All the Bonds

I apologize for this lackluster review, but really, can I be expected to put in much work compared to Sean Connery’s dialing it in for what was ultimately his last Bond movie? The only reason I even gave this one a 2 martini rating was because 1. It had the glorious Shirley Bassey back for the theme song, 2. I love Las Vegas and the shots of all the old casinos and Fremont Street were great, and 3. I’ve decided to reserve the 1 martini rating for Bond movies that are SO BAD I seriously consider not finishing watching them. So far that hasn’t happened. I’m looking forward to the next movie, Live and Let Die, which I’ve seen before and really enjoyed. Mostly because of the Sheriff from Da Parish. And I like Jane Seymour more as a Bond girl than as a gaudy jewelry shill. In other news, a big shout-out to Scott over at Blog, James Blog for pointing people towards Church of Bond. Thanks dude!

Plot in twenty words or less: Something about Diamond Smuggling and Las Vegas. Blofeld’s Diamond-Solar Panel-Ray Gun-Evil Weapons. Sean Connery dialing it in.

How it’s aged: Terribly. Nothing was that sexy in this movie, the implied-gay characters had to have been a bad caricature even in 1971, and then there’s that uncomfortable moment when you realize apartheid was still around when they’re showing the South African diamond miners. In this movie, the diamond conglomerates are the heroes for trying to avoid manipulation of the market, not the evil people we now mostly acknowledge them to be for doing the exact same thing the early premise of the movie is set against. Blog, James Blog also makes some great points about the anti-hero films that also came out that year, which puts DAF in a certain context I hadn’t considered before.

Something that was just weird and/or WTF y’all: So I think this is the first Bond movie that I can recall depicting male homosexuality (previously we’ve seen Rosa Klebb and Pussy Galore) with Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. I’m turning a critical eye way more to the depiction of gay characters in Bond films lately and Wint and Kidd make me cringe all over. At least Rosa Klebb had daggers in her shoes and Pussy Galore had a damn flying circus full of incredible female pilots. Wint and Kidd just have bad jokes, unfortunate hair, and an obsession with cologne. WTF.

Obligatory feminist commentary: Plenty O’Toole was a total missed opportunity. Really disappointed that she was such a total ditz – worse even than Honey Ryder. COME ON. But I did like the bad-assness of Bunny and Thumper and their crazy karate-gymnastics.

Completely hypothetical cultural reference points: The scene of Slumber Inc and the dials setting the show kinda-sorta-maybe reminded me of the pivotal scenes with Sol Roth in Soylent Green, which came out 2 years later.

Superficial Thing that did not Amuse Me: OK, in all honesty this kind of amused me but in a very annoyed way: WTF was up with James Bond attempting a disguise by faking a make out with himself, 5th grade boy style, when the real Peter Franks entered the apartment? Sorry but that doesn’t seem like Real Bond behavior.

Superficial Thing that highly Amused Me: Sasha Holiday and I burst out in gales of laughter when the duplicate cat came out of nowhere. BUAHAHAHA.

Interesting and possibly dubious thing I learned from Wikipedia: Lana Wood (who played Plenty O’Toole, and is the sister of actress Natalie Wood) almost drowned in the scene where O’Toole…drowned. Luckily she is a trained diver and someone noticed before things went even further downhill.

Martini rating: 2 martinis

Administrative information concerning this viewing:
Drinks consumed: Red Stripe

Food eaten: Black bean tacos

Viewed on: June 30, 2013

Viewing Partner: Sasha Holiday*

*Not her real name. All my viewing buddies are getting Bond-girl aliases.

You Only Live Twice is the last of the five movie Sean Connery streak before we’re introduced to George Lazenby (side note: I’ve never seen On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and am really looking forward to it,  given the place it holds in Bond fandom). Something that occurred to me while marinating on our transition to the next Bond (and of course, back again to Connery in Diamonds are Forever) – is James Bond supposed to be a static character throughout the movies? I can’t believe I never considered this before. Or is ‘James Bond’ simply the agent name for whoever is holding the 007 designation at any given time? Seems like the folks at the fan site MI6 call horse-hockey on a lot of the continuity theories.

