House of the Dragon 9

 Being the spoiler-tastic review of this episode, but not spoiling anything beyond it.

Fire and Blood 8

 The book-spoiler post. Gonna once again spoil a major, major death (the one that Thrones already spoiled, as I mentioned in an earlier post), as well as another one.

House of the Dragon 8

I didn't think it was possible, but we finally saw a more badass ascent to the Iron Throne than the one Tywin gave to Joffrey way back when Thrones was good.

Being, as usual, the post that discusses everything up through the end of the episode, but leaving book spoilers for the companion post.

House of the Dragon 7

 The excessive profanity and capitalized red text throughout this blog post is an intentional creative decision. 

LIGHT YOUR FUCKING SETS, MIGUEL! LIGHT YOUR FUCKING SETS! WE'RE NOT WATCHING AN AUDIO PLAY, MIGUEL! THIS ISN'T A FUCKING PODCAST! HBO PAID RIDICULOUS SUMS OF MONEY FOR THOSE SETS AND COSTUMES AND ACTORS (AND EVEN MORE MONEY FOR THOSE ACTORS TO TAKE THOSE COSTUMES OFF) BUT APPARENTLY MISTER FUCKING ARTISTIC VISION, MISTER FUCKING CAN'T-SHOOT-AN-ACTION-SCENE-TO-SAVE-HIS-LIFE (MAYBE THAT'S WHY EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS SO FUCKING DARK) THINKS HE'S PUTTING ON A FUCKING AUDIOBOOK! WHY MUST YOU FAIL A DIRECTOR'S MOST BASIC JOB? GOD! DAMN! 

AND ANOTHER THING, MIGUEL! I'VE SEEN AMATEUR HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA CLUB FILMS WITH MORE COMPETENT DAY-FOR-NIGHT FILTERS THAN YOU HAVE IN YOUR MULTIGAZILLION-DOLLAR DRAGON/TITTY SEQUEL! EVEN THE 70s BOND FILMS DO IT BETTER, FUCK! YOU'VE GOT THE MONEY, YOU'VE GOT THE LOCATIONS! MIGUEL! FUCKING SHOOT YOUR NIGHT SCENES AT FUCKING NIGHT! JESUS CHRIST, I DON'T KNOW IF THE "OUR MAINS FRAK ON A BEACH" SCENE IN BATTLESTAR GALACTICA WAS DONE IN DAY-FOR-NIGHT, IT SURE DOESN'T FRAKKING LOOK LIKE IT, BUT THAT WAS SIXTEEN FRAKKING YEARS AGO ON A FRACTION OF YOUR BUDGET!

FUCK! 

(Ahem)

This is the review of Episode 7 of HBO's (apparent) radio drama House of the Dragon (A Project GRRM is Working on Instead of Winds of Winter): A Prequel to Game of Thrones (A Project GRRM Worked on Instead of Winds of Winter) Based on Fire and Blood (A Project GRMM Worked on Instead of Winds of Winter). 

It's this fundamental lack of respect for the audience, manifested both in George's GODDAMN REFUSAL TO FINISH THE GODDAMN BOOKS and in Miguel's GODDAMN REFUSAL TO LIGHT HIS GODDAMN SHOW CORRECTLY, that has finally reached the breaking point for me. It's been FOUR THOUSAND AND NINETY-TWO DAYS between the release of A Diversion With Doldrums A Dance With Dragons and the initial broadcast of HotD Episode 7. Memo to George: you, like King Joeserys, are not getting any younger. FINISH. THE FUCKING. BOOKS. It's been ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE DAYS between the initial broadcast of "The Long Night," Miguel's previous can't-do-the-director's-most-basic-job-and-show-us-what's-fucking-happening episode, and the broadcast of last week's episode "Driftmark." Memo to Miguel: This is not your goddamn college arthouse project. This is a prequel to a dragon/titty remix of The Wars of the Roses. TAKE A FUCKING LIGHTING CLASS.

