January 2007

There were 24 posts published in January 2007 (this is page 1 of 3).

Rating the Bond Films: The Moore Era

Last month I watched all of the Sean Connery-era Bond films and shared my thoughts. This month I watched all of the Roger Moore-era Bond films. On the whole, they’re not as good.

Live and Let Die (1973) – Roger Moore [6.8 on IMDb]- C+ from me
Bond does blaxploitation. Name a black stereotype and you’ll find it here! Roger Moore does a good job, injecting some personality into a Bond that Connery had been making more-and-more bland. But Moore is, in many ways, a debonaire priss. He runs like a girl. When he’s trapped on a small island surrounded by crocodiles, you know his escape won’t involve dirtying his white suit. (Connery would have stripped to the waist and wrassled his way out.) For some reason, I have a fondness for the film’s extended boat chase, which features the comic antics of Sherrif J.W. Pepper and his friends. (“What are you? Some kind of doomsday machine, boy?”) As with many Bonds, there’s stuff here that doesn’t make sense. Bombing poppy fields? Do tell. A magnetic superwatch that discriminates, attracting only the metallic object Bond wants at the particular moment! After the amateurish ‘clawed man’ bends Bond’s gun, Kris said: “The special effects are awful — it’s like they’re not even trying.”

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) – Roger Moore [6.6] – C
The Man With the Golden Gun has a reputation as one of the worst Bond films. It’s certainly not good, but it’s not as bad as some of those that have come before. The real problem is that it’s just not very entertaining. It’s dull and nonsensical. But it’s not outright bad. The James Bond franchise at this stage has lost its way. It used to be about a British spy. Now it’s about a glamorous playboy with a gun, a sort of suave Batman. There aren’t as many melee scenes with Moore as Bond. That’s a good thing. He’s utterly unconvincing in fight scenes. Christopher Lee is a fine actor, but I don’t like him as the villain here. And I’ve never been a fan of Hervé Villechaize (Tatu from Fantasy Island — here the villain’s henchman). Fortunately the ending doesn’t contain a mass fight. Unfortunately, it contains a lame exploding lair.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) – Roger Moore [7.1] – B-
This film has some great elements, though there’s plenty of blemishes, as well. It’s one of those Bond films with a great soundtrack (along with Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). The story is neat: Bond and Agent XXX, a female Russian spy, team up to stop nuclear annihilation. Only, XXX wants to kill Bond to avenge her lover’s death. I think Karl Stromberg (as played by Curd Jürgens) is one of the strongest Bond villains — the actor isn’t really a strong presence, but the character is fascinating. And I’ve always loved his underwater fortress. (This was the first Bond film I ever saw. I was eight years old. Dad took me to see it.) This is the first Bond film to look polished. The production values are top-notch (for the era). The cinematography is never stunning, but often interesting. One of the weak spots is the film’s blatant sexism. Barbara Bach, who plays XXX, doesn’t do a good job, but then she’s not given much to do. And when she does do things, Bond mocks her. “Women drivers.” Yikes. Notable for the first appearance of Jaws, a lousy henchman and a sign of the depths to which the series had sunk.

Moonraker (1979) – Roger Moore [6.1] – D+
Let’s capitalize on the sci-fi craze! This film features an exciting opening teaser with Bond plummeting through the air without a parachute. (This teaser is undone by the mysterious re-appearance of Jaws, and his stupid crash into a circus tent.) The theme song (and the title sequence) are actually rather lovely. (The song is from Shirley Bassey, who also did the themes for Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever.) Lois Chiles plays Bond-girl Holly Goodhead, but she does so poorly. Her delivery is unnatural — a wooden plank would do a better job. This film starts fine, but the quality drops once the scene shifts to Venice. The pacing is poor, the acting is poor, etc. It’s baffling that somebody (or more than one) believed Jaws was worth bringing back for a second trip. The product placement in this film comes fast and furious. There are at least a half dozen musical tributes to other works (not all of them films). The film degenerates into a collection of set pieces. This is Moore’s worst outing yet. The film isn’t a complete loss — elements of the story are interesting — but the quality of the components are piss-poor. The climax is one of those mass battles I hate so much, but it’s the worst ever: mass battle in space! So dumb.

For Your Eyes Only (1981) – Roger Moore [6.8] – B+
The opening sequence, which refers back to earlier Bond films, is really rather lame. “This is awful,” said Kris. “How can you watch this?” I suspect this one sequence is the source of much of the Austin Powers Dr. Evil schtick. After the teaser, things improve. The title song is lovely. The beginning of the film is odd by Bond standards: I can’t put my finger on exactly what is different, but the pacing and the style are more normal than usual, as if the film were just a normal Hollywood drama. This is going to seem like odd praise, but the editing in this film is quite good, and under difficult conditions. Seriously. I also like the fact that there aren’t many gratuitous explosions. Melina is a rare strong Bond woman. I like strong Bond women. (As opposed to say Bibi, a minor character here, who is painful to watch.) For Your Eyes Only suffers from a flaw that many Bond films had by this time: there seem to be an unending series of fight scenes strung together by tenuous threads. The bad guys often seem to know where Bond is (or will be) by some mysterious psychic ability. It’s bizarre. And not fun. Still, this is far less cartoonish than most of the Bond films leading up to it. The ending is particularly good.

