Apparently, Rush Limbaugh had a bit of a ruined ragegasm over the possibility that Idris Elba will be the next James Bond (via). I say “apparently” because Rush Limbaugh rants and James Bond movies are two forms of video that I’m not often motivated to watch, so I’ll just take it on faith that Rush said something racist and/or stupid about the possibility that the next Bond might not be a WASP.
Am I the only male who finds the whole “Bond, James Bond” thing fairly tedious? I don’t mean just the movies themselves, which are, at best, uneven and, at worst, terrible. I also mean the concept of Bond, the overly slick, globetrotting chick magnet/misogynist with his shiny, unbelievable toys.
Perhaps I was poisoned because my first Bond movie was the execrable Moonraker, which starred the worst Bond, Roger Moore, and the forgettable Lois Chiles as “Holly Goodhead”, his sex receptacle. Now, I’m about as filty as they come, and I’m also not easily offended, but the name “Holly Goodhead” offends me, not because of the sexual connotation, but just because it’s such a lazy and not-clever pun. Off the top of my head (rimshot), how about “Fanny Fellatio”, which is two for the price of one for the Brits in the audience, or if you’re going to be crude, at least be honestly crude: “Connie Cocksucker”. “Holly Goodhead” strikes me as nickname an English toff would give his boarding school housemother in an effort to combat rumors that he enjoyed his nightly buggering from an upperclassman.
“Holly Goodhead” aside, I remember thinking that Moonraker was a lazy effort because of the clownish special effects. Moonraker was released two years after Star Wars, which set the bar for space effects, yet its effect scenes were a tiny cut above what a kid could produce in 1979 using a super-8 camera and a couple of Mattel toys. They were every bit as plastic and fake as Moore’s acting or Chiles’ polyester pantsuits. In my teenage boy eyes, the whole thing reeked of the establishment, was the opposite of cool, and didn’t speak to me at all.
Yet Bond has perhaps one of the most dedicated set of slavering fanbois on the Internet, led by Apple uber fanboi John Gruber, whose Bond obsession is so great that he called his app “Vesper“, after Bond’s cocktail in Casino Royale. That cocktail, by the way, is a good gin martini ruined by the inexplicable addition of vodka. I think much of that Bond fandom is over Sean Connery’s Bond, and I’ll admit that Connery’s Bond movies are at least enjoyable, in part because they are a bit like Mad Men in the way that the over-the-top sexism and misogyny can be written off as a relic of times gone by. Still, I just don’t understand how one can be so attached to a franchise that’s been around for almost 5 decades which has produced only two and change decades that are any good (I’m counting the Connery and Daniel Craig Bond movies, YMMV).
I realize that the Bond movies are supposed to be a bit of harmless fun, but you can’t convince me that some of the stupider military misadventures of the past 50 years weren’t at least a little bit inspired by the Bond franchise. I’d argue that the Bond message–a little clever technology and the right sort of white man can fix anything–is a pretty straightforward gloss on Dick Cheney’s post-9/11 foreign policy. That’s the other reason why, as a teenager, I was far more taken with John LeCarre’s George Smiley books. Even with my limited understanding of the ruined British Empire, it was pretty obvious to me that a rumpled, cuckolded, myopic, middle-aged and tubby operative was a far more believable version of England’s spy culture than a martini-swilling, swashbuckling pussy magnet.
That all said — I think Idris Elba would be as good a Bond as Bond can be. He’s the kind of over-the-top masculine lead who, like Connery, can laugh at himself a bit. And, like Connery, who as a Scot was a bit of an outsider, Elba would be that, too, and he can believably tweak the upper crust twits who sign his paycheck. I feel so strongly about this that I’d advocate casting Elba even it didn’t piss off Rush Limbaugh.
Joel
How did this get made? did an amazing review of ‘View to a Kill’, arguably the worst Bond movie.
Josie
The only time I fell fast asleep in a movie theatre was during a James Bond movie. That was many years ago, and I have not been tempted to try one again, no matter who the hero is. Boring, boring, boring.
Gin & Tonic
gin martini
Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department?
rea
For those who find Bond hard to take seriously, I recommend Stross’ Jennifer Morgue, the greatest Bond story ever.
Liberty60
I was a young teen (i.e., the ideal demographic) when the Moore Bond movies were made and hated them- He seemed like an old guy’s idea of what a youthful dashing spy would be.
I really enjoyed Pierce Brosnan’s version. I do get why it isn’t everyone’s cuppa- even Brosnan said 2 were enough for him, since the character was a bit of a cartoon, insufficient for a serious actor to enjoy. But like all genre stories, the magic is all in the telling and craftsmanship.
Now, Archer…well, sir, he sets the gold standard!
SatanicPanic
Oh no, having you been reading Loomis over at LGM? I am just fine with vodka martinis, because gin is gross.
geg6
I can enjoy a fun Bond movie. Connery was the gold standard, but the first Daniel Craig iteration was good, though much too serious a take IMHO. I’m sure Elba will be a fine Bond, especially if he has the sense of humor and irreverence that Connery had.
Gin & Tonic
@SatanicPanic: Ahem.
Mandalay
That is a contender for most pretentious comment of the year on BJ.
SatanicPanic
@Gin & Tonic: sorry :(
samiam
Markymux obviously hasn’t seen the latest Bond movie “Skyfall”. Arguably the most human Bond everl He gets shot, burns out and goes to some beach bum hang destination to be a drunk. Tries to make a come back and can’t pass the physical. Was a lot more interesting for me because of that.
burnspbesq
Is there anything going on in the world that is less worth talking about than this?
burnspbesq
@samiam:
Merry Christmas, asshole.
divF
@SatanicPanic:
I find flame wars amongst gin and vodka martini drinkers to be largely innoucuous, and at times amusing.
