Bondathon: Thunderball (1965)

Hey guys Bond movie yeah whatever.

Now here's where things get a bit hectic. You see, the next film, Thunderball, was originally supposed to be the original Bond film. It was written as a screenplay back in the late fifties, when black people were still spoken of in hushed voices. It was written for a producer by the name of Kevin McClory. However, Kevin was unable to make a Bond movie sound successful, and the deal fell through. Not wanting to waste the story, Fleming used the story for a book. Which obviously caused a provocation with McClory. The court proceedings were what led to Dr. No being filmed first. They eventually settled out of court, with McClory getting partial credit for the screenplay.

Thunderball is the fourth James Bond film, having come out in 1965. Understandably so, it feel especially “Bond-y” if that makes sense this early in the series. By this point all the staples have been established, but they aren’t tired, but exciting. It’s also probably why they remade it like twenty years later. When they eventually figured out how to make the damn thing, they brought Terence Young back, after Guy Hamilton got tired after just one film. The leftover goodwill of Goldfinger is apparent as well; adjusted for inflation, Thunderball is arguably the most successful Bond film of all time, as the $141million it made back in 65 was actually worth more than the billion Skyfall just made. It kind of stands as a monument to how great the series was doing at the time; its one of the few Bond films to win an academy award; in this case for visual effects.

Thunderball

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

Date: 1965

Director: Terence Young

Bond: Sean Connery

Number: 4

Starring: Adolpho Celi, Claudine Auger, Luciana Paluzzi, Rick Van Nutter, Martine Veswick, Molly Peters, Bernard Lee.

The one with: Sharks, the Bahamas, nuclear bombs, scuba diving, that guy with the eyepatch, SPECTRE

Plot:

The film starts out with Bond spending the day at a spa, to rest and heal his wounds after his last mission, in which he assassinated a member of SPECTRE who had killed a few of his colleagues. It’s kind of weird, I may be wrong, but I think this is the first time Bond’s really been shown as an assassin, it’s the first mission where his only objective is just to kill some guy. Anyway, his next mission is literally to just spend a day or two maxing and relaxing at a spa. Of course, James Bond can never really relax, and instead spends the whole day sexually harassing his masseuse (who, naturally, does not put up much of a fight), and snooping around the clinic when he thinks some of the guests are acting odd. Normally, this sounds like the sort of problems you’d have with someone suffering from PTSD, but I suppose it doesn’t count for Bond because he’s so cool about it you get the impression he’s only doing it because he’s bored. Also, he’s right, some of the people there are up to no good, which he notices when he sees someone drop a corpse right in the middle of the spa.

            So, naturally, when his vacation’s over and he returns to MI6 to find that the dead guy in question is a suspect in the theft of two nuclear missiles, he offers to go investigate, which M is okay with, as long as he finds out where the missiles are by the time the weekend’s over. You see, as it turns out, the guy may have been working for SPECTRE, you know, those guys we forgot about in the last movie, who are now blackmailing England and the US for no less than one million dollars, otherwise they will blow up an unspecified major city.

So now Bond has to go to the Bahamas to fight, screw, shoot, screw, kill, play, drink, and screw whomever he needs to in order to find the warheads, or else millions of people will die. Or the government just loses a million dollars to directly finance terrorism. Either one. Along the way he teams up with Felix again, spends a lot of time underwater, and meets with two bigwigs from SPECTRE, Emilio Largo, the second-in-command of the whole organization, and femme fatale Fiona Volpe, both of whom are willing to use as many guns, sharks, and sex as they can to stop Bond. Well most of the sex just comes from Fiona.

Bond

Sean Connery is still great as Bond, as usual, and he’s having a lot more fun here as he kills, fights, and near-rapes several people to get his quarry. He’s a bit more at ease here, and while we don’t see anything too new, we don’t really care.

The Villain

I’m not a huge fan of Emilio Largo. He’s not an incredibly interesting villain; he’s just pretty standard. He wants a lot of money, he’s related to the love interest, he works for SPECTRE, and he hangs out with Bond when they’re not trying to kill each other.

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

His only real quirk is that he really likes sharks, which is the only thing about him even remotely interesting, because sharks are fucking awesome. He has a whole pool full of Tiger Sharks (he calls them something else, but they’re totally Tiger Sharks) that he enjoys feeding people too. Klaus Maria Brandauer portrays him as just a creepy foreign scientist, without any particularly interesting characterization.

Bond Girls

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

Domino Derval: I rank Domino Derval, the sister of the dead man Bond found, as the main Bond girl because she’s the actual love interest. Claudine Auger is pretty sexy, as evidenced by having won “Miss France”, and there’s a scene where she’s tied up. The only problem is, being a model (in the days before models had to have acting talent), she’s a dreadful actress. But she doesn’t have to do too much acting so, who cares. Luciana Paluzzi, who plays Fiona Volpe, is arguably as sexy as Auger, but a better actress, and her relationship with Bond is a little more interesting considering they both want to kill each other. She’s also a much probably a better villain than Largo, and it’s kind of a shame she didn’t replace him as the main antagonist.

