We watched Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond flick with my favorite James Bond of all time, Daniel Craig, last night, and I have to say I enjoyed it, although it wasn’t nearly as good as the first one with Craig in it.  I felt like the first one really established Craig as the new Bond in our minds, and cemented him as a human as well, whereas all the other Bond flicks just look at Bond as a robotic killing machine with an affinity for womanizing, who seemingly has no loyalties to anything but his job.  Craig made Bond human, and I daresay the series has picked up a lot of female fans since he took the reins.

The story line picks up right after the last movie, with James still hardened and bitter over the death of his lover Vespa (this is supposed to explain his hard attitude toward women and his womanizing in other films I suppose).  He is looking for revenge while also carrying out a mission to find out who is behind a large conspiracy to run the world’s natural resources.  This looks like it’s the beginning of what is to come and seems to provide clues as to the other Bond films and the crime syndicate that every other villain was from in previous films before this (my boyfriend knew that, not me, he’s always been a Bond fan).

Olga Kurylenko, a model and actress, plays a hispanic woman who tags along with Bond (and never sleeps with him, imagine that!), in order to exact revenge for the brutal rape and death of her mother and two sisters by a man who is involved with the target of Bond’s investigation, a man by the last name of Green.  Of course, Bond has to get one lady in the sack, and the unfortunate lass is a redhead who is in charge of bringing him in when he’s on the lamb from his own people who think he killed one of their top informants (he did not of course).

Let’s see, the action?  Well, there are a lot of kinetic chase scenes, which is what these new Bond films are known for, and when I say kinetic, I mean extremely wild.  There is a car chase scene at the very beginning that is heart stopping, then a boat chase scene, and the airplane scene is probably the most intense and over the top.  Since they used all three modes of transportation on this one, I’m wondering, what have they saved for the next film – snowmobiles, dirt bikes – motorcycles?  Hmm….

Overall a good, entertaining flick, just not as emotionally gripping as the first.

We watched the newest Kevin Smith flick called Zack and Miri Make a Porno, with the talented cast members who play the title characters, Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen.  Seth Rogen sort of came out of nowhere.  We saw him first in the major surprise success that seemed to launch a lot of more common names now like Paul Rudd, and Seth Rogen was one of the cast members that got his start in blockbuster movies playing one of Steve Carrell’s sidekicks.

We’re huge fans of almost anything Kevin Smith does, going all the way back to my college days when his Mallrats movie and Clerks were huge sleeper hits that were instant cult classics with the college crowd who happened to like to smoke weed and slack.  Since he hadn’t done anything since the Clerks sequel, we were excited to see what this Zack and Miri was all about.  It’s about two young people who live together out of convenience, not because they’re romantically involved.  You can guess where the story goes from there, but it generally starts off with a lot of raunchy hilarity, in typical Kevin Smith fashion.

One of the scenes that has stayed with me is one where Miri and Zack go to their high school reunion where Miri hits on a guy she used to have a mammoth crush on only to find out he’s gay and does porn.  This launches the idea of the uber broke and behind on rent Zack and Miri to do a porno film  of their own for profit.  What ensues is pretty hilarious, aside from a few sappy scenes that seem a little out of the cookie cutter book for Kevin Smith, but there’s still plenty  of hilarious and original humor that it’s quickly forgiven.

Jason Mews is in it, looking skinnier than ever unfortunately (he has a past with drug addiction), but his turn as the loser who scores a part in the porno is great, and he steals the show in several scenes, as well as Traci Lords, who does a few cameos as a woman who has, let’s just say, some novel talents with her nether regions.  All in all, if you’re a Kevin Smith fan, you’ll enjoy this movie.  It’s definitely not for people who get easily offended, as most Kevin Smith movies are, but those who get it will like it.