Brian's Thoughts on Movies

     “I don’t think the dead care about vengeance”-James Bond (Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace) A friend of mine asked me the day after the trailer for this film debuted, “What the hell is a Quantum of Solace?”  It was a bold choice to pick this title of a Fleming short story, which was one of the few Bond tales that has no espionage.  In it the unnamed Governor of the Bahamas passes a couple of hours after a dinner party telling Bond a story of a British man who falls in love with and marries an airline stewardess.  The stewardess has an affair that she flaunts and the man, initially wrecked by this, later devises a cold revenge.  Fleming goes on to describe that they do not have a “Quantum of Solace”, which is a mathematical formula to designate a level of respect, friendship and love between two parties.  If a quantum of solace is high then the relationship is successful.   If the Quantum of Solace is at zero the relationship has no hope. Spoilers below for Casino Royale a

The Star Wars prequel trilogy, which was one of the most anticipated series of films ever,  has become one of the most maligned set of films, mostly by people like myself who grew up watching the original trilogy, when that type of film was completely new.  Overall my thoughts are this on the prequel trilogy.  The films are technologically superior to the original films but less inspired.  The original universe looked lived in whereas this one is much shinier and glossy largely because it was created with digital effects as opposed to practical ones.  If the original films take place during the Depression then the prequels are the Roaring 20s.  George Lucas has received many nasty comments and has even been the subject of a documentary (The People vs. George Lucas) as a result of the prequel trilogy and also the Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which he produced as a late entry to the Indiana Jones series.   Crystal Skull was also poorly received (although li

                                                         Recently the twelve episode miniseries 24: Live Another Day concluded with a final episode so  devastating it took me a few days to gather my thoughts about it.  I enjoyed having 24 back and feel that Live Another Day is one of the strongest seasons.  There was enough plot for about seventeen episodes so the series ended up lean and fast paced with none of the usual filler, while staying true to its dark roots.  There is a change of setting to London and several characters from earlier seasons returned at different points in their lives.  I thought the first couple of episodes were solid enough but the series really took off around episode four. Kiefer Sutherland brought Jack Bauer back after four years on the run in an angered state.   Please note I will be discussing many parts of the plot in detail so if you wish to remain spoiler free please check back in after you have seen it.  The key event in the final episode

                                                “My name is Jack Bauer and this is the longest day of my life” Next week 24 returns in the form of a miniseries named 24: Live Another Day.   In light of this I wanted to offer a few comments on each season the old series, which I was a fan of from the day it first aired in 2001.   Please note, as always I will discuss some major spoilers so if you have not seen the series yet it may be best to read this after you have done so, for free if you have an Amazon Prime account (or you could even borrow the DVDs for free at a local library. Season 1 (2001-2002) I read the reviews of the pilot and knew, though I usually don’t watch a lot of television series, a real time thriller about a federal agent balancing a threat against an African American presidential candidate and searching for his missing daughter was too intriguing to pass up.   I decided to watch part of the pilot episode, bowing out if it did not grab me s