i hab a code

Actually, it was somewhat more severe than that -- feels mostly like a brief -- and blessedly mild -- touch of pneumonia. I spent the day after Christmas in bed with a raging fever. I guess I wasn't all there on Christmas day, either, or only sporadically -- I barely remember posting, although I do remember going to see Casino Royale that afternoon. (As if even a raging fever could make me forget Daniel Craig -- a marvelous actor with a very high "yum" quotient.)

At any rate, I'm back, more or less, although physical exertion still takes it out of me far in excess of what it should -- lungs are still touchy, and I'm still coughing up goo.

Well -- enough of pneumonia, which is not something I really want to wax philosophical about.




As for Casino Royale, I haven't seen that much in the way of reviews or other commentary, but what I have seen leads me to believe a lot of people are missing the point. No, of course this is not the James Bond of Goldfinger. This is a young, rough-around-the-edges James Bond and that's deliberate -- it's a pre-Bond Bond. (If nothing else, the end of this one, with the original Bond theme, should nail that down.) Sorry -- Craig is just as sexy as Connery, but it's an edgy, awkward, young cat kind of sexy rather than Connery's laid back, grown-up cat kind of sexy. I saw one comment that ascribed a confusing story line to bad editing. Well, two things: if you're not at least a little confused in a James Bond movie, you're not paying attention; and I didn't find the story line at all incoherent. (That may have been due to my own condition -- see above -- but I don't really think so.)

Judi Dench offers an amazingly subtle performance as M, as, for that matter, does Craig as Bond.

The refreshing part of this is that we finally have a James Bond movie that isn't self-parody, after way too many years.

The damnable part of this is that I was going to go see a Lord of the Rings marathon this afternoon and evening, and I'm just not well enough. Feh.