Earlier this week news bubbled up that a hedge fund manager with a Bond-villain nickname had made a Bond-villain move: "Choc Finger" bought a whopping 241,000 tons of cocoa beans -- 7% of the world's cocoa supply and enough to make 5 billion chocolate bars
-- driving prices to 33-year highs.
[more inside]
posted by chavenet
on Jul 22, 2010 -
46 comments
After the fiasco of their premier episode - a lavish live production of Raymond Chandler's
The Long Goodbye during which a corpse unwittingly got up and walked off stage on camera - CBS's
Climax! Mystery Theater was looking to adapt something less high-profile. Say, the debut spy thriller by a struggling British journalist willing to let the rights go for $1000. The result: 1954's "
Casino Royale",
starring Barry Nelson as Jimmy "Card Sense" Bond of American intelligence, Michael Pate as his British counterpart Clarence Leiter, and
Peter Lorre as the first-ever Bond villain. Now on
Youtube 2 3 4 5 6
posted by ormondsacker
on Apr 20, 2010 -
19 comments
Dominated by the Villain, […] Fleming’s woman has already been previously conditioned to domination, life for her having assumed the role of the villain. The general scheme is (1) the girl is beautiful and good; (2) has been made frigid and unhappy by severe trials suffered in adolescence; (3) this has conditioned her to the service of the Villain; (4) through meeting Bond she appreciates human nature in all its richness; (5) Bond possesses her but in the end loses her. A fantastically in-depth analysis of the sexual politics of James Bond. With charts!
posted by HumanComplex
on Apr 3, 2009 -
61 comments
He wrote the childrens book
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a travel guide called
Thrilling Cities, a study of
Diamond Smugglers... and created
James Bond.
Ian Fleming, who died of a heart attack at 56, was born
a century ago this past May. He led a fascinating life. Born the
son of an MP, educated at
Eton and
Sandhurst, he served in the
Black Watch, and then in
Naval Intelligence. His time in naval intelligence
led to his most famous creation, and the writing of
Casino Royale.
An immediate best seller in the US when President Kennedy listed 1957's
From Russia With Love as one of his favorite books, Fleming
eventually wrote twelve novels and nine short stories
featuring 007, leading to
one of the most successful movies empires of all time. Fleming returned the favor, suggesting to Kennedy over a dinner ways in which
the CIA could work to discredit Fidel Castro. Not only a prolific writer, Fleming was also a talented bibliophile and collector,
amassing a collection of books
now held by the
Lilly Library at
Indiana University, Bloomington.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow
on Aug 6, 2008 -
36 comments
Spy music! Whether it's
Lalo Schifrin's theme for
Mission Impossible, or
Jerry Goldsmith's theme for
Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the greatest of them all,
John Barry's iconic
James Bond theme, you know it when you hear it. Now, for my money, the best spy music in
recent years wasn't from a spy movie at all, but an animated superhero film: the action-packed
theme and soundtrack for
The Incredibles, in which the very talented
Michael Giacchino was clearly (and brilliantly)
channeling John Barry. And of course, you'll all want to head over
here and see what your fellow MeFiers have lately been doing with the genre.
[note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 1, 2008 -
54 comments
The real James Bond —
Sidney George Reilly, the shadowy '
Ace of Spies' and
inspiration for Ian Fleming's
007, was born Shlomo/Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblum in Ukraine/Poland in 1874. Perhaps illegitimate,
dapper Sidney was a tireless self-promoter, patent-medicine
chemist, world traveller, and high-stakes gambler (not only at the tables: he married four women but divorced none.) A Czarist
Okhrana informer as a Parisian student, he was hired as an undercover agent in the late 1890s by
M of Scotland Yard. Reilly worked both sides of the
Russo-Japanese War, influenced
British oil interests in Iran, brokered
World War I arms sales, and volunteered for the
Royal Flying Corps in Canada. Sent to Russia by
C of Britain's
SIS in 1918, he joined a
plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks: it failed, but he escaped to London. Returning to Russia in 1919 to help the
White Army, he was later awarded the
British Military Cross. A staunch anti-Communist, Reilly schemed against them throughout his career.
Lured back to Russia by agents of the '
Trust' — an anti-Bolshevik trap set by the Soviet
OGPU — Sidney was arrested, interrogated, and shot in 1925.
posted by cenoxo
on Oct 18, 2006 -
14 comments
Homophobia, bad 'fan' art and childish humor abound at
Craig Not Bond, which is campaigning for a boycott of the new Bond film
Casino Royale. Why? Because Bond is clearly not a sissy blonde fag who
can't drive a stick. A painful excursion down to the innermost (and utterly painful) depths of pissed off fandom.
posted by Effigy2000
on Aug 12, 2006 -
83 comments
The film - starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry - "clearly proves" the US is "the root cause of all disasters and misfortune of the Korean nation" and is "an empire of evil", according to the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
I can't get enough of these people.
posted by Pretty_Generic
on Dec 14, 2002 -
24 comments
Bond, James Jimmy Bond. Last Saturday ABC television aired
"Diamonds Are Forever" and
digitally altered the color of character Plenty O’Toole’s panties, as well as adding a black brassiere.
What possesses a network experiencing serious viewership erosion to cause them to spend time and money is such ridiculous censorship? What are the issues regarding copyright and intellectual property?
More importantly, what are they smoking over there at ABC?
posted by jpburns
on Mar 8, 2002 -
30 comments
