decade

hello


normally i would be quite reticent, or at the least reluctant, look you see, to get involved with any sort of "anniversary" celebrations. like most of a same mind, however, exceptions can be made. and what better exception could one make than to recall what would seem to be the last ever on-screen performance by an actor many would consider to be one of the top three ever to play the role of James Bond?

yes, Sean Connery. as October shall soon roll into November, we are - quite remarkably - before the cusp, or on the threshold, of commemorating the 10th anniversary of this fine, most decidedly Scottish, actors' swansong. and what a peculiar one it was, too, to be sure.

whereas some actors aspire to having their final role being the epitome of their career - think Raul Julia, for example, who opted to feature in a movie where he got his f*****g head kicked in by Jean Claude Van Damme before deciding to retire via death - Connery made a statement. it is a clouded statement, certainly, but a statement all the same.

to save you some wear and tear on the keyboard, since you are here, do not bother going off to that google thing. no, i can remind you that Sean Connery's final appearance on screen, back in November 2009, was in an advertisement for a French banking firm called Credit Agricole. a French banking firm that had two values, apparently - green banking and common sense.

how does Connery's performance rate or rank in this advert? before i cloud the milk of your mind with the water of my thoughts, why not watch the advert, in the form of a video (yes, we've got a video) below. click away, and enjoy. but be warned, it's all of 40 seconds, and if you blink you may miss the Connery performance in its entirety.

well, on the plus side one can say that his performance here is not quite so sh!t as it was in, say, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or that rubbish crime one he did with Dustin Hoffman and Ferris Bueller or whatever his real name is. let us be brutally honest, though, this performance does not sit comfortably at all when compared to, say, Highlander, or Zardoz, or them James Bond films, or The Untouchables for that matter.

i would suggest that this advertisement is one of the most truly baffling i have ever seen. there are a couple of reasons for this, but the most pressing is perhaps the one you have. assuming you watched the above. that is of how this advert is, at best, incoherent, in truth, just nonsensical. no clarification is given at all in what "green banking" might be, or what a "return" to "common sense" may involve.

oh, both are reasonably admirable goals or ideals to have, especially when you are trying to promote yourself to a market which is favourable to such things. but just saying it without explaining exactly how you are going to do it does not (or does not if you like typing errors) quite deliver anything.

another baffling element would be who was targeted, exactly. i mean, yes, i remember the advert very well indeed. what i can remember is seeing it only on obscure satellite channels in South Africa, normally after 11pm, possibly closer to 1am. this strikes me as being a peculiar, rather specific bracket they were attempting to catch the attention of. yes, true, they caught mine, but no i do not use a French bank, thanks.

there is every chance, of course, that a (i think) then 6 year old Greta Thunberg saw this advert. maybe her Mum & Dad were massive fans of Outland or similar, and she recognized that nice man out of the film as being the one casually suggesting environmental concerns in consideration of a French bank. who knows, this could well have been the turning point for her.

presumably to try and get money value, or value for money, off of hiring Sean Connery to do the advert, indeed yes, at least one other variation of the advert exists. yes, we have got a video.

which of the two versions is my personal favourite? it is really, really difficult to tell. the best i can do here is apply the logic i would if challenged to name the "best" thing done by someone like Sammy Hagar or, even better in this instance, that horrid Mr Kim Kardassian fellow. yes, that Ed Sheridan works for this example. the answer, then, is the second one, for it is the shortest.

i have every confidence that Sean Connery elected to do this advertisement for purely noble reasons, out of his commitment to the environment to. but also i would expect that he got paid a very great and considerable sum of money for it, too. so much so, of course, that apparently he has had no need to work for the last decade. nice one. well, nice one for him. fans of his performances of course feel the gap, but there you go.

how does this rank in the realm of arguably bizarre celebrity endorsements in advertisements which seem designed to confuse? certainly it is prestigious, capturing as it does the final performance (at time of publication) of a much treasured actor . but it is no, for instance, Japanese whisky advert featuring Glass Eye, now, is it?

for the live of me i cannot imagine all that many will be interested in this. should i be wrong, and at least one or two of you think this is a good idea, posting this, well then nice one.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!