Daniel Craig Gossip

I have not been super enthusiastic for the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, which is partly because the Bond movies of the Daniel Craig era are not dependably good, but also because I did not care for the serialization offered by Spectre—why does everything have to be a f-cking saga?—so the thought of going further down that path with Time is distinctly unappealing. Full Story

No Time to Die, the 25th Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007, comes out in April. In advance of that, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson gave an interview to Variety that comes across as half reckoning with the end of Craig’s tenure and half reckoning with the constant public pressure to do something different with the character after 50 years of white dudes in the role. Full Story

Amidst all the caterwauling about Star Wars’ box office—which is fine by any and every measure—the real success story of the holiday season is Knives Out. It opened back in November, during the US Thanksgiving holiday, and it has trucked along steadily ever since, raking in over $247 million Full Story

Poor James Bond, always having such bad days at work. Wouldn’t it be nice to see Bond just, like, chill out for a while? But no, the man can’t even retire without getting dragged back into the spy game. The first trailer for No Time to Die, the beleaguered Bond movie Full Story

Knives Out premiered last night, and that extremely good cast showed up, looking extremely good. I am missing Lakeith Stanfield, an underrated hottie, but check out Chris Evans in that winter white suit with the striped knit tie. I stared at this suit in close zoom for a long time, trying to determine if the pattern is just a tone-on-tone stripe or, gasp, CORDUROY, and after much staring and some googling, it is, yes, CORDUROY. Full Story

There are few entertainments as satisfying as a good murder mystery, which is why Knives Out is one of the best films I’ve seen this year—it’s a GREAT murder mystery. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Knives Out is a twisty-turny mystery that nods to everything from Christie, Hammett, and Jessica Fletcher, to modern day internet troll culture (the latter definitely informed by Johnson’s own experience with toxic fandom—STAR WARS DOESN’T DESERVE HIM). Full Story

Poor Bond 25. Every time to they try to get a little spotlight for themselves, they get Cats-trailered right off the internet. First it was doing a “live launch” of Bond 25 during Avengers-Winterfell Week Full Story

Pre-Star Wars, Rian Johnson made his name as a director on twisty-turny genre pieces Brick, The Brothers Bloom (vastly underappreciated), and Looper. Then he went off and made a Star War and a very vocal fragment of the fandom pooped their Pampers over The Last Jedi, an argument which continues today. Full Story

Today, Empire released a first-look video of Bond 25 which might as well be titled “Bond 25: Everything is fine!”. After multiple incidents on set, including an injury to Daniel Craig and a slight out-of-control controlled explosion Full Story

Is Bond 25 cursed? First there was the director drama, then that spectacularly ill-timed live-launch event Full Story