If anything can make you forget the disappointment of Quantum of Solace, it's the news that James Bond 23 has taken the first big steps into production. No, that's not casting Bond girls or plotting explosions, but writing the script. Not surprisingly, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have looked again to the cream of Britain's film crop and hired a man who's gotten some attention at the Oscars lately: Peter Morgan. Few of his scripts have gone wrong (The Other Boleyn Girl is one mark on an otherwise impeccable record .. and even then, it's not that bad) and he'll definitely lend a lot of gravitas to the project. A lot.

Morgan won't be penning 23 solo, however. He's got some old hands in
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (the pens behind both Quantum and Casino Royale), who are returning to the franchise ... and well, so long Paul Haggis. I guess he's taking the fall for Quantum.

So, now to find that new director. Rumors swirled that Danny Boyle had been offered the job, but that was quickly shot down by Boyle in an e-mail to EW. While it's always possible he could duck in once the script is done, we need to look to the rest of the United Kingdom ... and possibly to Morgan himself, who is about to make his directorial debut with The Special Relationship.

When I opened up a couple of Lionsgate DVDs last month, I noticed that the cover portion of each plastic case had a sizable hole in it, shaped like a recycling symbol. It seemed like a nice gesture, though I'm not entirely sure how much good that much plastic would do in its absence (nor how much more I would personally recycle at the mere sight of a reminder).

Then, a friend of mine opened up his Blu-ray copy of Fox/MGM's Quantum of Solace to discover similar holes. "Environmental friendly?," he noted. "Maybe. Far less sturdy and protective? Yes." (Or maybe he was just describing Bond in the movie, ZING!)

What do you guys and girls think about this recurring development? Do you believe it's a worthwhile effort on behalf of the studios to reduce waste, or would you rather shell out your hard-earned dollar for your movies to be kept in a proper and complete case?

There are many roles I can see Jennifer Aniston in, from wacky friend to indie moonlighting. But while we've often seen her rocking a bikini in the tabloids, I never thought it would lead to the biggest bombshell cinematic gig out there -- Bond girl.

The latest rumor cooking up at the Daily Express (as outlined on Ace Showbiz) states that after Aniston told Elle Magazine that she'd love to do a James Bond action flick with Daniel Craig, she perked up the ears over at EON, Bond's production company. The source is quoted as saying: "We're always looking for the next Bond girl. She has to be beautiful but she also needs to have brains. It helps if she's athletic and able to keep up with the intense stunt work a Bond movie demands. Jennifer has all these qualities. It's great to hear she'd love to do a movie because we have used established actresses before such as Teri Hatcher and Denise Richards. It's great she's a fan." The source went on to say that it's likely she'll now be called in to meet with producers as another sequel starts brewing.

Call me crazy, but I don't see this working out. Aniston has achieved a great many things, but she's not the woman that exudes toughness and intrigue whilst making men drool. She's got her girl posse, but I rarely if ever hear men (especially action fiends) spouting Aniston love.

So, in honor of crazy casting, go wild in the comments with the most unlikely and crazy Bond girl you can think of. Would anyone be more surprising than Aniston?

England's irreverent newspaper The Sun is notorious for printing stories that have not been 100% fact-checked and that may well be entirely false. (The Sun was like the blogosphere before the blogosphere existed.) Nonetheless, they get it right now and then, and they ran a particularly tantalizing rumor today: Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle has been asked to make the next James Bond movie.

Remember, this is shaky. The best The Sun can do is cite an anonymous source -- and all this alleged source says is that Boyle has been offered the film, not that he's accepted, or is even seriously considering it. It seems reasonable that the offer would be made, though. Obviously he's in high demand after winning the Oscar last week, and at various times all sorts of directors, from Tarantino to Spielberg, have been rumored to be interested in making a Bond film. Furthermore, Boyle is British, which used to be a prerequisite for a Bond director but has not been enforced lately.

The question is, would he be a good fit? One of the things I like about Boyle is that he's proven adept at an astonishing variety of genres, from horror to whimsy to sci-fi to whatever Slumdog was. I have no doubt he could make a full-bore espionage caper if he wanted to, and he could probably dig the franchise out of the Jason Bourne-copying rut it got stuck in with Quantum of Solace.

Our Holiday Movie Junk series continues today with a nifty collection from Swatch called the 007 Villains Collection, which are a collection of 22 Swatch watches inspired by the 22 villains in the Bond series. If you're like me, you have no idea what you want this holiday season and pressure is mounting from loved ones who "just want to get their f**king Christmas shopping done already!" Well good news is you should definitely find a nifty purchase somewhere in here. Personally, I love stylish ways to pimp out your movie geek persona, and if you're a James Bond fan (I know plenty of you are Bond fanatics), there are some very cool watches in here (like the one above, based on the villain from Live and Let Die).

We've gone and built a gallery of our favorites to give you a little taste of what they have, then feel free to head on over to the Swatch site to pick one (or four) up. Right now, it looks like only 12 watches are available for purchase online, and they range in price from $60 to $245. (You can also buy the entire collection for a cheap $4,000.)