Music: "Thunderball" by Tom Jones

This song is okay. Just okay, really. It’s well produced, and Tom Jones is a great singer, but the lyrics are kind of dumb (“so he strikes like Thunderball?”) and it’s kind of slow. The opening is also very bland, its just a bunch of shadows against an underwater background.

Johnny Cash recorded a song for use in the film, but it wasn’t used because it sounded too country-ish, but it’s probably the superior song.

Review

In spite of its enormous success, Thunderball was, during the time of its release and still today, considered by most people to be a bit of a disappointment compared to the previous films, all though still great in its own right. I can sort of see why; for one thing, it takes a long-ass time to really get going. Most Bond films have that one opening scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the film, but this one has that, and then another like twenty minutes of Bond just chilling out in a spa. It’s not entirely boring, but it slows the film down, and I don’t think the plot actually gets started until Bond reaches the Bahamas, which is like an hour into the film.

There’s a lot more Bond women this time around. There’s the asian chick he flirts with in the beginning, there’s Domino, the love interest, there’s his fellow agent who follows him to the Bahamas, there’s Fiona Volpe, and there’s the women in the spa. Bond probably has more sex in this film than in any other film so far, at about five sex scenes, one of which is underwater, which I cannot comment on as I have yet to try it. The problem is, it gets kind of stupid. Most of the sexual tension from From Russia With Love is gone and the scenes with women are so contrived they feel they’re straight out of a porno. But I suppose that’s just the point of a Bond movie and, fuck it, the women are pretty attractive.

            Having said that, this is still a pretty cool movie. I know it’s been mentioned a lot of times that like half the movie is underwater, and that the special effects haven’t aged well, but I actually disagree. I thought the whole underwater angle was new and separated it from the other films in a cool way, and I was often fascinated by how they managed to get the shots they did. There are several scenes where actors are shown swimming with live Tiger Sharks in the frame, which is awesome (although several of the sharks look like its hurt, which is not awesome). However, it does get a bit old after a while. It’s a campier Bond (this is the first appearance of the jetpack), but not to the point of ridiculousness. There’s still an essence of grit. It’s also probably the funniest Bond I’ve seen so far, with several lines that made me crack up. However, I can’t say that all these were intentional. The part where a random guy tries to kill Bond by making the incredibly awkward, hump-the-table machine he’s on go crazy was a lot more hilarious than suspenseful. Also Bond like tortures a guy in a spa machine for some reason. I forget why. Was it the same guy?

            Even though it takes forever for the plot to get going, when it does it still carries with it some depth. This is probably the first time that Bond is responsible for saving millions of people (or, again, just millions of dollars), and although he doesn’t save the world or anything, it’s shown that the stakes are high just by the scene with M, in which Bond is brought into a huge war room, as opposed to the close quarters of M’s office.

A-

Bondathon: Goldfinger (1964)

Bondathon! Because I'm in England (well not right now, right now I'm in Ireland) and what else am I going to do? Travel? Ha!

Well, last time on "Ryan's insane attempt to seem relevant halfway across the world, while also procrastinating from actual work", we learned about how Dr. No had made a ton of money on a modest (for the time) budget of $1 million, and From Russia had made a crapload of money on an expensive (for the time) budget of $2 million. If the first film was like the producers smoking a joint for the first time, because "hey it might be fun if we do it right"; and the second film was like the producers trying hard drugs with some friends because "I guess we're junkies now", the third film was like the producers giving in to their new livelihood and stockpiling three different kinds of drugs for one long crazy night. 

Basically, by the third film, the precedent for Bond movie success had already been more than established, so the boys at the studio decided to go all in and make what can only be called a genuine big budget blockbuster. Granted, it was still only $3 million, one million more than the last one, but that was a big deal for the time. There was also an early example of foreign market investment: the book was chosen primarily for how integrated the plot was in the United States, with the producers hoping to corner the increasingly lucrative American market. When Terrence Young left the project, he was replaced by Guy Hamilton; an old friend of Fleming's from his days in Royal Intelligence.

The end result was a film that has been called the greatest Bond film of all time. Let's find out why.

Goldfinger

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

Date: 1964
Director: Guy Hamilton
Bond: Sean Connery
Number: 3
Starring: Gert Frobe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Harold Sakata, Cec Linder, Bernard Lee, and Desmond Llewelyn.
Singer: Shirley Bassey
The one with: That gold-painted lady, Oddjob, the Car, Pussy Galore, "No Mister Bond, I expect you to die!", Miami, the laser, Fort Knox.

"Goldfinger", one of the more uncomfortable names in the Bond, filmography begins with Bond callously killing some people in latin America while shutting down a drug factory, thereby establishing the precedent of "opening action scenes that have nothing to do with anything" that is carried on throughout the rest of the series.

Anyway, after watching the opening credits, Bond then heads to the only place in the world with more drugs and Latin Americans than Latin America; Miami, where he is asked by M to keep a subtle eye on suspicious billionaire Auric Goldfinger (you know, actual spy work); which Bond takes to mean "bang his assistant and then humiliate him", because in case you haven't figured it out by now; Bond's kind of a dick. As revenge for this, Golfinger has the assistant killed by smothering her in gold until her skin suffocates, which the British consider dangerous, but most Miami girls consider "a worthy life ambition". Also you can't actually kill someone by smothering them with gold paint, which the production team should have realized when they smothered the actress in gold paint.

