WSJ: Director Cary Joji Fukunaga on Directing NTTD

Pretty extensive article on Fukunaga, but worth a read. Copied and pasted here so that you can read it past the paywall and gripe about this film as usual.

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CARY JOJI FUKUNAGA always envisioned a cinematic ending to his first mega-budget film: After completing No Time to Die—the 25th installment of the $16 billion James Bond franchise—the acclaimed writer-director would disappear into darkness. What Fukunaga didn’t foresee, however, was how long his fade-to-black would last or that his blockbuster-in-waiting would also remain hidden from view.

Back in late February, as he raced to complete post-production on No Time to Die, Fukunaga was planning to reward himself with a darkness retreat in Germany. “I mean, what else do you do, as a semi-introvert, after almost two straight years working under pressure? Obviously, live in complete darkness and isolation,” he says. After overseeing a massive production that spanned five countries on two continents, Fukunaga was looking forward to filling his days with meditation and creative visualization in a lightless cavern. In a state of sensory deprivation, attendees of the retreat often talk to themselves, he says. “A lot of people that do, face their demons. I would, I think.”

In that sense, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has changed everything, changed little. Instead of a 10-day sojourn in Germany, Fukunaga, 43, took refuge at his house in a rural corner of New York’s Hudson Valley for five months. While this wasn’t the coda he had foreseen, it was fitting. “The filmmaking process so mimics a life,” Fukunaga says. “You start off by yourself and you end by yourself, despite all the craziness in the middle.”

When we first met at Goldcrest Post Production in the Soho section of London in early February, Fukunaga was already tracking the virus’s spread. He soon realized Covid-19 was going to be a global tragedy and discussed the uncertainty with the film’s actors. “All of us felt like, as with a lot of filmmaking, you can’t really make plans for the future,” Fukunaga says. “You wait and see what happens.”

They didn’t have to wait long. On March 4, less than a week before Italy imposed its national lockdown, it was announced that No Time to Die was being pushed from April to November. When Fukunaga heard the news, “there were a couple of hours of F—, it’s not happening,” he says. “And then pretty quickly, I mentally moved on.... I was at peace with it.” The decision was made by the producers and the studio executives, which suited Fukunaga just fine. “I think they made a very smart decision to be one of the first to say out loud, ‘This is a big thing. We’re moving the film,’” he says. “Because a lot of people were in denial. Some still are.”

Six months later, with the world still besieged by Covid-19, there is as much fear as fanfare surrounding the release of Fukunaga’s first Bond film. The buzz around the early trailers and the release of Billie Eilish’s title track has faded. Most major movies have shifted to 2021 or gone straight to video on demand or streaming. And No Time to Die is no different. In early October, the film was delayed once again to April 2021. When No Time to Die does finally brave a theatrical release, it will be one of the biggest and, as Daniel Craig’s final turn as Bond, arguably have the most at stake.

And it’s possible the movie moves again. “I think there’s always the potential of that,” Fukunaga says. “I look at it unemotionally right now.... There are so many bigger things happening. I have friends who are losing businesses, restaurants, and other friends who have lost family members.”

Ultimately, whenever it is released, the movie’s fate is beyond Fukunaga’s control. “The film will come out when it’s right,” he says, “and it will perform in the context of this new world, in which no one really can define what success or failure means.”

“IT HAS BEEN LIKE living on adrenaline for a year and a half,” says Fukunaga, back in February, of making his inaugural action film, a 20-month endurance race run at sprinter’s pace. Clad in slouchy black jeans, Birkenstock slip-ons and a tan pullover sweater, with his often conversation-worthy hair tucked into a maroon knit cap, Fukunaga exudes the same preternatural calm he displayed on set. “I think Cary’s heart beats at 40 beats a minute. He’s like a marathon runner,” Craig says. “Nothing seems to knock him down. I’m just so impressed by the way he motored through.”

