Twilight and Quantum of Solace

So the Queen and I had a deal. We put back some money to make sure we could get a couple of DVDs as soon as they hit the shelves. She was going to get Twilight, the movie based on the first novel of the successful series by Stephanie Meyer. I was going to get Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond installment. And we were going to get them both on blu-ray, so we'd have the best version possible for the moment.

Saturday came and we got Twilight. I've actually read all of the books including the unreleased partial fifth book that Ms. Meyer has on her website. That one came out because she had allowed a few friends to read what she had so far, and one of them broke her trust and put it out on the internet. Rather than concern herself with that, she just posted it herself and allowed anyone to read what she had so far. 

Anyway, the movie is a pretty good adaptation of the books, and it's clear that the cast knew their characters from the books very well. Despite some of the negative things people have said about it, I enjoyed the film and thought that it represented the book. The only lingering question in my mind is whether someone who hasn't read the book would get everything. We'll just have The Engineer watch it, since he doesn't really read. It did very well at the box office, though, and we are expecting the next part, New Moon, this year.

Tuesday came and went, and I got Quantum of Solace. It's an interesting title to begin with, having been based on the Ian Fleming short story (the title only; the movie is an original story). The definition of the title (not explained in the movie, but is in the story) amounts to coming out of an extreme trial and being quietly satisfied with where and who you are to the point that you have an inner peace despite your circumstances. 

Again, despite the naysayers of this film (more than one person seemed to dislike both of our movies), I think this wasn't a bad film. It had some points that seemed thrown in to fill out parts of the movie with some action, and not all of those actions were fully explained. They had the time available to do it, given that this film is the shortest Bond film to date (an irony since Casino Royale beat out On Her Majesty's Secret Service for the longest). This is also the only Bond movie to feature a storyline continued from the previous film. Sure, in days gone by we had Spectre, and we gathered Bond's revenge at the beginning of Diamond's Are Forever was all about his wife, but the previous movie didn't play into that one much at all.

So we've had some good movie nights recently in my opinion.