Octopussy (1983) – Roger Moore [6.5] – C
This film is not nearly as bad as its reputation. It’s an average Bond film. There are some great scenes (I like the fight on the train). The worst aspect is the acting, which is atrocious in parts. There are also some woeful improbabilities, but then that’s par for the course. The opening teaser is bad by any standard. The story seems to be a patchwork, which makes sense since this was constructed not from an Ian Fleming novel but a series of short stories. This movie isn’t nearly as good as For Your Eyes Only, but it’s no worse than most of the Roger Moore films. Kris’ evaluation of the climactic battle: “This makes no sense. Why is there a trapeze in the castle? This whole thing is so juvenile. I don’t understand why you’re watching these all.”

A View to a Kill (1985) – Roger Moore [6.0] – C
This is Roger Moore’s worst outing as Bond, and that’s saying something. Throughout his tenure he brings but one quality to the role: he’s suave. In every other regard, he’s completely lacking. He possesses no athleticism; Roger Moore fisticuffs are laughably lame. He has no charm. He has no screen presence. And here, at last, he’s beginning to show his age. Moore was 57 when this was filmed, but he moves like a man many years older. It’s too bad. The core story and script here are good for a change — this is a return to Bond as secret agent instead of Bond as superhero. With a competent director and some good acting, this might have made a decent Bond picture. But the directing is plodding and ham-fisted. Christopher Walken is awful as the villain here — his line readings are made apparently at random. What is he trying to portray? A mid-eighties actor high on cocaine? A nice title sequence (with accompanying Duran Duran hit song). We see very little of the normal Bond supporting cast. They frame the story, but the bulk of it is Bond on his own.

Keeping score
On average, the Connery-era Bond films received a rating of 7.1 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.47 from me. On average, the Moore-era Bond films received a rating of 6.6 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.09 from me. There you have it: scientific proof that Connery was a better Bond than Moore.

A note on directors
In the world of James Bond, the director plays a huge role in determining the quality of the film. Terence Young directed three of the first four Connery films. He was absent for Goldfinger, which was the weakest of the four. Goldfinger was directed by by Guy Hamiltion, who also directed Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man With the Golden Gun. All four of Hamilton’s films share similar flaws, and they’re not nearly as good as those directed by Young. But he’s not as bad as Lewis Gilbert, who brought us the duds You Only Live Twice and Moonraker (as well as The Spy Who Loved Me). The end of the Roger Moore era going forward features direction from John Glen, who shows some promise if he can only shake his need for the nonsensical.

Next month: the Pierce Brosnan era, which is virgin territory for me.

Minor Miracles

Do you hear that?

Across the back yard, past the neighbor’s house? That rumbling sound? It’s a lawnmower! A lawnmower! It would never occur to you that one could mow his lawn in January, and yet it’s true. The weather has been sunny and dry for the past several days. The grass is long (because you never got the end-of-year mow in that you wanted), and giving it a trim sounds like an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Time to hang up your blogging cap and put on your yardwork cap instead…

Speaking of minor miracles: when I came home today, all the cats but Nemo crowded around for attention. I sat in the parlor to write. Simon jumped on the bench in the bay window. Toto hopped onto the arm of my chair. Meatball climbed onto my lap. They sat together and purred peacefully — Toto didn’t hiss once.

It was a fine weekend in which we got to be social, but we also got a lot done. I’m pleased when my Sundays set up the week for productivity.

I hit a wall today, though.

I’ve finally been importing the seven hours of video I took during our 2004 cruise to Alaska. Now that my hard drive is nearly full (video takes a lot of space), I’ve begun to edit the footage. Here’s the first part:

I’m compressing each hour to ten minutes (or preferably less). I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m having fun. The real problem is that it takes time, and lots of it. I spent all day today editing parts two, three, and five. I didn’t get any box-work done. I didn’t get any blogging done. I only edited video. This is not good. Now I’m no longer ahead in my work. If I do this any more, I’ll actually be behind.

I can tell you this: I want to take a video camera on our European vacation this summer!

Cat vs. Kid: The Showdown

In light of my recent controversial complaints about children, and the subsequent video I shared of my cats, this short piece perfectly encapsulates the foldedspace pecking order:

Jeff’s reponse upon seeing this was, “Poor kid,” to which I replied, “Poor kid nothing. He got what he deserved.” (And what about those parents? They deserve to be keelhauled.)

