Finally, The James Bond Post (& Skyfall)

We here @ Drifting Into Deep Water have been threatening a James Bond post for quite some time. Since we're always ready to make good on our threats (don't believe me? Just ask that sandwich I took down a couple hours ago!), we figured it'd be about time to actually go through w/ it, so here it is. I hope you're as excited about this as we are.

Last May (maybe June) Sara & I met for a drink @ The Tap Room. During said drink, we realized we both had an ongoing intrest in watching all of the Bond films in chronological order so I put Dr. No in my queue & promply moved it to the top. Here we are in January, & I can finally say we're finished. We had to take a couple breaks along the way, but the real stumbling block was the fact that we didn't want to take any short-cuts, meaning we had to watch the David Niven/Orsen Wells/Woody Allen/Peter Sellers spoof, Casino Royale from 1967. We put it off as long as we could, but we watched it the other night so coupled w/ the 1954 made for TV version w/ an American Bond, we can now say we've seen them all.

Casino Royale:
As the 1st film bore this name as did 2 other films, we'll start here. The TV version from 1954 is pretty bad, but it's mid-50s TV so we'll let it slide. On the plus side, Peter Lorre plays Le Chiffre. The 2nd one w/ this name is pretty bad too, but in this case, they must have known they were making a shit movie. Not even Clash of the Titans has such a huge collection of great actors dropping a collective duece on the audience. Maybe Flash Gordon is more impressively bad, but not by much. That siad, it's a near miracle that the 2006 film worked @ all much less became one of the absolute best Bond films to date. You've all seen it a million times though so we don't need to say much more.

Thunderball/Never Say Never Again:
Both are based on the same Flemming book, & both star Sean Connery, but only one is actually awesome: Thunderball. For a long time it was my favorite Bond film, now I'd say it has dropped to maybe 5th on my list. I'd still watch it @ any time of any day, but then again, that could be said of all of these movies. I do like Never Say Never Again too though, & after his turn as an evil emporer in Flash Gordon, Max vo Sydow went on to play an evil genious in this Bond film. It's a fun movie w/ Connery doing his best to reprise the role he made famous 20 years earlier. It's not an official Eon film so they were actually competing w/ Octopussy in the summer of 1983. It lost @ the box office & in terms of quality, but it's fun none-the-less.

Octopussy:
W/ great lines like:
Bond: "We've got company."
Vijay: "That's OK, this is a company car."
we can't overlook the genious of the writing. However, it's clear that Roger Moore's tenure in the franchise was nearing its end. The locations are fantastic & the plot is pretty complex. It's better than many of the Moores, but it's no Live & Let Die.

Live & Let Die/The Man w/ the Golden Gun:
As the 1st 2 Moores, well discuss these together. They're really good. We enjoyed the Blaxplotation stuff in Live & Let Die & the campy psychadelia in The Man w/ the Golden Gun. The switch from Connery to Moore seemed an obvious move after Roger Moore's turns in maverick & The Saint. At the start of his Bond career, he was great. They were already taking it less seriously though w/ the inclusion of characters like Sheriff J. W. Pepper. He turns up in both of these movies & in the 2nd one, he's test-driving an AMC in Thailand in which they do a barrel-roll jump over a river before Christopher lee's character attaches wings to the top of his car & flies away. I did that once... it was pretty sweet.

The rest of the Roger Moores:
As previously explained, I think his last one, A View to a Kill, has the best theme song. It's also got Grace Jones & a robotic dog thing. So that's pretty sweet. Before that, & after his portrayal of Dr. Hans Zarkof in Flash Gordon, Topal played a Greek industrialist in For Your Eyes Only. It's a cool movie w/ a cool ski scene, a cool theme song, a cool chick armed w/ a cool cross-bow, & a cool cliff scene. It's cool. In his late 70s films, we got our favorite long running Bond villian, Jaws. of course, in Moonraker, he actually becomes a hero once he falls in love. Ahhh, love!

The rest of the Connerys:
Since most people haven't seen the 1954 Barry Nelson movie, Connery is consider the original Bond. He's cleary good & set the bar for the rest, but the movies are a bit slow compared to the action parked newer ones. The writing & storylines are awesome though, & of course, there's the volcano hide-out. Never underestimate the volcano hide-out.