The film’s teaser trailer—which aired during the Super Bowl to an audience of 102 million in the U.S. alone—features Bond, chased from either end of a high bridge by villains, jumping off the span, clinging only to a cable that might or might not be moored. It’s a fair representation of the headlong plunge that Fukunaga, beset by the rigors of a production in flux and his own recent string of stymied film projects, took diving into this film even before Covid-19 entered the frame.

For an art-house darling such as Fukunaga, the stakes and scale were of Brobdingnagian proportions. MGM spent an estimated $5.7 million to air the 30-second Super Bowl spot—roughly equal to the entire budget of Fukunaga’s last feature, 2015’s Beasts of No Nation. For Bond, Fukunaga was given more than 40 times as much—a reported $250 million—with similarly elevated expectations. (Earning anything less than $1 billion globally would have widely been seen as a disappointment before Covid-19.) “It didn’t seem like it was $250 million, I’ll tell you that much,” says Fukunaga with a laugh. “We still have the same concerns. You’re always cutting stuff.”

Ultimately finances were the least of the pressures. Bond movies are events, loaded with the expectations of a fan base built over six decades. As much as the franchise is buoyed by legacy, it’s also burdened by it. Consider the titular hero in 2020: an aging white male steeped in misogyny making his first appearance since the emergence of the #MeToo movement. And it’s hard not to reconsider this brutish rogue agent with a license to kill in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by law enforcement officers.

In addition, Fukunaga was not the first director attached to the project. The franchise’s producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, previously enlisted Academy Award winner Danny Boyle but abruptly parted ways with him in August 2018, citing creative differences, which reportedly included disagreement over whether to kill off the venerable 007. Rather than shut down the production, the producers decided to plow forward, in part to keep Craig on board for one last ride in the Aston Martin.

Desperate circumstances called for a desperate director. Improbably, and despite being legitimately in demand, Fukunaga—the wunderkind who dazzled Sundance with 2009’s Sin Nombre and made the haunting Jane Eyre in 2011—fit the bill. His recent filmography reads like a ghost history. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s It but, due to differences with the studio, didn’t end up directing it as planned. Other projects, too, were rumored but failed to materialize. It’s now been nearly a decade since his last actual box-office film (Beasts of No Nation, which was bought by Netflix, received only a limited theatrical release). In between, Fukunaga sojourned on the small screen, sometimes to great critical and popular acclaim (he won the best director Emmy for his work on the first season of HBO’s True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) and sometimes less so (the 2018 Netflix miniseries Maniac, starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill). Along the way, Fukunaga, who is by his own admission extremely meticulous and detail-oriented, got a reputation in some quarters as inflexible and unwilling to compromise. Almost as soon as filming began on No Time to Die, Craig suffered a serious ankle injury that required surgery and threw the already compressed schedule into chaos. Fukunaga viewed the numerous constraints as a puzzle and ultimately an aid. “You just gotta make something cool with it—like Iron Chef, right?” he says. “It’s much better to know what your limitations are than to have infinite possibilities, especially if you have limited time.”

Despite the film’s unyielding parameters, its producers saw Fukunaga’s exacting nature as an asset. “He’s a perfectionist, but that’s what you want,” says Broccoli. “He far exceeded anyone’s expectations. He’s made probably one of the best Bond films ever.... He’s delivered a film on an epic scale, but it also has a tremendous, tremendous intimacy.... It’s a classic Bond movie but also a Cary Fukunaga film.”

Craig credits Fukunaga for making the actor’s swan song both satisfying and complex. “What I think he’s achieved—which is wonderful and a dream of mine—is to make it into a thriller,” Craig says. “Yes, it has all of the things you need in a Bond movie but also is very affecting. You only have to look at Cary’s other stuff to know he wants psychological depth in his work.”

