The BJMDDS General Discussion Thread......

[bjmdds]

Cr-egg was too old for Bond when he started. He came across a flawed, burnt out drunk from day 1. FBF, here's a good choice for Bond if Broccoli stays. http://chillertheatre.com/gt/beefcakeb_a.jpg

[bjmdds]

All plants and animals contain trace amounts of radioactive potassium-40 and radium-226. In fact, all water contains dissolved radioactive uranium and thorium, according to the USNRC.

However, these amounts are very small. All the food and drink a person ingests over a year add up to about 30 mrem.

[bjmdds]

'Hunt for Red October' author Tom Clancy dies at 66. Clancy died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his hometown, following a brief illness, according to the Baltimore Sun.

[kater23]

66 is too young Never read any of his books but I hear they're good.

[bjmdds]

Where's Ale? https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 9856_n.jpg

[Omega]

Brosnan has a potential new thriller on his hands,
I.T.
Don't knowing about it except it is being play up like its a big deal


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[bjmdds]

Pierce Brosnan is set to star in I.T., a revenge thriller that Stefano Sollima will direct. Voltage Pictures is financing. Brosnan will play a successful book publisher who finds himself pitted against a young disgruntled I.T. consultant who is tech savvy and uses that to threaten the author’s family and livelihood. Sollima hails from Italy, where he helmed the film A.C.A.B.: All Cops Are bas***ds, and the upcoming SkyItalia miniseries Gomorra. I.T. will be produced by David T. Friendly, Craig Flores, Nicolas Chartier and Beau St. Clair, the latter of whom is Brosnan’s producing partner in Irish DreamTime. Dan Kay wrote the script based on an idea by Friendly through his Friendly Films banner.

They are now casting the antagonist role, and aiming for a 2014 start date. Voltage, which most recently backed the Joseph Gordon-Levitt-directed Don Jon, is out securing a domestic studio partner and will sell the film at AFM next month. Voltage’s Dominic Rustam negotiated the deals. Brosnan and Sollima are repped by CAA, Kay by APA

[Dr. No]

'Hunt for Red October' author Tom Clancy dies at 66. Clancy died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his hometown, following a brief illness, according to the Baltimore Sun.

A brief illness? I don't know I had the impression he was sick for a while, he used to always appear on CNN and other shows and had a new book every year or two until 2002, I thought his health was failing then.

RIP, he always had something interesting to say he will be missed.

[John P. Drake]

Pierce Brosnan is set to star in I.T., a revenge thriller that Stefano Sollima will direct. Voltage Pictures is financing. Brosnan will play a successful book publisher who finds himself pitted against a young disgruntled I.T. consultant who is tech savvy and uses that to threaten the author’s family and livelihood. Sollima hails from Italy, where he helmed the film A.C.A.B.: All Cops Are bas***ds, and the upcoming SkyItalia miniseries Gomorra. I.T. will be produced by David T. Friendly, Craig Flores, Nicolas Chartier and Beau St. Clair, the latter of whom is Brosnan’s producing partner in Irish DreamTime. Dan Kay wrote the script based on an idea by Friendly through his Friendly Films banner.

They are now casting the antagonist role, and aiming for a 2014 start date. Voltage, which most recently backed the Joseph Gordon-Levitt-directed Don Jon, is out securing a domestic studio partner and will sell the film at AFM next month. Voltage’s Dominic Rustam negotiated the deals. Brosnan and Sollima are repped by CAA, Kay by APA

Looks like the tremendous Pierce Brosnan is back in action. Now, that's awesome. Has FBF seen this yet?

[bjmdds]

Get FBF in here tout de suite

[Kristatos]

"Casting the antagonist role". I think it needs someone a bit younger than Pierce, possibly a bit thuggish, who would elicit a convincingly hostile performance from Pierce and really make you root for him to kick his ass. Can you think of anyone like that?

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[bjmdds]

Broccoli would never allow that to happen.

[Goldeneye]

"Casting the antagonist role". I think it needs someone a bit younger than Pierce, possibly a bit thuggish, who would elicit a convincingly hostile performance from Pierce and really make you root for him to kick his ass. Can you think of anyone like that?

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[FormerBondFan]

I.T. is said to be a thriller. It didn't say anything about that being in the action realm. November Man and The Coup are action thrillers.

[Kristatos]

Broccoli would never allow that to happen.

Broccoli wouldn't have a say in the matter. I doubt Craig would want to do it, though.

[Omega]

Gravity looks like it is going to be huge. I thought it flop because the ads were dumb.

According to deadline Peter Jackson as of March spent $561 million on making the movies, not a total cost I guess since they make a billion each its ok.

[kater23]

Gravity looks good. I'm a Sandra Bullock fan(but that movie she did with Melissa McCarthy looked dumb.)

[John P. Drake]

Adam Bollard slaps the new Bond novel Solo with his review:

Not to say that the mantle of 'new James Bond continuation author' is a poisoned chalice, but it's certainly not been as snug a fit for its recent owners as that iconic shoulder holster always has been for 007. Since the publication of "Devil May Care" (2008) and "Carte Blanche" (2011), both Sebastian Faulks and Jeffrey Deaver have received their fair share of flak from Fleming die-hards for their respective novels - and noticeably neither's received the call-back for a sequel from Ian Fleming Publications, purveyors of the literary Bond brand.

