"Skyfall has been watched" and other things

We went to watch "Skyfall" last night, the missus and I, after the entire known universe, including small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, has seen it and found it boring. "I went to sleep in the fifth minute" says a friend who does not wish to be named, and since he tends to get a little dramatic, adds that "had it not been for the kindly cleaners who woke me up after the movie was over and ushered me out of the movie hall, I would probably have taken root there, with anthills forming around me, lying motionless for centuries..".

Well, I didn't think it was all that bad. Rather enjoyed it, in fact. 

Bond movies, for me, are pretty much the same as economic newspapers, with their hair raising articles on the macro-economic outlook and how the world will surely implode unless the Federal Reserve reduces the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points. I have no clue what is going on but the breathless excitement is unmistakable and every now and then, you get an IMF chief or two having a steamy scene.

Same with the Bond movie. There is the insanely dare-devil chase, where a succession of innocent small business owners lose their merchandise and places of business owing to first the villain and then Bond desiring to drive through them, instead of around. Eventually, the villain, unless he is the arch villain, gets killed, Bond smooths his Saville row suit, and proceeds to behave IMF-chief-like with an impossibly sexy seductress, before picking up the trail of the arch-villain. And on it goes.

But this time, I could tell it was different. There was a brooding quality about the movie, rather like an editorial about the imminent collapse of the real-estate market in Shanghai, and, as far as I know, the first Bond tears in the five decades or so that he's been around.

Missus loved it. She generally goes for the sentimental sort of movie where someone falls in love with someone else in the first fifteen minutes and both parties cry their eyes out for the balance two hours fortyfive because it can never be, but Bond movies are her one exception. I think she's secretly in love with Shri Craig.

"I had a physique like Daniel Craig, back in engg college" I tell her, to which she laughs heartily, pinches my cheek, and tells me she finds it sweet that I still feel insecure about her. "I do NOT!", I protest, for I do not, but she just laughs louder and we go on for a spot of dinner at Mainland China, an eatery - a chain, actually - I heartily recommend because they gave me, after a perfectly topping dinner, a sizzling brownie with icecream, free. 

Younger son, of course had a joke up his sleeve. 

"Annie, annie"

"What?"

"You've heard of Brooke Shields?"

"Of course. Heartthrob of my generation. Acted in a tremendously boring movie called Endless Love... what about her?"

"Know why Brooke Shields doesn't marry James Bond?"

"Err... because she never acted in a Bond movie?"

"No, Annie. Because then she'd be known as Brooke Bond"

"Go away! "