EPISODE 627: THE MAN WITH THE LICENSE TO NEVER SAY NO TIME TO DIE ANOTHER DAY OF SOLACE
Dear Evan Hansen is such a terrible movie I refuse to write more than this sentence about it.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
No Time to Die comes out this week. It’s the 25th James Bond film, the last of Daniel Craig’s five films as Bond. And, it was delayed 18 months.
I mean, everything was, right? So who cares. But can you imagine having played a character for over 13 years and finally get to hang it up, and then you have to wait another 18 months before you can let it go? It seems like such a crazy experience.
I’m writing an article for America about Bond films, which has involved me watching a lot of movies: at this point I’ve done three Connerys, 1 Dalton and 4 Craigs. I’ve got a Roger Moore and maybe one more yet to go, in addition to the new film.
And it’s kind of hard to get my head around the series as a whole. The Craig movies are a blessing in that they tell one long story. The Connery run has some of that, but then you get into Moore and Dalton and they’re each really doing their own thing. It’s the only series I can think of that goes through radical reboots every ten years or so, and instead of that being an impediment it reinvigorates the franchise. Think how long people have been saying Idris Elba is going to be the next Bond—I think it’s been since before Craig even got hired. But Bond seems to be the kind of role that people love to dream about and reimagine.
It’s actually very similar in the world of Doctor Who. In fact in the last week or so it was announced that when the current Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, retires next year, the person replacing her showrunner will be Russell T. Davies, who is responsible for the series reboot that made Doctor Who a global phenomenon about 15 years ago.
(Actually, a weird coincidence: Davies restarted Doctor Who the same year Daniel Craig was filming his first Bond movie, Casino Royale. He has been Bond so so long.)
I have to say I’m kind of mystified as to why the character is so important culturally, either in general or in the UK. Craig’s iteration has an inner life that’s mostly unspoken but DEEP. The writers and Craig have done such great work with that character. But that’s just his take. Connery’s is almost sociopathic in his lack of self-examination. Honestly, go back and take a look at Dr. No or Goldfinger at some point; he’s kind of terrifying in them, a serial predator of women with a smile that is absolutely dead inside.
Dalton’s movies were considered quite dark at the time, but the one I watched has not aged well at all, and Dalton seems like an early 90s TV star that has someone stumbled into a movie.
I wonder if Bond is a way that different generations try to tell themselves a story about living in this complicated geopolitical world.
Then I think about the ridiculous villains in some of the Connery movies—the big bad of his series was literally a dude who was always stroking a cat. But maybe there’s something even in that that is appealing; we paint geopolitical villains as silly in some way as a way to mock the real life Putins of the world? I don’t know. Maybe they’re meant to be reassuring, to let us know there’s someone out there fighting for us, or that we’re capable of handling how crazy it’s all getting.
(On this point, I’m intrigued to find out what the underlying issue in Die is; if I had to bet I’d say climate change has to play a part.)
The New York Times did an interview with Daniel Craig. I love it a lot for how much he refuses to be the guy the interviewer wants him to be.
It really is kind of extraordinary that Craig has done the role for so long. How many actors have that kind of time with a character? The Harry Potter series went ten years. The initial Star Wars films eight—although then with the last series it turns out the original crew did those characters for thirty years. And I guess Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker did their characters the whole time.
In TV you get actors who do characters for decades sometimes. But in movies not often. And definitely not in a sustained way. Really the only other franchise that comes to mind that’s like that is The Fast and the Furious.
The New York Times has been doing some interesting documentary work of late. And last week they dropped this.
It’s a short about a guy who was one of the two runners up to play the child version of Anakin Skywalker in the original Star Wars prequel. And it’s really kind of an incredible story about hope and loss, cruelty and compassion. Seriously, whether you like Star Wars or not, watch this film. It will mean something to you.
(Also, not for nothing, there’s one line he delivers in his audition that is absolutely haunting. There’s a fear in his performance that might just have been him, the actor being freaked out. But the image of Anakin it offers is so much more disturbing than what we got.)
THREE TWEETS
Definitely click through and read the comments on this one…
And speaking of Star Wars….
Seriously, I’m no fan of the prequels. But relegating George Lucas to the characters who miss every shot they take feels a little harsh.
There’s so much stuff that I wish I had time to watch right now: Midnight Mass, Squid Games, Foundation. But right now it’s Bond Bond Bond. Including Spectre, which I have to watch Right. Now.
If you like Bond, I’m going to be writing about some of my favorite aspects of the series’ scriptwriting on my writer’s blog this week, starting Tuesday. Check it out.
Otherwise, see you next week! And thanks for reading.