Year 5, Day 169 - 6/18/13 - Movie #1,461
BEFORE: I've got a slight cold, so staying up this morning might be a challenge - but I went to a beer dinner last night that had some spicy food, so I'm hoping to shake it that way. Once the beer wears off, I should be able to stay up for a while. This is Brosnan's second outing as Bond (out of 4) and the support staff carries over from the last film as well.
THE PLOT: James Bond heads to stop a media mogul's plan to induce war between
China and the UK in order to obtain exclusive global media coverage.
AFTER: This week's Entertainment Weekly had an article about the negative effects of binge-watching - the method by which some people are now watching entire seasons of television all at once. There are no cliff-hangers this way, or week-to-week suspenseful moments - and on a larger scale, I'm suffering from my binge-watching of the Bond series. Ian Fleming only wrote a few Bond books, and once those had been all adapted into films, screenwriters wrote original stories, but ones that needed to feel like they were part of the Bond universe.
Which means that they cribbed bits and pieces from some of the books, and some of the previous films. This meant more than one Bond villain kept a pet shark, and in the case of "Tomorrow Never Dies", there are at least three villains who hijack naval vessels to gain nuclear missiles. Most prominently this was done in "The Spy Who Loved Me", but it's sort of a common theme. At least in tonight's film there was a new motivation - instead of holding the world hostage and demanding ransom, the villain wants to start a war so his news empire can report on it. The obvious reference is to William Randolph Hearst kickstarting the Spanish-American War, but it's not too hard to see a connection to how CNN and FoxNews benefit from the excitement of wartime reporting.
It's an interesting idea, only it's hard to imagine someone in the media business, Robert Murdoch for example, getting into the military weapons game. It needs to happen here to make him a threat to world peace, but I just didn't find it that believable.
LOCATIONS: Russia, Hamburg, Saigon
VILLAINS: Elliot Carver, Henry Gupta, Stamper
BABES: Paris Carver, Wai Lin
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Jack Wade
PASTIMES: Skydiving (HALO jump)
CARS: BMW 750iL, BMW Cruiser R1200 C motorbike
GADGETS: Remote-control car
THEME: "Tomorrow Never Dies" by Sheryl Crow
Also starring Judi Dench, Joe Don Baker, Desmond Llewelyn, Samantha Bond (all four carrying over from "Goldeneye"), Jonathan Pryce (last seen in "Hysteria"), Teri Hatcher, Michelle Yeoh (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 2"), Ricky Jay (last seen in "The Great Buck Howard"), with cameos from Vincent Schiavelli (last seen in "Lord of Illusions"), Gerard Butler (last seen in "Mrs. Brown").
RATING: 5 out of 10 headlines
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Goldeneye
Year 5, Day 168 - 6/17/13 - Movie #1,460
BEFORE: Somehow, while I was hanging out with James Bond, half of June sort of slipped by. I've got just one month until Comic-Con and I have to get off this topic and into some heavy sci-fi and comic-book films. That's the plan, anyway.
Dalton is out, and Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Laws of Attraction") is in. We've got a new "M" too, more on that later, but good ol' Desmond Llewelyn is still with us, for a bit longer, anyway - he carries over from "Licence to Kill". He appeared as Q in 17 Bond films, and coincidentally "Q" is the 17th letter of the alphabet. Oooo......
THE PLOT: James Bond teams up with the lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow agent.
AFTER: There was a six-year delay in getting the next Bond film off the ground - while figuring out who should play Bond, and who even had the right to produce the next film. But eventually they got it all worked out, and Bond entered the 1990's, no worse for wear. After the opening scene of this film, the plot jumps ahead nine years, and I can't help but think that partially represents the long gap between films. Brosnan, of course, couldn't play Bond when he was first offered the role, because his TV show "Remington Steele" got renewed (ironically, it may have been renewed for one more season after he was asked to play Bond...) so they went with Dalton, and finally the role opened up for Brosnan years later.
And because this was the 90's, there's a very prominent "hacker" character - which on one hand makes sense, because you can't just take over a satellite or easily get bank info, but as in some other films of the time, "hacking" is depicted as an all-purpose activity that makes anything possible. You need to get missile codes? Just hack them!
The (re-)appearance of the female "M" now messes up my continuity, partly because of the order in which I've chosen to watch the films, starting with "Casino Royale". But it's not really my fault - "Goldeneye" introduced the new "M", but then in "Casino Royale", which was a reboot, they kept the same actress. So one way or the other, she was head of MI6 at the start of Bond's career, then she wasn't, and then she was again. But she looked older in "Casino Royale", which took place earlier but was made later, and she looks younger here, which took place later but was made earlier. So there's no way it makes sense - unless maybe she had some work done to look younger?
Other than that, I really liked the way the pieces came together on this one, but the drawback was that too many of the plot points seemed to be a rehash of pieces from "Dr. No" - the satellite, the underground Caribbean lair, etc.
