Bond Wars: Episode II

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974)

Image from bond-girl.net.

So I suck balls as blogalongabonding. Or bondalongablog...you know what, I suck. That's the important part. In a desperate attempt to plug on no matter what, I'm continuing with next one on the list: The Man With The Golden Gun. And I will say this: this movie made me actually glad that I took a couple month break from Roger Moore.

We start off with a sideshow of freaks. A man with a third nipple, a midget servant, and attractive woman who dotes on them all. A nefarious man walks in with rotten intent...and finds himself lost in a circus nightmare. I thought two men fighting for their lives was excellent. But that was before The Man With The Golden Gun introduced me to two men fighting for their lives while being trolled by a sadsitic midget. In short, this is everything I want from an opening sequence. Followed by a rocking theme song and a simple but sensual little title sequence. 

Characters: "Good morning, sir" is Bond's first line. I feel like that more or less sums up Roger Moore for me. He's just...such a good boy. Put a collar on him and give him a Scooby Snack. I like the fact that he's got this very inquisitive thing going on. You get the feeling he's really trying hard to figure things out. Solving the case. The kind of British espionage everyone either loved or hated in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It makes him seem always in control of the case. Always in control of the situation. Which is very good for him. But I can't help but wish he was a little more impulsive. A little less methodical and a little more instinctual. After all, that is the bad boy Bond we all know and love. What makes James Bond different from every other spy? It's that he works with his gut, his dick, and his trigger finger. But his brain? That's a part of the body reserved only for coming up with sharp quips and making everyone else look like an ass. 

I will, however, give Roger Moore this. His cool and calm attitude definitely pays off multiple times throughout the movie. Mainly during his interrogation scenes. When Bond has the gun seller at gun point and is grilling him...Bond is ruthless, but collected, which somehow makes him all the more terrifying. I would be whimpering too. Same goes for when he has the lovely half-naked Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) pinned underneath him with her arm taut behind her back, ready to break. Imagining Sean Connery in this scenario, I think of the scene in which he plays with Bambi and Thumper. He more or less waterboards them to get information out of them, but he does it all with a charming smile and a lighthearted pat on the ass. Moore is a little less witty and a little more mechanically trained. Really, the argument could be made that we shouldn't have been so surprised when Daniel Craig come out and started popping bitches with a black man's smile, because Roger Moore already had the strains of a darker Bond. Which would be cool, except then Roger Moore goes and ruins his image by doing something "comedic" and stupid. So he's either forcing you to talk, or he's giving a man a wedgy and giggling about it afterwards. It makes for an uneven and just plain confusing Bond.

Goodnight and her ass of doom.

Bond Girls: Andrea Anders. Blows everyone out of the park. She's your classic Bond girl...in trouble, the bad guy's mistress, yet ready to drop her clothes for Bond at the drop of a hat. But the best part about her? She's not a ditz. Every one of her moves is calculated. She doesn't want to get into Bond's bed, but she'll do it to get what she wants...the death of the man who's enslaved her, Count Dooku. While Goodnight flat out admits that she's weak, Anders gives us something more...a strong Bond woman. Did I actually say those words? I think I did. A strong fucking Bond woman, who will do what she has to in order to get what she wants. Nothing she does is out of "weakness", instead she bides her time, waiting in the shadows to make it out alive when the gun smoke clears. Or, you know. Not. 

Goodnight is irritating. But Bond does majorly shaft her by forcing her into a closest so she can listen to him fuck another woman for two hours, so I can't really blame her. Oh, and then of course what every woman wants to hear: "Forgive me, darling, you turn will come." Roger Moore's charmingness plummeted through the floor. I can't really tell whether or not Goodnight is a heroine or a villain yet, though. Even though she's one of the good guys, she makes so many lethal mistakes she might as well be working for Count Dooku. But we forgive her, because...you know. She's hot as shit. 

Epic face-off.

Villains: Speaking of the devil. Count Dooku is terrifying. Any man who gets his rocks off by caressing his lover with his gun...yeah. Phallic metaphors aside, he's just a creepy fuck. And he has those intense evil eyebrows. He doesn't even need to say anything, he just stares at you, and you know. Coupled with a cheery smile before he kills you and a badass gun, he's brilliant. Rock on, Christopher Lee, rock on. 

As for henchmen, since he was a lonely bastard he had all of two henchmen. One never said a word and instead molested Goodnight briefly, just so we know he's a "bad guy". The other was Nick Nack. Nick Nack is at times amusing, at times over the top. I would've liked it if they just went all out and made him a little evil fuck. He clearly had a sadistic streak and used it well. But then to have that all undermined at the end when he got shoved into a suitcase like the odd little midget he is...well. It left me feeling not so crazy about Nick Nack. 

