CR article in the Los Angeles Times
highhopes
Posts: 1,358MI6 Agent
The LA Times talks to Craig and Campbell. Craig says CR 22 must be even better.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/cl-ca-bond5nov05,1,4700626,print.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/cl-ca-bond5nov05,1,4700626,print.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews
Comments
I think you're taking it a little literally, there: I'm sure we don't need a list of times he's been seen to sweat- hardly invalidates the point. We get the meaning behind the statements if the exact minutiae aren't correct: Bond hasn't been quite as human as this, perhaps since Dr No, by the sounds of it.
I feel articles like this are less judgmental than others do I guess, but then again it doesn't push any of my buttons re the observations in it about recent Bond. It's different, and they'll use that to sell it--and the concept of "better" will get tossed out there until box office proves it a failure. Of course, if it's a monster hit...
I was a newspaperman for 20 years, both as a reporter and an editor AND I have seen all the Bond films. So I'd like to defend my former profession on this point. I have no problem pointing out real errors in reporting -- as an editor, that was part of my job -- but I can tell you that the Times' sketch of the Bond character was accurate and suggesting the reporter didn't do his or her homework is simply not. He just didn't split hairs and it wasn't necessary to do so. Who the hell needs to do homework to know about Bond anyway???? The film Bond is FAMOUS all over the world for being unflappable and coming out on top without a scratch after incredible missions because 99.99999999 percent of the time, he does. The .00000001 percent of the time Bond bleeds, cries, sweats, etc ... is the exception, not the rule, and it's just not correct to suggest those traits suggest Bond as much as the others. The trouble is that reporters have to call them as they see them, and sometimes that puts them in conflict with people who are too emotionally involved with the subject to see it the way an outsider would see it. But that doesn't mean the reporter is wrong. For the purposes of the story -- which highlights the differences between former Bond(s) and CR's -- the description was apt.
It's good to see we'll be getting a solid dose of Fleming-style Bond for the forseeable future. He never hesitated to put 007 through hell during his adventures, and that made them all the more exciting.
Indeed- I saw a clip from DAD on the telly last week- that part of the Ice chase where the Aston is flipped over. We see a missile shoot from one car to another, flipping Bond's car and putting him in a really vulnerable spot. What's Bond's reaction to this? Nothing at all- he just sits there with his jaw jutting out and a slight look of enjoyment. There's no danger- we feel no risk. He flips a switch (we don't see him worrying about the next approaching rocket) and the situation is resolved. Bond smiles to himself. No excitement; no sense of danger.
I don't see why- she said they 'routinely bounced back'. The occasions on which they didn't were, in my eyes, rarer than the occasions when they didn't. Thus they bounced back as a matter of routine, which they did. It was out of the routine for them not to bounce back. It's a pretty accurate summing up, or as close as you can do for 20 films in one sentence, or at least a sentence you want an average reader i.e. non-Bond fan, to read.
I can't see Craig going that way, for a start he's only up for three.
The superman thing also came about because of Bond's cumalitive skill, so by Brosnan's film 2 he can fly a jet plane etc, as he sort of had decades of experience behind him.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Watch Connery in "Dr. No," if nothing else, in his encounter with the tarantula and his escape through the villain's various traps to see, indeed, a sweaty and haggard Bond, or even Roger Moore's encounter with the G-force simulator in "Moonraker" or the coral in "For Your Eyes Only" for moments when Bond's escapade does not leave him unscathed. These may be "rare" occasions, but not so rare as to make her statement anything but too great a generalization, and I don't think anyone will convince me otherwise.
Three events (although Dr No probably had a different style of Bond so that's more appropriate) in twenty movies- these are few and defintitely out of the routine, as the journalist describes. Yes, you can name more, but I bet I can name many, many more where he doesn't break sweat and bounces back. The context you place it in robs of it of nothing- she says 'barely broke a sweat' and 'routinely bounced back'- thus to say it didn't happen everytime but it did happen most of the time. Nowhere does she say it never happened, but she does say it rarely happened. She's right.
Moore: Bond doesn't require good acting
Former James Bond star Roger Moore insists it doesn't take a "good actor" to play the world's most famous secret agent.
Moore - who played the suave superspy in the early 1980s - insists criticism of the decision to cast Daniel Craig as 007 was harsh, because the role doesn't require much talent.