Plot in twenty words or less: SPECTRE is inflaming the Cold War by capturing space ships. The Americans and Soviets freak out. The UK stays smug.

How it’s aged: Not very well. One always has to grant a certain amount of cheesiness to space scenes made during this period, but the SPECTRE spaceship-eating rocket was pretty silly. James Bond’s “Asian makeover” (which covered all the bases between wtf, WTF, and W. T. F.) was totally unnecessary, especially since the only appearance-related outcome of it was he ended up looking like the love-child between the Three Stooges’ Moe and Ringo from the Beatles. All the super-weird racism in this movie made me think I need to start dropping some Edward Said into these reviews. And when we finally get a glimpse of Blofeld, it’s hard for those of us who saw Austin Powers before the earlier Bond movies to think of anything else besides Dr. Evil.

Something that was just weird and/or WTF y’all: Besides the things noted above, did anyone catch Blofeld’s poor cat freaking out when all hell was breaking loose on the volcano base? Ugh, I hated that part.

Obligatory feminist commentary: Well, this is pretty obvious… the scene where James Bond is bathed by the gaggle of women, catering to pretty much every awful stereotype about Asian women’s alleged sexual  submissiveness, was probably the low-point of this movie. Also, I couldn’t quite get a handle on the scene where Bond is told he’ll be marrying a woman who resembles a pig – is this to throw him off when it turns out she looks just fine?

Also, WTF was happening with Helga Brandt’s terrifying torture scene? If the roles were reversed (a man trying to make out with a restrained woman) we’d rightfully look at this as something seriously non-consensual. But I guess in the world of James Bond, we’re supposed to just view this as something that’s all in a day’s work for 007, culminating with each character playing deliberately into the trap that’s been set up and Bond remarking “The things I do for England” as he takes off Brandt’s dress. Hmmmm.

Here are the good things I can manage to recall: Bond doesn’t make any obnoxious comments about Aki’s awesome driving skills, plus she gets to wear some pretty cool-but-normal clothes in the chase scene (I seem to recall a nice beige sweater and skinny pants). Both Sasha Holiday and I were like FINALLY A BOND GIRL GETS TO WEAR NORMAL, FLATTERING REAL PEOPLE CLOTHES THAT I MIGHT ACTUALLY WEAR.

Completely hypothetical cultural reference points: Boyfriend and I both liked that this was the first time someone yelled at Bond for smoking. This movie was released in 1967, and by this time, the landmark US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking (published in 1964) had percolated through mainstream culture. According to the National Library of Medicine, by 1968, a majority of Americans believed in the link between smoking and cancer.

Superficial Thing that did not Amuse Me: I really wish someone had explained, how, exactly, James Bond did not die after the scene in which he was completely shot up. Did they preemptively insert a metal plate under his skin? Did all the bullets simply get embedded in the mattress? I know the answer is just “Dude, he’s James Bond, he doesn’t die” but this is so unsatisfying to me. Is this some “a magician never reveals his tricks” nonsense? I NEED TO KNOW.

Superficial Thing that highly Amused Me: I love Q’s dorky pleated man shorts so much. I tried and failed to find a picture. That just means y’all have to watch the film yourself!

Interesting and possibly dubious thing I learned from Wikipedia: I can’t do justice to this in my own words, so I’ll just quote it: “As the screenwriter of the previous Bond films Richard Maibaum was unavailable, Roald Dahl, [yes, that Roald Dahl] close friend of Ian Fleming, was chosen to write the adaptation despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompleted The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.”  (Source!!) (Also, seriously, click the link for the “The Bells of Hell” – Gregory Peck + Ian McKellen ?!?!?!)

Martini rating: Four martinis

Administrative information concerning this viewing:

Drinks consumed: Beer. I forgot to note down what it was.

Food eaten: We ate before the movie.

Viewed on: May 12, 2013

Viewing Partner: Sasha Holiday, Mystery Man, Boyfriend and Cat.

*Not their real names. All my viewing buddies are getting Bond-girl aliases.

Moving right along into Thunderball, also known as “the movie where you can’t decide whether the underwater fight scenes are kinda awesome or excruciatingly awful.” I’m leaning towards the former, even with all the dramatic!!! scoring. We’re back in the tropics again, SPECTRE is up to their no-good evil-doing, and there are lots of babes. I think by now we’ve got the Bond formula down, so away we go!

