Mike Oldfield is an odd duck, even more so as the years roll on. His first and best-known album, Tubular Bells, seems to be lodged in any serious record collection, somewhere between Will The Circle Be Unbroken and Dark Side of the Moon. Adding to the mythology of Tubular Bells is its role as the seed […]
And now, the listicle. Having watched pretty much* the whole damn canon of Bond in film, of course there’s gotta be a list made. Thing is, it seems to be fairly predictable, but in the end it wasn’t too hard a list to make, save for maybe tenth spot, which I decided should go to […]
Since this is a pretty recent release and it’s quite possible you haven’t seen it, of course a spoiler alert is required, as I am dropping some heavy ones. Here, let me hit a few dozen carriage returns… […]
I’m very close to the present now, with 2012’s Skyfall up for perusal. Sam Mendes has the clapboard this time around, with a solid-rock record behind him and the job of getting the franchise back on track after the disappointing Quantum of Solace. It’s also the 50th anniversary of the Dr. No film, so accordingly […]
It’s the shortest Bond film with the weirdest name! Yep, this was a real head-scratcher and probably the hardest wrap to write, as it’s taken me a couple of days from my first viewing to chew over what I can actually write about it. The Opening The action picks up from the conclusion of Casino […]
It’s the dark gritty reboot! And all that entails. Although with the rights to Fleming’s first 007 novel finally in the hands of Eon, it’s a logical place to refine and redefine the rules of the series. And the result, Casino Royale might just be the best of those films to date. The Opening Brief […]
Anyway, Die Another Day . What a weird movie. Well, a weird movie as far as Bond flicks are concerned, and perhaps there’s a reason why it marked the end of an era. The Opening OK, obviously here they’ve actually tried to have things that haven’t been seen before in the series. Like surfing. And […]
The World Is Not Enough, with the title harking back to the Bond family motto mentioned in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, “Orbis Non Sufficit”, not to be confused with Roy & HG’s motto, “Nimium Non Sufficit”. The Opening And golly is it a long one. First Bond turns up in Bilbao to take delivery […]
Onto the second of the Brosnan flicks, it’s Tomorrow Never Dies. Arguably the Ninetiest movie of the series. The Opening This is just the classic sequence of Bond being Bond. Undercover somewhere in Uzbekistan, I guess, 007is scoping out an arms bazaar and reports back the daily specials. Back in the control room, the admiral […]
It’s the third 007 film with “gold” in the title! It’s the first 007 film with Pierce Brosnan! Let’s have a look at it. The Opening It is 1986 – 007 bungee-jumps off a dam wall and infiltrates a Soviet chemical weapons storage facility, where he meets up with good buddy 006 (Sean Bean), and […]