Okay.

I've said my piece. For now. On to the review, such as it is.

In this episode, the smirking jerkwad second son character whose name is an anagram of "A Demon" claims a dragon to ride. And his nephew loses an eye, ba-dum tish. It spoils the episode but does not go into future book spoilers. The future book spoiler post is over here.

Fire and Blood 7

 Being the future book-spoiler post. If you don't want future spoilers (or want the rest of the review), go here.

Fire and Blood 6

 Being the spoilertastic review of House of the Dragon episode six. The review that only discusses events up to that episode is here. But in this post, I'm going to start off by immediately talking about the next major death that will occur in the series, probably in Episode 7. So go away if you don't want those sorts of spoilers.

House of the Dragon 6

 Being the up-through-the-end-of-this-episode spoiler. Future spoilers are, as always, in the companion post. Except in one notable instance where the show spoiled it for you (it's that thing Princess Bug-Collector said).

House of the Dragon, 4 and 5

 Wow.

As always, this post will spoil the episodes themselves; the companion post will contain book spoilers (i.e., spoilers for future episodes). (Yes, I know the "HotD Spoiler-Free" tag technically contains spoilers, but only up to the most recent episode. I specifically want to avoid future spoilers with that tag.) I'll also discuss the book up to this point, which I think is fair game.

Oh, I will be mentioning the upcoming significant... alteration to the cast, but unless you've been living under a rock you know it's coming. (The other significant exception to the "no future spoilers" rule is that I'm allowed to tell you that everyone dies, because this is a prequel. I'm just not allowed to tell you how they die, even though in one case the parent show already did...) 

Fire and Blood, 4 and 5

 Being the future-spoiler review of the two most recent episodes of House of the Dragon. The companion post will only spoil those two episodes; this one will spoil far more. (Not that any of this matters, because, again, Game of Thrones itself spoiled the ending, lol.)

So, again, major - MAJOR - spoilers for upcoming episodes in 3... 2... last chance... 1...

House of the Dragon, Episode 3

 Just like last time, this post will spoil this episode. A companion post will spoil subsequent episodes.

Fire and Blood, part 3

 Being the book-spoiler review of House of the Dragon part 3. If you don't want future episodes spoiled, do not read this because I'm going to straight-up spoil some very major plot points. The that-episode-only recap is here.

House of the Dragon, Episode 2

  Lord Strong got some screentime, Rasputin did a stupid, the Eleventh Doctor stole an egg, and the king decided to not marry a child, so he married a teenager instead.

This episode had no sex and very little violence (which is not to say there's no disturbing imagery; there's a guy getting crucified - done very tastefully, you know what's being nailed where without them actually having to show you - a guy getting eaten by crabs, and a guy getting his finger eaten by gangrene and maggots). It also had just the right amount of Matt Smith. Until the next generation gets up and running, the story runs the risk of being the Daemon Targaryen Show (which I'm totally here for), but they wisely keep him back for most of the episode's runtime. 

Spoilers for this episode (book spoilers are in a different post)

House of the Dragon, Future Spoilers

TURN BACK NOW if you don't want me to spoil basically everything that I think is going to happen this season. The less-spoileriffic review of Episode 2 is here.

House of the Dragon, Episode 1

 Look, I don't get paid the HBO bucks, I didn't go to the HBO School of Narrative Storytelling or the Miguel Sapochnik School of Proper Lighting, I just think it's a dumb dumb thing to remind everybody about the unmitigated awfulness that was Game Of Thrones Seasons 5-8. 

But, no, we're going to start the episode off tugging those nostalgia themes with the "Daenerys," "Iron Throne," and main Game of Thrones theme. Okay then. And we're going to end the episode-

No, no, let's do this one bizarre decision at a time. And fair warning: I've read the source material and we should all have some idea of where this is going: Game of Thrones Season 8 The Wars of the Roses The Anarchy no really just The Wars of the Roses Again.* So I consider everything up to King Viserys's death (which probably won't happen until near the end of this season) to be fair game to spoil. Who marries who, who has kids, etc. Not saying I'm going to lay out the entire thing in this post, but I could do that in a future one.

