollar to his name and a movie in his head that he has to make or he’ll die, becomes important to me. First, let’s briefly discuss the movie. Mark has a script for a personal film he’s been writing and planning for years called Northwestern. While he tries and tries to get that off the ground, he perpetually runs into roadblocks. He takes a deep breath and determines that before he can begin work on Northwestern, he’ll instead try to finish his short horror film Coven. Mark can’t make it alone, so he enlists the help of his mother, his buddy Kenny, and his best friend Mike Schank, whose every line is gold. He convinces his crusty old uncle Bill to give him three thousand dollars to help fund the movie, and finds people throughout the community willing to devote their time to a project that Mark believes in with every fiber of his being. We watch Mark plan, fail, succeed, fail again, stumble, fail, fail, fail, then get back up. He never quits. This drive that he has, along with an unbelievable cast of characters, make American Movie one of my all-time favorite movies and the most quotable documentary I’ve ever seen.

To bring this back to why I’m thankful for American Movie, let me briefly explain what I wrote above. Like I said, I’m comfortable talking about anything in my life. But the one thing that hurts me to discuss is my failure to make a movie. I’m 38 years old and have not made anything I can be proud of outside of film school. The reasons for this vary: many have been out of my control, maybe more have been my own self-built walls.

To be fair, it’s not like anyone is asking me about my filmmaking “career.” That stopped years ago. I, however, ask myself daily about it. It haunts me, but I still haven’t done anything about it. Yet. This leads me to movies like American Movie.

I personally find Mark inspirational and I know Chris Smith does as well. Here’s a man that will drive out to an airport parking lot to work on his script for hours in his heatless car so he can do so in peace. He delivers newspapers and cleans the shit off of bathroom walls of a cemetery to help fund his project. Mark is a man that inspires the people in his life, most of whom find themselves working hard for no money, not because they believe in the movie, but more so because they believe in Mark and want to see him complete his film that he refuses to give up on.

I’m envious of Mark. I’ve always found it easier to not go through the pain of seeing my films fall apart then to actually fight for them. That’s on me, obviously, and I’m working all the time to overcome that. Mark, as much as anyone from Martin Scorsese to John Carpenter, inspires the hell out of me and makes me want to fight to get my movies made. He’s not oblivious to the obstacles in his way – he just finds a way past them. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, he’s moving forward and the people in his life see that in him and want to help.

I’m not implying that there aren’t people in my life willing to help me; it’s quite the opposite. The fact of the matter is I haven’t given them reason to do so yet. American Movie makes me want to change that. American Movie makes me want to become a filmmaker like I’ve always dreamed of being. Whether I make a film one day or not, I know that the fire inside of me to do so will never completely burn out, and American Movie is the film that stokes that flame when I need it to burn brighter.