Some time ago, on a Sunday evening, I had an idea. Everyone in Germany watches ‘Tatort’ on Sunday evenings, and so my Twitter timeline’s full of it, too. The ‘Tatort’, somehow, isn’t for me. Call me arrogant but I have to tell you that most of the time, I can’t even stand original German TV anymore, not just the badly dubbed US stuff. Maybe I just watch badly acted scenes whenever I peek in a German channel. However, I thought it would be great if everyone would watch something good and tweet or blog about it. Like a book club, just for films.
Well, the idea stayed an idea. Then, I started to listen to some 5by5 podcasts and discovered that on The Talk Show, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin talk about every single one of the James Bond Films. They do kind of what I thought of! I loved the Bond films a lot when I was younger, and I also like the reboot with Daniel Craig. And I like films and thinking, talking about them, especially considering the time they were made in and how they take effect today.
Having people talking about films, listening to their opinions really works for me. Although I sometimes think Dan just agrees to whatever Gruber’s opinion is, I use their discussion to think about the points they bring up and compare it to my opinion of the film. For instance, I honestly, really truly like the one with George Lazenby, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, especially compared to the following ‘Diamonds are forever’ for which Connery was brought back and which seemed completely uninspired and dull to me.
During the Roger Moore period, which sadly lasted more than a decade, you may start questioning yourself what the heck you are doing, wasting your time with some of the worst bond films1. But I have to say that as a kid, I loved the kind of humor Moore gave the character. This way, it’s still fun to try and pinpoint what it is that makes the films so different than the Connery ones, and how much of it couldn’t have been helped either way cause they were made in the 70s and 80s (and, how Gruber loves to point out, were directed by John Glen).
That’s it for now, I just wanted to address what I think is an interesting kind of film criticism and getting it out there. Maybe we/me/whoever can start a little something like this some time, realized through blogposts, another podcast, or just Twitter, we’ll see.