The other defining characteristic of Fukunaga’s work is a sense of authenticity. His fiction often delivers documentary-like accuracy, and even the surrealism of Maniac was informed by his studying psychology and pharmacology. In preparation for No Time to Die, Fukunaga insisted on speaking to CIA, MI5 and MI6 field operatives. “Cary’s a sponge for information,” says Idris Elba, who starred in Beasts of No Nation. “He peels the onion and gets really layered and textured in his films.” Shooting that film in Ghana, Fukunaga assembled a cast with a number of first-time child actors and former soldiers and mercenaries. Amid the rigors of shooting, he contracted malaria. “Even when he was sick and being advised to stop,” Elba recalls, “he kept going.” In addition to writing, directing and producing, Fukunaga served as cinematographer. “His simple thing,” Elba says, “was, ‘When I’m looking through the viewfinder, I can just see the truth a lot better.’ ”

By most accounts, however, Fukunaga requires some effort to reveal himself. “I consider him a great collaborator and dear friend,” says Rami Malek, who plays the archvillain Safin in No Time to Die. “I can usually lock people down, and he’s one that is still a bit of a mystery to me. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.”

Fukunaga was born in Oakland, California, to a Swedish-American mother and a Japanese-American father who spent his first years in an internment camp. After his parents’ divorce, Fukunaga lived a peripatetic childhood in a variety of locales in Northern California and Mexico. He wrote his first screenplay at 14. Fukunaga majored in history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studied geopolitics and international law at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Grenoble, France, and chased his dream of becoming a professional snowboarder for several years. Following a knee injury, he decided to pursue filmmaking full time. He’d already worked some in the industry, including as a camera production assistant on the music video for Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.” Then, at film school at NYU, Fukunaga won a Student Academy Award for Victoria Para Chino, his Spanish-language short about migrants who died from dehydration, overheating and suffocation in the back of a tractor trailer.

Neither his career choice nor its path has felt preordained or predictable—least of all his pursuit of Bond. When Fukunaga invited Broccoli to drinks in early 2016, he planned to pick up the tab. He was the one who was pitching. He wasn’t an obvious candidate to take the reins of any action franchise, much less one of the longest-running series in film history (and one that had never employed an American director), but he felt ready for something new and big. He also had meetings with executives at Marvel and Lucasfilm, but Bond felt more in his wheelhouse, with greater potential for psychological exploration. “If you think about the films I’ve done, they’re all about orphans, right?” Fukunaga says. “Literally, all of them: Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre, Beasts of No Nation—the characters have all sort of re-created themselves out of a burnt nest. So Bond fit perfectly into that paradigm.”

When the director’s chair for Bond 25, as it was then called, became available again in 2018, Broccoli and Wilson recalled Fukunaga’s interest and offered him the job. “He’s someone who’s been a maverick and taken on difficult projects with great enthusiasm and aplomb,” Broccoli says. “He’s pretty fearless. So he went for it.”

Broccoli and Wilson decided to keep the basic production timetable and the time they’d booked at Pinewood Studios, lest they lose it to Marvel or Disney, but they scrapped Boyle’s script and story. This meant Fukunaga was starting from scratch with a third of the time for preproduction typically needed for a film of this scale. Twenty-hour days were commonplace. “It was going into unknown territory with an unfinished screenplay,” Fukunaga says. “I was writing before and after shoot days, on the weekends, just writing nonstop.” Neal Purvis and Robert Wade also worked on the screenplay, as did Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who added a light, humorous and most of all British touch to the script. She helped give Nomi, the fiery young Double-0 agent played by Lashana Lynch, and Paloma, the neophyte CIA operative portrayed by the Cuban-born actress Ana de Armas, their edge. “It was absolutely essential to Cary that Paloma be strong. He couldn’t tolerate any characters—especially women, considering the history of ‘Bond Girls’—being two-dimensional,” says de Armas. “He called me, said he was writing this part for me and said she’s Cuban and he wanted me to help make her real.”

“He’s this unique breed—uncompromising but also extremely collaborative,” Malek says. “Those two things don’t always coincide.” Fukunaga worked closely with the Oscar winner, inviting his ideas as they shaped his character, making him as threatening, dread-inspiring and panic-inducing as possible.

