Best of Bond, the Blofeld films

The Best of Bond, Part 2

Continuing the series begun earlier. I’m not going to rehash all the plots. This is meant for people who have seen all the films.

I’m looking to judge these films by a number of criteria:

• Bond – who the actor is, how good he is, and what he brings to the role
• the Villain- starting with Dr. No, I judge the films on how compelling the villain is.
• the Bond Women – some films have few, some have many, but I’m pretty sure all have at least one. The quality ranges from Denise Richards’s absurd nuclear physicist to, of course, Mrs. Bond herself, not to mention Pussy Galore
• the Good Guys – M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter in his many incarnations and other sidekicks
• the Henchmen on the other side like Jaws, Oddjob, and Nick-Nack.
• the gadgets – not just judging how neat the gadgets are, but whether they were unwisely allowed to take over the film (as often happened with the later Roger Moore filims)
• whatever else I happen to think of

I’m not concerned mainly with ordinal values but rather am going to assign a number between 0.0 and 10.0 to each.

Anyway, in Part 1 I addressed the first four Connery films. Part 2 concerns the three Blofeld films, You Only Live Twice, with Sean Connery, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, George Lazenby’s sole contribution to the series, and Diamonds Are Forever, featuring the return of Sean Connery.

Parts 3 & 4 will cover Roger Moore’s many films. Part 5 will cover Never Say Never Again and the two Dalton films, Part 6 will cover the four Brosnan films, and Part 7 will look at the three Daniel Craig films

And now we move on to

You Only Live Twice

Obama caves, again

My comment, submitted to Krugman's blog

I view this offer by Obama as the latest in a long series of actions by DLC members and other "centrists" to kill the liberal wing of the Democratic party and consolidate power for themselves. Making cuts in Social Securiity while simultaneously raising taxes on the middle class (and let's be clear, that's the effect of this change to Chained-CPI) is going to be a political disaster, and will kill any credibility that the party has with anybody moderately liberal.  As a liberal, I had already decided to not vote for Obama based on my belief that he would do exactly this (and exactly now).  Obama has no credibility with me now, and his continuing embrace of conservative policies will only further demoralize liberals.

This is a time in history when the party should be moving to the left with a lot of power.  Politically, the opportunity is there.  The country has been following conservative policies for at least the last twelve years, and the results have been disastrous.  The deregulation of the 90s has led to the profiteering of recent years, and that has led to the market crashes and the "need" to bail out the banks.  None of this has been good for the middle clash.

So, with that as backdrop, Obama's genius idea is to simultaneously preserve the Bush tax cut framework for those earning up to $400k/year while cutting social security brackets and effectively raising taxes for all taxpayers.

That's brilliant.
Looking forward to the next time the terrorists of the House Republican Caucus use the debt ceiling to threaten financial disaster.

Shootings in Connecticut

Well, in this past week we've seen a gunman go nuts and shoot people at a mall in Portland, Oregon, and then a few days later a gunman went nuts and shot his wife, a kindergarten teacher at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.  And then shot 20 kids.

The Best of Bond

The Best of Bond, Part 1

In reponse to this article by Isaac Chotiner, which I feel is deeply flawed, I’ve compiled my ratings of all the Bond films, starting with Dr. No and ending with Skyfall. I’m not including the TV version of Casino Royale from the 1950s, nor the Peter Sellers send-up of the same story. Haven’t seen the former and the latter is simply of a different genre. I’m not going to rehash all the plots. This is meant for people who’ve seen all the films.

I’m looking to judge these films by a number of criteria:

• Bond – who the actor is, how good he is, and what he brings to the role
• the Villain- starting with Dr. No, I judge the films on how compelling the villain is.
• the Bond Women – some films have few, some have many, but I’m pretty sure all have at least one. The quality ranges from Denise Richards’s absurd nuclear physicist to, of course, Mrs. Bond herself, not to mention Pussy Galore
• the Good Guys – M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter in his many incarnations and other sidekicks
• the Henchmen on the other side like Jaws, Oddjob, and Nick-Nack.
• the gadgets – not just judging how neat the gadgets are, but whether they were unwisely allowed to take over the film (as often happened with the later Roger Moore filims)
• whatever else I happen to think of

I’m not concerned mainly with ordinal values but rather am going to assign a number between 0.0 and 10.0 to each. By way of calibration, 0.0 is reserved for unwatchable films like The Love Guru, while the 10.0 might only go to The Godfather. and Hot Tub Time Machine. Just seeing if you’re paying attention there.
Anyway, in Part 1 I’ll address the first four Connery films. Part 2 will do the other Connery films through Diamonds are Forever, as well as Lazenby’s sole contribution. Part 3 will cover Roger Moore’s many films. Maybe I’ll split that in half. Part 5 will cover Never Say Never Again and the two Dalton films, Part 6 will cover the four Brosnan films, and Part 7 will look at the three Daniel Craig films

Without further ado, we jump in to