And the new James Bond is...

[Blarg]

Bale is taken for Batman, probably, for a while. They probably have options on him.

You know, I was thinking earlier on when reading this post and the other on Bond today, that Bond needed to be Tarantino'd up a bit -- funny how you came up with the same thought. Not in a schlocky way, but Bond could sure use a Christopher Walken speech type moment in one of his films for a change. He needs to be confronting someone with some more modern excitement and clever tension in the words and scariness like Tarantino does so well. Frankly, fighting Pussy Galore and Jaws and suchlike supervillains isn't very interesting and kind of wastes the franchise. Stupidizes -- can I use that word I just made up? It stupidizes the franchise.

I'd love an urban slick, scary Bond again. Yet still understated. Bond should always have a bit of threat under the surface, whether it's sexual tension, arrogance, or the feeling that something is boiling and you don't want to be in the room when it goes off.

One of the great things about Connery's Bond was, you often got the idea he was the smartest man in the room, but he often found out he wasn't. Tarantino is great at having Mexican stand-off scenes done in dialogue. We need more of that in Bond. Remember the scene back in the train in From Russia With Love when Robert Shaw, the SMERSH agent, has him on his knees and is telling him he's going to kill him, but you're not really sure what Bond's chances are? Bond seriously looks totally beaten, not just movie beaten, and like he's going to die, but he still finds a way to keep himself alive. He's got one chance to keep someone with the power of live and death over him from making the wrong decision and totally screwing him up.

Parallel Tarantino: Dennis Hopper in True Romance convinces Chris Walken to kill him, the cop in Reservoir Dogs tries out his rehearshed story on the thugs about carrying dope in the lavatory next to a bunch of cops in Reservoir Dogs; the kids try not to get shot by Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction; Jackie Brown tries throughout that film to convince both cops and criminals of all sorts of lies under threat of imprisonment or death if she doesn't pull it off -- and in the same movie there are countless scenes with the same interpersonal dynamic.

We could really use a Bond doing some dialogue that isn't totally paint by numbers in a totally paint by numbers movie -- we need Bond in a movie you'd see just because it was a really good movie, not just because it was a Bond movie and you wanted a rehash of the same old tricks. Bond is too good a franchise to waste on crap.

[private joker]

Tarantino already pitched one to Broccoli, and they turned him down.

[Blarg]

That's a shame, and it's probably to his great discredit.

Broccoli is old, and has produced the worst of the Bond flicks -- and there were plenty of them -- along with the best. Most of them were closer to the worse end of the scale than the best. If anybody's gonna kill Bond, it's Broccoli.

Bond badly needs some new blood directing the overall direction of the franchise. I would have loved to see Tarantino write or direct a Bond film, even if he screwed it up.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
You know, I was thinking earlier on when reading this post and the other on Bond today, that Bond needed to be Tarantino'd up a bit...

[/ QUOTE ]

Great minds think alike, eh?


Very nice post, Blarg, well put and well discussed.