by 007hertzrumble | Oct 28, 2013 | Live Tweet Digests, Wraparound
There’s something about A View to a Kill that simultaneously compels and repulses. Watch #AVTAK! It’ll make for a great A View to a Kill Live Tweet Digest! Nooo. Staaaay away! Yes! No! Watch! Mute! Tanya Roberts induced migraines! Bond quiches! But you watch. And you love #BlondWalken and fear Grace Jones. But mostly you get Duran Duran stuck in your head and you tell everyone to “Dance Into the Fiiiiire.”
INITIATE A VIEW TO A KILL LIVE TWEET DIGEST!
by 007hertzrumble | Oct 27, 2013 | Misc.
It’s time for #Bond_age_ IMPOSTOR #5: DEADLIER THAN THE MALE!
With the Roger Moore-era now once again in our rear view mirrors, I wanted to take time out for our regularly scheduled #Bond_age_ to introduce one of my favorite #Bond_age_ IMPOSTORS! DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is a helluva lot of fun… and not in the gonzo way that I find #CR67 relatively entertaining. This is a well-crafted Bulldog Drummond spy flick with all of our favorite trappings of the 1960’s spy genre starring Richard Johnson (The Haunting), Elke Sommer (A Shot in the Dark, Lisa and the Devil) and Sylva Koscina (of Steve Reeves’ Hercules fame). If you haven’t seen Deadlier Than the Male, I expect you to join us on Wednesday at 9pm EDT for the Deadlier than the Male Live Tweet. If you do not have the DVD, the movie is on YouTube in its entirety. I will provide the link to the film on the #Bond_age_ website on Wednesday. If this is a hit, perhaps sometime down the road we’ll visit its sequel SOME GIRLS DO.
Here’s the opening of the film since I can’t find a source for a trailer embed:
And here’s a link to the trailer on Madman films.
by 007hertzrumble | Oct 22, 2013 | My Favorite #Bond_age_
Mute Button Optional: The Redemption of AVTAK
by John Gilpatrick (@johnlgilpatrick)
It was 2004; I’d just started my first ever part-time job.
At the ripe young age of 14, I wasn’t exactly a saver, so each paycheck—as meager as it was for a busboy like myself—was gone before the next one arrived. The target of my retail affection? Movies. And not just any movies, but James Bond VHS tapes (yep) that I could pick up on the cheap. I didn’t know much about each movie before I bought it. All I knew was that 007 and I clicked (I credit the Goldeneye N64 video game as much as any movie). So purchases were informed by packaging more than anything else, and the phenomenal purple pastels of that A View to a Kill box just sang to me. I went home, I watched it, and… well, I didn’t love it. Far from it, actually. It was hokey. Roger Moore looked laughably uninterested. Tanya Roberts and her throaty scream—let’s just not even get into that yet. The whole exercise was borderline excruciating, and I was teenager whose idea of movie criticism was labeling something “awesome” or “not awesome.” “But wait, John, aren’t you supposed to be writing about how you love A View to a Kill? How it’s your favorite Bond movie?” Spoiler alert: it’s not. But don’t worry, I’ll get to all the things I love about A View to a Kill—and there are a lot—shortly.
*****
I collected every Bond film I could find on VHS.
(Then I bought all the DVDs. And now I own Bond 50 on Blu-Ray… yes, I have a problem.) They sat on my shelf in descending order of preference—From Russia With Love always first, Octopussy always last. Somewhere in the middle sat—side by side—License to Kill and Die Another Day, two perfectly respectable if unremarkable Bond movies, said 14-year-old me. I bring this up to demonstrate how one’s opinion of these movies changes over time and how multiple viewings can make what seems not so awesome feel kind of awesome, and vice versa. Today, License to Kill and Die Another Day could hardly be further apart on my ranked list of Bond films. And as for A View to a Kill, the hokiness that drove me crazy as a teen feels like a rather brilliant tongue-in-cheek nod to the series’s history. Roger Moore’s work as old-man Bond is so brazenly unapologetic that I can’t help but admire what he does here. And Tanya Roberts… yeah, she’s awful. That scream—like nails on a chalkboard. But still, the movie’s good qualities (and my remote’s mute button) make her contributions (or, more appropriately, her lack thereof) easy enough to abide.
*****
Time to talk about the movie, I suppose.
Following Moore’s final gun barrel sequence, we’re taken to snowy Siberia. A screechy 80’s electric guitar riffs as Moore’s 007 skis around looking for something. What exactly? A chip, hidden in a locket that’s clasped around the neck of a dead body. But wait—the Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! The ensuing ski chase is surprisingly inspired (perhaps the perfect descriptor for the film as a whole). It’s playful, with composer John Barry letting loose a little Beach Boys as Bond switches from skis to a makeshift snowboard and “surfs” across a pool of water. Before long, he’s safe in the confines of a killer gadget—a submarine-type vessel disguised as an iceberg. “Be a dear and put it on autopilot,” he tells some chick we’ll never see again before we cut to an all-time great opening credits sequence.
