Thoughts On Scene It? 007 Edition

In lieu of a more traditional review of this DVD board game, I've decided to share with you a few quick notes on Scene It? 007 Edition. I was quite pleased to finally find this thing, and for the most part, it didn't disappoint. Here's a few thoughts on the game, based on my familiarity with the subject matter and the mechanics of Scene It?:

• First of all, 007 fans should only pick this up under the assumption that you anticipate finding willing and capable opponents to play against. Admittedly, it's fun for a while to run roughshod over the other players because you've seen every film in the series, but this soon becomes boring and there's no way to turn up the difficulty on your friends.

• As for the difficulty of the trivia, there's a good balance between questions drawn from inside and outside the films: that is, questions about the films' characters and plots are offset by questions about actors, directors, and theme songs. Furthermore, these questions range from the textually obvious (i.e. who played who in what film) to minute details which require considerable familiarity with the film. As such, it becomes obvious throughout the course of several games which films your friends/family members are more familiar with; for instance, I was swift in answering detailed queries on the plot of The World is Not Enough (or anything starring Pierce Brosnan), but struggled to recall the principle players of The Living Daylights, besides star Timothy Dalton. Still, the game is careful not to overwhelm casual viewers of the series with minutia, while at the same time keeping obsessed fans interested. It's a sufficient balance to insure broad appeal at your next party.

• Obviously, 007 Edition features clips from all official films in the series, from Dr. No to Die Another Day. They vary somewhat in length, but in general they are carefully selected and fun to watch or re-watch, as the case may be. My biggest problem with the clips is the volatile nature of the questions which follow them: too often these questions have little or nothing to do with the preceding clip. After watching a clip from TWINE, in which Bond and Christmas Jones escape from the exploding blast pit, I was asked, "Who played Electra King in this film?" Points for sticking with the same film, I guess, but minus several million for totally ignoring the content of the clip. On the other hand, these clips are sometimes followed by questions which only necessitate a player's attentiveness to seemingly arbitrary detail, such as the color of Bond's shirt in For Your Eyes Only. Rarely do the clips justify themselves within the game; instead, they only seem to be there for the purpose of visual distraction, and this is a complaint I often lodge regarding the various Scene It?s.

Nonetheless, if you have a cadre of pals willing and able to challenge your exquisite knowledge of 007, this edition of Scene It? is worthwhile. Daniel Craig was nowhere to be found in my somewhat dated version, but there's a Casino Royale Collector's Edition that brings things a little bit up-to-date.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Once again, Thrasher returns with a review, this time of Diamonds Are Forever, the last official Sean Connery vehicle. Expect Chicken to return from his extended leave of absence in our next installment.

It seems like Sean Connery's Bond would like to forget about On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He acts like he never left the series, only taking a short "holiday," as one of his superiors calls it, to refresh himself before returning to duty. Even when he chases down Blofeld in the pre-credits sequence, presumably to revenge to death of his wife in the previous film, he does so with a wry humor, like a man smiling through a dull chore. Indeed, there isn't even a single mention of his personal tragedy (strangely enough, that would come later, with Roger Moore). In the world of Diamonds Are Forever, George Lazenby was an unpleasant diversion, and Diamonds puts the series back on the path to outlandish comedy and self-parody, something which began in earnest with Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, and would prepare us for the often unmitigated cheese of Moore. Through a fairly obscure plot involving diamond smuggling and extortion, Bond is cast into a series of strange locations, such as funeral parlors and moon landing simulations, and the incongruity of seeing his well-tailored dinner suit walking alongside the business casual clientele of Las Vegas is very kitsch indeed. Diamonds Are Forever is fun for exactly this reason, but I'm not sure the filmmakers, or the rapidly aging Connery, were in on the joke as much as they'd like to believe, hence the schizophrenic shifts in tone. Still, there's plenty of action spectacle to recommend in this one, especially the French Connection-lite car chase through the streets of Vegas, and Bond's fight with Peter Franks in an elevator, something which brings to mind the similarly enclosed brawl between Bond and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. But that's the problem with Diamonds; even at its best moments, it can only remind us of earlier, better films. Bond's transition, from Connery to Moore, begins here, and consequently this one suffers for it.

Nobody Reviews It Better: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

A drastic change, indeed. Today Thrasher looks at On Her Majesty's Secret Service, of the most unusual, and one of the most interesting, Bond films to date.

