Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming Live Tweet
I’ve been saving this doozy for a rainy day. The dreary late-winter doldrums seems rainy enough. I bring you SPYMAKER: THE SECRET LIFE OF IAN FLEMING, a semi-biographical TV movie featuring Jason Connery as Ian Fleming that Warner Archive deemed fit enough for a DVD release. From a certain perspective one has to question their sanity. From another, THANK YOU, Warner Archive. If you doubt the inherent awesomefulness of this film, one needs to look no further than the trailer for inspired twatter fodder. Not only does Jason Connery trade on the good name of a certain Slouchy Bond, but Kristen Scott Thomas shows up to lend this shit some retroactive credibility. Even A View to a Kill Bond girl Fiona Fullerton pops in for a how’s your father. I should make it clear, before watching the trailer, that Spymaker is not necessarily a spoof… it just looks like one.
Join #Bond_age_ Wednesday, March 9th at 9pm EST for the SPYMAKER: THE SECRET LIFE OF IAN FLEMING live tweet. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag. Embed will appear on this website just before 9pm EST.
Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming – #Bond_age_
—>WATCH LAYER CAKE ON CRACKLE HERE: http://www.crackle.com/layer-cake/2486426 <—
In our never-ending quest to live tweet the bejesus out of random spy shit, we’ve barely scratched the surface of some of the more notable movies churned out by our Bond actors. In 2016, we here at #Bond_age_ aim to rectify that oversight. With Dear Craigers’ birthday coming up at the beginning of March, we figured, hey, why not kick things with with some early birthday wishes (Happy 48th, Craigers!) for our dear Daniel Craig. We’ll send him a nice big birthday card in the form of a riff on the movie that (more than likely) catapulted Craigers into the tuxedo in the first place — it’s 2004’s Layer Cake, directed by Matthew Vaughn, the man who would have directed seven Bond movies in the Interwebs had anything to do with it. He did, turn in the rather disappointing Kingsman this past year, however.
Now I realize that many of you might not own Layer Cake for a DVD watch party. Well, good news. The streaming service CRACKLE’s got you covered. Free to watch online or through the Crackle app on Roku. Free’s the best.
Join us Wednesday, February 24th @ 9pm EST for the Layer Cake Live Tweet! Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag.
Tonight #Bond_age_ offers the campy 1966 spy parody Kiss Kiss… Bang Bang, directed by Spaghetti Western godfather Duccio Tessari. Tessari wrote A Fistful of Dollars and launched the career of Italian stuntman, actor and artist Giuliano Gemma, who also happens to star as in our feature presentation tonight. Kirk Warren (Gemma) is a spy condemned to death because of a failed attempt to steal $1million dollars. Warren is given a reprieve in order to follow through on a covert mission to steal a secret formula for the powers that be. But who are the powers that be? And does Warren actually have any interest in following through on the mission?
Kiss Kiss’ pedigree extends well beyond just Duccio Tessari. The film is a veritable who’s who of the Italian genre film auteurs. Gialli maestro Luciano Ercoli (Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion) produces. Italo-crime auteur Fernando Di Leo provides second unit direction and a story credit. Since this IMPOSTOR! turns 50 this year, I felt it more than worthy of an evening of good #Bond_age_.
Since I can’t find the trailer online, you’ll have to be teased by the film’s Bond-inspired credit sequence.
Kiss Kiss… Bang Bang begins 9pm EST. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag.
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Self, I just don’t have enough vintage John Stamos in my life… and I’m not talking about that Old Uncle Jessie John Stamos I can get on bad network TV… but real, amazeballs 1980’s bitchin’ pre-Uncle Jessie John Stamos,” then you’ll need to tune into #Bond_age_ tonight for NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE.
And no… not only that! Oh no. You’ll also get George Lazenby! That’s right! THE George Lazenby taking roles just to pay the bills.
But I’m far from done with this little slice of heaven from 1986.
The cherry on top of this sundae is Gene Simmons playing the film’s villain Velvet Van Ragnar. I won’t spoil the surprise Gene has in store for you… but trust me… just trust me… you won’t believe it when you see it. Premise? You care about the premise? Okay, so Velvet Van Ragnar murders Lance Stargrove’s secret agent father (and yes, Lance Stargrove is John m’f’ing Stamos) and then it’s full on revenge story with John Stamos gnashing his teeth and Vanity wearing lace doilies from Cracker Barrel that she thinks are “clothes.” I wish I could tell you more. I do.
The show begins at 9pm ET. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag on Twitter. You won’t want to be late for the first official feature-length #Bond_age_ presentation of 2016. There’s no better way to kick off the new year than by twattering NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE.
Trailer:
Feature Presentation: TOO YOUNG TO DIE (#Bond_age_)
With Krissy Myers taken by a case of food poisoning and #PrisTweet again postponed, #Bond_age_ scrambled to come up with some kind of replacement programming worthy of the time slot. @007hertzrumble doubted he could make the live tweet on time so that removed Plan B (another few Honey West episodes). On to Plan C. And Plan C is an entry from @GregMcCambley’s exhaustive list of obscure spy films available on YouTube. We spun the wheel of fate, and the wheel of fate chose MISSILE X: THE NEUTRON BOMB INCIDENT (aka Tehran Incident) starring Peter Graves, Curd Jürgens and John Carradine.
Director Leslie Martinson is best known for directing the 1966 Batman movie and episodes of Small Wonder (!). Added bonus: Ted V. Mikels, the mastermind behind the awesomeful (maybe just awful) Doll Squad and Astro-Zombies had a hand in adapting the screenplay. If you put all these pieces together, you can see we’re aiming high for golden twatter.
The narrative according to IMDB: “An American intelligence agent travels to pre-Islamic Revolution Iran to try to thwart a power-mad European baron from using a stolen cruise missile to destroy an unspecific target in that country.” Sounds like a winner.
Confession: We’ve never seen it!
Join #Bond_age_ for the MISSILE X: THE NEUTRON BOMB INCIDENT Live Tweet on Wednesday @ 9pm EST. Use #Bond_age_ hashtag.
Since I couldn’t find a trailer, here’s a slice of the super funky groovalicious soundtrack. There really are no words worthy of what’s about to tickle your eardrums.
Ahhhh the familiar faces, smells and routines of our Thanksgiving holidays. Planning the menu, prepping the food, indulging Uncle Harry’s drunken rants about politics while pretending to be wholly focused on the quality of this year’s cranberry sauce, watching MST3K’s Turkey Day Marathon…
…but we all know these much revered holiday traditions begin the night before Thanksgiving with a Proto-Bond selection by @MiddParent and @NitrateDiva.
This year, our lovely ladies in #Bond_age_ residence have chosen to present perhaps the most Proto of all the Protos that ever dared to Proto-Bond. Thanksgiving Eve 2015 we live tweet Hitchock’s classic film of espionage, Teddy Roosevelt nose-picking, menacing cropdusters, mistaken identity and suggestive train innuendo… NORTH BY NORTHWEST. NxNW stars the man many people wanted to be Bond (Cary Grant), directed by the man Ian Fleming wanted to direct Bond (Hitchcock).
Join #Bond_age_ and hosts @NitrateDiva and @MiddParent on Wednesday, November 23rd at 8pm EST for the NORTH BY NORTHWEST LIVE TWEET! Follow the #Bond_age_ hashtag and use #NxNW whenever to help the Twatter onlookers decode the stream and hop on whenever possible (because you’re going to get some hop-ons!).
