Thanksgiving Notes
So, I’m putting this together beginning at 10:40 Sunday night. Christmas Vacation is on TV. The tree is lit. A Bell’s Christmas Ale is at my side. Yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Man, the holiday weekend went by fast. It seems like minutes ago we were out to eat on Wednesday night, watching basketball on…
Bond – Skyfall
Finally! I not only watched a Bond movie for the first time in ages, but I knocked out the most recent one. The same movie I nearly saw in the theaters upon its initial release 18 months ago. The same movie I nearly bought the day it was released on disk. The same movie that has been in my Netflix…
When Trent, Mikey, Rob, & Sue Were Our Heroes
Sadly, all this cold has sapped my brain of writing inspirations. So yet another link for you. This is a good one, though. Grantland offers up the oral history of all oral histories: an insiders’ tale of the making of the movie Swingers. It’s great, although not nearly long enough for extreme devotees of the flick. Still, plenty of great…
Weekend Notes
Catching up on the weekend and some girls notes as we wrap up a sleep-over. We swapped daughters with our neighbors last night. C. went next door to sleep with her 7-year-old buddy while M.’s 9-year-old pal came to our home for the night. Our evening was uneventful. We ate dinner, then the girls watched the newest American Girl Doll…
Bond: Pierce Takes Over
Bond is back! After a long, long break, I finally dove into Pierce Brosnan’s first turn as Bond, GoldenEye, Tuesday night. Strangely, as I got deeper and deeper into the flick, I realized that I had never seen the entire movie. I’ve seen the beginning many times, and parts of the rest, but there were parts I’m sure I never…
The Birth of Bond
It’s been nearly eight months since I watched a Bond movie. I need to get back on that. Perhaps this article, coming with the 50th anniversary of the franchise, will get me motivated again. It tells the story of all the elements that had to come together the get the first movie made. While Bond seems old hat these days,…
Depp Being Depp
I’ve been slowly working my way through the most excellent Joe Strummer documentary The Future Is Unwritten. If you’re a fan of the punk rock prophet, or just a fan of music in general, I highly recommend it. The film features audio from the late Strummer cut with interviews with people he was close to through his life. Family members,…
Bond: The Dalton Years
I suppose it says volumes of the Timothy Dalton era that it’s taken me nearly three months to watch his two movies. In my defense the holidays, and the Christmas movie season, were right in the middle of that stretch. And the copy of The Living Daylights our library has is scratched so badly the disk does not play after…
Bond
Did I jump off the Bond Bandwagon? Nope. Between watching the Royals most nights and keeping up with my Thursday shows, it’s been tough to watch movies lately. My slight reluctance to tackle the next Bond movie didn’t help. I remember hearing, when I was a kid, that some people thought George Lazenby was the best Bond ever. Back then,…
Bond III
Time for two more Bond movies. Thunderball, 1965 Four years, four Bond movies. While there was a sense of extravaganza to the first three Bond movies, Thunderball feels like the moment the series became a massive event. Sprawling, audacious plots by the bad guys. Large deployments of troops by both sides. And massive climactic battles. In this case, it all…