James Bond will return, maybe, who knows, whatever

The future of the James Bond films hangs in the balance. Sony's distribution deal has ended, so MGM and EoN are currently jiggling Bond in front of a selection of suitors, all of whom are desperate for the rights while simultaneously nervous that Daniel Craig might not stay on board to guarantee boffo box office for the next film. It's a delicate situation, and one which could affect the very DNA of the franchise for the foreseeable future. And I, a lifelong Bond fan, couldn't give a hoot.

This is a problem. Mainly for me, to be fair, unless Barbara Broccoli is overly concerned about my devotion to her baby, in which case it's her problem too. But it's emblematic of how I've been feeling about the Bond films since Spectre dribbled onto screens nearly eighteen months ago (in that time I have rewatched maybe three Bond films, which is a dangerously low level of Bondery in my house), and I need to address it in the form of a rambling blog post, if only for my own mental wellbeing.

It seems inevitable that Babs will hand distribution rights for Bond 25 back to Sony, if only because she and Michael G Wilson seem to fear change right now (although Sony's pitch, apparently held on a recreated set from Dr. No, would have sold them to me in the time it takes Sean Connery to order a black man to fetch his shoes). The sooner that happens, the more likely Craig is to get back in the tux, and Christoph Waltz and Léa Seydoux can clear their schedules for Spectre II: Blofeld Boogaloo. Well, sorry if my enthusiasm isn't so much brimming over as struggling to fill a martini glass.

Don't get me wrong, I love Daniel Craig. He's made two Bond films I absolutely adore and one that I - and about three other people - like very much. And he's easily the best thing in Spectre, despite the fact that he still can't fit into his bloody suits. But his excitement levels for another outing seem about as high as mine are right now - obviously I can't read his mind, but my biggest fear for a fifth Craig film is that he snoozes through it like Connery did in the autumn of his Bond years. Compare his performances in Casino Royale and Spectre: the former boasts a wired, barely concealed hunger to make the role his own (partly fuelled by the epically stupid press campaign against him), while the latter has him mumbling monosyllabic retorts and reacting to cinema's biggest explosion as if a cat had broken wind in the distance.

Then there's the Purvis & Wade factor. I firmly believe the writers' contribution to the last six Bond films has been mostly brilliant - even Die Another Day's kitesurfing scene probably looked good on paper - but when they were revealed as the architects of Bond 25 my heart sank. More of the same looms large, and an entire generation of daring, brilliant writers has grown up while they've been at the helm. Casino Royale was a tremendous surprise - as was Skyfall, to some extent - but it feels like Bond needs to regenerate again to stay relevant.

I despise articles called things like "Here's What We Think Should Happen In The Next Bond Film" with an unquenchable passion, but Here's What I Think Should Happen In The Next Bond Film: Play around. Fuck about. Mix it up. Do a period Bond film set in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, like when Michael Fassbender skulked around Argentina in X-Men: First Class, only for fuck's sake don't let Matthew Vaughn direct it. Do an Old Bond story, with Timothy Dalton (as we all know, the best James Bond) as a 70-year-old 007 who might just be losing the edge he's maintained for years because he doesn't know how not to (watch 2015's criminally underrated Mr. Holmes to see how to do something new and self-reflexive with a pop culture legend). Do an anthology film of three faithful adaptations of Fleming's short stories in tonally diverse styles. Just do something unexpected, for fuck's sake (but not so weird that I don't like it, that would be terrible. Don't forget this is all about me).

I don't know, maybe Purvis and Wade are currently beavering away at exactly one of these things, but I doubt it, because despite the evidence of successful franchises splintering off in unexpected directions (the MCU, Star Wars) it feels like Bond would never dare. I'm not saying the series has to become an entirely different beast forever - God knows its familiarity is the comfiest of comfort blankets at times - but there are 24 near-identical films that everyone can watch at the drop of a steel-rimmed bowler hat if they want to; would a couple of experiments be that bad for the series?

