** Aside from the usual holiday children’s animation, two films meant for grown-ups are holding sway at the box office. Both are products of British culture, one even more quintessential than the other. I’m speaking, of course, of the the brilliantly transgressive comedy Borat, created by and starring Oxbridge comedian Sascha Baron Cohen. And another movie, with that James Stock fellow.
I was still very tired when I saw Borat a couple of weeks ago, so didn’t enjoy it perhaps as much as I might now. After watching Borat video clips (and Ali G and Bruno, Cohen’s other comic creations) for months as a break from the not infrequent tedium of the elections, the thing in feature length was a bit anti-climactic.
Borat is a brilliant conceit, the quintessence of British put-on humor. A suspiciously faux Russianesque (Russians are all over London, as we see in the latest news) TV reporter supposedly from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan (the Kazakh scenes are actually shot in Eastern Europe), Borat Spetsnaz or whatever his last name is pushes the contradictions of life in hilariously anti-PC ways. Cohen, who has great timing, is especially hysterical when speaking in media officialese, denouncing other former Eastern Bloc lands and extolling the extraordinarily dubious merits of a Kazakhstan which exists only in his mind. And, as you may have heard, in bringing out the frequently horrible prejudices not far beneath the surface in many Americans, all of whom seem to live in red states. Nevertheless, he is a great favorite of most of my Republican friends.
The other fellow, the one named by the eminent post-war cynical romantic Ian Fleming after an ornithologist, really is the other fellow this time. He is the fifth other fellow, actually, following in the very large footsteps of Sir Sean Connery.
The very first movie I can remember watching, out of all movies, not just Bond films, starred Connery. A little film called Goldfinger. Connery, of course, is the definitive non-ornithologist, by long held popular acclaim. Large though his footsteps are, and having met him, he does have large feet, he may finally be meeting his match in the new fellow.
A new era deserves a new Bond, and Daniel Craig is certainly that. Not that there was anything wrong with the latest old Bond, Pierce Brosnan, who himself rebooted the franchise in 1995 with the very enjoyable GoldenEye. Before Brosnon, Bond had languished for some time. Timothy Dalton was good, but his movies were not. And Dalton, who I liked a lot, seemed for audiences to lack the dash and/or danger that they require in Bond. Before him, spanning most of the time of my growing up, there was Roger Moore. Like Brosnan, who is now quite an environmentalist, Moore is a very gracious man to meet. But his movies were, looking back, generally pretty awful. I’m sure they say a lot about the 1970s, but we’re not there now.
Craig seems a man for the new century. He is probably the best actor to assay the role. (Brilliant as a coke dealer in the little-known British crime drama Layer Cake and as a poet opposite Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia Plath in Sylvia, and as a Mossad hit man in Steven Spielberg’s Munich). And perhaps the least handsome. His selection caused a firestorm of pissy criticism on the Internet, which is especially good for that sort of thing. His ears were ridiculed, his hair color ( a sort of sandy blonde, as though that matters) dismissed, he took a lot of flack for saying he didn’t personally like guns and for wearing a life jacket riding up the Thames in a Royal Navy assault boat for his introductory press conference as the new Bond.
Seeing the film now, it’s called Casino Royale, and if you care at all about Bond, you should, makes it clear what a nastily irrelevant thing much of the blogosphere can be.
Casino Royale is an essential reboot of Bond, even more so than GoldenEye, which merely explained that the Cold War was finally over, although it featured two fabulous, and brainy, Russian women. (Who, naturally, were not really Russian.)
This Bond resonates with the post-9/11 world. Style and looks-wise, Daniel Craig’s Bond is a cross between Connery and Steve McQueen. He wears the Italian suits well, but he is not the male model Brosnan is. He’s Jack Bauer in a dinner jacket.
Entertainment Weekly put it very well: “He speaks to an age of desperation, when the cosmetic barely holds sway over the cutthroat.”
This is a much more raw Bond. He doesn’t quip as he kills — well, he does at the beginning, but it’s more pointed and less tossed off — he rips as he kills. Played in the past as a former Royal Navy officer-turned-gentleman spy and assassin, Craig’s Bond seems to be a former SAS (Special Air Service) commando.