Anyway, Bond is briefed by M and Q (the "gadget guy" who we'll come to know and love) and other letters of the alphabet, who put him in the awkward position of having to take down that same rich guy whose pissed off at him, in order to find out how he's managed such a long and sucessful career of smuggling gold internationally. Which Bond takes to mean "try to blow up his factory, run over his henchmen, have sex with every woman he knows, and beat him in golf", which Bond is more than game for. But in the process, he discovers that Golfinger has financial backing by the Chinese government, as well as a sinister plan involving Fort Knox that the brit must stop. I mean who else is going to? The Americans? Ha! They don't have machine-gun cars!

Bond

Still Connery, so still awesome, but he's arguably best here. It's like the movie itself managed to tune to Connery's unique blend of cool charisma and sly self-awareness, and he fits the film like a glove. Although his seduction of miss Galore borders on rape. Actually it's pretty much rape. So that's not very cool. I understand it was a different time, and she doesn't seem to broken up about it (she eventually voices her consent), but it's still fairly discomforting.

The Villain

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

The villain, of course, is the film's namesake: Auric Goldfinger, played by former nazi Gert Froebe (to be fair, it was later revealed that he helped rescue a Jewish family). Goldfinger differs from the precedents and antecedents in that he has absolutely nothing to do with SPECTRE; he is just a very, very crooked and ingenious businessman. I'm probably not spoiling a whole lot by revealing how the fantastic twist of the film is that Goldfinger does not want to steal from Fort Knox, but rather blow it up and irradiate all the gold, making it worthless and making his supply that much more valuable. It's a brilliant plan; brilliant enough to land Auric at the top of most of the most lists of the "greatest Bond villains of all time."

Which is funny, because Froebe could not even speak proper english and had to be dubbed over. But for what it's worth, he's fantastic. Goldfinger is a constantly tense and unpredictable villain, which adds a level of suspense to the film even when he's not present; he seems to constantly be one step ahead of Bond; keeping the hero from reaching superhero level too early. Froebe is great too, matching Connery's charisma and always seeming friendlier than he really is. It's easy to see why every Bond villain afterward felt the apparent need to step it up.

Bond Girls

In this film, Bond encounters Pussy Galore.

No, like seriously, that's her name.

Aside from Shirley Eaton, who is now famous for playing the woman who is dipped in gold, and Tania Mallet, who is famous for playing the sister of the woman who is dipped in gold, we get Honor Blackman (a much less alluring name, to be sure) as the infamous Pussy. Truth is though? She's a great character (and smoking hot)!

She's a major henchman for Goldfinger, and she's also dangerous, clever, and the leader of her own cadre of criminals, who are important for Goldfinger's scheme. Bond realizes very quickly that he's going to need to get Pussy if he's going to stop Auric. Fortunately, she isn't incredibly loyal, and it isn't long before Auric's Pussy may prove to be his undoing. Unfortunately, the talented Honor Blackman broadcasts her Pussy to the world as a rebellious and feisty, if flirty, character. We know what her purpose in the film is when we see her, but she's a box of tricks in a way that turns her into one of the film's, if not the franchise's, best characters. Is Bond up to the challenge of seducing her, or will he Pussy out?

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM
Protip: When searching Google for "Pussy Galore", it is best to keep safesearch activated.

I'm so sorry.

Review

When all was said and done, Goldfinger emerged from the box office a legend; a blockbuster in ways that would not be surpassed until giant sharks and lightsaber showed up. Furthermore, it turned Bond from a popular character into what he is today; a film star.

So, naturally, I went in with high expectations. And what can I say? This movie's fantastic! It's fun, genuinely exciting even for its time, and holds on enough to the grittier, more realistic aspects of its predecessor to keep from becoming ridiculous. Connery is great, as always, the writing is clever and crisp, and the action scenes are way better than they should be in the sixties. There's really only so many ways I can say "it's exciting, suspenseful, and fun"but that's it, really. This is where the character comes into focus; it's pretty much the ultimate Bond movie. Aside from the uncomfortable scene I mentioned earlier, it's just about flawless.

It may be a cliche to label it the best of the series, and for me it's too early to tell, but so far no film has communicated to me why people love these moves so much as this. Oh, did I mention the car?

To the Bondmobile!

A+

Bondathon: From Russia With Love (1963)

Bondathon! Because me writing about the same goddamn thing over and over again is better than me writing about nothing! And don't worry I'll put up a post about my experiences in England once I have an opinion on it beyond "it's cold". Fuck it! Let's jump in.

Obviously, Dr. No was a box office success, but that's probably not a surprise. It did have over twenty goddamn sequels. By this point the studio was very much in the mindset of "okay, we're really doing this." So the next film on the agenda was given a doubled budget (about $2 million), and a release date for literally the next year.  The results were pretty good.

From Russia With Love

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

Date: 1963
Director: Terence Young
Bond: Sean Connery
Number: 2
Starring: Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendariz, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, Vladek Sheybal, Lois Maxwell, and Desmond Llewelyn.
The one with: The train, Istanbul, Cold-War, knife-shoes, Red Grant, gypsies.