LOCATIONS: Russia, Monte Carlo, Cuba
VILLAINS: Alec Trevelyan, Gen. Ourumov, Boris Grishenko
BABES: Xenia Onatopp, Natalya Simonova
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Jack Wade (played by the same actor who played a villain just a couple Bond films ago...weird)
PASTIMES: Bunjee jumping, sky-diving, more baccarat
CARS: Aston Martin DB5. Classic. Also a BMW Z3 Roadster.
GADGETS: Explosive ball-point pen, laser watch.
THEME: "Goldeneye" by Tina Turner. Another mediocre one.
Also starring Judi Dench (last seen in "Quantum of Solace"), Famke Janssen (last seen in "Lord of Illusions"), Sean Bean (last seen in "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief"), Izabella Scorupco, Alan Cumming (last heard in "The Smurfs"), Joe Don Baker (last seen in "The Living Daylights"), Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1"), with a cameo from Minnie Driver (last seen in "Barney's Version").
RATING: 6 out of 10 back-up singers
BEFORE: Somehow, while I was hanging out with James Bond, half of June sort of slipped by. I've got just one month until Comic-Con and I have to get off this topic and into some heavy sci-fi and comic-book films. That's the plan, anyway.
Dalton is out, and Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Laws of Attraction") is in. We've got a new "M" too, more on that later, but good ol' Desmond Llewelyn is still with us, for a bit longer, anyway - he carries over from "Licence to Kill". He appeared as Q in 17 Bond films, and coincidentally "Q" is the 17th letter of the alphabet. Oooo......
THE PLOT: James Bond teams up with the lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow agent.
AFTER: There was a six-year delay in getting the next Bond film off the ground - while figuring out who should play Bond, and who even had the right to produce the next film. But eventually they got it all worked out, and Bond entered the 1990's, no worse for wear. After the opening scene of this film, the plot jumps ahead nine years, and I can't help but think that partially represents the long gap between films. Brosnan, of course, couldn't play Bond when he was first offered the role, because his TV show "Remington Steele" got renewed (ironically, it may have been renewed for one more season after he was asked to play Bond...) so they went with Dalton, and finally the role opened up for Brosnan years later.
And because this was the 90's, there's a very prominent "hacker" character - which on one hand makes sense, because you can't just take over a satellite or easily get bank info, but as in some other films of the time, "hacking" is depicted as an all-purpose activity that makes anything possible. You need to get missile codes? Just hack them!
The (re-)appearance of the female "M" now messes up my continuity, partly because of the order in which I've chosen to watch the films, starting with "Casino Royale". But it's not really my fault - "Goldeneye" introduced the new "M", but then in "Casino Royale", which was a reboot, they kept the same actress. So one way or the other, she was head of MI6 at the start of Bond's career, then she wasn't, and then she was again. But she looked older in "Casino Royale", which took place earlier but was made later, and she looks younger here, which took place later but was made earlier. So there's no way it makes sense - unless maybe she had some work done to look younger?
Other than that, I really liked the way the pieces came together on this one, but the drawback was that too many of the plot points seemed to be a rehash of pieces from "Dr. No" - the satellite, the underground Caribbean lair, etc.
LOCATIONS: Russia, Monte Carlo, Cuba
VILLAINS: Alec Trevelyan, Gen. Ourumov, Boris Grishenko
BABES: Xenia Onatopp, Natalya Simonova
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Jack Wade (played by the same actor who played a villain just a couple Bond films ago...weird)
PASTIMES: Bunjee jumping, sky-diving, more baccarat
CARS: Aston Martin DB5. Classic. Also a BMW Z3 Roadster.
GADGETS: Explosive ball-point pen, laser watch.
THEME: "Goldeneye" by Tina Turner. Another mediocre one.
Also starring Judi Dench (last seen in "Quantum of Solace"), Famke Janssen (last seen in "Lord of Illusions"), Sean Bean (last seen in "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief"), Izabella Scorupco, Alan Cumming (last heard in "The Smurfs"), Joe Don Baker (last seen in "The Living Daylights"), Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1"), with a cameo from Minnie Driver (last seen in "Barney's Version").
RATING: 6 out of 10 back-up singers
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Licence to Kill
Year 5, Day 167 - 6/16/13 - Movie #1,459
BEFORE: Timothy Dalton carries over from "The Living Daylights" into his second and final Bond film. As Billy Joel once sang, "Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."
THE PLOT: A vengeful British spy goes rogue and sets off to unleash vengeance on a drug lord who tortured his best friend, a CIA agent, and left him for dead
AFTER: I'm finally seeing the big picture, the transition of Bond over the years, from "Dr. No" to the most recent films. It starts with the impeccable Connery, goes through Roger Moore in his white tuxes, and ends (so far, anyway) with Daniel Craig covered in sweat, tied to a chair, with a villain torturing his undercarriage. Somewhere in the middle is the Dalton transitional phase - he cleans up real nice, but he's also able to get down and dirty.
