My mother may have taught me to read, but I would be nowhere far in nerddom (or in life, really) if not for my father.
Bond Girl: The Spy Who Loved Me
This might be my favorite James Bond movie.
At the very least, it’s definitely one of the best Bond movies in Roger Moore’s run.
It definitely has my favorite Bond villain and one of the most amazing Bond girls in the entire franchise. It also has the best shark-related scene in the franchise – a scene that blows the one from Thunderball out of the water.
The Spy Who Loved Me is the tenth film in Eon Production’s James Bond series and Roger Moore’s third film in the franchise. The only thing it has in common with Fleming’s original novel is the title and perhaps a few henchmen made larger than life for the film. The Spy Who Loved Me has a storyline that involves billionaire megalomaniac Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens), who plans to destroy the world and create a new and perfect world under the sea. Of course, a plan that strange can’t be allowed to stand and so James Bond teams up with Russian agent Major Anya Amasova/Agent Triple X (Barbara Bach) to take him down.
To read more, head on over to The Mary Sue for Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating The Spy Who Loved Me and feel free to talk my ear off about James Bond movies over on twitter!
On Christopher Lee
The thing about Christopher Lee’s death that gets me good is when I think about how much a staple he’s been in my life as a history nerd and a film buff. He’s been in a huge chunk of films that I’ve watched, loved, and analyzed the hell out of. Hell, I’ve watched movies just because he was in them and I wound up loving them. (And some of those movies were truly terrible besides…)
It’s so weird but I keep saying that I’m going to miss him. I’ve been talking about him like I knew him beyond what I’ve seen of him in his movies and I know it’s super weird but I can’t stop because he was in so much of the things I watched. He was pretty much in everything. He was the scariest dude on screen more often than not and his Dracula was the best I’ve ever seen.
I mean… it was just last week that I was watching him as Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun. When I saw the first tweets about it from Tor yesterday morning and then clicked through to the webpage, I was crushed. I’m still crushed.
But I keep reminding myself Christopher Lee lived a long life. More than that, he lived an amazing life that was rich and fill of adventure in its entirety. He’s what action heroes could’ve and probably should’ve been like. Geez. I can’t think about him without wanting to marvel at the life he lived. He’s a history major’s dream figure because he did so much, lived so much, was so much.
The world will truly be a truly poorer place without him.
Street Harassment SUCKS!
You know those old Tex Avery cartoons with the wolf like Swing Shift Cinderella or Red Hot Riding Hood?
They’re the ones where the overly amorous horndog wolf makes an actual fool of himself over a woman that isn’t interested in him in the slightest. He hoots, he hollers. He bangs on the table and howls at the moon like he doesn’t have anything better to do with himself than make loud noises to harass women.
Picture those cartoons in your head.
Picture them real good.
That’s what I had to deal with on my way to work this morning.
Sexualized Saturdays: Imposed Gender and Asari
I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, and after years of thinking of how to write it I still have no conclusive plan but to jump in and finally do it. Now, my enjoyment of the Mass Effect series isn’t a new or surprising thing, and not really having ever jumped on the Star Trek/Star Wars bandwagon, the series could very well have been my first serious venture into the sci-fi genre. However, as this blog has discussed before, sci-fi is full of some pretty shitty tropes, and Mass Effect isn’t as much of as an exception as one would hope. I think where this is clearest is concerning matters of the asari—one of the main alien races in the game, and the one that presents as wholly female. As a culture, the asari are complex and compelling; however, a lot of their biology and presentation leave…
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James Bond – A History Of Violence Against Women
Content Warning for mentions of domestic violence, abuse, sexual assault as “seduction”, and general violence against women
One of the recurring themes in the James Bond franchise is that even when a woman is strong and powerful, all James Bond has to do is overpower her — maybe smack or shake her around a few times before seducing her to the side of the angels – and she’s his for the taking. While the Bond series is itself a violent one with Bond and the bad guys getting their fair share of lumps in, the series has this intense focus on women being hurt.
Today In Unnecessary Boob Placement…
I adore the idea of a Gwen Stacy month for variant covers. For years I’ve been peeved that the most common thing she’s been known for as a character is something super sucky.
But I have one question about this variant for the Groot book that I saw on twitter today: why does Groot!Gwen have breasts?
[Fiction] Lucky Lunchbreak
Dean Song isn’t exactly expecting to meet the woman of his dreams on his lunchbreak– or her cute daughter.
There’s a toddler sitting at the counter in front of the bar.
Dean blinks twice at the fluffy-haired kid sitting up with her chubby hands flat on the counter. He doesn’t even bother to resist the urge to rub his eyes. Neither that nor blinking them helps. The kid is still there, sitting up on her knees in a cherry red bar stool with chocolate sauce smeared over the brown skin of her face and a crayon tucked behind one tiny brown ear.
