James Bond

More Bond: Double bill DaF & L&LD

Diamonds Are Forever

After the disappointment of On Her Majesty’s…, I expect everyone was as glad as me to see Sean Connery resuming Bond duties, taking the role back from Lazenby for one last Bond film.  I had hazy memories of Diamonds Are Forever being - as well as one of the better titled Bonds - one that I’d particularly enjoyed. Sadly, it seems I was getting my Bond films confused: DaF is a pretty dull outing, really.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

In my last post on a James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, I admitted that the James Bond project was moving along somewhat slowly.  Inwardly, I promised myself that I’d speed it up a bit, crack through a few more films and get on with it.  But then I looked at the next film on the list: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Oh dear.

OHMSS is a film I’d only seen once. It has a reputation as a low-point of the Bond series: people can argue forever about who their favourite Bond is but none of them ever say George Lazenby. Ever.   More than that, it’s one of the very few Bond films that, after watching it, I never felt the need to return to again. But that was years ago. Surely my memory was deceiving me? Surely it wasn’t that bad?

You Only Live Twice

The James Bond project is going slowly. When I decided, back in October, to watch every Bond film in order I didn’t expect it to be a marathon of back-to-back viewings (not like Argento week!) but if I’d been asked I’d probably have predicted to be beyond Film #5 after 9 months! As it is, You Only Live Twice marks a milestone of sorts: it’s the last film with Sean Connery. Ok, well… it’s not. Because he came back after Lazenby. But it’s the last film where only one actor had played Bond.

James Bond triple bill

So, from the exciting introduction to the Bond universe that Dr No provided, I moved along (chronologically, of course) to a trio of films that pretty much embody what James Bond is. These films are the very peak of ‘Bond-ness’, they’re so jam packed with all the exciting (and ridiculous) tropes that came to define the the Bond film as a series that it’s no surprise that Austin Powers found the vast majority of its material here - some of the scenes are almost shot-for-shot identical!

Watching James Bond films. All of them. In order.

So… this week I’ve taken on a new and exciting challenge: I’m going to watch all the James Bond films, ever single one, in the order they were made. Now, I’m not a complete masochist so I’m not going to set any kind of time limit on this: I’m not watching all 22 (twenty two!) back-to-back! I’ll take it nice and slow; I’ll put on the tux, shake my vodka martini and then relax and watch Bond, SPECTRE and all manner of exciting things.

Poster Hunt #7 -James Bond and The Matrix - Ghana style

This month Poster Hunt comes in the form of TWO gorgeously ridiculous hand-painted posters from Ghana. Many of these paintings were made by (incredibly creative) artists who had not seen the film

And if you like these, you should definitely check out Ephemera Assemblyman