Casino Royale, the first of the Fleming novels, finds him at the beginning, so presumably Craig’s next efforts will see him adding to his existing polish. Like all the Bonds, he is a patriot of sorts. But it’s not entirely clear what sort. Craig in real life counts himself a regular reader of the left-wing British newspaper The Guardian, and perhaps as a result his Bond is more than a little sardonic in his view. Yet he is not only a tough and ruthless figure, he is a frequently brutal figure. He does what he thinks it takes. But he’s not sure where it’s all going.
The Bond character has often been called a relic of the Cold War, but that’s not really true at all. For one thing, Russia was hardly ever the enemy, giving way instead to some of fiction’s most fabulously flamboyant and apocalyptic villains. Bond was really a relic of the fall of the British Empire, of which Ian Fleming was in real life an exceptionally well connected and traveled elite member, both as a former intelligence officer and as a journalist. Fleming’s novels are fascinating artifacts of the 1950 and 1960s, which coincided with Britain’s decline from one of the great victors of World War II into a decidedly middleweight world power, at best, before making something of a recent comeback.
The very notion of James Bond, that of the endlessly assured, omnicompetent gentleman professional (not gentleman amateur, another British tradition), saving the world once again was crucial to the maintenance of Anglo power in the Anglo-American power equation. The “pros from Dover” really were the pros from Dover, after all. It also fed into the cultural overhang of Imperial Britain, resonating with people around the world as a result.
Bond is a very important fantasy figure in many respects. And essays can be written on all of them. For the current moment, he is just as important as ever, as we move forward into the blurry world of the 21st century, beset by challenges, real and imagined, which seemingly can’t be solved either by force of arms or by appeasement. Perhaps one man, in the right place at the right time, can save our empire. Or so we would like to think.
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The new Bond is fantastic, thought-provoking.
Thanks for the movie reviews. My wife and I were planning to see both next week.
The SJ Mercury News has the exact article here a week ago on the new Schwarzeneger agenda. lol
Stupid reporter tricks.
Daniel Craig rocks as Bond, I don’t care that he’s not pretty.
Thanks, KK. Should we add sports?
Yes, Bill, sports would be nice. How about a review of the USC/Notre Dame game?
More thought provoking than JB, more dangerous than Borat (the famous journalist who has glorified our great intelligent nation), is Josh Wolf, 24 year old videographer jailed for refusing to turn over tapes to federal prosecutor.
“A First Amendment assault”
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/columnists/16101973.htm
http://www.joshwolf.net/
A very good writeup on Bond. And I agree, Craig is very, very good. And at a micro level, from one scene to the next, the script was very good too, unlike most of what they gave Dalton. Now, if they can just avoid gaping macro level plot holes, next time…
I prefer Daniel Craig’s bond to the bonds put forth by Schwarzenegger.
Snore. lol
Paul Burton :
More thought provoking than JB, more dangerous than Borat (the famous journalist who has glorified our great intelligent nation), is Josh Wolf, 24 year old videographer jailed for refusing to turn over tapes to federal prosecutor.
“A First Amendment assault”
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/columnists/16101973.htm
http://www.joshwolf.net/
Nov 26, 2006 11:51 AM
The new Bond doesn’t seem a neoconservative hero. Ian Fleming’s original Bond was not really a neocon, either, more a conservative in a post-imperial time. Other novelists, such as, say, Trevanian, created spy heroes that were considerably more challenging to the established order even as they worked for it.
Jon, actually, Schwarzenegger’s Bond was really quite good. His “Omega Section” super-secret agent in True Lies. He is a huge Bond fan. I’ll have to get into that next time around.
“Auros,” what did you find to be the gaping plot holes? Not that was the focus for NWN interest in Bond.
Nor the cinematography, rest of the cast, etc.
Solon, USC vs. Notre Dame? USC, much better defense, great receiver in Jarrett, off to yet another national championship game. The Irish’s Brady Quinn won’t win the Heisman Trophy. No real idea who will.
Borat is funny, but not all that. Maybe the hype raised my expectations too high, a lot of ti seemed silly.
I probably need to see Borat again to judge it properly.
Bill,
Agree with you assessment of the game. If Troy gets by UCLA, and they should, it will be a good match with Ohio State.
Movies…someone has suggested that I go see something called “Queen” Anybody seen it? Feedback?
If Iraq is lost we will have to fight them somewhere else.
