For an Ironical, Brutal and Cold James Bond

♠
Bond may be really back. Growing up, I was perhaps as big a fan of the double-oh!-seven flicks as I was of the Elvis movies. Maybe my judgment is not to be the most respected. But I like what I like.

And I stopped checking into the Bond films after Pierce Brosnan's second one. I also found a number of Roger Moore's Bond movies to be sadly disappointing. Personally, and this may be counted as a debit on my judgment, since I seem to be rare if not unique in this, I thought Timothy Dalton saved the franchise after it looked like Moore put it on life-support.

I thought the Dalton movies gave us the rougher, darker James Bond that the new Bond is boasted to give us, Mr. Daniel Craig. In any case, I am happy to hear that this is the direction they want to take, and I hope it is not empty marketing to renew our interest, but that they mean business, walking the walk. I like the way this this piece from Stephen Hunter's review for the Washington Post makes this point playing off the more plastic Bonds that we have been getting:

That stands in direct counterpoint to the majority of post-Connery Bonds, especially Roger Moore but also toward the end Pierce Brosnan, who always seemed such lightweights that you suspected all that hair spray had soaked into their brains and turned them into fashion models. Hmmm, you mow down 400 Russian border guards with your trusty AK-47 and you don't even muss your mane?

That hair symbolized everything that was wrong with late-issue Bonds: Beyond their unbelievability, they stood for a figure completely unrooted in any sort of reality. The movies had become almost decadent in their removal of Bond from the physical world: He was a kind of male fantasy conceit grown stale and prissy, sited amid big, dull special effects that were always right up to last year's standards.

Director Martin Campbell's version astutely restores Bond to a real world -- note I say, a real world, not the real world. This movie is set, say, one remove from the possible, instead of, like those last few, 20 or so removes.

Charged by today's reviews of the new Bond and the new movie, Monk may actually go out and see it! Which is a once-in-a-decade kind of thing. The New York Times review is below.

( Manohla Dargis' review )

xXx

For an Ironical, Brutal and Cold James Bond

♠
Bond may be really back. Growing up, I was perhaps as big a fan of the double-oh!-seven flicks as I was of the Elvis movies. Maybe my judgment is not to be the most respected. But I like what I like.

And I stopped checking into the Bond films after Pierce Brosnan's second one. I also found a number of Roger Moore's Bond movies to be sadly disappointing. Personally, and this may be counted as a debit on my judgment, since I seem to be rare if not unique in this, I thought Timothy Dalton saved the franchise after it looked like Moore put it on life-support.

I thought the Dalton movies gave us the rougher, darker James Bond that the new Bond is boasted to give us, Mr. Daniel Craig. In any case, I am happy to hear that this is the direction they want to take, and I hope it is not empty marketing to renew our interest, but that they mean business, walking the walk. I like the way this this piece from Stephen Hunter's review for the Washington Post makes this point playing off the more plastic Bonds that we have been getting:

That stands in direct counterpoint to the majority of post-Connery Bonds, especially Roger Moore but also toward the end Pierce Brosnan, who always seemed such lightweights that you suspected all that hair spray had soaked into their brains and turned them into fashion models. Hmmm, you mow down 400 Russian border guards with your trusty AK-47 and you don't even muss your mane?

That hair symbolized everything that was wrong with late-issue Bonds: Beyond their unbelievability, they stood for a figure completely unrooted in any sort of reality. The movies had become almost decadent in their removal of Bond from the physical world: He was a kind of male fantasy conceit grown stale and prissy, sited amid big, dull special effects that were always right up to last year's standards.

Director Martin Campbell's version astutely restores Bond to a real world -- note I say, a real world, not the real world. This movie is set, say, one remove from the possible, instead of, like those last few, 20 or so removes.

Charged by today's reviews of the new Bond and the new movie, Monk may actually go out and see it! Which is a once-in-a-decade kind of thing. The New York Times review is below.

( Manohla Dargis' review )

xXx

Michael Moore Magnanimous in Victory?

♠
I know you are dismayed at the results of last week's election. You've got to be freaking out about what this bunch of tree-hugging, latte-sipping, men-kissing-men advocates will do now that the country is in our hands. I don't blame you. We'd never admit it, but we secretly admire you because you know how to chop down a tree, take your coffee black and enjoy watching women kissing women. Good on you!

-- Michael Moore for The Los Angeles Times

This was a pleasant surprise this morning. Michael Moore gets in his kick in the ribs of the G.O.P. over the 2006 elections. What a surprise that he could not help rubbing it in! It's just one of the reasons why I love this country.

xXx

Michael Moore Magnanimous in Victory?

♠
I know you are dismayed at the results of last week's election. You've got to be freaking out about what this bunch of tree-hugging, latte-sipping, men-kissing-men advocates will do now that the country is in our hands. I don't blame you. We'd never admit it, but we secretly admire you because you know how to chop down a tree, take your coffee black and enjoy watching women kissing women. Good on you!

-- Michael Moore for The Los Angeles Times

This was a pleasant surprise this morning. Michael Moore gets in his kick in the ribs of the G.O.P. over the 2006 elections. What a surprise that he could not help rubbing it in! It's just one of the reasons why I love this country.

xXx