As we sat in his office at Goldcrest, Fukunaga prepared to show me one final approved scene—a tense meeting between Malek’s Safin and Madeleine, the psychiatrist and Bond love interest played by Léa Seydoux, that showed the ways in which he broke from the Bond formula. “Could you pause for a second?” Fukunaga says. “Do you think we could show him the opening?”

Fukunaga exchanges a look with one of the film’s editors, Tom Cross. It seems clear the sequence is meant to stay under wraps. “I think that’s fine to play,” Fukunaga says, overruling protocol. “This scene just doesn’t make sense without the opening.”

Typically, the pre-title sequences have been throwaway scenes packed with gratuitous chases, violence and sex. And in every Bond film, save the first (which had no pre-title sequence), they feature 007. However, with the opening scene, Fukunaga bucks tradition in every way: It’s slow-paced, visually arresting, subtitled with dialogue in French and entirely Bond-free. Focusing instead on Madeleine’s backstory, the opening is a terrifying episode from her childhood in which Safin, wearing a Japanese Noh mask, kills her mother, pursues Madeleine through the home and hunts her down on a frozen lake. “Some clown chasing a child around the house,” Fukunaga says with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s like I brought back It in the first five minutes of Bond.”

Revisiting this film wasn’t something Fukunaga was tempted to do. Despite the months of Covid-19 downtime, he wasn’t tempted to recut or fiddle in any way. “It wasn’t even a question of urge—we were done as far as the studio was concerned. That was it,” he says. Besides, “all of us were pretty satisfied that what we had was solid.”

Instead, Fukunaga devoted lockdown to work that had lain idle. “Because I wasn’t able to go into a dark cave in Germany, I was in this concentrated state,” he says. “I had the momentum of work mode going.” He threw himself into several scripts. One was Stanley Kubrick’s legendary unproduced 1961 screenplay for Napoleon, which Fukunaga is slated to direct for HBO. He collaborated remotely with Tom Stoppard, who is writing Fukunaga’s long-gestating film about the bombing of Hiroshima. Most recently, Fukunaga has been focused on his work as a producer on Good Joe Bell, a film based on the true story of a father who undertook a walk across America to call attention to the bullying of LGBTQ youth following his gay son Jadin’s suicide. Fukunaga had originally optioned the project with the intention of directing before taking on Bond. “So I’ve been pretty busy through lockdown. I haven’t really had a break yet,” Fukunaga says. It’s mid-August, and he is speaking via Zoom from the Aegean island of Milos. He is in Greece making a short film for a commercial production house. “It’s an opportunity just to shoot again,” he says. “Reuniting with some of my Bond crew and trading stories of how we’ve gotten through the last six months—it’s been pretty great.”

Hypothetically speaking, Fukunaga would be interested in reuniting on another Bond film, or perhaps a series of films introducing the new 007. And Broccoli and Wilson want Fukunaga to return. “He’s certainly someone we’ll work with again,” Wilson says.

In reality, though, Fukunaga’s future with Bond will depend on the film’s reception. “I have never been able to predict how people react to something I’ve made,” Fukunaga says. “It could fly or completely fall. It doesn’t change how I view the film.” Several hot rumored plot points have made their rounds online during Covid-19: Bond is a father! (“I’ve heard those rumors. I can’t confirm or deny anything.”) Bond saves the world from a biological weapon and global pandemic! (“I can’t comment on that either.”) What is clear is that No Time to Die is more a tense psychological thriller than a popcorn flick. “God, I have no idea whether people have an appetite for that or not right now,” Fukunaga says.

Regardless, Fukunaga’s hope is that the movie’s release—whenever that may be—will bring him some emotional closure. “It doesn’t feel like the film’s journey is complete until it’s been shared,” he says. “Until then, it’s a secret.”

Before signing off, Fukunaga reveals another wish for himself and his film. “I’ve never seen it with an audience. I would love to watch it with an audience the first opportunity I get,” he says. “And that will probably be the next time and last time I see it.”

Makeshift Python wrote:

And it’s hard not to reconsider this brutish rogue agent with a license to kill in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by law enforcement officers.

Didn't make it past this sentence.

Hope the rest of the article was neat.

