Monday, September 27, 2010

THUNDERBALL (1965)

James Bond is sent to a health clinic to recover from his last mission. While there, Bond sexually assaults a young woman, but naturally she learns to like it and then later that night from her window, Bond sees something strange: an ambulance taking a dead body into the clinic. Could it be the set up for another FRIGHT NIGHT movie?! Oh, please! Oh, please! Oh, please! Bond vs. vampires!!! That'd be awesome! No, it's just some evil henchmen working on a body double to use in their plot to steal two nuclear weapons. Bond investigates, but it's all after the fact because they've already stolen the bombs and unless the government pays up $280 million they are going to blow up an undisclosed city. Bond isn't going to stand for that kind of shit, so he follows the clues of the dead body and goes to the Bahamas to seduce the dead guy's sexy sister and pump some information out of her.

Beautiful tropical locations, lots of underwater shenanigans, sharks and even more sharks, cleavage, bigger budget, it's all pretty fun, but a little too long.  Still worth a watch.

Two thunderballs out of five.

Part 1 - Dr. No (1962)
Part 2 - From Russia With Love (1963)
Part 3 - Goldfinger (1964)
Part 5 - You Only Live Twice (1967)
Part 6 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Part 7 - Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Part 8 - Live and Let Die (1973)
Part 9 - The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Part 10 - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Part 11 - Moonraker (1979)
Part 12 - For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Part 13 - Octopussy (1983)
Part 14 - A View to a Kill (1985)
Part 15 - The Living Daylights (1987)
Part 16 - Licence to Kill (1989)
Part 17 - GoldenEye (1995)
Part 18 - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Part 19 - The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Part 20 - Die Another Day (2002)
Part 21 - Casino Royale (2006)
Part 22 - Quantum of Solace (2008)
Part 23 - Skyfall (2012)
Part 24 - Spectre (2015)
Part 25 - No Time to Die (2021)

Non-Eon James Bond films:
Casino Royale (1967)
Never Say Never (1983)

Sunday, September 26, 2010

HARRY BROWN (2009)

Standard urban vigilante story that rises above the rest thanks to powerful performances across the board, but especially Michael Caine who really carries the entire film with his low-key portrayal of a older man, alone in an urban hell housing slum filled with lowlife thugs.  After seeing these worthless shitbags literally getting away with murder, he can't take it any more and decides to get all DEATH WISH on their unwashed nutsacks.

The story is an unrealistic wet dream, but it's still a lot of fun. That said...what's up with the horrible looking computer blood effects?! It only happened a handful of times, but it looked so fake I ended up laughing during scenes that should have been shocking. And speaking of shocking, the criminal characters were assholes, but I wish the filmmakers had spent just a little bit more time to make them look like even bigger assholes to make the audience really hate 'em. That's just my worthless two cents.

Definitely worth a watch. Also, make sure to watch the deleted scenes.  I thought they were pretty good and added to the story nicely.