The interesting thing about this plot is the fact that it's actually fairly complicated, especially compared to the last film. This time, MI6 is contacted by Tatiana Romanova, a Soviet Intelligence agent who wants to defect to England with a code-machine that the English desperately want. The twist is, she will only meet with one agent: James Bond, who she alleges to have fallen in love with after seeing pictures of him somewhere, which is precisely why Bond does not have a facebook.

Obviously it's a trap, she is working for Rosa Klebb, who is, in turn an agent of SPECTRE, a criminal syndicate run by a faceless man with a cat. SPECTRE wants to steal the device and then sell it back to the soviets, while also getting revenge on Bond for killing a former agent: Dr. No.

Bond goes to Istanbul where he meets with agent Kerrim Bey, together they enjoy lapdances by gypsies and fight off Soviet hitman, and Bond meets with Tatiana, before the two finally get on the Orient Express train, and that's where the film really gets started. Throughout the film, Bond must get Tatiana to fall for him so that he can maintain her allegiance and get the device, all while dodging assassination attempts by train, plane, and boat. During the time on the train, we finally get an answer to the age-old question: who would win in a fight between James Bond and Quint from Jaws?

The answer is Batman

Bond

Connery is great as ever, but he's more reserved here. This is only the second film, so there's still a level of vulnerability. He almost dies several times, and when he comes face-to-face with Grant, we actually get scared for a second.

The Villain

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

There are quite a few villains, actually, but the main one is Rosa Klebb, and she's not too scary. She's more of just a very angry, ugly, Russian women. She has several points of vulnerability and desperation as well, do in no small part to her working under a far more sinister villain whose face is revealed later. She gets the plot moving, but the guy we're scared of comes later.

Bond girls

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

This section is actually more restrained this time; we only really get one and that's Tatiana, and she's fantastic. She's gorgeous and witty, and keeps Bond and the audience on their toes as to which side she's on throughout the film. Daniela Bianchi is not a poor actress either, which is great considering she's the catalyst for the film's plot.

Review

But in order to get into what's great about this film I have to go over the supporting cast, particularly the always great Robert Shaw as Red Grant, the hitman hired by Klebb to track down and kill Bond. Part of the great thing about this being the second film is that Bond still feels less like a superhero and more like a man. There are scenes with Shaw that bring out the mortal man in Bond, and the scene where they meet in particular is not only incredibly suspenseful, but it quickly leads to a fantastic fight scene.
The reason Grant is probably my favorite Bond hencheman by far is that we are lead to see him as the Soviet's answer to Bond; cold, merciless, and willing to complete any job at any cost.

Hell find Bond for three, but he'll catch 'im, an' kill 'im, fer ten.
Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

In most other ways, this is a pretty great movie. The action is surprisingly exhilarating for it's time, and the performances and setpieces are all fun to watch. It drags occasionally, not so much on the train, which has the great chemistry between Connery, Bianchi, and the always hovering Shaw to keep it interesting, but a lot of the scenes in Istanbul could feel a little unnecessary. But for a truly great Bond movie, or even just a taught, engaging intelligence thriller, this is a good choice.

A

Bondathon: Dr. No (1962)

Great, now Bondathon can get started proper. Dr. No, for those of you don't, well, "No", I guess, is the first official Bond film ever made and released in theaters. But because this is the first Bond film, there's a lot of background to cover. The novel "Dr. No" was not, for example the first James Bond book (it's the sixth, released in '58), nor is it the most classic (I know that's a subjective statement but this is a blog so it's fact), nor was it the most popular. All of those things describe Casino Royale, but the rights to that book had been sold in the mid-fifties to someone else. More on that later, trust me. Fortunately, Bond was an established character in an entire franchise of popular books to choose from at this point. Like Jack Reacher, or Katniss, only more people than your dad and your sister liked
him.

So naturally, the time came to create a film franchise. Now I could go all E-True Hollywood Story on you and try and convince you that it was a long-shot, and then show interviews with a bunch of talking heads saying things like "nobody knew it would work!" and "there was a huge risk" and "everyone thought he was crazy!" and "he eventually wound up in rehab", because, while there's certainly an element of all that (except for rehab), as there is with any venture in Hollywood, it's mostly bullshit. It was the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars of it's time; there may have been a risk, but the smart (and shrewd) definitely saw the reward. Sure, not everyone saw the investment value in it; this was, after all, an older, more artistic Hollywood. A Hollywood where Douglas's were Kirked and Hitches were Cocked (those both sound painful...), and movies generally weren't blockbusters unless they were old enough to legally drink and involved Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable sighing at each other for three-and-a-half fucking hours.

Just kidding, no hour spent watching this movie will be a fucking hour. That's for sure....

But the right man saw a way to turn this film into a franchise, showing an attitude towards movies that was surprisingly ahead of his time (if this were to happen today, he would have had reboots planned, and each film would be in three parts). This man was Albert R. Broccoli. Remembering that Salt always went great with Broccoli (I'm so sorry...) Al teamed up with Harry Saltzman, who had recently gotten film rights from the man, myth, and legend himself, Ian Fleming, for seven movies. United Artists, upon hearing this, offered complete financial backing. In order to hold the rights, Saltzy and Brocolli created the company EON to produce the movies, and Hollywood was one step closer to being the sequel-crazy industry it is today.

