We're back - at least for now.........with my take on 'NO TIME TO DIE'.

 

Won't bore the pants off you - so skipping details, I'm back for a while using temporary keyboard until shop gets new missing part. Then on its arrival shouldn't take long to fix. So enough of that!

Thanks for all the messages on my last two posts which I hadn't seen until this morning. All are now acknowledged and/or responded to.

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NO TIME TO DIE

I'll keep this more brief than some I've done.

My first cinema visit in over a year, and this I just had to see - though it turned out not really to be what I'd been hoping for to mark Mr Craig's swan-song appearance as 007.

For a kick-off I found the film far too long - by at least a half of its close on three-hour length - to sustain a keen interest in its extended stay, well mine at least. And such a convoluted plot too, needlessly so - SMERSH organising blood injections and DNA manipulations for the entire global population from a Japanese island whilst establishing a 'poison garden' - surely a none-too-subtle nod to 'You Only Live Twice', the original Ian Fleming novel, not the film - but why?  Oh, please give me a simple. old-fashioned, blow-up-the-world, nuclear bomb, something we can all understand, even if we now yawn at it! But that's probably too passe for today's audiences.  

Rami Malek, as this meandering tale's arch-villain-in-chief is just adequate in the role, though no more borderline scary than most of Bond's weaker adversaries of the past. Malek sports facial pockmarks and grazes to indicate to us that he's a real bad 'un, a pukka swine! But this actor himself being so young, seems to lack the unquestionable authority which marked out other more memorable villains in the series. I just couldn't see him as the biggest threat the world has ever faced. Christoph Waltz in a one-scene reprise appearance is much more impressively menacing and authoritative. Having said that, Malek's character really does display a hideously vicious level of nastiness well worthy of such a contemptible figure. 

I thought the introduction of a female 007 (Lashana Lynch)  to replace Bond when his disappearance at the start of the film had led to the assumption by 'M' (Ralph Fiennes once more) that he must be deceased, hopelessly unconvincing. Aside from some efficient swimming and being able to ride a motorcycle in a chase with Bond hanging on to dear life as pillion passenger, she didn't seem to possess the exceptional survival skills which had marked Bond out sufficiently to merit his inclusion in the '00' licence-to-kill category.

This is the most episodically stop-start-stop-start and relentlessly serious of all twenty-five films in the series, practically devoid of all humour, though the odd 'aside' might just be caught by perceptive ears, including from Ben Wishaw again as 'Q', in that role's most substantial contribution yet. 

I've already mentioned the allusion to one of Fleming's original novels. There are a couple of more direct references, aural ones including over the closing credits, to a certain eartier Bond film, in my books easily one of the best ones, if not the best - despite having one glaring 'thumbs-down'! 

This is only the second film from director Cary Joji Fukunaga which I've seen, the other being his 'Jane Eyre' of ten years ago with which I had been mightily impressed, awarding it a rare for me rating of '8'. I rather think he's hit the buffers with this latest of his. 

The reviews of 'No Time' which I've seen have been overwhelmingly positive, many of them giving it their maximum number of stars. Fair enough, even if I beg to differ greatly. I thought that over his five Bond outings, Daniel Craig has made a highly admirable Bond. all his films bar one deserving a second viewing, or even more - that is all except this very one, which left me, quite uniquely for a Bond film, with a nasty taste in the mouth...................5/10.

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If I do disappear again in the next few days it shouldn't be for too long. Now I really must go and start catching up on all other blog-pals' postings I've missed. 

Another pause coming - now it's laptop problems.

 

I'm having major keyboard difficulties. Hard to type replies - and mighty slow too - to all your nice comments, but thank you anyway. Will be back when fixed or keyboard replaced.

'Me-at-75' pics loaded.

 After much faffing around with my camera of yesteryear, I finally got to load the pics I wanted to include on yesterday's post.

So this my 2021 birthday shot -

Puts me in mind of Shakespeare's version of King Richard the Second being deposed by Bolingbroke - who was about to become Henry the Fourth - when Richard calls for a mirror which, on arrival, he berates it for not showing up the furrows in his brow and face brought about by his cares, so he then deliberately drops the mirror to shatter it. Although I didn't bust my ancient camera by letting it fall to the floor, I do know just how Dickie felt. Similarly, but much more modestly, this pic gives no indication of the turbulence going on underneath. Deceitful camera!

I've also managed to update my profile pic, of which the following is a contemporary alternative version taken this morning..........

 And finally, for good measure to raise a smile, possibly, Patchie (the 'Boss'. my junior by sixty years!) on my lap a few hours ago...........though please don't dwell on the hideous tummy bulge! (Mine, not his!)

That's all for now, folks.

 

On having reached a significantly numbered age.

Yes, I'm still here - if anyone was still wondering. Three-quarters of a century old today and, boy, do I feel it practically daily! (Afraid that without a 'smartphone' I don't have the wherewithal to post, hassle-free, an up-to-date profile pic of self like I usually do on such anniversaries, which may be just as well, being that my more haggardy looks could well reflect current pressures. But I'll persevere on an attempt).

Today, Fri., is also the b/day of our considerably more youthful blogpal, RTG, famed in his own right of course, though also for many years spouse of the late and enormously missed Warrior Queen, Anne-Marie. Do please pay his blog a visit - 

http://arteejee.blogspot.com/

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I wasn't really of a mind to do a post this morning, but rather just to let the day pass over me in my seclusion. However, since it's getting on for five months since I last blogged, thought might as well at least let it be known that we're here and surviving, though currently in a rather prolonged trough of despondency which has been continuous for about a month. I'm not  going to list assailing troubles, aware that some of you are going through, or have experienced, far worse. I'll just say that health-wise things could be better, even if nowhere near as debilitating or critical as for some, so must be grateful for what I do still have.  

Quartet of pussycats are all fine, they being, in terms of physical presence, my sole friends in the entire world - and all of them oblivious to the severe bollocking I've had from my landlord who's reminded me that I'm not supposed to have any pets at all. ("This whole fucking place stinks of cat!"). He's been here nearly every single weekday for several weeks now, currently having removed my bathroom sink - and more recently the toilet too, now replaced just yesterday by a more water-efficient one. (He put in a new shower some time ago - and it's really good). He's hoping to install the new sink later today. For ten days now I've been trying to cope without that bathroom sink as well as having put up with four days without my own toilet, necessitating use of that in the vacant ground-floor flat, now in a disordered state of being entirely renovated and re-constructed - builders' tools, planks, plaster and paint tins all over rhe place, creating an obstacle course which I've had to negotiate, most riskily in the dark carrying a torch - not easy when I need to have a wee several times in the night. And each time waking the cats who then expect to be fed.......But here I am going on about my troubles when I wasn't going to - so I'll cease with this litany of woes.

Anyhows, I do still daily read most of your blogs, even if not commenting as regularly as before. But if and when things start to look up again I earnestly hope to be back. Maybe when I get round to seeing the new Bond, now booked for next Thurs - which is going to be my first cinema visit in well over a year - I might even do a blog post about it. Who knows?!