Queue Tips: Royale With Cheese

In "Casino Royale" there's a scene where this lady is sitting in the shower, fully clothed, with the water running.  Do people actually do that?  Have people actually done that?  That must really signify that she is really troubled or something.  And then James Bond comes in and joins her.  Like, let's just sit together on the shower floor and talk.

Anyways, I don't remember the rest of it.

Queue Tips: Spy Another Way

I was doing the laundry last week, but I forgot all about it.  It's still in the washing machine.  I guess I'll dry another day.  

In the beginning of "Die Another Day", the bad guys have James Bond at gunpoint.  The head bad guy tells them, "Kill the spy".  Instead of just shooting him then and there, they grab him and lead him elsewhere.  Is there a standard killing place for them?  Because they moved in unison in the same direction.  Like they knew exactly where to take him.

Anyway - spoiler alert - they end up not killing him.  He lives to die another day, apparently.  And the head bad guy himself is actually killed a few minutes later.  And then the head bad guy's dad and his army have Bond at gunpoint again.  And they don't shoot him again.  So he lives to die yet another day.

Sunday was a nice day.  I went to the park with my boys.  After a while, it started to get chilly.  So of course, we went to get ice cream.  The nearest place was McDonald's.  So we went.  And then I was like, you know what, it's been over a decade since I've had a Big Mac.  Screw it, I'll order one.  So I did.  And then the kids wanted McNuggets.  So I got about a dozen.  It tasted like cardboard.  I don't know why I did it, but I probably will never eat there again.  I guess I was thinking I would diet another day.

There was a scene where James Bond tries to shoot someone and finds out his gun isn't loaded.  So this guy who shoots people all the time and is very good with gadgets didn't realize his gun wasn't loaded when he carried it in the morning.  I mean, I would expect there to be a weight difference.

It really is amazing that they can keep churning these things, and they keep making money.  The theme song to this film really hurts the ears, and I don't think I can watch it again because of that.  I could tell you this film was worth watching, but I guess I will lie another day.

Queue Tips: I think I've had enough.

You might have noticed I haven't post here for a while.  I think I may finally have had enough of these James Bond films.

The theme song to "The World Is Not Enough" reminds me of "Superstar" by The Carpenters.  I think that latter song kind of fits with the James Bond films, actually.

In this movie, apparently a speed boat can drive through land.  I mean, if a gondola can do it, right?

Anyways, the bad guy reminds me of the guy who stars in "Monk".  Was that him?  Let me googalize it.  No.  That was Tony Shalhoub.  Imagine if Tony Shalhoub was in this film?  What would that be like?

There is also a character named Electra.  What if Carmen Electra played her?  I don't even know who that is or what she does, but wouldn't it be something?

Queue Tips: Val and Bill and Ted

I was a big Val Kilmer fan when I was in high school.  I used to rent VHS tapes from the public library.  In January 1996, I had "Tombstone" and "Beautiful Girls".  And then the next day or so, the Blizzard of 1996 came.  My mom was away somewhere, and I was home alone for those few days.  Everything was closed, so I had extra time to keep the tapes.  We didn't have cable TV, so we didn't have much else to watch.

I just watched "Tombstone" and "Beautiful Girls" over and over.  I rented "Beautiful Girls" because of, I don't know, the title, I guess.  And I liked it.  

I used to listen to WPLJ after school all the time.  They had this show called "The Rocky Allen Showgram".  One of the little contests they have is to quote a movie and stump the hosts.  Listeners would always call in and quote "Tombstone", and they would always guess it easily.  So that's why I rented "Tombstone".

I liked it.  I thought it was cool.  It was very quotable so I quoted it, too.  When I heard Val Kilmer would be the next Batman, I was very excited.  My friends and I all went to see it on the first day it was out, near the end of the school year.  I also liked that U2 was on the soundtrack.  I seemed to be the only kid who listened to that band.