There's more too, about how the first script involved Dr. No being a monkey, but that's not important.

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

Dr. No

Photo credit: United Artists/MGM

Date: 1962
Director: Terence Young
Bond: Sean Connery
Number: 1
Starring: Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell.
The one with: "Bond, James Bond", Ursula-in-Undress, Jamaica, the tarantula, the "dragon", radioactive material, guy with metal hands.

The plot is actually not that complicated. When a British agent in Jamaica is killed by black blind people, MI6 suspects treachery and sends another agent to go take his place and investigate the circumstances of his death. Because Jamaica is rife with crime, gambling, and naked women, but also seems to be an intelligence dead-zone where odd happenings occur, it fits that MI6 send an agent who is both sexy and dangerous enough to investigate in ways other men cannot. This agent is codenamed 007, but this code name proves pointless because he announces his real name to literally every person who will hear it. Apparently his name is Bond James Bond, which is how he introduces himself.

Bond James Bond arrives in Jamaica and meets with CIA agent Felix Leiter, who reveals that he is investigating a signal in the area that is jamming American rockets! With the help of Jamaican associate Mr. Quarrel, Agent Bond James Bond goes to the island of Crab Key, where he investigates strange ongoings that involve miners mining for suspicious rocks under the employ of the mysterious Dr. No.

Will Agent 007 be able to find out what is happening at crab key? Can he beat a man with metal hands in a fight? What is the nature of the mysterious bikini women he meets, and does it involve romance? You'll have to watch to find out the answers to these questions, which are probably, hopefully, and definitely. 

Bond

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

 First thing's first: as popular as the books were, and as unpopular (I'm assuming) as that Climax! show was, this was Bond's introduction to a whole world of fans; and the same goes for his actor, Sean Connery. A little background (you should be used to it by now): Connery was not the first choice for Bond. Fleming didn't like him, he wanted David Niven (I'll tell you how that went...), it was Broccoli who chose Connery, a young bodybuilder at the time. The reason being, I suppose, that a young man without much money could be taught to be dapper, but a rich gentlemen could not be taught to be a badass. 

The results are obvious; Connery is fantastic. To get the obvious stuff out of the way, he's suave and sexy from the moment he introduces himself in the middle of lighting a cigar at a table, but he's also dangerous in the way that women like. Or, in the modern vernacular, "he's a hilarious douchebag." Bond doesn't give a shit. He sleeps with plenty of women even though he clearly has a girlfriend back home, not to mention a receptionist with whom he clearly has a history. He's also dangerous in the way that men like, or in the modern vernacular "he might be a psycopath". He famously murders a guy in cold blood in one scene. It's exciting because this is the first time we're meeting the character, and even if you've seen the movies before, watching Connery in the role is a whole different experience.

But the main thing Connery brings to the role is humor, which is something he would later admit in interviews to being a personal choice. Bond never takes himself too seriously, even when he's doing serious stuff, and this would turn out to be why we loved him.

The Villain

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

The villain is, of course, Dr. Julius No, which is almost certainly a fake name constructed to either do evil or write detective books. Dr. No is played by Joseph Wiseman, who rarely gets the credit he deserves as the first true Bond villain, perhaps because he doesn't actually show up until fairly late into the film. But that's kind of the point, for most of the film he is MIA, and this somehow makes him that much more creepy. He sets the precedence for baddies who can use money and power to make bad things happen and then cover it up, but when he finally arrives we're not let down. He just exudes power. He matches Bond's humor by being entirely cold and humorless. He's not a perfect Bond villain, and indeed we get some much better ones later on, but for his film he works.

Bond Girls

Photo Credit: United Artists/MGM

Ursula Andress, as Honey Ryder, is sexy, in that weird "she's really really old now"kind of way. Honestly, her acting isn't great though. I know that's a weird thing to want from a role that's historically played by models, but work with me here. I was kind of underwhelmed. We also get Eunice Grayson as Bond's on-again-off-again girlfriend Sylvia Trench.

Review

I'll try and keep this short because this is already a long-ass post. Basically, when I undertook "Bondathon" I wanted to answer the question of "if you're going to sit down and watch a Bond movie, which one should it be?" While it depends on what you're looking for, Dr. No is a pretty great place to start, because, well, it's where everyone started.

 Honestly, when you come down to it, Dr. No is not a very good Bond movie, because it seems like it doesn't offer anything at all new, because when it came out everything was new. It is, however, a great movie for that reason, if only in the sense that introduces us to Bond, and all the crazy things he does. Even when it's slow, it's suspenseful, and when it's fast, it doesn't get too silly. 

The supporting cast is very good as well, we get introduced to Bernard Lee as M, Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, and Jack Lord as Felix Leiter. It's not perfect, the action isn't very believable. You may say that's a lame accusation for a movie from the sixties, but the next two movies have incredible action for their time.

Ultimately, Dr. No is't just a Bond movie, it's the original Bond movie. So it's a fun, exciting, and cool introduction to the series, but to someone already familiar with the character, it only really offers novelty. 

Rating: A-

Bondathon: Casino Royale (1954)

Finally!

