So, for about two years now, Will Chapman of BrickArms has been creating a wide variety of custom Lego minifigures, ranging from World War II soldiers (both Axis and Allies) to a certain copyrighted British Secret Service agent. One of Chapman's more popular creations is "Mr. White," a "bandit" brimming with weapons (including an AK-47 and RPG) and grenades. This week, the Sun ran a story. Then Fox News ran another. [more inside]
posted by hifiparasol on Dec 11, 2008 - 30 comments

Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish of Adam & Joe fame put forward their proposals for the theme tune for the upcoming Bond film Quantum Of Solace
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 9, 2008 - 14 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

Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care sees the return of the literary James Bond to the 1960s. Published on May 28th in celebration of creator Ian Fleming's Centenary, the 007 brand name will also be back on the big screen in November - with Daniel Craig's second outing as the British Secret Service Agent in Quantum of Solace. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on May 26, 2008 - 14 comments

"I want to recreate a great Bond journey," I say. "I want to take a passage from one of the novels and assiduously match Bond car for car, road for road, meal for meal, drink for drink, hotel for hotel." [more inside]
posted by beaucoupkevin on May 12, 2008 - 39 comments

sQuba Submersible Sports Car --Rinspeed calls the sQuba the first real submersible car. Unlike military amphibious vehicles, which can only drive slowly on a lakebed, the sQuba travels like a submarine - either on the surface or submerged. The interior is resistant to salt water, allowing the skipper to drive into a lake or the sea. The only downside? It's a convertible.
posted by The Light Fantastic on Feb 18, 2008 - 23 comments

Todd Alcott, a screenwriter and Livejournaller, just sat down and watched every Bond film from Dr No to Die Another Day.
posted by ninebelow on Jun 19, 2007 - 32 comments

Meet Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the World's Greatest Living Explorer...
posted by quin on Dec 6, 2006 - 14 comments

The Real-Life Vesper Lynde. Known to history as Christine Granville, Krystyna Skarbek was first Polish nobility and later Churchill's favorite spy. Undaunted by weather, Christine skied over the Tatras from Hungary to Poland to gather intelligence and participated in the liberation of France. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, but found herself ill-suited to normal employment, and worked as a saleswoman at Harrods and as a telephonist before becoming an oceanliner stewardess. Along the way, Christine met Ian Fleming, who may have based his first "Bond Girl" on the intrepid spy. Want to know more? Read her recently republished biography or order her file from the Briish National Archives.
posted by Medieval Maven on Aug 6, 2006 - 6 comments

“The name’s Power. Michael Power..."
posted by longbaugh on Nov 8, 2005 - 10 comments

Daniel Craig = Bond, James Bond
Daniel Craig has been announced as the sixth James Bond in the remake of Casino Royale, the next movie in the long running series of over-the-top spy movies.
We'll see how he performs but he's got some mighty big shoes to fill and fill (with a big Happy Birthday to you!) and fill and fill and fill.
posted by fenriq on Oct 14, 2005 - 87 comments

No more Q? What would have become of James Bond without all of his wacky gadgets? (via Engadget)
posted by missmerrymack on Sep 19, 2005 - 45 comments

Miss, Miss! Little Jimmy Bond peeked at my intelligence report! "The UK's latest move in the fight against terrorism is a secret project to bring together intelligence data from the UK's security agencies, say reports." Because normally, it's far more sensible to have all the different agencies hoarding their own information and not letting anyone else see it... But seriously: first steps to a UK TIA? Knowing the inefficiences, bureaucratic in-fighting, and awful data mess that these agencies routinely engage in, I doubt it.
posted by humuhumu on May 29, 2003 - 3 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

The Art of James Bond captures the aesthetic of a character Martin Amis called "lonely, melancholic, in some way ravaged... dark and brooding in expression, of a cold or cynical veneer, and above all enigmatic, in possession of a sinister secret." Of course, the movies are a different story.
posted by Hildago on Oct 5, 2002 - 11 comments

Bond: Bored and Boozy James Bond. John Lanchester, in an insightful essay for the (beautifully redesigned) London Review of Books, counts (and staggers at) the amount of booze Ian Fleming's alter ego got through in a single day. He needn't have bothered: there's a delightful, knowledgeable and fanatical website, called Make Mine An 007 that does little else but tally up every drink that passes Agent 007's (or his enemys') lips, in his novels and in his films; listing the brands, the recipes and even totting up the glorious, final statistics.[More inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Aug 31, 2002 - 31 comments

James Bond vs. Austin Powers ...and now for something completely trivial: MGM and Danjaq, the British company that controls the Bond film license, have obtained a cease-and-desist order against New Line Cinema that prohibits New Line from calling the latest installment of Mike Myers' shagadelic spy series Austin Powers in Goldmember. Apparently, the 007 folks weren't too keen on the double entendre of Goldmember--a takeoff on the 1964 Bond classic, Goldfinger--and released the legal hounds to force the name change. That's not very sporting of them, is it?
posted by verdezza on Jan 26, 2002 - 25 comments

All your spaceship are belong to LEEIF. Someone stole the source code to the guidance package for the US space program, including GPS. Tomorrow Never Dies, anyone?
posted by OneBallJay on Mar 2, 2001 - 7 comments

This in from the Yes, we have too much time on our hands department: James Bond is a Time Lord!
(via The Useless Pages)
posted by Aaaugh! on Dec 13, 2000 - 2 comments

"I think it's a great honour for Scotland," he said. Well he sorta served in Her Majesty's Secret Service. He just wasn't very secret about it. He did once say he thought it was alright under certain conditions to "smack a woman" though. I'm not sure if that's a part of the Chivalric Code. I don't know. What do you think?
posted by ZachsMind on Jul 5, 2000 - 12 comments