My man Daniel Craig… no I mean Daniel Krause aka Dark Meat aka Ladies Love Dark M joins me on the podcast today to talk about CASINO ROYALE aka James Bond 21.
It’s a long one – an hour and twenty! Almost as long as the film itself and we didn’t spend anywhere NEAR the $150 million they did.
On the show we talk about our reactions to the film, the production costs and current box office returns, the plot, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Caterina Murino, Sir Richard Branson, the producers, the screenwriters, parkour… hell we just don’t know when to quit!
I hope you enjoy it (and live long enough to get to the end).
So you guys like this Bond movie because it’s not a movie from the Bond genre. Even Dan K said he wished that ‘all references to Bond – even the name (!!!) – were removed’.
Well in that case this would not be a Bond movie but a ‘whatever the name’ movie (how about spy-the-man!?)…like the Bourne movies or Mission Impossible movies.
Bond movies are a genre in themselves. So what’s in this genre you might ask?
Well…first there is crazy plot to take over the world (laundering and investing guerilla walords’ money is not a big plot).
Then there are tons of gadgets. And defibrillators are not cute gadgets…every flying 747 has one…ok it’s new in an Aston Martin. Big deal, right!?
Then there is lots of ACTION. Where was the action in Casino Royale? Parkour at the beginning…great stuff. Well covered by Cam in the podcast. Then not much…not even a car chase…the drive (wasn’t a chase, really) was lame. Then only a bit of action in Venice…compare that to ‘Tomorrow never dies’ or ‘Die another day’…actually you cannot compare the action stuff with these 2 movies.
Fun lines – hardly any!?
Bond girls – one plays the role of an accountant…that’s very sexy…an accoutant sitting at the bar alone…so sexy that no-one comes and talks to her…yeah right!
What about the poker game with no real tension! what a poor job really!
I also think that Daniel Craig does a great job. However he is the wrong cast. Not because he is blond with blue eyes…but because he is not refined enough. Maybe as the baddy or as the new face of the new rugged spy-the-man agent…
Now of course Bond movies are not perfect movies either. They can be predictable, sexist, unrealistic, etc. But that’s exactly the genre.
Thanks for a great review though – I enjoyed it and that’s what matters here…leads to conversation. Keep up the good work!
Hey Dude,
Have you thought about merging the Movie show into G’day World (officially)? You do both and why not make the movie show another category of the GW line up? I guess it gives you more freedom to talk about movies (not that you need it) without feeling like your clobbering your other show.
Just a thought.
Molly
CD, CD, CD…. what do the French know about Bond movies? Sheesh. We won’t tell you how to make cheese. Don’t come and tell us English speakers what Bond is all about! Next you’ll tell us Daniel Auteuil should play the role!
Molly – yeah thought about it. What about the productivity show and the advaita show? Merge them as well?
Well, I might be bias but I would say the Productivity show yes, but Advaita I would leave out on its own, it seems to have a very strong show on its own but thats just my opinion.
Molly
Casino Royale was frigging awesome.
I really don’t want to compare it to most of the past Bond films, because it’s trying to do something new. In a sense it’s trying to do the book version of Bond, sort of like they tried to do with Dalton’s second film, but they’ve done it a hell of a lot better and, importantly, I think today’s audience resonates with that style better. Conversely, with that second Dalton film, the audience of the day just couldn’t handle it. I thought it was fantastic, myself.
CD is right insofar as saying there’s a Bond film genre… but it was disappearing so far up its own arse, it needed to be saved. Case in point: I think Brosnan is a GREAT Bond, but my favourite film of his remains Goldeneye because, after that, they just kept trying to top themselves and the movies just got sillier and sillier and further away from the book character. This return to form in CR has me really excited for the next film.
And yes, I was a Daniel Craig doubter. Being a bit of a Bond fan, I could totally see what they were trying to do by making a grittier kind of Bond, but I was never going to be sure until I saw him on screen, doing the do. And man, when I finally saw it just after Xmas, he did it well.
Hey Cam…you are so 19th century…French this, French that…this is a new world now. In this new world that I thought you were advocating (sic)…everyone can express and publish opinions, right!?
Why restricts people to their origins???
At least I can appreciate this stuff in its original language…whereas you go pontificating about Proust which I presume you cannot read in French…lost in translation mate!
hehe yeah but it’s fun stirring you up mate. 🙂
You mentioned that keira knightly was a good reason to rent out a movie. Have you seen the hole? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242527/
it has 16 yo keira knightly boobies in it… not that I’m into that sort of thing…
Its actually a fairly solid movie too. It has a good dose of dark and disturbing.
If you haven’t seen it and want to compare the bad film adaptation of a game (Doom) to a good one, then check out Silent Hill.
I watched it not realising that it was based on a game thinking to myself that it was very game-like in its plot curve and then saw the making of and everything made sense. I never played the game (obviously) but Colin’s son David has and he loved it. Now I want to hunt it down.
Ah, Mim… always first with the celebrity skin updates.
who me? I don’t know where you get that idea 🙂
ooooh no I havent heard of that before, I’ll have to check it out! The Hole, that is.
Glad you’re back Mim. 🙂
CD, to respond to your Bond problems seriously… while those elements of the Bond films you mentioned somehow crept into the franchise, they certainly weren’t part of the Bond books, which were about a smooth spy. The rest of the stuff just became a cliché. Hey does the word cliché come from Clichy? 🙂
Hey, now you’re just cribbing off things I said earlier 😉