Post 532

Over the weekend Kevin and I watched two movies. One was Casino Royale.

The other was a 1949 flick called D.O.A. which is part of The Ultimate Film Noir Collection.

If you’re looking for people to gush over the latest Bond you’ll find plenty of sites online where people are praising it. For me, it was a movie that had all the components to give it great potential, which made the fact that it didn’t work for me even more disappointing. I feel absolutely certain Bond must have been a champion runner. I had no issues with Daniel Craig, but overall found the movie to be uneven. There were abrupt scene cuts that were disorienting. In one scene in the high stakes card game they leave for a break, then return, and no sooner has Bond sat down at the table than –snap- now he’s walking down the hall for another break. Bad editing.

And the cheesiest love lines I’ve heard in a long time. Kevin and I were both howling. When I recovered I went to drink some lemon juice, it was so nauseatingly sweet.

Great action, especially in the first half of the movie. One nagging question I won’t put here because it would be a huge spoiler, and really, it’s only one of many. That was the thing. I would ask Kevin something and we’d try to sort it, and couldn’t come up with the answer. I watched 99% of the movie, but left right before the end. So, for me, not a hit. I have no idea how it compares to the book, this is just my opinion, one which many people will disagree with. Next time I have the flu I might watch it again to see if it improves on me, but no instant hit.

On the other hand, I watched D.O.A. with no expectations. I’d never heard of this movie before, and I don’t want to say too much here because I don’t want to ruin it, but it has an intriguing plot premise. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen something like this done before. Frank Bigelow goes on a holiday, only to discover he’s been poisoned and has only at most a few days to live. Frank is determined to find out who is responsible for his death, and in a frantic race against the clock pursues leads until his murder is solved.

This movie engaged me all the way through. Sure, there are things about the time that are enough to make me roll my eyes (like the way women behaved) but that’s how things were and certainly isn’t the fault of bad writing.

This movie is rated: Questionable For Children. I love that, and I'm not making it up.

My feelings about these two movies left me thinking about how much more likely it is we’ll be disappointed when there’s a lot of positive hype around something. When you hear nothing but good your expectations get ramped up to a point where you might be impossible to please. I have never not liked a Bond movie before. I mean, there have been decent ones and ones that were good and some that were great, but I’ve never watched one and said That was a waste or Huh? Okay, I’ve also not seen them all, but I’ve probably seen at least 10 of them. And this time I was glad I hadn’t gone to see the movie in the theatre.

Any of you have that happen to you? You really look forward to something and then find it’s a disappointment? Or by contrast decide to try something you haven't heard of and really enjoy it?


SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES received another nice mention by Daniel Hatadi when he was invited to discuss his recent reads. I am nowhere near the level of John Connolly, Charlie Huston or Jess Walter – this girl has a lot of growing and learning to do – but being mentioned in the same discussion with them is a real compliment.

And, in other news, 20 years ago today a fictional legend was born: The first Rebus book was published.