Saturday, December 27, 2008

James Bond is kind of an OK dude

I'm on a fuckin' roll here, writing stupid bullshit on this blog. So I'm gonna keep on going and talk about how I decided to check out another Bond movie when I got home from Christmas with the family. I've never seen most of the Bond movies, so I checked out the first two to see if it's worth considering checking out the rest.

So I busted out the Maker's Mark and went to work on it while checking out the follow-up flick to Dr. No, called From Russia with Love. I wanted to see if this bastard Bond pays for what he did to my main dude Quarrel, who is currently in ash form and probably being gobbled up by guppies.

The first scene of the movie is Bond being stalked by this buff dude who is probably Dolph Lundgren's father or something. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy also spoke German. We're talking Aryan superman shit here. What's really cool is that Bond doesn't look so smug here, in fact, he looks scared, so that's pretty awesome. He doesn't have time to piss himself though, because Dolph Sr. sneaks up from behind and piano wires this motherfucker something fierce. Yes! Revenge, baby! I'm like, this is awesome, the first five minutes and this limey fuck Bond is dead. Good. Say hello to Quarrel for me. Then they take it all away from you when you find out it's just a dude in a Bond mask, and this was all just a test to see how fast Dolph Sr. can find and kill J.B. should the opportunity arises. Boooooo! If I had popcorn, and I didn't want to eat any more, I'd throw it at the screen.

I really like the credits, cool shots of the names of the cast and crew projected against belly dancer types. The main theme is really nice too. I spent most of the movie humming it and making up my own lyrics. I can't remember them because I was feeling pretty good at the moment, loving that special glow that lovely, lovely booze can only provide. Being with a chick can also give you that glow, I've heard.

Turns out this is a revenge flick, except it isn't for Quarrel, it's for Dr. No. Really, who gives a fuck? Apparently, the evil agency he works for called SPECTRE does. So they get Bobby Fischer and this Russian lesbian to work on messing things up for MI6 (agency Bond works for) and to steal something called the Lektor. I think it's a code-breaking machine, like that Enigma machine that they made two flicks about a few years ago.

Russkie employs two other people to help out, the first being Dolph Sr.. It's pretty funny how obvious Russkie hates men; the first time she meets Dolph Sr., he's out sunbathing while some blonde cutie (who's kinda sweaty & oily, but I'm not complaining) is giving him a massage. Russkie is probably pissed that it's not her getting the shiatsu treatment by this chick, so she breaks that shit up immediately. And I guess his admirably fit male physique really grosses her out too, because her reaction to seeing this is to dry-gulch him with her brass knuckles. Jesus Christ lady, we get it. It couldn't get any clearer unless you started belting out some Indigo Girls song while you did it. Luckily, homeboy doesn't flinch and Russkie's is impressed, so he's on the job.

Next, Russkie meets up with this smokin' hot blonde Russian named Tatiana. I must be old school in my taste, because I find this chick a lot hotter than a lot of what passes for hot nowadays in movies. I mean, Keira Knightley has a cute face, but with that body of hers that just makes her the cutest boy I've ever seen, and that's wrong. I felt so bad for her when I saw her in Domino giving some gang members an attempt at a lapdance. There's some serious Oscar caliber acting going on in that scene, because when she takes off her shirt and is down to just her bra, the homies act like her flat DiCaprio-in-Titanic chest is painfully boner-inducing. Maybe if they had just gotten out of the joint, I can kind of understand that. If I have to go to jail, I would hope to have a cellmate that looked like Keira, otherwise, I'm not completely buying that scene in Domino or that moment in Atonement where homeboy gets so hard up thinking of her he's driven to typing out CUNT on a typewriter. I know, I know -- I would be lucky for someone like Keira Knightley to give me the time of day. But why do you have to kill my buzz? Sounds like you could use a drink more than me. When you're finished, we'll get back to Tatiana and Russkie.

Russkie interviews Tatiana, and by interview I mean she makes Tatiana take her jacket off and show off more of that lovely figure. It's pretty funny, Russkie ordering her to turn around and slow motion for her, remarking that Tat's a "fine looking girl". She even establishes dominance by beating her cane on the table whenever poor Tat asks her a question. You know, if Russkie wasn't such an mean old hag, I could probably hang with her. We could go out for beers and she could be my winggirl. Reminds me of an interview with some actor I read online, can't remember who or what but I'm not bullshitting, saying that he was at some function and was having drinks with Ellen DeGeneres. At one point, they started scoping out the ladies, and she was even goading him into pursuing a couple of them. Ellen seems like a really cool chick. She'd probably start dancing though, but she seems like she'd be cool with you busting her balls about it. You know, just two bros hanging out. Anyway, at one point Russkie tries to be all slick by placing her hand on Tat's knee, who reacts by going into Bad Touch mode, so Russkie removes her hand. A few moments later though, she tries again! She's all running her hand over Tat's shoulders, hair and face. This chick is such a dude.