This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but haven't gotten the time (or focus) to sit down and actually start. In honor of James Bond's fiftieth anniversary, and in recompense for having been completely out of the loop in terms of Bond lore, I decided to watch all the Bond movies from beginning to end and do a review of them.

Now, as I'm sure I don't need to remind any of you, I'm new to this whole blogging thing and I'm lazy, so I'm already about seven movies in and I haven't reviewed any. And I took a break like three months ago to start my INLAND EMPIRE NEWS BLOG BITCHES! (You can visit it here: http://iegrapevine.com/). Being a blogger, it turns out, is much tougher than I thought it would be. I mean don't get me wrong, it's still incredibly easy, but just work with me here.

BONDATHON
(imagine the Bond theme is playing right now)

James fucking Bond. Why do we love him so much? Men want to be him, women want to bed him, and some men want to do both. In many ways he's a suave, sexy, and killer vision of masculinity and adventure. In many others, he's a symbol of fascism, misogyny, and is probably a complete psychopath. His escapades have led to some of film's most iconic moments, and has been instrumental in making hollywood the way it is today. It shows too, the franchise is the second most successful in history, having grossed a grand total of over six billion dollars at the international box office, stretched over twenty-three official films and two unofficial ones (we'll go over just what that means later). That's an average of $246 million per film. So come along on my magic rainbow of nude women and guns, as we traverse over fifty years of cinema to look at all the movies starring the man called Bond.

I could write a whole post about strictly the franchise alone, but that would spoil some of the points I make later, so let's jump right in. And, in a series full of some of the spy genre's most famous titles, where is a good place to start?

Why, with something nobody's ever heard of, of course!

Casino Royale (Climax!)


Date: 1954
Director: William H. Brown Jr
Bond: Barry Nelson
Number: 0
Starring: Peter Lorre, Linda Christian, Michael Pete, Eugene Borden.
The one with: nobody watching.


You may want to call me out on this one, considering that Bond's first ever appearance onscreen was during a half-hour episode of anthology series Climax! in the fifties, and not a theatrical film. But, it is a "movie" (with a running time of 48 minutes, it meets the criteria, but barely) starring James Bond, so I felt it deserved a mention. Also fuck you, it's my Bondathon. Go make your own if you don't like it.

Plot: CIA agent (no you read that correctly) Jimmy Bond (still reading it correctly) is commissioned to attend a game of high-stakes Baccarat in order to bankrupt terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre), so that he can be taken into custody, but the situation becomes complicated when Bond finds out that an old flame of his, Mathis (Linda Christian, in a role that would later be played a large italian man), has a thing with Le Chiffre and may be playing both sides. Bond's going to need help from his British secret agent buddy, Leiter (still reading it) to stop Le Chiffre!

Background: In order to understand Casino Royale the movie, you must understand Casino Royale the book. The novel, by Ian Fleming, introduced the world to James Bond, and is considered a literary classic of spy fiction as a result. However, in its early years it was jut a sort of popular book, so the tv series Climax!, an anthology of television fiction not unlike The Twilight Zone decided to adapt the story as an episode of the show. The rest is history. Literally. Nobody saw the episode when it came out and it got lost for almost two decades. It's on youtube now.

Review: Now, it's time to address the elephant in the room: everything is fucking backwards. Bond's an American, Leiter's a brit, and Mathis is a woman.

Pictured: The love interest.

If it were made today, people would freak out.
But, it wasn't made today; it was made almost ten years before the franchise got started proper, so judging it by today's standards may not be fair. But even aside the obvious comparisons, it sort of fails to hold one's interest. It's forgettable, which is probably why it got, well, forgotten so easily. It's not really bad, but watching it at the time could not have been an experience beyond boring, and watching it today is just oddly surreal.

Bond: Nelson is the first actor to ever play James Bond, which is funny because he's probably the worst. In the original book, James Bond was supposed to be a boring, uninteresting brute who ran around and did shit, like a hero in those books your dad likes to buy from the gas station. To his credit, Barry Nelson (whose most famous role is as the dude who interviews Jack Nicholson in The Shining) definitely plays him that way. I almost cracked up when I saw him the first time. Most of this comes from the fact that he's completely uninteresting and not incredibly charismatic. To be fair, he brings a vulnerability to the role that would be missing for quite a while afterward.

Bond Girl: Linda Christian has the honor of being the first ever Bond girl, and she serves her purpose. She's an unwitting femme fatale who gets the man she loves into trouble because she can't separate him from her professional life. She's not a bad actress and she's attractive in that "this feels weird because she's dead now" kind of way.

Linda Christian: seen here with noted time-traveller James Franco

Villain: Peter Lorre is Le Chiffre, and while he's arguably the best thing about the episode, he's still by no means as good as Mads Mikkelsen, or even Orson Welles (we'll get to that later though.)

Here's Lorre, looking more like James Bond than literally anyone else in the movie.

Again, it feels mean to pick on the film, or episode, or whatever, but it's kind of its own fault: it had no real idea what kind of story it was adapting and it shows. But the guy who plays Leiter isn't bad, and Lorre is a good Le Chiffre, although by no means the best one. But, who cares. It has its moments of suspense, particularly in the third act. It was also filmed live, believe it or not, which is pretty impressive. If you're a huge Bond fan, it's worth a watch just for the weird novelty, but if you're a casual viewer, you won't get much out of it.

