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Showing posts with the label James Bond

Skyfall & the Dark Knight

To my disappointment, while the newest James Bond movie Skyfall isn't a bad movie, it nonetheless bears more resemblance to this past summer's genuinely bad The Dark Knight Rises than it does to the best of the James Bond movies, which are very very good indeed. I didn't review The Dark Knight Rises when it opened, let me discuss it some now, to explain why I would say that this well-reviewed and well-received movie was (with the exception of the excellent fighting extras used in the climactic battle at City Hall)  genuinely bad. For one, it is no fun.  It is a comic book movie, but there isn't a fun thing about it.  To me, comic book movies should be at least a little bit fun. Also, it makes absolutely no sense.  Who is Bane?  What are his motivations?  What does he expect to get out of his plotting against Gotham City?  For all the laborious time spent on flashbacks, there's nothing to explain -- nothing! -- what he's up to in the forward moving stor...

Bond, James Bond

My client Jeff Gelb is a longtime fan of all sorts of pop culture things, and was kind enough to put some thoughts to paper on the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film Dr. No: Dr. No was released 50 years ago! Hard to believe! So  I was thinking about the tremendous effect  I an Fleming's creation has had on so many areas of popular culture (and my life) these past 50 years. I devoured all the Bond paperbacks in high school, and then read at least 100 Bond wanna-be spy novels (many of which I still own!). Spy novels are still immensely popular, from the works of Robert Ludlum to Daniel Silva (I'm a big Silva fan). Even Jack Reacher  arguably  could be called a distant cousin to James Bond. Comic books ran rampant with spies for awhile, including Nick Fury and SHIELD, now popular in the Avengers movie and coming soon to your TV set. Meanwhile, TV shows in the '60s gave us The Man from UNCLE, I Spy, Wild West, The Avengers, and so many others, continuing ...