There are a lot of articles out now about the evolution of the Superman character over the years (and I will get to "Man of Steel" this summer, I promise...) and I think something similar took place with James Bond. The changes in any long-standing character played by several actors can be seen as changes in the entire Hollywood system, changes in filmmaking technology and storytelling techniques in general, since every film is a product of its own time. So watching the Dalton Bond reminds me of one of the Superman reboots, perhaps the one in 1986, when DC Comics felt that maybe people weren't identifying with Superman because he was too powerful, had too many abilities beyond those of mortal men. So to humanize him they decided that he'd still be able to lift an oil tanker, for example, but the audience would see him struggle to do so.
I thought of this while watching the end sequence, where Bond takes out a druglord, 4 gasoline tankers, and about 2 dozen henchmen and minions. He doesn't do this with a remote explosive, or a missile launcher, but by jumping from vehicle to vehicle (somewhat cribbed from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but I digress) and of course this would be completely impossible in real life, but because he's Bond, and because it's a movie, he gets to succeed. However, at the end he's dirty, bloodied, and quite worn out. A bit of realism in an otherwise unrealistic endeavor.
Although I appreciated the overall tone here, I don't recommend that other people watch the Bond films all run together like I'm doing - it turns out they were never meant to be viewed this way. Seeing one every two or three years is much better, because you then might not notice how many story elements get cribbed from earlier Bond films. Here we've got the "Bond goes rogue" plot again (to cover up the fact that British Intelligence has no jurisdiction over a Central American drug cartel), and a drug-lord villain with a pet shark (cribbed from "Live and Let Die"). Bond also manages to sow distrust within the villain's own operation, which was sort of part of "The Man With the Golden Gun".
LOCATIONS: Florida Keys, Bahamas, Bimini, Isthmus (stand-in for Panama, I guess)
VILLAINS: Franz Sanchez, Milton Krest, Prof. Joe Butcher, Dario
BABES: Pam Bouvier, Lupe Lamora
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter (who's somehow old again, looking like he did in "Live and Let Die" - go figure...)
PASTIMES: Skydiving, scuba diving, blackjack
CARS: Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, Lincoln Continental Mark VII LSC
GADGETS: fingerprint-sensitive sniper rifle, plastic explosive toothpaste
THEME: "Licence to Kill" by Gladys Knight. Fits the bill, I suppose.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Caroline Bliss (all three carrying over from "The Living Daylights"), Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Benicio Del Toro (last seen in "China Moon"), Talisa Soto, Anthony Zerbe (last seen in "They Call Me Mister Tibbs!"), David Hedison (last seen in "Live and Let Die"), Frank McRae, Everett McGill, with cameos from Priscilla Barnes (last seen in "The Crossing Guard") and Wayne Newton (!) (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Stinger missiles
BEFORE: Timothy Dalton carries over from "The Living Daylights" into his second and final Bond film. As Billy Joel once sang, "Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."
THE PLOT: A vengeful British spy goes rogue and sets off to unleash vengeance on a drug lord who tortured his best friend, a CIA agent, and left him for dead
AFTER: I'm finally seeing the big picture, the transition of Bond over the years, from "Dr. No" to the most recent films. It starts with the impeccable Connery, goes through Roger Moore in his white tuxes, and ends (so far, anyway) with Daniel Craig covered in sweat, tied to a chair, with a villain torturing his undercarriage. Somewhere in the middle is the Dalton transitional phase - he cleans up real nice, but he's also able to get down and dirty.
There are a lot of articles out now about the evolution of the Superman character over the years (and I will get to "Man of Steel" this summer, I promise...) and I think something similar took place with James Bond. The changes in any long-standing character played by several actors can be seen as changes in the entire Hollywood system, changes in filmmaking technology and storytelling techniques in general, since every film is a product of its own time. So watching the Dalton Bond reminds me of one of the Superman reboots, perhaps the one in 1986, when DC Comics felt that maybe people weren't identifying with Superman because he was too powerful, had too many abilities beyond those of mortal men. So to humanize him they decided that he'd still be able to lift an oil tanker, for example, but the audience would see him struggle to do so.
I thought of this while watching the end sequence, where Bond takes out a druglord, 4 gasoline tankers, and about 2 dozen henchmen and minions. He doesn't do this with a remote explosive, or a missile launcher, but by jumping from vehicle to vehicle (somewhat cribbed from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but I digress) and of course this would be completely impossible in real life, but because he's Bond, and because it's a movie, he gets to succeed. However, at the end he's dirty, bloodied, and quite worn out. A bit of realism in an otherwise unrealistic endeavor.
Although I appreciated the overall tone here, I don't recommend that other people watch the Bond films all run together like I'm doing - it turns out they were never meant to be viewed this way. Seeing one every two or three years is much better, because you then might not notice how many story elements get cribbed from earlier Bond films. Here we've got the "Bond goes rogue" plot again (to cover up the fact that British Intelligence has no jurisdiction over a Central American drug cartel), and a drug-lord villain with a pet shark (cribbed from "Live and Let Die"). Bond also manages to sow distrust within the villain's own operation, which was sort of part of "The Man With the Golden Gun".
LOCATIONS: Florida Keys, Bahamas, Bimini, Isthmus (stand-in for Panama, I guess)
VILLAINS: Franz Sanchez, Milton Krest, Prof. Joe Butcher, Dario
BABES: Pam Bouvier, Lupe Lamora
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter (who's somehow old again, looking like he did in "Live and Let Die" - go figure...)
