gorgon

About damn time. Last time we saw each other in this series, I was on vacation and had planned to do a bit of a detour with this series by watching the rest of the Bond films I have on disc since I had ripped them onto my tablet. Unfortunately I ended up spending most of the time in the car asleep listening to Poppy, so that didn't end up happening. Goated lady by the way, her album Negative Spaces goes pretty crazy. So anyway, here we are back on track.

This tape has a problem with its audio where there's a buzzing that's going on in the mix and it cuts out sometimes to a much quieter track with some of the low ends missing. So that was pretty annoying. Hopefully I'll be able to find a replacement. But it's been a while at this point since I've done one of these so idk if it's gonna be quite of the same caliber as the previous ones.

Overall I thought this film overstayed its welcome a bit unfortunately. Some beats ran a bit too long, and the plot overall just felt a little hollow. Roger Moore played a great Bond, and I liked most of the side characters, but I wouldn't say there's really anything to write home about. The final confrontation with Kanaga was pretty solid, all the scenes with him were really, but what an absurd and greusome way to kill off your main villain. Probably the most disturbing death I've seen in one of these movies so far, and that's after watching Bond put a guy through a shredder or something in OHMSS.

I think this movie's biggest potential and biggest squander was the boat chase sequence. The tension was there, and it was shot really really well. But they just HAD to try and throw in some comic relief I guess. Every time that sheriff was on screen I was just staring like this.

What a terribly annoying character. A disgrace to the name JW Pepper, quite frankly. Shoutout my musicians, you get me. Though I think it's kind of funny that this is now two of Moore's films that have made a complete ass of American police. The other being A View to a Kill, if I recall. Very based on the part of the writers.

I think this was the most I've heard a Bond film's opening song be used in its soundtrack. And the first time I've seen it actually be performed in the movie. Very cool. They knew what they had, lol. You don't just get Paul McCartney to write you a song and then NOT use it. I also appreciated all the different ways they incorporated the main James Bond theme. I think I brought it up in my Goldeneye post but I love it when they use it and transform it the way that they do. Top tier soundtrack.

I think that's about all I want to say for this one. If I think of anything I forgot then I'll come back and add it. That has happened a couple times. But for now, that's all from me. Next up for this series will be The Man With The Golden Gun.

The first post if yer interested

I have finished the first section Stories of Old. I am really really enjoying this book so far! Even if I'm not actually sitting down to read quite as much as I would like. Blessed be my local library for offering like ten thousand auto renewals because I am committed to finishing this thing!!!

I do think at this point it's very easy to see which parts of this story were more interesting to the author. The storyline with Tané and the dragon trials felt like half of it was missing, I unfortunately must say that everything that happened there didnt really feel earned. It felt to me like it was just a whole bunch of saying, "Yeah the trials were pretty difficult and she's kind of having a hard time" instead of actually showing us anything but the big moments. Tané's victory over Turosa in particular was written as this huge triumph, but it didn't really land for me. We never saw them actually interact prior to this aside from a few bits of bickering and everybody just saying how much of a rich asshole nepo baby he is. I think it would have worked a lot better if his character and his dynamic with Tané were developed more. But maybe that's just me. I'm excited to see how this storyline continues into the rest of the book now that she is a dragon rider. But that's probably my biggest criticism so far.

I think the focal point of this book is clearly the storyline with Ead and Sabran and all the goings-on with the royal court. Which is awesome! Ead's whole thing is literally the title of the book! I have enjoyed the growing conspiracy surrounding the one duke Combe, I can't remember what his title is off the top of my head but I like to call him the master of whispers, and his involvement in the plot going on with Loth in Yscalin. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ead and Sabran's relationship develop and the way the book has begun to humanize Sabran and show more of her vulnerabilities and insecurities. And also the book starting to explore its magic a little bit more with the arrival of Fýredel at the capital and the subsequent arrival of Ead's mentor. I'm very excited to learn more about the titular Priory of the Orange Tree and how it could come into play later.

Speaking of Loth, that whole plotline has been very interesting. I think its "twist ending" for this section of the book just felt a little bit out of left field like she just decided "let's do something they weren't expecting!" but it will certainly move the story along in an interesting direction. The reveal that the king Sigoso is basically just a puppet for Fýredel was very cool and frightening, and has many interesting implications for where this could go now that Loth is infected with the plague, I think. I also wonder if it will be of consequence that he is trekking to deliver this box to Chassar uq-Ispad, who is currently at Briar House with Ead and Sabran. I suppose we shall just have to wait and see...

