Tag Archives: James Bond

Sunday Night Movie: You Only Live Twice

So last night I returned to my trek through the Bond Franchise. Since I am watching the film in release order the next movie was You Only Live Twice.

This is a Bond movie I have never seen in it’s entirety. Oh, I’ve seen lots of bits here and there, but I had never had the chance to sit down and watch it straight through from the start.

The problem in doing a franchise like Bond is that the producers, writers, and directors have to keep topping themselves. Each film needs to be bigger and with higher stakes than the last or you risk having you audience go ho-hum over what was supposed to be  thrilling experience.

Of course the problem with getting bigger and bigger in your stunts, action, and your dangers is that you run the terrible risk of sailing right over the top and landing in farce-land. (A fine place to be if you intend to go, but a lousy accidental destination.)

As you can likely tell from the picture i selected to illustrate my post, I think You Only Live Twice splashed-down in farce-land with a side trip to Mockalvania. Continue reading

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Sunday Night Movie: Casino Royale(2006)

So, one the gifts I got for Christmas was a gift card to Borders. Now, as regular readers of the blatherings know I have purchased an ebook reader in 2009 and so I have transitioned to e-books for my pleasure reading.

Sunday I was at Borders with my sweetie-wife and I used the gift card to upgrade my DVD of Casino Royale to a blu-ray collectors edition of Casino Royale.  I got a much better picture and sound quality and additional bonus feature. Which is like crack to me.

I really liked this reboot of the James Bond Franchise. Frankly the Bond films had slipped into fantasy and as such were not very satisfying.  Now, don’t get me wrong, Bond in the books is not about realism. Bond is a larger than life character. He’s a tough man who can win any fight and knows what to do to survive and to win. As a character he is interesting because of what he went through in the story Casino Royale. These are the events that armored Bond, that until the story of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service rendered him cold to women. If you want gritty complex spy novels with a heavy dose of realism you should read the works of John Le Carre. There’s nothing wrong about either approach. James Bond is what we would like to have out there on our side and John Le Carre’s characters are what we fear are out there on our side. Continue reading

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