Rand Careaga
@Mandalay: Then you and Bernard DeVoto certainly would not have got along.
hells littlest angel
I’m disappointed Idris Elba is stooping to play the Bond role. When I think of James Bond, I think of imperialism and casual racism. Bond and a cartoonish thug battle their way through a marketplace in some third-world nation, scattering shoppers, destroying vendors’ wares, goofy foreigners who exist solely as comic foils or animated backgrounds — that — along with the inflatable doll with a dumbass stripper name — is a James Bond film in a nutshell. The character makes some sense as a way for Brits in the 50s to compensate for their fallen status and their shitty, hardscrabble lives, but now? I’d be as embarrassed to own a James Bond DVD as I would a Confederate flag.
constitutional mistermix
@Gin & Tonic: Should be redundant, but in a world where people make “chocolate martinis”, it ain’t.
LAC
Bond movies are a mixed bag, some good (Connery) , some ugh ( Moore) and some that reenergized the franchise (Daniel Craig in casino royale) I don’t get too caught up in the “isn’t that violent/misogynistic/why is this still going on and ‘freaks and geeks’ is off the air” wailing. Generally, because folks bemoaning that will go and on about some show or movie that I am not feeling either. That shows boobies or heads lopped off.
That said, Idris Elba is as smoking hot as the day is long. And anything that will bring about the ” Rush Limbaugh on-air heart attack” show that I will download and listen again and again is fine by me.
Happy holidays. :-)
Tyro
This post is a bit too much of “that thing you like actually really sucks” for me. Roger Moore and his Bond films were always meant to be the campiest of the group. Which is hard to do because Bond movies themselves were always meant to be somewhat over-the-top takes on spy adventures.
The problem is that it is almost impossible to star in a spy action-adventure film UNLESS you are playing James Bond. Elba would make a great debonair action adventure star, and the Bond films are the only outlet for that, so he has to become Bond.
divF
@hells littlest angel: For me, the only reason to watch any Bond movie was to see Judi Dench playing M. Otherwise, meh.
dubo
Funnily enough, Fleming’s Bond was an exceedingly imperfect, past-his-prime spy (although still a ladykiller)
Cacti
James Bond was a lot more fun and worked a lot better as a Cold War era character.
I’ve not been able to get into the Daniel Craig franchise reboot, because it just takes the whole damned thing way too seriously. I couldn’t care less about Commander Bond’s inner demons or his family history.
mattH
The Best Bond Movie is The Incredibles.
Now, off to the ick of last minute shoppers, may they all die lingering painful deaths
Kevin
My problem with Bond is – he is honestly the worlds worst spy. I mean, change your name at least. Nope, he introduces himself at all times with his real name. And a spy in that much property destroying mayhem would be out of the field rather quickly, as everyone and their mother would know who he was (more so now in the age of phone cameras and youtube).
Seriously, he is a spy who basically does no spy work. He just automatically meets the main badguy, and lets it be known that he is there to apprehend him.
Frankensteinbeck
It’s meant to. It’s meant to be the dumbest pun about how women in spy novels are there only for titillation possible. The same with the other ludicrous names like Octopussy. The Bond franchise is that most Hollywood of things, a parody that forgot it’s a parody and started taking itself seriously. The books were satire. It’s all meant to be stupid and sexist.
I blame Sean Connery for being so inherently charismatic that Bond came off as legitimately sexy.
Just Some Fuckhead
I only have two questions. Do people still go to James Bond movies and who the hell is Idris Elba?
Frankensteinbeck
I am in moderation for mentioning the title of a James Bond movie. Such is life.
EDIT – Damn, Mistermix is fast. Bravo, sir.
Amir Khalid
Timothy Dalton’s two movies were as bad as Roger Moore’s weakest. But they had to work with the franchise’s lamest scripts, and I hardly think they were at fault for that. It’s worth remembering that both are well-regarded for their work outside the Bond franchise.
Like a lot of Bond fans, I reckon the character’s essential quality is that he’s British. I’d be fine with any British actor in the role, white or not.
As for the suggestion that James Bond helped encourage the West’s overreaching in the last 50 years — at that point the West had been throwing its weight around in the world, meddling in other countries’ affairs and stealing their wealth, for centuries. Fleming’s Bond oeuvre is a reflection of Western imperialism, not so much the other way around.
Iowa Old Lady
@Josie: Oh god, me too! I thought I was the only one.
constitutional mistermix
@Iowa Old Lady: Yeah, that’s why I asked if any male actually dislikes the movies – I know a lot of women who do, but men seem to enjoy them.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kevin: OTOH, he is a master of disguise, having looked like nine different people over the years.
dubo
@Frankensteinbeck: I still can’t figure out whether Sean Connery in yellowface “disguised” as a Japanese man in You Only Live Twice was meant to be satire
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@burnspbesq: Duke. Duke is less worth talking about than this. YMMV.
constitutional mistermix
@Frankensteinbeck:
Never read the books, so I’ll take you at your word. When you name a character “Holly Goodhead” in a really shitty movie that seems to be taking itself at least a bit seriously, then the dumb pun of the name seems just another example of the stupidity of the movie.
Also, wasn’t JFK a Bond fan? William F Buckley was, too. I wonder if they thought it was satire.
LAC
And all you silly beetches going on about gin v vodka should try a vesper martini. Best of both worlds. Ian Flemings friend was the source of the drink.
