We've been involved For quite a while now And to keep you secret has been hell

Finally got around to watching Casino Royale, the latest excursion into the life of James Bond.

(I've always liked the fan theory which explains the replacement 007s thus: "James Bond" doesn't exist, it's a cover identity the British Secret Service assigns to their top agent. And that would work if not for one or two things in the movies that fuck up the continuity)

Not sure why I waited, really-I'm a Bond fan, as you can easily tell, and this one got very good reviews. I think, somehow, I sensed this one was to please the "serious" fans. The ones who probably hated Desmond Llewelyn.



And, as I've said, I've recently done a 180 on the "silly" Bond movies, like Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker I once renounced. Okay, I know the Moore movies sometimes overdid it, but I do like a little more wit in my Bond scripts.

I think this whole thing just had kind of a glum vibe, and that's not what I'm looking for from my Bond scripts.

That said, taken on it's own, the film is beautifully made. Speaking of beautifully made...

It has been remarked that I have an appreciation for beautiful women. There are women who can be so beautiful onscreen I find it almost impossible to rate them as movie stars, because every time I look at them all I'm thinking is: Pretty...

Anne Hathaway...





Nicole Kidman...Eva Green.

Mother of god, she's life itself. She doesn't even have to be showing anything but her face and no heterosexual man could stop himself mentally cataloging a few carnal pleasures.



You put her in a dress that shows off her wow! of a body and have her walk away from the camera, and strong men could be forgiven for passing out.

Speaking of strong men (Ben Varkentine, king of the segue), the stunts of this movie remind you of the days before action sequences meant overpaid actors riding CGI explosions on bluescreen.

And it's not that the script doesn't have jokes, they're just not terribly witty in the playful sense. Nor are they supposed to be.

The film succeds at what it was trying to do, which was to "reinvent" a starker, post 9/11 Bond for 12-year-olds of the 21st century.

I was 12 in the 1980s, therefore, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton are my men.

As Bond, Daniel Craig is fine, but he'll never be "my" Bond. Like favorite Doctors Who, that's just a function of your age.