Some James Bond Minutiae

Posted: 2023-11-01
Currently reading: Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
Currently binging: James Bond movies
Current music genre: Contemporary Christian Music (of all things)

So for those that have been paying attention to the little statusy things above I have been binging out on James Bond movies. It is all the "TV" watching I've been doing lately, or at least the watching that I have been paying attention to anyway. I have seen all of them before, of course. My kid bought me a box set of all of them a few years ago. I am just working my way through them in order again.

The first three of the Bond series are great. Those are:

• Dr. No
• From Russia With Love
• Goldfinger

These all star Sean Connery in the role of James Bond. They are great movies and have some of the prettiest Bond girls. I am kind of meh about the rest of the Connery Bond movies. Thunderball was ok, You Only Live Twice a little less than that, and Diamonds are Forever borders on being a disappointment.

George Lazenby stars as Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The Bond Girl in this one was the one and only Diana Rigg, HUBBAHUBBA! This movie generally gets panned by fans of the series. Upon my last few viewings of this one I have come to believe that the reason for the panning is because Lazenby is not Connery more than anything else. It really is a good movie with a decent plot and all the actors do a very good job in it, notably Telly Savalas as Blofeld.

Sir Roger Moore started as 007 in 1973. He was Bond for 12 years which was longer than any other Bond. He also starred in seven Bond movies which was more than any other Bond. But, out of those seven only the only good ones are:

• Live and Let Die
• The Spy Who Love Me

In the Moore era I give a grudging nod to For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy as being OK but The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, and A View to a Kill were just dumb.

Timothy Dalton's era as Bond only produced two movies. Neither of what I would call good but of the two Living Daylights is the better. Neither of these is necessarily Dalton's fault. I can see where he was going with Bond but the productions were simply junk with bad scripts, bad acting, and overall poorer quality than any other Bond productions.

Pierce Brosnan was the next Bond. As a general rule his Bond is nothing more than a smart-ass that I generally don't care for. In truth however, the movies were fun. They were all good except for Die Another Day where Brosnan's Bond was just too damned much to bear for me.

Daniel Craig was the last Bond so far. His five were all good. They were action packed and had damned fine character development. The only one that lagged for me was Quantum of Solace and that was that bad of a lag.

THE QUESTION EVERYONE ASKS:

Which is your favourite Bond? It is not a cop-out really but my favourite Bond is the one the one in the Fleming books. ;-)

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