Niclays' plotline is interesting in that it was so good and packed full of tension until it wasn't. It will be interesting to see how it continues into the rest of the book seeing as he knowingly condemned a (relatively) innocent woman to torture and probably death (i will be surprised if that doesnt have at least a LITTLE bit of consequences), and is harboring information from an illegal intruder that could probably qualify as a plot of high treason or something. But also his last couple chapters have just kind of been him getting passed around and chilling at his friend's house. Kind of stumbled over the finish line I guess but there's lots of interesting stuff in there.

It was pretty good.

It felt like they wanted to do a little bit too much in one episode and I think they structured it a little weirdly but overall a very good first impression so to speak. And the Game of Thrones theme finally has even phrases!!! I cannot even begin to articulate how fucking much it aggravated me watching Game of Thrones and this that they would stretch some sections of the music to fit the visuals. Maybe they actually stopped doing that with season 2, I can't remember. But it is so lovely to finally get to hear regular 8 bar phrases for this song. Infinitely more dramatic and adrenaline-pumping that way.

I obviously have not read Fire & Blood so I don't have quite the same level of disdain for Season 2 that some viewers did but I did think that it started to get a little messy, so I'm curious to see if they will be able to redeem themselves here. I'm not sure if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was done by any of the same people but at the very least it's nice to hope for the best knowing that they still know how to make good ASOIAF television somewhere. Very excited to keep watching!

Something I've been trying to work on this year is reading more. There are so many interesting and amazing stories that I want to dive into, but unfortunately my attention span tends to be that of a goldfish at the best of times. Thank you social media. It also doesn't really help that the only times I've really tried in recent times were when I was hyperfixated on something. To its credit, I don't think I would've been able to burn my way through the first three Dune books so quickly if it weren't for me being obsessed with the movies at the time but I also haven't picked them back up since. Anyone else excited for Dune Part 3? My ass will be there DAY ONE. I was also making pretty good headway through A Clash of Kings until pretty recently, which I do intend to keep reading, but ASOIAF is VERY dense. And I tend to be a bit of a slow reader. I also also got pretty into Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson. I don't know why I stopped reading that one. It's a super cool concept.

Anyway, when we were at the airport last September waiting for our flight to Toronto to go see the best band in the world BANSHIMOKU (I have GOT to do a post talking about some of my Japanese music, it is henceforth on the docket), I decided to stop by the little airport bookstore just to kill time and maybe find something that looked interesting that I could fetch when we got home. And find something interesting I did. A giant yellow orange tome in the fantasy section titled The Priory of the Orange Tree. My interest was immediately piqued, mostly just because it was like one of the biggest books there. But also because the little plot description was just intriguing. A story about dragons and secret societies and political unrest sounds like just my cup of tea... but unfortunately there's no way in hell that was fitting in my carryon so I had to file it away in the back of my mind. And there it stayed... until I found it at the library yesterday!

I was gonna make a whole face reveal joke cause I THOUGHT I've done it a couple times already and those just got buried but I guess I actually deleted them so, yeah. I guess it is one. And even then that was before I had the single iota of traction that I do on here now. But after last time I figured we can only get so much more personal on here so why the hell not. I had a much nicer picture of me showing the book off from yesterday in my nice clothes cause I did an interview before but I accidentally deleted it when I was clearing out my gallery so instead you get me on my couch in my very finest Rei Ayanami t-shirt. Blessings of the Eight Divines be upon you. A little bit of spoilers from this point also.

In the months leading up to this day I had decided to read some reviews for this book just to see what other people think and it seems to be overall a pretty mixed experience. To my understanding it seems people generally think the worldbuilding and stuff like that is done very well but the plot and characters themselves tend to be handled a bit messily. Five chapters in I will say I can see some hints of that, there are bits that I feel were just kind of blown right past to get to the big stuff. I don't think this early in the book that there's been anything particularly egregious, MAYBE the stuff in the East chapters so far with Tané and her friend Ishari could have been expanded on more but it kind of sounds like the story plans to revisit that so I'll hold my tongue for now. And again, this is an 800 page book and I am a whopping sixty in, so I'm not gonna be making any big judgements yet.

