So if there’s anyone out there who–for whatever reason–kept up with this blog, I just wanted to drop a line to say it’s pretty much kaput. I was finally tempted enough to move over to tumblr. and I’ve found their quicker posting/sharing options a lot more appealing. The Bond Rewatch is done–all though I never finished the columns, I did successfully rewatch all the flicks, so that’s something. I think the only thing I’ll be taking with me over to the new tumblr. is the blu-ray write-up and even that will be a bit different.

So that’s it. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my thoughts and rants. You can find me at andrewfromfatsuit.tumblr.com from now on.

Be Well,

Andrew from Fat Suit

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service — Peter R. Hunt, director; with George Lazenby as James Bond

Okay, I realize that it’s been months since the last Bond write-up and, again, I only have myself to blame. The problem with attempting to rewatch all twenty-two Bond flicks in one year is that it just gets tiring. No offense to the series, but stuff just starts to get repetitive. Bond gets in trouble briefly but quickly gets out of it; credits roll; the bad guys commit some heinous crime; Bond gets his mission; Bond travels to an exotic location; Bond sleeps with a random girl who may or may not be evil…and so on and so forth. So it’s understandable that after a fashion, a guy just wants to put something else in the ye olde blu-ray player. So for the past two months I’ve been occupying myself with things like the works of R.W. Fassbinder, movies with villains named Khan and even subjected myself to, shudder to think, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Kill me.  So now I’m back in the swing of things and re-starting this column anew and with a brand new Bond to boot! I give you the one-hit-wonder, GEORGE LAZENBY!

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a strange, strange Bond film. Up until the 2006 release of Casino Royale I’d say that this is the most realistically violent, harsh and cold of the Bond films. The film finds the new Bond hot on the trail of his arch nemesis, Blofeld. Well, he isn’t his arch nemesis just yet, but after the events in this film, he most certainly becomes Bond’s number one target.  It comes in the middle of what some fans call the “Blofeld Trilogy” which starts with 1967′s You Only Live Twice and ending with 1971′s Diamonds Are Forever.

Blofeld–played here by Telly Savalas–is up to more hijinks, but in this particular outing it’s kind of funny what his demands are. In short, Blofeld is engineering an army of brain-washed women that will in some way or another create chaos amongst the world’s agriculture systems unless the authorities agree to first, forgive Blofeld for any and all crimes and misdeeds he’s committed throughout the world and second, the Swiss authorities officially declare him the current Count de Bleauchamp. That’s right, part of the reason Blofeld is going through all this trouble in his remote Swiss compound high above the Alps is because he wants some royal title added to his name. A big section of the beginning of this movie has Bond posing as some sort of genealogy expert who has been hired to confirm whether or not Blofeld is actually related to this blood line. Spine-tingling, I know.

The movie does have a lot of great action set pieces though. The two that stand out the most are when Blofeld tries to kill Bond with a man made avalanche–think about that for a second, MAN MADE AVALANCHE–and also the final chase sequence where Bond and Blofeld are trying to kill each other while racing down a bobsled run. This second set piece also appears to show us the end of Blofeld as he slams into a branch and seemingly breaks his neck.

Which brings me to the incredibly off-beat and dark conclusion to the film. In the end, with Blofeld eliminated, Bond decides to leave MI6 for good and pursue a quieter life with his new bride, Tracy, a countess who was the daughter to the man who helped Bond raid Blofeld’s mountain hideaway in explosive fashion just days earlier. Bond and Tracy tie the knot and start off on a drive to I suppose their honeymoon destination. What occurs next is the most shocking end to any of the Bond films, Blofeld and his head assassin, Irma Bunt, pull up out of nowhere (Blofeld wearing a ridiculous neck brace) and spray Bond’s car with bullets. Bond luckily dives out of the way and comes up without a scratch on him, however Tracy has been shot square through the head. Sadly, as the police arrive on the scene and call for an ambulance, Bond tells them not to bother stating, “We have all the time in the world.”

With it’s incredibly dark twist ending, it’s pretty incredible set pieces and the new Bond being a real breath of fresh air to the franchise, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one in the series that is a must-see. A quick note on George Lazenby, the guy was a male model from Australia who lucked into the role of a lifetime when Connery decided to step down. When you watch the behind-the-scenes documentary on the DVD different people give different reasons as to why Lazenby was only given one shot, but no matter which way you look at it, the truth is Connery wanted back in and Lazenby was canned. Which is unfortunate if you think about it because Lazenby is a pretty damn good Bond. But his firing also gives this film a sense of novelty in a way. Sort of a “check out the Bond movie where Bond is played by an imposter!” or something like that. Just as soon as he had this role, he was out and I often wonder what future Bond films would’ve been like if he was allowed to stick around. Would Roger Moore still have been considered after Lazenby was done? It’s obviously not worth discussing because what happened, happened. The most you can say is that at least we still have this one film where things, if just for a moment, feel a little more real, a little more daring and where just this once, the stakes are raised so high that actual consequences materialize for our hero.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is available on DVD from MGM/UA

The Great Bond Rewatch will return with ‘Diamonds Are Forever’

Some people still don’t understand what the big deal is about Blu-ray. Well at this point I can’t help them. But what I can do is write about discs I’ve checked out and recommend whether or not it’s worth your extra cash to pick up the Blu-ray disc or stick with the standard DVD version and put that extra scratch toward some beer or medical bills or whatever you see fit.

This…is ‘Get It On Blu-Ray?’

Like so many of my impulse purchases, a few weeks back my wallet fell victim to another careless addition to my home video library. Yes, I picked up the Arnold Schwarzenegger jungle classic, Predator. There it was, just sitting on the shelf basically begging me to pick it up and toss it in the cart. My own selfless Christmas shopping be damned, I took this sweet temptress home with me that very afternoon.I honestly should’ve been asking myself if I really needed Predator in my library at all, let alone on Blu-ray. But you never know, one day I could wake up and decide I really need to watch a movie that has lots of explosions and where a former Minnesota governor calls a group of men “slack-jawed faggots” for turning down his offer to try chewing tobacco. In which case if I didn’t own Predator I’d probably be shit out of luck.

