This is the personal website of Deane Barker -- a Christian, husband, father, grandfather, and content technology specialist from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA.
Back in 1979, Timothy Dalton guest-starred on Charlie’s Angels as cat burglar Damien Roth, described as “a man with James Bondian tastes, means, and charm.” Someone has helpfully compiled all of his scenes in this YouTube video .
Here’s a short video about Daniel Craig’s screen test for Bond (it says 2006, but Casino Royale was released in 2006, so it had to be earlier than that). There’s a voiceover from Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson about how much they wanted Craig for the role. Then, towards the end, you see and hear the scene they’re doing — it’s the “I’m the money” scene between Vesper and Bond (”…every penny of…
M’s speech to Bond in GoldenEye has to go down as one of the great monologues in the Bond movies. Pierce Brosnan was the new Bond, and we had a female M in Judi Dench, which people weren’t so sure about, but this one scene likely laid every concern to rest. I especially love it when Bond says “point taken,” thinking that would defuse the situation, but M just goes right on to tell him how she’d be…
An interactive website explains all the things we take from granted that prior generations would have been amazed by.
Did you know you can get an advanced degree in actual intelligence ? Here are some options: Master's in Global Security Studies at Johns Hopkins Master of Arts in Counterintelligence Studies at the Institute of World Politics Master of Arts in Intelligence Studies at American Military University Master’s in National Security and Intelligence at Northeastern University Master's in Applied…
Just before starting in on the James Bond theme, the Danish Symphony Orchestra had their conductor “assassinated” live on stage . That visual, followed immediately by the opening bars of the Bond theme is just legendary.
This NY Times article about how Trump was spirited out of Turkey reads like a real-life spy novel in places: President Trump hid in an airport catering container and was taken to a military jet for a secret flight out of country after the NATO summit last month. Reminds me a bit of Georgi Koskov leaving Czechoslovakia in the oil pipeline in The Living Daylights (…which was one of the few plot…
I was reminded of this great rap by Chris Parnell back in 2003 when Jennifer Garner was hosting SNL at the height of her Alias fame. It tells a globe-hopping story about how they're spies and lovers, doing missions for the CIA. The joke at the end is worth waiting for.
I was previously unaware of The Moneypenny Diaries which is a short book series that tells James Bond adventures from the perspective of Miss Moneypenny (did anyone know her first name is apparently “Jane”?). It doesn't seem like the series got too far, but there some short stories published in British magazine. One of them is entitled For Your Eyes Only, James which sounds vaguely like Bond and…
A clue in today's New York Times Crossword was “Bond between Lazenby and Dalton.” The answer was “MOORE”.
My friend Mark is telling me that they have a “cheese service” that delivers to their house. (Also, that little mouse cheese knife has made a couple of appearances here before.)
Seen in downtown Montreal.
Found this short Reddit video of a “ briefcase gun ” from the 1970s.
TLDR: “As a memoir, interesting; as self-help, probably not helpful” This is a biography/memoir of a guy named David Goggins. He had a tough life, abused by his father then growing up as the only black kid in small town Indiana. He didn’t do well in school, was very heavy, had a dead-end job, and a marriage that was on the rocks. Then he decided to become a Navy SEAL. That sounds kind of…
TLDR: “A masterpiece” I’ve wanted to read this for a long time – it’s one of those “goal reads” that I haven’t dared attempt for fear of failing. The book famously took seven years to write, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. Curiously, I’ve actually read a book partially about the writing of this book (Robert Caro’s Working: Researching,…
I read the James Bond novel Seafire while on a business trip. This is from 1994, which is late in the John Gardner era — he only wrote one more original Bond novel after this one. It was…okay. I've never loved Gardner's work. Here’s my review .
TLDR: “Just okay” I don’t love John Gardner’s Bond novels. There, I said it. This was from 1994, which is very late in his tenure. He would only write one more original Bond novel after this one (plus the GoldenEye novelization). It was his 13th original novel in the series. He fiddles with the canon quite a bit. Bond is now in charge of “Two Zeros,” which is some branch of…
The NY Times released The Top 50 Thrillers of the 21st Century . Slow Horses is #9. I enjoyed that — here’s my review from a few years back.
Reading Maps visually plots the geographic travels of various novels. As you can imagine, the James Bond novels are pretty active, in terms of globe-hopping. Here’s the entry for Casino Royale (the movie).
Chief of Station was a bit of a miss. It’s well-filmed, on-location in Budapest, and even has a bit part for a former Bond girl (Olga Kurylenko was Camilla Montes in Quantum of Solace ). It opens with a nice scene of tradecraft, which makes up for a particularly uncomfortable torture scene later on (a la Syriana , but worse). However, I just don’t think Aaron Eckhart is that great of an actor, and…
A small building prevented Macy’s from building on an entire block, so they built around it and leased billboards on it for a century.
A small building prevented Macy’s from building on an entire block, so they built around it and leased billboards on it for a century.
An explanation of why a quirk of legislation has caused ambulances to cost so much
Doug DeMuro reviews the Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day , currently on display in the Peterson Museum. Better yet, he drives it on Los Angeles city streets, complete with a mounted gatling gun in the back. (Spoiler: other than the body shell, it’s not a Jaguar at all…)
TLDR: “Quite good” This is part memoir, part management advice. It’s the story of one man’s tenure managing a NYC restaurant called Eleven Madison Park , which climbed the ranks to be named Best Restaurant in the World. Interestingly – and critical to the book – the author is not a chef. He was front-of-house – he managed the dining room. This book is about all the…
Though not technically a “spy,” The Thomas Crown Affair does lurk on the periphery. I loved the Pierce Brosnan version from 1999, and it looks like we’re getting a new one from Michael B. Jordan.
Supposedly, Radiohead’s “Man of War” was submitted to be a James Bond theme, but since it wasn’t written just for the movie, it wouldn’t have been eligible to win an Oscar, so it was declined. I get it though — it has the right vibe.
British author Jeffrey Archer supplied recommendations for “The Best Heist and Con Artist Books” novels over on Five Books named Goldfinger as the best heist novel . I find this interesting because, while the film version is wildly popular, I thought the novel was weaker. (Speaking of Jeffrey Archer, I loved his novel “The Fourth Estate.”)
A nice board at Wind River Ranch outside Estes Park, Colorado