I think my favorite part so far is how both sides of the story are connected to each other. The earlier West chapters had kind of implied it but I think it's chapter 4 that explicitly reveals that Truyde and Sulyard are lovers, and that Sulyard left, which is how he ended up where we met him in the first chapter. And then chapter 5 has Sulyard explaining why he left to Niclays and his plan to try and save the queen. And the revelation that Niclays is on Orisima because he was exiled by the queen and that he knows Truyde's family... it's all so connected already and it's very cool. I like the book a lot so far but I'm interested to see if I'll start picking up on more of the criticisms people have. I've mentioned it before but I tend not to be as critical of the things I like, so I wonder if that will end up affecting my perception of this. It also kind of sounds like those are later on in the book, and this thing is huge, but it's also pretty large print, so that makes it a little easier lol.

I've also read that this is a pretty queer book, so I'm excited to see how it handles that. It was secretly what really made up my mind about wanting to read it for myself. I suppose that I could technically be considered queer on account of the bisexuality and the being non binary but I haven't really lived much of that experience thus far so I don't really like considering myself as such just quite yet. But I still really love seeing how different stories handle queer themes because I think it opens up so many more avenues for storytelling and I think it's really cool! Sorry, this feels a little bit random but it's kind of one of the elephants in the room with this book i guess.

This isn't where I'm actually hanging it, I just needed a place to put it for the pic, lol. Professionally framed! It's got a texture sort of like a paining on wood, I wonder if somebody did this themselves or just had it printed that way or something. It makes me wonder how they would've mass produced posters like this back in the day. I can see stencils and typefaces and whatnot but it's the pictures of the people themselves that perplex me. I can think of a few ways, maybe they just sent everybody the same print or something, but it's very fun to think about.

Story time! I remember looking on facebook marketplace about a month ago just killing time and seeing someone else selling one of these for like 100 bucks. That kind of money is basically nonexistent for me so I had to pass it up then. I remember showing the listing to my mom just to be like "hey, check this out," and then she started talking to me about pinup models. Now I'm as big a fan of women as the next person but I personally have never really seen the appeal. I think the idea is kind of interesting as a cultural window and as a collector of vintage things but I've never really been into it like that. Not to mention it's basically a thing of the past these days but you still find some stuff like that being made every now and again. But anyway, I just think that it was really interesting that my mom seemed really excited to talk to me about this. Maybe it's because this is like one of the first things I've openly expressed interest in that has awooga sexy women in it. But like. Because I like the movies. We know that I do not particularly care for the awooga sexy women parts. All this to say, I have a sneaking suspicion my mom thinks I'm gay. It's not helping my case that I've never had a girlfriend before but that's because I haven't really met anybody that I felt like that about and the one time I did I was too slow about it. For the record I am bi. But she doesn't know that. She doesn't know I'm non-binary either but that's a whole other can of worms. I don't think she'd take issue with it if I told her!!! I just want to wait until I'm in a position where I can start working on my appearance a bit more before I'm out more publically. For now I'm just the fat chud son lol. Why am I going on this rant? Who knows. Anyway! I found the poster at a random yard sale today, so lucky me!

I haven't talked about it much since starting my whole movie watching project, but Doctor Who is like, THE thing that I'm into. Just to explain my history with it a bit, my dad introduced me to it when I was like 8 or 9 years old, during Matt Smith's tenure as the 11th Doctor. This was right around too when my parents were beginning to allow me to have HEAVILY SUPERVISED access to the internet, and moreso than the fact that I absolutely loved the 11th Doctor and the adventures he would get up to, THAT is how I became absolutely obsessed with the show. When I wasn't at school or playing Minecraft (this was also around the time when my brother introduced me to Minecraft, something I became equally obsessed with and am still suffering from burnout from, lol) I was watching every video I could find about Doctor Who. This is how I learned so much about Classic Doctor Who and so much of the show's history, and at the time I still didn't really understand the concept of a show being repeated on reruns or being released on DVD, and so it gave it such a sort of inaccessible and mythical or enigmatic status in my head, and just made me love it even more. I remember constantly annoying the shit out of my friends at school because I just would not shut the fuck up about it. "Did you know that x about y Doctor which is why z happens in the new show" conversations were common at the lunch table in 3rd grade.

