James Bond is NOT Daniel Craig! Daniel Craig is NOT 007! James Bond is tall, dark, handsome, debonair and always on top of things, whatever happens. He rarely runs but is always there, one step ahead of the villains who have names like Stavro Blofeld, Jaws, Rosa Klebbor Hugo Brax. The only platonic relationship he has is with his boss's secretary, Miss Moneypenny, who always knows when he has arrived by his hat sailing through the air and landing on the hatstand in the corner of her office. He gets begrudging orders from his handler, 'M', and gets tooled up by 'Q'. 'Q' always appears to be annoyed with Bond because of his casual attitude towards the wonderful gadgets he makes for him, which usually save his life or get him out of a sticky situation later in the film. He introduces himself as "Bond. James Bond" and likes his Vodka Martinis "shaken - not stirred." Films have titles like Goldfinger, For Your Eyes Only, Live and Let Die or The Man With the Golden Gun. The Bond Girls, a proliferating species that he meets along the way, have double entendre names like Plenty O'Toole, Pussy Galore and Holly Goodhead - many of which turn up dead.

The film always starts with a strident but appropriate song by a leading singer of the day and naked female bodies writhing across the screen in chiaroscuro. This is after some amazing feat carried out by Bond that often has no bearing on the film in question. And the two things that ALL proper Bond films have is the opening blood-dripping gun barrel scene and the explosive ending before Bond is contacted by 'M', or Mrs Thatcher, for a report on the operation as he is getting down to business with the female who has survived the mayhem.

When Cubby Broccoli was in charge there was no real problem. James Bond was Sean Connery, and, with reservations, Roger Moore. The films fell into an easily recognised rhythm and were loved by the cognoscenti. It wasn't until new wave actors came along and felt that they must add something to the Bond cadre that the oil began to leak out of the Bond motor. They wanted Bond more touchy-feely. To have some proper relationships. Cubby was still able to keep the essentials in place but after his daughter, Barbara, took over the Beretta, 007 began to change and ended up as Daniel Craig.

Daniel Craig is a wonderful actor but I repeat, not James Bond. This fact was driven home to me over the holidays by the happenstance of seeing Defiance immediately after being bored rigid by Quantum of Solace. I think Felix The Cat would make a better fist of it than Craig. He never seems to stop running. All the humour and nonchalance has gone from the character of Bond and been replaced with ???? What's more, it is derivative of all the other Bond films only with added CGI. It has also been contaminated with the Bourne films and delivers Bond as a dour clone of Matt Damon. What the Fleming franchise needs is a humour transplant. More lines like, "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die," delivered with glee by Goldfinger himself, Gert Frobe.

I have a scientific method of sorting through the films up for BAFTA awards. I pile them up around the TV and shove them in the slot as I find them. I sat through The Dark Knight and wondered who the Dark Knight was. Was he Batman or a clone? I watched the latest Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and was disappointed when it wasn't as good as the Ford-Connery oeuvre, been amazed at the lack of talent displayed by George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading and wondered what all the fuss was about Mamma Mia! Frost/Nixon was interesting but only narrowly scraped in under the cloak of entertainment and I found the apologia, W, for War President Bush, sad. Angelina Jolie proved herself an actress of merit in Eastwood's Changeling. It's a pity that Eastwood's other production, Gran Torino, won't be out in time for BAFTA selection as it is rumoured to be major Oscar material. I tried Brideshead Revisited but failed to get past the front door. The same with I've Loved You So Long.

The Escapist with Brian Cox was watchable but it has added nothing to the well exploited American escape movie. Another film based on the Holocaust is The Reader with Kate Winslet baring her all and growing old, thankfully not in that order, and Ralph Fiennes. It's a slow-grow story fleshed out with the passionate scenes at the beginning but well worth seeing. Worth a nod, maybe?

I've still got a mountain to climb as far as the BAFTAs are concerned but so far Craig's Defiance is the stand-out with Changeling running it a very close second. I must confess to a sort of vested interest in Defiance. It reminded me of my childhood. That said, Defiance has everything an action film should have: a leading man with a bit more going for him than an itchy trigger finger and a death wish, a fighter who has ideals and would prefer to sort out a situation with intelligence and understanding, and played by an actor who, in a dramatic scene where his band of Partisans raid a Nazi hospital to get badly needed drugs for his people in the forest, will allow the director to keep him in the waiting lorry while his men do the dying because he doesn't feel well. I don't think there are many 'heroic' actors who would have been agreeable to that.

For twenty odd years I've done my bit to sort out the goers from the gonnas. Every year it's the same. The films and actors I choose are ignored, thrown out in the first round of balloting. It's got so bad that the Post Office runs a special service just for actors begging me not to vote for them. I sometimes wonder if there is a secret cabal that gets together around this time of the year to examine who I've selected, have a good laugh and then make sure that those films and actors don't make it to the second round. Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to do me down.

Maybe this year I'll play it crafty. Select the films and actors I don't think are worth an award, which would let my favourites through to the second round and then - I think I'll have to work on that. I've got until the 8th January to decide who my lonely vote will make or break in the coming year.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

30 December 2008