I had been avoiding watching "Val" because I knew it would address his cancer, and I was sure it would make me sad.  Life is sad enough.  One morning, I decided to click on it just to watch a few minutes.  I ended up sitting through the whole thing.

This film is a documentary using primarily Kilmer's home videos.  You get a nostalgic feeling out of them, and the narration adds to the melancholy.  It's interesting that at the time I was watching "Tombstone" over and over, I was alone at home, and it definitely brought back some of that loneliness.

There are a lot of insights on how his career and life turned out.  You can see how his personal life affected him.  I liked seeing his process of auditioning and preparing.  He gives his point of view on why he decided to play the characters he did, such as Batman and why they were successful or not.

My friends and I actually also watched "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in the theatre in 1996.  I remember liking it.  I don't think my friends hated it.  Val gives his insight into what went wrong with that film as well.  Maybe I just liked seeing him, but I ended up buying the tape (I think on Columbia or one of those free trial subscription things) and watching that over and over, too.

I haven't seen a bunch of his later films, before his throat cancer.  I think the last one I saw was "Felon". I thought that was okay.  I think I rented "The Salton Sea" also but I couldn't get into it.  It seemed to be slow, and I had a bunch of other movies I wanted to get to.

One of the things that stuck with me is Val taking about his legacy.  He said, "I'm selling basically my old self, my old career" when he was at a "Tombstone" screening event.  Incidentally, I also watched "Bill & Ted Face the Music" recently.  That was basically what that movie was, selling their old selves and their old careers.  That one was sad to watch on a different level.  I wish they hadn't made it.

I still haven't seen the "Top Gun" sequel though.  I wonder how that made Val Kilmer look.  And I don't know who else is on it.  I don't think "Val" really made a big effort to understand the opposing point of view that he was difficult to work with.  And looking at his Wikipedia page, you can see that he did turn down some opportunities.  You can argue that he has been luckier than most, but regardless, feelings are valid.  It's interesting how much a decision can affect your entire life, like accepting roles like in "The Doors" or committing to a production and making personal sacrifices.  It's a good watch.  I think it will affect you even if you are not a fan.

Queue Tips: Singular Hilarity

I'm watching this movie called "Singularity".  It's just John Cusack watching a couple of characters elsewhere and commenting about it.  It's like an episode of MST3K except they don't mean to be funny.

Anyways, I'm working on a sequel for this now.  It's called "Doublarity".

Queue Tips: Dead and Gun

When I was growing up, my dad hired some prisoners to fix up our house.  He was most likely not paying them anything but food and beer.  They seemed happy to be just out of jail for a few hours.  One afternoon, one of them was singing a song.  He was not very well educated, from what I gathered, and he explained it was about someone being shot to death the previous day.  "Yesterday he's dead and gun," he said.  I'm not sure if he was kidding.

Apparently, the title for "Tomorrow Never Dies" was influenced by The Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows".  I must have heard this song at least once, but I don't remember any of it.  It's funny because when I was writing about "Live and Let Die", I actually pondered whether there were Beatles songs that could have been James Bond film titles.  Nothing really stands out when googalizing their singles.  There are some songs that apply to the character, such as "Please Please Me" and "Do You Want To Know A Secret".  "Cry for a Shadow" seems like an interesting title, but I can't recall that song either.  Maybe they can make a prequel to "Tomorrow Never Dies" called "Yesterday All My Troubles Were So Far Away".

I remember watching this film on New Year's Day in 1998.  I was sleeping over at a family friend's house, and we kind of randomly decided to go to the movies the next day.  He called up a couple of his friends and they came along.  They were a couple of years younger, and one of them seemed to really look up to me and laugh at all my jokes.  I must have spent New Year's Eve at his house, which is possible.  I can't remember if the rest of the family was there.

I don't remember much about the movie itself.  Or what we did after.  I remember we were walking around the mall before.  If I remember correctly, my friend got a Toyota Supra for Christmas.  We must have been driving around in it.  Maybe that was why we decided on the movies, just to have a place to go.

My friend was a big fan of action and martial arts.  He joined the wrestling team and I gathered he was pretty good at it.  He would watch TV shows like "Hercules", and actually he liked science fiction also.  Maybe I should have tried to share in his interests more, but I just was not fond of his taste.  He wasn't crazy about mine either.  I used to watch David Letterman religiously, and a couple of times he tried to sit through it with me.  He even went to see "Hot Shots: Part Deux" in the theatre with me when he came out.  Overall though, we really did not have much in common.

I found him a bit spoiled.  I mean, he received a sports car for Christmas.  And he lived in a nice, big house in the suburbs.  He also complained about having to go to the Philippines for vacation.  I was envious, to be honest.  And I resented that he didn't appreciate what he had.  Through the years we drifted apart.

It's taken me a while to realize it, but I didn't notice that each Bond film had a different score.  I kind of figured the would use the original James Bond theme.  It just has such a powerful sound, especially the brass instruments.

In this film, James Bond meets a woman who turns out to be his ex.  She is married but seems desperate to get back together with him.  Bond is supposed to be a class act, but he definitely seems to me to be the kind of guy who would just ghost you.  He probably never breaks up with women to their face.

Queue Tips: Reflections on the Golden Guy

In the gun barrel sequence, Pierce Brosnan just stands upright, shoots with the right hand, with the left hand hanging down by his hip.

I'm pretty sure I watched this in the theatre with my high school friends.  None of use were James Bond fans, but this film was marketed everywhere, so we decided to watch it.  What else was playing that day?  I'm not sure when we went to see it, but it was released in November 1995, and other big movies at the time were "Toy Story" (which we probably saw even though we were teenagers already), "Casino" (which I'm sure we didn't see, maybe because of the rating?) and "Heat" (which we watched because we were Val Kilmer fans after seeing him in "Tombstone").

It turned out to be pretty fun for us.  We were a bunch of teenage boys watching the beautiful women on the big screen, listening to the double entendre's and experiencing the cool gadgets and awesome action.  It felt like this was a James Bond film for us.

I had forgotten that the theme song was written by Bono and The Edge.  I was really into U2 since the early 90s, after I had gotten their Achtung Baby cassette for cheap from Columbia House.  I listened to that tape over and over.  And then I I got The Joshua Tree and listened to that also over and over.  I think I bought the War album from Sam Goody the previous year in 1994.  The clerk took the CD and made a point to show it to his co-worker and said that that was the album to listen to or something to that effect.  I had no reaction.  

Anyways, I was probably the only one of my friends who was looking forward to the film because of the theme song.  I knew it was going to be performed by Tina Turner, as I had read about it on the internet.  They had these things back then called zines or e-zines.  Do they still call it that?  I remember our Computer teacher Mr. P. sending one student to me to help him search something for a project.  This was before the googalizer.  I was most likely going yahoo.

As for Pierce Brosnan, I didn't really have an opinion either way.  I think I was optimistic that he would be good.  I knew he was from "Remington Steele" and I remember the reruns were on WWOR channel 9 weekday mornings.  I took a glimpse channel surfing when I was absent from school, but was never too captivated to pay attention, even though we never had cable growing up.  We were inundated with marketing campaigns, so I think we had it in the back of our minds that this new Bond was supposed to be good.  

Spoiler alert!  How does one fake being shot in the head assassination style?  Wouldn't James Bond have seen enough killing to know whether it was real?  Also, even if it was indeed faked, Bond set the building to explode, and we saw it explode.  Somehow the bad guy survived that?  How many of the henchmen did?  Did they all know to exit the building quickly, even though Bond set it go off to half the time?  These are things I never thought about at first viewing.  We were mostly talking about Miss Onatopp and her preferred method of execution.

Anyways, it was just a fun experience for us as high schoolers.  We used to wear loose fitting jeans and would sneak in food and drinks from Burger King.  We would literally put filled soda cups in our pockets and walk carefully in the theatre.  Surprisingly, we never had any accidents or spillage.