The best and most interesting film stories in October

And yet a pall hangs over Spectre, and it seems as if the fans and critics who found it disappointing are really down on the film. Yet I’d place it solidly in that middle category, and if anything closer to the top. With the exception of its third act (more on that later), it’s a solid Bond outing for the Daniel Craig era, with its star more terse than ever (watching it again, one is struck by how little dialogue Craig actually has), while its action and plot points are mostly in line with the “gritty” feel of Craig’s previous three outings. It also stretches the Craig template a little, allowing for a few more gadgets, some homages to past films, and a little more humor. In other words, it lets Craig come as close as he ever previously had to the fully formed Bond played by the previous five actors. No, he’s not winking and letting his eyebrows do all the acting the way Roger Moore did toward the end of his run, and he’s not quite the cruel misogynist popularized in the beginning by Sean Connery. But this is Craig’s version of that man. Some of the Bonds that fall lower in the standings tend to have overly complicated plots, like The World is Not Enough or Octopussy. The plot of Spectre is pretty simple and straightforward: following the death of M (Judi Dench) in Skyfall, Bond goes on one last mission at her request (via a message recorded before she died) and without official authorization from the new M (Ralph Fiennes). He learns that the man he was sent to kill, an Italian terrorist named Sciarra, has taken his marching orders from an ultra-secret criminal organization—the same entity that was apparently behind the actions of Le Chiffre (Casino Royale), Dominic Greene (Quantum of Solace), Raoul Silva (Skyfall) and Mr. White (the first two). Bond also learns that he and the head of this organization, which is named SPECTRE, have a personal connection going back decades.