As a tediously vocal proponent of Serious Bond (Licence To Kill is still the best, don't fucking @ me) I'm going to sound like a massive hypocrite now, but you know what I also really want from the next Bond film? A bloody good laugh. An air-punching, howlingly brilliant stunt that's almost - but not quite - too outrageous for Bond. The other evening I drank a bit too much gin and began tearily reminiscing over Brosnan-era daftness like the time he rode a motorbike off a cliff and freefell into a falling plane. I'll never forget my reaction to that the first time I watched GoldenEye: my heart leapt out of my chest and I had to look around to confirm that everyone else in the cinema had seen what I'd just seen. I even miss things as potentially terrible as a smash cut to Brosnan in a Hawaiian shirt strolling through some Spanish backwater while David Arnold tosses off an almost culturally insulting salsa riff and a caption says "Havana, Cuba", because Brosnan looks amazing in a Hawaiian shirt and that salsa riff is KICKING and it's all just so wonderfully silly. I miss silly Bond. I think the Fast & Furious movies might have stolen him.

People who know me as The Boring Bond Guy are always asking me who I think should replace Daniel Craig, but what they don't understand is that I know far more about people who have already been Bond than I do about people who haven't but might. Glancing at random articles speculating on the next 007 fills me with the fear because I haven't even heard of half the names, and if I have I wouldn't know some of them if I fell over them in the street. Jack Huston? No idea. James Norton? Isn't he a TV chef? And you can fuck right off with your Toms Hardy and Hiddleston: the last thing a new Bond needs is baggage. If cornered, I will vigorously fly the flag for Dan Stevens, and anyone who disagrees needs to watch The Guest on a weekly basis like I do. He can do lean and mean, he doesn't take himself too seriously and anyone who doesn't have special thoughts about him is emotionally dead.

So that's what's going on with me right now. I'm a bit sad about Bond and I don't know if it's because the last one was upsettingly bad, or if I'm still recovering from two years of self-imposed watching, thinking and writing about Bond for no other reason than to see if I could, or if I'm just getting old and grumpy. But spunking all this self-indulgent bollocks onto the internet might help, although not as much as if Barbara Broccoli reads my spunk and fertilises her Bond egg with it and we make the perfect Bond baby together. Though frankly that's unlikely, not to mention worryingly inappropriately phrased. Anyway, my apologies if you've got this far expecting there to be some informed critical thinking, or at least the merest hint of a point, because there are none of those things to be found here. Just a picture of Roger Moore having his nose adjusted to remind us how much worse it could be.

When The Incredible Suit met James Bond: Episode four in a series whichredefines the word "met"

It's eighteen long months since I last reported on the progress of my ongoing mission to meet every James Bond, and in that time I've come to terms with the fact that of the three remaining targets, only one is realistic, given that he's the only one still working. And so as long as there was breath in my body and intelligent people still casting him, I knew that one day I would meet Timothy Dalton, The Greatest James Bond That Ever Lived. Here's the story of how I did. Kind of.

Several weeks ago I was summoned through a leather-padded door and into a wood-panelled office at Empire Magazine and given a mission by a man I shall refer to only as 'N': to visit the set of Sky Atlantic's new horror drama Penny Dreadful and report back. From that day on my heart has barely returned to its normal b.p.m., for I knew that not only was Penny Dreadful created and written by Skyfall and Bond 24 writer John Logan, but that Timothy Dalton was a key cast member. Here was a chance to meet at least two Bond alumni, not to mention various others involved in both worlds - Eva Green (Casino Royale), Rory Kinnear (Quantum Of Solace, Skyfall), Helen McCrory (Skyfall) and 2nd Unit Director Vic Armstrong (too many Bonds to mention) are all involved in Logan's new project.

