casino royale COULD be good!?!?

[TheLuckyOne]

sarahbot said:

By the way, does anyone know just how many books Fleming wrote?

Here's what wikipedia has to say:

In January 1952, Ian Fleming began work on his first James Bond novel. At the time, Fleming was the Foreign Manager for Kemsley Newspapers, an organisation owned by the London Sunday Times. Upon accepting the job, Fleming asked that he be allowed two months vacation per year. Every year thereafter until his death in 1964, Fleming would retreat for the first two months of the year to his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye, to write a James Bond novel.

Between 1953 and 1966, twelve James Bond novels and two short story collections by Fleming were published, with one novel and one short story collection issued posthumously. To this day, it is still debated whether Fleming himself actually finished 1965's The Man with the Golden Gun, as he died very soon after completing the book. His first anthology of short stories, For Your Eyes Only, mostly consisted of converted screenplays for a CBS television series based on the character. When the project fell through, Fleming turned them into short stories: (i) "From a View to a Kill", (ii) "For Your Eyes Only", (iii) "Risico", plus two additional stories, "The Hildebrand Rarity" and "Quantum of Solace", which were previously published. The second anthology, Octopussy and The Living Daylights (in many editions titled only Octopussy), originally only contained two short stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights"; a third story, "The Property of a Lady" was added in the 1967 paperback edition, and a fourth, "007 in New York", was added in 2002.

1953 Casino Royale
1954 Live and Let Die
1955 Moonraker
1956 Diamonds Are Forever
1957 From Russia with Love
1958 Dr. No
1959 Goldfinger
1960 For Your Eyes Only
1961 Thunderball
1962 The Spy Who Loved Me
1963 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1964 You Only Live Twice
1965 The Man with the Golden Gun
1966 Octopussy and The Living Daylights

-D

[PoolMan]

One a year for fourteen years straight? SOMEbody sure loved NaNoWriMo!

[sirgallahad2]

Casino Royale COULD be goood? Casino Royale WAS freakin good!!!!! They are re-booting the james bond story kind of like they did Batman with "Batman Begins" It's why Bond is sporting cell phones and satellite commo and why Judy Dench is "M". Put Sean Connery on the mantle as the one and true Bond. Daniel Craig did SO good as Bond. The movie was entertaining. Usually Bond is suave and comes out of the fights unscathed. daniel Craig's Bond gets scuffed up regularly in this movie. All around frickin awesome.

[sarahbot]

I enjoyed it. Not what I'd think of as a traditional Bond movie, but I think it's the better for it. I really liked Vesper Lynd too. First, she's absolutely stunning, and second, she may be an accountant but she's not Buttercup, going "oh dear, oh dear, what to do" while Bond's being attacked.
I like Daniel Craig as Bond. A lot. And the chase scene in Madagascar was amazing. Some parts were very good green screen, but I don't know about the rest - a lot of it looked very real.
Go see it! You'll enjoy it. And the final shot is fantastic - I don't want to say anything about it, because it was one of my favourite bits, but rest assured it's fun.

Oh, and there's no point staying until the end of the credits. It says "JAMES BOND WILL RETURN", but nothing about which film they're doing next.

[ronzo]

I saw it, and I think it's fantastic. It's grittier and yet more fun than the other recent Bond outings. I must say, I'm quite enthusiastic about Craig's future Bond films.

[eatmyshorts]

Yeah, I thought it was pretty awesome. The scene at the beginning was very cool.

[Hilasophy]

Question: casino royale could be good?

Answer: Yes. But it wasn't. I liked Vesper...and I didn't even mind Bond (which is was a great feat considering I am not the biggest Daniel Craig fan.) But it was just so boring. I hoped they would have revamped Bond like they did Batman. When I say "they" I just mean Hollywood. Oh well. Maybe next time.

[sarahbot]

Question. With Bond girls' "clever" names, does Vesper Lynd = West Berlin? A friend of mine brought this up and now I can't stop thinking of it. It sounds way too similar to be a coincidence.

[StarOpal]

I really liked it. Though it went on a little too long I think, especially towards the end. I always make allowances for that kind of thing in the first movie (that's the way I approached it anyway) in a series since they have to establish the players and rules. I think it was smart to go a different, and grittier, direction with the Bond movies.

I thought Daniel Craig was really good, but I'm going to have to get used to seeing him as Bond. Really fits the tone they're going for. And I like the fact that James Bond shows some marks after a fight.

I will say I watched the torture sequence through my fingers.

[sarahbot]

staropal said:

I will say I watched the torture sequence through my fingers.

Me too. Owwwwwwwww. Also, they clearly hired the lighting guys who know what they're doing.

[Spiderdancer]

We saw it this weekend. I'm a little torn on this one. I went into it ready to dislike it. And I have to admit, it was much better than I'd been expecting from either a)a Bond movie or b)Daniel Craig. I like the reversion to Fleming's sociopathic angry Bond, I like the chase scene wherein Bond DOESN'T have the uber physical skills, and I liked Vesper Lynd for not being a typical Bond girl. (I notice the masculine apparel didn't last to long. I think she has one pair of pants the entire movie.)

The trouble is that the gambling section in the middle kind of drags on. I could really care less who has a straight flush, and you can shout "TEN MILLION DOLLARS!" through the whole movie and it's not going to change that at all.

Sib1 and I spent a lot of time this weekend telling each other, "Daniel Craig is hot!" though. In the torture scene when le Chiffre says, "You've taken good care of your body, Mr. Bond," I'm positive one or both of us muttered, "Oh, YEAH."

I should probably just write a review, but I was waiting for Kyle to go first and get the Bond lovin' out of the way.

[StarOpal]

spiderdancer said:

Sib1 and I spent a lot of time this weekend telling each other, "Daniel Craig is hot!" though. In the torture scene when le Chiffre says, "You've taken good care of your body, Mr. Bond," I'm positive one or both of us muttered, "Oh, YEAH."

Definitely.

Before the torture I was thinking, "He fills out a shirt pretty well." If ya know what I mean. Then it was like, "Forget the shirt! (or anything else)" Which is a strange thought to have during a torture scene, but oh well.

One other thing I liked was the foot chases. And the car wreck was a thing of beauty. (One guy in the theater let out this awful groan and whispered, "Not the car." Pretty funny.)

[TheLuckyOne]

spiderdancer said:

I should probably just write a review, but I was waiting for Kyle to go first and get the Bond lovin' out of the way.

When I spoke with Justin last week, I think he said Kyle already sent one in, so you're probably safe.

Meanwhile, I heard Bond's car is an Aston Martin, rather than the vintage Bentley of the book. True?

Man, I've really gotta see this one. Maybe tomorrow night when Lady Luck's got grad school.

-D

[Spiderdancer]

Nah, the Aston Martin is sort of a throwaway joke. He spends most of the movie in a Ford (looks up model) Mondeo, believe it or not.

[Spiderdancer]

theluckyone said:

When I spoke with Justin last week, I think he said Kyle already sent one in, so you're probably safe.

Review sent.