the groundhog day project

Had a good day so far. Ran a Dungeons & Dragons game then came home to watch the Golden Globes. Now For Your Eyes Only is playing and I almost want to be brief, after livetweeting the Globes. So, there is this: James Bond, regardless of the version (though, to be fair, I have only read one of the novels, and it wasn't one of Ian Fleming's originals; it was John Gardner's novelization of Licence to Kill ), is a horrible role model for young boys. He's a womanizer who far too easily gets every woman he meets to fall for him. He's an expert at everything (so much so that it amuses me when he checks his map early in this film, as if James Bond does not have every street of, well, all of Spain already memorized), and there is never any actual chance that he might die. (Sharks won't even try to kill him when he is openly bleeding.) No one should ever try to be James Bond. But, so many boys--me included--looked (and look) up to him. It wasn't just an 80s t...

For Your Eyes Only today. (Though, I also saw In the Fade in the theater and watched The Wizard of Lies at home.) I've written about this film before . I wrote: Plotwise, like any Bond film, it is all over the place. But, that is what Bond films do. And, as a kid, sitting down for more than an hour and a half [correction, this movie is just over two hours], that's kind of what you need. Star Wars works because it jumps from location to location, setpiece to setpiece, introduces characters, kills them, introduces more. Throw in a session or two of offscreen sex with different partners, some complex Cold War politics and spy machinations, and you've got a Bond film. I wrote further about how parts of the plot (like Bond going to Spain) end up being pointless. But, the best part, when I was talking about how much more of a man James Bond (here, Roger Moore) is than any other man (cinematically, anyway), was this: And, he kicks a car down a cliff. Rambo never kicked a c...