Thunderballin'

Have I mentioned how gigantic of a James Bond fan I am? Probably somewhere. For Christmas last year I bought myself and my dad the at-the-time full set of James Bond DVDs (Quantum of Solace wasn't out yet). Being a gigantic nerd, I took the individual box sets, which have a DVD from each era, and organized them chronologically. I've been watching them in order, though I skipped over Goldfinger because I've seen it the most. Last week, while working on a ton of freelance (which is the reason I haven't been posting as much these past couple days), I popped Thunderball (1965) in and enjoyed the hell out of it.

Here's what I like in my Bond movies: Bond being awesome (check), bodacious babes (check) and crazy gadgets (check). So, as you can probably tell, Thunderball fit the bill perfectly. There's a frickin' jet pack and a car that sprays oncomers like a firehose. The plot follows SPECTRE's attempts to steal a jet with two nukes on it (which they succeed at). From there, they try to bribe the governments of the world and it's up to Bond and his cohorts to put a stop to them.

I can't say for sure whether I've seen Thunderball before, though I do think I tried to watch it recently and turned if off for some reason because the first 20 minutes were really familiar. Anyway, you can tell that Thunderball was a huge influence on the Austin Powers movies. You get the big, huge evil organization meeting with the white-suited leader at the head of the table (kind of, he's really on a raised platform with a divider covering most of his body), the bad guys going by numbers (Number 2 is the main bad guy of the movie who tussles with Bond) and of course, the numbered guy who pisses Blofeld off gets electrocuted and lowered into some mysterious under-chamber. I love that stuff. I understand that the Daniel Craig movies are more steeped in reality, like the Bourne movies, but I'm a sucker for the big, evil organizations and all the crazy gadgets. To me that's what a Bond movie should be.

Oh man, and the ladies are super hot in this one. There's a red headed villain whose name I didn't catch, but wowzers. Plus, you've got Claudine Auger as Domino, a sexy nurse giving Bond the business early on and, well, every other woman in the movie really. It's really kind of amazing what those casting directors did back in the mid 60s. True masters of their craft.

The radness doesn't stop there, of course. There's an underwater scene where all the good guys are fighting all the bad guys UNDERWATER! I can't think of another movie with a scene like that, but it's got to rank up with one of the best end-of-movie Bond brawls. There's also a cool scene earlier on in the movie where Bond goes to a meeting at MI-6 headquarters with all of the other Double O agents. We don't really get a look at them, but I thought it was cool that they would all meet up. The rest of the Double O agents seems like such an obvious mountain of story potential that the keeper's of the Bond flame have only mined a little bit. Maybe in the next one (which will also hopefully have a few more gadgets and old school spy fun).

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Oh, DO go on.

Halloween Scene: Seeing Halloweeners

Much like spying Lost cast members, I love seeing folks from the Halloween movies (well, the ones I've seen and liked at least) in other flicks. I've recently had the pleasure and surprise of seeing Danielle Harris and Donald Pleasence in various flicks I didn't even know they were in.

Danielle Harris popped up as a kid in two flicks about dads she doesn't really like who get into some crazy situations. First up, I watched a movie called Back to Back (1996) starring her and Michael Rooker (who I've only seen in Mallrats, he looks kinda funny with hair). Oh, Bobcat Goldthwait is in it too and is super annoying, but don't worry, he gets blown up pretty good.

Back to Back is not a good movie. It's not altogether bad, it's just kind of unremarkable. Rooker and Harris get kidnapped by this Asian guy who has a score to settle with someone for some reason, so he escapes from a police station and blah blah blah. I guarantee you've seen this kind of movie before done better. But, if you're like me and you're looking for something to watch on Netflix Instant, you can probably do worse.

Harris also appeared as the angry daughter in The Last Boy Scout (1991). I'll be honest, I wasn't all that interested in the movie and still haven't finished it from early last week (I had pretty bad luck picking movies as I'm sure I'll get to in further detail in upcoming posts). I'm sure there's some good stuff in there, I just need to finish it out. Thanks to this commute, though, it'll be rough. Anyone want to give me one of those plug-in internet things? I'd greatly appreciate it and even plug the heck outta you, for what it's worth.