Plot in twenty words or less: SPECTRE nabbed a couple of bombs, and is blackmailing the Brits and Americans for a gajillion bucks. Plus, SHARK TANK!!!

How it’s aged: I’d say about 1/3 is pretty fresh (mostly in the costuming department: Bond’s very hipster-y shorty shorts, Felix Leiter’s intriguing mod-rockabilly-Super American look, and Domino’s totally hotttt bathing suits), 1/3 is kinda-sorta still relevant (SPECTRE in this movie is sort of taking on North Korea levels of cray-cray by demanding a message to be communicated via EFFING BIG BEN), and 1/3 is just…. oh, no, do we have to go there? levels of embarrassing misogynist grossness (see: Bond telling the massage therapist he won’t rat her out for the incident on the spinal machine if she has sex with him: “my silence has a price”. Ugh)

Something that was just weird and/or WTF y’all: OK, so let me get this straight – one of the Big Scary SPECTRE-seized bombs that was supposedly going to obliterate Miami Beach was on the Disco Volante (I think this will be the name of my first album when I convene my future rock band, Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus) when it ran aground on the rocks, and all that happened was…..the boat exploding in flames? So much for total nuclear annihilation.

Obligatory feminist commentary: In this Bond movie, we get the first for-real Bond girl villian with Fiona Volpe, who doesn’t ever flip over to being on Bond’s side even after getting it on with him. Volpe ends up taking a bullet meant for Bond, while they were dancing in the Kiss Kiss Club. I’m trying to get more into some of the academic writing on James Bond films, and just read an interesting article on the the role of Bond girl villains (which apparently have not been a very consistent presence throughout the franchise). Garland makes the argument that Bond girl villains present a very different approach to sexuality from James Bond: where 007 keeps his sexy times and professional missions clearly delineated, Bond girl villains often don’t and are killed off as part of the storyline (Garland, T. W. (2009). “The Coldest Weapon of All”: The Bond Girl Villain in James Bond Films. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 37(4), 179–188.) Quoting from this article:

Having used sex to place Bond an immediately perilous situation, Volpe cannot help but taunt him because she wishes not merely to defeat him as her enemy, but also to express her desire to sexually possess him and humiliate him. Her open deception makes Volpe a formidable opponent, but ultimately leads to her death because, as the totality of her character, her duplicity produces an inherent contradiction between her mission and her desire (p. 182).

…Of course, this perpetuates all sorts of notions that Bond, as the manliest of men, can separate sex from work in a way that women are seemingly incapable of in most Bond movies. Which is why I think the most radical thing that could be done with Bond is to recast 007 as a woman in future films.

Completely hypothetical cultural reference points: Anyone else catch the part where Bond says “Strange as it may seem, I’ve grown accustomed to your face?” I’m going to go out on an (incredibly) obvious limb here and say this might have been a nod to My Fair Lady. Thunderball was released just over a year after My Fair Lady.

Superficial Thing that did not Amuse Me: What in the hell was happening with Bond’s hat after his meeting with the other 00 agents? He remarked, “I thought I had a hat” when leaving Moneypenny’s office and then shrugged it off, and I was like “ME TOO, JAMES, YOU PUT IT ON THE COAT STAND!” and then it never came back up. WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?! This was a total Chekhov’s gun moment that was still driving me nuts the day after I saw it. If there was something subtle I missed, someone clue me in, please.

Superficial Thing that highly Amused Me: I know this is just my juvenile 5th-grade sense of humor speaking, but the scene with Bond on the spinal traction machine was so unintentionally suggestive I couldn’t stop laughing. Sorry, James.

Interesting and possibly dubious thing I learned from Wikipedia: So the whole SHARK TANK!!! aspect was no joke. Sean Connery was totally freaked out about filming the scene with the sharks and insisted on the use of a glass partition, and one got through and almost attacked him! Eeeek! And it gets weirder! Apparently someone brought what was allegedly a shark carcass on set (hey, we all know how this goes, right?) and IT ACTUALLY TURNED OUT TO BE ALIVE. OMG WTF!!!!!!!