Tyro
When you name a character “Holly Goodhead” in a really shitty movie that seems to be taking itself at least a bit seriously
Moonraker was taking itself seriously? Is this the same film franchise that had a character named “Pussy Galore”?
Amir Khalid
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yes, they do.
Idris Elba is a British movie star. He played Nelson Mandela in the film of Long Walk To Freedom. He is black. Many think he should succeed Daniel Craig as James Bond.
Mnemosyne
My brother is a big James Bond fan, so I’ve seen all of the classic ones. From Russia With Love still holds up pretty well, in large part because it doesn’t even try to pretend it’s about anything but Bond sexing up a cute Russian double agent. I liked Never Say Never Again, and Klaus Maria Brandauer was one of the all-time great Bond villains.
To me, since Bond himself is a bit of a nonentity, it’s the villain that makes for a good Bond movie. You have to be careful, because if the villain is too good, he’ll steal the movie (as Yaphet Kotto and Christopher Lee did in their respective villain roles), but you can’t have a good Bond movie with a weak villain. Mike Myers understood that, which is why Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was so goddamned funny. Most of the stuff on the island was stolen from You Only Live Twice.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you.
@SatanicPanic:
If you think gin is gross (wtf?) then you should drink vodka and a titch of vermouth with lemon twist or olives as your tastes prefer. But you are not drinking a martini.
/cocktail pedant
KG
@Just Some Fuckhead: apparently people still go to see Bond flicks because they keep making them (alternatively they might be making them because coming up with a new idea would be hard). And this is Irdis Elba
Mnemosyne
Also, too, let me put in a plug for one of our favorite movies, Roman Coppola’s CQ. It’s a movie about filmmaking, and about the slow end of a relationship, and includes a cheesy Eurotrash spy movie as the movie-within-a-movie. Plus it’s one of the few New Year’s films I can think of, and it’s a well-done period piece. If you’re a movie fan — and especially a fan of 1960s movies — you’ll like it.
Linnaeus
I still enjoy the Bond films – Goldfinger is my favorite – but I do understand why some people don’t like them and I definitely recognize more of the flaws than I did years ago.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve really enjoyed the Daniel Craig Bonds. They at least make an effort to set them in the “real world”; gadgetry is kept to a minimum, and the fight scenes look like they’d hurt.
Most Americans would probably know Idris Elba as Stringer Bell from “The Wire”. He was also in “Prometheus” and “Pacific Rim”. If you get BBC America, you can see him in “Luther”, playing a good (but dirty) cop.
Speaking as a straight white guy, I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of hours of Elba kicking ass and getting laid.
Seanly
I like the Connery, Lazenby & Craig Bond films. I can see the flaws & such in many of those, but I still enjoy them. The Craig ones have ramped down on the sexism & introduced a bit more of a Bourne-feel.
I would love to see Idris Elba as the next Bond after Craig (this next one is the last one in his contract IIRC).
Mustang Bobby
My first Bond film was Goldfinger in 1965. I was twelve and into cars so I was far more interested in the Mustang convertible and the Aston Martin. I was also slightly aware of the fact that I was gay so the name “Pussy Galore” went right over my head.
I guess that film imprinted on me because all of the others since then have never measured up.
Jimbo
@divF: I don’t recall now (and am frankly not motivated enough even to Google it), but I wonder if there was a similar outcry when a female M was introduced. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were.
The larger point in all of this is fascinating. “People” like Rush find change in the world so threatening that they get truly upset when someone reboots a beloved fictional character into something other than their narrow view of what is and what should be.
What is equally fascinating is that the film Bond has always been its own construct, sharing very little with the literary version, and subject to continual reimagining.
gorram
It’s really ironic that Limbaugh transferred the character from the books into “totally 100% Scottish of course” when Ian Fleming himself said he chose the name because it’s “brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet [a] very masculine name.” He’s cool with changing the precise ethnic identity as long as Bond stays White, but that’s not very surprising probably.
scav
If they’d cast Peter Capaldi there could very well be some sort of matter-anti-matter explosion of the regeneration genres. But, I think I’d enjoy the fallout from an Idris casting more.
WereBear
At their best, Bond films are the ultimate in action/adventure. You got good-looking people, playing with awesome gadgets, with the fate of the world at stake, and those luscious incredible over-the-top villains.
At their worst, of course, they totally suck.
As franchises go, I must admit they have an extraordinarily high quality rate for what they are. I think Connery was the best Bond because he brought that “I could die at any moment but I’ll die happy” persona that to me is the essence of Bond, but there’s been far more good than bad, with the exception of Roger Moore, who was a terrible casting choice.
The man can’t even run, okay?
Idris Elba can save my Empire, anytime.
ruemara
I’m for anything that interferes with Mssr Limbaugh’s heart medication.
scav
@ruemara: I was rather assuming that as a baseline for civilized behavior.
constitutional mistermix
@LAC: I have two issues with the Vesper.
First, martinis are made of gin and only gin. Vodka doesn’t taste like anything and should mainly be used in sugary drinks for people who don’t like the taste of liquor. Might as well drink a wine cooler. Don’t get me wrong – I have friends who drink Vodka martinis and I still socialize with them. Liking Vodka is not as bad as, say, voting Republican.
Second, and this is important — it is too big. The original recipe calls for it to be served in a champagne coupe because the cocktail glasses of the time were much smaller than the buckets on a stick that pass for cocktail glasses today. That’s because our forefathers understood that cocktails served up should be served in a small glass, because you want to drink the whole thing while it is still ice cold. Unless you’re swilling it down, a Vesper is going to be warm by the time you’re finished with it.
The one thing I think the Vesper got right was using a twist instead of an olive.
WereBear
And a fine fine bonus it will be!