Ah, there’s more where that came from. How about an angry sheep:

Or a less angry (but still violent) sheep:

For Nicole, here’s a brave, brave bunny:

And, finally, for Lynn — an animal “bred for its skills in magic“:

Have I mentioned that I love YouTube?

Six-Word Story

PB passed on a fun little meme: write a story in six words. It will probably come as no surprise that I’ve fretted over this for more than a week. I want my six-word story to be beautiful and perfect. Unfortunately, this is all I could come up with:

It rained Friday. She went anyway.

I found this exercise fascinating, actually. When given such a severe limitation (“only six words!”), it’s impossible to provide standard story-telling staples, such as “a beginning, a middle, and an end”. (There are exceptions, I suppose, such as the famous, “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Note that in Latin, that phrase actually comprises just three words!)

Articles present another problem. “A” and “the” are wasted words in a situation like this. This makes stories like “the cat chased after the dog” — there are two wasted words there!

As near as I can tell, Caterina started this meme several months ago citing the oft-quoted six-word Hemingway story:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I don’t normally forward memes, but this time I’ll make an exception to tag Matt, Frykitty, Nicole, Michael, and Rich.

HTML That Makes Me Proud

I know this sounds crazy, but out of all the many web pages I’ve constructed over the years, the one of which I’m most proud is the foldedspace splash page. It’s a thing of beauty: elegant, simple, and to-the-point. (I like it so much that I re-used the design to create a new Get Rich Slowly splash page.)

The site of which I’m most proud is Money Hacks, which is sort of silly since it simply uses a standard WordPress template modified to my needs. And yet there it is: that’s my favorite site that I’ve constructed.

The fact is I’m not particularly adept at HTML or CSS. I know enough to get into trouble. I’m able to work with blog templates, and to create rudimentary sites from scratch, but the last time my skills were anything close to cutting-edge was 1996. I really haven’t learned much new since 1999. (Thus my frequent claim that my HTML skills are “oh-so-very 1999”.)

But I get by.

Late Adopter

For all that I am an early adopter, I can sometimes be a little slow on the uptake.

Take instant messaging, for example. I know that this has been around for nearly a decade, and that all the young folk (heh) have been using it as a preferred mode of communication, but I’ve mostly let it pass me by. It’s only my recent exposure to the current state of video chat that has led me to even consider IM as something that might be useful.

One problem is that there are a zillion different IM protocols. Each major web player seems to have its own: Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Apple, etc. Some of these play nicely together. Most don’t. People tend to just choose whichever IM client is handy. They don’t base their decision on what their friends use. So, I’m learning that my friends all use different IM protocols. Fortunately I’ve found a tool for the Mac called Adium. It’s very handy in that it “talks” to all of these at once.

So, I’m experimenting with instant messaging.

Then there’s LinkedIn. Jeremy sent me an invite to this service back in Septemeber. I ignored it. Since then, I’ve received a couple more invites. I ignored them, too. But in the past couple weeks, I’ve been reading more about the site, and everyone raves about it. So I signed up.

LinkedIn looks like “MySpace for grown-ups”. It’s a social networking site in which you link with your friends and colleagues. Ostensibly, this gives everyone access to each other’s social networks in order to facilitate business and social introductions. In reality, I’m worried that it’s just a massive spam source. (Though, to be honest, I’ve received zero spam from LinkedIn since I signed up.) It’s certainly a massive advertising venue. There are Google ads on every page. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Anyhow — I’m playing with both IM and LinkedIn. If you’re hooked up to either and want to exchange info, let me know.

Cats on Film

I’m so hip. I just uploaded a video to YouTube. You can’t stand me, I’m so cool.

I borrowed a videocamera from Jenn and Jeremy the other day. I’m trying to get some good video of the feral chicken at the office. (I’m constantly amazed at how many Chicken fans there are among my readership.) It’s more difficult than I had anticipated.

Frustrated, I brought the videocamera home today. The sun was shining and the cats were antsy, so I let them outside and then filmed them as they wandered around.

Pretty boring, but not if you’re a cat. As you can tell, Simon is especially fond of outside. It’s his favorite.

(My YouTube profile, in case you’re interested.)

Bear-ly Breathing

During our evening with Ron and Kara, we received a tour of their newly-remodeled house. Prominently displayed on the floor of their bedroom (much to Kara’s delight) is a black bear that Ron killed in Canada.

This led to a discussion of a short story I’ve been writing, the climax of which involves the shooting of such a bear. “Aren’t you scared of bears?” Jenn asked.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “That’s partly why I wrote the story. It’s based on something that actually happened: I went wandering off into the woods near Silverton to take photographs, even though the property owner had warned me of bears.”