Runner-up for on-set malarkey is that apparently when the yacht exploded, it shattered windows in Nassau, 30 miles away from filming.

Martini rating: Four martinis

Administrative information concerning this viewing:
Drinks consumed: Rogue Dead Guy Ale
Food eaten: Sweet potato and black bean burritos
Viewed on: April 28, 2013
Viewing Partners: Sasha Holiday*, Boyfriend and Cat

*Not her real name. All my viewing buddies are getting Bond-girl aliases.

Introductory note: I watched Goldfinger on Sunday night the 14th and filed my notes away to complete the review the following evening. In the interim, the awful explosions at the Boston Marathon happened. My boyfriend and I both have personal connections to the city. We’re incredibly saddened by this tragic, awful story. Our hearts go out to all those affected, and our gratitude to the brave first responders and medical personnel. Between the events in Boston and the Waco explosion, it seemed tasteless to run this post on its regular schedule given the plot-line – so I hope you’ll forgive the delay. -Eira

Goooooooldfingeeeeeer, the man with the Midas touch…..

Y’all, I was so excited to revisit Goldfinger. This is the earliest Bond movie I had seen prior to starting Church of Bond, and I remember loving it the first time around. On re-watch, it did not disappoint, at all.

And you heard it here first: whenever I form a rock band, the name is totally going to be Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus.

Plot in twenty words or less: Fort Knox is going to be blown up to disrupt the world economy and so Goldfinger can get RICH.

How it’s aged: What struck me about this movie was how, while the plot could obviously never happen in 2013 (not the least of which is the idea that it’d take 2 hours for everyone to uncover your takeover of Fort Knox….), it still feels less dated than the first two Bond movies. And despite many of the cringe-worthy moments (and there are plenty) it’s a movie that still feels incredibly fresh and glamorous. The flirting grows more sexy and less campy, Bond begins to completely toy with his enemies the way a cat plays with a bird before taking it out, and his humor is just so, so good. For example, the “shocking” scene at the beginning really captures that blend of suave wit that 007 is known for. Bond also seems to hit his stride, even displaying a bit more sassiness than I could recall from the first two. I wonder how much of this was Sean Connery just getting really comfortable with the role.

I’m one of those people who will go see almost any movie (well, except horror movies because I am a big wussy), and my sole criteria for my review is “Was I entertained?” If a movie doesn’t entertain me, I’m not interested. Life is too short. As I was watching the epic chase scene that involves all of the following elements:

•    Passenger ejector seat!
•    Old lady with a machine gun!!
•    BOXES FALLING OVER!!!!

….All I could think was:

•    I am so fking entertained right now!!!!

And that’s when I think I really fell in love with the Bond franchise back when I saw Goldfinger the first time. Because if nothing else, I am always entertained by Bond movies.

Oh, and the other reason Goldfinger rocks? Bond finally gets a decent car. WITH A BIG RED BUTTON.

Something that was just weird and/or WTF y’all: At least there was no yellow face this time, but why were all the Asian worker extras in stereotypical outfits?

Obligatory feminist commentary: With the introduction of Pussy Galore, I think we’re seeing an interesting duality emerge in Bond movies. There are the “window dressing” women who only appear in the movie as existing solely for Bond’s amusement and are fairly expendable (they’re lucky if they get more than a scene) – and then there are the “women with names.” Meaning that they’re significant enough, storyline-wise, that they get the dignity of a full-name (see: Masterson, Jill and Tillie, and Galore, Pussy). Usually this includes the Bond Girl and maybe some other women important to the story who Bond at least flirts with, if not sleeps with.

While doing some background reading on Rosa Klebb for the From Russia with Love review, I ran across several mentions of Pussy Galore being a lesbian. I didn’t totally recall this from the first time I watched Goldfinger, so I kept an eye out during this viewing. There are certainly suggestions that she is a lesbian, but to a modern viewer, these are only “suggestions” insofar as one would suggest that any woman not falling immediately to Bond’s charms is totally super-duper gay.