The set visit was fantastic: the show looked amazing, John Logan was charming, enthusiastic, incredibly generous with his time, and gave me a full personal tour of the sets and an exclusive Bond 24 interview which contained precisely no scoops. There was just one problem: I didn't meet Timothy Dalton. He was there, and I saw him, several times - in fact at one point he was as close to me as you are to that guy next to you - but we didn't actually exchange any words. This was mainly because he was working on an incredibly tense scene, and frankly I was mildly terrified. Dalton has enormous presence: when he walks into the room, you notice, and I noticed that he was way too busy being a ruddy amazing actor to speak to me. So I satisfied myself with some longing gazes and the knowledge that I'd breathed the same air as him, and went about my business.

Deep down, though, I knew that I hadn't really MET Timothy Dalton. In order to tick him off my list with a clear conscience, I had to talk to him. 'Seeing' plus 'talking to' equals 'meeting' in anyone's book, surely, even if those two elements occur weeks apart.

Insanely, no matter how long you stare at this photo,
it does not constitute a meeting.

Now magazine articles are rarely built from the transcript of just one interview, and so it was inevitable that I would need to talk to some of the Penny Dreadful cast at some point, even if it was just on the phone. And when I say "some of the Penny Dreadful cast", I mean "one of the Penny Dreadful cast". And when I say "one of the Penny Dreadful cast", obviously I mean Timothy flipping Dalton.

And so, just over two weeks later, I found myself sitting at home in front of my computer with no fewer than two voice recorders pointed purposefully at the telephone. It was 4.20pm on a Friday afternoon, and in ten minutes' time Timothy Dalton was due to call me from his home in Los Angeles. I repeat: Timothy Dalton was about to phone me, at my house, for a chat. I was trying extremely hard not to die of disbelief.

That photograph may or may not hang on my bedroom wall.

4.30 came and went, and the phone had not rung. 5.00 came and went, and still my phone remained frustratingly silent. I started to panic. Was the phone actually working? Had I given the right number to Dalton's people? Had I made some catastrophic miscalculation with the time difference? I checked and re-checked all possible opportunities of a balls-up but found none. At 6.00, still nothing. I needed a wee, but there was no way I was leaving the phone. My wife was due home at 6.30, so I decided I would make her my PA when she got in, instructing her to take any calls while I nipped to the bathroom. However, at 6.20 I could wait no longer. I was bursting. Reasoning that if Timothy Dalton hadn't phoned in the last 110 minutes, he was pretty unlikely to in the next two, I abandoned my post and took the much-needed comfort break.

Obviously, as I was mid-wazz, the phone rang. Unbelievable. James Bond was trying to get hold of me and I was urgently squirting out a torrential jet of piss that showed no signs of slowing down in the next few minutes. Somehow I clenched every relevant muscle, probably causing internal injuries to my bladder and personal waste disposal system, put everything back where it belonged and dashed back to the phone, answering it just before it was due to go to voicemail.

"Hello?"
"HELLO!" The voice was unmistakable. Booming, but with a gentle Welsh lilt, Timothy Dalton's tones sang out to me from across the Atlantic Ocean. We were about to exchange our first words; to finally meet. How would we begin our relationship?
"IS THAT NICK?"
At this point I should make it clear to readers who don't know: my name isn't Nick, although in the heat of the moment I considered changing it to Nick by Deed Poll so that I wouldn't have to correct Timothy Dalton.
"Uh... it's Neil. Is that Timothy?"
"NEIL! SORRY! TIM DALTON HERE!"

And with that, 'Tim' and I were off on a magical fifteen-minute voyage of conversation. It turned out that the lateness of the call was simply down to him being incredibly busy - it was, after all, his birthday; I gave him my best wishes but stopped short of singing breathily down the phone like Marilyn Monroe. And I realise all that detail about my trip to the toilet might seem unnecessary, but I need my wife to understand the sequence of events which led to her coming home to find me talking to James Bond on the phone with my trousers undone.