I kind of fell away from the show for a while going into middle and high school just cause I was getting into other things. But in 2021, during my junior year of high school, I decided I was going to watch the entirety of Doctor Who from Series 1 to whatever the most recent season was, I wanna say Series 12. I made this decision for two reasons, one being that it had just been a while since I had watched the show, and two being that I had never watched any of Peter Capaldi's or Jodie Whittaker's episodes beyond like, two or three of them each. Anyway that's how I learned that Peter Capaldi is the best who will ever do it and Jodie Whittaker made an incredible Doctor even if her episodes were more often than not a little subpar. But more importantly, this was also when I learned about the Classic Who Blu-ray sets for the first time, and I persuaded my mom to get me a few of them for my birthday and Christmas. And to make an already far too long story a little shorter, that's how I finally got into Classic Who, and how it firmly cemented itself as one of my favorite shows of all time, even separate from the modern show.

All of this to say: Doctor Who has been a near constant present in my life basically as far back as my memory goes. Which is why when the press release came today that said the Christmas special was cancelled and the show is being put out to tenure, I was... mostly just a bit disappointed.

I would love to be able to say that I'm crying screaming shitting my pants over this news, but I'm really not. Yeah, it hurts to see this thing that I love so very much be cut off and cancelled in this way, but the writing has kind of been on the wall for a long time. I'll not be going into the situation itself much because everybody and their mom already has, and I've already watched a number of videos on the subject myself anyway, and would basically just be parroting those. Shoutouts to The Confused Adipose, Josh Snares, Mr TARDIS, and dwfan91, all amazing creators whose videos on the situation have really helped me work through it myself.

I do just want to say though, I think I've already made my peace with it. Again, it does hurt, but the show has been on a downward spiral for a few years now. RTD left it in an absolutely terrible position, but I'd rather it just stay that way than risk getting even worse. I think it's an inevitability that the series will return to the screen eventually, in one form or another. And I'm glad that it'll finally be given room to breathe for a while, though I wish it could maybe have happened a bit less suddenly. In the hellish dumpster fire that is the current state of the world this Christmas special was something I was looking forward to that I now won't get, which does suck. But I will be happy to be patient and wait a few years if it means the right people will be able to get their hands on the property and do it the justice that it deserves. But I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what happens from here. At least the kids cartoon version is still going swimmingly from the sounds of it, so that will be fun when it comes out, lol. And of course, Doctor Who has a myriad of expanded media outlets, there will be no shortage of it even if it won't be on the screen for a while.

We're breaking sequence here, I know, but I'm on vacation and needed some movies to rip onto my tablet. So, I decided to rip the rest of the Bond films that I have on DVD and have yet to watch. By the way, I finally found a copy of GoldenEye! On disc AND tape! It somehow didn't occur to me to take pics of all the movies I ripped for these posts, so that's gonna be interesting for this moving forward, but I did take this one right after I bought them, so at least it's something. An interesting thing, too, is that this tape is from before they started the "James Bond 007 Collection" series that I have for most of my other Bond tapes, so it's a lone wolf in my collection in that regard. It seems that's the case for The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill too, since those came out right after they wrapped up the "The ____ Classics" series (which I also have a few of) but before the "Collection" series. Interesting!

My biggest takeaway from this movie is, I can see why they made this into a game, lol. The action and the spectacle in this movie is INSANE! Who decided this movie needed like 10 straight minutes of Bond driving a tank through the streets of Russia? Like they were right but What? I'm not sure why this is the one I'm getting so hung up on where there have been far more absurd things in this franchise. I did absolutely love the way they used the main theme during that part, though. I like the more synthy version they used in the gunbarrel sequence but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't missing that brass section. It was a bit of a different arrangement too, and it really lent itself well to the action and tension in the scene.

What a star-studded cast in this movie. I knew that Sean Bean played the villain in this because of the "MGM Means Great Movies" promo they put at the beginning of all the VHS releases, but it was a welcome surprise to learn that his character was another 00 agent! I've mentioned it a couple times in these posts but I love every opportunity we get to see Bond work with other agents, and even if it was just for a bit in the intro, seeing them work together and the chemistry between them was very cool! The concept of a former 00 going rogue was of course revisited in Skyfall, but it was nice to see some on-screen history in this film. I also was not aware that Robbie Coltrane's character originated from this one. You get Bond "reuniting" with characters all the time that just have an implied history, and although that's still technically the case here, it was nice seeing them meet and build some of that rapport that's shown in The World is Not Enough. And Alan Cumming as the douchy comic relief character??? I'm not too familiar with his work, but I am definitely familiar with him, so this was definitely a surprise.

