Books

Just an FYI (that spins into a post about James Bond)

By Kevin Steel ⋅ April 2, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

If you pop in here and things look a little strange, you should know that I use this site to test and modify Wordpress templates for others.

Actually, this was the real reason I restarted the blog. In the long run, I can see this place getting a little busier with a few more posts, and a re-do of my back pages. But right now it’s just a nice spot for me to goof around adjusting css files and to make the occasional note on this and that, like, for instance; I enjoyed the latest Bond movie Casino Royale (official site here) which I saw the other night. I don’t know if I have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. We were presented with a more serious, less jokey lead character, more like Fleming’s original creation. I hope the franchise continues to pursue this return to roots. Next, let’s hope they get rid of Judy Dench as M–the producers’ cheesy mid-1990s nod to feminism thrown in to balance out the hot young babes. She worries so about James, oh my, oh mother. I’m glad others saw this. Fine, she’s tough, she’s in charge blah tee blah blah. Bond is not all about the hot young babes–that’s great for the movie business I suppose. Make Bond into what he really is, a man with a past, a man with walls, and you don’t need tough, in charge den mother Dench. M can return to being the George Smiley-like puppet master.

I still maintain after having seen this latest Bond adventure–as I have said to several friends though not in public–that some day the entire series will be redone, probably in for television, faithfully following the books, set in their period and accurately portraying the characters. It will be as good as the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett as Holmes and David Burke as Watson (Brett is superlative, but it is the writing and portrayal of the Watson character NOT as a bumbling sidekick that really makes that series, along with its wonderful attention to all the small details that are in the stories).

Why will the Bond series be redone? That’s simple. There are just so many problems with a state, any state (a democracy?) giving somebody a licence to kill, there’s a lot to explore there. We saw a bit of that in Casino Royale and the response to the film should encourage more.