Most badass moment: An extremely cool car flip. Which just happened to be ruined by the Looney Toons noise it made when it flipped and J.W.'s subsequent flipping out with his ass in the air. WHY? This is only tied with the fact that the headquarters are on the half sunken Queen Elizabeth. Brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant. Not only does it look cool, but it adds to the whole circus ambiance of the thing with its sideways doors and slanted staircases. 

Most ridiculous moment: Return of the J.W...no. For one, you can't repeat that. For two, a racist white trash all-American Louisiana sherif isn't going to vacation ins Hong Kong. He's truly the Jar Jar Binks of Bond films. 

"The bridge is that way!!!"

Quotes:

Bond: "There's really not very much for us to do tonight...or is there?" He's like the narrator for a horror movie trailer. Worst Bond pick up line. EVER. And he's surprised when it doesn't work? No...no. The audience is surprised when it does.

Count Dooku: "You seem, Mr. Bond, I thought I always liked animals. Then I discovered I liked killing people even more."

Mission report: I honestly couldn't tell you how I feel about this movie if I tried. On one hand, the pacing is good, it's entertaining, Andrea Anders is the shit. On the other hand, it's too gimmicky, Goodnight is ridiculous, and J.W. is just too much. There was a lot of awesome, but a lot of shit as well. I'm just going to have to say it was a pretty good Bond movie and leave it at that. 

Ka-POW!

ENTER THE DRAGON (1973)

Merry Martial Arts-mas.

Honestly, what better way to celebrate the spirit of giving, loving, and bad wool sweaters than to watch Bruce Lee kick the shit out of everyone? My point exactly. Let's just say it, yes? Enter The Dragon (1973) is better than flying sabertooth tigers, badass mama cats, and Tom Hardy rapping. Enter The Dragon is basically better than everything. It's really not hard to see why. Bruce Lee (thinly disguised as Lee) takes on a case of 007 proportions when he agrees to join a martial arts tournament on an exclusive island to spy on an evil crime lord. To top it all off, it's a martial arts movie with undercurrents of spy thriller and blaxploitation, revenge films and redemption films. The best part of the movie for me is the way it's set up. A clear, straightforward plot, filled to the brim with lively characters. Despite the fact that it's an exciting action movie, the action is really just a nice little side dish to what is a wonderfully character driven flick.

Image from midnightonly.com.

Bruce Lee helms the film as the ever stoic Jedi fortune cookie. He's one with the force and stuff, and knows how to fight with his mind, not his strength. But with his strength too. Just look at those arms! The best thing about Lee is that, while he's a bonafide badass with superior martial skills and a battle cry that could explode bald eagles, he's got a great sense of humor. Instead of sitting lotus style on his high horse casting a weary eye on all those beneath him, he carries on with a sly grin and a couple well-deserved pranks on anyone who dares to piss him off. It makes him powerful, knowledgeable, but human. Why did we love Yoda in the original Star Wars? Because he chuckled at his own jokes as he mumbled incoherently to himself. Why did we hate Yoda in the new Star Wars? Because he had no personality and sat there stroking his butt-ugly CGI chin. You can be all powerful and still be all human, in a way that lets the audience actually connect to the character. Furthermore, Lee does have a revenge plot going--man indirectly killed his sister, yadayada. But somehow that's less important than the bonds he makes with the other characters, and the bromance he shares with all of them.

Image from midnightonly.com

Roper is our mandatory white guy lens, because we clearly need someone to translate all this asian crap for us. Did I mention the racism is borderline ridiculous? But you know what--I can handle it. Because unlike some movies from the 70s, the "minorities characters" here were...well. Badasses. Sure, they might've taken on all the stereotypes, but they fought their own fights, whooped the bad guys asses, and did it all in style. And Roper is...well. Just a very amicable tool. You can't help but like Roper. Played by John Saxon, Roper spends more time gambling than he does actually fighting, and will play the odds just to make a pretty penny. But when he does take a swing...he'll knock a man down in a single hit. Despite the fact that he's a gambling addict, Roper has a surprisingly high bar of unshakable principles and while every man has his price, Roper keeps his nose clean of nefarious business and stays true to his friends. You go, Roper.