I appreciated the little bits of comedy they tried injecting into this film, particularly in Q's lab, though some of it did fall a little bit flat imo. This film was very, very good at portraying the emotion and the stakes and the tension in each scene, through the camera work and the soundtrack and especially through the characters. I enjoyed Izabella Scorupco as Natalia very much. Her character for the most part felt very real and grounded in the way she treated the situation she was thrust into and especially how she acted towards Bond. Though of course, Bond always has to get the girl in the end. I think they handled that a bit better in this one than they have in some of the others I've seen, though. Famke Janssen's character didn't work quite so well for me. I've got nothing against a freaky woman but it didn't feel like she really had many stakes in the overall plot after she stole the helicopter. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention, I could understand if she was just like a hired killer or something, because she certainly did a lot of that. But part of me always has to wonder if they wrote her that way just so Bond could say things like "no more foreplay", also in that VHS promo, lol. Flashbacks again to The World Is Not Enough with Christmas Jones. Iykyk lol.

I think that's about it for this film. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I can definitely see why it's so highly regarded. I've also got The Man With The Golden Gun, The Living Daylights, and No Time To Die on my tablet, so we'll see which I feel like watching next. And when I get home, we *will* pick back up going in order with Live and Let Die. I just wanted to do something a little different since these are different circumstances!

Sorry it's been a minute! End of the semester was pretty hectic but I'm officially on summer break, and one step closer to my bachelor's!!!!! But you're here to see me ramble about Bond, so let's go!

I thought this one was pretty good overall! There was some incredible camera work throughout, particularly in the scenes in Amsterdam, and I loved all the different locations. The bits in Vegas reminded me a lot of One Piece Film Gold lol, especially the part where Bond is climbing up the side of the penthouse. Similar locations I guess.

Charles Gray as Blofeld was an interesting little treat. I thought his performance felt a bit more studious and arrogant than those who came before him, and I thought it worked very well with his role in this film. And, the only other thing I've seen him in is Rocky Horror as the narrator, so that's a very interesting dichotomy, lol.

Another Doctor Who actor in this film! Metz was played by Joseph Fürst, who also portrayed Zaroff in The Underwater Menace in 1967! It's one of the partially missing serials of the 60s, but you can still see his performance in full in episodes 2 and 3! And the whole story has been animated, so at least his spoken performance has been preserved for episodes 1 and 4. It's been so much fun seeing all these different actors participating in two of my favorite franchises! But I digress

I thought that this film felt a bit like a parody of itself in some ways with how it handled Tiffany, Mr. Wint, and Mr. Kidd. They just felt very caricatured. For example Tiffany felt much more fleshed out in the beginning of the film to me, but by the end she just kind of felt like the ditzy clumsy side girl. Certainly not until the final act but I thought the way she was acting in the oil rig (or whatever that place was) scenes was way out of nowhere for someone who had been pretty competent so far. And Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd were just kind of the bog standard comic relief. But I enjoyed them well enough, lol.

All that aside I thought the plot overall was very intriguing and engaging, if a bit slow in some of the action scenes. Though I would imagine by now that this was the era where they had to start trying to find their footing again as a new wave of action films started to come out and be more modern, so it kind of gets a pass from me. Kind of like a Star Trek: The Motion Picture and very clearly trying to keep up with Star Wars situation for me, lol. Of course, I already know more or less how the franchise ended up adapting itself, but it will be interesting to see the smaller steps as we move into Roger Moore's movies and beyond.

I think that's about all I wanted to say on this one. A very nice, middle of the road type of film. Nothing too spectacular, but certainly nothing outright bad either. We'll keep this train going next time with Live and Let Die.

Every post I've made in this series, collected here for ease of access.