In fact, IFP have a new torchbearer, acclaimed author William Boyd, and he's given us "Solo", an adventure that sees 007 trying to end 'a dirty little' African civil war in the whirlwind of change that was the late 1960s. Credit where it's due, of this modern trio of Fleming-successors, Boyd has definitely managed in "Solo" to bring readers the closest to the original Bond. Is that the best thing that can be said of "Solo", though? Probably, yes; but coming after Faulks' and Deaver's efforts, it's certainly not something to be scoffed at either.

Indeed, owing to his hearty stab at 'Fleming faithfulness', there's much to like about Boyd's novel. Firstly, to this reader's mind, Boyd gets right both that Fleming-esque terse but vibrant, journalistic writing style and the Bond character. Not only is Bond replete with those wiles and that wit, that danger and that brutality, and that classiness and that stubbornness which so delight Fleming fans, but the author also builds on the 007 of the later Fleming novels by showing flashes of him starting to reflect on and accept middle-age - not only that well publicised 45th-birthday breakfast at The Dorchester in the first chapter, but also a grown-up mutual attraction with an equally confident, mature woman.

Boyd too delivers the requisite thrills, spills and violence, as well as pitch-perfectly Bond's ex-CIA agent chum Felix Leiter and curmudgeon boss M. Moreover, the minutiae of Bond's London home life are given the full treatment, which is rather unexpectedly refreshing. And, rest assured, there's also much attention paid to Bond's delectations: food and drink (among them Boyd's own recipes for a vodka Martini and a salad dressing); cars (here Jensens); cigarettes, clothes and weaponry. All vices very much intact then.

But - and it's a big but - "Solo" is less satisfying in two critical areas: the locations and the literary Bond's glamour/ surreality. There's nothing inherently wrong with sending our man to Africa and the fictitious war-ravaged country of Zanzarim (doing the latter allows the author artistic leg-room), but as the single setting for a long middle section of a Bond novel it's pretty bleak stuff - starving kids included. And, owing to this undiluted realistic setting, the villains our hero's up against aren't exactly the most electric - African warlords and savage white mercenary soldiers may be just as evil and physically threatening as an Auric Goldfinger or an Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but they're less fantastic and fun, so ultimately less memorable.

Additionally, when we're done in Africa, Bond, yes, 'goes solo' and travels to Washington D.C. His going AWOL in the films may be controversial ("Licence to Kill", "Die Another Day" and "Quantum of Solace"), but Boyd knows what he's doing with his admittedly convoluted plotting here, never allowing Bond to go full-Liam Neeson-in-"Taken" mode. Instead, it's the use of Washington as the book's secondary location that misses the mark.

Effectively a political capital with a dirty 1960s' underbelly, it's just rather dull for the Bondiverse. At times we get glimpses of the more exotic aspects of late '60s Americana (assertive black women in afros and flares and red Mustang sportscars), but these are fleeting, surprisingly bringing to mind the cinematic "Live and Let Die" and "Diamonds are Forever" and thus making one ponder why Boyd didn't go the whole hog and just send Bond to the then equally dirty but far more colourful and interesting New York City?

Ultimately, it feels a little unfair comparing a Bond continuation author's effort to those of Fleming as surely no-one's really going to deliver the genuine article again, but it's both inevitable and necessary to do so. After all, as said, in significant areas Boyd is d**n near spot on in "Solo". So, will he succeed where Faulks and Deaver failed and get a second stab at the gig? Who knows. But there's certainly a lot of promise here; his middle-aged 007 entering the '70s could be intriguing (especially given the novel's agreeable end coda), if only he could throw a little more of that Fleming glamour, dynamism and surreal magic into the mix.

[bjmdds]

At 3,575 locations, Gravity's estimated $55.6 million debut is a new opening weekend record for the month of October ahead of 2011's Paranormal Activity 3 ($52.6 million). It's also the highest start ever for stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney ahead of The Heat and Batman and Robin, respectively.

Recognizing that Gravity had huge commercial potential, Warner Bros. rolled out a blockbuster-level marketing effort in the past month. Advertisements played up the movie's unique setting and stunning visuals, and also positioned it as a thrilling, action-packed adventure. Leading up to the release, Warner Bros. started emphasizing the movie's critical reception, which was nothing short of fantastic (it currently has a 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Also, Sandra Bullock was all over the place promoting the movie, which helped bring in more women than may otherwise have attended an action-packed sci-fi movie (46 percent of the audience was female).

Across all of the marketing, Warner Bros. managed to convey that Gravity was an experience that needed to be seen in a theater—preferably in 3D or IMAX. This helped get people out to theaters, and also got them to cough up an extra few bucks for 3D: according to Warner Bros., 80 percent of Gravity's opening weekend haul came from the premium-priced showtimes.

That 3D share is higher than any recent original movie, and is also ahead of Avatar (71 percent), which is essentially the godfather of 3D. Of course, Gravity had many more 3D screens available than Avatar did, so that's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Additionally, Gravity took in $11.2 million from 323 IMAX locations, which represented 20 percent of its weekend haul.

All signs point to Gravity having a very successful run from here. The movie was up 32 percent from Friday-to-Saturday, which suggests great word-of-mouth (as does its "A-" CinemaScore). Also, its audience skewed much older—59 percent over 35 years of age—which tends to be an indicator of long-term playability. Finally, the movie gets to hold most of its IMAX and 3D showtimes for the rest of October, which means the premium-priced tickets are going to continue to be the go-to option for audiences. (I won't pay 1 dime to see either of these 2 actors in any film.)

[bjmdds]

Gravity looks good. I'm a Sandra Bullock fan(but that movie she did with Melissa McCarthy looked dumb.)

I cannot stand her MP. I find her overrated and boring.