More than any other Bond film, certainly before and arguably since, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a strange one. It's weird. It's different. It's also immensely interesting, for Bond fans especially, because of these differences. Many consider this the most faithful Ian Fleming adaptation, but for me that's an insight of minimal critical value. No, what matters here is how George Lazenby develops such a strikingly different character from his filmic predecessor. Gone is the dry cruelty of Sean Connery, and in its place is a softer, more humored, more human Bond that directly confesses his shortcomings to the spectator, plays at being disinterested in young women, and silently sobs before the end credits. Oh yes, it's truly difficult to imagine Connery playing this role. OHMSS is quite daring compared to the others, it's practically an art film with substantial financial backer. Much like Casino Royale, this one takes what we know and inverts it, but not for the sake of criticism; it's like a knowing wink, flipping things around a bit to keep us interested, to keep the Bond formula fresh, and indeed we'll see that most of the generic gambles this film takes are immediately withdrawn by the next film.

And what do we make of that odd pre-credits sequence, where Bond trails an unidentified woman to a beach at dawn, saves her from drowning, is attacked by thugs, and, when the woman sneaks off without so much as a "Gee, thanks," turns to the camera and remarks, "This never happened to that other fellow." I believe it's an open admission of guilt, a concession to the spectator, essentially telling us upfront that, Hey, Connery may not be here, but don't blame us, and let's have some fun anyway. Not only that, but it also sets up the kind of Bond that Lazenby will be. In a way, these uncharacteristically modest words prep us for a Bond not as self-assured, not as rugged, and certainly not as boorish as the Connery iteration, even though the stylistics of the fight scenes in OHMSS might tell us that 007 is more brutal than ever. In that sense, the kind of baroque camera work on display here seems quite at odds with the rest of the film, and would absolutely be a better fit in the previous five films. Nevertheless, the non-hand-to-hand action set pieces in the film are fantastic, well-choreographed affairs, especially the ski chase, and the bobsleigh beatdown between Bond and Blofeld. OHMSS should also be commended for its most radical challenge to the series' grammar, something which had already become staid and subject to parody, and that's the infamous tragic ending. It's never really been done since, although I suspect it may return sometime during Daniel Craig's tenure as 007. Too bad Connery had to return so quickly to the series, only to take Bond's true tragedy and spin it into another one-liner.

Nobody Reviews It Better: You Only Live Twice (1967)

Following an unexpectedly lengthy hiatus, due to unforeseen, international business, our series continues with Thrasher's thoughts on the fifth entry in the 007 cycle, You Only Live Twice.

Watching You Only Live Twice today, it’s hard not to think about Austin Powers; though Mike Myers’ films broadly parodied the conventions of all things spy, and obviously its most notable cinematic agent has always been James Bond, You Only Live Twice seems to bear the burden of Powers’ mockery (its love, really). It’s also hard to not see why this one is so easily sent-up. Continuing the trend started by Goldfinger, each successive Bond has been bolder, more salacious and more strange, and its only mission, seemingly, to top the spectacle of the previous film. In many ways, Twice has them all beat, at least when it comes to fireworks. There’s even a pre-credits sequence, in which Bond is “killed” while “on the job,” that brings us back to the gimmicky surprise of From Russia With Love’s opening number. This time, however, MI6 has staged Bond’s death to swerve SPECTRE (a plot device the upcoming Skyfall seems likely to borrow, if the most recent trailers aren’t misleading us). Liberated by his “death,” 007 is sent to Tokyo to investigate the origins of a secret rocket launched into space, which has stolen (or is it swallowed?) American and Russian spacecraft in orbit, setting the two nations at even greater odds than before. Of course, Britain is positioned by this film as the benevolent arbitrator, trying to cool the tensions between two trigger-happy superpowers. The Brits’ efforts are mostly ineffectual, however, and soon war is imminent.