*Okay, I'm lying, it is the Anarchy, but boy oh boy are they trying to head-fake you into thinking its War of the Roses again.

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

 The Godfather Part III, the bastard child of the Godfather not-actually-a-trilogy, gets a bad rap, which is partially undeserved. Yes, Sofia Coppola is not an actress, and no, you can't paper over that without digiswapping her performance Spacey/Plummer style. But a) I counted only two scenes in a two-and-a-half-hour film where she actually let the film down, b) her being in the film at all was not a deliberate choice by anyone but rather one practically forced on the production by behind-the-scenes turmoil, and c) she did a far better job than I could have done (even if I hadn't been a toddler at the time and/or had the right set of plumbing to stop it being a gay romance in addition to kissing cousins, yikes), so I'm not really here to rag on her or blame her for the film being what it is. And as for which two scenes I'm referring to in a), well, you'll just have to guess.

Oh, and d) long-time readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, another franchise film where the acting talent of one of the leads occasionally leaves something to be desired, so it's not like the occasional wooden delivery is a dealbreaker for me.

Borderlands 3

 Alas, there is no Vault Hunter whose sole role is KILL MAIM BURN this time around, that was fun.

The plot of Borderlands 3 could be summarized thusly:

The villain is a superpowered individual with a god complex springing forth from the circumstances of their upbringing and their less-than-stellar relationship with their opposite-sex parent. The identity of the villain's father is a late-game plot twist, and the villain's father dies around the time the final act starts. The villain's goal is to become a god and consume the universe. The villain merges with an alien entity and transforms into a monster for the final boss fight. One of the playable characters, a former soldier for a corporation, has a crush on another playable character, a buff girl with an exposed midriff.

Did I miss anything? Ah, yes, the cruel murder of a White Magician Girl halfway through the story.

What an original concept.

2022 rewatch: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

 Oh, come on, after The Man With the Golden Gun, we needed something, you know, good.

The Spy Who Loved Me is Roger Moore's third outing as James Bond, his first in Proper Cinematic Widescreen (2.35:1), his first "shaken not stirred" (although of course he doesn't get to say it), and the first time the Bond actor is credited as "Ian Fleming's James Bond" (definitely a lie, it's Roger Moore), has his face appear in the titles, or wears a tuxedo in the gunbarrel. Other than that, it's You Only Live Twice, right down to the choice of director, only now performed through the medium of underwater ballet and Bond doesn't "die" in it. No, wait, I take that back. He does in fact get fake-shot in both.

It's okay that it's not Ian Fleming's James Bond and it's okay that it's Roger Moore. For the third film in a row, he's the only Bond who could pull this nonsense off. I've said before that a franchise broad enough to encompass both Moonraker and Quantum of Solace is a very weird beast, and it's largely Moore's fault that it lasted long enough to do either. (Very annoying that all three of his successors have gone, with varying degrees of sincerity, the Connery/Fleming route instead of the far more entertaining Moore/Gilbert one. Yes, it's true that a Daniel Craig movie with Baron Samedi in it would have been nigh incomprehensible, but so was Spectre, and this would at least be more fun.)

Along for the ride are Curt Jurgens as this entry's Notfeld, Barbara Bach as the cleavage, and Richard Kiel as Jaws. It involves things that are long and hard and full of seamen and Ms. Bach ends up thoroughly wet.

2022 rewatch: GoldenEye

 GoldenEye was the first Bond Film starring Pierce Brosnan and the first made after a six-year hiatus. It was the second attempt to get Brosnan on-board (cheeky reference thereto in the opening - yes, I wonder what else might possibly have happened in 1986, and BrosBond's activities therein utterly bosh the timeline, no point in not making the reboot clearer - oh yes, I know they kept Q around, so what? They kept M around for the first three Craigs) and the first of two directed by Martin Campbell, the Bond Director whose name I am most likely to forget (but not most likely to misspell - I could make a crack here at the expense of Mr. Tamahori or Mr. Fukunaga, and will instead settle for the safe option of belittling Mr. Spottiswoode). It is also, trivia fans, the only entry in the Bond canon to mention "safe sex."