PASTIMES: Skydiving, scuba diving, blackjack
CARS: Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, Lincoln Continental Mark VII LSC
GADGETS: fingerprint-sensitive sniper rifle, plastic explosive toothpaste
THEME: "Licence to Kill" by Gladys Knight. Fits the bill, I suppose.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Caroline Bliss (all three carrying over from "The Living Daylights"), Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Benicio Del Toro (last seen in "China Moon"), Talisa Soto, Anthony Zerbe (last seen in "They Call Me Mister Tibbs!"), David Hedison (last seen in "Live and Let Die"), Frank McRae, Everett McGill, with cameos from Priscilla Barnes (last seen in "The Crossing Guard") and Wayne Newton (!) (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Stinger missiles
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Living Daylights
Year 5, Day 166 - 6/15/13 - Movie #1,458
BEFORE: OK, I'm not quite sure how to address this, but I have seen this film before. I know I saw this in the theater when it was released in 1987, but it's the only Bond film I've seen all the way through, and the problem is that it hasn't been placed in proper context. But this countdown is all about discussing films I haven't seen already, so do I count this one or not? When I get to the Woody Allen films I'm planning on skipping the ones I've already seen, but for the Hitchcock films, I'm planning to watch them all (I probably saw "The Birds" and "Psycho" as a young lad). I think I'm going to watch and review this one, but if my chain turns out to be one film too long at the end of the year, maybe I'll come back and delete this one. Fair enough?
Switching to Bond #4 tonight (or #5 in my strange sequence), and Moneypenny #2 for that matter, but 2 members of the support staff carry over, so actor linking is still maintained. Now starring as Bond - Timothy Dalton (last seen in "The Lion in Winter").
THE PLOT: James Bond is living on the edge to stop an evil arms dealer from starting another world war.
AFTER: The IMDB description is a bit off, it says that Bond "crosses all seven continents" in this film, but I don't recall seeing him travel through Antarctica. Anyway, there are really only 6 continents, because Europe and Asia are connected and should only count as one (pet peeve of mine). Can I get a ruling on this one? Bond doesn't go to the Americas or Australia either, so it's really only three continents (two by my count - Eurasia + Africa).
This film marked a turn in the franchise, to a slightly more serious, realistic Bond. After some of those campy Roger Moore films, I feel I can support this change. While some people probably didn't like the general lack of humor, I didn't mind it - Dalton still got in a few witty asides.
They also tried to make Bond a one-woman man, or at least a "one woman per film" man. If I remember right, this was something of a reaction to the AIDS crisis in the late 80's, and the filmmakers were trying to get something of a safe sex message included. Considering that Connery or Moore's Bond would typically sleep with 3 or 4 women per film, for Bond this was really dialing it back.
I like this one, and I like Timothy Dalton, but I just have a feeling that I might like the Pierce Brosnan films more. Nice appearance here of the giant ferris wheel in Vienna, also seen in "The Third Man".
For the record, Bond's allies in Afghanistan are the Mujahideen, the resistance movement, but they are NOT the Taliban, which didn't exist at the time. Nor do they become the Taliban - different group, OK? They're shown here in conflict with the Russians, which makes sense because that's what took place in the 1980's.
LOCATIONS: Gibraltar, Bratislava, Vienna, Tangiers, Afghanistan
VILLAINS: Brad Whitaker, Gen. Koskov, Necros
BABES: Kara Milovy
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Gen. Pushkin, Afghani rebels, Felix Leiter (hey, haven't seen him in a while, he looks...younger somehow)
PASTIMES: Classical music, paintball, Civil War reenactments.
CARS: Finally, the Aston Martin is back. 1987 5.3 liter Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante Series 2. With special snow tires. And lasers.
GADGETS: Remote keychain with stun gas and explosives, pipeline transport device.
THEME: "The Living Daylights" by A-Ha. We're still in the 1980's, after all.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "A View to a Kill", Maryam D'Abo, Jeroen Krabbé (last seen in "Robin Hood" (1991)), Joe Don Baker (last seen in "Congo"), John Rhys-Davies (last heard in "The Jungle Book 2"), Thomas Wheatley, John Terry.
RATING: 5 out of 10 toy soldiers
BEFORE: OK, I'm not quite sure how to address this, but I have seen this film before. I know I saw this in the theater when it was released in 1987, but it's the only Bond film I've seen all the way through, and the problem is that it hasn't been placed in proper context. But this countdown is all about discussing films I haven't seen already, so do I count this one or not? When I get to the Woody Allen films I'm planning on skipping the ones I've already seen, but for the Hitchcock films, I'm planning to watch them all (I probably saw "The Birds" and "Psycho" as a young lad). I think I'm going to watch and review this one, but if my chain turns out to be one film too long at the end of the year, maybe I'll come back and delete this one. Fair enough?
