The song basically fuses classic elements of all the Bond trax from Goldfinger on up, changing the drawn out “Goooooooooold” or “Thunder-baaaaaaaawl” to a more peppy staccato “oh-oh-oh-oh” and refining all Bond sound down to a bit of drummin’ here, a bit of guitar thrum there. The lyrics are likewise minimal. Pretty intriguing.

Like deconstructed brownie where chocolate, burnt flour and syrup are laid out as separate elements on a diner’s plate as offerings from revisionist (and probably lazy) chefs, AWTD is a deconstructed and yet magically appealing Bond tune. Never thought Keys and White could pull it off…

Note that some of the guitar riffs are right from the Bond theme but with doubled notes–just as Monty Norman doubled his tune from “A House For Mr. Biswas” for his James Bond theme!

Also, the Bond theme is definitely heard long before the end credits and throughout the QOS David Arnold soundtrack, just again riffs here and there–deconstructed.

Bond Stripped To Basics

Your thoughts on the QOS music extravaganza? It’s just, it’s just… another way to die-ie!

“Everything changes the James Bond series. They’re very in touch with the moment,” Lipp says. “Just the way Live and Let Die was influenced by blaxploitation, just the way Moonraker was influenced by Star Wars. So, sure [Bourne] is an influence.”

“But it’s not an imitation.”

Although presumably Bond wouldn’t mind imitating a $69.3 million opening.

Well, Quantum of Solace opened to the tune of $70.4 million, so why ask why?

The other day I was interviewed by E! Online and I defended Bond against the notion that he’s losing ground to, or imitative of, Jason Bourne. And now I have to say that the first ten or fifteen minutes of Quantum of Solace are indistinguishable from The Bourne Ultimatum.

I don’t know, I am inclined to blame Marc Forster. He’s an artful director who has never done action before, so naturally he’d imitate an artful action director. But for Bond, it doesn’t work. Bond movies have strong narrative flow, and the crazy-quick-cut approach just doesn’t do it.

A lot of Quantum of Solace felt like someone else’s movie. Someone else’s soundtrack. Someone else’s title song. Someone else’s title design. It made me want to watch a Bond movie.

Not that this wasn’t a good movie; it was. It wasn’t a great movie, and it was too short, too snappy, and too confusing. But it was good. There were beautiful touches, and Marc Forster’s eye for framing a shot was very apparent. This may be the finest composition you’ll see in a Bond film. There were lovely visual homages; the Goldfinger one being the most obvious, but The Spy Who Loved Me is there as well, and just prior to the climactic battle, a lovely visual and plot reference to the short story For Your Eyes Only. (You can’t miss it.)

So much is going on that it’s hard to describe; a villain with a complex plot, a huge, shady organization behind him (but not a part of his plot so much; I suspect a SPECTRE-like organization with many fingers in many pies, a conglomerate), the CIA (and hello, Leiter), Bond’s hunt for revenge for Vesper, Camille (Olga Kurlyenko) with her own revenge motives and her own sub-plot, motivation, and secondary characters—I’m getting tired just listing it all. And, while the plot may not be as complex as Octopussy, it may take me longer to figure out, because it all goes by so fast.

So now I’ve had the night out at the movies I’ve been anticipating for two years. I’m tired, I’m a little let down. I think most people will love this movie, and I think it’s natural for the hardcore fan to be pickier. I feel like I’ll like this movie better on DVD, when I can slow down a little, back away a little, and replay lines that go by too fast.

A recent Fandango poll would seem to make the task difficult. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they prefered Damon’s Bourne to Craig’s Bond, compared to 48 percent who sided with 007. (Fandango and E! Online are both owned by Comcast.)

But to Deborah Lipp, author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book, the question is all wrong. The Craig Bond, she says, is what Bond has always been.

“Everything changes the James Bond series. They’re very in touch with the moment,” Lipp says. “Just the way Live and Let Die was influenced by blaxploitation, just the way Moonraker was influenced by Star Wars. So, sure [Bourne] is an influence.”

“But it’s not an imitation.”

Bonhams auction house in the UK has announced that it has one of 007’s classic sports cars for sale.

The white 1976 Lotus Esprit from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me, starring Roger Moore and Barbara Bach, is expected to fetch £100,000-120,000 ($267,000-320,000 NZ) when it is sold in London next month.

• The San Francisco Gate goes wild on worsts. Worst Bond Girl (Christmas Jones), worst Bond, worst villain, worst film, worst song. I disagree with 100% of the choices here (although Christmas Jones is pretty bad), but it’s a fun list.
• Worst villainous schemes? Io9 has them, and includes Quantum of Solace, so beware of spoilers.
• The Calgary Herald devotes itself to the best Bond songs. It’s a fairly unsurprising list, and believe it or not, agrees with me just about across the board.
• What about the best travel destinations? A Croatian publication is proud to find its home country on the top of a travel index’s finest Bond location destinations.
• The Arizona Daily Star goes straight for the gold: Best Bond film, and falls flat on its face with Tomorrow Never Dies as number one. What? I’ve long said that every Bond film is someone’s favorite, but I’m surprised this ever saw print.
• The Vancouver Sun gets cute with Ten Things James Bond Can Do Better than Your British Cousin.