No troubles, though, because Bond’s on the scene, and he has an arsenal of hokey gadgets to help him succeed. “Little Nelly” is the most prominent of these toys, a quick-assemble helicopter he uses to locate the requisite secret volcano lair (“Is it a hollow dead volcano like I asked for?”). Bond is, inevitably, attacked by enemy aircraft, and he engages in one of the sloppiest action sequences in the series. Though green screens are inevitable, and forgivable, in these early Bonds, this time around they are lazily used, incongruous close-up shots inserted into the dogfight, and the effect is unanimously silly, and are in no way pleasing because of their silliness. Same goes for most of the shots involving the launch or recovery of spacecraft. You Only Live Twice is quite often a film stretched beyond the capabilities of its craftsmen. And even though the Japanese locales look lovely and the culture is rendered in a relatively fair manner otherwise, it’s hard to explain, much less excuse, Sean Connery’s yellowface disguise as Japanese peasantry. Is it one of those things you just chalk up to “the times,” shrug, and move on? This is an old film, culturally, aesthetically, stylistically, and socially, so what are the effects of such racism? How much less virulent is the offense when this much time has gone by? Sure, the film has a strictly narrative explanation for his portrayal, and he doesn’t even speak in stereotype, but exactly how much better is this than, say, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Should I, we, still be offended? It’s tough to say. Twice is more obviously offensive than most Bonds, but I suspect there’s always a bit of sublimation going on for modern audiences watching these old Bond movies; they’re so old-fashioned (there’s a fairly typical bit in Twice when Tiger Tanaka, an ally, tells Bond, “In Japan, men come first and women come second,” and Bond responds, not at all sarcastically, “I just might retire to here.”) that to enjoy them you have to ignore the deeper meanings, or at least resolve not to fight against them, or openly laugh at them, or else the politics might make you want to put a brick through your TV.

Following a rather dull middle portion, things do pick up by the end, and the ensuing ninja-henchmen-Bond-Blofeld firefight is an enjoyably excessive affair. Still, I can’t help but notice the general weariness, not just on the visage of Connery, but on the series as a whole. A change, and a particularly drastic one, was certainly necessary to let the series breathe a bit, even if it was only a temporary, fleeting fix. That reprieve would come swiftly.

Bond On Display

As you may very well know, Code Redd Net is currently in the process of reviewing every 007 movie before the release of Skyfall in November. We are not the only ones commemorating Bond's legacy. Greater than 400 items are on display in the Barbican Centre in London (possibly including Scaramanga's third nipple). We thought you might be interested in checking out more of their display, in addition to a video at the Daily Mail.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Goldfinger (1964)

Code Redd Net is reviewing every MGM Bond film before the November 9 release of Skyfall. Today Chicken Man reviews Goldfinger.

As Thrasher stated in his review of Dr. No, James Bond 007 really became an icon after the release of Goldfinger. All of the 007 trademark elements are present: the eccentric villain, the not-so-subtly named Bond girl, Bond's survival ensured by Q Branch's gadgetry, the Aston Martin, the high-stakes plot, the Walther, the womanizing, the puns, etc. This really leaves the impossibility for one to be a fan of Bond and not be a fan of Goldfinger; it shows Bond qua Bond in his essence. And it does it well. One of the very enjoyable scenes is Bond playing a golf match against Goldfinger. The event of Bond interacting incognito (though he never seems to fool his enemies into believing he's not a spy) is not at all unique among the movies of the series, but Goldfinger seems to do it best. As well, it demonstrates Bond's ability to use his wit to survive. Contrary to misconceptions partially due to parodies such as Austin Powers, often Bond's enemies will not simply leave him to die in one of their elaborate death traps. In this case, he is able to convince Goldfinger that it would be wiser to keep him alive. In addition, he later escapes his jail cell through innovative trickery. Bond is also a master manipulator: he is able to save the day by bringing Pussy Galore to his aid (don't you know that he only seduces women in order to protect queen and country?). It is partly for these reasons that we find James Bond so appealing; any action star can shoot guns and drive fast cars. Yes, Bond can do these things, as well as those mentioned above. But nobody does them better.

As a parenthetical note, the greatest drawback for me regarding this film is the premise behind which Auric Goldfinger is being investigated by intelligence agencies. He is a gold smuggler. Does smuggling gold actually hurt anyone? No. The reason that governments and central banks frown upon such is because of using precious metals as alternatives to paper currency undermines the currency's value and acceptance, and therefore their ability to print it (at this time in U.S. history it was illegal for private citizens to own gold bullion. FDR made this the case by executive order so that he could inflate the U.S. dollar). Goldfinger is actually providing people a service by allowing them to own a hedge against inflation by holding gold rather than being at the mercy of their central banks, which continue to inflate their currencies . In this way, he is heroic. But blowing up existing stocks of other peoples' gold to increase the value of your own (or dipping chicks in gold paint) is obviously not so heroic, and he is justly punished.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher
From Russia With Love (1963) by Chicken Man

Nobody Reviews It Better: From Russia With Love (1963)

Today we continue our series of concise reviews of every Bond film until the November 9th release of Skyfall. This time Chicken Man takes the reins and shows how From Russia With Love establishes different Bond signatures and lays the foundation for cementing 007 in his defining era of the Cold War.

