Back to the cinema with Bond... and Shang-Chi

 

At long last, Bond is back! And his mission this time is to save cinema. ( Of course, this mission had previously been assigned to Tenet but, yeah, that didn't actually work. ) Will it work this time or will cinema just Die Another Day? ( Sorry. ) Going by the UK box office takings for No Time To Die ( an estimated £21 million over the first weekend ) there's a good chance this mission will be a success.

And, of course, it's Daniel Craig's final mission as Bond, bowing out with his 5th movie, the 25th in the series. As long as you don't count the 1967 Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again. And who does?

"Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 in No Time To Live And Let Die Another Day" ( to give the movie its full title ) is happily a wonderful send-off to the Craig years. There's quite a bit of tidying up of storylines going on and some nice Easter eggs for the fans ( including the prominent use of an old Bond theme that really drops hints about the story's direction ) but it's not too obtrusive and feels appropriate. The expected action scenes and exotic locales are as exciting and gorgeous as ever although it's probably best not to think about the movie's carbon footprint. Ana De Armas and Lashana Lynch make impressive Bond debuts but both could have done with more screen time. We are however spared the tired Bond trope of the secondary female character being killed off to give our hero something to be angry about ( see previously Gemma Arterton, Berenice Marlohe, Monica Bellucci etc etc ) which is A Good Thing. The rest of the Bond "family" appear for this swansong: the single-letter likes of Q and M, and characters with full names like Moneypenny, Tanner, Leiter and Blofeld. ( Actually the single-letter names sound more believable. )

Rami Malek's villain is the weakest link here, his nefarious plan being short on explanation and long on stereotypical super-villainy. Luckily that's more than made up for by the sheer emotional high stakes of the story. Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux totally convince here as Madeleine's past catches up with her and Bond, leading to a nail-bitingly tense climax to this story and the Craig era. It's a refreshingly brave ending that is a satisfying final curtain for the best Bond since Connery, if not the best Bond ever.

NTTD was actually my second time back at the cinema since the pandemic began. My first, tentative steps back into that big dark room carpeted with popcorn were with Marvel's latest superhero slugfest.

Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is an attempt to redress the balance of the predominantly-Caucasian MCU, where most of the actors seem to be called Chris. It's a hybrid of superhero and martial arts movies with an overwhelmingly Asian cast. And it's great fun.

Simu Liu is our hero, the son of an immortal Chinese warlord who's been hiding out in America under an assumed identity but ( wouldn't you know it? ) is dragged back into his father's diabolical world when assassins attack him and his best friend Katy ( Awkwafina ). Cue some ever-escalating and exciting martial arts battles, some not-too-cheesy ( by MCU standards ) humour, a fair old helping of fantasy with often gorgeous visuals and a lot of long-overdue Asian representation. Simu Liu and Awkwafina are charismatic leads you want to spend time with and there's the added bonus of HK / martial arts legends Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh who are both amazing and virtually steal the show from the young 'uns. Although not the Shang-Chi whose adventures I grew up reading ( courtesy of Steve Engelhart, Jim Starlin, Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy ), this take on the character has a more everyman approach and I'm hoping we'll soon see more of Shang, his ambiguous sister Xialing ( the striking, in more ways than one, Meng'er Zhang ) and the irrepressible Katy.

It was a great movie to see for my return to cinemas, a crowd-pleasing, popcorn-munching delight. ( I actually had a cup of tea and a hotdog, but that's typical of me. ) I went to my local picture palace, the Cineworld in Gloucester Quays, on a Saturday morning, gambling that the place would be fairly quiet. Luckily it was and I wore a mask in and out of the cinema so felt fairly safe. It was quite a big step to overcome my pandemic-spawned anxiety about crowds and people in general but I'm glad I did it and it gave me confidence to go back for Bond. Although today's news is dominated by UK Covid figures spiralling upwards yet again ( FFS! ), I'm hoping I'll get back to the flicks soon as the upcoming films from Edgar Wright and Denis Villeneuve will need my attention...

Half a century

Your humble blogger hits the big 5-0 today...
Cue obligatory embarrassing photos ☺

Bond x 10,000

My most popular post at TGWS has long been this one about Bond babes Britt Ekland and Maud Adams from way back in 2009. This search-engine-bothering post has now racked up over 10,000 page views...

...which I think is pretty cool. I could kid myself that this very brief look at The Man With The Golden Gun is so popular because of my pulsating prose and scintillating syntax  -  but I know it's purely down to the keywords "Bond" and "babes" and the appearance of images like these:

But that's not necessarily a bad thing :-)
So, if you've discovered this 'ere blog via the Bond!Babes! route then thanks for stopping by and helping the post reach such stratospheric heights of success...

Soundtrack: U.F.Orb by The Orb

Bond Babes: Izabella and Famke

I watched GoldenEye ( 1995 ) recently for the first time in ages and thought it stood up fairly well as an attempt to update the Bond franchise. All the requisite globe-trotting, glamour and action scenes were in place ( including a spectacular tank chase through the streets of Moscow ) and Pierce Brosnan did a surprisingly good job as a smooth-but-tough Bond, especially when aided by such top character actors as Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane and Michael Kitchen. However, the almost post-modern jibes at Bond's "sexist Cold War dinosaur" persona were jarring - Brosnan would have been a schoolboy at the height of the Red Scare! Interestingly, Bond's embittered former colleague, Sean Bean's 006, looks with hindsight like a precursor to Daniel Craig's rugged, craggy-faced Bond of the last two movies.