I haven’t seen the movie Queen, though word is that there may be a best actress Oscar in there for Helen Mirren.
Bill,
Thanks. Might just have to check it out.
see the new movie that is coming out from borat
Borat I thought was kind of silly.
Tony, you’re referring to “Borat” Sascha Baron Cohen’s next movie?
That’s scheduled to be out in 2008, from Universal Pictures, so it’s quite a ways off. They haven’t started shooting yet.
It will be based on his “Bruno” character, a gay Austrian fashionista. He’s very funny.
Bruno? What is this?
He’s another side of the “Borat” coin.
“Bruno” is a gay Austrian fashionista — NOT fascionista, to any lurking wiseasses — and scenemaker who goes around commenting and getting people to comment on style and culture.
I wonder if Cohen is too famous now to pull off these personas. Though perhaps not. Bruno is less well known than “Ali G,” the other Cohen creation.
Although the truth is that the media culture is so fragmented now that someone can be extremely famous yet unknown to very large groups of people.
I loved the new Bond movie,he is rugged, manly, I don’t know any women who wants a pretty man…we are supposed to be the pretty ones! Anyway, “they say” that pretty guys are not the best at….and my girlfriends and I find that to be true!…
Mr. Bradley I saw “Queen” it is as much about Tony Blair as it s the Queen …it is a wonderful film…although, like a lot of women I can remember exactly where I was what I doing when Diana died…so it is also sad to see the film footage of her…I had my first slumber parties for her funeral…everyone came and we stayed up all night watching it…
I also saw “Bobby”. It was also very interesting …Sharon Stone and Demi Moore have a terrific scene…the busboy character is so poignant…and then there is the footage of Bobby Kennedy saying the same things in 1968 and John Edwards is talking about in 2006…the dream of “one America”
I also went ice skating at Rockefeller Center ..it was my first year not to fall down on my tush…I took that as a good sign that my year will end well!
Well, if Tony Blair is in The Queen, I should probably see it. Not a huge fan of the royals. Princess Di seemed very nice for a Sloane Ranger.
I don’t think I can watch Bobby in a theater. RFK was my hero. I’d rather watch the film on dvd in case there is too much bathos.
Yes,It is as much about Blair as it is about the Queen…truly…I loved Diana…terrible taste in men…which I blame her father…women who have or had poor relationships with their father do not seem to fair very well in their pick of men..but I loved her…great compassionate nonjudgmental heart…and talk about charisma…there are no bad photos of her…like Jackie O…
Mr. Bradley: too much bathos (Bobby)
The critics have not been kind…but people I talked to who were young adults at the time of his death found the the film an interesting take on that day…ordinary people leading little lives caught up in a historical moment…it is not trite or overly sentimental…the best scenes are the kitchen scenes as cooks and busboys prepare for a very busy night…you will not recognize Sharon Stone under all this bizarre 1960′s eye makeup…she is really good and the young actor who played the busboy is terrific…then there is that moment very quickly in the film where he reaches into his pocket and puts a Rosary into RFK’s hand …listening to snippets of Robert Kennedy address violence, poverty, race relations in the film…it’s worth seeing…I assume political people who work in politics will see all the flaws…but I was happy for the reminder of him…and it was amazing to hear him address so much of what Edwards focuses on…I mean this is almost 40 years ago and RFK was making speeches on war and poverty in which the content resonates today…
The new Bond is excellent. He has a great fighting spirit, smarts, and indifference to the overly sensitive.
Re: plot-holes, I figure it might be impolite to those who haven’t seen it to drop spoilers; it’s still a fun film, even with its flaws. I’m missing your email address — have it in my files at home, but I can’t access my home email from work. Will send details later.
Looking forward to it. Thanks.
My criteria is did the film hold together while you were watching it? If plot holes break suspense of disbelief, ie. “Oh, man, you’ve got to be kidding…” than they matter. Years ago TV/film writer Mark Evanier pulled apart the plot of Pinocchio in a column, before pulling back to say basically “Hey, it works”. If a story becomes too bogged down in tedious plot detail that can also yank you out of enjoying the story.
Does anyone remember the laughable plot device in a Bond film featuring a future sausage king?
“Laughable plot device?”
How dare you say that about one of my favorite movies!