Next up, Roper's Nam pal and token black friend, Williams, played by Jim Kelly. Williams is a cool cat with a happenin' jive, whatever that means. He's the kind of man who is constantly followed by a funky theme song and often found getting shafted by the po-po. What's a brotha to do? Beat the pigs up, that's what. The great thing about Williams is while he fulfills basically every blaxploitation stereotype, including his unquenchable sexual appetite, you've got to hand it to the guy, he does it all in style. I mean, after watching him pull his sweet martial arts moves, what small army of hookers wouldn't throw themselves at him?

As for the bad guys, we have a couple worth mentioning. First up we have Parsons, played by a guy who will never work again after this movie. He's one of the fighters in the tournament who isn't so much a bad guy as he is a straight up bully--he beats on the help, which is a clear sign that he's a psychopath. Parsons is a great character not because of anything he does, but because of his purpose in the story. He's simply there to add weight to the tournament so it's not a bunch of guys we like beating each other up, and he adds a nice extra layer of tension to the story (and then satisfaction when he gets his ass handed to him). In short, it's just plain smart screenwriting. As for the real villains, we've got the evil millionaire who pulls all the strings, known only as Han (Kien Shih). Han has a great deadpan evil thing going, but more than that, he's missing a hand and replaces said missing hand with various cruel hooks. So. What more can you really want from that? For henchmen, he's got Bolo (the thinly disguised Bolo Yeung), who is the prime example of what happens when you mate with an ox. Really, terrifying human being. And then there's O'Harra (Robert Wall), who is sleazy as hell and sports a scar across the side of his face to prove it. Oh, and he killed Lee's sister. Prepare to die.

"Bolo no like you like that!"

Speaking of the sister, a moment for the women. There's a an undercover woman played by Bette Chung, who really does fuck all. But she keeps a platonic relationship with the male lead, so that must make her some sort of super spy. Lee's sister on the other hand is a total badass. Su Lin (Angela Mao) proves herself to be worthy to carry Bruce Lee's blood in her veins when she gets chased down by an army of men and knocks them down like dominos. She pwns the hell out of any sinister man who crosses her path, and it's only after four minutes and a multitude of extras that they finally corner her and prompt her to kill herself to save her honor. Speaking of extras...holy shit. Is that Jackie Chan?

In short, Enter The Dragon is really the Christmas gift that keeps giving. To hell with a puppy, I want nunchucks in my stockings. Which are also better than Arnold's Pizza Shop.

Bondploitation.

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973)

The Addams Family?

And so it's begun. We've officially left the era of BAMF Sean Connery and entered the age of Moore. For all the slack I give everyone-who-isn't-Sean-Connery, I will say that Moore got off on a pretty good start with this movie. It's one of the simplest, easy to follow Bond films with a straight-forward plot, enticing characters, and good drama. It's a solid script, which is something the Bond franchise definitely needed after that kaleidoscope of madness that was the plot in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

I'll start off, as always, with the opening credits. The music is great--Paul McCartney's Live And Let Die is fantastic. Plus woman's face turning into a skull with flames? Awesome. I'm there. The only thing I'm no on board with is...well. Everything else. I'm not quite sure what the theme is they're going for, the images are a little disjointed. And I'm pretty sure the title sequence women stole napoleon dynamites moves. Moving on.

A Michael Jackson moment?

Characters: For the good guys, I quite liked David Hedison's Felix Leiter. He's just the sort of quick, no-nonsense American I'm looking for in a Bond movie. As usual, he doesn't really do anything of any real consequence, and you have to wonder why Felix Leiter shows up in Bond movies at all. Nonetheless, he's a fun guy to have around for the first half, and I enjoyed him.

Now for my favorite. Sheriff J.W. Pepper (also known as, character actor Clifton James). I don't think I've ever seen a more dedicated sheriff. Or a more dedicated anyone in a Bond movie. He literally steals the entire 3rd act, bumbling around from cop car to cop car, trying to reign in James Bond. His character is so big, so loud, and so magnetic, we totally forget about Bond and spend the rest of the time worrying about Pepper's plight. Sure, James Bond is in the middle of some...high action boat chase, but--look, there's Sheriff J.W. Pepper spitting again! And don't forget about his bruda Billy Bob! Cinematically, this character is not only completely useless and unnecessary, he's actually getting in the way of the plot and entirely destroying the tension of the boat chase. The actor is so fucking delightful, I'm happy they kept him in. But honestly, I would've been happier if they made a Sheriff J.W. Pepper spin-off and let a Bond movie be about Bond. Or, at very least, cut the scene down so it doesn't run some fifteen minutes.

Image from listal.

