An old adage goes, “Never meet your heroes” (as you’ll be disappointed); in this instance the same can be said for villains. The inexplicably luxurious Moroccan desert train pulls away, revealing our two newly minted star crossed lovers in the middle of nowhere. Apparently none of the railway officials or local authorities have any…
Now begins the homage to the Connery era portion of our program. Interior Orient Express (or a cheap approximation of it), Craig hands off his white dinner jacket (wink) to a porter asking to have it pressed. I’m amazed to find Moroccan desert trains to nowhere have full service valets, whereas if you asked for…
Open on our intrepid (or is that insipid) duo of Craig and Swann walking through the streets of Tangiers, we know its Tangiers because once again the auteur Sam Mendes provided a label at the bottom of the screen. At least this time I’ll concede we weren’t told several times, in a multitude of…
We find Craig winging his way to Piz Gloria, err I mean the Hoffler clinic. Now begins the On Her Majesties Secret Service (OHMSS) rip-off in earnest. Craig still sporting the ridiculous knit cap and tight snow suit, trods up to the front doors of the clinic with a large overnight bag. He makes his way in to the…
As Craig wafts to the ground and minces away, MP knocks out a quick Google search from her kitchen table, for Hannes and Franz Oberhauser. Ironically she finds this: Rather than this: Is it me or does Oberhauser Sr. look like a Photoshop creation, like a computer drawing of someone who…
Having just crashed through a large window and leaped off a second story balcony, Craig sprints head long to his DB10, to the sounds of the NFL Film’s sound track, don’t believe me? Listen. Now compare that to this clip, just close your eyes and listen to the music. Craig squeals out…
We find Craig winding his way towards the top secret meeting location of the reclusive Spectre organization. Where does this mysterious organization no one has ever heard of meet? A long abandoned subterranean cavern once used by the illuminati to plot the assassinations of Emperors? A secluded villa, far off the beaten path where…
A swooping shot through the roman skyline and more of the “music” or more accurately the creepy, symphonic screaming which we heard in London. We know this is Rome because we can see the Coliseum and about half a dozen pizza shops (I kid, about the pizza shops I mean), also because Craig outright…
Cut to the river Thames, Craig and Tanner are cruising along in a military style fast boat; much like the one Craig stepped off ten years prior, seasick and woozy, when he was introduced as EON’s biggest mistake. As the two pass the old MI6 HQ at Vauxhall Cross, Tanner laments how it will be…
After the titles we find our intrepid hero seated in M’s office getting a real blowing up. M takes 30 seconds to lay out the plot line involving the merger of MI5 and 6 including the fact the 00 section is on the chopping block (AGAIN!!!), as well as inform us the new head…
The Theme and Titles: I think the theme of these titles was tentacle porn! (Say that three times fast, that’s a lot of T’s!) To tell you the truth the less said about the titles the better, as they are truly disgusting! I had my eyes closed most of the time watching through my…
This was a multi part dissection of SPECTRE which I did over the course of many weeks, it’s long but it may be the most comprehensive deconstruction of the film on the net. I hope you enjoy. Ah the PTS (Pre-Titles Sequence) that once enjoyable tradition of getting a sneak peek at Bond…
If EON was watching the Bourne series while writing QOS, then they were certainly watching the Dark Knight series while writing Skyfall! This is just meant to touch on the highlights or should I say lowlights of this movie, because to call out everything wrong with it would take ages. Please feel free to…
I think the folks at EON had the Bourne movies on a continual loop while writing this movie, and they set the tone early, this is no Bond film. We jump strait in to the plot, if you can call it that, no gun barrel, because god forbid we think we’re watching a…
Much has been said by Barbara Broccoli (Babs for brevity's sake) about the James Bond “formula” and why it had to go after the “box office failure” of Die Another Day. This is a two part rant. First I defend the “formula” next I discuss how it became so maligned. I find her use of…
I used to think Kevin Mclory’s idea of making Thunderball several different ways in order to create his own Bond franchise was nuts. That is until I realized Purvis and Wade have done just that since TWINE. Let me explain by first laying out their writing template, then explaining how it fits in each film.…
EDITORS Note: Dirty Benny's weekly rants became a staple of our forum January 2014. We've enjoy them so much we asked Benny to publish a few here on the main page. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. You can see more of Dirty Benny's Weekly Rants here in our Classic Bond…