How Television Saved My Life

Thunderball. Yeah. When I was a kid it wasn't my favourite. There was too much going on underwater, too much going on in general, but nothing really happening. The concept is great... Spectre has devised a plot so devious it requires a bloke to get facial reconstructions, adjusting his voice and all to pretend to be someone else. This is all to get two nukes that Spectre can use to blackmail the UK and US to give them 100 million in diamonds. I've got questions. You see the concept is great if you keep it simple with them holding bombs for hostage for ransom and that the government have four days to accept or anyone's a target. Instead we've got a bloke with an eyepatch called Largo (Adolfo Celi) who's the chief architect of this plot , and he's dating the sister to the guy who got 'copied'. Now, I wonder - why didn't they just threaten the bloke with the fact that his sister would get murdered? So simple. Using a familiar device, and an und...

Goldfinger is probably one of the most recognizable and iconic of the films in the series. It's the one that defines what the future film try to do - with an outlandish evil geniuses plot - from the fantasy gadgets of ejector seats and bullet proof glass - and beautiful women. The film starts with Bond on a mission with a line as a bit of exposition to what's-going-on, which started in From Russia with Love , though this one pre-credit scene is completely unrelated to the film we're about to see. It's even got a completely lovely moment of Bond having a seagull on his head at one point. Anyway it's besides the point, it's silly, and funny with the usual dry wit, besides showing how fantastical the concept of this secret agent is. However, when on holiday, Bond is pretty much forced upon a different mission concerning a man called Auric Goldfinger. He plays a bit of a trick on the man who's been winning lots of card games with a helping hand from his a...

As I won't be able to see another Bond film today, I might as well talk about the film everyone is talking about, which is common when it comes to Christopher Nolan. One of the few directors who've taken over a franchise (The Dark Knight Trilogy) and still managed to garner huge amounts of buzz around his next films. He's made some cracking ones with Memento , Inception and even in my own eyes the very underrated and often forgotten  The Prestige. I've not yet seen Interstellar, shock and horror, I know, but the very negative buzz surrounding it deters me. Last Sunday, however, I was rather glad to get to see Dunkirk, which several were sceptic over - as Harry Styles was cast in it. Lots of drama over that casting happening, and I get that, as it felt like casting Keanu Reeves in Bram Stokers' Dracula, however, here it wasn't thankfully about his popularity but about the fact that he can  actually act. Way to go Harry! To the films plot, it's center...

When I was a kid I thought this one was super romantic, and I suppose it had to do a lot with Matt Monroe crooning "From Russia with Love" over James and Tatiania kissing in a boat in Venice. It's pretty picturesque, besides his hand slowly letting go of the film of them 'shagging'. Also the whole bedroom scene - Tatiana: I think my mouth is too big.  James: I think it's a very lovely mouth. It's just the right size - for me anyway! Number of jokes I didn't catch as a child. Many, also the illusions of romance have faded ever so slightly, yeah. Over to the plot. Spectre our international baddie group are in full focus this time orchestrating Tatiana Romanova played by Daniela Bianchi and James meeting. She's been told by 'Number Three' who's still pretending to be a part of the Russian Intelligence Service that she's got to pretty much seduce Mr Bond, besides do as he says at all times, and get him a Russian decoding ma...

Dr No, the first Bond film where Sean Connery became a star by playing the fictional MI6 agent 007 - James Bond. A character first made famous by the series of books written by Ian Fleming. The author himself disapproved of the casting of Sean Connery, though later incorporated the fact that Bond's family were originally Scottish and so-on, besides inserting a character similar to that of Honey Ryder played by Ursula Andress in the unforgettable beach scene, getting out of the water in a white bikini. In this one Bond is sent to Jamaica to find out why another fellow agent got murdered while investigating. It turns out that one of the privately owned islands is covered in radio active materials, it's owned by a man called Dr No, hence the title of the film, who's supposed to be half-Chinese and half-German, though the actor is 100% white, but made up to look Asian (unfortunately common at the time, as Breakfast at Tiffanies is probably the worst example of that). He...