Post-Craig review: Goldfinger

Goldfinger is the Donald Trump of Bond Films, and I'm not talking about the titular character being a fat swindler with a penchant for golf.

Have I got your attention? Have I annoyed you? Oh, good.

It's "big and bold and brassy" they say. It's a gilded parody of a Bond film, I say. Casino Royale 1967 may have been/will be a delusional psychedelic mess, but this is a film where Bond wins by shagging a lesbian straight.

You might say that I'm being unfair. I would say that this is my review and I can do what I want, so there.

Image of the Week: Pearl Harbor and the Fog of War

 

I follow a lot of naval history accounts, so this "Japanese map showing their assessment of the damage done to the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor" caught my interest. Let's talk about it.

Post-Craig review: From Russia With Love

One of the rules of this project is that I'm not allowed to start writing one review until I've finished the previous one. An exception to that is if I've written something but in the editing process decide it'd fit in better elsewhere. Kind of like Sylvia Trench showing up again at the start of this one.

She is an odd artifact of Dr. No, the last vestige of "we don't exactly know what a Bondfilm is yet" in the first film with Desmond Llewellyn and the last one before the Aston shows up. In their defense, Dr. No was insanely profitable (made back its meager budget more than 50 times over). As I hinted in the previous one, a couple of the key players had worked together before, but Bond isn't Yer Typical Action Movie (or at least, it shouldn't be... looking at you, Skyfall*).

*And Tomorrow Never Dies. And Licence to Kill. And... 

There are times to take risks and times to play it safe, and bless 'em, most times the Bond people know what time is what. From Russia With Love isn't The White Album - you don't make an album like The White Album as your sophomore offering - it's With the Beatles. A worthy follow-up that doesn't muck too much with what works, but there are still a lot of covers.

Post-Craig Review: Dr. No

 Back to the very beginning.

This is a lie. "The beginning" would surely be a review of Ian Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale. But we can skip that. The books have, for all but the most obsessed of us who pegged the ending of No Time To Die the moment the rumor mill told us the working title was Shatterhand (hi), faded into obscurity. (Besides, it's far too much effort for me to hold the novel open while I type this, as opposed to just having a movie running in a different window.) So too can we skip the "Card Sense Jimmy Bond" 1954 American telemovie Casino Royale, the long strange path that the rights to the Fleming novels took to land in the hands of Mr. Broccoli and Mr. Saltzman, and how director Terence Young and writer Richard Maibaum (who had both worked on a 1958 World War II film called, uh, No Time To Die [oh, and take a gander at that cast list]) were brought in to hurl James Bond onto our screens one October evening in 1962.

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.