1960s-Era James Bond is Skewered in New Spoof ‘OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The heroic nature of the James Bond series of films begs several questions about his representation of western world power.

For one, just who did he act for and what was he fighting against? The new French film “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” attempts to answer this question through a subtle and sporadically funny satire, a skewering of the Bond image and geopolitics in the 1960s.

Jean Dujardin as OSS 117 in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”. Photo credit: Music Box Films

Jean Dujardin plays Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (also known as agent OSS 117).

He’s assigned to Cairo in the late 1950s to investigate fellow agent Jack Jefferson’s murder and to quell a Muslim uprising against western interests.

With a cover as a chicken trader – complete with a factory and caged birds – he proceeds to infiltrate what he believes to be the perpetrators.

Despite his obviously cloistered sense of regional conflicts, OSS 117 blithely reigns superior against his Muslim girl Larmina El Akmar Betouche.

Throughout his adventures, he investigates the murder of the agent, monitors the Suez Canal, checks in on the Brits and the Soviets in Cairo and even brokers peace in the Mideast by inadvertently stopping a fundamentalist rebellion. This is an odd bird of a film.

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Béjo in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”. Photo credit: Music Box Films

It flits between a Bond-like spy satire and a political editorial about the last days of western colonialism.

OSS 117 is portrayed as a clueless and somewhat spiteful dim bulb – the kind who postpones an investigation because he delights in making chickens cluck by turning on the factory lights.

The filmmakers take great care in showing the handsome spy to be an empty suit, which is a justifiable criticism of the James Bond legacy.

His blundering is broadly insensitive such as with his beating up of a Muslim prayer leader because the noise he makes in calling the faithful disturbs his sleep.

He’s oblivious to the native world around him, the cultures and the people. His success depends on that selfishness. This is highly symbolic of western manifest destiny and is communicated effectively through agent OSS 117.

While this is not a laugh-out-loud film, it does revel in the quirks of the Bond movies and makes fun of those conventions accordingly.

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY View our full, high-resolution “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” image gallery. RELATED READING More film reviews from critic Patrick McDonald.

Dujardin’s leading-man looks are the kicker to most of the bits. A slightly gay air is put around his flashbacks with his fellow agent at a beach and his silly turn as a singer at a hotel bar.

But with the schizophrenic nature of the proceedings, the part mindless spoof and the political barbs, the film never settles into a groove that feels comfortably paced.

In being content to offer Dujardin as a “doesn’t he look like James Bond?” character, the film just doesn’t offer enough good material to sustain itself for 99 minutes.

Considering the situation in the Middle East today, even a romantic, Bond-like reminder of the past doesn’t really make it all that funny.

By PATRICK McDONALD Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Al Pacino as James Bond villian?

From Film School Rejects and AICN:

You read that right. Apparently there is a new rumor that was floated to the guys over at AICN that Al Scent of a Woman Pacino would play the head honcho of the new, evil terrorist organization in the upcoming Bond film Quantum of Solace.

This is certainly a crazy rumor which may turn out to be 100% completely face. It almost seems out of character to me, for the Bond films, which have often shied away from such huge names, unless that star is Bond. Though arguably most Bond actors rose to their highest after being Bond, so even then, big celebrities are not often top choices. The few Bond movies that did recruit bigger names were terrible. Halle Berry, Terri Hatcher, etc.

I’m not entirely sure I’d want Pacino in this, but the rumor does state, at least in Quantum that it would be more of a cameo type appearance as the top dog of top dogs, rather than a main villain to match wits and bullets with. Stay tuned for more.

Daniel Craig injured while filming

From CNN:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Agent 007 still has all of his digits.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/12/people.danielcraig.ap/index…

James Bond secrets to be revealed in new book on April 15, 2008!

I just received the following press release.

Television Evening News booked, Big Newspaper Interviews booked, Dozens of radio shows booked! Secrets of James Bond and Ian Fleming coming April 15th!

Philip Gardiner’s
THE BOND CODE

The stories of James Bond are not just popular spy thrillers. This is the remarkable tale of how Ian Fleming and his associations with the world of the occult actually led him to create a masterful series of clever clues, ciphers and codes within his novels, revealing a sacred truth discovered whilst searching for his own inner harmony.