I have never encountered such a sack of toxic pus as embodied in Rush Limbaugh. Only the sure and certain knowledge that he lives a life of self-disgust and desperate loneliness keeps my faith in the Universe alive.
Jimbo
What also fascinates me is that Idris Elba has a tremendous range as an actor. He was completely believable as an American inner-city drug dealer in the Wire, one of the highlights of the disappointing Prometheus, and inspringly cartoonish in Pacific Rim.
But all of that is disregarded because of skin tone. This was true even in his taking a very minor part in the first Thor movie.
Tyro
Why does everyone hate on Roger Moore????
Gravenstone
@Just Some Fuckhead: So you’re arguing that James Bond is actually The Doctor?
Mnemosyne
@Jimbo:
Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) was apparently quite disappointed not to be cast as “M” when they decided to make “M” a woman. She thought it would be a great scene to have Bond come in, be surprised that there was a new secretary, and then have the reveal be that Moneypenny had been promoted to “M.”
Thoughtcrime
Don’t forget this wonderful scene in Roger Moore’s “The Man With The Golden Gun”:
Roger Moore
I think the attraction of Bond movies is essentially the same as the attraction to any other well established franchise: you’re getting something predictably satisfying, even if it isn’t great. If you’re going to a movie to see spectacle rather than drama, you know that you won’t be disappointed. Even the worst written, worst acted movies in the series have good production values. They’ll reliably provide outstanding stunts, exotic filming locations, and theme songs sung by name talent. I think it helps the series today that its traditional approach is less popular, with real stunts and real locations being replaced by green screens and CGI.
Just Some Fuckhead
How awesome would it be for Rush Limbaugh to play Bond? Instead of those ridiculously long and unbelievable chase scenes, it would just be a fat guy stopping every few minutes, gasping for breath, hands on knees. And the sex scenes wouldn’t be with unrealistic leggy models, but with Dominican children, screaming in terror at Rush’s belly hang as the fat man popped one Viagra after another.
Spy genre or horror genre?
Jimbo
@Tyro: He had the misfortune of following Sean Connery, and completely undid the cool 60’s cultural cache of the series.
WereBear
Gosh YES! They could be Miami Vice episodes, for the love of drama!
What a waste of such a good actor, and one who most ebodies what the Bond-of-the-Books looked like.
In other news, I regard the Quiller series as the very best spy stories, though I’m also a John le Carré fan. But Quiller went out in the field.
LAC
@constitutional mistermix: hey, I am a true martini girl. Like it with my gin. Vodka is a distant second. I think I like how the Lillet brought them together and the lemon twist is perfect. It is drink I understand has undergone a lot of changes. But I am one of those folks that does not believe everything you pour into a martini glass is worthy of the name martini.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I LOVED Stringer Bell but I don’t remember him having a British accent.
Jimbo
I am pretty sure that Connery is the only Scotsman ever cast in the role.
Also, Rush apparently is unaware that there are black folk in Scotland.
MattF
So, what’s Rush got besides racism and misogyny? I know there’s drug abuse and quick trips to Central America to take care of business, but so what? Who cares?
For the record, I have never listened to him– since the station I turn to for traffic reports went FM I don’t know what happens on AM.
Jimbo
@Just Some Fuckhead: He didn’t. But Elba does. I still remember how jarring it was the first time I heard him talk in his “normal” speaking voice. It was like hearing David Ogden Stiers without the Charles Emerson Winchester character.
Roger Moore
@Kevin:
Bond isn’t really a spy at all. A spy is somebody who’s after information. The whole point of the “license to kill” part of the 00 section is that they can be asked to kill people. That’s the work of a covert operative, i.e. the people you send in to destroy stuff and kill people once the spies have identified the targets.
WereBear
@Tyro: He was the star of an action adventure franchise who looked great with an elbow on the mantelpiece of a fine old mansion, but couldn’t do action at all-period-end of story.
Part of why the movies became camp was because Moore couldn’t run across the street without looking like a chicken under the influence. Watch them again, if you like.
He never runs.
constitutional mistermix
@LAC: I do like Lillet.
Mnemosyne
Best Timothy Dalton role of recent years: Simon Skinner in Hot Fuzz. So enjoyably despicable.
Amir Khalid
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re paying for this next round of brain bleach.
Gin & Tonic
@Jimbo: completely undid the cool 60’s cultural cache
And yet, I thought he was the perfect embodiment of cool 60’s culture *in the 60’s* when he starred in the TV series The Saint.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: There’s not a frame of that movie I don’t adore.
And yes, Dalton seems to be much happier as a villain. And he’s a comic genius! Made for a great role.
LAC
@Jimbo: jarring wasn’t the word I thought of when I heard him speak in his British accent. More like “mama like” and “grr, baby”.
(Fans self) sorry….
Amir Khalid
Does no one have an opinion on Lazenby?
Thoughtcrime
Looks like I should have held on to this: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxaBNP-1b0c/UTkNdLuX5BI/AAAAAAABwjk/t79fu77RdT0/s1600/002_bigfdfgfdg.jpg
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-James-Bond-007-ATTACHE-CASE-Gun-ORIGINAL-BOX-Multiple-Products-60s-NO-TAX-/261710430702?pt=TV_Movie_Character_Toys_US&hash=item3cef2841ee
terraformer
Speak for yourself – Lois Chiles was to this (at the time) 9 year-old boy quite the hottie. In fact, she represents the kind of woman – at least as expressed in the movie – that I ended up looking for and find most attractive. Beautiful, intelligent, wonkish woman who doesn’t take any shit.
JCJ
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Well played, Sir!
