As the title suggests, so forth.
Should I call you Robert Battinson now?
“I’m Batman” “No!” “Bond, James Bond” “Yes”
ITV 4 may or may not have committed to running all the Bond films in order. In any case after five Connery classics they were obliged to air On Her Majesty’s Secret Service this week. Le sigh. Discussing the possibility of Oliver Reed reprising his 1969 performance in The Assassination Bureau with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas alongside them in OHMSS, the Engineer objected that the actor would’ve been bigger than the role; always a dangerous position of leverage for a studio, cf Robert Downey Jr is Iron Man. And so to the Amazon Bond, which is is still looking for a Bond. Balloons go up from time to time; Jacob Elordi, Callum Turner. But with Denis Villeneuve as director, what about this insane for the Broccolis choice – Robert Pattinson? If he and Villeneuve got on well working together on Dune: Messiah, why not? Considerable star power. A huge spike of interest. The insouciant turn in Tenet as proof of concept. And, more importantly, the crossing of the streams, the unified theory of heroism the 21st Century didn’t know it needed – one man would be simultaneously both 007 and Batman.
Mental Maps: Update Failed
Trading off the cuff lists with Graham Price some months back he muttered that I had furnished not a best of the 80s but a best of Hollywood 80s.
The Empire Strikes Back.
Blade Runner.
Ghostbusters.
Back to the Future.
Clue.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Aliens.
The Mission.
Wall Street.
The Last Crusade.
And yet, it is a list of films I would happily spend a weekend watching while gorging on pizza. Indeed while he was commenting on it, I had already written a second off the cuff list. Equally valid.
Stardust Memories.
The Blues Brothers.
Fitzcarraldo.
Betty Blue.
Au Revoir Les Enfants.
The Untouchables.
Die Hard.
Heathers.
Crimes and Misdemeanours.
Field of Dreams.
The second list featured foreign films, and some less overtly statement movies. The difference, I think, might be attributable to the difficulty in updating the mental maps we have of the world. If I am twirled around and asked to orient myself in the 1940s in my dizziness I will still remember the North Stars of The Maltese Falcon and The Third Man at either end of the decade. Similarly with the 1970s I will fix my position between the imposing monoliths of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. But, can you update these maps? As you add more details can you fill in the rivers and the valleys and the smaller mountain ranges so that you can barely see the landmarks anymore? I don’t think so. As much as I treasure a clutch of mid-1950s French crime movies if you ask me about the 1950s my first thoughts will always be Hitchock, Ealing and musicals. After I get on to B-movies in my mind, the French classics will pop up too. And the same holds true for the likes of Strategic Air Command and The Bridges at Toko-Ri. As much as I esteem them, they have been viewed too late in the day to update the map. They can pop up in other contexts, propaganda, alien cultures, but they will never dominate my mental map of the 1950s the way the films Grace Kelly and James Stewart made with Alfred Hitchcock will.
Talking Movies 