#1: DOUBLE JEOPARDY (1999)

#2: 48 HRS. (1982)

#3: BOWFINGER (1999)

#4: AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (1999)

#5: AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER (2002)

#6: BIG (1988)

ADDENDUM #1

#7: DR. NO (1962)

#8: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

#9: GOLDFINGER (1964)

#10: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)

#11: A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)

#12: TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997)

#13: THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)

#14: DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)

#15: CASINO ROYALE (2006)

#16: QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

#17: SKYFALL (2012)

#18: SOMMERSBY (1993)

ADDENDUM #2

#19: THUNDERBALL (1965)

#20: YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)

#21: ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969)

#22: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)

I've always found the existence of this movie very strange. Even before I really knew Bond or its films and its actors, I knew there was a guy who only did one movie. I've seen online in the weeks and months since familiarizing myself with this franchise that On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of those films that faded into obscurity for a while but has since started getting its due respects, so I was very curious to experience it for myself.

I must confess that I've already seen a video essay or two on this film, because at the time I thought it was going to be a while before I got to watch it myself, so I kind of had the gist of the big beats, but I appreciated being able to see how they all fit together.

One of the things that stood out to me the most in this movie was the editing. I've noticed in the past couple films that they've started including some sped up shots during action scenes, I guess to try and convey momentum, but it was dialed up to 11 in this one. Between that, the overabundance of smash cuts, and even some slowed down shots in a few places, I thought the editing in this movie was super entertaining. Maybe not in quite the way they were going for, but nonetheless.

George Lazenby as Bond was a nice change of pace. He felt much more of a romantic than Connery's Bond, which I suppose is probably just due to the story being told, but I don't think it would have worked nearly as well had Connery still been at the helm. I do think Lazenby's acting left a bit to be desired in some spots, but when it was time to turn on the emotion, he absolutely crushed it.

I think the story of this film was probably my favorite so far. I thought the movie could've done with some trimming here and there, but I was thoroughly engaged the entire time. Everything felt seamlessly interwoven right down to the very end, and that twist ending just hit me right in the gut man, even if I knew it was coming. Again, huge kudos to George Lazenby's performance in that scene, he absolutely nailed that shit.

Also, shoutout the random blonde dude who was helping Bond out a little bit and following him around until he got killed for it. He was played by Bernard Horsfall, who earlier that year played Chancellor Goth, the main Time Lord who exiles the Second Doctor at the end of The War Games. He also played Lemuel Gulliver in The Mind Robber the previous year, and would later go on to play Taron in the Third Doctor story Planet of the Daleks, and would reprise his role as Goth in the Fourth Doctor story The Deadly Assassin. That guy got around.

That's about it for this entry. It's a shame we didn't get more films with Lazenby, I would've liked to see how his take on the character would've evolved. But I suppose we'll see if I still feel that way after next time, where we'll watch Diamonds Are Forever.

Now THIS is more like it!!! THIS is what I've been searching for in an old school spy movie like this!!! It was one of the campiest, most nonsensical movies I've ever watched and I LOVE IT!!!

I must admit that I always get a little bit nervous when I watch something from this time that has anything at all to do with anywhere in Asia. Call it bias from the couple of very questionable things that I've seen (hello Talons of Weng-Chiang) but it just seems like they had an incredibly difficult time not being extremely racist a lot of the time when dealing with Asian cultures. As a certified former Japanophile™, I had my reservations going into this, but I was glad to find that there wasn't anything that at least overtly stood out to me. Maybe a couple old fashioned jokes and a questionable accent or two but beyond that it felt pretty respectful. Perhaps it's not exactly my place to discuss but it was still nice to see, especially after Dr. No felt a bit more caricaturized imo.

I've taken some digs at the Connery movies lately, but one thing I absolutely adore about them is how they've built up Spectre from day one to culminate here where we finally meet Blofeld. I do think it's a bit funny that it seems this is the only version of the character with the big eye scar, given how often it's referenced in other media. That's just what happens when you're iconic as hell I guess.

And holy hell, the cinematography in this movie. My jaw fell to the floor at the scene with the brawl on the rooftop at the dock. The way it just zooms out with an aerial shot of Bond running across and taking everybody out. I feel like the action scenes in these early movies have more or less been pretty simple, so this was just like, holy shit. Also the scene where Bond is fighting off all those helicopters in his dinky little flying machine with his theme song blaring the entire time was just so damn charming. That is exactly the kind of shit I come to movies like this for.

