Sebastian Faulks ridicules 'distasteful' Bond film 'Skyfall'
Le Samourai
Honolulu, HIPosts: 573MI6 Agent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/9826812/Sebastian-Faulks-ridicules-distasteful-Bond-film-Skyfall.html
A couple of quick observations...
A couple of quick observations...
What an ignorant, homophobic comment."I thought I would invest him with some serious thoughts. It didn't work. It was unconvincing. It made him look not thoughtful but slightly gay," he added.
I don't know about critics, but most Bond fans didn't seem to care for it and I believe many consider 'Colonel Sun' to be the best non-Fleming Bond novel.His Bond became an instant best-seller and was praised by critics as one of the best of 33 sequels written since Fleming's death.
—Le Samourai
A Gent in Training.... A blog about my continuing efforts to be improve myself, be a better person, and lead a good life. It incorporates such far flung topics as fitness, self defense, music, style, food and drink, and personal philosophy.
Agent In Training
A Gent in Training.... A blog about my continuing efforts to be improve myself, be a better person, and lead a good life. It incorporates such far flung topics as fitness, self defense, music, style, food and drink, and personal philosophy.
Agent In Training
Comments
You, Sir, are absolutely right!
-Mr Arlington Beech
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Maybe he should see the f****** film again. Fall down in the shower? Whoops, dropped the soap....
I don't know what "inner life" this guy's talking about, I didn't really see much of that in SF. Should I read this idiot's book?
“It reads better than it lives.” T. Case
Yes, the critical stock of Gardner and Benson should be rising - they made the job of writing a Continuation Bond look much easier than it really was!
No, Faulk's Bond novel is awful. Read his 'The Fatal Englishman' instead. Much better book. As for 'Skyfall' Faulks is right. The film is a mess.
“It reads better than it lives.” T. Case
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
I started reading through all the fleming novels but for the last month not made any progress, stuck on GF and not found the will to get thru it yet but don't want to skip any books!!
stick with it paul, very rewarding, I love thunderball def my favourite!
Will try and progress on GF tomorrow!!
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
I'm glad you posted this. While I loved SF, I am certainly open to intelligent, well-considered criticism. Faulk's comments were neither.
A Gent in Training.... A blog about my continuing efforts to be improve myself, be a better person, and lead a good life. It incorporates such far flung topics as fitness, self defense, music, style, food and drink, and personal philosophy.
Agent In Training
IMO TB is the best, closely followed by OHMSS. Lucky you, I wish I was reading them for the first time!
Goldfinger though works well as a whole, so as alpha agent says, stick with it. I also like LALD best of the early ones, Dr No and FRWL best of the mid period, and all the later ones (except TMWTGG) as by then Fleming's writing and characterisation were both fantastic.
I agree. I wasn't overly impressed with SF and thought it was a weak entry, particularly compared to DC's other 2, but I thought that DMC was poorly written and the hype the book supposedly received in the literary industry was to me another example of marketing smoke and mirrors. Faulks is clearly inept or was just plain lazy in his preparation and execution of DMC and I think its a crime how the mainstream is so oblivious to the nuances of the subject matter, yet the mainstream voice seems to hold sizable influence. That is why in regard to the Bond movies for example, I don't really give much credence to what most professional movie critics and average movie goers have to say, compared to Bond fans who by sheer, repeated and often obsessive exposure to the subject matter, have something to say that's worth considering.
For all the faults of SKYFALL (Craig's look, a plot more full of holes than most, under-use of Severine, the cliched naffness of a silver DB5, Craig-Bond not ending up with a girl AGAIN, a downbeat ending AGAIN...) at least Craig and Mendes tried, however often erroneously.
Faulks on the other hand didn't give a stuff and was clearly slumming it as far as he was concerned with JB. X-(
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yes, it does seem to be a return to the 1970s plan to have different writers pen James Bond novels under different pseudonyms, only with the name 'George Glidrose'!
Mendes...lol! He's not suited for action movies and should stick to character-driven dramas.
Why can't a film be both? There have been many movies that incorporate action as well as character-driven drama.
A Gent in Training.... A blog about my continuing efforts to be improve myself, be a better person, and lead a good life. It incorporates such far flung topics as fitness, self defense, music, style, food and drink, and personal philosophy.
Agent In Training
As Bond fans, why do we have to romanticize just how excellent Bond is in every area of consideration? Can't we just recognize these films for what they are? Have any of you watched "Road to Perdition"? That was a superior Mendes "action movie" in which whatever action it had took a back-seat to the character development; if a Fleming book were to be faithfully translated on screen, it would resemble Road to Perdition more than any of the recent Bond movies, including Casino Royale. Mendes' other character driven movies like American Beauty, Jarhead and Revolutionary Road (my favorite Mendes movie) run circles around SF, which IMO just happens to enjoy the prestige of being a Bond movie.
I don't remember where my quick review on SF is located, but sorry, to me it seemed sorely obvious that Mendes over-reached in his first effort for a block-buster action movie. I don't know how much of the action sequences he's responsible for and how much of those were done by the 2nd unit, but many scenes were just too fake, like the rooftop chase with a fake-ly distressed performance motorcycle, the over-the-top use of a backhoe on the train (very DAD), the fight with the sniper that was too stylized and looked more liked a synchronized dance than an actual fight (here, smoke and mirrors have been replaced by an overdose of neon) ...where do I stop? I suppose blame could be also be placed on the ridiculous production design, which I can confidently assume received predominant input from the director, such as the Macao casino, Silva's "Death Island," etc. I will spare Mendes from blame regarding the plot and its holes and implausible elements (London Tube crash, Skyfall siege), which I guess can be blamed on the usual suspects, Purvis and Wade sans Paul Haggis, the saving grace for CR and QoS. C'mon, you gotta ask yourself, "realistically, would any of this happen in a Bourne movie?"
Yes. I suspect in 10 years time we'll look back on SKYFALL (on Craig's entire tenure???) as over-praised guff that fooled a lot of people and received glowing reviews on its release when really it was rather poor.
A bit like DAD's viewed now....