Skyfall v How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Skyfall v How I Spent My Summer Vacation


'Skyfall is where we start' sung Adele in the new Bond song, and indeed SKYFALL is where we start with this new post of Watch This, Not That.
Firstly I found the main song very OK. It fitted slot Adele into slot Bond, but it certainly didn't set my world on fire. Jack White got slated for his Quantum Of Solace theme, but at least it was different and had balls.
Anyway, I had a scary moment leading up to the film itself. I had misplaced my ticket stub between the box office stand and the cinema door, which is a rough distance of anywhere between 10 to 15 yards. I presented my Cineworld card to the manager, pleading my case and situation. He scoured the picture upon the card, then looked at me with piercing disdain.
"That's me with a Muslim beard," I jested in a benign attempt to strike up some banter and hopefully defuse the awkwardness. The picture had been taken in the summer of 2010 at the height of my four month beard. I was now clean shaven, unlike the manager holding the picture, who had a proud beard. I instantly regretted my misplaced racial slur.
Nevertheless he let us through and my Brother was quick to comment on my handling of the awful affair.
"Not very Bond like."
I agreed.
The film started and it we were off. I had waited four long years since the last Bond installment, and I was determined to savour and ingest every Bond note, nuance, and knock back a catering pack of chocolate Revels in the process.
The stunts were crazy-good, the girls; sassy, the scenery was incredibly stylish, sleek, exotic and that's just Javier Bardem's hair!
Javier Bardem delivers a fantastic monologue on his entrance, and will probably go down as one of the best along side Robert Shaw's tale of the Indianapolis in Jaws.
There is certainly similarities to The Dark Knight Rises even though Daniel Craig dismissed that in a recent interview with the BBC.
I cried at the end, and was the last to leave a packed theatre.
It was finally over. All the build up and hype. Like a gorgeous model promising fantastic sex and delivering, Bond had sucked every drop from me and I was exhausted; flaccid, like a wrung towel.

Later that night I nipped to Blockbusters and hired 'HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION'.
A Mel Gibson film about an American convict ordered to serve his time in a Mexican slum.
It was watchable, even though I fell asleep towards the end and dreamt of Bond.
I caught the end of the Gibson flick the next day. It certainly had atmosphere, a charm, and some good ideas.
It's no Beaver mind. That was the last Gibson flick that I watched. It's premise  was about a man who had given up his normal mundane life to adopt one of a shitty ventriloquist that spoke only through the medium of a hand puppet which he referred to as 'The Beaver'. That was interesting, novel and deserved a bit more attention than it got.

So seek it out people and watch THE BEAVER and not SKYFALL or HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION.