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Since my pre-review based on the first trailer of Denis Villeneuve’s much-anticipated and much-postponed Dune got a good discussion going, I decided to do the same with the equally-hyped, equally-postponed Bond movie No Time to Die.
Everybody has a time to die, including James Bond. Bond has cheated death countless times, but this time his number may be up. If so, the death certificate will list COVID-19. (more…)
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Is Billie Eilish’s new Bond song, “No Time to Die,” the worst Bond song ever? Close. But sadly, there is a lot of competition for that title. Here is my ranking, from best to worst.
Note: Not every Bond theme is a Bond song. Doctor No and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service have instrumental themes. Beyond that, many Bond movies contain non-theme songs that are, nevertheless, strongly associated with the films. I will discuss two of them here. (more…)
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Eilish. Billie Eilish.
Never afraid to wring every drop of money out of a pop sensation, this is who the film industry is having sing the theme to the new James Bond film, No Time to Die. The media is billing this interestingly; the New York Times covered the song with glowing praise and a mention of Eilish being the youngest person to ever record a Bond theme. (more…)
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Jef Costello
The Importance of James Bond & Other Essays
San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2017
“Where was that stooped and mealy-colored old man I used to call Poppa when the merry-go-round broke down?”[1]
“This guy can’t possibly live up to the song they wrote about him… probably just an accountant named Wallace.”[2] (more…)
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Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor
Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012
“Dat’s Mike Ham-muh?” — Dismayed patron at a showing of I, The Jury (1953)
“Mike Hammer is Mickey Spillane . . . Mickey Spillane is Mike Hammer” — (more…)
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“These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact!” — Sherlock Holmes, “The Empty House.”[1]
Having devoted considerable time and attention to the genres of weird fiction and science fiction,[2] it is perhaps long overdue that I should spend some time considering the remaining one of the Three Disreputable Genres,[3] detective fiction. (more…)
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Warning: spoilers ahead
I’m feeling a quantum of disappointment with the latest James Bond movie Spectre. But maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. The last Bond movie, Skyfall, was one of the very best. And Spectre has two of the most artful and enticing trailers ever produced (here and here). With such a buildup, maybe I was doomed to disappointment.
What did I like about Spectre? (more…)
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The Cat is Back!
This essay is dedicated to Savitri Devi.
James Bond overheard pouring his heart out to a bartender, while downing his sixth vodka martini: “Aside from the torture devices, the explosions, the mindless, soulless, robotic minions, and the miles and miles of stainless steel, there’s one thing that still haunts me about Blofeld’s hellish world, one thing I can’t get out of my bloody nostrils: that godawful litter box smell!” (more…)
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Act Three: “The Mush from U.N.C.L.E.”
Eventually someone pointed out that there is a law in New York State prohibiting the exploitation of “U.N.” or “United Nations” for commercial purposes, so “U.N.C.L.E.” had to be given a meaning. (more…)
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Part 1 of 2
Teaser:
On August 14th, Warner Bros. will release its big-screen adaptation of a television series most moviegoers under the age of 60 have never even heard of: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (NBC, 1964-1968). (more…)
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Richard B. Spence
Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult
Port Townsend, Wash.: Feral House, 2008
“The great scientists, the artists, the philosophers, the religious leaders — all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. (more…)
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Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth — and the best — Mad Max movie directed by George Miller. Miller was born George Miliotis — the son of Greek refugees from Turkish ethnic cleansing in Anatolia — and is also the creator of two other, and very different, film franchises, the Babe the talking pig movies and the Happy Feet animated penguin movies.
In Fury Road, the title character, which heretofore has been played by Mel Gibson, is played by Tom Hardy (Bane — with another grill thing on his face, no less). (more…)
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“I like killing guys when I’m wearing a tux. Makes me feel like James Bond.” — Brock Samson, The Venture Bros.
Joel: You can bet that anybody seriously interested in world domination is going to end up looking like a real snickerdoodle. (more…)
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Robert Ignatius Dillon
Beyond the Bush: A Hopeless Satire
Chicago: Hopeless Books, 2013
Beyond the Bush is the third release from Ann Sterzinger’s Hopeless Books, and the first not from her own pen. Like Sterzinger’s own The Talkative Corpse [1] it reveals its Chicago origins by the frequent use of various derivatives of ‘jag-off’, and one might be tempted to christen it part of a ‘jag off lit’ movement, did it not sound so entirely like I was dismissing it as desultory and self-indulgent. (more…)
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Editor’s Note:
I am reprinting Collin Cleary’s classic essay on Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner as a sequel to Andrew Hamilton’s article on Danger Man. Cleary’s essay is available in print form in his Summoning the Gods: Essays on Paganism in a God-Forsaken World, (more…)
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SPOILER ALERT! Do not read this essay until you have seen Skyfall. I would not want to ruin your experience of seeing the best James Bond film in many years.
Bond films always seem to be judged “good” or “bad” relative to other Bond films. But Skyfall is not only a good Bond film, it’s a good film period. (more…)
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The James Bond films turn fifty this year, an event commemorated by the eagerly-anticipated release of the 23rd Eon Productions 007 epic Skyfall. (more…)
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My introduction to James Bond wasn’t through the movies, but through a book I checked out of the local library when I was a boy—Anglo-Scots Ian Fleming’s Gilt-Edged Bonds (1961), a collection containing Casino Royale
Dean Martin as Matt Helm
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One of my guiltier pleasures is the “Matt Helm” films of the 1960s. There were four of these, all produced by Irving Allen and starring Dean Martin as secret agent Matt Helm. The first (The Silencers) appeared in 1966. The story behind these films is an interesting one. In the 1950s Irving Allen was partnered with Albert R. (“Cubby”) Broccoli. Things came to an end, however, when Broccoli announced that he was interested in purchasing the film rights to the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. (more…)
„To boldly go, where no man has gone before“: der erste interrassische Kuß des Fernsehens in „Star Trek“
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Übersetzt von Deep Roots
English original here
Wenn die meisten Leute Weiße sehen, die mit Nichtweißen gehen, dann ist die sofortige Annahme die, daß mit dem Weißen etwas nicht stimmt. (more…)
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German translation here
Boldly going where no man has gone before: television's first interracial kiss on "Star Trek"
When most people see whites dating non-whites, the immediate assumption is that there is something wrong with the white. Usually the defects are obvious. We know why a homely or obese white woman is sleeping with blacks or Mexicans: They are willing to overlook her faults because she is white. (more…)