Anyway it pleases me to report that Dalton is charming. I had been concerned that the fiercely intense man I'd seen on set would be equally as terrifying on the phone, but he was quite the opposite: ebullient, effusive and erudite. At one point he used a Latin phrase, which I like to think means "you are my favourite blogger". When I told him I'd seen him in action on the Penny Dreadful set, he demanded to know why I hadn't come and said hello; I told him he seemed heavily involved in what he was doing and, with sly self-awareness, he replied "well that makes a certain sense".

I spent the next hour or so in a daze. I don't want to sound like I'd had a visitation from the holy ghost, but I did have a nice chinwag with a man largely responsible for bringing an enormous amount of pleasure to my Bond-nerd existence, and that felt pretty ruddy special. It pained me to wash the hands that had held the phone that was connected to the phone that was held by Timothy Dalton, but they had dried wee on them so, sadly, I kind of had to.

So there we are: four down, two to go. I know that both Sean Connery and George Lazenby are keen readers of The Incredible Suit, so it can only be a matter of time before one or both of them get in touch to arrange a meeting. In preparation for their call I'm off to stock up on incontinence pants.

You can read the fruits of my conversation with Timothy Dalton in Issue 300 of Empire Magazine, out now in all good newsagents and some newsagents who charge 80p for a packet of Tooty Frooties, the daylight robbing bastards.

Further reading

The Brosnan Incident

The Craig Incident

The Moore Incident

BlogalongaBond / Licence To Kill:The Best James Bond Film Ever Made

The summer of 1989 was a glorious time to be inside a cinema. Batman finally got the movie he deserved, Indiana Jones was back to his whip-cracking best and trailers for Back To The Future Part II and Ghostbusters II were causing damp seats at multiplexes the world over. I spent the entire summer holiday in Telford UCI lapping up everything from Police Academy 6: City Under Siege to The 'Burbs and enjoyed every second of it, but nothing caused as much arousal in my trousers as Licence To Kill. Partly because I was, by then, a confirmed Bond obsessive, but mainly because none of those other films had what Licence To Kill had, which was one of these:

Yes, James Bond was back, and he brought with him two "shit"s, a "bullshit", three "bastard"s, a "piss" and a man's head popping like a jam-filled balloon. It's hardly Cannibal Holocaust, but as far as Bond was concerned the brutality of For Your Eyes Only suddenly looked like an episode of ChuckleVision in comparison.

In 2012 Licence To Kill is fairly mild in terms of violence. The minute or so which was cut in order to prevent the film receiving an 18 certificate has long since been restored and the film released as a 15 rated DVD, and it could easily get away with a 12 when it arrives on Blu-ray in October.* But combined with the bastard-hard Bond of Timothy Dalton, who proves once again that he's the only 007 actor who seems to get what Ian Fleming was writing about, the film's freedom to make Bond's world a genuinely threatening one results in what I like to call:

BOOM. I'll bang on about the individual elements that make Licence To Kill so, so good in a minute (contain yourself), but at its core it's its bold refusal to conform that raises it above the rest of the series. When Bond frees himself from the red tape of MI6 in order to get the job done properly, it's a perfect metaphor for the film itself busting out of the franchise's restrictive mould and ruthlessly and efficiently delivering the goods.

Like On Her Majesty's Secret Service before it and Casino Royale after it, Licence To Kill assumes its position as top quality Bondage by ignoring the Goldfinger formula which created so many average entries in the series. Finally allowing James Bond to function as a human being with fragile emotions and a fierce sense of loyalty to his friends, Licence To Kill only falters when it feels the need to crowbar in the scenes it thinks the fans demand: Q's gadget lesson almost grinds the film to a halt and Bond's first episode of sexytime with Pam Bouvier is completely unjustified and irrelevant to the rest of the plot. That said, Carey Lowell is probably the series' third-best Bond girl, her heart-stopping dress and ability to down a vodka martini in one being just two of her admirable attributes.

Yes, you may marry me.

