Blood-Eyed Jacks to Open
Dinner and a movie tonight, not in that order.
On the way home from one of Balans'* better meals (doubtlessly due to the charming pre-Scissor Sisters company and our adorable and funny Laplandian waiter), Larry starts chatting up the world's oldest taxi driver. As we near B2, the cabbie says, "have you heard the joke about women?"
"Dunno," says Larry.
"Well I'll tell it to you and if you can come up with a better one, the fare's on me."
"Fare enough (geddit?), go on."
"What does a woman have in common with a hurricane?" the cabby asks.
Larry gave up. I'd given up a good while before, when they started discussing Watford's football season. Ugh.
"A woman's like a hurricane because when she comes, she blows hot and cold and when she leaves she takes the house with her."
The cab driver thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. We paid the full tariff.
* Normally not a big fan of Balans, but the new menu (at least my cassoulet) was very good and the service didn't suck tonight.
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Prior to dinner, we watched two and a half hours of www.pokerhard.com Bond James Bond.
Liked it, didn't love it and, well, spoilers ahead ...
It was way (a good half-hour) too long. Most of the middle was a really rubbish card game sequence with the old goat slash I'm-your-only-friend (Hmmm, is he a good guy or a bad guy? well if you have to ask ... ) giving a ri.dic.u.ous color commentary on "the tell" to the accountant slash love interest (Hmmm, is she a good guy or a bad guy? well if you have to ask ...)
Hey Mathis ... we were there when Bond James Bond figured out the tell, you don't need to keep telling us about it, or count the money on the table for us.
Oh! And always remember the rules of storytelling, people ... steely blue eyes will prevail (in the long run, not on the first big hand) over gammy gray eyes that weep blood.
Don't you kinda sorta wish that one of your eyes, just the one mind you, shed a tear of blood every now and again? Very nice.
The first chases sequence, while most exciting, and perhaps only 5 minutes too long, was a speed-through of level 10 of a video game that would have given Lara Croft cause to pull a groin muscle. That said, it was much more realistic than jumping out of a burning plane to pull a pair of skis out of your ass and then slalom into an innaugural ball in time to diffuse a bomb, have a 3-way with two blondes from the cater-waiter staff, and shoot your poisoned cufflink into the hideously deformed, yet inexplicably sexy, bad guy who's eating salmon tartare with the Archduchess of Montepulciano.
What do you mean that never happened?
Craig Daniel Craig was nice enough to look at, and captured the necessary Bond tough-guy I'm-cooler-than-shit arrogance. And, yes, he looks good in square cut swimwear and/or a tux. We were surprised however, well ... disappointed, that we didn't get a full-on ass shot. Vesper did after all inform us that it was "perfectly formed". Let's have more showing and less telling. Honestly, my husband Rupert Penry-Jones gave it up in Spooks this season, surely Craig Daniel Craig could have dropped trou in this. For the ladies, of course. If it's good enough for the BBC ... I'm just sayin'.
I haven't seen the past few episodes of the 007 franchise, but this one is a good romp, if not a little drawn out. It's not the lack of gadgets that bothered me, just the lack of pacing.
Then again, if you get bored, you can always play product placement bingo. Sony Erickson. Ford, Sony Vaio, Virgin Airline, Sony Bravia, and Rolex Omega will easily fill your card in no time.
Special note to CBT enthusiasts, you'll be giving this film two big thumbs up, and Craig Daniel Craig looks very cozy strapped, all nekkid, into a seatless chair. But again ... no glutes?
Oh, and parents, please don't take your 7-9 year olds. It's not a film for kids, and once *you* realize there's going to be some naked knotted-rope-on-bollocks torture, your son's caught on too and it's a little too late to play concerned parent. Whisking him out of the movie theater saying, "don't look Timmy" is just going to put him into deeper therapy.
When we were talking about Casino Royale tonight, someone said that "all the Brits I know loved it, the Americans thought it was only okay."
What did you think? (About the film, not about the taxi driver's alleged joke.)