After a busy week I'm half exhausted and half under the weather, and therefore having a quiet day in. A nice opportunity to update my ranking and answer your questions.
Analyze, interpret, yell at me, ask me absolutely anything that comes to mind. Thanks, and over to you...
The relevant portions...
>Turner has led commercial hits and daring indies but firmly within the lane of a rising talent. To emerge as a true movie star...requires that presence, that mystique, that’s hard to articulate and harder still to find nowadays, as attention spans scatter and fandoms shrink into niches. “I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it,” as Clooney puts it.
>Industry power players believe Turner holds that quality. Now comes the moment where audiences need to show up and agree.
...
>Gluck believes Turner is approaching a similar turning point: “He can do anything.”
>Clooney thinks so, too. He says that if he had his way, Turner would become the next face of one of global cinema’s most revered, bankable franchises — as has been hinted at in tabloids and whispers around town for months. “I hope Callum ends up being the next Bond. I think he would be a great Bond,” Clooney says, unprompted.
>“He’s tall and handsome and charming and British, so he’s the perfect guy to do it.”
>Turner won’t give me an inch on that score. “I know as much as you do — really, I know as much as you do,” he says, after I mention Amazon MGM’s recent announcement that casting for the new James Bond film, to be directed by Denis Villeneuve, had officially begun. Is he at least interested in taking the gig, should it be offered? Turner laughs to himself, looking down at his sneakers. “I’m not going to comment on that.”
>Betting markets such as Kalshi have Turner as the clear favorite. Jacob Elordi is thought to be in the hunt — “He certainly looks like a great Bond. I mean, why not?” his Saltburn co-star Rosamund Pike recently told GQ — and Sunset Boulevard‘s Tom Francis reportedly auditioned for the coveted role. No one can hide from this rumor mill. So what can Turner say about the breathless speculation?
>“I’ll tell you what’s so funny about the Bond thing: Even your best friends ask you, people text you that you haven’t spoken to for 10 years — and you know nothing!” Turner says. “It’s such a weird thing of something happening and nothing happening at all. I genuinely know nothing. I just find it quite amusing.”
...
>When asked for his list of dream directors, Turner smirks and says, “You want me to say Denis?” referring to Villeneuve, who will direct the next Bond (and yes, he is on it).
Prior to Denis Villeneuve being hired to direct the next Bond film, I had seen Enemy, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and the two Dunes. Then following the announcement, I spent the next several months catching up on the rest of his English language filmography plus Incendies (and giving Arrival another go). So I think I have a full sense of Villeneuve's directing style across different genres.
To continue my Bond 26 homework, I need to watch something written by Steven Knight. I haven't seen any of his projects; I'm completely blind except for second hand judgements of his works, positive or negative.
I must add that I'm not a huge TV person, so I'd prefer movie recommendations. I know there are some Peaky Blinders films. Do they have a low barrier to entry for someone who hasn't seen the series?
Beyond those, what are the best options for gaining a sense of Knight's dialogue and storytelling?
Thanks for your help!
Bond related, or otherwise.
To keep the feed tidy, here's a Megathread to share clips of First Light gameplay. Walkthroughs, live streams, examples of gameplay dynamics (combat, bluffing, etc.) should all be posted here instead of creating new individual posts for each clip.
Cutscenes are welcome too.
If any spoilers are present in your clips, be sure to use the spoiler tag.
Shipping in late June. Details here: https://lalalandrecords.com/spectre-10th-anniversary-expanded-remastered-limited-edition-2-cd-set/
The new James Bond video game 007 First Light releases on Wednesday, May 27th, with some pre-orders eligible to play the game 24 hours earlier.
Therefore come Tuesday, this subreddit will post two separate megathreads: one for spoiler-free discussion, and another for discussion that does include spoilers.
IMPORTANT: Users who comment game spoilers outside of designated spoiler discussions, or include spoilers in post titles, may be subject to an automatic ban.
So to be clear...
• And then for comments, use the appropriate formatting option to hide spoiler text.
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To mark your post as containing spoilers, please do the following. First, tap or click the "Add tags and flair" button.
Then tap or click to enable the spoiler tag seen here, circled in red:
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If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below. Thank you for your consideration.
Relevant quotes from Knight:
On researching the SAS...
>On the subject of Bond 26 and the 7th incarnation of 007, Knight told Screen Daily he has been researching "the SAS and even more secret outfits" for his work on bringing Ian Fleming's character to the big screen for Amazon MGM. "I am talking to them about what they do every day. It’s all real. "[Ian Fleming]...was living that life. In the war, he was doing those things. He knew people doing that stuff, going out there and killing people. He was such a great writer. To be a writer, you have got to know about people."
On bringing variation to Bond's character...
>Bond has been bulletproof. People have been able to make mistakes and variations, quite elaborate variations, and the character has survived because the core of it is like a diamond. You can’t touch it. The person you are talking about is folklore.
On growing up with the films and Connery being his favorite actor...
>It was always Connery. You’d be watching as a kid with your dad. The certainty, the confidence and the escape from something, everybody buys into that. That’s the thing with Bond, everybody wants it.
To keep the feed tidy, here’s a fresh thread for discussing the news that broke on Thursday evening: that in the past few weeks, auditions for the next Bond film have begun.
Thoughts on what this means for the production timeline? On Nina Gold being selected as casting director? On whom she might choose to test? Not only for the Bond role, but for villains, the girls, and the MI6 regulars?
Or per weekend tradition, anything else that is on your mind.
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Important Links:
A bit too wet and chilly to be outside on my camping trip this morning, so I'm staying in the RV where Roger has my back.
Because when first timers ask the sub for movie recs, we often see folks recommend they start with Dr. No then continue in order of release. Realistically though, how many fans actually experienced the series this way? Are those of us who watched them in random order the outliers?