MOVIE ITSELF: 4.5/5

For those of you who aren’t familiar, quick plot summary: Arnold leads a team of mercenaries–consisting of, but not limited to, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, the dude who wrote Lethal Weapon (Shane Black) & Carl “You got yo ‘self a stew, Baby!” Weathers–into the South American jungle on a mission to find some missing politician or something. But thanks to some filthy deception by Mr. Weathers, the team is lead into a deadly trap as they are hunted down one by one by a mysterious invisible creature. This is, of course, the Predator. Predator is an alien who crash landed on earth a while back and has been totally fucking things up in this jungle ever since. So of course it’s up to Arnold to save the day and kick some serious alien ass.

HOW IT LOOKS: 2.5/5

The Predator transfer, unfortunately, is no great shakes. It’s essentially the same MPEG standard DVD video transfer. When put on Blu-ray and enhanced up to 1080p, it comes out look incredibly grainy most of the time. There are a few shots of choppers and ‘splosions that look a little better, but for the last quarter of the film especially–it takes place at night–the grain really comes out in the blacks and other dark colors. Physically the transfer appears at least cleaned up a bit, but this isn’t The Godfather; no one is spending thousands of hours restoring every frame. It’s not bad, but nothing to drool over.

HOW IT SOUNDS: 4/5

The audio is cleaned up pretty well. This movie should be watched with the volume cranked on the home surround or whatever you have. The explosions are a bit louder and all the gun fire and what not really comes through. There really is no better way to here such great lines as, “This shit’ll make you a sexual tyran-o-saur” or “You son. of. a. bitch”. Fans of this film know exactly what I’m talking about. “Get to the CHOPPA!”

WHAT IT COMES WITH: 1/5

Absolutely nothing. A shitty high-definition trailer. Thanks for nothing, Fox!

GET IT ON BLU-RAY?

Absolutely not. The only reason I picked this up was because it was for ten bucks at Target. I’ll put it this way, if you can find it cheap and you don’t already own it, pick it up. But don’t go out there thinking you need to replace your cherished Predator DVD just because Blu-ray is amazing. Believe me, there are better titles you can add to your library.

You Only Live Twice — Lewis Gilbert, director; with Sean Connery as James Bond

It’s always awkward when I start writing these because so far all of the Bond write-ups start with, “So-and-so returns to direct another action-packed James Bond epic…” or something as equally lackluster.  I’m only at the fifth film now and already I’m running out of gas. Not a good sign. Another bad sign is that it’s been about a month since the last Bond write-up. Boo-urns. But nevertheless I’ll push on through and see if I can make it out the other side alive.

You Only Live Twice is the fifth entry in the Bond canon and we still find Sean Connery in the driver’s seat as Bond. I think it’s here that Connery’s age starts to show just a bit. Nothing incredibly noticeable, but the James Bond we came to love in Dr. No is long gone as Bond shambles on screen in this one.

The film starts out with two major events. The first being the apparent murder of James Bond. The lengths that the British Secret Service go to make Bond’s death believable is pretty awesome. They go so far as to give him an official naval funeral and Bond is tossed–casket and all–off the side of a ship. This is the first of two awesome funerals Connery has had in his career–the other being his viking funeral given to him at the end of First Knight. That’s right. Anyway, I sincerely hope no one watching the film in 1967 actually fell for the whole death gag. To actually think Bond would be killed in the first ten minutes of a Bond movie is just plain stupid.  The casket is intercepted by divers and carried up to a submarine. Once inside, it’s opened up and Bond pops out in his uniform looking dapper as ever.

The second event is the almost simultaneous interception of U.S. and Soviet space crafts. Each craft is literally swallowed up by a mysterious, larger craft that makes an escape before anyone knows what’s happened. Of course the U.S. thinks the Soviets took theirs and vice versa. These accusations escalate and the world is suddenly on the brink of nuclear war (more so than they already were.)

The team behind the thefts is none other than our good friends in SPECTRE and this time it is their leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who is behind the big scheme. Blofeld this time around is played by the hilariously hammy Donald Pleasence (a hero of mine from his work in such classics as Halloween and Escape from New York). This incarnation of Blofeld (the first time we see the actor’s face) is the Nehru-suit wearing version that Mike Meyers based his Dr. Evil character off of. Pleasence dons the corny jumpsuit, the facial scar and the big white cat; all of these are borrowed for Doc Evil in the Austin Powers films.

Bond heads to Japan where he meets up with the Japanese super-agent, Tiger Tanaka. What makes Tiger so super? Well only that he spends his free time training a gigantic army of fucking NINJAS! That’s right, ninjas. And Bond even trains with them for a while, learning the ways of the Japanese. Which brings me to the casual sixties racism that just gushes out of this movie. Not only are all the Japanese men in the movie super ninjas, but the women are all mousy, subservient, Geisha-esque individuals. But perhaps the biggest (and I’ll admit, kind of entertaining) example of sixties racism is when, in order to completely fit in, Bond is forced to ‘become Japanese’.

It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Bond is given very crude facial alterations in order to pass as a Japanese fisherman. They mainly do this so he’ll go undetected by Blofeld’s men, but also because they insist to make everything legit Bond will have to marry Tiger’s assistant, Kissy and the last thing the Japanese want is a filthy Englishman marrying one of their own. Take that interracial relationships!  So Connery is outfitted with a hilarious, black wig and fake eyebrows. They also make his forehead bigger or something like that. Either way, let’s just say that Dom Deluise looked more Japanese than Connery does in the scenes to come. It’s really offensive, but also just campy silliness.

Bond’s undercover work leads him to a volcano where Blofeld has secretly built his hidden fortress and covered it with a false volcano bottom. This way the base is hidden and the Japanese continue to think it’s an inactive volcano.

When the shit really starts to hit the fan is when Bond’s cover inside the base (posing as an astronaut about to launch) is blown and he’s forced to call in Tiger Tanaka’s reinforcements.   What follows is a full-on all-out battle: henchmen vs. ninjas. And it kicks ass. There are hundreds of extras running around on this gigantic set, people propelling from the ceiling, guns going off, explosions and even some good ole fashioned murder.