While I was saying this, I was thinking of Tammy’s bear stories, and of the bearskin her family had in their living room (that skin always fascinated me). I was thinking of Grizzly Man. I was thinking of how whenever we go hiking up Opal Creek, I’m always suffering from a low-level anxiety that we’ll be set upon by bears. (An anxiety which is not helped by all the anti-bear precautions we take.)

Here’s video that demonstrates why I am scared of bears when we’re in the woods:

At least we don’t have to worry about grizzlies:

Here’s a grizzly vs. a caribou (not for the faint of heart):

But, of course, the bears don’t always win. Sometimes the cats win. Here’s a video that’s popular around our house:

Yessir. Bears frighten me. I’d rather deal with housecats, thank you very much.

Speaking of wildlife, there’s a little more to tell about our trip for dinner at Ron and Kara’s the other night. Kris and I keep forgetting to mention this to anyone.

After we had turned onto Miller Road, just before we got to John and Louise’s driveway, a deer leapt a fence and bolted into the road. I braked and swerved (not too violently), and the deer veered to the side. For a few moments it ran beside us, keeping pace with the car. Then we were past it, and we sped off, down into the flats, past the tile factory, and to Ron and Kara’s.

Just a little adventure, but fun nonetheless.

Addendum Since writing this, I’ve reached the point in Undaunted Courage where Lewis & Clark begin to encounter Grizzlies along the Missouri River. Needless to say, I’m frightened for them.

A Descent Into Madness

Kris and I walked up to the corner of Oak Grove and River Roads at noon Saturday to meet Lane and John in what I hope will be the first of a series of gatherings. We got a table at McQueen’s, a smoky bar filled with aging men and women who look to be regulars. The women around us were ordering screwdrivers and Bloody Marys; the men were ordering beer to go with their breakfasts. Because McQueen’s doesn’t serve lunch until 1pm on Saturdays, the old folks chased their alcohol with chicken fried steaks and three-egg omelettes. And everyone smoked — great, billowing puffs of the stuff.

We’d had our hearts set on burgers, but we settled for breakfast food as well. The food was incidental, though. Our real purpose was to get to know Lane and John, our neighbors and fellow bloggers. We’ve been here nearly three years now, and have only barely said “hi” to these two.

We had a good time. We chatted about the history of Oak Grove, about the recent snowy weather, about our jobs, and about blogging. We shared anecdotes of the various stores that used to dot the Superhighway (now 99e).

I had forgotten how smoky McQueen’s was until we were walking home. I could smell it on my clothes. “It’s a good thing you just took that sweater to the cleaners,” Kris kidded. “Now it’ll really smell lovely.” When I took the sweater off at home, I could tell that she was right. It’s cloaked in cigarette smoke.

After a bit of writing, Kris and I each fired up an iPod and we took off for a walk. I listened to Undaunted Courage, which is about the Lewis and Clark expedition; she listened to The Decemberists. It felt very Pacific Northwest. The sun was out and shining. It was a lovely day. We walked down the hill, through the park, back along the river, through the lovely estates, and then up the hill past McQueen’s again. Along the way we stopped to point out notable features to each other: cats basking in the sun, cats sitting forlorn in bedroom windows, a gaggle of ducks in the ditchwater, a house damaged from a fallen tree. We passed several other people out walking. We passed a boy who had scraped together all the remaining snow he could find (there’s not a lot left) to build a snow-head — just the top of a snowman, with a carrot nose and eyes made from chestnut husks. We passed several people in their driveways washing their cars. We passed people outside gardening. It’s January 20th, and I feel like we’re being given a small preview of spring. I like it.

In the late afternoon we ran errands. We stopped by Trader Joe’s to get more salsa autentica and, especially, more nuts. (Since I started my wellness program, nuts are my favorite food.) The store was crowded, more crowded than I’ve ever seen it. I don’t do well with crowds. And I was hungry. And there was a hippie family with clueless parents and screaming kids. This all made me very tense.

“I’m hungry,” I said on the drive home. “Let’s stop at Oaks Bottom Pub.” We got the restaurant at just after five. All the booths and tables were full, so we sat at the counter. I had a feeling we should have just gone next door to Cha Cha Cha, but I didn’t heed it. Instead I sat there getting crankier and crankier (because I was really very hungry), listening to all the goddamn kids in the place. The pub had no less than eight children, ranging in age from about eighteen months to eight-years-old. It was like we were at Chuck E. Cheese.

I don’t mind kids, but there’s a time and a place for them. A pub? Not really the place.

On our drive home, Kris and I once again had a discussion about how kid-centric the United States is, or at least the small subsection to which we’re exposed. Are other countries like this? We don’t think so. We don’t even think all parents are like this. But many of them are. And that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. It just gets old after a while, listening to stories about children over and over, or having a dinner with friends constantly interrupted by the kids.

Now I sound like an old grouch, when in reality I love children, and especially our friends’ children.