Quiet Day, So I'm Wittering About James Bond

[poliphilo]

Bond works for the government. As an assassin. He's an establishment man- sexist, materialist, brutal.  No, I've never liked him.

I keep thinking I should maybe read one of the original books and then I think, no, I don't believe I can be bothered.

The films aren't nearly as good as we're supposed to think they are. Early Bond is to the thriller what the Carry On films are to comedy. Middle period Bond is vaudeville.  In the recent films he becomes a superhero.

I find his continued popularity faintly depressing.

Rush Limbaugh says it's inconceivable the character should be played by a black man. Oh, for fuck's sake, Bond is fiction. And he keeps being rebooted and updated. If it were incumbent on the film-makers to stay entirely true to Fleming's original conception Bond, who first appeared in 1953, would have to be played by a man in his nineties.

Besides, Idris Elba is just about the sexiest, most charismatic male actor around. He'd be perfect for the role.

If you like that kind of thing...

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I do like that sort of thing. I listened to all the Bond books on audio - they are a delicious window into that era.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that the Bond phenomenon is of great socio-historical interest.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

My favorite line from a Bond book, Goldfinger -

Bond: "I thought you were a lesbian"
Pussy Galore: "I never slept with a real man before."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Phwoooar!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Well, I read some of the original books. Anyone would think that all spies do is drive fast cars and have lots of sex. Brother and I went to see SkyFall, I hadn't seen a Bond film since Sir Sean Connery's last ones. eh.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot.

Merry Christmas or...Holiday greetings anyway.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Merry Christmas.

It's one of the great things about this country that we don't have the likes of Rush Limbaugh. We have right-wing loudmouths, of course, but none of them has the kind of national exposure he enjoys.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

If I might, I'd recommend GoldenEye - it's more in the spirit of Moore's time, admittedly, but then again, I've always had a fondness for the ones that don't take themselves completely seriously, as the recent ones have tended to do.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot.

Goes without saying. ^_^ (Sadly, an incredibly well paid idiot. The world is a strange place sometimes)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

There are two people, here, who totally make me cringe. I was listening to the CBC one night (we do get As It Happens) and Pat Buchanan went on and on about Canadian politics and how backward they were, to say nothing about the city of Toronto. I was so embarrassed I wrote As It Happens to apologize for the ugly American.

The other is Rush Limbaugh, for obvious reasons.

Don't care for Roger Moore, never have except when he was the Saint. You are probably not old enough to remember that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember The Saint. I remember him in an even earlier incarnation when he was gadding about in chainmail as Ivanhoe.

Aren't you and I more or less the same age?

Moore doesn't take himself too seriously. It's an attractive characteristic. I was watching him the other night sending up his James Bond persona on Victoria Wood's Christmas show.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

We are the same age. Roger Moore first came to attention in this country as Beau Maverick, youngest brother of Brett and Bart Maverick. My mother was a Maverick fan.

It's good to be able to laugh at yourself. Sir Patrick Stewart was on a great NPR program the other day, and he was doing a pretty good job of it. I always appreciate that. So many people start to believe their own Press Releases as they age in their roles.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz was saying earlier today that Moore turned aside from a Hollywood career because he has a disabled child he didn't want to leave behind.

He's good at what he does. You cast him in anything and you'll get what you bargained for. He was pretty good in The Persuaders with Tony Curtis- the archetypal fast talking American and the archetypal laid-back English toff; it was a good pairing.

Of course I'm a great admirer of Patrick Stewart. He's a terrific actor.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

I would be ok with a jane bond, too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And why not?

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I could go for that. ^_^ Similarly, much as I've warmed to Peter Capaldi, I'd love to've seen Moff have the conviction to go with a female Doctor this time around. There too, of course, we heard the howls of protest from those insisting there's no way a time-travelling alien capable of cellular-level regeneration/recincarnation could possibly be anything but a white male. >chuckle< (If she were only 30 years younger, Judi Dench would've been so good..)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I feel much the same. Capaldi was a great choice but I'd love to see a woman have a bash at it.

Maxine Peake for instance.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Hwy, Joanna Lumley did a great job in the Red Nose Day/Comic Relief special THE CURSE OF FATAL DEATH.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I did read a lot of the original Bond books when I was in my teens. I enjoyed them at the time, but I suspect they were a product of their time. As to the film Bond, I've never like him until some of the recent incarnations. As to him being a superhero, he is up to a point, but I find him less so than the American versions such as Bourne.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I took some kids to see Moonraker once. Apart from that I don't think I've ever sat though a Bond movie from beginning to end.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I suspect Moonraker may be among the worst, if indeed not the worst, of a less than stellar lot. I claim to enjoy some of the Bond movies, but they're spotty at best. Tried reading one of the books in my youth and couldn't. Perhaps I should try again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I remember very little about it apart from space shuttles being involved.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Lucky man, I suspect.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

The books were slightly amusing - I was 20-something when they began to appear in paperback. I've suffered a few of the films in other people's houses - not impressed,

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There are better fandoms to get hooked on.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

There is a theory that Ian Flemming created James Bond as halfway between a wish-fulfillment fantasy of and a parody of the kinds of things they were doing in the OSS.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was an interesting man- more interesting than his creation.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Operation Mincemeat, which was Ian Fleming's idea, was weirder and more interesting than anything Bond ever did in any incarnation.

(You're familiar with that, right, at least in outline? The Allies were going to invade Europe to take it back from the Axis, and were trying to get them to believe that they were going to go in through one route, so the Axis would fortify there, while they went in somewhere else. In order to support this ruse, they found a dead body, dressed it up like an English intelligence officer, created an entire backstory and life for the character, gave it a bunch of fake documents which were in a briefcase handcuffed to its wrist, faked a plane crash, and dumped the body where it would be washed up onshore in a town where they knew the Nazis had a good intelligence presence.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, brilliant wheeze. There was a movie- also a rather good TV documentary.

Someone should make a movie about Fleming in all his kinky, brilliant, not entirely likeable glory.

[(Anonymous)]

I've never gotten the thing about Bond, either. I love Sean Connery, but I have never seen more than 15 minutes of a Bond film.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bond is a career killer. It took Connery years to get out of the shadow of the role, Roger Moore never did.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

That's possibly because Moore is a relatively mediocre actor. But Elba would be superb.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Whatever happened to Timothy Dalton?

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

It's a difficult problem to overcome, when you're in a given role for a prolonged period - witness the difficulties several of the Doctors encountered, especially Tom Baker. Inevitably, that kind of extremely high-profile exposure leaves the role embedded in the popular consciousness.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Didn't Patrick Troughton advise one of his successors to get out after three years or pay the price>

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Well as far as Bond is concerned i shall have mine shaken not stirred

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not keen on messed about drinks. Make mine a single malt.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Exact mon capitan , love the old malt any day, which is exactly what we had today.