Weekly Cinemeh

Hello, and welcome back to Weekly Cinemeh. This week we decided to focus on James Bond Films, specifically the ones that focused on the evil organization, SPECTRE (well, 4 out of 6. We didn't watch the Lazenby one or "From Russia With Love"). SPECTRE is one of the best ideas for an evil organization. Every time someone dies or fails in a way that harms the group, they are replaced, so people who stay in their positions are clearly going to be good at their jobs. James Bond is someone I admired in my youth when I watched these movies, but now as an adult (kinda) I find him to be a way more dubious character. Also very rape-y.

1: Dr. No
Dr. No is not just the first time that SPECTRE shows up, but also the first James Bond movie. Its a decent little film, though it clearly shows its age. Sean Connery is the best James Bond, even though he hated the character. Dr. No differs from a lot of other Bond movies because it focused heavily on Bond's cruelty. At one point Bond actually plays solitaire while waiting for a hitman to show so he can kill him, rather than just evade him. This is a much darker film than later bond movies which tended to try and make Bond movies that are a little lighter.

Eshi: Until this week my contact with Bond films has been almost completely restricted to the general information possessed by the zeitgeist. I was pretty aware of the character and the fucking massive influence Bond has had on modern fiction allowed me to build a pretty complete picture of the bond universe without having interacted with it. Dr. No justified my appreciation of the character absolutely. Connery as Bond is casual, charismatic and efficient (within the bounds of cheesy 60's movies). Other than some frankly expected racism, sexism and just terrible visual effects I very much enjoyed this one.

2: Thunderball
This was the fourth James Bond Film, and dealt with the theft of two nuclear weapons. I am used to movies making plot mistakes, but there was something that made no sense in this movie. Why the hell was a training mission being run with real, and live, nuclear weapons? Later there are military personnel, who are like "man it sucks that we put live weapons on a training run" and no one responds with "why the fuck would we do that!". That aside, the climax of the movie is awesome, even though it glosses over the possible death of a valuable asset. At the end of the film, Bond needs to jump off of a boat to not die and in the process pushes two other people off of it as well. One a girls named Domino he wants to bone, the other a scientist who works for SPECTRE but is not loyal (he even helps the girl escape from confinement because he finds the torture of her unacceptable) whose last line is "I can't swim". Anyway they all get out, and the boat explodes then Bond and Domino immediately board a rescue raft. There is no mention of the scientist or indication that they tried to save him. It was a little odd. I guess Bond wanted to be alone so he could fuck Domino. Not the strongest of films, but still fun to watch for the underwater battle between SPECTRE and the CIA, which gets really fucking brutal. Also, this one has my favorite theme song from this list (second favorite behind Goldfinger's theme in the whole series).

Eshi: This one was my favorite. Partially because the sweet ass underwater combat and partially because it gave birth to my theory that Bond is actually gay. Thunderball had the best balance of the movies we watched between oh shit violence, awkward social exploitation, and humor. The fact that they blatantly kill the Scientist at the end and it doesn't even remotely register for either bond or Domino was fucking hilarious to me.

3: You Only Live Twice
There is only one thing that made me uncomfortable in this movie more than the sexually aggressive Bond, the fact that they had to make him look Japanese for his mission, which gets very.... Black face-y. Yellow face? IDK, its racist is what I am saying. There is a scene in this movie that is just awesome, where Bond jumps in an Ultralight and blows up a bunch of enemy choppers. its a  fun ride. Also the ninja/SPECTRE siege is a fun ride. Not the best film, but fun to watch. Also shows Ernst Starvo Blofeld for the first real time (he is only shown from the waist down in the previous movie), which is clearly who Dr Evil is supposed to be a direct parody of.

Eshi: The gadgets and "spy" work in this movie were fun as hell, and I'm kinda okay with it not being any better than that. I mean, SPECTRE is a very interesting enemy organization and Blofeld gets crazy in some amusing ways. That said this movie could have just as easily been called "The One In Which Bond Gets Yellow Fever" for all the super explicit... what would it be? Japsploitation? I don't know. There's a lot of just spectacularly racist "Asian" shit and it would be extremely inappropriate if it wasn't all so laughable. Sean Connery "becoming Japanese" is so hilariously terrible I thought I was going to have a stroke.

4: Diamonds Are Forever
This was the weakest of the Bond movies we watched, though still fun. I think the ultimate thing to take away from this is that Bond movies are fun, if you can get past the whole rape-y vibe he exudes. I liked this movie's plot more than a lot of Bond films, but the execution was a little lackluster. This movie did, however, have my favorite villains in it. Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint.. I would watch a movie where these two went around assassinating people in interesting ways and making color commentary about it. They were fun to watch, its a shame they get got at the end of the movie.

Eshi: DAF was fun when it wasn't beating the gay horse. Pretty homo/transphobic. Bond is still kinda rapey (though less so this time), and the giant diamond space laser was pretty fucking cool for its time, even if the visual effects were still just... just terrible. Like, it would have been better to have almost a third of the film happen off camera. There is no situation in which an exploding nuke should be represented by a poorly filmed smoke pellet. 

Honorable Mentions:

Austin Powers: I love these movies. They are the only movies that have done the spy movie parody really well.

Archer: Probably one of the best TV series ever made. It never lets up on the comedy, and takes joy in pointing out how ridiculous some of the tropes from Bond films are.