Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Casino Royale

I went to check out the new James Bond move last night. It really is very good despite its lame theme song and title credits and some longuers in the third act after the poker showdown.

Paul Haggis seemed to have punched the screenplay up a notch or two, and it was fun to see the movie having some fun with Bond's development of the vodka Martini and introduction to the 1964 Aston Martin. There was more than a hint of Basil Exposition (from Austin Powers) though in Giancarlo Giannini's Matthis character's running commentry on the card game, but I suppose that the intricacies of poker are difficult to dramatise.

It also ocurred to me that for the first time in my life, I am older than the actor playing James Bond; an unwelcome intimation of mortality over the popcorn.


A true story: Dave Bond's older brother Jim was born about as late as it was possible to be born and christened "James Bond" without irony. In the late Seventies he and his good friend Paul Newman (I kid you not) were stopped by the police while driving a car with a bust tail light or something equivalently trivial. You can imagine how the incident escalated though when the officer who had flagged them down asked for their names.

"Are you two taking the p.......?"

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