... of a car door closing.

I finally had a chance to sit down and watch a movie; Casino Royal.

I still don't have anything dialed in (and in the short term its not looking good), but the car doors closing all sounded startlingly real. Quite cool.

There is also a scene where he walks out of the casino into the street, and the street noise comes from behind.

At times the sound seems a little too much towards the front and occasionally dialog centers on the top M2, but this is all positioning and ballance.

Bond has gotten serious again.

I really enjoyed Casino Royale. Looking forward to the next Bond movie.

Huh. I saw it and I remember liking it, but I don't really remember anything other than the poker scenes. Weird.

Its quite low key compared to some of the earlier bond movies. Not a lot of womanizing or 'sploding' stuff.

I would rate it as OK. The plot is not really complex enough for the style of movie it is.

Cool door thunks though!

I think you hit the nail on the head for what I thought of it…unmemorable. Not bad but not really Bond. To contemporary and mundane for what I think of a Bond movie. The Poker scene is a perfect example. In the book they played Baccarat Chemin de Fer not Texas Hold’em. Guess I’m getting old.

Wait, wait. There are Bond books?!








(yes, I'm kidding.)

I really like Daniel Craig as James Bond. He can act, he's good-looking but not too good-looking, and he has this gritty heft that sells the role.

If any of you have not seen Craig's 2004 movie Layer Cake, then

(a) run, don't walk, to a video store and bring it home (1990s)
(b) put it at the top of your Netflix queue (2002)
(c) set your TiVo to record it for you (2004)
(d) download it to your computer/server (2008)

It is an outstanding gangster thriller, one that is so well-done that I enjoy watching it again and again.

I kind of agree with JP, but the movie was really lacking something. On the other hand both the acting and the dialog for the girl playing oposite him were not good.

Ah well onward and upward to...

Wait, they played Texas Hold 'Em? What the heck is wrong with Hollywood? No way would Bond play a flash in the pan trendy game like that.

Unless of course the villain of the story is playing it.

Hey, he drove a Toyota in one of the scenes as well.

This is not your fathers Bond??

Double oh-no-he-din't?

My son, who has just been initiated to Bond, picked up on it. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to explain how uncool that was for Bond.

Then, of all things, I could not ID the flashy sports car he drove later.

Ditto on the critique of the movie. My main complaint was that it felt like three different movies, with unnecessary plot twists thrown in for apparently no reason. I know that's probably how the book was written, but the plot twists just felt a little contrived today.

Still, I agree with the Daniel Craig assessment. He's definitely a much more gritty bond than Brosnan was. I enjoyed him in the movie and think he'll last more than a couple of movies in the role. But, my fear is that they'll try to upgrade the series to be more realistic - - it was the campy fun that I enjoyed about Bond. Supervillians, ridiculous locations, nonsense quasi-scientific plots, double-entendre laden leading ladies, etc. Formulaic, but good.

I also agree about Daniel Craig. I like the "new" hard-nosed Bond. It's funny, they've reinvented the character in the movie that explains his start as an agent.

I think the Bond movie "campiness" went too far when they wanted me to believe Denise Richards was a nuclear scientist, or physicist, or whatever she was supposed to be. . .

Yeah, Denise was pretty bad. For me, she's just not hot enough to be such a bad actor.

So true, Capn!