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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Anyway, onto Never Say Never Again. An interesting exercise in how much you can flog the Bond brand and still have it pass. This one isn’t in the comprehensive Bond box that I’ve been working my way through, and it’s not exactly easy to find on disc elsewhere, but anyway, I ponied up to watch […]
Nearly halfway! Again, this is another film I hadn’t seen much of – even though some parts seemed familiar, I can only draw a blank when I think of For Your Eyes Only, perhaps because it’s stuck in between two of the more, how shall I put it, “spectacular” instalments. The Opening Bond lays some […]
Right, onto The Spy Who Loved Me. I remember this with no small amount of affection as being a good one. But in the context of my viewing run, I was very interest in reappraising it to see if it still stacked up against the early ones. The Opening There’s a bit going on here, […]
Finally, we enter the Roger Moore period, for better or for worse. His first gig, Live and Let Die is a pretty weird one too, with a some tweaks from the established formula, but already with firm indications of the tone the series will be taking with Moore as 007. The Opening Bond’s reveal is […]
Bond finally clambers into the 70s with Diamonds Are Forever; again, this is another one that I hadn’t ever really watched. But this time, unlike the rest so far, I kind of wish it’d stayed that way. Yeah, spoilers ahead, for what it’s worth. The Opening Things kick off with a montage of Bond placing […]