Latest Parries
April 2012
From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S
Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.
February 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous
After they finished watching the Bond movies, I figured the next series John Gruber and Dan Benjamin would discuss on The Talk Show would be Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. But Gruber refused — too personal for podcasting, he said. Disappointed, I rewatched 2001.
January 2012
A Scheme of a Number of Friends
Instead of acknowledging the wisdom of leading from behind, the Right jumped on the Obama administration’s handling of Libya as yet another example of at best incompetence. They lost me there.
October 2011
The Mouse and the Cantilever
Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was still only 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.
March 2010
Friendship is for Weenies
It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust this US President.
Before the Setup
Nobody from usesthis.com has asked me what my setup us, nor is likely to anytime soon. So I’m just going to mouth off here about it. But first, some background.
February 2010
Walter Russell Mead steps gingerly into the Wieseltier/Sullivan imbroglio
On the Leon Wieseltier/Andrew Sullivan spat, Walter Russell Mead seems to want to have his strudel and eat it too.
October 2009
My Hope: Obama’s Change
Defeat in the Olympics bid may focus the mind in the Oval Office where it should be: Afghanistan.
July 2009
At Modi’in Mall
There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. It’s a hot July Wednesday morning. Things are reasonably busy. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown — Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Israel, the Bad So Far
I’m surprised at the general appearance of Tel Aviv folks. Yes, it’s hot, but people appear dressed as if they’re in, I don’t know, Be’er Sheva. And the people in Be’er Sheva, last time I was there, looked to me like they’re dressed for Gaza.
I have had something very flattering: a request. Juan Carlos has asked me for my comments on Casino Royale.
Richard Branson’s brief cameo in the metal detector took me out of things, though producer Michael Wilson wasn’t so bad: he’s a tradition and looked just right as the police commissioner. The very Virgin model airplanes taking off repeatedly were irritating, the Ford rent-a-car ghastly, and the Omega watch unforgivable in that it actually made its way into the screenplay. Are there industry rules to product placement, so that the zoom on the logo must be very obviously extraneous? Ford did themselves no favours by having exciting music play as their tinny little thing rode gamely up to the hotel. As soon as he could, 007 ditched it for an Aston. Much better to have Fords be the cars that get bashed up as innocent byparkers, suggesting their ubiquity and inevitability (Diamonds Are Forever comes to mind).
Casino Royale is definitely in the vein of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While Craig has a career and is a much more professional actor than George Lazenby was, everything from the action to the plotting is tighter in order to compensate, as in OHMSS, for the lowering of the star wattage after a Connery or a Brosnan. What was in retrospect bumbling screenwriting they’ve turned into drama: No longer are Desmond Llellwyn and Roger Moore standing around in Bernard Lee’s well-heeled office for a cheerful chat, conjuring up the future spirit of Austin Powers’ Basil Exposition; instead, Judi Dench threatens to kill our man. And the superjet action setpiece, usually the climax of an action blockbuster, is wisely brought forward, strengthening the climax by having it be not computer-animated but character-driven as we discover Vesper’s predicament and see all her scenes in a new light.
I like how Vesper’s betrayal is telegraphed: James tells her he loves her (a big big deal in itself), saying it’s because she has no tell, telling us that she is in fact playing a hand. I like the twist with the car: instead of bristling daftly with missiles it’s a survival kit. I like how earnestly Vesper tells James that even if there was only a little finger of him left he’d still be more of a man than any other she’d known. I like how we see his competence right from the get go in the Africa scene. I like how despite the radical reload, signature 007 locations are worked in: Nassau, the south of France, Venice. All we needed was a detour to southern Thailand.
But can Craig do the one-liners? They are necessary. Indiana Jones has them, Schwarzenegger has them. All learned from Bond that wit is fundamental to top-flight action adventure. Now Bond may be eschewing it slightly, which is fatal. “So you noticed,” is very nicely done indeed, in response to Vesper’s shocking compliment to his behind, and that entire scene on the train seems to work despite Eva Green’s weirdly non-English English accent. But when the lines aren’t inspired Craig can’t do much with them. When Roger Moore flaps his tie and lets his interlocutor plunge to his death, there’s not much wit to “What a helpful chap,” but it feels witty nonetheless.
Asking if the fellow can do the one-liners is a polite way of still asking the same question that has dogged Daniel Craig from the start: He’s pumped himself up nicely, and his acting during the torture scene was really top crotch (I write this the day after the Oscars and wonder if he was considered even for a moment for best actor) but is this thuggish-looking fellow really James Bond?
Previously
Fat and Foecal