The rest of the Lazenbys:
Considering he only made 1, this sub-title might be a bit clunky, but we're going w/ it anyway. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a shit movie, but he was actually good. And he wore a kilt for a bit as he was pretending to be a Scottish Lord. The holes in the plot & the day/night continuity issues were problematic though.

The Rest of the Craigs:
We mentioned his 1st one @ the beginning of this post. His other one isn't quite as good, but we liked it a lot more this time than the 1st time we saw it. It works well & has a darker side than the other films. His next one comes out in October:Skyfall. I'm super excited. It's gonna be cool, I'm sure.

The Brosnans & the Daltons:
After his turn in Flash Gordon, Timothy Dalton went on to make a couple Bond movies: a couple good ones, no less. I dug them a lot more this time than when I'd seen them before. Of course, we're not amused by the dismemberment by a shark of Felix. That was kind of sad.

All in all, the marathon was a fantastic time. 25 movies in 8 months. A good time was had by both of us. And for more on Bond, check out the previous Bond posts from
Visions of Ypsi.

The Day James Bond Jumped a River, Boy!

As you've probably heard... it made all the papers, after all... I've been watching the James Bond movies w/ Sara (a friend from Nicola's) this summer. 2 nights ago, we had a viewing of The Man w/ the Golden Gun. I dig Christopher Lee, I dig those tall islands in Phang Nga Bay, & I dig supernumerary nipples, so this movie is obviously high on my list of fav Bond films. I mean, come on, 2 out of 3 would be sweet... but all in one movie three? Almost heaven!

The thing is that there's a scene that almost... not quite, but almost... pushes the movie over the edge. Bond is chasing Scaramanga (Lee's character) & needs a car. He runs into a dealership and steals an AMC off the show-floor. The sheriff, J. W. Pepper, from Live & Let Die happens to be looking @ the car & sitting in the passenger seat. (Why he's considering buying an AMC in Phuket is never explained). Bond jumps in the driver's seat & takes off after Scaramanga. When they realize they're on the wrong side of a river, there's only one option: jump it from a dilapidated wooden bridge while doing a corkscrew/barrel roll thing. It's pretty beautiful... & it might have been an influence on The Dukes of Hazzard.The thing is that this begs the question: "Did James Bond 'Jump the Shark' 4 years before Fonzie?" Of course, the phrase "Jump the Shark" jumped the shark years ago, but this is important, so bear w/ me. You see, while we were watching the film, Hub was showing all 3 parts of the Happy Days shark jump episode. Of course, since I was thinking ahead, I recorded it for later. I watched it yesterday morning, & it turns out, the episode holds up pretty well. Aside from the fact that an enormous shark is being kept in a little pen right where everyone is swimming/surfing/water-skiing, when viewed in its entirety, one realizes that it's actually better than a lot of Happy Days episodes. And Henry Winkler seems to do a lot of his own skiing.To top it all off, this has all happened in the middle of what a million facebook posts seem to suggest is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Sweet, sweet synchronicity!

In which we wrap up July & move straight on into August

Well, the summer's been flying by. It's already time to start thinking about fall classes. I scored an extra one the other day, a poetry class in Detroit, about which I'm pretty excited. I haven't done a poetry in a few years, so it should be extra fun. I've still got a couple weeks to go in the current semester, so I won't really start planning too much yet, but you can count on a couple days of Whitman!

In other July news, I've kind of let the Tom Cruise-a-thon fall by the wayside, but along w/ a couple days of Whitman, you can also count on a resurgence of Cruise soon.
In the mean time, I've had my way w/ about a third of the James Bond Films, almost all of the Kevin Smiths, & a Tarzan marathon on TCM. Have you watched the old Tarzan movies? You should! They're shit, but they're super fun. They show one every Saturday morning after an hour of old serials. At the moment, they're showing an old Zorro one. It sucks worse than the Tarzan film, but it's interesting.

As August rears it hot, humid head, we've got a short camping trip on the horizon. We'll be hitting Petoskey after the semester is over for a couple nights. I'm excited & I think the kids are too.

