I just saw the new Bond flick “Casino Royale” which was pretty good. I dunno if it was 8.0 IMDB good, but it was good. It was also really long, clocking in at 2.5 hours. Most movies nowadays last no longer than 1.5 hours, while most older movies will be 2 hours long. There were a great many things that were different in this one, straying a lot from many of the common devices in most of the preceding Bond films. Things such as Q, lots of gadgets, lots of sex with lots of Bond girls, not the normal martini, not the normal card game, not the normal bond girl, no Money Penny (but an allusion to), new Felix Leiter, et al. They also seemed to try to have a throwback to some nostalgia in the first few minutes. Both of the studio logos were in black and white, yet were the current logos. Then the first sequence of the film was in black and white, with what I considered to be way too much grain. I watched “Roman Holiday” for the first time recently and in one of the dvd features, they explained how they had painstakingly restored the film. This process was excellent whose end result was a film without grain. They also left their trippy psychedelic main titles, with a little less lsd. In addition to the black and white grain, the way in which the opening sequence was shot was very much modern as well, not really lending itself to continue this theme of an old film noir movie. Also, as I was watching this, I really wanted them to do the titles in an old style as well, but it was not to be. So, while I’ve heard a person or two mention that they don’t like the new Bond as a blond, I didn’t really mind it. This guy was so young and buff that it really reminded me of what must have been the films during Connery’s peak physical shape. Having the franchise break out of the mold was a great stroke, I thought. They tried to focus a little more on story (which is why I would guess that the film is so long), which has been quite lacking as of late. Also, it seemed to me that they finished up rather quickly and in not so interesting ways (verbally for a bunch of it). You would have thought that with 2.5 hours they could have done a little better with the pacing. They still had the blockbuster action sequences which I would also guess would be the bulk of its appeal to the general audiences. I just wish that there would have been better writing and better story telling. I would love to see another in this departure from the cookie cutter Bond film, hopefully with a better story with some real twists, and perhaps shot in a style more in sync with this older time period in Bond’s life. I would imagine that those two things would really revive this dormant dynasty. Join us next time when we’ll discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s timeless and flawless “Dial M for Murder”. :)