Up and Down the California Coast: James Bond is Back!

Hey!

Just got back home to find a whole lotta stuff waiting for me, including a spiffy new Mutant Reviewers community blog. Hooray!

Vaguely Film-Related Anecdote: after spending more than a week drifting in and out of towns big and small along the California coast, I'm happy to report that a great deal of cinematic small talk revolved around the excellent 'Casino Royale.' A lot of the smaller, independent movie theaters, especially the Fremont in San Luis Obispo and the newer theaters at the shopping mall in Monterey, still have 'Casino Royale' prominently displayed as a major release weeks after it premiered, and it's still selling out. (the Fremont theater is ONLY showing 'Casino Royale' on its single screen, but still)

I'm thinking this means 'Casino Royale' is a big success. I think that's a good thing! I enjoyed the film a great deal. It's quite different from the rest of the series in a lot of ways; ways I'll be looking for and cataloging as I go through the "ultimate" James Bond DVD releases I picked up over the past month (they're the new ones in the shiny metallic boxes).

So, even though Pierce Brosnan is gone, and (for the moment) so are the crazy gadgets, Q, and signs of "spy movie goofiness," I think it's safe to say that Bond is Back, and in a Big way. I guess that's all that really matters, right?