The Next Incarnation of Bond
The James Bond franchise is amazing. And not necessarily for the right reasons. Of the twenty-five official movies, I’d posit there’s only one truly great film – From Russian With Love. It’s a grounded spy thriller with brilliant performances from Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, and Lotte Lenya. Then the series becomes more gimmicky, which irked Connery, and which the Roger Moore era truly embraced – perhaps to accommodate an era were movies were growing sensational in their storytelling. Of the other twenty-four movies, I’d suggest there’re a handful of good ones, and the rest are middling, forgettable, and – in some cases – terrible. I grew up when Roger Moore…
A Look Back: James Bond
Ian Fleming’s James Bond was a burned out, hard drinking, womanizing secret agent who was a spy for MI6, had a license to kill, and fought the independent organization known as SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion). He lived in this cool (from a creative standpoint) Cold War era when the threat of nuclear between the US and Russia seemed imminent, and everybody was paranoid about spying. Being British, Bond was also the gentleman’s spy – knowledgeable, seductive, and always charming. He always felt more cultured than those he was investigating. The first Bond movie, Dr. No, screened in 1962 and starred Sean Connery as Bond. Connery…