I think that's about all I wanted to say for this one. Such a welcome reprieve after the mixed bag that Thunderball was. I'm debating if I want to keep going in release order and watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service next, or finish out the Connery movies with Diamons Are Forever next. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

And so we're back to our James Bond marathon like nothing ever happened. I was expecting for it to take a while before we'd be back here, but unfortunately I hit the motherlode at one of my local antique emporiums today and scored pretty much all the rest of the films. Minus GoldenEye, Spectre, and No Time To Die, unfortunately, but alas.

So kicking us off for round two is the fourth Bond film, and the fourth starring Sean Connery: Thunderball.

It's a bit weird picking up back at the beginning like this. I got so used to the more modern movies, it will probably take a bit for me to adjust back to the way these earlier films work. This was a very interesting movie that had a lot going for it, but it wasn't exactly one of my favorites.

First off, Bond straight up just sexually assaulting a woman MULTIPLE TIMES within the first like 20 minutes was crazy. I absolutely abhor how they portray his womanizing in these earlier films. In some of the later ones I watched he's still kind of sleazy sometimes and is always kind of aloof and flirty and trying to put the moves on whoever he's sharing a scene with, but this is just like... he needs to be put on a list dawg. I get it's the 60s and apparently nobody gave a shit about anything back then but like, be so for real right now. I like Sean Connery as an actor and I think he portrays other aspects of Bond really well, but this is just a step too far for me. Sorry if I'm being "woke" or "sensitive" or whatever but it just makes me feel icky just thinking about it.

That aside... this film started off super strong in my opinion. The back and forth conflict between Bond and No. 2 and his people was super entertaining, I especially liked the section with Luciana Paluzzi's Fiona where she and her goons almost successfully capture him, until he blows up their car and escapes through the mardi-gras. I just thought it was a very interesting sequence... and something that made me realize I've definitely at least seen SOME of one of Daniel Craig's other two movies, because I definitely remember him doing something similar after watching that, but it wasn't in any of the three that I watched. Maybe I saw a clip once or something. Reverse spoilers? Who knows.

I thought this movie kind of fell apart at the end. It spent so long with Bond just scuba diving and sometimes fighting off other guys scuba diving that I don't even really remember how it fit in and I just watched it, lol. I do think the end where Domino kills No. 2 was kind of cool though.

Speaking of No. 2... I was surprised he died in this. Maybe a subversion? I won't know until I watch the next one. But since they're definitely still building up Spectre, I kind of thought he'd stick around. And, you know... that kind of seems like the sort of thing they would've parodied in Austin Powers since Spectre is one of the biggest pulls from this franchise... just me?

I think that's about all I have to say on this one. Probably middle of the road if I had to put this up against the other Bond films I've seen so far. Not great, not terrible. Though I'm very curious now to watch Never Say Never Again and see how it stacks up against this. I think that that movie exists at all is so interesting.

But for now, I'll see you next time, where we'll watch You Only Live Twice.

That didn't take very long!

You'll recall in my post about Skyfall that I said once I'm able to find more of the Bond movies, we'll pick back up and keep going with those. Well......

Behold, more of the movies! I'm still missing three of them, so I could hold off until I get those... but that would be no fun!

So, coming soon will be:

#19: THUNDERBALL

#20: YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

#21: ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

#22: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

#23: LIVE AND LET DIE

#24: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

#25: MOONRAKER

#26: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

#27: OCTOPUSSY

#28: THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS

#29: LICENSE TO KILL

Hello, hello! Now that we're not watching James Bond anymore, I'm not quite sure how to do this, lol. Truth be told, this has been sitting in my drafts for a couple weeks now because I just... never got around to writing the post for this very reason. But I owe it to you good people to at least deliver something.

I thought this was a very good movie. The premise was super interesting, and I appreciated that they didn't shy away from some of the things that made this period in American history so fucking awful, though I'm sure some of it was still dramatized. The trial scene in the climax of the film kept me on the edge of my seat, and James Earl Jones as the judge was a very welcome treat. I thought it was kind of funny that he just sounded like himself for most of the trial, but then when he really got upset that Darth Vader voice kind of came out a little bit. I have to wonder if that was an intentional choice or not. Probably not but it's fun to think about. It is just his voice, so.

