One Step Closer to a New James Bond Director?

Right now, with the future financial uncertainty that is going on over at MGM and Daniel Craig's confirmation that he will indeed be starring in John Favreau's next project Cowboys and Aliens, what will happen with upcoming 23rd James Bond movie is kind of up in the air right now.

However, Nikki Finke over at Deadline Hollywood is saying that Sam Mendes has been hired on as a consultant on the project at the request of Craig who apparently didn't like the criticism that Quantum of Solace got. The question now remains, will Mendes be offered the director's seat for the project?

Strangely enough, this news doesn't excite me the way I would expect it to. Mendes is a gifted filmmaker whose credits include American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road and Away We Go, but if Quantum of Solace proved anything, it was that Bond doesn't work best under the hand of great directors. Bond needs a gifted action director who also knows how to let the story breathe just enough to to be engaging, as was the case with Casino Royale.

The fact that the new film will also reportedly pick up where Quantum left off doesn't offer much in the way of promise either. File this one under the mild interest for now section.

Slow Monday

Critics hated the Globes, Avatar took it's fifth week atop of the Box Office (the only film to grab number one for five weeks straight since The Sixth Sense) and blah, blah, blah. Slow news day in the entertainment world.

One thing of note is that Deadline Hollywood is saying that Gerard Butler is eyeing up the main role in Marc Fosters next film Machine Gun Preacher. The plot revolves around "the story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing biker tough guy who found God and became a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who've been kidnapped and pressed into duty as soldiers."

This isn't really news but I put it here because 1) it allows me to promote the German-born director Forster who I think is one of America's most valuable filmmakers working today and, until Quantum of Solace, didn't make a single bad film (save for his debut Everything Put Together, which is sitting on my DVD shelf but I have yet to see it).

Look at a list of Forster's work and you'll see a natural born filmmaker: Monster's Ball, Stranger Than Fiction, Finding Neverland, Stay and The Kite Runner. Hopefully this film will take Forster away from the pyrotechnics of the Bond films, which he apparently wasn't at all comfortable with, and bring him back into the realm of the searing human drama the plot description of this new film promises.

And 2) I can promote a Gerard Butler film that flew under the radar a couple years ago (his only good one really). It is called Dear Frankie and is about a mom who tells her mute son that his father is away working on a ship. The boy writes constantly to his father but the letters are intercepted by the mother, who secretly responds to them herself.

Problem is, when the ship dear ol' dad is supposed to be on is going to be docking in their town mom needs to hire an actor (Butler) to fill the role of the boys father. The film is both tough and heartwarming and one of the only where Butler created a full fledged character with personality, edge and charm. Do yourself a favour and hunt it down.