Bond girls: On a while, the Bond girls are pretty fucking weak in this movie. We have our main girl, Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour. How do we know she's our main girl? Well, she's the white one. Oh. Well. Ahem. Anyway...Solitaire's not a bad character. I like her. Mostly. I like her costume, I like her doe eyes, I like her flighty attitude. I would've been happier if she'd actually gotten crushed to death by the train's cot, but hey. Death just wasn't in the cards for her.

Next we have Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), who is the most useless Bond girl ever to grace the screen and admits it. Alright. That's unfair. It's pretty fucking hard to be more useless than Honey Ryder. But the thing that really pisses me off about Rosie Carver is that she has so much potential to be badass. She's supposedly CIA, yet she doesn't understand the safety switch on her gun. She has epic muscles, but she can do nothing with them. Apparently they only thing she can do is scream. She doesn't even get a proper sex scene! Overall, the character of Rosie Carver just straight up frustrates me. I'm sure she's Guy Hamilton's attempt to pretend like his movie isn't absurdly racist, but if anything, the presence of Rosie Carver just reconfirms it for me.

Villains: Finally! We're getting somewhere. Mr. Big is great. Yaphet Kotto totally nails the role of smarmy, volatile villain. He's got a fierce possessiveness over his "things" and a temper to match. The scene in which he pulls the truth from Solitaire about her rendezvous with Mr. Bond is fantastic.

As for the henchmen, I'm a fan of them all. Tee Hee is great as well. For one, who the fuck names themselves Tee Hee? For two, he has a hook. For a hand. A metal-crushing hook, replacing the arm he lost in a fight with a fucking alligator. Come on! It doesn't get much more badass than that. Whisper is also excellent. Even if he is a one trick pony. He truly is the last person you want warning you that Bond escaped his ropes and is coming the hell after you. Lastly, Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) is Tim Curry flamboyant and just as fantastic. He plays a brilliant voodoo man, and is not afraid to be campy as all hell. You go, Baron Samedi.

Most badass moment: Normally, I'd say the stunts in the boat chase, but it lasted about 15 minutes so I'm going to have to rule it out. Instead, I'm going to go with Mrs. Bell's flying lesson. Even if solely for her expression.

Most ridiculous moment: Why does Bond have the time to make an entire card deck with a single playing card in order to woo the tribal headpiece off a woman when he should just be suave and impulsive?

Mission report: I bet you all expected a lot of weeping over Sean Connery and a giant list of all the ways Roger Moore doesn't live up to the original Bond, what with this being Moore's debut. Well. So did I. Except for the fact that I was so distracted by the fact that this is the most racist, classist, and sexist Bond movie to date. Sexism in a Bond movie...alright. I'm over that. I can handle it. You've come to expect that. Rosie Carver pissed me off, but I can live with it. But the giant shit the movie takes on Louisiana is unforgivable. Which is a shame, because I love New Orleans dearly, and a Bond movie taking place in New Orleans should have me salivating. But the things is, there's no actual evil organization. I repeat, there is no actual evil organization. Instead, every single black person in the world is out to get Bond. I which I was joking. The taxi driver. The voodoo store owner. The parade dancers. Even the fucking shoe shiner. Every single black person in this movie is evil...with one concession. Bond's lazy boat driver. Riiiight. Okay. Because that's not troubling.

Mrs. Bell disapproves of your shenanigans. 

To make it better, they use lines like "Get me a make on a white pimp mobile" and "Hey man, for 20 bucks I'll take you to a Klu Klux clan cookout." There is really no shame in this script. At all. And I could brush it aside and say "Well, it's just one of those old movies", but it's not. This is '73. In '71, Bond was fighting Bambi and Thumber, and interracial team of female gymnastic assassins. There is so much wrong with the plot I actually have very little to say about Bond himself. Roger Moore doesn't really impress me, but he doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. The end. Maybe I'll have more to say about him the next time around. 

The truth of the matter is, I really wanted to give this movie 4 stars. It has some great moments. The sets were great. The henchmen and villains were great. The New Orleans funeral was creative. The oyster truck is the shit. But the racism was just a little too much to stomach. Oh, and the special effects were beyond bad. Especially the plastic snakes. I find myself missing the dragon tank from Dr. No.

Quotes:

Solitaire: Is there time for lesson number three?

Bond: absolutely. No sense going out half cocked.

Bond: A genuine Felix Lighter. Illuminating.

State Trooper: Yessir. J.W., let me have a word with ya. J.W., now this fellow's from London England. He's a Englishman workin' in cooperation with our boys, a sorta... secret agent.
Sheriff J.W. Pepper: Secret Agent? On whose side?!