The other thing about which I'm excited is the start of the 2011-12 Premier League. Arsenal's first match is against Newcastle on the 13th. Set your DVRs. Hopefully, they'll have the defensive issues sorted out by then. They still need a couple more people. In order for that to happen, we should also be able to wave goodbye to a few: Squillaci, Bendtner, Almunia, & Eboue will hopefully see the exit door. If I had my druthers, Diaby would be joining them. It looks like they may be hanging on to Nasri &/or Fabregas which is nice. However, they better get their shit together soon, because a draw w/ The New York Red Bulls today was certainly not impressive. An MLS team for crying out loud! The folks looking good so far include Rosicky (who I've always liked & have wanted to assert himself after his weird run of injuries... maybe this could be his year), RVP (quick & creative), Wilshire (although he got hurt today), Gervinio (the marque signing of the summer so far), Frimpong 9who was supposed to the other big thing last year but sustained a season ending injury in the preseason), & today the other young kid, Afobe (he subbed on in the 7th minute today & looked not at all out of place).
So there you have it... the season preview w/ a July review & some teasers for the month of August... enjoy. And then enjoy this fantastic video of a TV showing one of the greatest Arsenal chants of all time: "Evra, you're a cunt!"

Summer of Cruise: The Reviews Part 1

Austin Powers in Goldmember: As I explained on the first Cruise post, I watched this last summer during the Spacey-a-thon. I'm counting that as a viewing... I can't subject myself to it again... it's shit! (Zero out of four volleyballs)

Mission: Impossible: I saw this when it was first released on video, but I liked it more this time. It's definitely got some problems, but over all it holds up pretty well. Mainly though, the reason we (Aiden & I... btw, it's Aiden's big 10th b-day today; be sure to give him a happy birthday shout out!) watched it was because we wanted to see the 3rd on which was directed by J. J. Abrams but figured we should watch the others first. (2 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Mission: Impossible II: Not a whole lot different from the first one, it's fun but lacks something. It's been a month or so & I don't even remember what happened. (2 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Mission: Impossible III: It's certainly the best of the lot. Abrams's weirdness (though no time travel) comes through nicely... as do the references to old James Bond films... even the George Lazenby on, On Her Majesty's Secret Service gets a nod... but so few people have seen that one, it's kind of a funny movie to reference. And it's better than its reputation suggests; it's no Mission: Impossible III, but it's good. Speaking of James Bond, after a few drinks w/ a Nicola's co-worker the other night, we decided that a chronological Bond-a-thon might be in order for the summer too... I'll keep you posted. (3 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Tropic Thunder: This was on TV a month or so ago. It's funny, but I don't know that it holds up as well as I expected. Cruise is good, but so much of the humor is based on shock value, but w/o the shock, it doesn't work as well. (2 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Minority Report: I watched this one because, as you well know, I'm teaching a sci/fi class next year & so I've been trying to refamiliarize myself w/ some of the bigger sci/fi films of the last decade. It's good. I saw it when it first came out on dvd, but the disc skipped & I never saw the end. It's based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (which I'm sure you already knew), but I've never read anything by him. I suppose I'll have to remedy that soon. (3 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

War of the Worlds: This pretty much blows, but the effects are cool & it's a better film that the 1950s Red-Scare version... & it's yet another Spielberger to deal w/ daddy issues... I'd do the list of them, but that should be it's own post some time. (BTW, Minority Report has some weird daddy issues too.) (2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Top Gun: Awesome as you know. Yet, maybe it's only awesome because it's been awesome for so long. Aiden was bored out of his mind. I DVRed it last week, & the version I recorded was edited for time which meant the volleyball scene, the "Great Balls of Fire" scene & Maverick's conversation w/ Slider in which he says, "Slider, you stink" were edited out. Those are pretty iconic scenes; a strange decision, indeed. (This one is ripe w/ daddy issues, but it's not a Spielberger.) (3 1/2 out of 4 volleyballs)

Cocktail: Shit! I'd never seen it until last night. The only saving grave was that the disc was skipping so I got to skip ahead a little bit which saved me some time. I couldn't believe how little time was actually spent in Jamaica. That is the image I've always had of the film, but he's only there for about 15 minutes. There should also have been more cocktail making acrobatics. I think a remake could actually do this justice... more time in the Caribbean & more snazzy drink-mixing. And to think it was written by the guy who wrote the novel. There was a novel? WTF? Also, more nudity wouldn't have hurt the film either. (1 out of 4 volleyballs)