Rough Outline: 007 review essay

TOPIC: "Goldfinger" vs. "Casino Royale"

--"Goldfinger" is the prototype Bond film, often considered the best of the series, but "Casino Royale" is better and will age more gracefully than the former has.

--What does each film say about the society in which they were released?

--The Villains: Auric Goldfinger's grandiose fantasy vs. Le Chiffre's economic realism
--terrorism as a constant threat

--The Girls: Pussy Galore falls for Bond, but Bond falls for Vesper Lynd
--feminism and the Bond series

--The Agent: Sean Connery vs. Daniel Craig
--how Bond is played speaks to the hero that each generation is looking for

"Doctor Who" (Season 5, episode 1: "The Eleventh Hour," BBC America)

The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords, an immortal alien race from the planet Gallifrey. He and a human companion travel around the universe in a time machine shaped like a police box, called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). He's about 905 years old, and currently, he's on the eleventh incarnation of himself, because every time he dies, he regenerates. All this might be difficult to take in, but 2010's fifth season premiere of this legendary British sci-fi adventure gamely introduces the audience to the 48-year-old series with the successful presentation of a brand new Doctor for fans to admire.

When the episode opens, the eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) pops out of the crashed TARDIS in tattered clothes last seen on the tenth Doctor when he died: a button-down, relaxed trousers, a tie, and high-top Converse sneakers. (This outfit is important, as each Doctor has one signature look, and Smith will soon claim the role as his own.) From the moment Smith appears, he bears the matter-of-fact attitude and eccentricities that make the Doctor's character charming, confusing and hilarious. In the home of the little Scottish girl who finds him, Amy Pond (Caitlin Blackwood), he asks repeatedly for food, but spits out everything she gives him because it "tastes wrong," only explaining his actions in a single phrase: "New mouth, new rules." The Doctor speaks to Amelia the same way he speaks to all humans, with the knowledge that she will never fully understand anything he does, and confidence in her ability to trust him and follow along. It would be all too easy to play the Doctor as a condescending genius, since he's seen most of the universe in the past, present and future, but Smith hits the Doctor's tone perfectly. He plays all the character's angles, from silly to serious. The darkest aspects of the Doctor are to come in later episodes, but Smith's portrayal instills faith that he can handle what is to come with no problem.

The official "passing of the torch" occurs when the Doctor faces down this episode's alien invaders, a police force called the Atraxi, who have threatened to blow up Earth in order to destroy an escaped alien prisoner. Smith delivers a rousing speech as he changes clothes, shedding the tenth Doctor's outfit and creating his own. The transition from fan-favorite David Tennant to Smith is executed beautifully, with a tribute that efficiently recaps the Doctor's most infamous enemies and settles the hearts of those of us who are still clutching onto Tennant for dear life.



To take on a role that has existed on television since 1963, with a built-in fanbase that adores the last man who played him is no easy task, but Smith easily rises to the occasion. The Doctor has a new body, a new human companion (the grown-up Amy Pond), and a new bowtie, but he is still our Doctor. Now, we can start fresh... again.

Monet's "Haystacks" at Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.

The term "Impressionism" was born in satire after Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise premiered at Felix Nadal's salon in 1874. Critic Louis Leroy stated, "A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape," but artists of the time gleefully adopted the term, as it succinctly described the haste and attitude in which they attempted to "capture the moment." As the de-facto father of the movement, Monet was fascinated with the various ways in which light influenced color and the view of a subject, and mastered this combination to create accurate portrayals of changing time and seasons. However, the most impactful art is an intersection between technique and substance, and Monet's Haystacks series (1890-1891) fails in the latter.

Monet set up his canvases at various times of the day in his backyard in Giverny, France, in order to capture two ordinary haystacks at dawn, dusk and midday during summer, winter, and the following spring. The summer pieces (second and fourth, above) are filled with oranges and greens as the sun casts yellow light over the haystacks. In the winter pieces (first, third and fifth, above), Monet paints the subdued light and gray skies of the season, as well as the way snow reflects soft purple and blue shades of color. The spindly trees in the once-lush background, painted in a dark purple-brown that matches the part of the haystacks that haven't been covered in snow, complete the look of dead earth. In the spring piece (sixth, above), the landscape is only half-dead, still dark but beginning to turn green again. Monet's eye for and ability to capture the combined effects of light and color are impressive, since lighting is often the bane of many visual artists' existences, but something is missing.

The six paintings on display at the Art Institute of Chicago are part of a 25-piece series, which begs the question: were 25 paintings necessary? Six certainly weren't, as the least repetitive pieces are the first three, and the rest are just plain boring. Monet's mastery of his technique is evident, but are these paintings memorable? If you thought of a piece of art that affected you emotionally or intellectually, would you think of Monet's Haystacks? This series brings to mind another technically astounding painting, Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, which is mindblowing in its intricate use of pointillism, but otherwise forgettable. Haystacks has little to no emotional depth, and after staring up-close at the paintings and walking away, they will leave your mind until the next time you see them. Monet's pretty landscape study is a perfect example of artistic craft, but at the end of the day, these less-than-fascinating haystacks fall flat.