Is it great? No. Does it do what it needed to do, take a 60s British staple that had lain dormant since 1989 and bring him back in the mid-nineties in a sort of greatest-hits mishmash that buggers up the continuity? A smidge better than Doctor Who: The Movie, that's for certain.

2022 rewatch: The Man With The Golden Gun

 The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) has some redeeming qualities. For example, the film never subjects us to a shootout where Bond survives unscathed despite being absurdly outnumbered by men with automatic weapons (see, off the top of my head, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, No Time To Die* - all of which I think are super in spite of this glaring break in "realism" - as well as all the Brosnans, which, um, exist). Instead, the climax features Britt Ekland in a bikini. Brilliant trade 10/10.

*Look, it's not an automatic weapon that gets him, so it counts, shut up.

It stars Roger Moore as James Bond, except the script seems to be a recycled Connery in terms of his characterization (not the last time one of an actor's weakest Bond films looks like it was written for his predecessor - looking at you, Skyfall). It also stars Christopher Lee as the badhat and Maud Adams as the Other Girl - she'll be back in Octolowerlips, and he'll be in two turn-of-the-millennium trilogies where he's a former good wizard turned evil secondary villain who's quickly killed off at the start of the third film. Which is weird that that happened twice. The villain's name is some variant on Francis, which is weird because that happens again, twice (Licence to Kill and Spectre, in case you tried to forget).

2022 rewatch: LIVE AND LET DIE

 Live and Let Die is Roger Moore's first outing as James Bond. It features Yaphet Kotto as the eminently watchable Dr. Kananga (really, when they get around to The Historic First Black Blofeld*, I'm just going to throw this in their faces) and "introduces" (a lie; this was her fourth film role) Jane Seymour (not Henry the Eighth's third wife (as far as we know - there is voodoo in this movie, after all) or the Canadian actress of the same name) as a Tarot card reader who loses her powers once she has sex. This is only the second most bizarre supernatural occurrence in this film. It stars, however, Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi, against whom the rest of the cast demonstrates their prodigious acting skill by not simply fading into the background in the face of this madness.

NO TIME TO DIE review

 Before we begin, I think you should probably revisit the following posts, as they will inform much that follows:

In which I explain why On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the best Bond film ever. (10/10 on a curve)

In which I watch and reevaluate the chaotic mess that is Quantum of Solace. (5/10 on the curve)

In which I give Skyfall more attention than it deserves. (3/10 on the curve)

In which I give Spectre less than half the tongue-lashing it deserves. (0/10 on the curve)

You will note that I've never bothered to do a review of Casino Royale because it's a mishmash of the novel and OHMSS. And if you read the Skyfall and Spectre reviews, you'll note that I got increasingly pissed off at the films' superficial lip service to OHMSS. Given that No Time To Die is a mishmash of OHMSS the movie (surprise?) and You Only Live Twice the book (actual surprise, unless you knew the working title was Shatterhand), you might think I'm done here.

Oh no.

I'm not. 

The short version is this: Okay. Congratulations. After five attempts, you’ve finally made the superlative, quintessential homage/remake of OHMSS. Didn't think you had it in you. 8/10; now please never do this again.

(SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY. GO WATCH THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU READ THIS REVIEW. IT'S GOOD, HONEST, I KNOW THAT'S HARD TO BELIEVE GIVEN ITS IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS, BUT YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO BE BOGGLED BY THE FACT THAT THEY MADE THIS FILM)

(I will also casually spoil certain terrible Star Trek and Star Wars films. You may be able to guess which two if you've seen NTTD already.)