Rosie Carver: There's a...
James Bond: Oh, a snake. I forgot, I should have told you. You should never go in there without a mongoose.

Aaaand I'm officially only one Blogalongabond movie behind! *Pants*

007 Is A Girl's Best Friend.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)

Jill St. John is a girl's best friend.

Now I know what you're all thinking. "What, that movie where James Bond gets really old?" Quit your bellyaching. He's older, sure. But he's still charming. Calling Sean Connery "old" is like called George Clooney or Cary Grant "old". Men like that don't sag--they just get better with age. Like wine and novelty t-shirts. Eh. Like wine. 

Diamonds Are Forever starts off strong. Blofeld's "death" is epic. It's funny, it's the first five minutes of the movie, but it's an excellent fucking five minutes. First, we get Bond, from the neck down, beating the shit out of everyone with his brilliant Connery-accent (you can't even really call it Scottish, honestly). And finally, Blofeld's entrance as the last monkey in the evolution chain, smoking his pipe (WHERE'S YOUR NECK, BLOFELD?). Excellent. Top it off with a death-by-slime and an ugly Blofeld demise, and I'm hooked. The movie could've stopped there, honestly, and I would've been happy. But the show goes on...

Characters: Felix Leighter makes one of the more charming appearances he's made in the Bond franchise. He's another old fat guy, but you know what? He's got kind eyes, and there's something just plain endearing about him. I can't see him saving the country any time soon, but I would hire him as Sheriff of Fargo any day of the week. Even if he does spend about half the movie pissed off at Bond for chasing tail. But who really listens to anything Leighter says anyway? Or Q., for that matter. Poor Q. can't even get a flighty Bond girl to sit down and listen to him yammer on about this gadget and that gadget. Don't worry, Desmond Llewelyn, we still love you.

As for one more little honorable mention, Mr. Whyte is great. Played by none other than Jimmy Dean himself, he's obnoxious, doesn't take no for an answer, and has a ridiculous as hell accent. You go, sausage man!

Plenty of Plenty is never enough.

Bond girls: Tiffany Case is great. Played by Jill St. John, she's strong from start to finish. Smoldering, quick, and above all, devious. You can never completely tell which team she's playing for (which, really, is my kind of girl). James Bond plays her more than once himself, because there's no better way to a woman's heart than a little deception. The point is, she has character. She knows what she wants out of life, and takes very purposeful steps to better herself. She isn't doing this to save a family member in peril, or out of some sense of duty for her country and fellow man--she's, simply put, out to save her own skin. But at no point in the movie does she come off desperate, instead, she's demanding, determined, and petty to the point of getting into arguments with small children ("blow up your pants"? Really, Tiffany?). But Bond slaps some good sense into her, which is always great. Good to know the best way to handle a strong woman is with a strong hand. Bond Logic, #24.

Plenty O'Toole (Lana Wood--is that her real name or still Bond name?) is Plenty of everything. She's gorgeous as hell, and she's an unashamed moneygrabber. Why am I sensing a theme with the women in the movie? Nonetheless, she's a funny case of Bond girl since she doesn't have sex with Bond, and she doesn't die. What's up with that? Then again, the sex was almost there, and the pool was just good luck, so technically she dabbled in a little bit of both. 

Bambi and Thumper. Are the best. Hands down. These chicks are fucking psycho, but amazing. There is nothing I don't love about them.

I Am The Walrus?

Villains: Mr. Wint and Mr. Kid. Goodness. It'd been a while since I've seen such great henchmen. They're not your standard, run of the mill, muscle men henchmen. These are ugly nerds who've only just crawled out of their basements to hunt down enough money to squeeze in another month of World of Warcraft. Mr. Wint looks like a lovechild between Malcolm McDowell and an ironing board, and Mr. Kid is his balding walrus lover companion. How could this go wrong?? Nonetheless, these two teach a valuable lesson for all people working in the evil business of evil: when two people who you did not expect to be there hand you a package and then slowly inch away from you, the chances that you're about to blow in in five seconds just skyrocketed.

Last but not least, Blofeld. My favorite villain. There is nothing better than Blofeld. Except maybe two Blofelds. Or a Southern-accent Blofeld. Or Blofeld In drag. CAN THIS GET ANY BETTER? Is there anything more to say about this man? No, I think not. 

Bond teaches the breast stroke.

Most badass moment: This one is actually a tough call, because there are so many good ones. I'm going to have to go with two. 1) The many faces of Blofeld--or should I say, the many pussies. 2) Bambi and Thumper. And everything they did.