Switching to Bond #4 tonight (or #5 in my strange sequence), and Moneypenny #2 for that matter, but 2 members of the support staff carry over, so actor linking is still maintained. Now starring as Bond - Timothy Dalton (last seen in "The Lion in Winter").
THE PLOT: James Bond is living on the edge to stop an evil arms dealer from starting another world war.
AFTER: The IMDB description is a bit off, it says that Bond "crosses all seven continents" in this film, but I don't recall seeing him travel through Antarctica. Anyway, there are really only 6 continents, because Europe and Asia are connected and should only count as one (pet peeve of mine). Can I get a ruling on this one? Bond doesn't go to the Americas or Australia either, so it's really only three continents (two by my count - Eurasia + Africa).
This film marked a turn in the franchise, to a slightly more serious, realistic Bond. After some of those campy Roger Moore films, I feel I can support this change. While some people probably didn't like the general lack of humor, I didn't mind it - Dalton still got in a few witty asides.
They also tried to make Bond a one-woman man, or at least a "one woman per film" man. If I remember right, this was something of a reaction to the AIDS crisis in the late 80's, and the filmmakers were trying to get something of a safe sex message included. Considering that Connery or Moore's Bond would typically sleep with 3 or 4 women per film, for Bond this was really dialing it back.
I like this one, and I like Timothy Dalton, but I just have a feeling that I might like the Pierce Brosnan films more. Nice appearance here of the giant ferris wheel in Vienna, also seen in "The Third Man".
For the record, Bond's allies in Afghanistan are the Mujahideen, the resistance movement, but they are NOT the Taliban, which didn't exist at the time. Nor do they become the Taliban - different group, OK? They're shown here in conflict with the Russians, which makes sense because that's what took place in the 1980's.
LOCATIONS: Gibraltar, Bratislava, Vienna, Tangiers, Afghanistan
VILLAINS: Brad Whitaker, Gen. Koskov, Necros
BABES: Kara Milovy
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Gen. Pushkin, Afghani rebels, Felix Leiter (hey, haven't seen him in a while, he looks...younger somehow)
PASTIMES: Classical music, paintball, Civil War reenactments.
CARS: Finally, the Aston Martin is back. 1987 5.3 liter Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante Series 2. With special snow tires. And lasers.
GADGETS: Remote keychain with stun gas and explosives, pipeline transport device.
THEME: "The Living Daylights" by A-Ha. We're still in the 1980's, after all.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "A View to a Kill", Maryam D'Abo, Jeroen Krabbé (last seen in "Robin Hood" (1991)), Joe Don Baker (last seen in "Congo"), John Rhys-Davies (last heard in "The Jungle Book 2"), Thomas Wheatley, John Terry.
RATING: 5 out of 10 toy soldiers
Friday, June 14, 2013
A View to a Kill
Year 5, Day 165 - 6/14/13 - Movie #1,457
BEFORE: The last of the Roger Moore films, just three more Bonds and 7 more films to go.
THE PLOT: An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley.
AFTER: For the third night in a row, I get the feeling that Bond got sidetracked from his original mission. This could just be a way to cram two plots into one movie for maximum entertainment purposes, but that's a rather cynical view. Maybe there's a feeling that two plots will be more appealing, if someone doesn't like one, maybe they'll enjoy the other. I'm not sure why a British secret agent would be investigating irregularities in the horse-racing industry, so thank goodness it leads him into one of those "blow up part of the world for fun and/or profit" type deals.
This plot involves pumping sea water into the California fault lines for some reason, which apparently is something that can cause earthquakes. Can I see some paperwork on this? Is this some early form of "fracking", or was the current fracking process inspired by the events in this film? They also explain what setting off explosives along the fault lines will do, but I could have played this sequence a dozen times and not understood it, once they started talking about geological locks and moving fault lines, my brain just started to tune everything out.
This also represents the attempt to get bigger "name" actors to play Bond villains - which I think worked better than drawing from the talent pool of obscure German and Italian films. The process isn't perfect - they say the villain here can speak five languages with no discernible accent, but don't all languages require you to adopt some form of accent? Besides, the actor has one of the most recognizable and copied accents, or at least speech patterns, of all. Why not just say he can speak five languages fluently, and leave it at that? All American movie-goers would still be impressed.
Then we've got the title of the film - they say it at one point, but in an awkward way, so I still have no idea what it means. "What a great view!" "...to a kill!" Huh? I've gone back to the Ian Fleming short story "From a View to a Kill", and I still have no clue.
It's odd that most of the cast of "The Avengers" (not the Captain America/Iron Man group, the other one) has appeared in the Bond films at one point or another. Honor Blackman was in "Goldfinger", Diana Rigg was in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and so was Joanna Lumley, and tonight's film had Patrick MacNee.
A disclaimer at the start of the film informs me that "Neither the name Zorin nor any other name or character in this film is meant to portray a real company or actual person" which is strange because here I was, thinking that all of the Bond films portray real-life events. Silly me. I'm guessing there was some kind of lawsuit at some point - yep, a fashion design firm with "Zoran" in the name apparently thought there would be some confusion, even though they don't work in the mining or microchip industries.