Kylroy
@Jimbo: Man, I loved him in Thor. They’ve got like 10 minutes of screen time to establish him as one of the most aware and potent beings in the universe, and he manages to pull it off.
As for the Bond films, Moonraker is generally considered uniquely awful. It was, as CM pointed out, released two years after Star Wars, and was trying to ride it’s coattails. It’s probably the one case of Bond trying to be what it’s not; even the other crappy Bond films are recognizably Bond.
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid: He drove a Cougar and [spoiler alert] Emma Peel got whacked. Feh.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a really good movie as a movie, but Lazenby is a little “meh” as Bond. Didn’t hate him, but didn’t love him. Diana Rigg completely steals the show.
Jimbo
@Kylroy: Yes! But that was completely obscured by the fuss over a black actor playing a “white” character.
Tyro
@Amir Khalid: “Why George Lazenby is the Best James Bond” is the ultimate #slatepitch: it’s not that you can’t make the argument, it’s that you get the impression that the person making the argument is being purposefully contrarian. Also, outside of the wedding, Lazenby got shafted with bad clothing, much like Dalton did. I think his main problem is that his film was too rooted in the 70s.
Roger Moore
@constitutional mistermix:
Bond was definitely swilling it down. There was one of these funny, end-of-the-year things in the British Medical Journal last year that looked at Bond’s alcohol consumption in the books. When excluding time he was in rehab, the hospital, or imprisoned, he drank something like half a bottle of hard liquor per day. The man was sucking down booze.
Kylroy
@Jimbo: Eh, for people immersed in fanwank surrounding the film, maybe. I don’t think it had any affect on the movie’s success, just the nature of the whining on some forums. And there wasn’t even that for the sequel. In terms of Internet impact, general squeeing over Loki has long since drowned out any outrage over Heimdall being black.
Jill
Telling my daughter about this, I began “Rush Limbaugh doesn’t think”, and realized I needed to say no more, that it was a complete sentence in and of itself.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Lazenby is really the odd man out in many ways. He played only one movie, and that one was a departure from the settled franchise pattern in a lot of ways, so it’s really hard to judge him in the role separately from the specifics of the one movie. I think he could have been a fine Bond but never really got the chance to prove it.
PD IT
@Amir Khalid: He also was the main char in Luther. Best show of the decade imo.
Mike in NC
The villain in the next Bond flick needs to be a fascistic, obese, drug-addicted pedophile. Trying to think who that could be based on.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
So far he’s also been the only Bond from outside the British Isles. Which in a way makes him an outsider casting choice, much like Elba would be. I didn’t see OHMSS, so I’m in no position to judge; but did Lazenby’s Aussieness take anything away from his Bondness?
dubo
@Jimbo:
Yep, Due to the internet I’ve learned that the following people CAN NOT! be black in movies:
1. Fictional Norse God
2. Fictional Orphan Annie
3. Fictional Superhero Spider-Man
4. Fictional spy James Bond
5. Historical Africans
Mnemosyne
@Jimbo:
According to Wikipedia, one of the few written references to Heimdall (Heimdallr) calls him “the whitest of the gods,” so casting Elba in that part is a bit of an in-joke. Apparently even scholars of Norse mythology aren’t really sure what the phrase means.
Fun fact for fiber artists: another of the few written references to Heimdallr was found on a spindle whorl in Lincolnshire, England in 2010.
Bobby Thomson
@Tyro: Because it’s the hip thing to do. I liked him a lot more than Brosnan, though I admit the writing was very uneven during that period. Plus Jaws FTW.
For Your Eyes Only was the first Bond movie I ever saw. Great scenery, good villains, and Topol.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: Do you remember Dr. House having a British accent? Or Bruce Wayne?
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think so; not only was his accent toned down, but there wasn’t anything in the film that referenced anything like it.
Lazenby’s main problem is that it wasn’t really a Bond movie. He’s not supposed to get married! He’s not supposed to get bogged down in what amounts to a business deal!
And how they wasted Telly Savalas as the villain I’ll never know. It just wasn’t right.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Acting.
Dominic West (McNulty) is also a Brit.
Then you have Hugh Laurie in “House” and Damien Lewis in “Life” and “Homeland”. And a few others I know I’m forgetting.
burnspbesq
@JCJ:
Jealous haters gotta hate jealously. Happy Holidays to you, sir or madam.
Mnemosyne
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Matthew Rhys in “The Americans,” who does multiple accents, not just an American one. It was really freaky to hear him with his natural (Welsh) accent.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid:
Massively underrated. Had the misfortune of (1) following Connery (2) being in a movie with an actor who didn’t sell the villain (3) being in a movie where SPOILERS the bad guy wins.
By the way, as much as I love Connery’s Bond, Sir Sean Connery the human being is quite a douche.
Amir Khalid
@dubo:
6. Fictional characters who are black in a source novel (e.g. The Hunger Games) cannot be black in the movie.
Mnemosyne
@dubo:
I am sorry to say it, but the reason the new version of Annie is tanking is not because Quvenzhané Wallis is black, but because she can’t sing. And neither can Cameron Diaz. Who the hell thought it was a great idea to cast the leads in a musical with non-singers? And then have them try to sing on the cast album? My throat was hurting in sympathy when Wallis strained and failed to hit the big note in “Tomorrow.”
Bobby Thomson
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
And Band of Brothers.
Idris also steals the show in RocknRolla.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Yeah, you can occasionally hear Hugh Laurie’s accent and you could pretty much always hear Dominic West’s accent.
Peking Man
Of course, the best Bond was Woody Allen
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Mnemosyne:
Tim Burton’s version of :”Sweeney Todd” had the same problem; Depp isn’t a singer (much less a baritone), and it kind of ruined the whole thing for me. Shame, since it’s such an awesome musical.
