Movie Review: The Grey (2011)

Today we have a guest review from Code Redd Net follower, Miss Lea, of The Grey. Please enjoy.

The Grey, starring Liam Neeson, depicts man's struggles to find his way home after an untracked corporate jet crashes an burns in the Alaskan tundra, populated only by lodgepole pines and grey wolves. You're in for some impressive winter nature scenes, though the film is lacking the awesome aerial shots the Alaskan wildlife and nature deserve. There is so much opportunity to entertain the audience with Alaskan wildlife, but the director and writer chose to script only CGI-enhanced greys. 

The few survivors of the deadly and unreported crash are threatened by the minimal chance of survival. Winter conditions are harsh and the wolves are on the hunt. Ottway (Neeson) knows wolves better than most, for he is trained and hired to protect the crews from hunting packs. Wolves are a curious creature in that the packs are hierarchical in structure. They survive by preying on the week and old, often times significantly affecting preyed species populations. The impracticality of human survival in such conditions alerted the skeptic in me just after the plane crash and throughout the rest of the film. How can men outrun wolves in unpacked snow? How can one survive hypothermia in below freezing conditions after full submersion? Experts suggest death after just 15 minutes. National Geographic critiques the likelihood of Greys behaving so aggressively by featuring an article arguing for a greater chance of survival than depicted in the film. 

I would recommend The Grey to any mountain man or woman. Comparable to Alive: Miracle of the Andes, The Grey appeals to those entertained by a man vs. nature theme.

Book Review: The Last Juror by John Grisham (2004)

 

At my current place of employment, I spend a lot of time listening to audio of various forms. I would listen to movies on my DVD player (Jackie Chan movies are far more entertaining to watch), to various podcasts, to basketball games during the NBA season, and audiobooks. The most recent selection that I finished happens to be the one reviewed here. It certainly began as a breath of fresh air after listening to Orwell's depression-inducing 1984 and is brilliantly read by Michael Bick. While I usually could stand one hour-long disc at a time of Orwell, I was hooked into listening to four discs in one sitting with Grisham. It certainly began as an engaging story about a young journalist fresh out of college and buying a weekly newspaper that served rural Mississippi. It is told in the first-person perspective of him recalling the events decades later. 

I will refrain from talking too much about the plot, as this tends to spoil things. In fact, I would advise against reading the back cover synopsis (and would extend this advice to just about any novel) since in this case it happened to detail events that did not occur until three or four discs in. Luckily, I had not looked at the synopsis until after finishing the audiobook. However, I am willing to make some general points. Though it started well, The Last Juror seemed to taper off into side plots that had no worthwhile resolution. Indeed, the book ends abruptly with several loose ends. This left me quite unsatisfied, feeling as though I had gone through the trouble of complying with a lengthy process to get a free offer only to find out that the offer was not free at all.

If one is looking for a touted Grisham legal thriller, this is not it. It is mildly entertaining, but if you have a backlog of books to read and movies to see, this should not be near the top of your list.

Bond On Display

As you may very well know, Code Redd Net is currently in the process of reviewing every 007 movie before the release of Skyfall in November. We are not the only ones commemorating Bond's legacy. Greater than 400 items are on display in the Barbican Centre in London (possibly including Scaramanga's third nipple). We thought you might be interested in checking out more of their display, in addition to a video at the Daily Mail.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Thunderball (1965)

Code Redd Net continues its sequential look at all 22 official James Bond films with Thrasher's take on Thunderball, a film in the midst of '60s Bondmania.

Since Chicken Man took up reviewing duties with his excellent pieces on From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, I pick up Bond with Thunderball, and it's really quite jarring to go from the low budget conservatism of Dr. No to the benign excess of this spectacle. Thunderball is lavish, to say the least, and often strikingly self-aware; conventions codified only one film earlier are already sent-up within the series, as when 007 attempts to seduce SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe, only to be rebuffed when she remarks, "But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue." Such words are practically intertextual, referring just as strongly to critical discourse as to strictly narrative explanation, as in Pussy Galore's swift side-change after being seduced by Bond in Goldfinger. And the now traditional pre-credits sequence is almost as superfluous, and downright silly, as it would ever be: after Bond attends the funeral of an obscure SPECTRE operative (interestingly, Bond remarks that he regrets not killing the man himself, and this may be another, albeit only verbal, example that "Bond does, in fact, kill when it might not be necessarily warranted," as Chicken Man so adroitly noted in the comments to my review of Dr. No), he is attacked by the widower, who is only revealed to be a man after Bond has served "her" a proper knuckle sandwich, and from there Bond makes his escape via jet pack. Seeing Connery flying that jet pack, and wearing that silly helmet all the while, is certainly a thing of camp beauty, and Thunderball is one of the campiest Bonds of all. Still, entirely earnest praise must be awarded for the finale, an underwater ballet-brawl that is both unique and well choreographed, and it's a finale that more than makes up for a fairly tepid, exposition-laden middle. It's a bit gauche, but Thunderball has appeal enough, and it's worth a second look if you've seen it before.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher
From Russia With Love (1963) by Chicken Man
Goldfinger (1964) by Chicken Man

Did Video Game Music Use to Be Better?