I'll get to this tomorrow at some point. Should be a laugh.

'Back in late February, as he raced to complete post-production on No Time to Die, Fukunaga was planning to reward himself with a darkness retreat in Germany. “I mean, what else do you do, as a semi-introvert, after almost two straight years working under pressure? Obviously, live in complete darkness and isolation,” he says. After overseeing a massive production that spanned five countries on two continents, Fukunaga was looking forward to filling his days with meditation and creative visualization in a lightless cavern. In a state of sensory deprivation, attendees of the retreat often talk to themselves, he says. “A lot of people that do, face their demons. I would, I think.” '

Sweet Jesus. I'm willing to bet Bond directors of old 'unwound' with a bottle of firewater or two, and then began leafing through scripts in search of their next project.

Some strange folk in Hollywood.

Can't help but be deeply cynical about all that *mindfulness* stuff. Relaxation doesn't need a *spiritual dimension* or whatever.

CJB wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

And it’s hard not to reconsider this brutish rogue agent with a license to kill in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by law enforcement officers.

Didn't make it past this sentence.

Hope the rest of the article was neat.

I knew that bit would trigger some of you!

Quote :

And in every Bond film, save the first (which had no pre-title sequence), they feature 007. However, with the opening scene, Fukunaga bucks tradition in every way: It’s slow-paced, visually arresting, subtitled with dialogue in French and entirely Bond-free.

Unlike, say, FRWL, LALD & TMWTGG?

Whoever wrote this must have read my treatise on "How to Write a Professional Bond Film Review."

If you want to get more technical, Connery and Moore were featured in the PTS of FRWL and TMWTGG respectively, albeit as a masked man and a wobbling wax figure.

AMC Hornet wrote:

Quote :

And in every Bond film, save the first (which had no pre-title sequence), they feature 007. However, with the opening scene, Fukunaga bucks tradition in every way: It’s slow-paced, visually arresting, subtitled with dialogue in French and entirely Bond-free.

Unlike, say, FRWL, LALD & TMWTGG?

Whoever wrote this must have read my treatise on "How to Write a Professional Bond Film Review."

I'd love to read it if you have it handy.

At the risk of stealing the OP's thunder:


So you want to write a review of the next Bond film, and possibly compare it to past entries in the series? Well, in order to impress readers with your stunning professionalism and eye for detail, there are certain elements you MUST remember to include in your review.  Below is a breakdown of what is required. You don’t have to use all of them, but if you’re going include any of these details, this is how they must be presented in order to convince your readers that you know your shit better than anyone else.

First, your review must begin with the line: “Bond is back and he’s better than ever (and/or: “and he has a licence to thrill”), and he’s going to leave you shaken – but not stirred – in...” This establishes that you are aware of the iconography of the franchise, and that you are just as clever as the film makers when it comes to making up such an original play on words. THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL.

Also not optional is describing the lead actor as either:
a) Donning the tuxedo
b) Strapping on the Beretta, or
c) Taking the wheel of the famous Aston Martin DBIII.
He is also the best actor in the role since Sean Connery.*
*Except for George Lazenby, who was terrible (more on that later).

Whatever the plot of the film, you must describe the villain as seeking nothing less than world domination, whether it’s by threatening NATO, trading diamonds for opium, or charging a million a shot. Otherwise, Americans won’t care.

The lead actress is Bond’s equal in every way. She is a Bond ‘woman,’ not a Bond ‘girl’ like all the others who came before her.

Don't worry about getting names - or spelling of names - right. Diana Rigg could have played Tessa, Topol could have played Columbia...whatever.

Find sexual innuendo in absolutely everything. Here you can let your own sick, perverse imagination run rampant, then criticize what you’ve inferred for being too crude and obvious. (E.g.: “The timer is set for four hours – allowing for delays...” Delays? What kind of delays? Ooooh, tsk tsk. Hey, it must be deliberate – this is a Bond film).