Most ridiculous moment: The fact that James Bond's only identification is his Playboy Club card. And by "ridiculous" here I mean "fucking awesome."

Mission report: All in all, every sequence really delivers. Bond's coffin moment is terrifying. You know those moments in every Bond film in which you know he's going to escape, somehow, you just haven't quite figured it out? It was one of those moments. Then we've got the racist ape women scene, which is unapologetic. And Bond's car chase...in a moon buggy? And Bond's car chase part two, where he outruns a bunch of coppers by literally driving his beautiful, beautiful car sideways. And the scene in which James nearly gets crushed on top of an elevator! So it's all a little disconnected, and I lost track of the plot after about twenty minutes. Usually, you can at least hold onto the general strain of logic, but this one was all over the place, tangled up in a ball of flaming explosive twine. But it's all so fucking exciting, you don't really give a damn. It's like a pile of mini-Bond movies in one mess of explosions, tits, and speeding vehicles. Thank fuck for no shark attack.

The ending is all sorts of ridiculous. Bond has way too much fun yanking Blofeld around on the crane, Tiffany Case can't shoot a gun without falling off of something, and Bond is attacked with shish kabobs of death. But its a fittingly disjointed (yet fun) end to a disjointed (yet fun) movie. No one can say Sean Connery didn't go out with an confetti covered bang.

Quotes:

Bond: "I think you have something you need to get off your chest."

Bond: "Do you want anything from Holland?"

Moneypenny: "A diamond. In a ring."

Bond: "Would you settle for a tulip?" 

Bond: "That's quite a nice little nothing you're almost wearing. I approve!"

Tiffany Case: "I'm cooperating, Mr. Leighter...I really am."
Bond: "I can vogue for that."

Blofeld: "Bright idea, Mr. Bond."
Bond: "Wrong pussy."

Mr. Whyte [as Saxby's dead body rolls down a hill]: "Burt Saxby? Tell him he's fired."

Bond: "Your problems are all behind you now."

"I Love The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning."

APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

Apocalypse Now movie poster.

After Francis Ford Coppola dragged me through over three hours of pure cinematic glory, I was tempted to write: "Yeah, I guess it was pretty good" and leave it at that. But the truth is, I couldn't praise this movie enough if I tried. The short of it is, Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam War film about a soldier set on the task to assassinate a "renegade" colonel. The long of it is, Apocalypse Now is an epic tale about the survival of humanity and sanity in the face of war. I couldn't help but think about my old friend Yossarian, and I think the crux of the plot is best described in his maker's words:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed. (Catch-22, Joseph Heller)

For the first third of the movie, I could have sworn it was directed by Stanley Kubrick. Again and again we were assaulted by characters that existed uniquely and completely in this fucked up world called Vietnam, 1969. They live by their own morals and scramble to keep themselves sane with acts of petty and life-threatening lunacy. Indeed, Vietnam does unravel into an apocalyptic war zone reminiscent of zombie films and end-of-the-world stints. It's always the freaks, the insane, the ones a little off kilter to begin with that somehow manage to scramble to the top of the hierarchy and instate their own brand of living. I would like to say that it's The Lord Of The Flies: The Adult Version, except they never really did grow up. These are boys, kids who, in this day and age, would be most stressed over getting a fake I.D. passed the liquor counter.

Image from http://img.listal.com

But more on the characters later. A moment for the cinematography. A black screen. A white command report clicks through and stops. Chopper wings heave through the air, slicing its huge wings passed the Saigon palm trees. A reprieve of black. The same helicopter lolls through the sky, retracing it's steps. The slow pick up of The End by The Doors hangs in the helicopter's wake, meanders through the sound like a soft drunken lull. And, with just as much ease, Saigon glows a vicious red and burns to the ground. Classic. Immediately, we're there. We're in it. And it's fucking badass. But Mr. Coppola does not stop there. Despite the fact that this movies has hours upon hours of footage (so much so that some deleted scenes themselves last nearly 20 minutes long...can you imagine that? Just flipping through a completely polished 20 minutes and thinking "Eh. Lop it off"?), each frame could have come out of a painting. Visually, it's stunning, beautiful, and weighted with destruction. All I can say is every penny poured into Coppola's outrageous budget--worth it.

