What does that mean?

Nerdy James Bond fans the world over emitted squeals of excitement...or more likely scratched their chin and softly exclaimed, "hmm," with the official announcement of the next James Bond movie, No Time to Die. As you can see from this screen capture, whoever was responsible for writing the press release for the announcement made a boo boo by writing the movie's title as A Day to Die.  There are two possible explanations for this error. It was a typo, or A Day To Die was a title under consideration until No Time To Die was finally selected, and it was in a draft release or on the mind of the writer. 

Whatever the title means, the plot of the film, and the choice of font which looks like it belongs on the cover of a paperback novel from the 1970s, all will be revealed when the film is released in April 2020, when Daniel Craig makes his last appearance as James Bond.  

Set your hopes up way too high

Quad poster for The Living Daylights

Long before the proliferation of suburban multiplexes, and when film piracy was less of a problem, major studios often staggered their biggest film releases around the world. Summer blockbusters released during the northern hemisphere summer were released in the southern hemisphere until the southern hemisphere summer.

The Living Daylights was Timothy Dalton's debut appearance as James Bond. The theme song to the James Bond movie of the same name, performed by Norwegian pop trio A-ha, in Australia it was released months before the movie, which wasn't released there until November 1987. Arguably, this is one of the reasons why it wasn't much of a hit in the Australian singles charts, peaking at number 29 later that same month. It would have made more sense to release the movie and the song simultaneously. It was a bigger hit in the UK, where this was done,  it peaked at number 5.

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/jwjstone/australian_top_50_singles___aria_chart___week_ending_16_august_1987/

It's in the script

Today is Margaret Thatcher Day. Named for the former British Prime Minister, it is commemorated in the Falkland Islands. Until today, I had no idea that this holiday existed. It commemorates the 1982 Falklands War, which was one of the defining events of the Thatcher years.

Pictured at left is a front page headline from The Sun, evocative of the patriotic, gung-ho fervour for the war that was whipped up by British tabloid newspapers.

There was an element of this in the 1997 James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, in which the villain, Elliot Carver, a global media tycoon, attempted to start a war between China and Britain to further his business interests. I dare say this was intentional. That's certainly the first thing I thought of when I watched this scene in the film. In the customary Bond film scene in which the villain explains his evil plot to James Bond, he shows him this headline from one of his own newspapers.

When Carver dies aboard his stealth boat at the end of the movie, M and Moneypenny put out a cover story saying that he was missing at sea, presumed drowned. It's left up to the audience to work out for themselves whether or not this was based on actual events. More astute viewers should have no trouble making these connections.

You make a mistake, my friend

Have you every heard of vidkeo? No, neither have I. It is not even an alternate spelling of video in a language other than English. It also is not how Sean Connery would pronounce the word in his thick Scottish brogue.

If the library that created this catalogue record ever advertises for a cataloguer, and specifies that they need to have excellent attention to detail, I'll binge watch all the mediocre James Bond movies, starting with 1967's You Only Live Twice.

May the road rise up to meet you

Happy St Patrick's Day to any of you who might be reading this, and have any Irish ancestry. Today is a day to celebrate all things Irish, such as Waterford Crystal, Guinness, Irish Stepdance, and the great Dave Allen (1936-2005). 

Contrary to popular belief, Pierce Brosnan was not the first Irishman to play James Bond. Dave Allen actually beat him to it by 19 years. 

I have no armour left

These quizzes are a fun way to break the monotony of a slow day, but I'm not sure how accurate they are. I thought of myself as more of the Timothy Dalton type; cold and slightly aloof, brooding, and serious.

Your results:
You are Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig 50% Timothy Dalton 49% George Lazenby 39% Sean Connery 37% Pierce Brosnan 35% Roger Moore 29% The sixth actor to play Bond in the movies is a more realistic, down to earth and not so perfect James Bond, while still being a sexy womanizer. Click here to take the "Which James Bond am I?" quiz...

Matters of the heart

According to a survey conducted by British travel website wotif.com, new James Bond actor Daniel Craig is among womens' top ten Valentine's Day dream dates. So, women evidently have a thing for craggy looking, deep voiced men in their thirties? There's hope for me yet. I've never seen the point of Valentine's Day myself. The cynic in me says that it's contrived by the retail industry to fill a flat spot in their calendar. According to that well known source of reliable information, Wikipedia, it originated as a pagan holiday in ancient Rome, and is also significant as the day on which the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred in 1929 in Chicago.

If you're married or otherwise attached, why is there is a need to have one day out of the entire year where you express your feelings for your significant other by buying them things? Since when has love become a commodity, exploited for commercial gain? Surely love can be expressed throughout the year, in a multitude of ways, I would have thought. Then again, what would I know?

You know the name, you know the number

My brother Scott and I went to see the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale, over the weekend, and we were both suitably impressed. This is the first outing of the new Bond, British actor Daniel Craig. Based on Ian Fleming's first Bond novel of the same name, we see Bond going on his first mission. The villainous Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) is a private financier of international terrorism. In order to shut down this terrorist network, Bond is sent by M (Dame Judi Dench), head of MI6, to beat him in a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale, Montenegro, with his stake provided by the British Treasury. Treasury official Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is sent to supervise Bond and watch over the government's money. As Bond and Lynd survive numerous attempts on their lives by Le Chiffre and his henchmen, they develop a mutual attraction that leads them both into further danger, and fateful events that are instrumental in making Bond what he would later become.

After the bloated action spectaculars of the Pierce Brosnan era, director Martin Campbell's grittier, more realistic character-driven approach is refreshing, hearkening back to earlier Bond films like From Russia With Love (1963), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Licence to Kill (1989). Thanks to a great performance from Craig, who has surely made his detractors eat their words, this time Bond is portrayed as a believable human being, with flaws and emotional depth beneath his cold, ruthless exterior, and not a suave caricature. The longest running franchise in film history has been successfully reinvented. One hopes that the producers will keep to this approach, and not revert to the well-worn formula of megalomaniacs with plots for world domination.

Licence Renewed

Over the weekend I relented and saw the film based on the book that everyone's talking about, The Da Vinci Code. Four weeks after its release, it's still one of the top movies at the Australian box office, and the novel is still at the top of the bestseller lists three years after it was originally released. Much has been written critiquing both Brown's book and exploring the reasons for its popularity, so there's little point in adding my opinions about these issues.

The film is almost a page for page adaptation of the book. While I don't think it's particularly well written, and must obviously take issue with its historical innacuracies and theological distortions, I found it worked well as a suspense thriller, even if some of the plot twists were predictable. Alfred Hitchcock's reputation as the master of suspense is safely intact.

I could have waited for the DVD, but the main reason why I wanted to see this film on the big screen was to see the teaser trailer for the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. This will be the first outing of the new Bond, British actor Daniel Craig. Based on the Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it will explore Bond's origins. We will see Bond as a raw recruit to MI6, earning his licence to kill and going on his first mission. After the bloated action spectaculars of the Pierce Brosnan era, director Martin Campbell is aiming to take the franchise back to its grittier, more realistic roots. All the usual Bond ingredients of Martinis, girls, and guns will still be intact, but this time in more subdued fashion. Hopefully this will mean more character development and exploration of the Bond psyche. Although I enjoy most of the Bond movies, most of the time he's portrayed as a cardboard cutout rather than a real human being. As a Bond fan I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out, and seeing Craig's interpretation of the character. He's copped a pasting from some Bond fans for not being suitable for the part, most of whom have probably never seen any of his previous work. I'm hopeful that come December, when the film is released, we'll be pleasantly surprised by his efforts.