5 Subject Notebook
Each and every week (or so), I will discuss five topics, most of which will be about entertainment. This is the fourth column.
BOND. JAMES BOND. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT BRIEFLY.
Rumor has it that Hollywood has chosen its next Bond: Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It’s a great choice. He was recently in the movie Bullet Train, and he stole the show. I walked out of that movie talking more about him than the lead, Brad Pitt. That movie was his coming-out party. I was still holding out hope for Idris Elba, but I agree Daniel Craig cracked the code on over-50 Bond, and it was time to go younger. I didn’t see the last Bond movie, but I’m going to assume Craig’s Bond died of old age. The Daniel Craig movies were all connected, and I’m tiring of so many movies being serialized. For this next Bond reincarnation, I’d also like to see a bit less continuity. I think he should meet Q for the first time in every movie. “Who are you again?”
The problem with the Bond movies is NOT the actor. Has there ever been a bad Bond actor? You may like some more than others, but none of them have fallen on their face. Not George Lazenby. Not Timothy Dalton. I really believed that they were skiing away from a mean avalanche. They were fine. It was their movies that weren’t. (Although I know crazy people who swear by License to Kill). Bond is not the hardest role to play by any means (I don’t think, say, a young Daniel Day-Lewis would have found it challenging). The movies are either childishly entertaining or overstuffed and overwrought. My favorite Bond is Roger Moore.
I don’t like my Bond super serious or “realistic.” This is an inherently ridiculous character who handles major global crises all by himself, while juggling his irresistibility to women. I prefer the Bond movies where the bad guys have underground lairs, special cats just for petting, and trapdoor islands. Fun James Bond is better than morose Bond questioning his own existence. If I were in charge, I’d bring back all the hairless pets. I know the producers don’t want to turn it into Austin Powers, but I’d rather they err in that direction. (This is why I’m not in charge.)
Who is your favorite Bond and why. Tell me below, and I’ll be proud of you.
SHOGUN - REDUX
Last time we discussed this, I basically said this was a boring show, but my interest in Shogun did a 180. I finished the 1st episode and became obsessed. This happened to me on Game of Thrones. I had trouble getting through the first episode, and then the next thing I know, I’m looking at made up family trees, ordering all the books, and feverishly listening to podcasts. I can see why the Shogun novel had such an impact, and why us Americans dig stories about feudal Japan. The ways of the samurai are cool. Ninjas are bad ass. Seppuku is exciting. This is the stuff author James Clavell brought to the states 50 years ago. We all know at least one weird guy who has a sword thanks to the dominos set forth by the release of this historical fiction in 1975. Respect.
Shogun is epic in scope and you can just tell everyone worked really hard to make it authentic. The architecture, the fashion, the weapons, and the Japanese dialogue appears to be genuine, even though 97 % of us don’t know for sure. The attention to detail is intense. The people behind the scenes are way ahead of the nerds who’d say, '“Uh, excuse me, that robe is from the Edo period, not the Sengoku period, wherein this takes place." They got the right robe. As director Douglas Sirk used to say, “They audience won’t know it, but they will feel it.”
It’s not just high drama, it’s playful, stylish and surprisingly funny. The acting is predictably great. No one is going to argue with Hiroyuki Sanada (John Wick) whose putting on a brilliant cerebral performance while also producing this thing, but the surprise is Cosmo Jarvis, who plays the White interloper as a scurvy addled idiot with a booming voice like he’s Johnny Depp, Al Pacino and the Batman villain Bane all in one, tripping his way up and down the scenery like a maniac. Fun stuff.
3 BODY PROBLEM - REDUX
On the other side of the ledger, The Three-Body Problem took a giant nosedive after the fifth episode (which takes a huge swing that is fun to watch but, in retrospect, doesn’t add up). The overall story is hampered by the wild coincidence that five 28-year-old scientists who all went to Oxford and are BFFs happen to be the best and most important scientists in the world. And yet, their solutions to the problems this world faces seem to be the kind of thing one would think of after being injected with Dune worm juice. Personally, I just don’t buy that the ONLY way to stop an alien armada is to shoot a decapitated head into deep space, and that the greater scientific community - including Nobel Prize laureates - would all cosign.
I’d be all for it if the show was intending to be silly. Is Liam Cunningham’s Wade - the head of some nebulous global defense organization - purposefully relying too much on incredibly attractive but depressive grad students to save the planet? There have to be better options. And yet, the joke is on me because I’m probably watching the second season.
RIPLEY
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a bona fide classic. I’ve watched it at least 4 times. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, the movie is something that Alfred Hitchcock would have adapted if he had ever gotten around to it. Perhaps he saw the 1960 adaptation Plein Soleil (also a classic) and didn't want to compete. But in 1999 ( a great year for movies) writer/director Anthony Minghella got the best performances of their careers out of Matt Damon, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and even a pre-Goop Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s a movie chock-full of movie stars and it delivers. Has there ever been a better character introduction than THIS?
I have no idea if we need another adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley without movie stars, but I caught Netflix’s Ripley last night, and I was hooked by the black and white photography with its stark contrasts, noir shadows, and clean, empty spaces. So it’s definitely an enjoyable watch that’s easy on the eyes, but that’s also because the story is a can’t-miss. It’s one of those yarns, like Robin Hood, that is really hard to screw up, even if Kevin Costner has a really weird accent in one of them. However, if you can only see one Tom Ripley project, I’d see The Talented Mr. Ripley.
For his Ripley, writer/director Steve Zaillian clearly wants to set his version apart. But that results in some odd choices, like extending the death scenes so long they lose their suspense. Or worse, casting 40-something Andrew Scott to play Tom Ripley, which logically means Zaillian has to cast a 40-something to play Dickie Greenleaf, the man whose life Ripley steals, which leads one to question why Dickie Greenleaf’s dad wants his middle-aged son back so bad. It’s been decades at this point, dad! Give up! Maybe middle-aged White men are like marbles. You have to roll one to find the other.
Andrew Scott is compelling as Ripley. But it doesn’t quite make sense. He plays it like Norman Bates, and Norman Bates can’t roll up to an attractive couple on the Italian Riviera and charm his way into a lunch invitation. “Get out of here, weirdo!” would be anyone’s first reaction to this oily dude you can see coming a mile away, but we’re supposed to believe Dickie Greenleaf is so rizzed up by this dour 47-year-old man that he gives him free room and board. Should I travel to Europe and try this?
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE
In other rumored casting news, Jeremy Allen White is being sought after for the inevitable biopic of the Boss. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge fan. Is Jeremy Allen a good choice? Dude. He’s the ONLY choice. The role of a passionate artist whose desire to be the greatest comes at the cost of his personal life and mental health is all the way inside his wheelhouse (see The Bear). Of course, he’s the guy. I'll add this. Even if you time-traveled 50 years back and kidnapped Robert De Niro and brought him back to the future to play Bruce, you’d be traumatizing young De Niro for no good reason because Jeremy Allen White is still a better choice.
If it were up to me, I’d opt to give the Bruce film the look of an early Scorsese movie, perhaps even use black and white photography (like Ripley!). Bruce is a cinephile himself, and Mean Streets was a huge influence. Apparently, this movie is going to be about the making of the album Nebraska. I assume that if it does well, there will be several Bruce biopics to cover each album - a Springsteen cinematic universe! Will anyone under 50 watch it? Shh. Let them just make the movie.