TR
You’re basing your opinion of the Bond franchise on one of the worst installments, one that came out thirty years ago?
Jesus, pull the stick out if your ass already.
dubo
@Mnemosyne: Very possible, but that isn’t what the frothing internet hordes were mad about :/
Mnemosyne
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
I thought Depp got by okay, in part because the other actors were pretty decent singers, especially Alan Rickman. They definitely had to make allowances for his limitations. It’s sort of like how Richard Gere got by in Chicago by going with that 1930s style of movie singing that they invented for movie stars like Jimmy Stewart who couldn’t sing but needed to.
But, seriously, all you have to listen to is the 30-second clip of “Tomorrow” on Amazon. The poor kid can’t sing. At all. You can’t cast someone as a little girl with a big voice when she doesn’t have a big voice!
TR
@Tyro:
Lazenby’s film was late 60s I believe.
And for all the bad clothes, he still got to marry Diana Rigg.
John Revolta
And the Oscar for Best American Accent by a Brit goes to:
Bob Hoskins in Roger Rabbit. Prove me wrong, kids!
TR
@Mnemosyne:
Rhys is amazing, but I don’t see him as Bond.
Elba would be amazing.
TR
@Mike in NC:
Jonathan Pryce already did a thinly disguised Rupert Murdoch, so why not?
Mnemosyne
@dubo:
It’s not what the frothing internet hordes were mad about, but if you’re going to do controversial casting, the filmmakers have to frickin’ bring it in the final product and prove all the haters wrong. I still think it was a great idea to update it and I loved the idea of a black Annie, but cast a kid who can sing, FFS! Or at least go the old MGM route and dub in someone else’s voice — doesn’t Marni Nixon have any descendants who need work? ;-)
sempronia
Daniel Craig is fine as Bond, except that he looks too much like V. Putin, and the cognitive dissonance destroys the movies for me.
Mnemosyne
A fun clip of Into the Woods star Anna Kendrick singing “Life Upon the Wicked Stage” with the Kit Kat Club girls. Kendrick was all of 13 and already a Broadway veteran.
I swear there’s another clip where someone (Kendrick?) sings “It’s A Hard-Knock Life” with the Kit Kat girls, but it doesn’t seem to exist on YouTube.
Roger Moore
@Tyro:
I think he get blamed for the series devolving into complete camp when he was Bond. I’m more inclined to blame the writers, but I assume they wrote the part for him the way they did because it played to his strengths as an actor.
Monala
@Mnemosyne: Annie’s not tanking. It finished third at the box office its first weekend in theaters, and already cracked the top 100 films of the year– and it hasn’t even been in theaters a full week.
You’re right, though, Quvenzhanae (sp?) Wallis’ singing voice is weak. But she’s very charming in the role otherwise, and I thought she did well on some of the songs (such as “Opportunity.”)
Citizen_X
If we’re talking about black Bonds, why not Chiwitel Ejiofor? If you doubt that suggestion, check him out as the refined-but-murderous Operative in Serenity.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: He really, REALLY, liked Hootie and the Blowfish while eating Fluffernutter sandwiches. Heimdall could be coloured pitch but his soul was ultrabeige
max
I remember thinking that Moonraker was a lazy effort because of the clownish special effects. Moonraker was released two years after Star Wars, which set the bar for space effects, yet its effect scenes were a tiny cut above what a kid could produce in 1979 using a super-8 camera and a couple of Mattel toys.
I was… 12? And already a space hound, and I saw it and I was already losing it over the fact that they had like 12 fucking space shuttles (good god, why?) in fucking Brazil that no one knew were there. How does that work? So, totally concur.
Even with my limited understanding of the ruined British Empire, it was pretty obvious to me that a rumpled, cuckolded, myopic, middle-aged and tubby operative was a far more believable version of England’s spy culture than a martini-swilling, swashbuckling pussy magnet.
The two Smiley series on BBC (or was it ITV) were awesome – the remake movie was not good. On account of being two hours long.
@Amir Khalid: Timothy Dalton’s two movies were as bad as Roger Moore’s weakest.
The very first Dalton movie was better than most of the Roger Moore movies, I thought. It was cute. The other one (two?I thought he did three? Nope, mixing him up with Pierce Brosnan) was awful. The Brosnan movies were worse, I thought.
I feel so strongly about this that I’d advocate casting Elba even it didn’t piss off Rush Limbaugh.
That would be great. Seconded.
max
[‘What we need is an HBO spy series.’]
Mnemosyne
@Monala:
It’s a big-budget ($65 million) musical aimed at the family audience released on over 3,000 screens, and it made $16 million its first weekend. By contrast, when the animated Big Hero 6 opened in November, it made $56 million its opening weekend and was #1 at the box office.
Sony put a whole lot of marketing power behind Annie, and it came in #3 in its opening weekend. That is Not Good News. Annie was supposed to be their holiday blockbuster, and no blocks were busted.
The fairest comparison will probably be Into the Woods, which opens tomorrow, since it’s also a big-budget musical based on a Broadway hit.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen_X:
I still want Ejiofor as the next Doctor Who. I know other people wanted Elba, but I don’t think he has enough lightness to be the Doctor. I think Ejiofor has it, plus he too is British (born in London).
slag
Don’t worry kids, Bond is white. Just like Santa. That said, we don’t actually see race, and race plays no part in our social construct. Except in how it enables the persecution of white people. So, in light of this most recent attack on our White Man Heroes, we’re renaming this year’s War on Christmas to War on Bondage. We shall overCOME!
john fremont
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Andrew Lincoln in Walking Dead .
