Shaken, Not Stirred: Taking On James Bond

That’s right, we’re back for another round.

When Jon and I started compiling ideas for this series, exploring the Bond films was an early suggestion from me. Beyond the personal connection – the Connery films in particular were very important to my father, and was one of the things he shared with me as a child – I think there’s deeper themes to explore. Following the journey of a character who not only literally changed with each actor that dons the famous MI6 assignation, but how time itself changed the perspective and through line of Bond, as each decade becomes just as influential as the writer, director, or actor who wades into the waters Fleming founded over half a century ago.

In some ways it feels just as daunting as when we tackled Kurosawa’s filmography: going by the “classic” canon embodied by the Eon films we’re talking 25 titles, from Connery’s debut in Dr. No to the definitive closing of a chapter with both Daniel Craig and the Broccoli Family with No Time To Die. Just under 60 years of 007 to dig into over the next year or so. And while there may not be much of a thematic through-line to dissect (although I could be wrong; who knows what we’ll discover), I suspect wrestling with the cultural shifts and social mores the films choose to embrace or – more often than not – ignore will be just as challenging.

So good thing once again Jon is joining me on this journey. His own experience with the character and franchise is very different than mine, and one of my favorite things about these columns and indeed this whole site is how his experience bumps up against and challenges my own notions and feelings on these movies and cinema as a whole.

The formula remains the same: Twice a month we’ll watch and write our impressions of each chapter of one of the most famous fictional badasses (maybe that’s a theme that runs through these projects?) to ever grace celluloid. Explosions kick off on 2/15 with Dr. No and will continue on 2/28 with From Russia With Love. After that we’re back on our twice a month schedule, dosing you with new Bond every 15th and 30th of the month. With a little luck and the right gadget from Q Branch we’ll see you all on the other side of this in the spring of 2027.

More to come; I hope you’ll join us. I mean, I don’t expect you to join us…

…I expect you to die.