*****It was 1985, and the last time a relevant artist tackled a James Bond theme was eight years earlier when Carly Simon belted out “Nobody Does It Better” over the opening credits of The Spy Who Loved Me. And a male vocalist hadn’t led a James Bond theme since Paul McCartney earned an Oscar nomination for the Live and Let Die title track. I bring this up to demonstrate how against-the-grain Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill” really is within the canon. It’s the kind of song that you’d think is ushering in a brand new Bond era, rather than closing one out. Nevertheless, it’s bold and doesn’t make a ton of sense (I’m not sure why anyone would want to dance into a fire), but with high-haired women wearing nothing but strategically placed ribbons—women who also happen to be skiing indoors and bathed in neon light—rocking out on the screen, I’m happy to rock out, too.
*****Back at MI6, Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell, in her Bond movie swan song) is dressed to the nines. M and Q give Bond a rundown of what he exactly he found in Siberia. The computer chip is designed to be impervious to an electromagnetic pulse, and it comes from Zorin Industries. Its founder, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), is big in the horse racing circles, so it’s off to the races for our heroes. Zorin, flanked as always by the beautiful and powerful May Day (Grace Jones), owns Pegasus, who wins the race following an almost impossible to believe final sprint to the finish. It’s Bond who suspects Zorin of dirty deeds—from drugging his horse to producing counterfeit microchips—from the outset, but it isn’t until he spends a weekend at Zorin’s stables that he becomes certain.
*****
I’ll argue here that A View to a Kill doesn’t have a truly weak scene.
It’s slower sequences are always offset by delightfully brash humor; its less successful comedic moments are always overshadowed by a pretty killer action scene. That said, the film’s reputation suffers some, I think, because most watch A View to a Kill without noticing its standout scene. Bond and his partner Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) spying around the stables is not just A View to a Kill‘s best sequence (and it’s a long one, clocking in around 30 minutes), but one of my favorites in the entire Bond film catalog. Why? 1.) Solid action—the horse race—that’s unique among the Bond films. 2.) Laugh-out-loud comedy. The only thing more biting than Bond’s awful treatment of Tibbett (who’s posing as his manservant) is the smarmy way he corrects everyone who mispronounces his cover name—James St. John Smythe (that’s “sin-jin-smythe”). 3.) The insane cast of characters is confined to one relatively small space. There’s Bond, Tibbett, and Zorin (who’s a top-five villain as far as I’m concerned). May Day is this totally bizarre anomaly within the series. She’s one of the most physically imposing henchpeople Bond has or ever will come across. She’s also, I guess, a sexual presence. She and Bond share a truly weird night in bed, and she wrestles in a thong with her boss/lover, Zorin. Don’t forget, too, about Stacey Sutton (the aforementioned Tanya Roberts), who plays a much bigger role when the film moves to San Francisco. And I’ll always have a place in my heart for Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) and Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray)—two Zorin associates who ultimately go down in a pitch-perfect blaze of incompetence.
*****
Following the horse race, there isn’t a ton left to report.
Zorin’s grand plan, as you probably know, is more-than-vaguely reminiscent of Goldfinger‘s Operation Grand Slam. Bond and Sutton become close in San Francisco. There’s a fire at City Hall, a flood in a mine, and a fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s all pretty good stuff if you can handle Roberts spewing geology at you. (Silver lining: at least she’s not Dr. Christmas Jones.) A View to a Kill is Roger Moore’s final Bond film, and most fans wish he went out a film or two earlier. He’s lost a step, I agree, and watching him bed a woman nearly 30 years his junior is a tad uncomfortable. But it’s for all these reasons that I genuinely enjoy A View to a Kill. Everything about it feels a bit off, but it goes for the jugular on every front—Moore, Walken, Jones, Roberts, the Eiffel Tower leap, the firetruck chase, JAMES FREAKING ST. JOHN SMYTHE—and I can’t help but eat it up.
by 007hertzrumble | Oct 21, 2013 | My Favorite #Bond_age_
Octopussy: A Sweet Distraction for an Hour or Two
by Adam Slusar (@TapwaterAlice)
Frequently lambasted for its cartoonish excesses, perplexing storyline and – of course – being the only James Bond film to see Roger Moore disguise himself as a clown, Octopussy is generally considered to be one of the weakest entries in the 007 franchise. Like Moonraker, the humor falls flat at times; look no further than one scene in which a Tarzan cry accompanies Bond as he swings across treetop vines. Ten years after his initial turn in Live and Let Die, Moore was ostensibly “too old” to play Bond any longer. And with the revered Sean Connery set to return as 007 in Never Say Never Again that same year, Octopussy was thrown into a “Battle of the Bonds.” The odds seemed stacked against it; film critics already knew which James Bond they preferred, and needless to say, it wasn’t Roger Moore.