As Thrasher stated previously in his Dr. No review, James Bond didn't really become an icon until the third movie, Goldfinger. Part of the fun of No and continuing on with From Russia With Love is that one gets to witness Bond at the experimental stage, seeing which events became themes in the series. Some definitely did: the title sequence, flirting with Moneypenny (as opposed to having the intended steady girlfriend, Sylvia Trench, who was not seen afterwards), being equipped by the ever innovative Q, the nemesis organization of SPECTRE, etc. As well, FRWL is also one of 007's defining moments, establishing him as a Cold Warrior, for it is in this era that Bond has spent most of his existence. He remains fighting this Cold War into the times of Timothy Dalton, who aided the Afghans against the Russians in The Living Daylights. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Judi Dench as M characterizes Bond in Golden Eye as "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War..." As with Dr. No, as well as most of Connery's Bond films, FRWL is in deep contrast to more contemporary 007 movies in terms of pacing; it is doubtful that modern audiences would be as captivated as '60s audiences were. It also continues the intermittent use of the Bond theme music, playing when he is doing the more mundane, such as walking into a hotel, whereas in the later films it is reserved for when he is doing something more heroic. In many ways it forms a bridge between Dr. No and Goldfinger, where the presentation is making the transition from unpolished operative to charming, sophisticated secret agent. It is a fitting sophomore performance and arguably an indispensable part of the Bond canon.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher

Nobody Reviews It Better: Dr. No (1962)

Thrasher and Chicken Man team up, as only they can, to bring you a complete retrospective series covering all 22 official James Bond films, in chronological order, concluding with the release of Skyfall on November 9. They've split the reviewing duties evenly, and will cover one to two films per week. Thrasher weighs in first on Dr. No, the film that began the cycle, and one that remains, in so many ways, a significant part of film history.

Bond begins with Dr. No, surely, but it wasn't until Goldfinger, two films later, that he became an (im)mature icon; and if Goldfinger is the stuff of canon, Dr. No is the stuff of curiosity. So much is the same, from characterization to narrative structure to cinematic style, and yet so much is different, different in register, if nothing else. Subtle things, like the odd soundtrack (especially noticeable during the traditional gun barrel opening, and in the often unsteady, intermitent use of the Bond theme music) only seem odd today, in light of the rest of the series. Indeed, the whole aural atmosphere of the film seems unusual by comparison, and in that sense Dr. No indicates the immense importance music would assume in later 007 adventures. No is often an extraordinarily quiet film, much quieter than the others. Even dramatically, there are scenes in No so quiet they look positively experimental compared to the popular bombast of later entries. Think about the scene early in the film in which Sean Connery enters his Jamaican hotel room for the first time; he leisurely moves about the room, checking for anything suspicious, and then he prepares several makeshift alarms so he can check if anyone has tampered with his belongings while he's out. Consider also the scene in which Bond waits for an ally of the nefarious Dr. No to arrive at a remote bungalow; he pours himself a stiff drink, puts on soft Jamaican music, prepares a decoy body in the bedroom with pillows, and gets himself settled in a chair next to the door, patiently playing solitare until his assassin creeps inside. Both of these scenes would have absolutely no place in any subsequent Bond films, especially the latter. This second scene is not only far too slow for a series which switched direction, markedly, from semi-sober drama to playfully absurd romp, it's also incommensurable for Bond's behavior, specifically the way in which he shoots his would-be assassin in cold blood. This is a brutal film, and Connery's Bond is calculating, muscular, sadistic and lean. Connery's natural charm took some time to finess, and his brutishness is in peak form in No; Bond is more boorish here than he would ever be, at least until Daniel Craig stepped into the role. Still, though, despite its differences, No is clearly a 007 film, much more so than the recent Quantum of Solace. True, there's no exciting, nonsensical pre-credits sequence, and no radio-ready pop song to play over the animated credits, and no Q, and no gadgets, and no exotic cars, but Bond's there, however unmannered. All he needed was a few more films before he was properly fitted for the occasion.