Casino Royale thread (open spoilers after p 4)

Cafe Society
101

On a lighter note.
During the fuel tanker section it looked like Bond (or more likely just the stuntman) was wearing white socks.

Anyone else notice this?
That seemed very un-Bond.
Surely Bond only wears white socks for tennis?

I’m going to see the movie again this week so I’ll see if I was mistaken or not.

The socks and the title sequence aside, I couldn’t think of anything else with which to fault the movie. Although in saying that I thought all the Bond actors had a good ‘first’ movie, even Lazenby.

102

You’ve chosen… poorly.

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103

I thought of this too. Does the villian grab-shoot in one motion, so that he wouldn’t notice before the click, or is it just pretty bad?

104

I thought he opened the drawer where the gun was at the beginning of the sequence, but didn’t grab it until the moment he meant to shoot Bond.

105

I like to think of it this way: Perhaps you keep a gun in your desk drawer, but have only ever touched it once, when you bought it, and placed it there. Since you’ve never had the opportunity to use it, you have never set a baseline as to its weight, so when you pick it up, it is only the second time it’s ever been handled by you, so the change in weight doesn’t register.

Yes; I often come up with elaborate, but plausible schemes in my heat to smooth out the inconsistencies in movies (and life too!).

106

In my head. Plausible schemes in my head. I previewed too.

107

I have recently watched every single James Bond movie (I didn’t have much going on in September.) and I have to say that Casino Royale is the best of the lot. When Daniel Craig was cast, I responded by arching first one eyebrow, then the other, then both eyebrows simultaneously. I didn’t like the idea one bit. But I was so terribly wrong. Craig was every bit as good as Connery ever was. This movie was so great, I was able to laugh at the ridiculously bad poker, even when the CIA guy said:

“I’m going to stake you. What I mean is, I’ll give you more money so you can keep playing.” Thanks for explaining that!

Like everyone else, I thought the first chase scene was one of the greatest action scenes ever put on film. Also like everyone else, I thought a lot of the ending could have ended on the cutting room floor. But at least a lot of exposition is out of the way, so the next movie can be that much more awesome and start with a Bond who has learned that it will always just be him against the world, and he can be even more of a badass than he was in this one. I’m positively giddy with excitement.

And I read a column by a film reviewer (no cite handy) that advocated Sean Connery playing a villain in a future Bond movie. I think that this would easily be the greatest movie in history. Who’s with me? How do we start a petition?

Well, that’s all I have to say right now. I’m going to see this thing again real soon, since I was in the very front row of the theater all the way to the left of the row, and I’m mighty curious as to what was happening on the right side of the screen. I’ll probably chime in here again afterwards.

108

My cousin has been praying for this since he got into Bond (90s, he’s young).

That would probably be the greatest thing to ever happen in the history of cinema.

109

I saw it last night.
Dark, very dark. Darker even then the early Bonds.
What struck me is that this film is a restart of the entire franchise. This is not a continuation of the prior films, but rather a fresh start in the present day. DC becoming Bond with Judy Dench as M. For sure not a precursor to Doctor No, but rather Bond has been transported 40 some odd years into the future where the franchise starts all over again.
In this context it seems like the entire movie makes sense. We see Bond as hard, then soft then hard again.
I liked it.
I loved the final shot Bond, James Bond

Question This makes just how many Felix Leighter’s in the series?

110

Seven

Dr. No: Jack Lord
Goldfinger: Cec Linder
Thunderball: Rik Van Nutter
Diamonds are Forever: Normann Burton
Live and Let Die & Licence to Kill: David Hedison
The Living Daylights: JohnTerry
Casino Royale: Jeffrey Wright

And unofficially, Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again.

111

I had forgotten all about Jack Lord. Book em Dano!
Thanks.

112

Mayo Speaks, yeah, I quoted MT3K: “Thank you, Mr. Exposition”.

113

I’ve thought that for over a decade now. My idea (which might need a little tweaking with this latest film, but maybe not), would be that Connory is a retired agent, who’s cover name was “James Bond.” Connory’s character’s bitter about what’s happened in the world since he left the service and is intending to set up an assassination operation where he whacks people on all sides he happens to think are aiding the decline of society. He’s also not very concerned about “collateral damage” (i.e. Osama’s secretly hiding out in a village, Connory just has the whole thing blown up.). You could have such great lines as Connory saying to his henchmen, “If you find Bond, just shoot the bastard. Try and capture him and he’ll just escape.” You could call the film The Ties That Bond.

