Du nu, du nu nu nu, dun nu, du nu nu nu

[fightingthecage]

Ha! A Friday of nearly all awesome! College this morning was OK because one half of the Duo from HELL was not there which actually meant the other one shut up. Miracle! Also, I love history. And politics. And when you get a chance to listen to the teacher teaching, it's made of awesome.

Also? If I were male, or gay, I would totally have a crush on Margaret Thatcher. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, in the afternoon,


...no, not that kind. The other one, involving Daniel Craig looking really rather edible in all manner of want-to-rip-his-clothes-off ways. Man, that dude has charisma. Also?

...hang on. Better leave some spoiler space as I didn't warn in the cut...



...la la la Daniel Craig is hot.








...that tuxedo would look fabulous on my bedroom floor...








...and that last line was so cheesy, I should really be a bloke...








...that torture scene? Easily the most homoerotic thing I have ever seen in a movie that wasn't porn. I mean, come on. Bond was naked, tied up, straining muscles, teasing and Le Chiffre (also do-able with his hair not pasted down but all loose and damp like that) was thwacking him in the balls with a rope. How can that not scream gay? It was made of brilliance.

OK, so the actual film, independent of drooling over dudes. It was fab. Those scenes and stunts with the dude at the beginning? Amazing. I forget what its called now (city something) when people make an artform out of performing acrobatics and leaps and gymnastics while using the landscape, but its beautiful to watch. Slightly far-fetched that Bond would be as good at chesing this guy down, what with the sort of things he was doing but when have we ever loved Bond for realism?

The amount of times he was left chasing cars and trucks etc using only his own two legs made me laugh my ass off.

Did I mention Daniel Craig was hot? So hot. Also, did a brilliant job as Bond. I am a book-Bond whore so I know that he doesn't really have the right looks. His eyes are too blue but they're still damn effective because if he has a blank expression, they're steel. They only soften when his face does and that's a useful trait in portraying the man. He did it so well.

I know Casino Royale, the book, backwards so I knew what was going to happen but it didn't matter at all. I like how they modernised it and filled in the things the text didn't - it's a very short book, revolving almost entirely around the time immediately preceding the card-game (though I would have liked to see Baccarrat being played, not poker. It's always poker in movies), the game itself, the capture of Vesper and the ruin of their love affair. But I loved that they made this film at all, because with the exception of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, we never get to see Bond in love usually. There's a glimpse of strong feeling for Paris in Tomorrow Never Dies, but that's about it. A lot of people who have only ever seen the films believe that he's only about one-night stands and flings and cars and whatnot. In the texts, he's very different. He says on several occasions that he'd like a different life and resigns from his job more than once, in one book he also admits that he'd like kids one day - just not while he's serving, because he knows the odds are that he's going to die in the line of duty. He's sometimes really cold and his mouth is always described by Fleming as 'cruel' (physically, not when he speaks) and he can be the epitome of ice - but he's never actively against falling in love. And he looks after he women he hooks up with if he even cares about them a little. So...I'm rambling. But it was just really nice to see that side of him on screen.

Judi Dench as M is genius. But no Q in this one! :( Again, loyal to the books, but still.

I won't harp on any more but suffice to say, I recommend it. Even people who don't haven't liked Bond films all that much in the past may find this one a little different. It's still got kickass stunts and James is still a piece of human steel, but he's far more emotionally human too.

Oh, one more thing! The torture scene in the book...lasts for hours. Not just a half-dozen hits or so. James is very worried while he's recovering in the text, that he won't be capable of sex any more and the memory of the pain gives him nightmares etc for a good long while. He took weeks to recover and that's when he fell for Vesper, because she looked after him and gave him a reason to look forward to the days while in hospital. Which was very sweet - and it makes his line (used in the film, also) 'The bitch is dead now,' particularly poignant at the end. Very sad to see him close off his heart again, after everything.

I also went squee when they acknowledged the fact that he's an orphan. I don't think that's ever been mentioned before apart from briefly in Tomorrow Never Dies. I may be wrong on that but I don't recall it coming up any other time - and certainly this is the first time where there's been an indication that it bothers him. Book-canon says his parents were killed in a...skiing accident, I believe. Or perhaps a plane crash, I forget now - anyway, it was when he was twelve. Which explains quite a lot about him really.

Really shutting up now.


Adverts in cinema's go on forever these days. But I did kill myself laughing over the one for Chanel No. 5. Anyone else seen this? It's a mini-movie, produced and directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Nicole Kidman. Ostensibly, she's Chanel but the whole thing is a play on Moulin Rouge. She virtually re-enacts several scenes from MR, talks and dances like Satine, she and her Christian stand-in (an unbelievably gorgeous Spanish or Italian dude) do the whole 'love you forever' thing and hold each other in the way they did in the film and...it's actually fun to watch. And romantic, in a pretentious kind of way. It's nice that they're sort of taking the piss out of themselves while promoting perfume - and Nicole Kidman looked amazing. Truly beautiful. I was both laughing, and impressed.

...and then the effect was spoiled by a full minute of credits that came up on screen. Yes, credits. For a three-minute commercial for perfume, complete with individual screens for 'Starring...', 'Directed and Produced by...' and the music producer, followed by fucking tons of make up artists, cameramen etc etc ad nauseum. This is why it was pretentions.

I am clearly talking too much. But *squeee* Bond! I so adore. No I'll go and blather somewhere else. But go see the movie!

ETA: Hahahaha, I love YouTube. Chanel No. 5. And really, I could forgive it anything simply because it uses Debussy's Clair de Lune as music. It also seems to have been around for ages so y'all probably know all about it anyway.

No, I don't know why an advert is bugging me this much. Overtired, I think. Yes.