Well, as I look at it now, it’s not that good. But I see why I liked it.
And it has a GREAT theme song. One which has cost me a LOT of money, actually …
Let me guess.
Jimmy Dean the Sausage King as the Howard Hughes figure in Las Vegas impersonated by Blofeld in the last of Mr. Connery’s official Bond outings, “Diamonds Are Forever.”
I can see how that would be an expensive theme song for Bill.
Hemlock and Bill are right about the movie. But what was the laughable plot device?
Uh, which one?
Barbara,
Re: Bobby
There are some of us who lived the night, and the days that followed, who never want to revisit it. Like the horrible events of a couple months before and November 1963, time will never wash away the memories of it.
On a different note…
I paid a visit to Old Soul yesterday. Quite a nice establishment. Great coffee.
Isn’t the most laughable plot device in “Diamonds Are Forever” that Blofeld impersonated the sausage king as Howard Hughes?
Sac Solon,
I can understand that…
re: Old Soul…you must pop in on Second Saturday…there will be an artist on display and live music…your very safe because one of my cops (from my morning watering hole) is on duty and pops in for coffee…he is very good looking and all the girls swoon!…then he leaves and turns to me and says “cookie, stay out of trouble!” I don’t know why he always says that! …because I am always good!
Barbara,
Never can tell where I might pop up.
It’s a nice area and is truly growing. Remember the days when it wasn’t such a great area and only Java City was there.
Maybe he’s referring to the bikini-clad Bambi and Thumper kicking Sean Connery’s butt and nearly drowning him in a swimming pool.
Just a thought.
Or maybe the mob guys tossing Natalie Wood’s sister out a hotel window into the pool below.
“I didn’t know there was a pool down there.”
Dana,
The problem in Casino Royale was large enough to break my suspension of disbelief. You’re not supposed to be thinking “hey, waittaminute!”
And yet still, I enjoyed it. Clearly the actors, director, and assorted other contributors did a superb job. If they’d just hired a better writer, it could’ve been the best Bond film since Connery left the franchise.
I see the points in your e-mail, but I don’t think the plot holes are so gigantic.
The Casino Royale screenplay, incidentally, was rewritten by an Oscar-winner.
The laughable plot device I had in mind is when Bond is discussing how the bad guys could be hiding in any part of the far flung empire of Jimmy Dean’s character while looking at some sort of map and says they could be anywhere from such and such to Baja. “Baja?” The Jimmy Dean character responds. “I don’t have anything in Baja”. Cut to Bond swooping in on the bad guy’s hideout in… Baja! Talk about Deus ex Macina!
“The Casino Royale screenplay, incidentally, was rewritten by an Oscar-winner.” The reminds me of the delicious anecdote Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski tells of overhearing at breakfast a producer boasting to a fellow bigshot “You won’t believe who wrote the script I just bought. And who I hired to rewrite it!” Classic Hollywood.
What was the special attribute of the color of the script pages of Unforgiven? They were white. Ususally as waves of rewrites are sent out they are assigned various colors to help distinguish them. Clint Eastwood waited a decade before filming David Webb Peoples’ script (Eastwood felt he needed to age before playing the lead role) but respected the script and shot it essentially as written.
Please, somebody, send 007! Sacha Baron Cohen and the other evil subgeniuses at 20th Century Fox are trying to sink the Boycott Borat campaign!
That’s the laughable plot device in Diamonds Are Forever?
I think there’s bigger.
>Dana :
The laughable plot device I had in mind is when Bond is discussing how the bad guys could be hiding in any part of the far flung empire of Jimmy Dean’s character while looking at some sort of map and says they could be anywhere from such and such to Baja. “Baja?” The Jimmy Dean character responds. “I don’t have anything in Baja”. Cut to Bond swooping in on the bad guy’s hideout in… Baja! Talk about Deus ex Macina!
Bond knows all, what’s new about that?
Why couldn’t they have cut ahead in time to Bond acting on what he learned from Jimmy Dean? How is that far fetched?
I haven’t looked at the scene to confirm it but I’ve seen Diamonds Are Forever often enough. Bond is there meeting with the Howard Hughes character played by the country singer/Sausage King Jimmy Dean, and with the CIA guys and learns that the Baja oil rig is a phony. Next thing we see he’s leading an attack on it.