It's Bond's heartfelt relationship with Felix Leiter (an extension of what could have been with The Living Daylights' Saunders) that drives the film though, and which finally allows Ian Fleming's James Bond - largely absent from his own film series since From Russia With Love - to make a welcome reappearance. While a literal adaptation of any of the books remains as likely a prospect as Justin Bieber playing Bond, Licence To Kill contains the most faithful screen version of the complex character that curses, calculates and kills his way through the pages of Fleming's novels and short stories.

The film's box office may have been crippled by its contemporaries in that amazing, blockbuster-packed summer - it's no coincidence that every Bond movie since has been released in winter - but it proved that Bond was at his best when he remembered his roots, went a little crazy and back-combed his substantial barnet so hard that his forehead nearly snapped off.

Timothy Dalton, obviously

T-Daltz takes his ice-cold BastardBond from The Living Daylights and cranks the bastardry up a notch, while simultaneously giving us the most believable portrayal of 007 ever seen on screen. It’s one thing to be a ruthless revenge machine but it only works if you believe the motivation, and Dalton effortlessly manages both. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to suggest that the fact that he only made two Bond films is probably the greatest tragedy mankind has ever suffered.

The bridge escape

I enjoyed the scene in Mission: Impossible III when the recently-captured villain was being transported across a long, picturesque bridge in a prison van, only for his cronies to suddenly turn up and break him out in an improbably hastily-organised but undeniably exciting escape. However I couldn't help but feel that it owed a certain something to the scene in Licence To Kill when the recently-captured villain was being transported across a long, picturesque bridge in a prison van, only for his cronies to suddenly turn up and break him out in an improbably hastily-organised but undeniably exciting escape. Can't quite put my finger on what it is though.

Franz Sanchez

"Each film is only as good as its villain," said critic Roger Ebert. Inconveniently, he was talking about Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, but his theory has never been proven as strongly in a Bond film as in Licence To Kill. Sanchez isn't just dirty, he's terrifying, psychotic and probably mentally unstable: no sane person would wear a shirt like this, after all. His unique way of dealing with disloyal associates makes me genuinely concerned for Bond when he goes undercover in Sanchez' inner circle, and when his cover's blown, it's one of the rare occasions in a Bond film when you're desperate for him to kill the bad guy before he carves 007's lungs out, or something.

Michael Kamen's score

Having done a cracking job on action scores for Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, and with John Barry  unavailable due to illness, Michael Kamen brought his urgent, stabby brass along to accompany Bond’s roaring rampage of revenge. Kamen’s often frantic, always fantastic score is crucial to ramping up the film’s tension and remains woefully served on the soundtrack album. Somebody needs to sort that out STAT.

“He was married once… but it was a long time ago”

Tracy Bond rarely gets a mention post-OHMSS, but when she does it’s always a touching moment, and Dalton makes this one heartbreaking. It's never overtly mentioned, but given that Felix's wife suffers the same wedding day fate as Mrs Bond, it's hard not to see 007's dogged pursuit of her killers as an attempt to alleviate his own guilt and anger over Tracy's murder. As a result Licence To Kill ends up being the film Diamonds Are Forever should have been.

The Incredible Wetsuit

Most of Bond’s outfits in Licence To Kill have been flamed by those in the know, but check out the sexy red piping on this baby. I might get one of these just to lounge about the house in.

This line reading by Benicio
Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez

He’s not being entirely truthful.

Licence revoked

When Barry Norman showed a clip of this scene in a Film ’89 summer preview, I turned to my dad in horror and disbelief. “James Bond RESIGNS? What the actual fuck?”, I didn’t say to my dad because I would have got a clip round the ear. 23 years later the scene is just as powerful: Robert Brown finally gets his teeth into the role of M, Dalton looks like he wants to beat his boss to a bloody pulp and Bond effectively jacks in the only thing that ever meant anything in his life to avenge his friend. When I quit my job it’s going to be exactly like this.

