VANCOUVER - I've Seen Angels Fall from Blinding Heights

Somewhere on the shiny, British exterior the dull edges are beginning to show through. I feel the sheen ever so slightly beginning to tarnish. This isn't the end of all good things or any nonsense like that, just the adjustment from new immigrant staring wide eyed at beautiful vistas to youth pastor getting on with the job he's been asked to do and having to make apologies for leaving a splotch on the sanctuary carpet as he does so. That means there may very well be a splotch on me but, what the hell; I was never a very good Mercedes.

So, anyway, Casino Royale. After a jaunt across town for a meeting which never happened (the first of many, I'm sure) I found myself with some time to waste and so thought it was about time to reaquaint myself with my old friends; the movies. My list of must sees has gotten rather long recently and now that The Prestige, Children of Men and Babel are all pretty much out of the door until DVD day I felt I should try and see at least one movie that's been on my awaited list for quite some time. Review follows. As usual, those without enough hours in their life for such things and just want my rant of the day about youth group matters should skip to the photos.

Bond films have been some of my favourites for pretty much ever. Obviously there's a certain action-movie-bloodlust reason for that. Casino Royale happily provides the requisite thrills to qualify on that basis. There's running! There's jumping! There's a bit where James Bond punches two guys at the same time and another where he deflects an oncoming machete hit with the silencer of his Walther PPK! It's all there, it's all great...

Now, the *other* reason I can rewatch the Bond films pretty much all the time is that each entry is so very much a product of its time. You want to know what was considered cutting edge at the end of the sixties? Watch the Vegas scenes in Diamonds are Forever Want to see a showreel of great cars of the eighties? Chase scenes in A View to a Kill How an action movie in the mid nineties looked? Tomorrow Never Dies. I've purposely chosen some of the iffier entries in the series to make this point. Even a bad Bond film is worth paying attention to; even if it's just for the amazing production values and attention to detail in costumes and special effects. It's why I think the whole series is still worth a great deal in modern cinema.

In this light, the supposedly revolutionary Casino Royale really isn't that revolutionary at all. The mainstays on the Bond films are still there; establishing shots of extraordinary vistas, cutting to Bond driving through said vistas in his latest car, cutting to Bond getting out of car wearing impeccable Brioni outfit etc. etc. Yes, there's no Q and no gadgets and blah blah blah. But those things have often served as distractions from the broader context of the film, rather than feeling that integral parts of it. Bond's cars get newer and newer each time around but the Q scenes remain exactly the same.

Here's what's really new in Casino Royale:

(1) As Goldeneye was designed to show Bond could operate in a post Cold War world, so Casino Royale is trying to get us to accept Bond in a post 9/11 world. Forget Die Another Day (which was already well into production when the Twin Towers were attacked); this is the start of Bond vs. terrorism. And, surprisingly, the producers have decided to get very jingoistic about Bond vs. terrorists. He, quite literally, chases them to the ends of the Earth inflicting countless amounts of damage on the way just to make sure he gets his kill (a cynical person would be reminded of Team America, World Police during action scenes in Madagascar and Miami Airport) and MI6 has had a bit of a paradigm shift as well. Back in Goldeneye, Judi Dench's M was mocking Brosnan's suave Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." In Casino Royale she spends the entire movie actively trying to turn Craig's rougher Bond into just that, whilst bemoaning the fact that the Cold War is over. The context of this film then, is that apparently the solution to the world's problems today is pretty much what it was yesterday; to hit and shoot them until they stop moving. Which was the same context of Goldeneye and, actually, is the context for all Bond films. So, really, there's no change there.

(2) Decent dialogue. And, this time, it really is new. Forget the Purvis, Wade and Ian Feming credits; this is surely down to Crash and Million Dollar Baby's Paul Haggis, who *knows* how to write flirting banter between two intellectuals without resorting to single entendres every other sentence. This is easily the best written Bond of all time and that alone is the reason why the film is a success. If Pierce Brosnan had been given a decent script, he'd have done a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. He wasn't (well, he *nearly* was in The World is Not Enough) so he just did a pretty good job. Daniel Craig is given a decent script and he does a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. Simple. This leads to the final point...

(3) ... Daniel Craig. Who, quite simply, allows us to accept that James can still be Bond and yet bleed considerably to earn the privlidge. Craig has one of the toughest action hero roles written in Hollywood for quite some time. He has to take a beating, physically and/or emotionally in *every-single-fight.* And he does a great job with it; still making it darn obvious that his Bond is an egotistical maniac despite all his punchups. That said; the arc his character is going on is to turn him into the Bond we know and love from the previous films in the franchise. In other words, at some point in the future (and I predict it shall be the near future) he will face a megalomaniac wanting to do something truly horrific to the world and he'll make a witty bon mot whilst punching him repeatedly.

Casino Royale isn't designed to reinvent Bond; but to just make the character palatable again. It succeeds; it's great fun to watch and will be fun to rewatch because to the decent script adding to all the things we already knew and loved about Bond which are all present and correct. A few other minor points:

(1) The product placement, which is as horrendous as it was in the Brosnan days, has survived even after getting rid of the puns. This gives the film a bizarre sense of humour since, in the absence of double entendres, I found that the long, lingering shots of Bond's Ford Car, or Bond's Sony Eriksson Phone or Bond's Sony Laptop are now the jokes you laugh along to in the cinema but feel dirty for doing so. Funniest line in the film? "What's the watch, Rolex?", "Omega", "Beautiful."

(2) The producers deserve kudos for casting Eva Green and doing the impossible; make a beautiful actress with an astoundingly sexy French accent even *more* sexy by turning the accent British. Surely a first in cinema... Green is pretty great. Even if her character makes *NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.* I don't want to labour this criticism because it's a holdover from Fleming's original novel but, seriously, when you've seen the film and know what you do about her character at the end; go back and try retroactively to make sense of her behavior in individual scenes. If she weren't Eva Green, she wouldn't get away with holding such a silly role together. Thankfully, she is. If you want to see an actress try to make a silly role work and fail miserably, take a look at Halle Berry in Die Another Day.

(3) Did I mention that cool bit with the pistol silencer and the machete?


Basketball, Air hockey and a big-ol-space in a church. That'll be youth group, then.

Working with the youth group has been a lot of fun so far. The way I see it, the current tension this ministry faces is getting beyond doing interesting things each week (which is, panic attacks on Monday mornings aside, relatively straightforward) and putting together a vision for the ministry in upcoming months and years. There's a lot of ideas and possibilities. From social action and mission trips through to study and discussion groups. It takes time to work out the most appropriate actions and slot them in; whilst still being vaguely interesting in the contact times for youth group as they exist at the moment on Mondays.

That said, I've learnt in recent days that certain other people see the tensions of this ministry slightly differently. They see the tension as existing between the youth group doing what it does and the rest of the church doing what it does and making sure that the former's actions don't adversely effect the latter. Perhaps I'm just a born slob but this doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. Make some mess; clean up said mess and serve church warm and with salad garnish to next group. Done deal. However, it turns out that my attitude may be wrong. And that the mess itself, to begin with, is a great sin and no amount of cleaning can help with what is a fundamental failing of today's youth to not make a mess.

To this, I say: whatever.


Laurence mixing it up on the cello. What youth group may be all about? Possibly. Just don't tell anyone it was in the Sanctuary. It was our little secret.

Oh, there was also a big storm this week and some folks in the not-too-far-away neighborhood had parts of their houses smashed by trees, and have been without water and/or power for the best part of a week. I bet they may even have had some splotches on their carpets as well. Better send Daniel Craig round to sort them out.