50 Years of Bond, James Bond

[MachineGhost]

Fifty years ago, at the dawn of the commercial-jet age, James Bond strode into movie history, to show audiences how stylish and thrilling life could be. But creating the cinematic Bond was fraught with peril, as best-selling author Ian Fleming discovered when he first tried to take his hero to the screen. David Kamp recalls the unlikely team—two small-time producers, a journeyman director, and a “rough diamond”? of a star—behind 007’s film debut, Dr. No, the beginning of a $5 billion franchise.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... james-bond

[Ad Orientem]

Sean Connery will always be James Bond. That said I did chuckle a bit at the Bond skit done for the Olympics' opening ceremony. The Queen was a good sport to play along with that.

[MachineGhost]

Sean Connery will always be James Bond. That said I did chuckle a bit at the Bond skit done for the Olympics' opening ceremony. The Queen was a good sport to play along with that.

I grew up on watching Moore and Dalton.  Then after I read all of the books, I felt the Brosnan era was the best in reflecting the darkness.  Moore now seems like a comical caricuture in hindsight and Connery seemed to me to be surprisingly bland, not at all like his older, rascible acting self?  I think the current Craig era reflects the books even more, but he seems to lack any kind of offsetting personality that made the Bond movies so amusing to watch.  When M (Dench) has a more interesting personality than Bond, that can't be a good sign...

[MachineGhost]

[align=center][/align]

[MachineGhost]

Conscious of having to mark the half century of Bond without compromising the pure adrenaline rush of entertainment, Skyfall’s director (Sam Mendes, born anno Thunderball, 1965) has packed the movie so full of memories that watching it almost feels like experiencing the whole cycle of the films from the time when JFK (predictably an Ian Fleming fan) and Harold Macmillan were in power, through the death pangs of the Cold War, and into the age of cyberterrorism. At one point in the new movie Bond unearths his most cherished antique: the Aston Martin DB5 first unveiled in 1964’s Goldfinger. “Not very comfortable, is it?”? complains Judi Dench’s M, who herself has gotten to the point where creature comforts matter: “Where are we going?”? “Back in time,”? replies Daniel Craig’s Bond, looking bony and haunted like the lone gray wolf he has become.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... -bond.html