Milton Krest's death

The scene for which the film probably most deserved its 15 rating might just be the series’ best death. As if we weren’t quite sure just how horrible Sanchez is, we get to see him burst his business partner’s head open over a matter of a few measly quid. Not that Krest didn’t deserve it: in one scene he wore SALMON PINK SLACKS.

The end

Once the film has finished blowing up half of South America in its stunning ten-minute tanker chase and Bond has exacted fiery revenge on Sanchez, it brings it all back down to Earth with a touching moment in which we almost see James Bond cry for the first time since his wife was killed. Without a word, Dalton conveys Bond's exhausted relief that it's all over, and when he nearly breaks down at the thought of everything he's been through it's almost too much to take.


And finally: As Timothy Dalton bade Bond farewell, he took with him several other names who performed their final double-0 duties on Licence To Kill, all of whom played a small part in making me the unbearable conversational bore I am today. So thanks to these guys for that:

* For a geekily fascinating analysis of the film's many journeys between the edit suite and the BBFC, check out these Melon Farmers

BlogalongaBond will return with GoldenEye

What the hell is BlogalongaBond? I'll tell you.

Further BlogalongaBondareading here

Random Genius: Daniel Kleinman

In a destined-to-fail attempt to say nice things about all my movie heroes before they die rather than in a half-hearted obituary when their best work is long behind them, I thought it might be time to show some love for Daniel Kleinman, director of music videos, commercials and, most importantly, James Bond title sequences.

While there will always be a place in my Suit for Maurice Binder, who designed all but two Bond titles from Dr No in 1962 to Licence To Kill in 1989 (as well as the legendary gunbarrel opening), his sequences do tend to be a bit samey. I suppose when you've seen one silhouette of a naked chick stroking a gunbarrel in a way that suggests she's thinking about something else entirely, you've seen 'em all.

Anyway, after Binder passed away in 1991, the Broccolis hired Kleinman to design the opening for the next Bond, GoldenEye, after seeing his video for Gladys Knight's Licence To Kill theme song.



And by crikey he did a bang up job. The sequence is clever, innovative and relevant to the story (check out the statues of former Communist legends which crop up later in the film) but remains faithful to the traditions of Binder's work. It's also been blocked on YouTube by MGM on copyright grounds. So thanks for that.

Kleinman went on to do the title sequences for the next four Bond films, all of which tied the themes of each movie to his striking imagery in an eye-popping explosion of style. The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day have also been yanked off of the YouTubes by an overzealous, bankrupt studio, but here (for now at least) is Kleinman's title sequence for Tomorrow Never Dies, complete with Sheryl Crow ruining everyone's day:



Kleinman saved his masterpiece, though, for 2006's big Bond reboot, Casino Royale. The titles are everything his others were but adds a retro touch to reflect the fact that it's an origin story for 007 (despite taking place in the present. And, er, with the same person playing his boss. Don't get me started).



For reasons I haven't been able to fathom, Kleinman didn't do the titles for the last Bond film, Quantum Of Solace - director Marc Forster used his favourite titles designers MK12, who farted out a lacklustre effort with some nice sand but not much else. The Incredible Suit crosses its fingers that if we ever get another Bond film, Daniel Kleinman will be back fondling our eyeballs with his cheeky fingers.

Reconstituted Pork Content

Time and time again I’m asked the same question, and quite frankly I’ll vomit sausagemeat if I’m asked it again, so I shall attempt to answer it here in the hope that when the next person to ask has wiped regurgitated reconstituted pork “content” from their shirt I can direct them to this post.

So: Who is The Incredible Suit’s favourite Conti? Is it:

a) Actor Tom Conti, from Shirley Valentine and whatnot
b) Composer Bill Conti, creator of musical scores and that, or
c) Crazy Legs Conti, “star” of Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating?

Well, let’s take each of these legends of the silver screen in turn:

Tom Conti is best remembered (by me) as Costas the Greek in Shirley Valentine, which I had to see when I was a sulky teenager because my Mum wanted to see it and it was payback, I suspect, for me making her watch Licence To Kill, which she complained was “very loud”. Although I remember Shirley Valentine being quite good, we both suffered in the end because there was a noisy sex scene in it which you really shouldn’t be made to sit through with your Mum, or with your teenage son for that matter.