The thing is though, that maybe Dean is hallucinating this — this kid. Maybe he’s seeing things because no one else is acting as if she’s even there. The bistro’s waitstaff wander around the small space without looking at her and no one even glances in their direction as Dean watches the toddler eventually get tired and plop back down in her chair.
Ranking Bond: Sean Connery
Content Warnings For: racism, sexism, sexual assault as “seduction”, implied violence against women
Sean Connery was in six of twenty three official James Bond films and originated the role. Charming and often brutish, he exemplified Fleming’s superspy and made it hard for any other Bond actor to measure up. Over the past two months, I’ve had a lot of time to get reacquainted with Sean Connery’s Bond. There’ve been movies that I loved and movies that I hated and what better way to get the point across is there than to use a list.
This was super hard because there weren’t any of his movies that I outright hated. Most of his movies were good aside from a few things that pissed me off and so I’ve had one hell of a hard time putting them in order.
So here’s my ranking for Sean Connery’s Bond movies with a focus on the good, the bad, and the moments that made me go “what the heck is going on here”.
My Favorite Robins
Originally posted back in 2012 on my now-defunct MissSynph tumblr blog. I’m reposting this (with a few updates) since it is Robin’s anniversary year. We’ve got so much to look forward to with Robin as a legacy character this year and I think there’s no better time for a repost about why I can’t actually pick my favorite Robin out of the ones we’ve been given.
Enjoy!
Bond Girl: Diamonds Are Forever
Hey it’s Monday night and that means my next Bond Girl piece has gone up on TheMarySue!
If you like James Bond, my grouching about media, or the chance to revisit old-school film franchises, consider checking out this week’s review where I try to send Sean Connery off in the best way.
Check out an excerpt here:
I’m going to miss Sean Connery’s Bond showing up in the Eon Production films, but Diamonds Are Forever is basically the best movie on which to send him out. It exemplifies all the good and bad about Connery’s Bond films and the franchise as a whole. I definitely lost track of how many times I watched the film, but it was definitely worth it.
Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh film in the franchise and Sean Connery’s sixth showing in the role of James Bond. The film focuses on Bond’s attempts at sniffing out and then stopping a diamond smuggling ring that is connected to Blofeld and SPECTRE. It’s up to Bond to stop Blofeld from using the smuggled diamonds in the creation of a massive laser set to destroy major cities in the world. It’s the kind of over-the-top, cartoonish plot that should seem ridiculous, but it works for me.
If you liked that and want more, head on over to the full piece!:
Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating Diamonds Are Forever
Feel free to tweet me or comment with your thoughts! And hey, stay posted for a special list where I rank Sean Connery’s official James Bond appearances and talk about the good, the bad, and the WTF-ery inherent in his films!
Pending Posts: James Bond
I’m not the most organized person on the planet, not even close. I’ve been having a hard time settling my posts on this blog (or even remembering to update the blog, to be honest) but I’ve got some things in the works for posts.
So for my few but awesome readers out there, there are several things that you all get to look forward to if you like James Bond and if you like my writing.
I’m so excited! I have a schedule and everything!Read More »
On Finishing Outlander
In which I ramble about reading the first book in the Outlander series (and complain a fair amount too).
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I’m not sure how I wound up reading Outlander after all I went through to avoid reading it. Normally, if there’s a big series out I’ll at least give it a try. Even if it’s not in my genre of choice.
Not this one though.
Read More »
Finally — It’s Supergirl
By now, everyone who’s anyone has probably seen CBS’s first look at their Supergirl series. I just watched it today and promptly fell in love.
CBS’s Supergirl was kind of a given in terms of things that I’d like. I grew up with Smallville as the one show that I watched and kept watching through ups and downs and really weird storylines. Smallville was my go-to for superhero shows because I loved the show and Clark and the powerful ladies that shaped him.
So of course I’m excited for a Supergirl series!Read More »
Age of Ultron – Spoiler Free Review
Nothing in this review should spoil the film. I talk about stuff made explicit (or implied) in the films many trailers, tv spots, and press releases/interviews.
At the end of the credits, there’s the tagline “A Joss Whedon Film”.
I rolled my eyes so hard that they just about fell out of my head.
The thing about Joss Whedon is that when he’s directed anything, you know it. You fucking know it. We make fun of directors like Michael Bay for his use of lens flare and the Coppola’s for their allergy to casting people of color as main characters, but okay can we at least agree that Joss Whedon movies are so imbued by Whedonisms that you couldn’t possibly mistake his work for anyone else’s.
AOU feels like Whedon.
Stitch's Media Mix 
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