Not a whole lot to say here unfortunately. It probably would've helped if I didn't wait like three weeks to write this, lol. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached the end of this little segment of my little project. And what a film to end it on. I think this was one of if not my favorite Bond film so far. This one's probably gonna be a little more spoilery than usual, but god i just want to talk about this film.

In my post about Tomorrow Never Dies, I talked a bit about how I was curious about how the franchise will handle super secret espionage in the age of the internet, and this film touched on that a lot. One of the main plot points is ABOUT MI6 being called into question over their outdated tactics after a top-secret database was hacked into and sensitive information stolen. It was even said during the hearing, something to the extent of "You're acting like this is still the golden age of espionage where human intelligence was our only resource". I'm just very tickled that they drew direct attention to this, especially after it was something I spent such a long time agonizing over myself, lol.

I absolutely loved the surprise at the end that this movie essentially completes the "origin story" for the series, reintroducing Q and Moneypenny, and having a new M take the helm that's more closer to Bernard Lee's original take on the character. I absolutely loved Judi Dench in the role, and I'm very sad to see her go, but I thought they brought her arc in these films to a nice, clean end, so I'm satisfied. I know that these movies serve as a reboot of the franchise, but I kind of always interpreted her character in these as trying to reconcile this new, more blunt and violent 007 with the previous 007, Pierce Brosnan's Bond. Again, I know that that isn't really what's going on, but it's fun to think about I think. I thought it was very clever to have Moneypenny interacting with Bond throughout the whole movie but saving the reveal for the end. I even knew what the actress looked like from incessantly googling things and I didn't even pick up on it until she dropped the line about "settling for a desk job". I'm not too sure how I feel about the new Q just yet, and I suppose I still won't know for a while, but I didn't dislike him. It's certainly an interesting take on the character from what I understood of the original.

Javier Bardem was great as the villain for this film. I didn't even recognize it was him until I remembered seeing him on the casting page, lol. The idea of a former MI6 agent going up against MI6 is so cool, and I think they did a great job exploring it in this.

I'm very curious to see how this era of Bond wraps up, but that's another story for another time. For now, it's back to watching whatever the hell I feel like. Unfortunately for me, I have no idea what I want to watch next, lol. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

As a direct continuation of the last like 20 minutes of Casino Royale, while also sort of being its own story, it's juggling quite a few bits and pieces. I think it does this well enough, but I think it could've benefited from a bit longer of a runtime. I'm pretty sure that it's the shortest Bond I've seen so far, at just over an hour 45.

I think the biggest takeaway from this movie for me is that it feels like the writers don't really know what they want M's relationship to Bond to be. She kind of goes from scene to scene either bemoaning and chastising him or trusting him implicitly. I suppose both can exist simultaneously but it doesn't really feel like they know how to do that.

I liked the villain in this movie. I thought Mathieu Amalric's performance was amazing, and again, kudos to these new age villains for just doing normal terrorism instead of whatever the hell some of the previous Bond villains were doing. I kind of expected at first that the "organization that's everywhere yet you know nothing about" was going to be SPECTRE since that's what the fourth movie is all about (or at least i assume, lol), but I'm kind of glad I was wrong. There are ways they could've built that up over the course of the movies but I'm glad that they went with something that was more self-contained. But with what I know about Skyfall, I expect that maybe that's what they'll be doing there.

The rest of the characters were cool too I guess. I liked Olga Kurylenko's Camille and her story, but that was really the only other standout for me. The returning characters from Casino Royale were cool to see, though.

That about wraps it up for this review I think. Not a lot to say this time around but what are you gonna do about it. We'll wrap things up with Skyfall next time, and then it's off to watching something else for a while.

But before I go, if I may, I'd like to take the end of this post and dedicate it to the goodest, most bestest girl in the whole wide world, my dog Sadie. We had to put her to sleep this morning, after learning too little too late that she was hiding a tumor from us after she suddenly became very sick. She was such a sweet, happy thing, and I wish we could've done better by her. But she at least deserved to go out peacefully, and I'm glad we were able to do it at home, in a familiar place surrounded by her family. Bit of a downer to end this on but I just wanted to take the time to immortalize her here. I love you with all my heart, and I'll always be thinking of you. I just hope you'll think of me sometimes while you're up there living your best life. I'll miss you, girl.