Every time there is a new Bond film produced, the same old Bond documentaries are played on our TV screens. Our book will introduce not just new material, but radically reappraise everything we thought we knew about James Bond.

The words and concepts may sound strange to the reader, such as alchemy and gnosis, but in this book we will reveal their truths in a simple and step by step approach. In fact, the codes within will even make people radically reappraise books such as the Da Vinci Code.

My own journey into the hidden and coded world of Ian Fleming began one winters night whilst watching Live and Let Die. There was a surge of interest for all things James Bond and so, almost every night there was one Bond film or another. I had just finished writing The Ark, The Shroud and Mary and my mind was full of the world of the esoteric, alchemy and psychology. Live and Let Die struck me almost immediately as being a very strange film. Any Bond fan will know that the film involves many references indirectly and directly to the world of the occult – in this instance voodoo. For me at that particular time in my life I was struck by the strangeness of that fact. You see, I had watched all the Bond films many times, having loved them from my childhood, and I had never before considered why Ian Fleming should delve into the dark world of voodoo. Now, having a deeper understanding of ancient psychological methods we know as gnosis, alchemy and a great many other terms, I had to sit down and re-consider things.

That was nearly two years ago now and in that time I have read every Bond novel; searched out every scrap of writing produced by Ian Fleming; researched his background, associations, friends, military history, book collections and even cross-referenced his relatives. What I discovered was to me, simply amazing. I had never considered that Ian Fleming was writing anything other than a simple spy thriller. I had never thought for one moment that the adventurous tales of a fictional British spy would lead me into not just the dark nature of mankind, but the dark world of intrigue he developed and fostered around him.

James Bond became famous in the world at a time when the real British intelligence service was a shambles. SIS (also known as MI6), the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom was being toyed with by the Soviet KGB to such an extent that I often have visions of them laughing in the Kremlin. Britain was bankrupted after the Second World War and struggling to maintain an Empire, which was crumbling around her. It worked hard at trying to rebuild physically and emotionally along with other European countries. The USSR was a gloomy threat to the stability of the world, and so Britain, along with other nations such as the USA, decided the threat of communism was too great to ignore. And so, they despatched numerous agents, both home-grown and imported from Balkan countries, into the outlying Russian occupied countries. All the time, the KGB were one step ahead, with deeply entrenched double agents of their own within the heart of Western spy networks. Most of this was hidden from the ordinary public, but it did occasionally surface and hit the mass media, resulting in several scandals such as those surrounding Kim Phillby and of course the infamous McCarthy hounding of the so-called communists in the United States. In short, the public needed reassurance that yet another war was not going to break out and that our glorious leaders had things under control. This kind of assurance only comes from very good propaganda and when Ian Fleming created Bond and Kennedy in the States claimed to have “liked it” a beautiful synergy was created – a super-spy to save the world who was of course British, but needed the help of the Americans on several occasions.

Bond was set for the heights of fame and like Sherlock Holmes, he would become more famous than his creator. But there is so much more to Bond than people may realise, for Ian Fleming was a distinctly unique individual with a great many influences. His mind was not ordinary in any respect and this gave rise to his occult interests and associations which in-turn fed information, codes and clever plots into the Bond novels. These clever devices even inadvertently found their way into the films too. Let’s just run through quickly a few of the interesting facts that we discuss in The Bond Code book and film:

The Influences:

During his youth, Ian Fleming was sent to “special” schools in-order to overcome his issues – issues created because of a domineering mother, a dead father and a successful elder brother. In fact we shall find that Fleming simply fooled everyone, including the doctors.
Ian Fleming explicitly said that Bond was Manichean – a concept perfectly in-line with the supposed secrets of certain societies to which Fleming was associated as we shall reveal. These are the very same secrets held sacred by secret societies throughout time.
Relatively unknown to the wider world, Ian Fleming actually translated a lecture given by psychoanalyst Carl Jung on the alchemist, physician and magician, Paracelsus, and we have copies of this transcript in Fleming’s own type and handwriting. which backs up our statements.
Within the books there is the secret of the art of alchemy at play and along with yet more patterns within the novels, reveals Fleming’s understanding of the concepts.
We will show how Ian Fleming associated with or was influenced by mystics and spiritually inclined individuals, which reveal his inner and hidden thoughts.