When the dust settles, Blofeld escapes through a secret passage and Bond is able to prove to both sides of the Cold War that neither enemy stole the other’s spaceship.  Thanks to James Bond, the world is safe once again. But not before Blofeld sets up the volcano lair to self-destruct!!!

Bond and Kissy escape unharmed as does Tiger and the surviving ninja army (whose number has dwindled significantly in the battle). They are picked up by air-dropped lifeboats and all’s well that ends well.

All things considered, this is fairly decent Bond flick. Awkward casual racism aside, the action is actually pretty good. The final battle is really what stands out among everything else. But it’s nice to see Bond fairly out of his element by training with ninjas and even going to see a sumo match. If you can look past the whole making Bond look Japanese thing, it’s quite an enjoyable time and Donald Pleasence stands out as a truly crazy sonofabitch; even if he is really hamming it up.

You Only Live Twice is available on DVD from MGM.

The Great Bond Rewatch of 2009 will return with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Pathetically, it’s been almost a month since my last post, the Bond Rewatch of

As my friends and family well know, last Thanksgiving I began watching Joss Whedon’s acclaimed horror/sci-fi/action/teen/drama/camp-fest television classic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I blasted through the seven-season series at the rapid pace of about six months and I came out the other end an excitable Whedon-follower and seeker of more awesome.

The gigantic, Hell Mouth-sized hole that was left in my heart by the end of Buffy was quickly filled by Whedon’s latest television effort, Dollhouse. At some point I’m going to have to write something about Dollhouse because it is a prime example of a network allowing a television show to find it’s legs and really turn into something wonderful (for now). But D-house love aside, I was still left wanting more of my favorite parts of Buffy.

My three favorite characters on Buffy were (in exact order, Christ I suck) Spike, Angel and Giles. Considering how Spike met his end in Buffy‘s most exceptional finale–an event that was so traumatizing to my nerd mind it found me pathetically lamenting into a pitcher of Czech beer–and that Whedon has pretty much confirmed there will be no Giles “Ripper” prequel show, my only choice was to turn to Angel as my last hope.

Before even starting the Buffy project I was told by all my friends who were devote Whedon fans that Angel “just wasn’t as good” or that I’d “never get past the first season.” Even my own sister who is a huge Buffy fan and even owns all of Angel on DVD told me that it was only “all right.”  So understandably by the time I got around to popping in the first disc of Angel‘s much-hated first season, I was a little on edge. Could it be possible that a character I had loved so dearly on Buffy had gone on to have his own show that sucked? I was (and still am) determined to find out.

You're not gonna suck, right Buddy?

I don’t think it’s logical for me to even attempt to cover every single episode of the show. With five seasons at roughly twenty-two episodes per, that’s approximately 110 blog entries you won’t see me writing. But I figured the least I could do is offer thoughts. Maybe a few on each season or something. I think that’s do-able.

Right now I’m just a little past the half-way point of season one and I have to admit, it’s not Buffy by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s pretty good so far. At first I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the whole ‘Angel-as-detective-do-gooder’ thing that the show sets up, but it’s not an entirely unworkable premise. It’s a rocky start to a show that stars a character that was so much more mysterious and dangerous the last time he was on t.v. But nonetheless, I will continue to watch.

If you have ever heard me talk about the first three seasons of Buffy you’ll know that one of my most hated characters is that of Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), the snobby, head cheerleader of Sunnydale High. I always felt that her inclusion into Buffy’s gang of misfits was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. She never fit in and the more they tried to include her into stories–her relationship with Xander Harris being the worst, most trying part in all of Buffy (well, maybe except that Jonathan-centric episode)–the worse and more annoying it got. So you can see why I was more than frustrated to see Cordelia would be staying on Angel for the majority of the show’s run (thanks for nothing, IMDB!).

::sigh::

But so far Cordelia is actually tolerable. The show really does a lot to sympathize that character and make her more of a human being. The show runners on Buffy tried this toward the end of season three when it was revealed Cordelia’s father lost all their money due to tax fraud and she was just your average middle-class nobody. I didn’t buy it then. But what I will accept is Cordelia moving to L.A. to make it big as an actress and to her surprise and embarrassment, things aren’t going out so well for the Sunnydale Princess. Seeing Cordelia falling on hard times, living in a crappy apartment and not getting any call-backs from auditions was almost pleasurable to me. But in the end, I was able to sympathize with her and I’ve begun to accept her more as a likable character now.

My favorite part of season one has to be the short-lived character of Doyle, played the very talented and badly missed Glenn Quinn. Quinn brought a lot of lighthearted, sidekick humor to Angel and was at the same time also being built up to be a very interesting character. It’s too bad that his bad drug habit and partying ways got him kicked off the show (Quinn himself died of a drug overdose a couple years after being fired from Angel). But before his untimely death in episode 9, “Hero”, Doyle proved to be a great character and welcomed addition to the Whedon universe.

Gone too soon...

Not to let his two main characters flounder for very long without a third party to Angel Investigations, Whedon quickly reintroduced another character from Buffy that I also couldn’t stand at the time. That would of course be Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) the new Watcher that is assigned to Buffy in season three when the Watchers Council decides that Giles can no longer do his job. I was never crazy about the stuffy, by-the-book, super-Brit Watcher that Wesley was and I don’t think I’m alone. Then again, you’re not really supposed to like Wesley because the whole point of his existence is for Buffy to realize how lucky she was to have Giles in her life. Regardless, here on Angel Wesley’s annoying persona is toned down quite a bit. He’s still stuffy and super British, but he’s less inclined to play by the book and seems just a bit tougher. And that’s really all I needed at the end of the day. I don’t mind a wimp, but don’t make him an annoying wimp. Wesley will never be whatever it was Doyle could’ve amounted to, but he’s a welcomed addition nonetheless.

