Skyfall

The delay between my introduction post and this one was due to the fact that I wanted my first post to be about my favourite movie, Blade Runner. This proved problematic, as whilst Blade Runner is brilliant, it's of the horribly-depressing persuasion, and I could never gear myself up to re-watch it to write about it.
However, I just went to see Skyfall. And I wanted to write about it whilst it was still fresh in my mind, so here I am at midnight, before a 3-hour 10am lecture...
I am, by no means, what you would describe as a James Bond fan. Prior to tonight, the only other James Bond film I'd watched all the way through was Die Another Day, when I was in Year 8. I didn't enjoy it at all, and that experience basically put me off of Bond films entirely. In fact, when Skyfall was released, I was completely indifferent and had no intention of seeing it; my flatmates were going to see it, and I just thought I ought to, as it's one of this year's biggest releases and I'm doing a degree in media. 
I'm ridiculously glad that I went.
The film, of course, opened with a very intense action sequence (reminiscent to me of Indiana Jones), during which I was entirely gripped and completely clueless as to how things would pan out. I'm trying to phrase this as spoiler-free, but the first filmic shot of MI6 following the conclusion of the action was one of the most beautifully composed sequences of film I've seen, managing to portray a huge range of emotions all in one shot, lacking dialogue or music, challenging each audience member to draw their own interpretation of the moment. Which, it turns out, was just the start of a long exposure to breathtaking filmmaking. I was blown away by the credits sequence; I'm not a huge fan of Adele, but the song worked to set a macabre mood, and the animated sequence accompanying the theme was amazing.
As I have mentioned, the cinematography was beautiful. But, I mean, really beautiful. Cinematography is something I pay a lot of attention to in films, and I wasn't necessarily expecting brilliant cinematography in such an established staple of the action genre- I was expecting more special effects, gratuitous establishing shots and sweeping pans, but what I instead witnessed were several astounding steadycam shots (with which I am always impressed, for a multitude of reasons), unusually angled establishing sweeping shots, extreme close-ups of unimportant things to signify a scene change, depth of focus... all of which sound simple and obvious, but the way in which these things were used worked so effectively. 
The way Shanghai was captured was completely beautiful, and the way in which London was represented was patriotic without being cliché, and overall, just, very impressive.
In addition to nerding out over the technicalities (oh my god, the musical score, though), I'd hasten to add that the villain was awesome- sinister (Hannibal Lecter-esque in some respects), controlling, frightening, powerful and yet vulnerable- again, textbook traits, but carried out so powerfully by Bardem that I was enthralled with the character. Also, Judi Dench was incredible, but that was expected.
I have very few qualms with the film at all; at times the plot may have progressed a touch too rapidly, but it was all still fairly believable and had a nice degree of charm about it that didn't go unnoticed by the audience I was in.
This is definitely not a traditional review, it's mostly just me geekgasming over the cinematography, but, still. I'm definitely considering giving Bond films a second chance...