The funny thing about this film is that, even while watching it, you get the feeling that it shouldn't be a film. The characters are too rich, the plot is too complex--cinematically, it shouldn't work. Coppola should've thrown it to the novelists and had a field day. It reads like Catch-22 or Heart Of Darkness. He leaves out no details and makes no sharp and hasty cuts. Instead, we meander through the film the way we would a book. Hell, I even put the film down half way through, saved my page, and picked it back up the next day. At yet, as much as I want to tell Coppola to start writing novels, I can't ignore the fact that this movie is just as much about the visuals as it is about the story. And so, if I have to watch a 3-4 hour novel just to keep the stunning images, so be it. 

I don't want to pick apart the story too much because trying to dissect this movie is like explaining Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. You can only get so far because you finally have to give in with "well, you just had to be there." So instead, I'm going to do one of my favorite parts of reviewing and go through it via the characters/actors.

Image from http://www.siue.edu

Col. Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando): Because, really. What would a good Coppola film be without Marlon Brando? After being dragged through the marshy swamp of Vietnam, I was expecting to be thoroughly disappointed with what I found on the other side. Not in a bad way, exactly, he'd just been built up so much, I didn't see how they could really get anyone to live up to that. And I was so glad to be mistaken. With a mixture of Marlon Brando's I-speak-with-marbles-in-my-mouth mumble and intense yellow lighting, somehow Kurtz was brilliant, savage, and deeply and frighteningly human at the same time. 

Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen): Martin Sheen is a bit of an odd duck. When I think of him, I see Wall Street (1987), I see the old man act. I don't know him as the young, handsome, gritty man that he was hardly ten years earlier. The truth is...he really was young, handsome, and gritty. His narrative tone is sharp and cold, his character is rough yet passive. He's someone dark, a killer, and yet some how someone we feel connected to. Maybe it's his doomed, sarcastic humor that buffers his gruff attitude, but either way, Martin Sheen pulls off every moment perfectly. We're with him for the ride. 

"Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest): I had the good fortune of having no fucking idea who Frederic Forrest is. And after scanning his resume on IMDB, I don't actually think anyone else knows either. Which is just fine by me, because now he's just "the Chef". And what a great character. Hailing from New Orleans, all the Chef wants to do is cook and stay in the fucking boat. We can't help but wonder if Bubba Gump didn't pull a little inspiration for his shrimping boat. 

"Clean" Miller (Laurence Fishburne): It took me a while to pin the face, it really did. I got it, I recognized it, and then I went "No. That can't be him. Can it?" Laurence Fishburne is definitely a man of many faces, and while he'll always be good ol' Morpheus to me, I commend him for his versatile skills. His character is young (well, he's super fucking young), immature in a boyish way, and probably one of the last people you want holding a gun. Well. Maybe second to last, after the Chef. Coughcoughtigercoughcough. 

Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms): He's a surfer dude. Next question. I kid. Lance is actually one of the most endearing characters in the entire movie. In honor of the wise old tradition of "Tune in, drop out", Lance did what was probably the only sane thing to do in Vietnam. He dropped. 

Image from http://www.listal.com

Chief Phillips (Albert Hall): This is going to be an awkward comment that I'll probably get some slack for, but I like the way they portrayed the black soldiers in this movie. Most of the time in Vietnam movies, I feel like we get that oppressed "Yes suh" and "No suh" follow-the-white-boy character. Here, I can feel the strain of the late 60s, the pull of the black power movement, the rise of the Black Panthers. I'm a bit of a Black Panther voyeur, and I could definitely see strains of it throughout the characters in this movie, especially in the "asshole of the world". Chief is one of those characters. I'm not saying his tug-of-war with Willard is completely racially based, but I don't think that's exactly a mistake either. Albert Hall played the man's seriousness perfectly, and captured his no-nonsense attitude for the sake of survival brilliantly, while still leaving room for some heavy emotions. 

Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall): Now here's a great character. Played by a great actor, no less. Another bit of memorabilia from The Godfather--Coppola keeps his boys happy. He's that guy you're always waiting for in a war movie--brass, arrogant, cocky as shit. Played too much Cowboys and Indians when he was little and now he thinks the world really works like that. My only problem with his character was that there wasn't enough of him--I could've had a whole movie with him and been happy. Except his character is kind of a one trick pony, and I'm glad he came and went as he did.

Photojournalist (Dennis Hopper): Between Apocalypse Now and Easy Rider (1969), you could never in a million years convince me that Dennis Hopper was a Republican. Politics aside, once again, Hopper is brilliant. But then again, he's just really playing his own tripped-out self, so I'm not sure he could really go wrong in this one. But the wacked-outness is extraordinarily convincing, keep it up, Hopper!