The Bond Code:

We will reveal how the number 007 has a sacred numerological code.
We will also reveal that the other number given to Bond, 7777, by Ian Fleming also has a numerological meaning. Other numerological codes exist such as Magic 44. We will even show how he named his own retreat, Goldeneye, after certain occult terms. The location was known as Oracabessa and this too has occult references. Unravelling The Bond Code we will look into the etymology of the very names and words used.

We will show how the Bond books and films are modern day fairy tales working in the same way as the medieval tales of the Holy Grail or Robin Hood and which contain gnostic codes picked up and understood by Ian Fleming.
In short, Fleming lived in a fantasy world of his own making in-order to escape his inner turmoil – something, which lead him into his own death through smoking 70 cigarettes a day and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. This fantasy world led him into the land of the occult and gnostic thought. He created his fantasy alter-ego as a great alchemical work to fulfil his own tumultuous and chaotic mind, just as many before have done. But he left behind a set of clues and codes for us to decipher – just as our medieval friends did hundreds of years ago and linked with his extensive knowledge of ciphers and codes from his wartime experiences he knitted the two worlds together into something of profound beauty.

However, we shall also discover that Fleming associated with radical secret societies both whilst within the secret service and in post-war Britain. The very codes left by Ian Fleming within his work, are the codes to the secret of the societies…

Biography of the writer
Philip Gardiner is an international best selling author of several books including Gnosis: The Secret of Solomon’s Temple Revealed, The Serpent Grail, Secrets of the Serpent and The Ark, The Shroud and Mary. He has several DVD documentaries out, which are in chain stores across the world and widely available through Reality Films. He lectures across the world, from the USA and England to France and Australia.

The book is published by New Page Books.

New Bond Film Title

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117979550.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=…

Quantum of Solace

New James Bond 'Quantum of Solace' trailer to debut next week

This Bond website has the info…MI6

The first teaser trailer for the new James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” will makes its debut online at the end of the month.

A German fan site received confirmation from Sony Pictures that the trailer will be launched on Yahoo! on Monday 30th June at 17:00 BST (British Summer Time). Viewing will be exclusively at Yahoo for the first 24 hours.

For more details click here.

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United Artists 90th Anniversary Film Festival Coming to Chicago’s Music Box Theatre in April

CHICAGO – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment (MGMHE) on Tuesday announced the launch of an 18-month global celebration that promises to culminate into the largest catalog event in video industry history. Some of the best films the world has seen are touching down in Chicago as part of the proceedings.

What has been coined the United Artists 90th Anniversary Film Festival will be featured at the Music Box Theatre at 3733 N. Southport in Chicago beginning in April 2008.

“West Side Story” in 1961. Photo credit: United Artists

“Rich in history and devoted to creating powerful, quality films, United Artists was formed in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to encourage progressive filmmaking [and to give] each star the authority and autonomy to create the films about which they were most passionate,” the statement on Tuesday said.

“Goldfinger” in 1961. Photo credit: United Artists

The statement continued: “The studio responsible for creating some of the finest films of all time including iconic film franchises ‘Rocky,’ ‘Pink Panther’ and ‘James Bond’ [along with] critically acclaimed and award-winning features ‘Raging Bull,’ ‘Some Like it Hot,’ ‘West Side Story,’ ‘Annie Hall,’ ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘Rain Man’ contains a library of nearly 1,000 feature films and boasts more than 80 Academy Award-winning classics.”

“Raging Bull” in 1980. Photo credit: United Artists

The films below will show on the following dates at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre:

United Artists 90th Anniversary Film Festival (part one): April 4 to 10
“Raging Bull”: April 4 (new print)
“Bananas”: April 4
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”: April 5
“West Side Story”: April 6
“Kiss Me Deadly”: April 7
“Some Like it Hot”: April 7 (new print)
“The Killing”: April 8
“The Manchurian Candidate”: April 8
“The Night of the Hunter”: April 9
“Midnight Cowboy”: April 10
“Network”: April 10

“James Bond” series (part two): May 9 to 15
“Dr. No”
“Goldfinger” (new print)
“From Russia With Love”
“Thunderball”

By ADAM FENDELMAN Editor-in-Chief HollywoodChicago.com adam@hollywoodchicago.com