Admit that the writing and directing of the film has its flaws – and it’s important to phrase this in a way that implies that you could have done better yourself, but modesty prevents you from saying so outright. Ditto for the editing and music.

Now, for purposes of comparison:

Dr. No: You went through puberty watching Ursula Andress rise up out of the water in her iconic white bikini. No other Bond girl ever matched her sensuousness.

From Russia with Love: This is the best film in the series. It was the truest to the source material (it helps if you have not read the book). The train fight has never been equaled.

Goldfinger: This is the template for the series. Connery was at his best and Oddjob was the best henchman (N.B.: all henchmen are mute). John Barry was at the height of his powers. Did you know Pussy Galore was supposed to be a lesbian?

Thunderball: Too many gadgets, too much underwater action. Connery was great. You are the only one who ever noticed that Bond’s swim mask changes from black to blue. The climactic battle was boring.

Casino Royale: A psychedelic pop-art pastiche, satirizing Bond and the whole spy genre. Peter Sellers should have played Bond for real. The film ‘boasted’ five directors and at least twice as many writers (give Woody Allen more credit than he wants). Could have inspired Mike Myer’s Austin Powers. Burt Bacharach’s music was better than John Barry’s.

You Only Live Twice: The perfect 60s time capsule. Slick, energetic, high-tech. Connery was bored and his Japanese disguise was embarrassing. Blofeld ripped off Dr. Evil’s whole image. (N.B.: When mentioning OTT elements (or lack thereof), be sure to pluralize those elements (e.g.: ‘hollowed-out volcanoes, invisible cars, etc).

OHMSS: “Forgotten” entry. Would have been the best in the series if Connery had made it. Lazenby sounds like Crocodile Dundee, and was fired after the movie bombed. Telly Savalas was too much of an American thug to play Blofeld (do not say that you identify him so strongly with his subsequent work on Kojak that you can’t allow yourself – or anyone else – to see him as any other character). Diana Rigg ate garlic before the love scene. The ending was a downer and the film was utterly forgettable. If you don’t like any of the films made between 1971-1999, then they were the worst since this one. (Or: it’s an overlooked classic – despite Lazenby – that was underrated in its day.) N.B.: You do not have to have actually seen the film to make these judgements.

Diamonds Are Forever: At 40, Connery was too old, too fat, unengaged, etc. This was a poor follow-up to OHMSS, as the Tracy-revenge angle was never resolved. The tone was too ‘camp’ (you don’t have to understand what that means), villains too swishy, Mustang chase not as good as the one in Bullit (N.B.: no other car chase ever was, or ever will be). Climax disappointing. They should have kept Lazenby (yes, this is a contradiction, but that’s alright – no one’s supposed to remember what you wrote before, they’re supposed to be hanging on your every word now).

Live and Let Die: “Blaxploitation” bandwagon (be sure to apologize on behalf of all bleeding-heart liberal racists). Moore was too ‘pretty’ and boyish for the role. His performance was indistinguishable from his turn as The Saint. Jane Seymour = Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Kananga should have won. Boat chase too long. Buford Pepper, ignorant sheriff played by Jackie Gleason. Paul McCartney’s score an innovative change from John Barry’s usual, but they should have used Guns n Roses’ version of the theme song. No martini!

TMWTGG: Christopher Lee was the only good thing in it. Low budget look. Solex plot unnecessary. Tone of confrontation should have been darker, like in Shane. Jack Palance should have played Scaramanga. AMC Javelin stunt spoiled by kazoo/whizzer sound effect (do not say ‘slide whistle’). Britt Ekland was terrible.

TSWLM: Moore had hit his stride. Barbara Bach was terrible. Movie was a frame-by-frame remake of YOLT. Stromberg was the best villain since Goldfinger. Jaws is the best henchman since Oddjob. Opening ski chase climax best stunt ever (include spoilers).

Moonraker: If you don’t like Bond films generally, then this is the one you refer to as a ‘typical’ entry. If you’re a Star Wars fanboy, it’s the best of the lot. It was either side-splittingly funny – as a Bond film should be – or a cringe-inducing embarrassment. Winking pigeons (see YOLT re: use of plurals). Drax best villain since Goldfinger. Jaws was either cute and endearing or a cartoon.