LOCATIONS: Siberia, Berkshire UK, Paris, San Francisco
VILLAINS: Max Zorin, Scarpine, Dr. Carl Mortner, May Day
BABES: Stacy Sutton, Jenny Flex, Pola Ivanova (hard to keep all these blondes straight), May Day
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Sir Godfrey Tibbett, Chuck Lee
PASTIMES: Snowboarding, horse racing, spelunking, base jumping
CARS: nothing driven by Bond here, unless you count the fire engine... There's a cool 1962 silver Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, but a chauffeur drives it.
GADGETS: some cool check-analysis device, similar to a credit card machine, but that's it.
THEME: "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran. Another chart hit, one that really captured the spirit of the late 1980's.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all four carrying over from "Octopussy"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "Biloxi Blues"), Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Alison Doody, with a cameo from Dolph Lungren (last seen in "Rocky IV").
RATING: 4 out of 10 sticks of dynamite
BEFORE: The last of the Roger Moore films, just three more Bonds and 7 more films to go.
THE PLOT: An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley.
AFTER: For the third night in a row, I get the feeling that Bond got sidetracked from his original mission. This could just be a way to cram two plots into one movie for maximum entertainment purposes, but that's a rather cynical view. Maybe there's a feeling that two plots will be more appealing, if someone doesn't like one, maybe they'll enjoy the other. I'm not sure why a British secret agent would be investigating irregularities in the horse-racing industry, so thank goodness it leads him into one of those "blow up part of the world for fun and/or profit" type deals.
This plot involves pumping sea water into the California fault lines for some reason, which apparently is something that can cause earthquakes. Can I see some paperwork on this? Is this some early form of "fracking", or was the current fracking process inspired by the events in this film? They also explain what setting off explosives along the fault lines will do, but I could have played this sequence a dozen times and not understood it, once they started talking about geological locks and moving fault lines, my brain just started to tune everything out.
This also represents the attempt to get bigger "name" actors to play Bond villains - which I think worked better than drawing from the talent pool of obscure German and Italian films. The process isn't perfect - they say the villain here can speak five languages with no discernible accent, but don't all languages require you to adopt some form of accent? Besides, the actor has one of the most recognizable and copied accents, or at least speech patterns, of all. Why not just say he can speak five languages fluently, and leave it at that? All American movie-goers would still be impressed.
Then we've got the title of the film - they say it at one point, but in an awkward way, so I still have no idea what it means. "What a great view!" "...to a kill!" Huh? I've gone back to the Ian Fleming short story "From a View to a Kill", and I still have no clue.
It's odd that most of the cast of "The Avengers" (not the Captain America/Iron Man group, the other one) has appeared in the Bond films at one point or another. Honor Blackman was in "Goldfinger", Diana Rigg was in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and so was Joanna Lumley, and tonight's film had Patrick MacNee.
A disclaimer at the start of the film informs me that "Neither the name Zorin nor any other name or character in this film is meant to portray a real company or actual person" which is strange because here I was, thinking that all of the Bond films portray real-life events. Silly me. I'm guessing there was some kind of lawsuit at some point - yep, a fashion design firm with "Zoran" in the name apparently thought there would be some confusion, even though they don't work in the mining or microchip industries.
LOCATIONS: Siberia, Berkshire UK, Paris, San Francisco
VILLAINS: Max Zorin, Scarpine, Dr. Carl Mortner, May Day
BABES: Stacy Sutton, Jenny Flex, Pola Ivanova (hard to keep all these blondes straight), May Day
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Sir Godfrey Tibbett, Chuck Lee
PASTIMES: Snowboarding, horse racing, spelunking, base jumping
CARS: nothing driven by Bond here, unless you count the fire engine... There's a cool 1962 silver Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, but a chauffeur drives it.
GADGETS: some cool check-analysis device, similar to a credit card machine, but that's it.
THEME: "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran. Another chart hit, one that really captured the spirit of the late 1980's.
Also starring Robert Brown, Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all four carrying over from "Octopussy"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "Biloxi Blues"), Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Alison Doody, with a cameo from Dolph Lungren (last seen in "Rocky IV").
RATING: 4 out of 10 sticks of dynamite
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Octopussy
Year 5, Day 164 - 6/13/13 - Movie #1,456
BEFORE: It's raining again today, we've had an appalling amount of rain in New York City the last few weeks. Even though I was away last weekend, it was raining when I left town and raining when I came back, so as far as I know it rained the whole time I was gone. It's hard to remember a time when the forecast DIDN'T call for scattered showers. Similarly, it's hard to remember a time when I wasn't watching Bond films...
Roger Moore carries over from "For Your Eyes Only", and I realize I did choose the best order to watch the films in, simply because I maximized the actor linking, which makes me happy.
THE PLOT: A fake Fabergé egg and a fellow agent's death leads James Bond to uncovering an international jewel smuggling operation, headed by the mysterious Octopussy.
