11/15/08:  "Like a cinematic Methuselah, James Bond strides through the decades, in a constant state of recasting and reinvention to suit the times in which he's filmed.  How unfortunate, then, for the year 2008 to find that OUR James Bond is a homicidal automaton of soulless expediency, stripped of all that once made him cool and fun.  Quantum of Solace, the 22nd official James Bond movie (24 if you count the oddities Never Say Never Again and the 1967 comedy Casino Royale), is a dull, dispiriting action extravaganza that takes the revisionist tone of its' popular predecessor (the non-comedy Casino Royale) as a cue to go all-in on a Bond with a lot more in common with Matt Damon's humorless blank slate Jason Borne than Ian Flemming's creation.  The origin story Royale cast Daniel Craig as a thuggish agent whose adventure at a high-stakes poker game forced him to take on the stylish attributes we were assured would later become second nature.  But its' sequel is all thug and no style, a smattering of halfway decent character scenes sprinkled amidst surprisingly boring stunt sequences that suggest Marc Forster (whose Stranger than Fiction was my favorite movie of 2006) should never direct an action movie again."  MORE

1/4/07:  "When I first heard the building buzz about The Queen, I wasn't the least bit interested.  Though Helen Mirren is one of our finest actresses, and I had no doubt that her performance would be as great as advertised, the notion of a movie about the Royal Family's reaction to the death of Lady Diana seemed to combine a whole lot of things in which I have no interest (Diana, the Royal Family, and British politics in general).  But a snappy trailer and some really glowing reviews got me to go and was I ever proved wrong!

Our story begins in 1997 with Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, meeting Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) to be officially “asked” to take the position.  Everything we need to know about their relationship is made clear in one scene:  the Queen's world is one of rigid adherence to often senseless ritual while Blair, elected as “The Great Modernizer”, is at a loss for how to behave in her presence.  Meanwhile, the Royal Family has circled the wagons after Diana, the former Princess of Wales, divorced Prince Charles (Alex Jennings).  To them, she's an embarrassment, a tabloid-friendly troublemaker whose travels and relationships keep getting tossed in their faces."  MORE