Rating: C



Ryan Downs will return in Dr. No

My Thoughts on the VMAs

Here I will outline all the things I thought about Miley Cyrus at the VMAs:

What's going on?

I don't have any

This may be because I missed them. But then I wrote about comic-con, which I also missed. But whereas comic-con was interesting in it's own weird way, I don't see how this is interesting in any way.

I guess it was weird. Or something.

I guess JT did something cool, which pretty much describes every award show in Hollywood.

Usually something weird happens at the VMAs, and this year was surprising in that something weird happened, which is not surprising. I still remember the good old days, when everyone was freaking out about Taylor Swift getting hilariously interrupted by Kanye West, who thought that Taylor Swift did not deserve an award that should have gone to Beyonce. (To be fair, he was right.)

But apparently this time something happened.

Miley Cyrus's thing was kind of gross

Okay, I did see that, and I did not like. Somebody needs to tell her that having her tongue out is not attractive, or slutty, or worth attention, or shocking, or anything. It's just a thing she does. And that's the whole performance. Like that tongue thing is "her thing" now or something. It's not, it's just weird. But hey if that's her deal, whatever.
It's called demographics. Which brings me to my next point.

Who gives a shit?

Now I don't want to come off as all high and mighty that I don't find this interesting. I just wrote an article for a news blog I work for about Ben Affleck being the new Batman. I'm in no position to comment on people talking about pointless things. But Batman is always interesting, a celebrity who is less famous now than she used to be acting crazy at the VMAs (which is kind of the place you're supposed to do it, really) is not new.

And what's with all this feminism bullshit? Suddenly we're having a discussion about sexuality and it's place in feminism? Don't get me wrong, that's a good discussion to have, but does Miley Cyrus have to be the framework? Maybe she does. I don't know. Again, I don't give a shit. You know what I do care about?

Didn't we literally just decide to blow up another country?

There it is!

Again, I don't want to come off as high and mighty, but how come nobody's talking about this?
Because apparently we really need to have a discussion about behavior that was clearly invented by a bunch of cynical perverts who manage a teenage girls music career to sell more publicity?
Well, again, I'm not one to point fingers, because I'm not the target audience.

Why the hell am I even writing about this?

What people are forgetting is that, to an outsider, Miley's like that one girl at a party. You know the one. Her behavior isn't really shocking or sexy, it's just sort of weird, and we're not going to talk to that girl anymore. It's so asking to be shocking that it isn't. But then, I'm not the target audience.

You know who I am the target audience for? The new Avenged Sevenfold album.

Comic Con 2013 Coverage (From Someone Who Did Not Attend)

Comic Con, the weekend-long celebration of nerddom, or whatever the media likes to believe is nerddom, has come and gone once again. And, once again, the geekiest boy in San Diego county missed his opportunity to attend.  It's come as a surprise to many of my friends that someone like me is so conspicuously absent from the activities, and I am positive I was missed.

My relationship with Comic Con is tenuous, much like Ross and Rachel's; everyone knows I'm going to end up inside it one day, but its just a matter of time as to when. I attended once in 2006 with me dad, and all I remember was walking around in the main hall (you know the one with all the actual comics, where the real nerds go), and then attending like two or three panels about children's trading card games and nickelodeon shows (the biggest panel I've ever attended was the nickelodeon one). My dad used to take me to nerd conventions a lot when I was a kid, because setting up conventions was more or less his career, and by 06 he was retired and I was a friendless kid in high school so neither of us had much of a life  we both had plenty of time to go do cool shit together. I remember the biggest things going on were the panels for the upcoming Simpsons Movie and Spider-Man 3 (poor little dears were so excited), as well as a lot of press for that summer's upcoming box office disaster, Snakes On A Plane. I wasn't quite the same kind of guy that I was back then. Remember how I said I used to just like Bionicles and trading cards? That was the summer I became a true geek. To put it in perspective, that very same summer I saw Bryan Singer's X-Men 2 for the first time and I have never been the same since. I went from a shy, closet nerd to flamboyant media whore in the span of a summer

Left: me before Comic Con, Right: me after Comic Con

Why I Was Not There

This is all an incredibly long way of saying that I have not, for various reasons, been back since. Why? Laziness, lack of someone to go with for a few years, and that fiasco back in 2011 when the site crashed during sales (even quicker than usual). This was because a panel for the final Twilight film: Breaking Bad or whatever the fuck it was called, had been announced and the sheer volume of nerds who don't normally attend Comic Con (those exist) suddenly buying tickets made it near impossible for anyone else to. To put it in perspective, imagine if there was panel where Tim Tebow was officiating, and you could punch him in the face whenever you wanted. Nerds wouldn't care, but chances are, so many sports fans would come just for one panel it would fuck up the whole system.

                                                 

I don't even pay attention to sports, and even I don't like this guy.