The interwebz tell me that the Ian Fleming novel definitively casts Pussy Galore as a lesbian (and Tilly, too!), and not necessarily for the most progressive storyline. And Bond’s “overpowering” (ew) of Pussy Galore’s tough shell and/or sexuality brings us to another running theme of many Bond movies: sex scenes characterized by not-entirely-enthusiastically-consensual interactions. I think saying “Well the movies were a product of their times and other movies do it too!” is an insidious cop-out, because, uh, this stuff is still happening as recently as Skyfall. Let’s hope it tapers off at some point in the franchise (I say ‘tapers’ since I’m not confident we’re going to have a feminist Bond anytime soon).

Completely hypothetical cultural reference points: The shadow of Goldfinger in the room right before Bond gets knocked out and Jill Masterson gets gold-fied reminded me of Hitchcock’s famous silhouette. Also, following the scene with the laser in Goldfinger’s lair, I kept thinking “Huh, isn’t this like an updated version of an Edgar Allan Poe story?” Upon going through the interwebz, I might have been thinking of The Pit and the Pendulum.

Superficial Thing that did not Amuse Me: Pretty sure I saw palm trees in the background when Oddjob was driving Mr. Solo to the airport in Kentucky. Friends, I grew up across the river from the great state of Kentucky (in Cincinnati) and I’m here to tell you I did not see palm trees on the regular until I moved to New Orleans.

Superficial Thing that highly Amused Me: Anyone else notice James Bond’s bathrobe-jumpsuit (er, “playsuit”) thang? I’m still confused by rompers and jumpsuits in general (how do you pee?!) but if anyone can make it look good, it’s Sean Connery.

Interesting and possibly dubious super-awesome thing I learned from Wikipedia: “[Honor] Blackman was the first of two “Bond girls” older than the actor playing James Bond, and she was the oldest actress ever to play a Bond girl.” Also, Honor Blackman is definitely THE coolest name of all time.

Martini rating: Seven martinis

Administrative information concerning this viewing:
Drinks consumed: Ginger ale and bourbon

Food eaten: Black bean tacos and buttermilk pie bars

Viewed on: April 14, 2013

Viewing Partner: Dudes of the house aka Boyfriend and Cat

In the second James Bond film, we encounter the other big Cold War bogeyman: the Russians™. Along the way, we stop by Venice, Istanbul, and some underground canals that would be cool except for the footage of swarms of rats running through the crevices.

In 007’s second film, the sex gets dialed up a few notches, we see the official debut of Q with some handy gadgets (we’ve all had that moment where we needed a magnetized canister of tear gas attached to our briefcase, right?), and the James Bond theme song becomes a complete ear-worm with multiple uses throughout the film. The opening credits in the second movie look and function a bit more like what we’re used to – a short opening (usually tense) scene, the credits, and then Bond being dialed up for his mission. And the credits incorporate cool music with lots of sexy lady parts in silhouette.

Plot in twenty words or less: The evil SPECTRE organization is playing the Russians and the Brits off each other over a stupid cipher machine.

How it’s aged: I’m on the fence with this one. It’s much less campy than Dr. No. However, it’s very hard for me to get past 007 slapping Tatiana like it’s no thing. On the other hand, I felt like all the women had (slightly) more agency than we saw in Dr. No. Everyone smokes like chimneys, but I feel like pointing that out about any pre-1970s movie is just a big Duh. Everything in the Gypsy scene is godawful, but I don’t have a lot of faith that the current movie industry would deal with this much better today. Apparently this is quite a highly-ranked Bond film, which surprised me, since I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to. Gentle readers, what do you think about how this one stands the test of time?

Something that was just weird and/or WTF y’all: What in the hell was happening with the camera perspective whenever Evil SPECTRE #1 was in the scene? The first time it kept shifting around, I thought I was having balance issues (yes, while sitting on my butt on the couch…), but then it kept happening and I just thought “You guys, cut it out, we know you’re evil because of the white cat, you don’t need to keep moving the camera around too.”

Obligatory feminist commentary: Oh boy, we have a lot of material to work with here. So much so that it spilled over into the next section. As I mentioned earlier, I think the women in this movie had slightly more agency than in the first Bond movie. And by “slightly” more agency, I mean vocalizing their desires for Bond, as opposed to the desire being uni-directional from Bond. Sylvia Trench got on the phone with 007’s office to say no, he’d be busy with her a bit longer. Moneypenny seemed a bit more sassy in this movie (I agree with Blog, James Blog’s take on one of the scenes with Moneypenny). Bond girl Tatiana Romanova was not quite as annoyingly helpless as Honey Ryder from Dr. No, but still not fulfilling any kind of full-length bad-ass potential (in all fairness, she did save Bond’s life at the end from SPECTRE #3 aka Rosa Klebb). Tatiana was also not reserved in telling Bond how much she wanted to bring sexy back with him.