For Your Eyes Only: Refreshingly down-to Earth entry after MR (regardless of your opinion of MR). Reminiscent of FRWL and OHMSS. Moore acting his age for once was either a) a wonderful acknowledgement of Bond’s maturing or b) proof that he should have retired after MR. Carole Bouquet was either a) compelling or b) vapid. Columbo should have been the villain. The scenes with Bibi made Bond look creepy. Describe Bill Conti’s 1981 score as ‘disco.’

Octopussy: A pale imitation of Goldfinger. Share with the world the little-known fact that Maud Adams appeared in an earlier Bond film in another role. Louis Jourdan should have played Bond. Kabir Bedi as Gobinda, the bilingual yet still mute henchman.  Aerial stunt double too obvious. Tarzan yell. Clown suit. Curry.

Never Say Never Again: Here’s the place to use all the clichés from the introduction, specifying that Connery was donning the tuxedo/strapping on the Beretta/ driving the famous Aston Martin DBIII one more time. Praise Connery’s return, but criticize the film-makers for not using the usual gunbarrel logo, title visuals and signature theme, and for recasting M and Moneypenny (although it was refreshing to see Alec McCowan play Q the way Fleming originally envisioned him). Bernie Casey as Felix – cool! Declare that Connery won the ‘battle of the Bonds’ hands down. Finish by hoping that Connery never says “never again”! (also not optional)

AVTAK: 1980s time capsule featuring Christopher Walken as the best villain since Goldfinger and Grace Jones as the best femme fatale since Fatima Blush. Despite asserting all along that Moore is younger than Connery, you now claim that he was 59 in 1985. Stuntmen too obvious, opening snowboard chase spoiled by Beach Boys cue. Praise Tanya Roberts as the ‘mysterious’ American geologist. Innovative fire-engine chase through San Francisco. How dare they kill off John Steed! Duran Duran rocks.

The Living Daylights: Conveniently forget that Pierce Brosnan was supposed to have made this one. Dalton was too serious and dour. Plot too convoluted, Kara too insipid. Confuse Mujahadin with Taliban and question having terrorists as allies. Aha (not a-ha) sucks.

License to Kill: Dalton again too serious. Tone of story about avenging brutal torture and murder should have been lighter. Compare to Miami Vice at least once. David Hedison was too old to play Felix, Talisa Soto better than Carey Lowell. Innovative truck chase in Mexico. Winking fish statue. John Glen was a workman director with no style.

GoldenEye: Conveniently forget that Pierce Brosnan was welcomed wholeheartedly by audiences at the time. Lament that Dalton didn’t make this one. EON proves that Bond is still a relevant hero in the 90s. Sexist, misogynist dinosaur.

Tomorrow Never Dies: Rushed production, unoriginal henchman, rides the Hong Kong action film genre with Michelle Yeoh aboard. Same plot as YOLT and TSWLM. Carver too wimpy. Teri Hatchers’ role should have been bigger. David Arnold better than Eric Serra. Cheryl Crowe better than what’s her name – you know, the Canadian lesbo.

The World is Not Enough: Brosnan drama queen. Robert Carlyle weak villain. Include spoiler about Elektra, while conveniently forgetting that critics had been demanding a strong female villain for decades. Should have been Sharon Stone – that would have surprised everyone. PTS should have ended with Bond walking away from the bank in Bilbao. Disappointing climax. Denise Richards as a ‘nucular’ physicist? (Do not compare to Tanya Roberts.)