Col. Lucas (Harrison Ford): Harrison Ford! I saw him and suddenly got that much happier. For one, he's ridiculously young in this movie. We have to remember, this is Han Solo right between Episode IV and V. Harrison Ford is just about at the top of his game and yet still so young. I don't know why he chose his character trait to be that the man constantly cleared his throat, most prominently when he was delivering classified information, but I think it's brilliant. 

With all these characters, the ultimate reward of this movie is the journey. And the transformation that each and every one of these characters go through--the rough and ragged Willard, the rag-tag bunch of kids on a boat...they all disintegrate into the fabric of Vietnam and come out on the other end half-alive at best. You would think that after two hours of a boat trip and then another chunk of time cut out for the ending, it would be hard to the movie to finish with anything other than "Are we there yet?". And yet, Coppola gives us something substantial, satisfying, and wholly deep. Something you don't really want to overanalyze or articulate, even though the symbolism is all there begging to be taken apart and dissected. Instead, just let the surreal, stunningly beautiful, soul-swallowing movie end, let it sink into your bones, and thank Coppola for the best Vietnam War movie in existence.

Image from http://img.listal.com/

End intellectual rant. I swear next time I'm going to rewatch the A-Team (2010) and fill my entire post with "THEY FUCKING FLEW A MOTHERFUCKING TANK!"

Eggiwegs! I Would Like...To Smash Them!

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Got Moloko?

So this is a bit of a throwback, but after last weekend's midnight showing, once again A Clockwork Orange has proven that it will never get old. We take a romp into the life of Alex DeLarge, a teenage boy trapped in a futuristic world overrun with an excess of violence, rape, and just general nastiness. Alex, the ringleader of one of these "meddling kids", is put through a "rehabilitation" program with the hopes of instilling a sense of compassion for the human race and "goodness" into the boy. Thus introduces the question: is is better to be human and chose to be evil, or to be stripped of the choice and forced to do only good? Although this movie has all the stamps of a Stanley Kubrick 70s movie--the slow pace, the extended scenes in which very little happens--the aesthetic richness in every scene makes it worth the wait. Indeed, even when Alex is simply going through the motions of stripping down in order to give over his belongings to the police, the atmosphere and the world Kubrick creates is intense (the shouting police officer, the threat of the white line, the slow realization that Alex doesn't carry baby heads in his pockets, he is in fact just like you and me).

To anyone who's read the book, this is definitely one of the best book to movie adaptations I've ever scene (even forgiving the changes made in the "death of the cat lady" scene. If someone gives you a giant fake penis sculpture, you really have no choice but to bash someone's face in). Kubrick captures the world, the essence of Burgess' novel, in the tongue-tripping narration and quirky, twisted details (mothers with Tonks-style changing hair, statues with nipples that bleed milk, and counselors who are a little too...touchy).

Actor abuse?

This movie is definitely not for the squeamish. Kubrick makes no apologies about the violence and delivers one of the most disturbing rapes scenes ("Singing In The Rain" will never be the same again). He forces the viewer to stay with the scene, prolonging it, making us endure what recent directors would have just left to the imagination with snappy cut outs and dramatic flashes. While no cats may have not been harmed in the making of this film, I have to occasionally wonder about the actors. And I'm not just talking about the repetitive epileptic fits Mr. Alexander seems to suffer. Malcolm McDowell takes some serious hits for this movie, for which he should earn some sort of endurance prize. The iconic scene in which his eyeslids are pried open and held there as someone administers eye drops was all done with extraordinary patience, not CGI. Plus, I'm sure this is just me, but every time during the scene in which Dim and Georgie more or less water board Alex, I LOOK for that little blink of a white cigarette burn in the top right corner (thanks a lot, Fight Club. I will never be able to ignore that little flashing circle again) and every time I don't see it. All evidence points to one shot. Which seems impossible. I've tried holding my breath that long, I have. But it just seems like actor abuse. Then again, if I was an actor, I'd hold my breath as long as it'd take for Kubrick. I'd swallow too.

Violence, sex, crazy futuristic 70s shit. What more could you want? Well, the closet intellectual in me wets herself a little with the academic debate underneath the top layer of cinema goodness--the same debate which tormented Dostoevsky and yet somehow is still beautifully articulated by Kubrick. "Goodness is something to be chosen," claims the Prison Chaplain, "When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." Kubrick keeps the integrity of Anthony Burgess' novel by exposing Alex in all his truly horrific glory, and then getting the audience to cheer for him and pray that he never stops being the evil little shit he is. Viddy this horrowshow flick pronto, yeah?