Here at Code Redd Net, we find the tickling of the ear drums quite important in the interactive electronic experience. Just look at Thrasher's review of the re-release of Crazy Taxi as part of a compilation. As such, I thought I would share this video from Gamespot exploring the subject of video game music from then and now.

Finest Fights: Jackie Chan's Thunderball

Still bringing you the best fight scenes available on YouTube, only now, we bring 'em intermittently.

While working on my review of Thunderball for our ongoing James Bond retrospective, I was reminded of this (partially) underwater fight scene from Jackie Chan's First Strike:

Nobody Reviews the Games Better, Either

Now that our James Bond retrospective film series is in full swing, I thought I would take this time to remind all of you of the considerable collection of Bond game reviews we have just hanging around Code Redd Net.

First, and certainly foremost, we have my review of Everything or Nothing, a game which cleaned up at the Code Redd Net Awards in November, winning both Best Co-Op Multiplayer and Best Bond Game honors. Not only that, but Chicken Man and I put it on our respective Top Ten Video Games lists in February. EoN is truly one of the most honored games in our history, and deservedly so. Get yourself a copy.

Chicken Man has the unofficial EoN "sequel," From Russia With Love, covered for PS2.

You can also read a few archival pieces from the Geocities days, specifically our reviews of Agent Under Fire and Nightfire.

If you're in the mood for The World is Not Enough -- and really, who wouldn't be? -- you can always check out Chicken Man's thoughts on the N64 TWINE, or my own on the PS1 TWINE.

Boy, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent sure was horrible, wasn't it?

And should you get sick of gushing praise, you can refresh yourself with the faint praise in my Quantum of Solace, GoldenEye 007, Blood Stone, and Tomorrow Never Dies reviews.

We even dedicated a whole podcast to the subject! To make things easy, here's the episode embedded:


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Nobody Reviews It Better: Goldfinger (1964)

Code Redd Net is reviewing every MGM Bond film before the November 9 release of Skyfall. Today Chicken Man reviews Goldfinger.

As Thrasher stated in his review of Dr. No, James Bond 007 really became an icon after the release of Goldfinger. All of the 007 trademark elements are present: the eccentric villain, the not-so-subtly named Bond girl, Bond's survival ensured by Q Branch's gadgetry, the Aston Martin, the high-stakes plot, the Walther, the womanizing, the puns, etc. This really leaves the impossibility for one to be a fan of Bond and not be a fan of Goldfinger; it shows Bond qua Bond in his essence. And it does it well. One of the very enjoyable scenes is Bond playing a golf match against Goldfinger. The event of Bond interacting incognito (though he never seems to fool his enemies into believing he's not a spy) is not at all unique among the movies of the series, but Goldfinger seems to do it best. As well, it demonstrates Bond's ability to use his wit to survive. Contrary to misconceptions partially due to parodies such as Austin Powers, often Bond's enemies will not simply leave him to die in one of their elaborate death traps. In this case, he is able to convince Goldfinger that it would be wiser to keep him alive. In addition, he later escapes his jail cell through innovative trickery. Bond is also a master manipulator: he is able to save the day by bringing Pussy Galore to his aid (don't you know that he only seduces women in order to protect queen and country?). It is partly for these reasons that we find James Bond so appealing; any action star can shoot guns and drive fast cars. Yes, Bond can do these things, as well as those mentioned above. But nobody does them better.

As a parenthetical note, the greatest drawback for me regarding this film is the premise behind which Auric Goldfinger is being investigated by intelligence agencies. He is a gold smuggler. Does smuggling gold actually hurt anyone? No. The reason that governments and central banks frown upon such is because of using precious metals as alternatives to paper currency undermines the currency's value and acceptance, and therefore their ability to print it (at this time in U.S. history it was illegal for private citizens to own gold bullion. FDR made this the case by executive order so that he could inflate the U.S. dollar). Goldfinger is actually providing people a service by allowing them to own a hedge against inflation by holding gold rather than being at the mercy of their central banks, which continue to inflate their currencies . In this way, he is heroic. But blowing up existing stocks of other peoples' gold to increase the value of your own (or dipping chicks in gold paint) is obviously not so heroic, and he is justly punished.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher
From Russia With Love (1963) by Chicken Man

Nobody Reviews It Better: From Russia With Love (1963)

Today we continue our series of concise reviews of every Bond film until the November 9th release of Skyfall. This time Chicken Man takes the reins and shows how From Russia With Love establishes different Bond signatures and lays the foundation for cementing 007 in his defining era of the Cold War.