I left off on episode twelve, “Expecting”, which is another great episode that humanizes Cordelia just a little more. What I’ve noticed so far about this first season is that there is a very, very loose season arc and many more “Monster of the Week” type episodes. “MoW” episodes were either some of Buffy‘s worst episodes (“Teacher’s Pet”)  or best episodes (“Hush). But with Angel almost all the episodes feel like a MoW episode in one way or another. I’ll see what happens with the “Powers that Be” and all that stuff but any kind of Big Bad might have to wait until season two I’m guessing.

It’s not perfect, but I’m sticking with it for now.

We'll see where this goes

Thunderball  — Terence Young, director; with Sean Connery as James Bond

Master Bond director, Terence Young, returns for this incredibly explosive and hilariously gadget-filled Bond installment. After re-watching this gem from 1965, I remembered how absolutely ludicrous the film is and just how wonderfully it winds up working out in the end.

The story is another madcap international farce that finds Bond trying to recover two NATO nuclear weapons that were stolen by who else? SPECTRE. The top secret terrorist organization is this time holding the arms as ransom in exchange for a ton of diamonds. Once the diamonds are received, SPECTRE promises to not use the nuclear weapons to destroy a city either in England or the United States; the city that’s at risk turns out to be Miami.  Bond heads to the Bahamas (where the weapons are being kept) and is forced to match wits with SPECTRE’s number two agent, Emilio Largo.

Everything unfolds as expected; Bond saves the day by stopping Largo and his henchmen, the nuclear weapons are returned safely and Miami doesn’t get destroyed. Nothing much is that interesting in the actual plot of the film but what makes this Bond adventure so much fun is what happens around the actual story.

To begin with, this film is very gadget-heavy. The best example is something that happens during the pre-credit sequence. In the scene, Bond crashes the funeral of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, SPECTRE’s number six agent. Bouvar has faked his own death and is actually attending the ceremony dressed as a woman. Bond points him out right away and proceeds to beat the man to death in his mansion–while the guy is still dressed in drag. It’s a very hilarious sequence (especially when you watch it nowadays after all of Sean Connery’s ‘sometimes you just need to hit a woman’ comments) and as Simon Winder points out in his book, “The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond”, it was actually a sequence that British audiences went wild before because it featured the greatest English hero of all time beating up on a lowly Frenchman dressed in drag. Relations between England and France not being exactly peachy-keen, English audiences ate this up.

After the murder, Bond is of course chased by Bouvar’s henchmen. This leads to one of the most hilarious Bond escape strategies of all time. He runs out onto a patio and straps on what else? a jet pack! Safety being Bond’s first concern, they have Connery strap on this hilarious helmet and then blast off. Now, the actual stunt of a working jet pack is pretty goddamn cool. The final product is hilarious to watch, but the actual feat of the jet pack lifting a grown man off the ground, carrying him about thirty yards and landing him safely on the ground is pretty impressive.

It’s kind of funny because the villain in the film, Largo, is more or less an unthreatening individual. Sure he has his macho eye patch and he’s hatched the grand scheme to steal the nuclear weapons, but at the end of the day, he’s just SPECTRE’s number two. He’s working for someone else, taking someone else’s orders. A great, independent villain like Auric Goldfinger he is not.

Speaking of that grand scheme of Largo’s, it’s my favorite part of the movie. The plan is so outrageous and so ahead of its time, it’s really impressive. Largo hires one of his henchman to undergo extreme plastic surgery–like, Face/Off type shit–in order to steal the identity of the military pilot that will be steering the chopper carrying the two devices. After the fake pilot successfully boards the helicopter and takes off, he gases the entire crew killing them instantly. He then lands the aircraft in the ocean where he lets it sink to the bottom where a secret scuba teams makes off with the weapons on Largo’s boat.  It truly is a complicated plan and one that eats up the first quarter of the movie at least. But that’s okay because without it, we wouldn’t have one of the most hilarious attempts on Bond’s life ever.

While at a clinic trying to rejuvenate his beat-up frame (on M’s orders of course) Bond runs into the man who has undergone the insane plastic surgery. When Bond is caught snooping around the man’s room, the guy tries to have Bond killed in a spinal traction machine. I’m not kidding you.  A nurse puts Bond in the machine to loosen up his back. Connery is basically naked and tied to this table laying face down. Someone sneaks into the room and cranks up the machine to it’s maximum speed and leaves Bond to die. What follows is one of the most ridiculous things you’ll ever see in this franchise (aside from Roger Moore in a fucking space suit…Christ almighty): Connery basically humps the table to death all the while screaming and looking like he’s in agony. Finally a nurse comes in and ruins all our fun, but my God is it a site to behold. It doesn’t get any cornier than that.

A talk about Thunderball wouldn’t be complete without discussing the incredible underwater sequence. When Bond gets to the Bahamas he discovers that the weapons are being held in an underwater cave. As he goes there to explore the cave, his cover is blown and he’s attacked by an army of Largo’s henchmen who are all armed to the teeth with knives and harpoon guns. As Bond is quickly outnumbered, the day is saved yet again by the United States’ own Felix Leiter. Felix orders a bunch of Coast Guard sailors to parachute down into the water and help Bond out. What ensues is about ten minutes of non-stop underwater fighting and harpoon impaling. Bond and the sailors win out over Largo’s goons and the weapons are recovered.

The very end to this film contains an often overlooked, yet comical incident where Bond casually murders a more-or-less innocent man. While escaping Largo’s doomed yacht, Bond and the forgettable Domino (one of the most useless Bond Girls) are attempting to jump off the boat onto a life raft type device. There is a third man attempting to escape the yacht as well and while they’re preparing to jump, Bond just pushes the guy off the boat and he awkwardly falls in the water never to be seen again. Bond and Domino are saved by rescue workers after the boat explodes, but this poor fellow is nowhere to be found! Bond and Domino start to fool around in the life raft–because heaven forbid Bond wait the hour or so to get back to land safely– and the credits roll. Whoever the guy is, I think he’s some lowly crew member from the yacht which I guess doesn’t make him entirely innocent, he’s forever lost at sea and forever lost to the world of Bond.

