Is a James Bond Musical really in the works?

July 5, 2015 Stitch1 Comment

"Dr No trailer" by Danjaq and United Artists - Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg — “Dr No trailer” by Danjaq and United Artists – Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg

I hope you’re prepared for me to squee about this for as long as it takes for it to come out. I literally didn’t know I needed this sort of musical until the Independent announced it. Now it’s all I can think of.

It’s like the universe remembered how much I love musicals for things that really shouldn’t be musicals (Bring It On, Legally Blonde, and The Vampire Lestat to name a few recent book/film franchises that got the musical treatment).

I can’t figure out how I feel about this aside from the ear-piercing squee from two of my major interests colliding. I love musicals no matter what they’re about and um, hello, I can’t get enough of the Bond franchise. Even though nothing will ever be better than the original Legally Blonde show, I’m so excited to see where this goes.

What’s cool about this development (aside from how it probably pisses off everyone that hates musicals but loves James Bond), is that it could possibly count as an official entry into the official James Bond canon because the daughter of Eon Productions’ original producer Harry Saltzman is working on it. Sure, it’s a stretch, but okay it’s my kind of stretch.

How do y’all feel about our international ham-fisted man of mystery taking it to the stage and singing his heart out?

Bond Girl: For Your Eyes Only

LinkJune 30, 2015June 30, 2015 Stitch

This week’s Bond Girl post focuses on the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. Here’s an excerpt: For Your Eyes Only isn’t like that and that’s surprising. This is the twelfth Eon Productions Bond film and Roger Moore’s fifth. Like the two films before it, it pulls from different sources and doesn’t have one Fleming […]

Bond Girl: Moonraker

June 23, 2015 Stitch

This week’s Bond Girl recap was about the strangely unsatisfying Moonraker.

This movie is just very derivative for me and it’s not a good feeling because James Bond movies are two hours long.

Two hours are a lot of time to spend watching overused tropes in a plot that we basically explored in the last movie. This is honestly the first of Moore’s movies where I kept checking the clock and hoping that it was almost over because it was in turns boring and annoying.

How is this one of the highest grossing Bond films?

To read more, head on over to The Mary Sue for Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating and give it a read. There you’ll find snark, complaining about the major holes in the villain’s master plan, and the odd historical reference.

Feel free to comment too (because that would be awesome!!).

And as always, come and talk my ear off about James Bond movies over on twitter!

Bond Girl: The Spy Who Loved Me

June 16, 2015 Stitch

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!

James Bond – A History Of Violence Against Women

June 7, 2015June 7, 2015 Stitch2 Comments

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.

Ranking Bond: Sean Connery

May 28, 2015July 23, 2015 Stitch

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”.

Bond Girl: Diamonds Are Forever

May 26, 2015 Stitch

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

May 23, 2015 Stitch1 Comment

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 »

Bond Girl – Week Two

April 13, 2015April 14, 2015 Stitch1 Comment

Whoa!

I’m still going strong with these pieces! This week, I look at From Russia With Love,. Unfortunately, this happens to be my least favorite Bond movie so far.

Excerpt:

It only took five minutes in my very first rewatch to make me uncomfortable and that’s important, because from those five minutes on, I wasn’t able to enjoy the film the way I wanted to. I watched Dr. No about eight times before I got sick of it. From Russia with Love took half as many rewatches.

From Russia With Love is the second James Bond film, and it’s based on the fifth novel in Fleming’s Bond series. The film focuses on two main plots: first, we have the far reaching arms of SPECTRE plotting to both steal a specific cryptographic device from (and then sell it back to0 the Soviet government; then, we have one of SPECTRE’s top agents developing a way to get revenge on Bond and MI6 for the events shown in Dr. No via a complicated mix of scandal and murder. It’s more focused on political intrigue than the previous film (which I feel focused more on terrorism than on espionage); here, we have Bond and his allies in a country that isn’t exactly friendly to them, and in the middle of an issue that could end with MI6′s reputation being dragged through the mud.

I’m going to be honest: From Russia With Love alternately bored and annoyed me. The high points of the film were the political parts and the fight scenes, but there was so much more that I either felt uncomfortable with or that straight up made me angry.

If that piqued your interest, feel free to check out Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating From Russia With Love over on TheMarySue and say nice things about it either there or by messaging me on twitter! (Or you know, you can totally disagree with me and share your thoughts about that! I’m open to discussion!!)

Look Ma: I’m on the Front Page of TheMarySue

April 7, 2015 Stitch

Holy crap!!

I’m on the front page of TheMarySue! Ah! I feel like I’m moving up in the world! Wow!

If you like super critical reviews of stuff coupled with that crisis when something you love turns out to be ridiculously problematic, you should keep an eye out for the further adventures of Bond Girl. After all, there are twenty-three official Bond films out so far and a handful of unofficial ones. It’s going to be a wild ride on our way to Spectre!

You can read Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating Dr. No HERE

Happy reading!

SPECTRE – Teaser Trailer + Reaction

March 28, 2015March 28, 2015 Stitch

I’m going to be honest with you guys: I’m a million times more excited for Spectre than I am the next Avengers film and this trailer just solidified that excitement.

The trailer is everything I ever wanted and it’s just a teaser. How am I going to survive the actual trailer when it comes out?

I am 100% here for the explosions and the general badassery and I love the hell out of everything that Sam Mendes has been doing with James Bond, but I am also ridiculously excited to see Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny. It’s been too long and I’m going to have to admit to a little overdramatic swooning when she was speaking in the trailer.

Here’s hoping that she gets even more to do and that we get to see a bit of the back and forth banter that the Moneypenny/Bond relationship is famous for.

I’m so excited for this movie! If I could preorder tickets from now, I’d do it just from that trailer!

March’s Lootcrate – COVERT

March 24, 2015 Stitch

March’s Lootcrate haul was everything that I wanted it to be.

When they first announced “Covert” for March’s theme, I was excited. I took it as a sign that I could get off my butt and make headway on the various James Bond-related projects that I’ve been planning to do starting this month. I love spy stuff and I live for James Bond.

When I got the box yesterday, it was like explicit approval from the universe, like it was saying “hey, Zina, go out there and do those ridiculous spy projects you’ve been dreaming up”. Everything in the box is perfect and relevant to my interests. I mean, come on there’s a freaking Sean Connery Bond t-shirt in the box.

It’s like the universe wants me to immerse myself in all things “spy related”.

I’m definitely taking it as a sign that my upcoming James Bond review series will go well!

Now on to the goodies:Read More »

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