casino royale

Yes. The new bond movie. It was bånn.

It's the suckiest bondmovie of them all. I mean, this movie blew dog. It starts off with a big action set piece. The premise is flawed but okay, ley's get on with it. Bond and the bad guy keeps dying from their injuries, but ofcourse they brush off the dust and keep at it. Boy what a waste of stunt manpower.

Then the colors, which were absent. Ugly and grey this movie was. And often out of focus, a frind of mine who sees alot of films in movie theaters says it's a common problem with many new films. Good DPs and focus pullers seem to be few and far between.

Then we meet the real bad guy. A banker. A real challenge. I kept waiting for the real real bad guy to appear, but no. It's bond vs. a banker. Then, in order to defeat the banker he sits down to play poker with him. Poker. I thought they had lost their minds. But okay, every bond movies has a casino scene... and this one lasts for half an hour. I'm not kidding, I looked at my watch. Bond and the banker plays poker for half an hour. I really, really wants to leave but I paid NOK 95 for the pleasure so I stay. The poker must end somehow... and finally it does. The bad guys grabs bonds girl and take off in a car. Bond goes after them in his super sports car. Finally, I think, a car chase -that'll be allright. But after 15 seconds bond crash.

And that was it. I'd had it. I left.

I must be the worst movie I've seen in years, possibly with the exception of Cars, that horrible animated flick which I had to endure because I was watching it with my nephew.

The technical standards on this film was so low. The script was non-existent. It had flaws I wouldn't accept in a student film. I realize that I'm now producing to a standard that is higher than Hollywoods standard. Weird.

I suppose it was meant for the american market. But the reviewers here all thought it was great. The word on the street is that it is great. I must be missing something here, I mean this movie makes the previous bond effort to look like a work of genius -and I fell asleep before that one was over.

Why do people like this film?

Is it just the advertising propaganda machine? Aren't they thinking clearly?

Taste? God no.

Maybe it's the suffering. It has "real" suffering. We like to watch people suffer. Could that be it?

At least I know it's popular in USA, and its popularity is rising here. Will we be the next country with a concentration camp(guantanamo bay)? A moslem ghetto?

When you look at the ritualized suffering in previous civilizations at their peak, gladiators, human sacrifice, very large scale massacre... Won't we do same when we realise our power is waning? And we do realise our power is in decline. We are outnumbered and we know it.

We don't really have an industrial base anymore. That means we don't have a working class anymore. Sure most people are workers but they don't produce anything. It's all service industry. A worker which doesn't actually produce anything is not motivated. Work is a grind. Ofcourse they "produce" services. But that's not the same. The mentality is different.

The roman empire didn't have workers. It had slaves. Meanwhile the roman people must have known in their hearts and souls that their lives were a meaningless sham of humanity. And the only way to reaffirm faith in the empire was staging lavish plays were real people got hurt and killed for the amusement of the beurocrats.

How is this situation different from now?

I seem unable to see any difference.

We seem intent to cause massive suffering so our lives will seem better. But it isn't working. The roman empire fell. And ours is falling, and the people is high on zoloft. So faaaaaaaaaaaar away from reality.

The bond movie plays up to this, by presenting how much better we're off. And as comical villains go: this one bleeds from his eye. That makes him creepy. A goddamn banker, made creepy with a bleeding eye. How low can you go, it's retarded.

It's all about the new amateurs. The new amateurs are people who don't really know how to use a camera, but they land a fat job with some agency, or get to shoot the new bond movie. Or they get to colourtime it. Maybe even direct. The new amateur might also land a job mixing live sound without really knowing anything about it. Or even an album, or they get to make a TV show. Or manage a really big advertising campaign for Coca Cola.

One of the new amateurs had been responsible for the ads they showed before the movie began. It was projected on the screen with a highend very expensive video projector. The ads that were showing all had high production standards. And they were interlaced. Interlacing is something the new amateur wouldn't know about.

For those who don't interlacing created horizontal streaks(big obvious ones) in the image, reduced real resolution to a fourth of what it was and generally created a very ugly image on the cinema screen. Somebody had needed to push a single button somewhere in the production chain that led to those ads being showed to me tonight. But it was a new amateur and he probably didn't know that that particular button existed.

So you see, the new amateurs are professionals. Except they aren't, they're occupying a professionals position. But that is all.

I am a better cinematographer than the person who shot the bond movie. And alot of people are, even some I know. And I mean just better on every objectively quantifiable level, I'm lightyears ahead as an artist.

The new amateur is everywhere, even in government and big corporations. Fear the new amateur for it is he who will write and design and direct the lavish play where you gets to be victim. It'll be lame, trust me.

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