Overall, Thunderball is one of the most fun Bond films. It wasn’t afraid to get a little silly at times, but it still contained lots of action which the films were expected to produce more and more of as the sequels went on. If you’re not a fan of the meat-and-potatoes-spy-flick feeling of the more base Bond films, then definitely check this one out; it won’t disappoint.

Thunderball is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Fox/MGM.

The Great Bond Rewatch of 2009 returns next week with You Only Live Twice.

Goldfinger — Guy Hamilton, director; with Sean Connery as James Bond

The third film in the Bond fanchise came as 1964′s Goldfinger and is the first film in the franchise to see a change in director. Terence Young was out and seasoned English director, Guy Hamilton was in. This was Hamilton’s first of four Bond pictures that he would direct. Not that Hamilton is a better director than Young, but he is certainly on par. Goldfinger is an incredibly fun Bond film and one with probably one of the most memorable villains, Auric Goldfinger.

This is the first Bond film in the franchise to feature a villain who is working 100% on his own terms. Goldfinger is incredibly wealthy, incredibly organized and incredibly insane. He doesn’t work for SMERSH or SPECTRE or any agency like that. He’s truly on his own and has his own plans for world domination. Well, maybe not world domination per se, but he’s certainly greedy enough to try and destroy Fort Knox with an atomic weapon thus increasing the value of his own supply of gold by leaps and bounds. It’s a great scheme too because he’s not trying to screw over the Soviets and he’s not out to mess with the United States and their space program; no, he’s simply going to render a gigantic supply of gold useless for decades by poisoning it with nuclear radiation. It’s incredibly crazy and it’s not linked to one specific country. Goldfinger has no allegenience to any one country which makes him that much more dangerous. Goldfinger’s plan wouldn’t be as sinister if it wasn’t for the great acting from Gert Fröbe. Sure his lines were all dubbed because his German accent was too thick to not require subtitles, but his facial expressions and body language are pitch perfect. And he’ll forever be tied to the greatest villain line of all time: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” Very straight forward especially for a Bond villain.

Bond first encounters Goldfinger in Miami where M has asked him to keep tabs on him at a beach resort. There Bond finds that Goldfinger is cheating a man in a game of gin rummy. Which is awesome considering that even though he’s about to hatch this plan that stands to make him billions of dollars richer, he’s still just hustling some poor schmuck by the pool. He’s doing this thanks to the aid of his assistant, Jill Masterson, who is spying on the opponent’s cards with binoculars from a balcony. Once Bond notices this he barges into Masterson’s hotel room to distract her and then eventually gets on the radio and blackmails Goldfinger into losing the game. After Goldfinger is ruined, Bond convinces Jill to go back to his place to celebrate and while getting some champagne from the kitchen, Bond is knocked out by one of the most famous Bond assassins, the deadly Oddjob. Oddjob, you’ll remember, is the only cinematic assassin to ever kill someone by throwing his hat at them. When Bond comes to he finds Jill dead in his bed, suffocated under her own skin by a thick layer of gold paint.

The film also features the Bond girl with the most memorable name this side of “Octopussy” which is of course the one and only Pussy Galore, played by Avengers star, Honor Blackman. She was just coming off The Avengers when this movie came up and at first wasn’t sure if she’d take it after being known as Catherine Gale for so long in England. But nevertheless she did the movie and is definitely one of the best Bond girls–mainly because she actually gives Bond a challenge. She fights off his advances for longer than most women Bond attempts to seduce. Pussy Galore is Goldfinger’s personal pilot and also runs her own all-female stunt pilot team, “Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus.” She’s not only a private pilot, but integral to Goldfinger’s scheme because she and her team of pilots are responsible for dropping nerve gas over Fort Knox in order to render everyone on the property unconscious–this is how Goldfinger and his team plan to infiltrate the highly guarded compound.

And infiltrate they do! Another great thing about this movie is that Goldfinger comes  so close to actually pulling off his evil plan! He successfully invades Fort Knox and activates the nuclear weapon. His flaw, like all cocky Bond villains, is that he leaves Bond alive and chained to the device. You idiot, Goldfiner! You could’ce been so rich and alive instead of, well, murdered! So of course Bond is going to break free. What’s great though is that we get to see Bond’s ignorance when it comes to technology. Sure he uses all of Q’s gadgets and they usually wind up saving his life, but when it comes to actually thinking technologically Bond is at a loss. While handcuffed to the bomb’s casing he doesn’t even pick the lock, instead he just smashes the cuffs with gold bars until they break. So obviously he’s baffled when standing over this nuclear weapon and attempting to figure out how to shut it down. Just as he’s about to rip out some wires and really do a number on the thing, a nuclear technician gently reaches over and turns a switch, instantly shutting down the device and stopping the countdown at “007″. So not only is Bond stumped by advanced technology, but by the film’s end the day is also technically saved by some unknown, unnamed, American, nuclear technician who does nothing more than flip a switch. Genius.

Pussy Galore sees the error of her ways and eventually decides to go with Bond instead of Goldfinger, but not before Goldfinger forces her to hijack a plane with Bond on it (bound for D.C. so Bond can be personally congratulated by Lyndon Johnson of course. You think Bond gets thanked by the President of the United States a lot? Probably.) In the last few moments, a gun is fired off in the cabin, breaking a window, and poor, portly Goldfinger is sucked out leaving Bond and Pussy to parachute to safety. And this isn’t the last time we’ll see Bond bed a girl while hiding under a parachute; it happens at least one more time in Goldeneye.

It contains one of the best villains, the best named character and has Connery doing some of his finest work as Bond. While not my favorite film in the franchise, Goldfinger has totally held up over the last forty-five years as one of the greatest Bond thrill rides. The action sequences are great–the best being a car chase featuring Bond and what seems like a hundred Chinese assassins–and they work so well with the sets here too. Especially in the case of Fort Knox, a place that few people know what the inside looks like. The final shootout in the underground vault is really incredible and Ken Adam’s production design really shines through as dozens of extras fire off weapons and do battle on the multi-level set up.

