Issue 46, Fall 2023
007 at 70
In 2023, the Bond franchise celebrates its 70th anniversary. Very few franchises, with the exception of the Universal Classic Monsters and Godzilla series, have enjoyed such a long life in the popular media of film. Like them, the Bond franchise has seen many new beginnings that continually restart the property, perpetually reset it, and are bound to do so again.
Sean Connery Is the Only James Bond We Need
Connery had achieved his fame as the definitive film version of a pulp adventure hero in a film series that became not simply successful but mythical and went out of his profession portraying a decent version of another pulp adventure hero in a vastly inferior film. It happens that way with actors. It happens that way with their fans too.
Playing the Most Famous Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World
The OO7 Diaries reveals filmmaking as both a nearly heroic exercise in tenacity and an astonishingly pure expression of absurdity.
About The Common Reader
The Common Reader, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis, offers the best in reviews, articles and creative non-fiction engaging the essential debates and issues of our time.
The Current Issue
The word “stories” was used often at the annual NABIP Capitol Conference, held in the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, February 25-28, 2024. I went because I have my own stories of frustration with health care, and because I am interested when someone seems ready to try to make things better in the largely incomprehensible and vaguely menacing system we all rely on.