So Tom Conti wins points for being a comedy Greek lothario in the one film I remember seeing him in, but loses points for the mentally scarring sex scene.

Bill Conti is probably best known for his music for the Rocky films, and quite rightly. It’s ace. However I know him best for his score for For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore’s second-least-worst Bond film. It was 1981 and Conti wrote a bonkers score which kept all the wah-wah guitar and funky bass of the ‘70s but shoveled skipfuls of brass in as well, making it painfully unlistenable for some but somehow fresh and exciting for other, deafer types, like me.

So Bill Conti wins points for Rocky and For Your Eyes Only, but loses points for the fact that he composed something like 136 scores and I only know two of them.

Crazy Legs Conti is, according to his website, “an eccentric New York window washer, nude model and sperm donor, and huge fan of the annual July 4th hot dog eating competition.” Evidently he’s made a film about stuffing his face with food. I know little else about him but based on this evidence he appears to be a knob.

So Crazy Legs Conti wins no points for anything and loses points for everything.

Therefore I think I can safely put this matter to rest and avoid any further semi-digested meat expulsions by declaring my favourite Conti to be Bill, the fella what did that music that time. Now please stop asking.

This here videclip is not how Bill Conti scored For Your Eyes Only, but it would have been if Roger Moore had his way. I imagine.
Thanks to green14m for the video!

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Over-Smuggery

In early 2008 my primary contribution to the enhancement of the lives of mankind was a film review slot I had on a local radio station in Hayes, Middlesex. My first feature of the year was an excitable prediction that 2008 was going to be the best year at the movies since the halcyon days of 1989 (Batman, Licence To Kill, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… I get a tear in my eye and a stirring in my nethers just thinking about it).

Because I am such an unbearable smartarse I called this feature ‘Two Thousand and Great’, and was so pleased with myself that I pulled several muscles in my face due to over-smuggery. However twelve months later my smug muscles had gone into atrophy and my reputation as a grand soothsayer of the future of movies lay in tatters. Of the ten films I confidently predicted to be truly gobsmackular, only one turned out to be so, and that was Cloverfield. The rest were mildly disappointing (The Dark Knight, Quantum Of Solace), heartbreakingly bad (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) or suicide-promptingly abysmal (Jumper, Vantage Point… I won’t even mention 10,000 BC. Oops).

As a result I am no longer welcome within two miles of the Middlesex boundaries and have had to assume a new identity in order to continue peddling movie twaddle without being arrested by the Serious Fraud Office.

So having well and truly learned my lesson and promised never to make such ludicrous and unreliable forecasts ever again, I thought ‘bugger it’ and can now confidently predict that there is a film that will certainly, definitely, undoubtedly be the best of 2009. I bet my remaining Star Wars figures on it and will eat my appendix if I’m wrong.

District 9 is a documentary-style sci-fi drama about aliens living in South Africa and being treated like slaves and third-class citizens by the people, the government and the multi-national corporation using the aliens’ technology for their own nefarious purposes, mwahaha. It’s basically an allegory about human rights and discrimination, but with massive spaceships.

My confidence in this film is based largely on the fact that it looks a bit like Cloverfield, which is surely a better basis than the ‘evidence’ that prompts other fortune tellers to predict the future. I mean, stars, tea leaves, lines on your palm and so on, as if that’s more scientific than a vague rumbling in my guts that indicates a solid gold classic movie on the horizon (or it could indicate something else distinctly less solid on the horizon, but let’s not go there).

So come back in September (and every day in between, obviously) for my no-doubt-glowing review of this awesome filmic event, and I shall look forward to keeping a firm hold on my reputation, my R2-D2 (with retractable sensorscope) and my beloved, but biologically pointless appendix.