But while Octopussy may falter due to its occasional missteps and oddities, it’s actually pretty great. A charming, elegant, and inventive action thriller, Octopussy is superior to Never Say Never Again in almost every way, and is by far the most unfairly maligned of the James Bond films.
While the previous effort, For Your Eyes Only, was a departure from the campier Bonds of the 1970’s, Octopussy retains a comfortable balance between fanciful escapism and Fleming-esque adventure. Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson, in collaboration with George MacDonald Fraser, wrote a film that fits Roger Moore like a glove; combining his penchant for casual wit with his occasional ruthlessness (as evidenced by his car-kicking performance in For Your Eyes Only). We get to see Moore deal a few bullets in addition to his fair share of one-liners.
Even with age, Moore still proves perfectly capable of selling his unique brand of 007 in Octopussy, lending a sense of credibility without betraying the overall tone of the film. His performance acts as a nice counterpoint to his passive-aggressive portrayal in Moonraker. Although the vehemently detested “clown scene” is remembered for all the wrong reasons, it demonstrates Moore in an authentic, all-too-rare occurrence of Bond losing his cool as a doomsday machine counts down to its final seconds; much like The Spy Who Loved Me or For Your Eyes Only, this showcases Moore at his absolute finest.
In terms of progressive feminism and gender equality, Octopussy is a considerable milestone in a franchise made popular by its womanizing secret agent protagonist. Leading the charge – and an army of jumpsuit-wearing female acrobats – is Octopussy herself, a neutral entity working alongside the nefarious Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) in a grand-scale jewel smuggling plot. Previously seen as Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun, Maud Adams lends an air of mystery, assertiveness, and professionalism to role of Octopussy. Odd though it may be for a suggestively-named Bond girl to live on an island inhabited only by women while also running a travelling circus, these sort of extravagancies are part-and-parcel with the 007 franchise, and Octopussy exemplifies the standard of proactive female characters in the Bond films.
Octopussy marks the first (but not the last) Bond film to divide its screen-time between two main villains. In addition to Kamal Khan, we have General Orlov (Steven Berkhoff), the true mastermind behind the theft of a Fabergé egg and an evil plot to overtake Western Europe with a Russian artillery brigade. This is a brilliant plot perpetrated by two sub-standard villains, but Jourdan and Berkhoff do admirably with their otherwise thinly-written roles; Khan is given juicy dialogue to complement his incredibly suave demeanour, while Orlov chews up every scene with intense proclamations.
Filling in for Oddjob and Jaws this time around is the blunderbuss-wielding Gobinda, who gets to take on Bond in some of the most inspired stunt sequences in the film. In a nutshell, the villains of Octopussy leave something to be desired, but are still more colorful and entertaining than your average Blofeld regurgitation.
Clearly inspired by the high-adventure of Raiders of the Lost Ark two years prior, Octopussy contains no shortage of tremendous action scenes. This time around, we get to see Bond pilot a mini-jet while pursued by heat seeking missiles, taking on a thug with a razorblade yo-yo, leaping across train cars while evading dangerous obstacles, and even clinging for his life from the top of an airborne plane. Here, director John Glen demonstrates his strengths as an action director. He would continue to up the ante in his three subsequent efforts. Octopussy, nonetheless, contains some of the finest stunt choreography in the Bond series.
Following the post-disco instrumentals of Bill Conti in For Your Eyes Only (of which I’m admittedly a fan), John Barry returns to the Bond franchise with Octopussy, lending gravitas to the film with a sweeping, romantic score occasionally punctuated by frenetic action cues and exotic flair. His work in Octopussy would pave the way for his return in A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights, and Barry would provide those films with perhaps his greatest work.
If you aren’t a fan of the Roger Moore films leading up to it, then Octopussy may not be your cup of tea. Still, it isn’t the train-wreck that most people would have you believe. I first watched Octopussy late in the game, expecting something utterly terrible but coming away pleasantly surprised but also a little disturbed that so many people failed to see the pure joy of Bond escapism contained within. All the negativity surrounding Octopussy chalks up to needless comparisons to the Connery era and an unusual emphasis on the sillier aspects of the film. And truth be told, it is silly, but there’s just so much more to it.
First Bond Movie: Tomorrow Never Dies
Favorite Bond Actor: Roger Moore
Favorite Bond Girl: Solitaire
How I Discovered #Bond_age_: Nic Suszczyk of The GoldenEye Dossier, who invited me to participate in the Moonraker Live Tweet Session.
by 007hertzrumble | Oct 20, 2013 | Misc.
So what it’s one of the most reviled Bond films. SO WHAT, INDEED. So what if it’s a remake of Goldfinger? Bond has been remaking Bond for as long as any of us can remember. Did A View to a Kill pee in your Metamucil-sprinkled Corn Flakes? No! It is your privilege that you can participate in a View to a Kill live tweet — nay, it is your DUTY to participate in the A VIEW TO A KILL LIVE TWEET, Wednesday, 9pm EDT. Follow hashtag #AVTAK and nobody mention Stacey Sutton.