Matt McIrvin
The space scenes in Moonraker were dumb, but the space shuttle launch sequence was fantastic, probably because it was one of Derek Meddings’. I can’t fault any of the effects in that one bit.
Rugosa
@Just Some Fuckhead: I had to look up Idris Elba on Wikipedia. I’ve only seen the Connery Bond films, and they are just fun, silly artifacts of their age. Connery captured a certain caricature of the secret agent that was popular back in the day. Elba, judging from his picture, would probably do well in that role.
Keith G
Dear fucking god….Don’t over think this shit..
Re the movie franchise: It’s fluff and fantasy and a measure of social satire. I just can’t believe that there are folks who want to analyse the real world implications of a James Bond film.
What’s next a discussion of how Hogan’s Heroes got the Germans wrong?
Rugosa
@divF: I think it was Ogden Nash who wrote about his Aunt Ruth
Who made martinis exceeding uncouth.
She first mixed in 16 parts of gin,
Then stared hard and whispered “vermouth”
pluky
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Perhaps no one ever told him that while cheap vodka is tolerable, cheap gin is to be abominable. And Bond not withstanding, a martini should be stirred, not shaken lest one blow off the floral notes in the (good!!!) gin.
Goblue72
Totebaggers of the world, unite! Shall we next discuss the moral superiority of not owning a TV set and only watching PBS on our computers?
Who’s up for some Garrison Keilor and some canning recipes?
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
For the first time ever, burnspbesq has said something sensible and correct.
Coming up next: an interminable post about slave Leia’s costume in the third STAR WARS film…
Roger Moore
@mclaren:
Followed by an argument about whether it should be called the third or sixth…
rikyrah
Idris Elba as James Bond?
HELL YEAH!!!
Sigh…
I am a Bond fan. The only one I didn’t like was Timothy Dalton, and that’s because I always knew he never shoulda gotten the chance…should have always been Pierce Brosnan back then.
John Weiss
@SatanicPanic: Martinis are made with gin and vermouth. I don’t know what the name of the drink made from vodka and vermouth, but it’s not a martini.
JustRuss
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): We’re doing Xmas with my family last year, and our conversation last night turned to how much fun our get-togethers are compared to the inlaws, because all our in-laws spend the whole damn holiday squabbling–and our spouses agreed.
Then the topic of gin came up, and it all went to hell. I fell into the pro-gin camp….
Mike G
@Roger Moore:
I liked the Roger Moore movies, he suited the light silliness of the Bond movies at the time — outlandish gadgets, sly quips and visual gags. Except for the last one (A View To A Kill) where he looked like he belonged on a golf course in Palm Springs, and the silliness was verging into ridiculousness. The series wouldn’t have lasted five decades if they didn’t change direction a few times.
LAC
@mclaren: YOU making a funny about interminable posting?
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
PaulW
Idris Elba wasn’t even the first black guy chatted up as a possible Bond.
During the Brosnan era, Colin Salmon showed up as one of M’s aides, and a lot of the fan buzz was how Colin had the qualities to play Bond when it was Pierce’s turn to “retire”. This was back in the mid-90s.
Calouste
@Rugosa: I think it was Noel Coward who described his favorite martinis as “two measures of gin and a wave in the general direction of Italy “
polyorchnid octopunch
I was a fan of Timothy Dalton in “Flash Gordon”, and Idris Alba was great in “Ultraviolet” (the BBC series, not the movie). Dalton did a great job being a prick Errol Flynn in Flash.
Matt McIrvin
I think I regard the James Bond movies as fun stuff for their time, which is a time that is long past. They don’t make a lot of sense in the context of the modern world. The sexual politics of them are of course appalling, but I suppose it comes with the territory.
However, I haven’t seen any of the Daniel Craig ones, which seem to be regarded as a revitalization of the franchise, and rather different in tone.
I grew up seeing the Roger Moore ones first, so his arch, kind of precious, self-parodic Bond is the one I initially thought of as canonical, even though everyone likes to bag on those movies now. When I saw some of the Connery ones, he actually took some getting used to, though in hindsight he had a level of charisma that Moore never did.
I thought the Timothy Dalton ones were terrible, and was shocked to find years later that Timothy Dalton is actually an excellent comic actor.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: The fun thing about Marvel Comics Thor’s world is that, since the conceit is “this isn’t Norse mythology; these are the extradimensional ancient astronauts or something who in our silly superhero world were the basis for Norse mythology,” they basically have an in-story excuse to make any changes they want.
RepubAnon
@Peking Man: Actually, Woody Allen played James Bond’s nephew “Jimmy Bond” in that version of Casino Royale (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061452/) – James Bond was played by David Niven… and Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers…
lamh36
@Mnemosyne: see i think Annie tanked because of the leak. I can tell you that even though I’m taking my lil god child and her cousins to see Annie tomorrow, they have actually already seen it.
Sad to say, but Annie’s target audience had the opportunity to see it already for a much lower price than what they’d have to pay to see the movie in a theatre (I mean I’ve got gift cards and I’ll still be out almost $40 bucks!)
Corner Stone
@LAC:
God. Get into rehab, you fucking lush. Stop trying to rage-bully other commenters here. It’s pathetic.
Take two and call your counselor in the morning. Get help, for your sake.
SpotWeld
The more a particular character is repeated the more likely it is to become more an archetype than a character.
Merlin, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Noah, Zeus, Hercules, Demeter, Joan of Arc, etc etc etc.
They all get retold to the point where the specifics become blurred edges and all you have is a core concept.
At that point race is just another variation on the theme.
