After watching — and loving — Casino Royale, I’ve started a bit of James Bond kick. I’ve never read the novels before, so I’ve been picking them up in order. I’m also going to watch the entire film series in order via Netflix. I have fond memories of many Bond films, but I’m afraid that they don’t always live up to these remembrances upon re-watching.

The Bond films conventiently divide into three seven-film clusters. I plan to review each group in turn. Here are my evaluations of the Sean Connery-era Bond flicks.

Dr. No (1962) – Sean Connery [7.2 on IMDb] – B- from me
A passable entry, though a little schizophrenic. It’s nice to see the early incarnation of Bond. The trappings of the late-fifties and early-sixties seem as if they’re from another world. Some of the stuff at the beginning of the film is just absurd. I like Dr. No as a villain, though, and like his strange lair. This film is much more low-key and less gadget-oriented than the series becomes later.

From Russia With Love (1963) – Sean Connery [7.4] – A
Excellent. This is a wonderful spy film, and one of the best Bonds. It steers clear of most of the Bond conventions. There are few witticisms. There’s no secret lair. There’s real cloak-and-dagger stuff here instead of crazy superspy mumbo-jumbo. I watched this three weeks ago, and already want to watch it again (if only to get the bad taste of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice out of my head). This film works well on its own, without any other knowledge of the Bond universe.

Goldfinger (1964) – Sean Connery [7.8] – C-
Vastly overrated. This is the first Bond film to fit the mold we’ve come to know as typical. The first half shows glimmers of promise, but the last half is obscenely stupid. Why has Goldfinger built an elaborate scale model of Fort Knox in his house? Simply for a short demonstration of his plan? How did the good guys get set in place outside Fort Knox without being subjected to the nerve gas? Who knows? This is the first of the films with a prolonged climactic battle scene between the forces of good and the forces of evil. These scenes, which become a staple of the series, suck. Plain and simple: they suck.

Thunderball (1965) – Sean Connery [6.9] – C+
This is a mixed bag. It has some great elements — strong female characters, a good villain with whom Bond has close contact in social situations while struggling to defeat behind the scenes, a prolonged underwater battle scene — but it has some clunkers too — hilariously bad background visuals during the climactic boat battle, a prolonged underwater battle scene (yes, it’s both good and bad), and a plot that doesn’t always make sense. The soundtrack is excellent.

You Only Live Twice (1967) – Sean Connery [6.9] – D
This film is pretty bad, especially in its last half. Like From Russia With Love, it opens with a fake Bond death. The first act features some interesting cinematography and intriguing ideas, but it quickly descends into absurdity. Things just don’t make sense. They occur for no other reason than to spur the plot along. Characters possess knowledge that they couldn’t possibly have. The final battle scene in the caldera of a volcano is overlong and dumb. The screenplay is by Roald Dahl, but that doesn’t matter. This film is not very good.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) – George Lazenby [6.9] – B
What an interesting trip. This is unlike any other Bond film I’ve ever seen. Bond doesn’t operate on any official secret service business (thus making the title a misnomer). He falls in love and gets married. The first half of the film unfolds at desultory pace, more like a romantic drama than an action-adventure movie. But things pick up at the end with a couple of exhilarating set pieces. The soundtrack is fantastic, almost psychedelic at times. Diana Rigg is the best Bond girl yet — smart and beautiful. Unfortunately Lazenby is a lousy Bond and, at times, a lousy actor. The film has other weaknesses, too, but they don’t detract too much.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) – Sean Connery [6.7] – C
This film has its moments — Bond scaling the sheer surface of a building, his exceptional taste in wine, Blofeld’s cat confronting its double (Kris says this was the only good moment) — but it’s undone by sheer stupidity — Bambi and Thumper, Bond built into a pipeline, Bond jumping into a lunar probe, bad actresses, and yet another stupid mass-fight ending. I’ve probably scene Diamonds more often than any other Bond film.

For those keeping score, I’d order the films thusly: From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Dr. No, Thunderball, Diamonds are Forever, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice.

Having now viewed the Sean Connery canon (he made one more appearance in a Thunderball remake, but that’s not part of the official series), I feel comfortable saying that he is a good Bond, but he’s often undone by lousy stories. Daniel Craig in the recent Casino Royale, though, is a better bond, and truer to Ian Fleming’s original imagination of the character. (Casino Royale is also better than any Connery film except for From Russia With Love.)