Oh, apparently, when the books first came out, people criticized the character as being “gay.” No doubt the franchise wouldn’t have lasted this long if they’d cast Fleming’s choice for Bond, David Niven.

114

I really dug this film, which is nice, as MrWhatsit and I don’t get the chance to go out to to the movies much these days, so I always appreciate it when one of our rare outings turns out to be a truly first-rate flick. Which, IMHO, this was. I loved Daniel Craig as Bond. I’d not seen him in anything else and didn’t know what to expect, but he brought a steely coldness to the role that I think was really lacking in some of the other portrayals.

As I told MrWhatsit afterward, I knew we were in for a quality film in one of the very opening scenes:

When Bond is making his 2nd kill to achieve 00 status, and his intended victim says, “Don’t worry, the second one is–” blam In a crappy, or even mediocre movie, Bond would have finished the sentence. Instead, he just replies to it. I thought that was a nice touch.

I too could have done without the schmoopy woo-woo over-extended romantic interlude towards the end. It’s Bond. We know he’s not going to kick off to Italy and live in domestic bliss for the rest of his life; so let’s get on with it. I could just barely buy him falling in love with this girl, since he is a relatively new 00 agent and they’d just gone through some pretty traumatic stuff together, but come on, let’s get the show on the road here.

I haven’t seen anyone mention the music – except for the opening song, which I agree could have been a little better – but I liked how the “James Bond” theme only appeared in the actual film as a little subtle undercurrent in a few places, never overtly. They didn’t bust out the big brass-pounding Bond theme until the final credits were rolling.

There were massive groans in our theater when Bond rolled the Aston Martin, too. It’s just hard to see a beautiful car like that turned into a piece of slag metal. Sigh. I mean, you know Bond is going to come out of it okay, but the car… the car!

Anyway. As I said, overall a first-rate film.

115

It’s not as much the weight as it is the balance. Even if I had never handled a particular semi-auto I would know that it was unloaded as soon as I picked it up. With a loaded gun most of the weight is in your hand. Unloaded, it’s mostly out in front of your hand. Unmistakable. And while the “quick draw” explanation might suffice for the villain in Casino Royale (although I still don’t buy it, because he was obviously an experienced killer,) it doesn’t work for Bond in Die Another Day, as he takes the empty gun out from under his pillow, carries it in his waistband, draws it and holds it on the villain for maybe 30 seconds before pulling the trigger.

116

At least poker makes a bit more sense than being a “top notch” baccarat player. I never quite understood how Bond always seemed to win in a game where the entirety of the player’s involvement is to say “banker”, “player” or “tie”.

I liked the simplicity and reality of the plot and the general lack of wacky gadgets. No villians with phony mountains and moon bases and hundreds of henchmen willing to die for no particular reason. No pens with acid reservoirs or cigarette guns, or cars with ejection seats. The biggest tricks were a homing/medical implant and a car with a fancy first aid kit.

Favorite moments:
Inital chase scene, where the acrobat jumps through a hole in the wall, and Bond creates his own hole in the wall. Right then and there you know this is not a Roger Moore kind of Bond.

The car crash, sort of like the VW commercials where it comes completely out of nowhere, I’m expecting a nice long car chase, and WHAMMO there it goes.

Favorite moments only in my head:
When the poker game was AGAIN being explained by Mathis to Vesper, she says “Yes, it’s $10 million on the table, I can add, you know. Part of the whole accountant thing.”

117

It’s worse than that – they totalled three cars to get that sequence.

118

I loved when, at the end of the poker game, Bond tipped the dealer half a million dollars.

119

Aiee! weeps

You know, the Texas Hold’Em thing kind of bugged me. I’ve never actually played poker, but I’ve seen enough movies to understand the basic rules. So I thought I was following the game okay until the dealer started switching cards out after each player showed their hand. MrWhatsit had to give me a sotto voce rules explanation. Not everybody in the world knows the rules of hold ‘em poker, for cripes’ sake.

120

Hubby and I saw it this past Saturday. We, too, do not go out see a movie very often. We were both very pleased with the result. I couldn’t take my eyes of Daniel Craig and he’s not even my type. He has that same animal magnetism as Sean Connery.

Favorite scene - initial chase scene

Pulled out of reality moment - villan leaves his inhaler on a table and walks off. An ex of mine had major asthma and would never have done this

As far as I could tell, all of the breasts in this movie were real. That was refreshing.