For anyone looking to start watching Bond films but aren’t sure where to start, I’d say that Goldfinger is probably the most accessible Connery film, if not one of the most accessible of the franchise. It has everything that all great Bond films have: great villain, great action, many seductive ladies that pique Bond’s interest and most importantly it’s not cheesy. I think the easiest way to get turned off by these movies is starting with the bad ones: Moonraker, Die Another Day, etc., but if you get the good ones out of the way first, the rest just follow along and are forgiveable. Goldfinger is most certainly a Bond film that needs no forgiveness.

Goldfinger is available on DVD and Blu-ray from MGM.

The Great Bond Rewatch of 2009 returns next week with Thunderball.

We’ve all seen it happen.  You’re watching a movie that for the most part is pretty fucking terrible. You sit there and watch the atrocious acting or listen to the awful dialogue; you let out long-winded sighs as characters bounce around on screen making terrible decisions and when plot twists come you could give two shits. After a fashion you glance at your watch and you notice that finally! the movie has got to be coming to an end. Yes, yes this loose, all-over-the-place excuse for a story seems to be winding down! And then just before this useless piece of box-office diarrhea cuts to black there’s one last shot, one last line of dialogue that makes you go, “Well, that was a little presumptuous.” I’m talking about the awkward sequel set up. They usually happen in films where the studios think they’ve got such box office gold on their hands that they can have the audacity to hint at a sequel right at the last second of the first film. Of course this ultimately blows up in their faces and the films are never made. Here are five examples where this really stands out, sometimes to hilarious degrees. SPOILERS AHEAD!

5) Unbreakable — Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson; M. Night Shyamalan dir.

M. Night Shyamalan was high up on Hollywood’s “It” list after 1999′s The Sixth Sense. A year later he released what appeared to audiences as a two-hour superhero origin story about a man (Bruce Willis) who comes out of a horrible train wreck with not a scratch on him. A mysterious, handicapped stranger (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to convince him that he is special and has been put on this planet for better things. It is revealed that Jackson’s character has been causing all of these horrible accidents, searching for someone to come out alive and unharmed. This person would be the exact physical opposite to Jackson’s frail and easily injured character thus allowing him to become an evil villain of sorts. After all of this is revealed and Bruce Willis realizes that there is a whole big world out there for him to try and help, the film ends. At points it was hinted at that Shyamalan had envisioned Unbreakable as a trilogy and that this first film left the door open for these two other movies. But thanks to a box office and critical failure (I happen to really enjoy the film) these plans were never made. I started out at the top with this one because it’s the loosest and least insane example of awkward sequel setups and as of right now there actually appears to be a possibility of at least a second film moving forward. But I’ll believe that when I see it.

4) Street Fighter — Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia; Steven E. Souza dir.

This masterful disaster is the first in two video game adaptations on this list. The film is the 1994 live-action re-imagining of the massively successful video game franchise of the same name. The story is pretty much the same as the game’s loose outline: Colonel Guile (Van Damme) and his followers are doing battle with the evil dictator M. Bison (Julia) for one reason or another. Maybe genocide is involved, I don’t know. But in any event by the end of the film the villains are defeated (shock) and poor dictator M. Bison has been crushed by a gigantic wall of TVs. Or has he? At the end of the credits the camera zooms in and suddenly we see his hand blast through the wreckage. M. Bison has survived! But sadly, Raul Julia did not.  Two months before the film’s release, Julia died of a heart attack. What makes this awkward sequel set up even more awkward is that in the credits the film is dedicated to Julia with the message, “For Raul, Vaya Con Dios.” Yeah, because in life as in death, Raul Julia wanted to be remembered for playing fucking M. Bison in Street Fighter the movie.

3) Godzilla — Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno; Roland Emmerich dir.

It really is hard to describe just how terrible this movie is without taking up pages. Suffice it to say there is a character named “Mayor Ebert” whose creation is intended to strike a real blow to the self-esteem of Roger Ebert and also make him think twice about giving a bad review to a Roland Emmerich film ever again (it didn’t stop him from giving this film a poor one). The film is an incredibly terrible “reboot” to the Godzilla franchise. And an American reboot no-less. Matthew Broderick plays a Greek scientist and Jean Reno plays a French scientist. They’re both determined to stop the giant lizard that was created as a result of French nuclear testing that was near some lizards…or something. After a moronic chase sequence through the hallowed halls of Madison Square Garden, Broderick & Co. kill all of Godzilla’s little babies and that pisses off the big guy even more. Oh yeah, and he’s totally a guy giant lizard because the type of lizard that Godzilla was spawned from reproduces asexually. Not to anyone’s surprise, Godzilla is killed off and the day is saved. Except of course for that awkward last shot where, after our heroes have gone off laughing about their crazy day, the camera focuses in on a pile of rubble outside the destroyed Garden. And it looks like, yup, uh oh! One of the baby Godzilla eggs wasn’t destroyed. The thing hatches and a big lizard comes out and screams at the screen. The film, while relatively successful at the box office, was a critical failure and it was clear to all involved parties that a sequel would be pushing Gozilla’s luck a little too far.

2) Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday — Kane Hodder, Kari Keegan; Adam Marcus dir.

Any common sense would’ve told New Line Cinema to not buy the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise from Paramount at the end of the 1980′s. The last Friday film at Paramount, Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manahttan, is a terrible, terrible, terrible film and was for all intents and purposes the nail in the coffin for the classic slasher era. But bad decisions got the best of New Line–see also The Golden Compass, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Blade Trinity, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, Secondhand Lions, S1m0ne, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Mr. Deeds…and so on–and they decided to resurrect the hockey-masked killer for another outing. What makes this movie especially terrible is the fact that there is very little Jason on screen because the “soul” of Jason hops from body to body, possessing people and having them do his dirty work. There’s also a bunch of bullshit about Jason’s origin, the Vorhees bloodline and, I shit you not, some sort of magic dagger. By the time it’s all over, Jason is stabbed with the magic dagger and a bunch of hands come up out of the ground and drag him to hell, thus releasing all the souls of the people he’s killed. As the two surviving characters walk off screen hugging each other, we’re left with nothing but Jason’s hockey mask laying in the dirt. Then, to the surprise and excitement of every dedicated horror fan sitting through this piece of shit, Freddy Krueger’s glove rises up from the dirt and pulls Jason’s mask down into hell. Cue the Freddy laugh and the film goes to credits. The buzz about a Jason/Freddy team up or versus movie was instantaneous. Fans of the horror genre hadn’t been this excited since Frankenstein’s monster met up with the Wolf Man. Unfortunately the fans would have to wait a very awkward ten years before they finally saw Freddy vs. Jason and by that time the film was in no way a continuation of where Jason Goes to Hell left off. Which is probably a good thing considering Freddy vs. Jason turned out to actually be a good movie.

