After watching the new trailer for the new Casino Royale Bond flick, I'm fairly certain it won't be anything like the 1967 Casino Royale with Peter Fleming, Woody Allen, Urusula Andress, Orson Welles, David Niven, John Huston, William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and many many more.

No, the latest in this, perhaps the longest running franchise in English movie history(?), features a high stakes poker game ($10 million buy-in), Eva (yum yum) Green, an Aston Martin DBS, a villain with one of those vertical scars across an eye, Montenegro, and a grim-faced Bond. I'm not sure Daniel Craig cracks a smile that entire trailer, and he delivers the trademark Bond "quip after the kill" like he's tossing an Ace of spades on a body in Vietnam. The move from Aston Martin to BMW was perhaps an odd move downstream, but switching from Baccarat to Texas Hold'em is probably a sound marketing decision ("In. All In.").

Otherwise, the longevity can be explained by the elements of Bond that never go out of style: exotic locales, smoking hot women, sexy cars, spycraft, gadgets, and the rush that comes from taking down megalomaniacs intent on bringing down the free world. Bond is every boy's testosterone, distilled into pure cinematic form. The movies also conjure an appealing work environment. 007 is given a wide latitude by his superiors. If he can get the job done, no one really cares if he destroys a bit of public property or fails to answer a few phone calls because he's busy introducing a stone cold fox to his Walter PPK.

Some of my earliest movie memories involve watching early Connery 007 with my dad, whose favorite remains From Russia With Love. I was always sad when ABC would feature a Bond movie on a school night because I couldn't stay up to watch the end.