Somewhere along the way, Kris and I developed the tradition of seeing a movie (or, sometimes, more than one) on Christmas Day. I think this stems mostly from the fact that all of our Christmas celebrations are finished before the day itself, so that we’re left with a lot of time on our hands. Plus it’s kind of fun to venture forth for a mundane task on a day that the rest of the world shuts down.

Except that in the past decade, more and more people have developed the same habit.

The first Christmas film we can recall seeing is Schindler’s List in 1993. (Kind of a downer, I’m sure you’ll agree.) Because this is the season for Oscar-caliber pictures, those are the sort that we usually see. The worst Christmas film we ever saw was Gangs of New York. We were joined by the Mirons that day, and the other three in our group hated the film. I thought it was okay, but certainly no Oscar-worthy.

Yesterday Tiffany joined us to see Dreamgirls, a movie that has already received its fair share of Oscar buzz. Dreamgirls, a musical, is a fictionalized account of the rise of Diana Ross and The Supremes. It stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, and Eddie Murphy, and features the debut of Jennifer Hudson, a young woman with a magnificent set of lungs.

Dreamgirls gets a lot of things right. It is one of the best-directed films I’ve ever seen. Or maybe it’s just well-edited. It zooms along at an exhilarating pace, never feeling rushed, but never lingering over any scene for too long. (Kris felt that some of the numbers are ill-conceived — she cited “Family” as too stagey and over-the-top, for example.) The acting is good. The script, though trite, is adequate. This is a well-made film.

Its greatest weakness is a lack of catchy songs. Like most modern stage musicals (Dreamgirls made its Broadway debut 25 years ago, on 20 December 1981), the songs are too “busy”, with little melodic hook. Still, there are some knock-outs. The film’s centerpiece is Jennifer Hudson’s “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”, which she belts out of the park. (Many reviewers are writing that Dreamgirls is worth seeing for this number alone. They’re not wrong.)

Dreamgirls is a fine piece of entertainment — well-made and brisk. Like many films, it lacks a certain something that might have made it great, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the running for Best Picture. (And there’s little doubt that “I Am Telling You” will win for Best Song.)

Here’s a schizophrenic trailer for the film:

And here’s a clip from the show’s second-best number, “Listen”, which Knowles nails:

Finally, here’s an amateur production of the show’s centerpiece confrontation, including “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” (which begins at about the 3:45 mark):

Meanwhile, at home we’ve been watching some of our traditional Christmas films. We haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life yet this year, but we’ve seen two of our other favorites: Meet Me in St. Louis and Love Actually (the latter of which we’ve seen twice now).

Tonight Kris and I watched Why We Fight, the 2005 documentary about the United States military-industrial complex. The filmmakers ask: Why is the United States fighting in Iraq? More generally, they wonder why this country seems obsessed with a policy of Imperialism, a policy promoted by every President in the last forty years (except perhaps Carter).

Why We Fight uses as a touchstone the Farewell Address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a speech made in 1961. Here’s an mp3 of the entire thing, and here’s the relevant excerpt:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three-and-a-half-million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[The second half of Eisenhower’s Farewell Address cautions against the rise of Federally-funded scientific research. He was wary of this marriage, too.]

Why We Fight explores the consequences of having ignored Eisenhower’s warning. Our nation is now controlled by the military-industrial complex. The budget is dominated by military spending. The government is beholden to the companies that manufacture armaments. There is a vast and complex web of spending and mutual support that perpetuates a need for more fighting, the use of more weapons.

This may sound like some sort of conspiracy theory, but it’s not. It is simply a statement of facts. It’s our interpretation of these facts that gives them value. For you, this military-industrial complex may be a much-needed safety net. But for me, as a pacifist, as a thinking person who opposes our invasion of Iraq, as a citizen disgusted by the enormity of the military budget (especially at the expense of other programs), I find the military-industrial complex abhorrent.

I was especially pleased that the one of the commentators in the film provided some brief historical context for the 9/11 attacks, context that seems sorely lacking in nearly every discussion of the event. (For more on this, read How did we get here?, a compilation of the research I made in the days following 9/11.)

Here’s the trailer for Why We Fight:

Why We Fight is an interesting film — one that will go unwatched by most Americans — but it is not wholly successful. Its many subjects do not seem unified. The film never seems to make a point, to arrive at a conclusion.

If you’re interested in a sobering evening of reflection about war, I recommend watching Why We Fight with the recent The Fog of War, in which former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara discusses the nature of modern war. The Fog of War is a great film (my review).