1) Super Mario Bros. — Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper; Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton dirs.

Unless I’m mistaken (and I very well could be) this is the first cinematic adaptation of a video game. What a fucking curse that’s been! I suppose it was only inevitable that the wildly successful Mario Bros. fanchise went to the big screen. It’s just unfortunate that it had to go up there in this fashion. The film stars Hoskins and Leguizamo as the two Brooklyn, plumber brothers who, for one reason or another, visit this alternate universe. The story loosely follows the plot of the video game where Mario and Luigi have to save the princess from the evil Bowser, King of the Koopas (here played with amazing conviction by Dennis Hopper). As if it wasn’t a big enough offense to give the brothers the last name of “Mario”, yes that makes him Mario Mario, the film also makes all of the Koopa world filled with dinosaurs. I suppose the filmmakers thought that instead of making the Koopas just look like the extra-terrestrial monsters that they are, the audience would find them more relatable if they were dinosaurs. Not to spoil too much of this wondrous epic, but the Mario Bros. save the day. As they sit in their kitchen back in Brooklyn, Luigi depressed over having to leave his beloved Princess Daisy behind in the Mushroom Kingdom, there’s a gigantic knock on the door. In bursts Princess Daisy (played by Pump Up the Volume‘s Samantha Mathis) dressed in war-torn rags and carrying this gigantic rifle/blaster looking thing. The brothers are shocked. As they stand there slack-jawed Daisy shouts to them/the audience, “You’re never gonna believe this!” And as Mario grabs his tool belt, “I believe…oh I believe.” Believe what? What is she talking about? Well who the hell cares? Apparently no one. The film bombed at the box office and no one wanted to touch another live action Super Mario Brothers movie.  It’s been sixteen years and no one has ever mentioned a sequel to this film other than to mention that they will never make a sequel to this shitty, shitty, shit film. Ever. And that’s something you can believe.

You're never gonna believe this? Fucking kill me

The new record from this latest White formation is called “Horehound” and it’s packed with real crunchy guitar, steadfast drums and pounding bass. Nothing here is too fast–there’s certainly no “Fell in Love with a Girl” style track on here–but everything has this groove to it that’s incredibly appealing. One of the two singles, “I Cut Like a Buffalo” is this reggae-influenced, head nodding jam that really stands out from the line-up of eleven tracks.

Leave it to White to order the tracks like a true gentleman, the first two songs are lead by Mosshart and they’re really great. The record opens with “60 Feet Tall”, this slow, pulsating song that’s basically three minutes to get the album ready to launch. Listening to it you can feel the album starting to move, the gears starting to spin; it’s a rocket getting ready to blast off. And the next track, “Hang You from the Heavens” is this very sexy-sounding song with a perfect bass line that has a bit of distortion put on it. Some of my favorite kinds of songs are songs that you can listen to while walking down a city street at night and the song has the ability to make you feel like you’re walking through some kind of cool movie. “Hang You from the Heavens” is that kind of song exactly.

“Treat Me Like Your Mother” is another White-sung song that evokes a sound reminiscent of something off a Jane’s Addiction record. The drums are quickened and the song plays out like one of White’s more familiar march-style song structuring. On an album where the Jack White we’re familiar with is virtually absent it’s nice to get a song like “…Mother” where we can sit back and while the song itself is good, it also reminds us of all that the guy’s accomplished. For he truly is a rare breed of musician; a guy with the old soul of a long-gone roots musician trapped in the body of a young guy who dresses anachronistically and speaks wise beyond his years about music we’ve never heard of. All of that is a positive thing by the way.

The record’s fault might be that it’s too short. I can’t remember the last time I listened to an album I’d never heard before start to finish and then when it ended I was left thinking, “Is that all there is?” I wanted this to go on and on. Mainly because it’s just eleven really solid songs–even the instrumental jam “3 Birds” is somewhat interesting and unique. Instrumental tracks are always such a gamble on albums because it’s almost like saying, “Well we couldn’t put words to this” or “We just wanted to showcase our incredible musical abilities.” But “3 Birds” avoids that because it’s so well put together that you don’t miss the vocals at all and you’re not left wondering what the motivation for putting the song on the record was. As a matter of fact it’s one of those instrumentals where if it had vocals, the song probably wouldn’t be as good.

Whether or not Jack White decides to put out any more albums with The Dead Weather remains to be seen. If he does, it certainly would be a benefit to the music world. “Horehound” is something new from a musician who’s become a household name in music-forward households. It doesn’t feel old hat in any way at all which, coming from a musician who’s work over the last decade has been beyond great and really inspired, is an incredible thing to be able to still say. For White is truly a musician who continues to reinvent himself. Not in the shitty, look-at-me-now-world way that someone like Madonna does or whatever, but just in his subtle choices in projects album after album. I really recommend you pick this up. If you’re a Raconteurs fan, pick this up. But especially if you’re a White Stripes fan because honestly, this time the talented musician is drumming.

The Dead Weather’s “Horehound” is available now on CD/digital/vinyl from WEA/Reprise and the band is currently on tour as well. Tomorrow and Friday they’re at New York’s Terminal 5.