AFTER: Again, this kind of feels like Bond gets sidetracked - he gets sent on one mission, and ends up taking on another. Oh, it's good that he does, because any time you get to stop a nuclear attack, you've got to take it - but the film itself points out that smuggling is not a concern for the British Secret Service, so how did we end up there? Ah, Bond is investigating the death of another secret agent - right, keep telling yourself that.
I know it's the title of an Ian Fleming short story, but it's still a horrible, horrible title. It calls up images that are lurid at best, and then just kind of spiral downhill. Unless we're actually discussing octopus reproduction, which would be a weird way to go. The poster for the film showed the title character standing behind Bond with 8 arms, sort of evoking one of those Indian goddesses, but she's still also got two legs - that makes a total of 10. But the character doesn't actually have 8 arms, so how is she an octopus, or an Octopussy? Unless she's got...no, that's ridiculous.
From what I understand, the Ian Fleming short story "Octopussy" appears here only as that character's back-story - Bond killed her father in the line of duty. Most of the other story elements are ones that were rejected from other Bond films - the elephant hunt sequence was cut from "The Man With the Golden Gun", the backgammon sequence was cut from "The Spy Who Loved Me", and the knife-throwing twins were originally part of "Moonraker". Is it any wonder this film feels like it was thrown together out of bits and pieces?
LOCATIONS: East Berlin, India, West Germany
VILLAINS: Kamal Kahn, Gobinda, Mischka + Grischka
BABES: Octopussy, Magda
ALLIES: M (a new one), Q, Moneypenny, Vijay
PASTIMES: Backgammon, circus acts
CARS: Alfa Romeo GTV 6 Quadrifoglio, various Mercedes (all borrowed, I think?)
GADGETS: Mini-plane with folding wings, wristwatch with a TV monitor
THEME: "All Time High" by Rita Coolidge (because apparently nothing rhymes with "Octopussy")
Also starring Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "For Your Eyes Only"), Maud Adams (last seen in "The Man With the Golden Gun"), Louis Jourdan (last seen in "Gigi"), Robert Brown, Kristina Wayborn, Steven Berkoff.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Soviet generals
BEFORE: It's raining again today, we've had an appalling amount of rain in New York City the last few weeks. Even though I was away last weekend, it was raining when I left town and raining when I came back, so as far as I know it rained the whole time I was gone. It's hard to remember a time when the forecast DIDN'T call for scattered showers. Similarly, it's hard to remember a time when I wasn't watching Bond films...
Roger Moore carries over from "For Your Eyes Only", and I realize I did choose the best order to watch the films in, simply because I maximized the actor linking, which makes me happy.
THE PLOT: A fake Fabergé egg and a fellow agent's death leads James Bond to uncovering an international jewel smuggling operation, headed by the mysterious Octopussy.
AFTER: Again, this kind of feels like Bond gets sidetracked - he gets sent on one mission, and ends up taking on another. Oh, it's good that he does, because any time you get to stop a nuclear attack, you've got to take it - but the film itself points out that smuggling is not a concern for the British Secret Service, so how did we end up there? Ah, Bond is investigating the death of another secret agent - right, keep telling yourself that.
I know it's the title of an Ian Fleming short story, but it's still a horrible, horrible title. It calls up images that are lurid at best, and then just kind of spiral downhill. Unless we're actually discussing octopus reproduction, which would be a weird way to go. The poster for the film showed the title character standing behind Bond with 8 arms, sort of evoking one of those Indian goddesses, but she's still also got two legs - that makes a total of 10. But the character doesn't actually have 8 arms, so how is she an octopus, or an Octopussy? Unless she's got...no, that's ridiculous.
From what I understand, the Ian Fleming short story "Octopussy" appears here only as that character's back-story - Bond killed her father in the line of duty. Most of the other story elements are ones that were rejected from other Bond films - the elephant hunt sequence was cut from "The Man With the Golden Gun", the backgammon sequence was cut from "The Spy Who Loved Me", and the knife-throwing twins were originally part of "Moonraker". Is it any wonder this film feels like it was thrown together out of bits and pieces?
LOCATIONS: East Berlin, India, West Germany
VILLAINS: Kamal Kahn, Gobinda, Mischka + Grischka
BABES: Octopussy, Magda
ALLIES: M (a new one), Q, Moneypenny, Vijay
PASTIMES: Backgammon, circus acts
CARS: Alfa Romeo GTV 6 Quadrifoglio, various Mercedes (all borrowed, I think?)
GADGETS: Mini-plane with folding wings, wristwatch with a TV monitor
THEME: "All Time High" by Rita Coolidge (because apparently nothing rhymes with "Octopussy")
Also starring Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "For Your Eyes Only"), Maud Adams (last seen in "The Man With the Golden Gun"), Louis Jourdan (last seen in "Gigi"), Robert Brown, Kristina Wayborn, Steven Berkoff.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Soviet generals
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
For Your Eyes Only
Year 5, Day 163 - 6/12/13 - Movie #1,455
BEFORE: I realize I'm asking the impossible of James Bond films at this point. I want them to be original, without duplicating plots from previous films that is, and be realistic (but not TOO realistic) and also sort of wild and fantastic (but not TOO wild and fantastic). Plus it needs to walk that fine line between a coherent plot and non-stop action - it would be great if it could have both. Am I asking too much?