Die Another Day: Go to town – everyone else does. Even if you hated OHMSS, this is now the worst in the series. Bad dialogue, bad theme song, bad acting, bad directing, bad catering, Madonna. Promising beginning with bedraggled Bond in North Korean prison – we should have had two hours of that. Lambaste the CGI effects, citing only the parasurfing scene – that will save you having to hunt through the film in vain for another example. Tamahori had no right to insert slow-mo or ramping edits in the film – he should have been more like John Glen. Film ‘falls apart’ as soon as Bond arrives in Iceland. Insist that Graves’ satellite was powered by/covered with diamonds (because Blofeld’s was, but you don’t have to explain that). Blame the actors for their dialogue. Halle Berry worst actress ever (again, don’t mention Tanya Roberts – or Monster’s Ball). Compare to DAF, but not to Moonraker – Moonraker was a classic. Etc, etc.

Casino Royale: “Blonde, James Blonde.” Craig too short. Ears. Pecs. Armour. Little finger. Sucking fingers. Weeping blood. Parkour. Poker.  Torture. Bourne. Goeffrey Wright as Felix – WTF? Too long – first and/or last half-hour unnecessary. Black & white PTS great, as was placement of the gunbarrel. Reboot (or prequel?); Bond Begins; James before he was Bond. (No matter how you felt about Brosnan you have to hate him now and no matter how you felt about Dalton you have to appreciate him more.) Praise the Aston Martin, hate the Ford Mondeo.

Quantum of Solace: Conveniently forget that you’d said you wanted to see the next film more tightly edited. Hate the location subtitles. Hate the action editing. Hate the gunbarrel at the end. Despite all this, Craig is still the best Bond bar Connery. Love Keyes & White’s theme song. Keep up the comparisons to Jason Bourne. Quantum of Suckage, Quantum of So-lame, etc.

There you have it. Feel free to use any of these lines – just remember, they are not to be altered in any way. If you choose to use a * or _/10 ranking, be sure to study the rankings of the other professional critics first – after all, you don’t want to say anything controversial. A handy rule of thumb is to always put Connery at the top (except for DAF) followed by Craig and Dalton, Moore in the middle (with OP and TMWTGG last) then Lazenby and Brosnan at the bottom with DAD dead last after CR ‘67. Follow all these guidelines and you will soon be impressing your readers with your uncanny grasp of the details and nuances of the James Bond phenomenon.

As for Skyfall, the most important thing to remember is that, however good you consider it to be, it’s still just a 2 ½ hour advert for Heineken...

Brilliant!

Very good! Though I'd say GE is probably more highly regarded than "Conveniently forget that Pierce Brosnan was welcomed wholeheartedly by audiences at the time."

This however:

AMC wrote:

Casino Royale...first and/or last half-hour unnecessary.

That above is literally ALL media pieces on Bond condensed into one.

The initial interview detailed probably why I can't get a decent job. I was born a crotchety old man and try to make things the way they used to.

hegottheboot wrote:

I was born a crotchety old man and try to make things the way they used to.

Do you think discovering Bond at a young age did that to us? I get the same thing!

We're all evolving from channeling Bond to channeling M. The next step will be channeling Gardner's later Bond.

Harrumph.
Get me a bottle of Infuriator quick! The full bottle!


Oh dear...I am NOT going to do a EuroDisney commercial nor deal with the insanity that is the Coldfall novel...

Am currently reading Death Is Forever and really rather enjoying it, certainly more so than The Man From Barbarossa.

Despite being a departure the first half isn't bad at all. The second half eventually goes off the rails a bit.

hegottheboot wrote:

Despite being a departure the first half isn't bad at all. The second half eventually goes off the rails a bit.

Is that supposed to be a joke?

No I hadn't realized it at all.
So in hindsight yes it's totally a joke.

DIF is the surprising late Gardner with some energy to it.

Huh, some stories swirling around about multiple young women accusing Fukunaga of grooming them. One of them an apparently fairly well-known female skateboarder who was eighteen at the time of the alleged grooming taking place.
Not sure what to make of any of it, since it hasn't risen above the level of some online he-said-she-said at this point.

Doesn't do to rely on hearsay.

But hey... they don't call him Fuk a Nugget for nothing.

https://jezebel.com/acclaimed-director-cary-fukunaga-accused-of-grooming-yo-1848900384

Jezebel is one of the first to report on it, outside of mere social media rumors.