Go ahead, treat me like your mother

From Russia with Love — Terence Young, director; with Sean Connery as James Bond

The great Bond Rewatch of 2009 continues with From Russia with Love, the 1963 sequel to the hugely successful Dr. No.  Like the challenge posed to all film sequels, the second Bond film needed to be bigger, faster and have greater action than the previous one and there really was no better director to take on the task than Terence Young, the masterful director who understood Ian Fleming’s vision of the Bond world and had already proven himself more than capable while directing Dr. No. The film also saw the return of Sean Connery as Bond of course; a role that he would continue to rule over for three more films until giving it up to an unknown, Australian model. More on that in a few weeks.

From Russia with Love is really everything you’d want in a sequel. The villainous plot this time around involves a lot of backstabbing and deception. Basically the crime syndicate known as SPECTRE is looking to steal a Soviet cryptographic device and sell it back to them all while seeking revenge for the death of their comrade, the fallen Dr. No. They plan to do this by having a soviet telegraph clerk named Tatiana Romanova (played by the stunning Daniela Bianchi, an Italian actress and runner up in the Miss Universe pageant; for serious). Tatiana is told by Rosa Klebb, the SPECTRE agent in charge of the mission, to pose as a defector looking to give information to MI6. The mission takes Bond from England to Istanbul and even into Belgrade via the Orient Express. There are many twists and turns and I don’t want to give much away but it’s really one of the more intriguing Bond stories that the films have produced.

The villains are greater in number this time around. The mysterious “Number 1″ is the SPECTRE leader seen only from behind giving orders to his soldiers. In this film we get only his arm and a look at him petting his famous white cat. Bond fans already know that Number 1 turns out to be none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld, one of the greatest Bond villains, who later plays an incredibly important part in James Bond’s life. Again, more on that in a few weeks. The aforementioned Rose Klebb is an ex-SMERSH agent who is, like I said, put in charge of the operation. Along with hiring Tatiana Romanova, Klebb is also responsible for hiring the final villain and one of the most dangerous Bond assassins to date, the shadowing Red Grant (played by the always incredible and terribly missed, Robert Shaw — Jaws, The Taking of Pelham 123). Red Grant is a trained assassin who is seen at the beginning of the film hunting down Bond and strangling him to death with a wire. The “Bond” in question turns out to just be some poor sucker in a Bond mask. SPECTRE truly does take their training sessions seriously.

Far and away my favorite scene in this film is the spectacularly choreographed fight scene between Bond and Red Grant that takes place inside a cramped train car on the Orient Express. As the train barrels down the track into darkness, Grant overcomes Bond in the train car as they carry a drugged Tatiana back to bed. Grant has secretly drugged the girl in order to corner Bond alone in the train quarters. The fight scene that takes place has some of the best choreography Bond films, and action films in general, has to offer. Everything is very real here. The fight doesn’t feel corny and the actors don’t come off hammy in any way. There are several moments where, even though I know there are twenty-0dd more films to come, I found myself actually wondering if Bond was actually going to get out of the situation alive. Robert Shaw was always such a commanding performer and this film really shows his acting chops. The man has almost no lines up until the fight scene where like most Bond villains, he gives away a shitload of information; but for the better part of the film as he stalks Bond and Tatiana, his actions speak much, much louder than words. Eventually Bond tricks him into opening a suitcase filled with tear gas and Grant is strangled to death by Bond with his own garrote wire–a nice reversal of the opening scene.

Even though the train fight scene is my favorite, the real shining example of Terence Young’s vision for the Bond films is found a bit earlier in the movie when Bond, led by Ali Kerim Bey (Pedro Armendáriz in his last film role, he died of cancer before the film was finished), is escorted out of Istanbul and into a gypsy camp where he is hiding out from SMERSH agent Krilencu, a man assigned to wipe out Western agents in Turkey. While at the camp, two women begin a very violent fight over the love of a man. As this is happening Krilencu and his men attack the camp in an attempt to kill Bond and Bey. What takes place is a massively choreographed battle sequence with tons of extras and lots of action. There are explosions, gun play, fisticuffs, stabbing and Terence Young (along with the help of brilliant editor and Bond regular, Peter Hunt) conducts the entire thing with grace and precision. It’s truly a sight to behold and a thing of action beauty.

What’s great about From Russia with Love is that, unlike a chunk of Bond films, it really holds up. Forty-six years later and the film still manages to excite a jaded contemporary viewer like myself. Here nothing is campy, nothing is too over the top; everything just feels right about it. Tatiana Romanova is the first Bond Girl that falls into the “Smart and Good Looking” category. I know my last write-up also contained some Honey Ryder bashing, but deal with it. Unlike Ursula Andress, Daniela Bianchi is a very capable actress and (even though her voice is dubbed) really gives a great performance as Tatiana. And again I come back to how incredible Robert Shaw is in this movie. I watched this about a week or two before watching the original Taking of Pelham 123 for the first time and between these two films, and his role in things like Jaws and The Sting he really was a truly great and underrated actor. Red Grant set the standard for all Bond assassins to come and everyone from then on out was trying to do their best Robert Shaw impersonation in one way or another.

There are several films in the Bond catalogue and we’ve got a long way to go with this but I’d like to point out here and now that From Russia with Love is one of my personal favorites. Connery feels much more comfortable in the role this time around. I haven’t mentioned much of Bond in this write-up but in a way that’s because this film isn’t so much about Bond. All the villains are so great and the Bond Girl is a lot of fun. One person I’ve not nearly mentioned enough is Pedro Armendáriz. Ali Kerim Bey is a great Bond partner and a really flushed out character all his own. The story goes that Armendáriz found out he was dying of cancer while shooting the film and he insisted on finishing the job for the sake of the film and the sake of his legacy. Despite being in constant pain almost non-stop, Armendáriz turns in a spectacular performance. He plays Bey as an incredibly intelligent agent, a man of the people of Istanbul and also a proud family man. Unlike the previous film’s poor Quarrel, this time around Bond gets aid from a true gentleman and an incredibly talented agent. His performance in the film is right up there with Robert Shaw’s and will continue to be mentioned with great accolade for as long as people are talking about From Russia with Love.

From Russia with Love is now available on Blu-ray from MGM.

The Great Bond Rewatch of 2009 will return next week with Goldfinger.