And then the year after that I was in Ireland. This year, I was just busy, and considering most people who get tickets to Comic Con get them a year in advance (that is, they literally buy them at the convention) it's incredibly hard to get them again. Every time it seems like not that big of a deal, until it comes and I get all upset that I wasn't there when a bunch of big things happen without my presence (let alone my permission). However, I still try to stay in the loop, so lets look at a few things we did find out this year.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Let's start with the least surprising news by far: there is going to be another Avengers movie. Big surprise. While 2011's revelation of the long-planned Avengers movie, and its full unveiling of the cast, is precisely the sort of reason you go to Comic Con, the Avengers 2 panel could not have been that interesting, in my completely less-than-credible opinion. I also imagine it was a dissapointment, and everyone there was secretly thinking "gee, if only we skipped the whole thing and just stayed at home and blogged, that would have been the smart thing to do!"

Okay, as much as I wish, that probably isn't the case, and the panel did have some badass news (and any opportunity to see Whedon in person has to be well worth it). Among them was the news that the next Avengers movie would be based on the Age of Ultron storyline from the comics. You know, the one that's not even a year old. And involves not just the Avengers, but the entire Marvel Universe getting their asses kicked by Hank Pym's robot. Of course, keeping in mind that, in Avengers math, ludicrosity directly correlates with badassery, it should be pretty cool.

Yeah, remember this guy? He's not gonna be in it after all. 

Days of Future Past

But if there is one panel that I am genuinely sorry I missed, it's this one. As I mentioned earlier, X-Men, specifically the films, will always have a place in my heart, and Brian Singer's movies, though criticized extensively by some of Marvel's bitchier fans, remain among my favorite films ever made. Since then, in a desperate attempt to keep the series going since Brett Ratner's shitty ending, we've had two Wolverine spinoffs (one of which will not be out for another week, and the other of which was a piece of shit), and a prequel. So when it was revealed that the sequel to First Class would not only be an amalgamation of the original trilogy and the newer films, but also an adaptation of one of the greatest X-Men stories of all time, Days of Future Past, I was already pumped. But I didn't really feel it until I saw the pictures of the entire assembled cast at the panel.

Notice how nobody gave Peter Dinklage a box to stand on. I'm guessing nobody had the balls.

For those of you keeping track, in the above picture are at least five of my favorite actors, including Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence, in addition to five actors I really respect, Game of Throne's Peter Dinklage, Omar "that guy fromThe Intouchables" Sy, James McAvoy, and Oscar nominees Ellen Page, Halle Berry and Anna Paquin. Also Shawn Ashmore. The only guy up there I don't really like is Nicholas Hoult, whose ugly face is mercifully blocked by James McAvoy's more handsome face. There's also some guy from American Horror Story, who will be playing Magneto's son, Quicksilver; a character who will allegedly be appearing in Avengers 2 played by somebody else, because fuck you Hollywood.

Now the reason this upsets me is because, as many of you know, I'm running out of things to be excited about. Now that Harry Potter is over, Dark Knight is over, and The Hobbit is lame, the only movie I'm still really really excited about is this one. This could be the last time so much talent I respect are all at one panel. Seriously, the only thing missing from above is Christopher Nolan, Viggo Mortensen, and a T-Rex to make it perfect. But until Jurassic Park 4 comes out (which it probably never will), this is what I'm most excited for.

But that's not what you're interested in. No, you want to hear the big news....

World's Finest

Far beyond the news that there is going to be a sequel to Hunger Games that will probably be awesome, or the fact that a stuntman from Kick-Ass 2 managed to save a suicidal woman from a ledge, or the news that Bryan Cranston walked the floor disguised in cosplay as his own character from Breaking Bad, was the news at the Warner Brothers panel.

Yes, this is happening.

In typically dramatic fashion, Zack Snyder, director of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel, and a litany of other movies that should have been amazing but were just sort of okay, invited the angry black guy from The Matrix Reloaded to read the "I'm the one man who beat you" line from Dark Knight Returns before this behemoth took over the screen. It's a bit surprising that we should be so surprised: Warner Brothers needs a new direction with the Man of Steel sequel, they need a film to introduce Justice League, and they want to reboot Batman, so why not do it all at once? I'm too much of a skeptical cynic to be completely excited though, and here's why.

First of all, the old Batman hasn't even been dead for that long. I know Warner Brothers wants to move on with their big Avengers ripoff as soon as possible, and, considering that I love both Batman and Justice League, I should be excited right? So how come I'm kind of....well...not? Maybe it's because even a super nerd like me has his limits, and I must admit I'm getting a little fatigued. I'm sure I'll talk more about this in the future, and I will probably see it, but, as far as I'm concerned, my generation already has a Batman. What's it going to be like when they reboot him, again? Is he going to keep the voice? The grit? My thoughts on how a Justice League film could work in the post Dark Knight trilogy context is enough to fill a whole nother post, which I'm sure I'll get around to in due time, so I'll keep it to this. In spite of all my cynicism, there is absolutely no way to look at the above picture and not be a little excited.

The good thing: It's directed by Zack Snyder and takes place in the Man of Steel world, so it's a fresh take on the character instead of another Dark Knight sequel. The lame thing: I't's directed by Zack Snyder. Goodie.

The End

Well, that about does it. It was probably the most momentous year for Comic Con in a long time, and will continue to be for a long time. Oh well, there is one thing I can gleam:

These two missed it too.

Also, I saw the Stones in concert and you didn't. So there.