At this point, the movie unfortunately remembers that this story is about that asshole Bond, so we go to him macking on some chick from the last movie. But it isn't Dummy McDumdum from Dr. No, instead it's that broad at the beginning he was playing cards with. It's pretty awesome though, because he has to take a phone call in his car and the girl won't stop messing around with him. Eventually he SMACKS THE SHIT out of her hand -- and she seems to dig it! The good old days!

Bond arrives at MI6 and engages in some flirting with this chick Moneypenny. I actually started to feel a little bad for Bond here, because you get the sense that Bond thinks this lady is really into him. He thinks he's such a charming dude that EVERY girl digs him in that way. Such is the fallacy of men. Moneypenny is probably just humoring the poor chap. I mean, she's fond of him and all, but she can't completely respect a slut like Bond. I can see her making light of the dude while she's out having lunch with her girlfriends, the entire group cackling away while she tells them the latest dumb thing that came out of his mouth, or how he still thinks tossing his hat at the rack when he enters the room is charming.

So Bond goes on assignment in Istanbul (not Constantinople) and meets this dude named Kerim Bey, played by Mexican actor Pedro Armendariz. Pedro Armendariz? Orale! We got raza in a James Bond movie! But you know what that means. You KNOW what THAT means --

Homeboy's gonna die.

He eventually does die, even though the movie plays with our hearts by having him survive an attempt on his life early in the film. You think, "Hey, maybe he's going to live" and then fucking Dolph Sr. kills him on a train. Fuck you Dolph Sr.. Your son Dolph Jr. is awesome, and I even liked his Punisher movie, but you just made my shitlist, making Bond cool with me in the process. Remember, Bond treated my boy Quarrel like shit, had him killed, and never broke a sweat about it. Now he's all right. That's how badly you fucked up, bro.

Somewhere along the way, two gypsy chicks fight over the love of one man. Pretty awesome. They still have fights like this, even in American society, only they all happen on Jerry Springer and the chicks look exactly as you'd expect a guest on Jerry's show to look. Not the same thing at all.

Eventually our girl Tatiana falls in love with Bond and wants to live the rest of her life with him. The poor deluded girl is pouring her heart out to him, making such an ass of herself. You'd think she was a drunk co-worker at a Christmas party, the way she carries on. It's made worse because Bond humors her, even buying her clothes and playing husband & wife with her. But you know that as soon as the mission is over and he finds out if the carpet matches the drapes, he is Out Of There. That is so fucked up. J.B.'s okay with me now, but he can still be a real dick sometimes, you know? I mean, Bond is going to mess up that chick something awful, and the next guy she hooks up with is going to pay for it.

Dolph Sr. attempts to kill Bond on a train but it turns to fightin' time and Bond does to Dolph what Dolph did to the Bond imposter at the beginning of the movie. That's ironic, right? I don't even know anymore. Does anyone? Pretty cool fight scene, by the way. They do something here you don't see much of anymore in movies: the filmmakers try to communicate to the audience what's happening in the fight by making clear choices in shot composition and editing. You can actually understand what's happening. It's weird and kind of scary, really.

Well, whaddya know -- the plan is foiled and the head of SPECTRE, this asshole named Blofeld is pissed. He has Bobby Fischer killed, which serves that anti-Semitic piece-of-shit right, and warns Russkie to get her shit together or she's next. She doesn't, by the way. Her attempt at attacking Bond in his hotel room, using poison-tipped knives in her shoes, fails when Tatiana busts a cap in her ass, sending the sapphic Russian to that big Lilith Fair in the sky.

There's shootings, explosions, shootings that lead to explosions, screaming motherfuckers on fire and lovely dinners of grilled sole with white wine -- and yet I nodded off every now and then. I blame the liquor and lack of sleep since all I hear about is how this is supposed to be a pretty damn good flick. It is, but Dr. No was better in my humble drunken opinion. From Russia with Love has a better theme song, though. Dr. No just has some Jamaican dude singing a bullshit version of Three Blind Mice. Fuck that noise.