Publication Date: December 8, 2006
Calvin Chimes
Headline: Hollywood puts on its Christmas sweater

Hollywood puts on its Christmas sweater

Chris Beaumont

For people who enjoy watching Hollywood movies, the Christmas season is like… well, Christmas. It is during this time that studios release a barrage of high profile movies both to contend for Academy Awards and to boost year-end revenues. These films range from the avant-garde to the utterly formulaic. Regardless of the quality of these films, none of you have an excuse to be bored for the rest of the year. Among the sizeable collection of good and not-so-good films of the holiday season, here are a few which I find noteworthy.

Casino Royale

It was inevitable that Daniel Craig would bring changes to the Bond franchise. However, the scope and the effectiveness of this modification far exceeded my expectations, making “Casino Royale” the freshest and most interesting Bond movie that I have ever seen.

Sure, “Royale” has its share of Bondisms – irresistible women, glamorous locales, and tightly choreographed action sequences abound here. However, what is unique about this newest film outweighs what is familiar about it. Overall, ”Royale” is slower than its predecessors, favoring suspenseful dialogue over extended action.

The remaining action scenes are darker than what is typical for a Bond film. As one villain remarks, we are meant to “feel” Bond’s kills. Director Martin Campbell (who introduced Pierce Brosnan as Bond to the world in “Goldeneye”) accomplishes this through more handheld camera shots and, at times, black and white film.

Finally, Daniel Craig brings some much needed angst to his character. Craig acts out heartbreak, malice, and regret to a level that is rare for such a commercial film. “Royale” is easily worth the admission ticket if you haven’t already seen it.

A Good Year

If “Casino Royale” exemplifies how filmmakers can breathe new life into familiar Hollywood concepts, “A Good Year” shows how they can shamelessly milk them. The film is clearly a calculatedly safe move both on the part of director Ridley Scott (who is recovering from the commercially and critically unsuccessful “Kingdom of Heaven”) and lead man Russell Crowe (who is recovering from throwing a phone at a hotel concierge last year).

The film’s story is meant to comfort and appeal to as many people as possible. It follows British stock broker Max Skinner (Crowe) as he journeys to his deceased uncle’s vineyard. The vineyard, which he inherits from his uncle, is where he spent his fondest childhood days. His journey leads him to the revelation that there is indeed more to life than money. Profound.

The scenery is admittedly beautiful and well shot, but the story is so bare that it disappoints anyone looking for even minor intellectual stimulation.

The Fountain

“The Fountain” is writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s third feature film after “Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream,” and is every bit as ambitious as his prior films. The film develops three separate stories spanning 1000 years of time. In the first, a 16th century Spanish conquistador (Hugh Jackman) is on a quest from Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz) to find a mythical tree whose sap brings eternal life. Five hundred years later, Jackman plays a medical researcher who is seeking a cure for his wife’s (again Weisz) brain cancer. Finally, in the 26th century, Jackman plays a man in a floating spacecraft searching the cosmos for the secret to resurrecting his wife.

The three plots are woven together nonlinearly, and collectively explore the themes of life, death, and how love works through both. Both the acting and the cinematography are phenomenal. While the film’s eventual message about death is less profound than it could be, the journey to this conclusion constitutes one of the finest cinematic reflections that I have observed.

Equally impressive are the film’s special effects, which were created largely without the aid of computer generated images. The film’s cosmological footage, for example, is actually macroscopic footage of particles suspended in oil.

Another question worth pondering (and which I still do, two weeks after viewing it) is whether the actors play six characters or two characters in the three stories. Each possibility is open to interpretation, and brings with it its own set of rich implications.



With so many films in theatres currently, there are many opportunities for cinematic holiday cheer. As you finish your finals and head home, consider giving one of them a view. Sure, movies aren’t what the Christmas season is about, but – in the opinion of this writer – they serve as a productive distractio

chris beaumont
beaumont@ifa.hawaii.edu
graduate student
institute for astronomy
university of hawaii at manoa
2680 woodlawn drive
honolulu, hi 96822