Roger Moore carries over again from "Moonraker", along with most of his support staff. Sadly, we said goodbye last night to Bernard Lee, making his final appearance as M.
THE PLOT: Agent 007 is assigned to hunt for a lost British encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
AFTER: Chapter 14, in which our hero gets his revenge on Blofeld, then defends himself from bullets with a beach umbrella, then turns down an Olympic athlete young enough to be his daughter. Doesn't she know he likes his women older, and married?
So "Moonraker" had a bit too much of the fantasy element, and "For Your Eyes Only" didn't have enough. This was all pretty basic stuff - smuggling, assassinations, drugs - it's too close to reality, nothing really exciting when you get down to it.
Plus, is it me or did Bond really get sidetracked here? The mission SHOULD have been "The encryption device has been lost - find it." Instead it was "figure out who has the technology and ability to recover the device", which isn't really the same thing. In the time it took to figure this out, Bond could have recovered the device from a sunken ship with a magnet and a fishing pole, five times over. Did anyone even check the sunken ship to see if the device was still there, before going off on a wild-goose chase?
There is also some bit of silliness here, an ending with a Margaret Thatcher lookalike calling Bond on the phone. Maybe they felt they ended too many movies with Bond caught in the middle of sex?
LOCATIONS: Greece, Spain
VILLAINS: Kristatos, Locque
BABES: Melina Havelock, Bibi Dahl, Countess Lisl von Schlaf
ALLIES: Q, Moneypenny, Milos Columbo.
PASTIMES: Ice skating (again?), baccarat (again?), scuba-diving (again?), rock-climbing, hockey.
CARS: Lotus Esprit Turbo 2.2 sportscars, a Citroën 2CV
GADGETS: Um, none? That's weird...
THEME: "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton, another one of the really good ones. And Easton herself appears in the opening credits, so clearly she was hot enough to be sort of an honorary Bond babe...
Also starring Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "Moonraker"), Julian Glover (last seen in "Tom Jones"), Carole Bouquet, Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Cassandra Harris, Michael Gothard. Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch (last seen in "The Spy Who Loved Me") was in there somewhere, but I didn't spot him. (That's another two-fer of "Star Wars" actors, since Julian Glover played Gen. Veers in "The Empire Strikes Back")
RATING: 4 out of 10 scuba tanks
BEFORE: I realize I'm asking the impossible of James Bond films at this point. I want them to be original, without duplicating plots from previous films that is, and be realistic (but not TOO realistic) and also sort of wild and fantastic (but not TOO wild and fantastic). Plus it needs to walk that fine line between a coherent plot and non-stop action - it would be great if it could have both. Am I asking too much?
Roger Moore carries over again from "Moonraker", along with most of his support staff. Sadly, we said goodbye last night to Bernard Lee, making his final appearance as M.
THE PLOT: Agent 007 is assigned to hunt for a lost British encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
AFTER: Chapter 14, in which our hero gets his revenge on Blofeld, then defends himself from bullets with a beach umbrella, then turns down an Olympic athlete young enough to be his daughter. Doesn't she know he likes his women older, and married?
So "Moonraker" had a bit too much of the fantasy element, and "For Your Eyes Only" didn't have enough. This was all pretty basic stuff - smuggling, assassinations, drugs - it's too close to reality, nothing really exciting when you get down to it.
Plus, is it me or did Bond really get sidetracked here? The mission SHOULD have been "The encryption device has been lost - find it." Instead it was "figure out who has the technology and ability to recover the device", which isn't really the same thing. In the time it took to figure this out, Bond could have recovered the device from a sunken ship with a magnet and a fishing pole, five times over. Did anyone even check the sunken ship to see if the device was still there, before going off on a wild-goose chase?
There is also some bit of silliness here, an ending with a Margaret Thatcher lookalike calling Bond on the phone. Maybe they felt they ended too many movies with Bond caught in the middle of sex?
LOCATIONS: Greece, Spain
VILLAINS: Kristatos, Locque
BABES: Melina Havelock, Bibi Dahl, Countess Lisl von Schlaf
ALLIES: Q, Moneypenny, Milos Columbo.
PASTIMES: Ice skating (again?), baccarat (again?), scuba-diving (again?), rock-climbing, hockey.
CARS: Lotus Esprit Turbo 2.2 sportscars, a Citroën 2CV
GADGETS: Um, none? That's weird...
THEME: "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton, another one of the really good ones. And Easton herself appears in the opening credits, so clearly she was hot enough to be sort of an honorary Bond babe...
Also starring Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell (all three carrying over from "Moonraker"), Julian Glover (last seen in "Tom Jones"), Carole Bouquet, Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Cassandra Harris, Michael Gothard. Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch (last seen in "The Spy Who Loved Me") was in there somewhere, but I didn't spot him. (That's another two-fer of "Star Wars" actors, since Julian Glover played Gen. Veers in "The Empire Strikes Back")
RATING: 4 out of 10 scuba tanks
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