I’m having difficulty sorting out my feelings on the scene between Rosa Klebb and Tatiana. Rosa Klebb is a pretty hardcore female villian – she socks a dude in the gut with brass knuckles, after all. Also, poison-dagger shoes, WHAAAAT. And a large part of me feels that feminism can check a big to-do off its list when we have evil lady villains as low, down, mean, and dirty as the guys. But given that female villainy and gender performance does not exactly exist within a vacuum, the portrayal of Klebb recruiting Tatiana was laden with something that felt borderline homophobic. Portraying an unattractive, tough as nails woman (they might as well have added the subtitle clearly a lesbian!!! in case you weren’t getting the hint) touching Tatiana and speaking to her in a suggestive manner made me wonder if back then, this portrayal had more to do with the Russians™, or the fact that a female villain really had to fit a certain mold.

I’m super curious about this dynamic. Some cursory searching of the Bond-fandom and academic intertubes suggests that Bond films have a complicated (should I say ‘evolving’?) relationship with gay characters, particularly in their frequent role as villains. Sam Mendes (director of Skyfall with Javier Bardem as the most recent gay villain) stated that “I think there’s a huge homoerotic undertow in a lot of Bond movies.” I’ll try to pay attention to this in future viewings. (Side note: Has anyone read Catching Bullets? After reading this interview it’s going on my to-read list)

Completely hypothetical cultural reference points: Two things about this movie brought to mind the Godfather (which came out in 1972, about 10 years after From Russia with Love). First, the white cat being petted by a big dude in a bigger chair (to be fair, the Don’s cat was a gray stripey one). Second, the main character using physical violence against a woman in the second movie, and therefore pretty much putting a real damper on that whole suave gentleman thing. In the second Bond movie, 007 gets pissed when Bond girl Tatiana Romanova won’t give him information on who she is working for after Kerim Bey is killed. In the second Godfather, Michael Corleone hits his wife Kay after she discloses her abortion to him. I really loved Michael Corleone’s character in the first Godfather and seeing him lash out at Kay didn’t make me think “Oh well, he’s just a human being with flaws”, it made me think “Wow, you really suck and I don’t like your character as much anymore.” I had a similar reaction with Bond slapping Tatiana. It was totally unnecessary, and left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all too familiar with the fact that violence against women in movies back then (and today, for that matter) is very common, but it’s something that, despite its preponderance, always makes me distinctly uncomfortable to watch. 

Superficial Thing that did not Amuse Me: Why do people always pull grenade pins out with their teeth? Is this actually a thing people have ever been taught to do? Apparently I am not the only one who is wondering about this.

Superficial Thing that highly Amused Me: I love the way Bond inspects a room, and am only half-joking when I say I could see myself doing the same thing on a future trip.

Interesting and possibly dubious thing I learned from Wikipedia: Apparently there was a lot of DRAMA while filming: a helicopter crash, a car crash, and a sunken boat. Also, the Brits didn’t allow live filming of rats (what a bunch of boring nanny-state party poopers), which explains the awful separate footage of rats.

Martini rating: Three martinis

Administrative information concerning this viewing:

Drinks consumed: In my quest to start quasi-matching my viewing food and beverage consumption to the themes/locations of the movies, I set out to find a Russian beer (caviar is not my thang, and vodka turns me into an evil wildebeest). Thank you, Dorignac’s (the best is better!), for delivering on this one. This Russian wheat beer from Baltika was totally acceptable (and tasted faintly of bananas).

Food eaten: Homemade pierogies with mashed ‘taters, caramelized onions and cottage cheese filling. Girl Scout shortbread cookies.

Viewed on: March 31, 2013

Viewing Partner: The dudes of the house kinda-sorta watched it with me. Dudes here meaning my boyfriend and my cat.