As Thrasher stated previously in his Dr. No review, James Bond didn't really become an icon until the third movie, Goldfinger. Part of the fun of No and continuing on with From Russia With Love is that one gets to witness Bond at the experimental stage, seeing which events became themes in the series. Some definitely did: the title sequence, flirting with Moneypenny (as opposed to having the intended steady girlfriend, Sylvia Trench, who was not seen afterwards), being equipped by the ever innovative Q, the nemesis organization of SPECTRE, etc. As well, FRWL is also one of 007's defining moments, establishing him as a Cold Warrior, for it is in this era that Bond has spent most of his existence. He remains fighting this Cold War into the times of Timothy Dalton, who aided the Afghans against the Russians in The Living Daylights. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Judi Dench as M characterizes Bond in Golden Eye as "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War..." As with Dr. No, as well as most of Connery's Bond films, FRWL is in deep contrast to more contemporary 007 movies in terms of pacing; it is doubtful that modern audiences would be as captivated as '60s audiences were. It also continues the intermittent use of the Bond theme music, playing when he is doing the more mundane, such as walking into a hotel, whereas in the later films it is reserved for when he is doing something more heroic. In many ways it forms a bridge between Dr. No and Goldfinger, where the presentation is making the transition from unpolished operative to charming, sophisticated secret agent. It is a fitting sophomore performance and arguably an indispensable part of the Bond canon.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher

Finest Fights: Police Story 2 (1988)

Still bringing you the best fight scenes available on YouTube, only now, we bring 'em intermittently.

I just got done watching Police Story 2, and while it's not quite on the level of the original, I must say I've been waiting a long time to see a fight scene take place in a playground. This one doesn't disappoint, not at all.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Dr. No (1962)

Thrasher and Chicken Man team up, as only they can, to bring you a complete retrospective series covering all 22 official James Bond films, in chronological order, concluding with the release of Skyfall on November 9. They've split the reviewing duties evenly, and will cover one to two films per week. Thrasher weighs in first on Dr. No, the film that began the cycle, and one that remains, in so many ways, a significant part of film history.

Bond begins with Dr. No, surely, but it wasn't until Goldfinger, two films later, that he became an (im)mature icon; and if Goldfinger is the stuff of canon, Dr. No is the stuff of curiosity. So much is the same, from characterization to narrative structure to cinematic style, and yet so much is different, different in register, if nothing else. Subtle things, like the odd soundtrack (especially noticeable during the traditional gun barrel opening, and in the often unsteady, intermitent use of the Bond theme music) only seem odd today, in light of the rest of the series. Indeed, the whole aural atmosphere of the film seems unusual by comparison, and in that sense Dr. No indicates the immense importance music would assume in later 007 adventures. No is often an extraordinarily quiet film, much quieter than the others. Even dramatically, there are scenes in No so quiet they look positively experimental compared to the popular bombast of later entries. Think about the scene early in the film in which Sean Connery enters his Jamaican hotel room for the first time; he leisurely moves about the room, checking for anything suspicious, and then he prepares several makeshift alarms so he can check if anyone has tampered with his belongings while he's out. Consider also the scene in which Bond waits for an ally of the nefarious Dr. No to arrive at a remote bungalow; he pours himself a stiff drink, puts on soft Jamaican music, prepares a decoy body in the bedroom with pillows, and gets himself settled in a chair next to the door, patiently playing solitare until his assassin creeps inside. Both of these scenes would have absolutely no place in any subsequent Bond films, especially the latter. This second scene is not only far too slow for a series which switched direction, markedly, from semi-sober drama to playfully absurd romp, it's also incommensurable for Bond's behavior, specifically the way in which he shoots his would-be assassin in cold blood. This is a brutal film, and Connery's Bond is calculating, muscular, sadistic and lean. Connery's natural charm took some time to finess, and his brutishness is in peak form in No; Bond is more boorish here than he would ever be, at least until Daniel Craig stepped into the role. Still, though, despite its differences, No is clearly a 007 film, much more so than the recent Quantum of Solace. True, there's no exciting, nonsensical pre-credits sequence, and no radio-ready pop song to play over the animated credits, and no Q, and no gadgets, and no exotic cars, but Bond's there, however unmannered. All he needed was a few more films before he was properly fitted for the occasion.