On the Donald Pleasence front, I peeped him in two movies as well, first up the Sean Connery James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). In it, Pleasence plays Blofeld, the big villain for the early Bond flicks. Pleasence was the first guy to play Blofeld in person (you saw him petting his cat a lot and feeding fish before this) and boy does he look crazy nutso, but in a good way. It's pretty clear that Donnie here was the inspiration for Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (down to the suit and even some of the mannerisms).

Pleasence also appeared in the 1979 version of Dracula starring SkeletorNixon himself Frank Langella as Drac. I read about the movie on Horror Movie A Day and thought it sounded pretty good. I was bored to tears for most of it, but Pleasence played a mental institute-running Dr. Jack Seward. He didn't do much but be a dad for the parts I saw (this was another movie I couldn't get through, even being a captive audience on a train. Ah well, you can't go wrong with crazy Pleasance, though he still, in my opinion, never topped the upper echelon's of crazy-old-guy he reached in Halloween 6.

Oh, DO go on.

Live Blogging From Russia With Love (1963)

For Christmas I bought my dad and I the complete James Bond Box Set (up to that time at least, it doesn't have Quantum of Solace in it, which I still haven't seen yet). Dad and I used to rent various Bond movies and we'd always enjoy watching when (I think) TNT would do their Bond marathons. So, like with Saturday Night Live, I'm a fan because of that, but also because these are some of the craziest, coolest, most over the top and gadget filled movies of all time and, of course, I love all that stuff.

So, without further ado, let's jump into From Russia With Love, the 2nd Bond movie, and, of course, stars Sean Connery.

*I don't think I've ever seen this one all the way through.

*You can't take Bond out that easily...oh, okay.

*Can't go wrong with projecting the credits onto hot lady parts.

*Looks fantastic on this TV.

*Hehe, I like the gigantic chess board so people in the crowd can watch. I can't think of a more boring "sport" to watch.

*Message in the water glass, nice way to get your point across. Oh man, I thought he'd have to throw the game, but he put that nerd DOWN! WHAT WHAT!

*Blofeld? Yup. How can such an evil man have such an adorable kitty? Unfortunately, the cat is almost always looking at the camera, very unprofessional.

*Nice, they referenced the previous movie.

*Why HELLO there sun bathing beauty. Yeah, you better take off your skirt and blouse to massage that guy on the blanket outside.

*Dude, SPECTRE has their own island? Jealous.

*Hot damn, I love a good "walking through a training/testing area" shot and no one does it better than Bond filmmakers.

*Woah, that is a tiny towel Mr. Badguy. He totally passes the "get punched in the gut with brass knuckles by a creepy old woman" test.

*Blondy likes Klebb's riding crop me thinks.

*We still haven't seen the real Bond yet. Ah, there he is, making out with a hottie in a boat.

*I think Moneypenny would do a threeway with James and any other broad.

*Q!!! With the super briefcase (gun, knife, sniper rifle, gold, tear gas and a secret way of opening). Score!

*Invoking the title! By writing it on a picture no less.

*Who's this goober in a mustache and beret?

*They're trying to bug him, but you can't fool James Bond. Fools.

*Wowzers, who is THAT? Woman in orange. The 60s were awesome!

*Underground river? Super cool.

*Gypsy's know how to party. Gypsy cat fight? Hahaha, awesome.

*Who's the blonde guy with the mustache? Why are people attacking the gypsies? I should be paying better attention.

*Bond asks to stop the girl fight? WHAT? Oh, he gets to decide, so I assume he boned them both. Yup.

*"Oh James will you make love to me every day in England?" "All day and all night."

*Aw, the funny guy died.

*No, James, that's the bad guy!

*See, I think Bond should be a much more formidable foe.

*Heh, he's gonna get gassed!

*Cool train fight.

*You can't take the real Bond out like you did in the beginning you punk!

*Klebb's back-up plan was to kill Bond with a shoe-knife? Seriously?

*James Bond is a literer AND he did that stupid wave.


Oh, DO go on.