[via Superpunch]

Based on some comments on my box office post and on Scott's review of Quantum of Solace, people want to talk about this. I want to talk about it too. So would someone who saw Quantum over the weekend please explain to me why this random action movie was released under the "James Bond" banner?

You know, there was that scene in Casino Royale where Bond, asked if he would like his vodka-martini shaken or stirred, replies: "Does it look like I give a damn?" At the time I -- and most others, it seemed -- thought this was actually pretty cool, part of Bond's facelift for the new millennium. The franchise retained its essence in that terrific film, but Bond was a little different: a little grittier, a little tougher, a little less studied and exaggerated in his suaveness. Besides, this was supposed to be a prequel. Bond is still learning the attitude and affectations that will eventually make him Bond, James Bond. Not to mention the fact that he ordered that martini after losing a fortune in poker.

After watching Quantum, I think back to the Casino Royale martini scene, and I'm dispirited. Because the truth is, his one petulant outburst aside, James Bond does care how he takes his martini. And I'm worried that the people behind this new, fantastically successful incarnation of the franchise really -- wrongly -- believe that he doesn't.

(In anticipation of Quantum of Solace, we're rerunning some of our favorite Bond posts alongside a few new ones. Enjoy!)

By: James Rocchi

Now that there's been a matter of, you know, 24 hours since the release of Quantum of Solace, enough time has passed for an assessment of the canon -- out of the James Bond films, which are the best? Well, it's easy to name the best seven -- and in doing so, draw our week of Bond pop-culture coverage here at Cinematical to an end. Bear in mind that this list is only worth noting as a source of minor-scale arguments -- which is exactly why it's fun. And now that my inner Rob Gordon is ready, let's talk about the best Bond films of all time ... In no particular order, except for number one.

7. Casino Royale

Yeah. It's in there. In the top third, most definitely. There's more in my review, but there's not a single part of this film I didn't enjoy -- or, if I wasn't enjoying it, I was at the very least respecting it as part of the plot, as an attempt to set mood or build character, to tackle the backbreaking stoop labor of thriller-style exposition. Craig is a great Bond, and it felt real -- like the sort of thing that may, in fact, happen in something like the real world. Well, not the kick-ass free-running sequence, but still. Oh, and also: There are computers and cell phones in Casino Royale, and only one piece of gadgetry was essential to the film. Everything else? Guns, knives, fists, phones. It's down-to-the-ground stuff, and it's amazing to watch.

What does Daniel Craig get right in his new outing as James Bond? What does Quantum of Solace get wrong? Can Marc Forster really direct action? Is Olga Kurylenko really the "hottest Bond girl ever?" Which directors could and should take on Bond's 23rd outing? And above and beyond all these topics, what does this week's guest Kevin Kelly, of Joystiq and Spout, think needs to happen to save Bond from both his corporate overlords and world-destroying villains? You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Even as the franchise began to shed staples with 2006's Casino Royale and tomorrow's Quantum of Solace, the James Bond series is still known for several keystones across twenty other films: girls, gadgets, guns, martinis, silhouettes of female figures thrusting about during the credits, and so on. Some would say that these were the traditions that helped lead James Bond down the path that would end in 2002's Die Another Day, which some would say made them want to take a top hat to their own throats. (Me? I didn't hate it.)

Among these recurring touches were the last lines, often cheeky turns of phrase that seemed to suggest that everything was going to be just fine between Commander Bond and that chick who we'd never see or hear about ever again. So, out of twenty-one films, I humbly offer up my picks for the seven best of the bunch. I'll leave you to find out if Quantum ends more along the lines of Royale's "The name's Bond... James Bond", or with something a bit sexier...

I guess he'll die another way, to paraphrase Madonna's lousy theme song for the 20th Bond movie. Bond's survival of baroque death traps has been mocked on screen all the way back to 1965, when the noted character actor Robert Easton had the following line as a fruity-accented Bond type in The Loved One: "I think it could be dicey if he decides to use the giant squid." There was a giant octopus in the novel of Dr. No, though no villain ever actually employed sharks with laser helmets as in the Austin Powers films. However, there had been a planned robot shark in the kinda-non canonical Bond adventure Never Say Never Again. Our hero has dealt with seven especially exotic murder weapons over the years:

1. Death by giant yo-yo: Octopussy (1983) Resting after an exhausting shag with Maud Adams, Commander Bond (Roger Moore) is awakened by the sudden arrival in his bed of a razor-ended steel yo-yo as large as a family-sized pizza. This must have been the invention of co-screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser, who was always menacing his hero Flashman with just such stuff. I can't nail down the exact first use of strapping a heroine to a log and sending her into a sawmill, though this was considered so essential to the silent serials that it was parodied in the titles of TV's Fractured Flickers. This particular flying guillotine, some sort of cousin to this ancient sawmill gag, brings the circle around from silent movie heroism to modern day pulp.