Also caught in the crosshairs of the GoldenEye are two memorable Bond Babes. Firstly, Izabella Scorupco as computer programmer Natalya, an innocent witness to a massacre who gets swept along with Bond's mission to retrieve a stolen space weapon.

Ms. Scorupco gives a fine performance of a woman struggling to deal with her world turning to hell in seconds and having to dodge bullets with England's greatest secret agent. And, to be perfectly honest, when the film's pace sagged now and then, I was just happy to gawp like a lovestruck adolescent at her beauty...

On the other hand, we have the wonderful Fammke Janssen playing the ridiculously-named femme fatale, Xenia Onatopp. Only in a Bond movie!! Ms. Janssen clearly relishes the role of the crazed Bad Girl, whose speciality is squeezing the life out of her enemies between her muscly thighs. But what a way to go...

3001: A Blog Odyssey

I fed the mice on the treadmill, oiled the seized gears and polished the rusty flange ( steady! ) and pushed the controls for the atomic pile to the limit.....

There was a wheezing and groaning sound and then... the numbers came in.

It's official: This post has received just in excess of 3000 page views. Let joy be unconfined! ( Well, she has been chained up in that cellar for quite some time now... )

Possibly not my most erudite or well-informed post ( judging by the lack of comments ), but it does contain those holy internet key-words "Bond" and "Babes" which have obviously worked their search-engine magic. Maybe I ought to tag everything like that from now on.

Oh yeah, and tag everything with the word "sex" as well. That tends to work...

Bond Babes: Olga

To celebrate the fantastic news that MGM have finally sorted their financial problems out and another James Bond movie will soon be under way, here are some totally gratuitous pics of the beautiful Olga Kurylenko, star of 2008's Quantum Of Solace.

This is in no way a cheap attempt to equal the pageviews of

my most popular post.....

Oh, no.....

Bond Babes: Daniela

Another Saturday afternoon, another Bond movie on ITV. After a busy morning of moving furniture, followed by a pie and a pint with my mate Kev, relaxing with England's greatest secret agent was very welcome. Not that Bond had much chance to relax, what with boat and helicopter chases, gypsy duels, that brutal scrap with Robert Shaw's SPECTRE assassin, an exploding Russian embassy and Lotte Lenya's poison toe!

Yep, we're talking From Russia With Love, thought by many to be the best Bond film of the lot ( I won't argue... ), and featuring the delectable Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova.....

Although Daniela's character is the recipient of much standard-issue '60s sexism, she saves the day at the end of the film by rejecting her Russian masters and shooting poison dwarf Rosa Klebb to protect Bond.

And she looks gorgeous doing it.....

Soundtrack: If There Is Something, Virginia Plain and Ladytron by Roxy Music

Bond Babes: Britt and Maud

I watched The Man With The Golden Gun yesterday for the first time in years.

Not one of the better Bond movies: too much lazy humour and cheesiness ( especially from Roger Moore, of course ). The film's saving graces for me were the legendary Christopher Lee, as suave and sophisticated as ever, playing extra-nippled master assassin Scaramanga, and also the following two gorgeous actresses:
Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight
"I like a girl in a bikini - no concealed weapons", Scaramanga

Maud Adams as Andrea Anders
Is that a ridiculously obvious phallic symbol in your hand or are you just pleased to see me?

Ms. Ekland and Ms. Adams with Herv Villechaize as Nick Nack. Say no more.

Soundtrack: Lovely Head by Goldfrapp

Lust For Life by Iggy Pop

Sarah and I finally went to see Quantum Of Solace today ( aka That New Bond Film With The Stupid Title) and it was great. Perhaps not quite as exciting as Casino Royale, it was still pacy, action-packed, globe-trotting and intelligent. A lot of people criticise the new-style Bonds for lacking the humour and glamour of previous years, but I'm not too bothered. Although Bond's brutal trail of revenge and mayhem can seem pretty grim there is some humour, but it's bone-dry and subtle, something you wouldn't have seen in the days of quip-a-minute Roger Moore. Olga Kurylenko provides enough glamour for me, and Bond does look cool as ever when he gets the old tuxedo out, but Gemma Arterton is under-used. Apart from the action, locations, stunts etc. the best thing in the film is Bond himself, just as it should be. Daniel Craig is, for me, the best JB since Connery, no contest. Moore was always too lightweight and stayed in the role too long, Dalton was one of the best actors in the series but not really Bond-esque, Brosnan was better than I'd expected and certainly had the suavity angle covered, and Lazenby... well, he tried. Craig's Bond, however, is the closest to Ian Fleming's character yet: he's brutal, he gets scared, hurt, disillusioned, drinks hard, plays hard. Daniel Craig gives the role a level of realism and commitment; you believe every line of dialogue and feel every punch. And who cares if he's a blond Bond?


Endblog 6.

Soundtrack: American Idiot, Green Day. ( I know, not really Bond is it?)


"I don't give a s***t about the CIA." Judi Dench as M.