James Bond is getting to the point where he’s been replayed so many times he is an archetype: unflappable, smooth, government agent/hero. (See also, Spiderman)
The fact that characters that were originally created as a person of color (save for biblical cases) are not reaching this archetype status is really a reflection on racial representation in pop culture and media.
LAC
@Corner Stone: don’t you have some of your sperm to wipe off of the screen. Your “buddy” Anne Laurie acknowledged your sad concern trolling finally. Besides, what would you know about cocktails? Your mouth is a shaker- insert bottle, swish around and guzzle. Leave this thread for adults, ok?
Crouchback
@hells littlest angel: The typical Brit actually had a pretty good life in the 1950s – more affluence than a couple of generations earlier (by per capita gdp) plus you had improved opportunities and National Health Service coming in. It’s the elites who were upset – no more Empire to run, no more cheap servants to make their lives easier. The appeal of James Bond was a lot like the appeal of Mike Hammer – a hero who could solve all his problems with gratuitous sex & violence. Nothing more than that, really.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m done with the Bond movies. I’ve watched every one at least twice, except for the last, which I ignored.
Either my tolerance for gratuitous brutality has lowered or these films have gotten cruder and more violent. Torture is not entertainment for me.
The earlier ones are fun adventure stories with some whiz-bang technology to mask the general implausibility.
They’re still interesting as cultural snapshots. Watch Live and Let Die again and try not to cringe at the blatant racism. Sample line: “Y’all take this honkey out and WASTE HIM! NOW!”
Corner Stone
@LAC:
Obviously not as much as you, as you’re the self-styled “expert” going from thread to thread drunkenly ordering people around about the only acceptable alcohol combinations.
LAC
@Corner Stone: it must be very lonely in your house this Christmas morning. Well, open another fifth and you got a friend. Merry Christmas, you sad lush!
Oh, and by the way. I know you normally see in double vision, but my talk about cocktails was limited to this thread. Which you felt the need to shit on, as you usually do. Sad…
Chris
The appeal of Bond is that he’s a fantasy. He’s the guy who can always drink the finest booze and eat the finest food but never be out of shape, who can have sex with just about any woman he wants, who gets to drive fast cars and shoot bad guys, but it’s all for Queen and Country and therefore okay. About the only distinctive thing about him is that he’s British.
It’s why I’m not sure what the hell the producers of the Daniel Craig movies are thinking going so much into his past and his origin stories and whatnot. The fact that he’s so much a blank slate is, it seems to me, kind of the point.
Politics-wise… the early James Bond books are absolutely blatant in being a British Imperialist’s fantasy played out against the changes of the modern world. Like, several orders of magnitude worse than the worst of Tom Clancy’s author screeds. Interestingly, Bond rarely leaves the West or its protectorates, and the bulk of his enemies are themselves Westerners – unions bosses, nouveau riche, villains with black or Irish backgrounds, e.g. the kind of up and comers who were upsetting the Proper Order of How Things Ought To Be, and who (in the book) are all, of course, agents of Moscow. But the later books dropped that stuff in favor of a new, stateless terrorist enemy (SPECTRE)… and the movies have largely stuck with that approach, which I think is part of the appeal. The typical Bond villain has no national or ideological loyalties or motivations beyond making money, basically being a generic super-gangster. It helps to tone down the worst of the politics from the books. No one identifies with the villain, so no one gets offended when Bond inevitably knocks him off for Queen and Country.
Surprised at the hate for Dalton – I liked both his movies and he’s probably my favorite other than Connery. But eh, to each his own.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
This is actually the spy genre in a nutshell. The number of fictional “spies” I can think of whose work actually consists of spying is close to zero. James Bond, as you point out, is an assassin – same with all of his rip-offs. The Impossible Missions Force, MacGyver, Michael Westen et all aren’t spies either – saboteurs, con artists, escape artists, thieves, but not spies.
I love the movie “Traitor” with Don Cheadle in no small part because it is about a spy – a person who’s embedded in a terrorist organization and has to patiently wait until he finally gets something useful, like where the next terrorist attack is coming.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
In-universe, it’s actually cool in a meta kind of way if you think of it like this;
1) The Asgard, who come in all colors, used to come to Earth in an area where the population, Vikings, were white.
2) At some point the Asgard stopped coming to Earth, and became myth and legend for the Vikings rather than reality.
3) Since we all create God in our own image, Viking myths and legends came to portray all the Asgard as white, even those like Heimdall who weren’t, in the same way that Jesus in all our representations tends to look vastly more European than the TSA profiling suspect he would’ve been in real life.
LongHairedWeirdo
You know, thinking of Bond makes me think of martinis, and of course, that raises the eternal question.
There’s many a joke about how “dry” a martini should be, up to and including “and the wave the glass in the general direction of Italy” (where vermouth is made).
I had someone come up with an explanation for this. True? Not true? Not sure, but it’s a damn fine story.
Basically, straight gin (or even “gin with an olive plunked in it for ‘sophistication'”) was not a proper gentle-being’s drink, but a *martini* was okay. That’s a *cocktail*, a perfectly acceptable thing for a person of breeding.
And yet – a good gin is a not-bad sipping drink. (And good for what ails you, if what ails you isn’t liver disease and doesn’t require clear thinking.) And thus, an early meme was born.
This truthy probably-not-even-a-factoid brought to you by the Friday after Christmas and a slow day at work.
EthylEster
@Amir Khalid wrote: the franchise’s lamest scripts
How does one identify these? They all seem remarkably lame to me.
someofparts
Since Daniel Craig played the lead in the hideous American remake of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he is off my list of actors to watch.