He says: "I am a great defender of Daniel Craig. He's a good actor. People have been so beastly, he's not even had a chance.
"Not that you have to be a good actor… you just have to be able to say: 'My name's Bond, James Bond'
I read the original story from which this item was pulled. In the original, the writer has Moore praising Craig's skills and says he'll make a fine Bond. Then, with a wink that the reporter makes clear, offers the "no good acting required" remark as an aside: it's obvious in that context that Moore's remark was one of his trademark, self-deprecating jokes about his own acting talent. Instead, the quotes are manipulated to make it sound like he was serious in saying Bond requires no talent and, in a roundabout way, dissing Craig. Now I'll agree Bond ain't Hamlet, but it does require some acting chops.
.
Surely the reason you mentioned your credentials was to try and give your opinion some weight- as if you have a better, more professional ability to analyse the piece, thus making your conclusions more weighty? If you're really not trying to convince anyone of your credentials; why mention it? If we're not supposed to be convinced by your professional credentials then they can't possibly help you in this discussion.
(Just giving you a bit of analysis right back!
I saw that as well. Here is the end of the article which obviously shows Moore was being usual tongue in cheek self ....
'But despite offering his support to Craig, the 79-year-old actor isn't looking forward to Casino Royale's cinema release later this month . He says, "The other thing that happens when a new Bond film opens is that I get bad reviews. "The critics say, 'Thank God, he - whoever he is - wasn't like Roger Moore'."
{[] That's the one, Rose. Now I'm sure Sir Roger is proud of his work, and rightly so: with millions upon millions in box office, he must have done something right. But it's so typical of Moore to poke fun at himself. How many people are secure enough to crack wise at the very thing that makes them stand out? He really is a helluva guy. And the rewrite of the story is a low blow.
It is a very low blow.
I remember about 30 years ago when Roger regularly cohosted The Mike Douglas Show on the week before his Bond movie premiered.He always dengrated himself and his previous performances whenever the topic of his career came up.Douglas was amazed at this because by contrast many of his other celebrity cohosts simply couldn't get over themselves.
Douglas asked Roger why he was so hard on himself.Roger always said that if he said that he wasn't particularly talented first,then he'd beaten the critics at their own game and rendered their comments meaningless.Roger smiled as he said this but it wasn't very hard to see that the critics' general dismissal of his acting abilty irked him.
So Roger's not Laurence Olivier.Frankly,I don't think Olivier could've equaled Roger Moore's leading man persona no matter how much he might've tried.
If he hadn't had any talent, Roger would never have been able to become an actor.Look at all the TV shows he starred in long before he ever became James Bond:
Ivanhoe,The Alaskans,
Maverick,The Saint,(in my opinion,the role of his career)
and The Persuaders.
No one would've ever employed Roger if they thought he couldn't act.
I remember Roger Moore speaking on a chat show a few years back. In typical Roger style he said: "I've been saying for years that I am not a very good actor and the critics have believed me. Now I am saying that I'm brilliant."
I'm definitely a big Roger Moore fan but less so much for his Bond films, which produced some of the real turkeys of the series. I don't blame his acting at all for this, but I think the role he really was born to play was Simon Templar- imo, he shows his acting best in 'The Saint'- and has the most fun in 'The Persuaders'. He was an obvious choice for Bond, and many of the jokes he delivered ARE genuinely funny. But I think there were too many of them. And he was arguably better when delivering more serious and straight performances in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' (his best performance), 'For Your Eyes Only' and 'Octopussy', my three favourite films of his. Had the films been less jokey I think he would have been better thought of by some people today. There's certainly no faulting his acting much of the time, just the scripts themselves, imo.
I'm delighted though that Daniel Craig has had great notices in the press so far. After the rather dubious and bloated quality of the last two Brosnan films (didn't like TWINE or DAD much at all), it's about time it was taken seriously again after the campy moments in the last film. And by the look of it, they've got just the man for that job.
Glad EON seems to be changing that.
In regards to the Moore scripts, I don't agree that his scripts were bad. Although TMWTGG, MR, AVTAK and (to a lesser degree) OP weren't wonderful, I think that LALD, FYEO and (particularly) TSWLM were terrific. However, I would contend that even his most disappointing scripts worked for him and his fellow artists.
That is hopefully what will happen with CR. (I thought I would bring this conversation back onto topic.