Let the holiday madness begin.
Saw Casino Royale on Thanksgiving Day – quite a movie. Plot was… well, it’s a Bond movie; plot doesn’t get in the way of making a visual movie. But, there is more of a plot than there has been in a while – bad banker takes money of terrorists to set up a wild poker game; British Secret Service wants banker taken in for his info; banker turns out to be more trouble than he’s worth, as Bond realizes that his work is sucking his soul away, whatever his soul once was. Action sequences were really something. Daniel Craig is Bond, James Bond. He’s not classically handsome, but he’s hot. And, Bond as a human being – thumbs up that we got o see this side of him. You watch him do the dangerous stuff and you actually feel his pain (yeah, Bond – jumping off buildings and trying to kill bastards ain’t easy, even if your Connery/Moore/Brosnan versions made it seem effortless). M as Judi Dench – still cool as ever. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd – um, ok -but I see her as a bit of a cipher. Jeffrey Wright as Felix, the CIA guy – cool. He had a great line; wish he was in the movie more and actually got to do stuff. Anyway, ultimately, I recommend watching it (not like anyone needs my approval to do that!). As the Entertainment Weekly review by Owen Gleiberman says:
Yet Craig, speckled with facial cuts, plays Bond with an almost bruised virility, making each of these actions an expression of unruly will. Casino Royale, the most exciting Bond film since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, has everything you want in a pop entertainment: physical audacity, intrigue, romance, but also a charge of personality that stayed with me for days.
I agree with Gleiberman – Craig as Bond was something.
Thanksgiving dinner – much food; leftovers to enjoy for the rest of the week.
Interesting article – an impromptu hoc book club on the No. 3 subway – I do notice that: sometimes, people in the NYC subway definitely read some interesting (and some rather loopy) reading.
So, how do you close your e-mails? “Your truly” isn’t enough, apparently.
Got to love Entertainment Weekly:
EW’s on-line coverage of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book effort.