The Seven Ages of 007: How Daniel Craig Became the Bookend Bond

No Time to Die is a Bond flick like no other for several reasons, one of them being that it’s the only one I’ve ever gone to see immediately after interviewing Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who’ve been producing these films since 1995’s Goldeneye. The Bond movies are their family business, having been started by their father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, with his partner Harry Saltzman six decades ago. Ms. Broccoli and Mr. Wilson were very generous with their time, which gave me the platinum-level problem of having lots more good material than I could Tetris into my four-minute radio piece for Friday’s All Things Considered, which you can listen to below.

Here’s the prose version, which became a related-but-separate piece that wouldn’t have worked on the radio for several reasons, including the fact I wrote it before I landed the interviews.

I have all the thanks in the world for the wonderful and ultra-capable NPR Books editor Petra Mayer, who edited both the prose piece and the radio piece, which meant adding two labor-intensive tasks to what was already a packed week for her. (She hosted a panel at New York Comic Con this week, along with all her usual duties.) Nobody does it better.

Air-Conditioned Fun in the Summertime 3: Presenting My Third Annual Village Voice Summer Movie Want-List

The Nice Guys, which I expect history shall remember as my favorite film of the summer of 2016, came out last week; Captain America: Civil War, probably the best of the Marvel bunch, is old news. But Memorial Day weekend is still the traditional start of the summer movie season. Here, for the third consecutive Memorial Day weekend, is my Village Voice list of summer movies I want to see. Light up a phone in any of these and you'll hear from me.

Enjoy those X-Men, everybody! I'll be observing the holiday at the AFI, taking in Spartacus in its 212-minute entirety.

Why Any Viewing of the 148-Minute SPECTRE Now Takes at Least Three Hours

I suppose if you haven't seen SPECTRE (or at least Skyfall) and Hail, Caesar! (or at least one of its trailers) this won't make much sense to you.

James-Bonding with Kempenaar & Larsen on Filmspotting No. 563

1963's From Russia with Love is still my favorite 007 flick on most days.

It's been a few years since I sat in on an episode of Filmspotting, the great Chicago-based radio show and podcast devoted to dissection of movies new and old, famous and obscure, foreign and domestic. But now I can reveal that earlier in the week, founding host Adam Kempenaar sent me a highly classified diplomatic cable inviting me to join him an regular co-host Josh Larsen for the Top Five segment of this week's SPECTRE-themed show, devoted to Favorite Bond Things. I regret only that I did not refer to Diana Rigg's character from On Her Majesty's Secret Service by her full name, Contessa Teresa Di Vincenzo.

I supposed I might also have expounded more insightfully on how the big parkour chase at the top of Casino Royale (v. 2006) isn't just one of the most fluidly choreographed, masterfully shot-and-edited action set pieces of the 21st century; it shows us plenty about the brutal, clumsy nature of this film's younger, less seasoned 007, too. Or how my favorite "Bond girl," from that same film — Eva Green's British Treasury official Vesper Lynd — is Bond's equal not only in resolve and intelligence, but ultimately in cunning. She's playing him, the same way Bond uses sexuality to manipulate women in just about every Bond adventure to follow. (And they all follow this one.) Had I mentioned the marvelous cold-open car chase from Quantum of Solace, that would've been another chance to stick up for that oft-maligned sequel. But I already did that in my S.P.E.C.T.R.E. essay in The Atlantic last week.

Listen to the episode here.

The Ties That Bond: SPECTRE, reviewed.

Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux in SPECTRE. (Sony)

My NPR review of SPECTRE, definitive Bond Daniel Craig's 004th appearance as 007, is up at NPR now. The fourth time around has been a trouble spot for every screen Bond — witness 1965's Thunderball, 1979 Moonraker, and 2002's Die Another Day — and Craig is the fourth actor to reach film No. 4 in the role. Before I saw SPECTRE, I thought I wanted one more Bond flick from him. Now I'm not so sure.