GOLDFINGER (1964)

Now this is a little more like what I expected when I started reviewing the James Bond series. You have a unique villain, a great henchman, a bunch a crazy gadgets, multiple opportunities for the bad guys to kill Bond (...and they never do), an overly elaborate evil plan and a series of forgettable women as Bond's sex interests...well, I guess we can't get everything we want.

Bond is sent to investigate some evil asshole called Goldfinger who's a freak for gooooooold! Stuff happens and Goldtesticles men capture Bond and tie him to a table and are about to cut his dick off with a frickin' laser when Goldscrotum has a change of mind and spares his life. Bond is now transported to America where Goldhorsepussy plans of doing a job on Fort Knox. Naturally Goldcolums of morgagni tells Bond fucking everything before hand! It's fucking stupid, but that's what makes it so much fun.

Good movie and definitely a step in the right direction, but it's still not as Bond-ish as I was hoping for...I'm starting to get worried that none of the Bond films are going to be a crazy as I had envisioned.

Three thunderballs out of five.

Part 1 - Dr. No (1962)
Part 2 - From Russia With Love (1963)
Part 4 - Thunderball (1965)
Part 5 - You Only Live Twice (1967)
Part 6 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Part 7 - Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Part 8 - Live and Let Die (1973)
Part 9 - The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Part 10 - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Part 11 - Moonraker (1979)
Part 12 - For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Part 13 - Octopussy (1983)
Part 14 - A View to a Kill (1985)
Part 15 - The Living Daylights (1987)
Part 16 - Licence to Kill (1989)
Part 17 - GoldenEye (1995)
Part 18 - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Part 19 - The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Part 20 - Die Another Day (2002)
Part 21 - Casino Royale (2006)
Part 22 - Quantum of Solace (2008)
Part 23 - Skyfall (2012)
Part 24 - Spectre (2015)
Part 25 - No Time to Die (2021)

Non-Eon James Bond films:
Casino Royale (1967)
Never Say Never (1983)

THE ONLY SON (1936)

I know I said back in my UN CHIEN ANDALOU review that Bunuel was The Greatest Director of All Time, but the more films I watch by Yasujiro Ozu the more I think I might have been wrong. Bunuel was a different style of director, but I've seen some of his films that were less than stellar and a few that even bordering on bad. Ozu on the other hand, I've yet to see anything by him that wasn't stellar and more than a few that are masterpieces. None of this is to disparage Bunuel though, being the #2 Greatest Director of All Time is still pretty good.

THE ONLY SON was made in Japan in 1936, but the story is universal and still touching today. In 1923, Tsune is a widowed factory worker in a small town. She wants her young son, Ryosuke, to get an education and become a great man so she sacrifices everything she has (even selling her homestead and living in a tenement at the factory) to send Ryosuke to Tokyo so he can go to school.

1936. She hasn't seen her son in thirteen years so she goes to Tokyo to see him. Once there she's heartbroken to see that he's just a night school teacher living in a small house with a wife and baby. She hides her sadness and makes the best of the visit, but still inside she is devastated that her boy, who she gave up her entire life for, is just average.

Anything wise that I could say about THE ONLY SON has already been said in Tony Rayns' brilliant essay here, but I'll go ahead an throw in my two cents and say that I liked this film a lot. It's probably too slow for most people, but if you give it a chance I think you'll like it. The final (wordless) scene is heartbreaking.

Double feature with THERE WAS A FATHER.

NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAINSAW EDGE (2007)

Fucking horrible. A dork who can't even wear his pants correctly is walking home one evening when he sees a cute girl. He goes over to talk to her when this dude jumps off the fucking moon(?) and starts chopping shit up with his giant chainsaw!!! The girl stabs the dude in an open wound on his chest and he flies away.

After that CGI enhanced, over-stylized flying around on wires fight scene we're treated to probably an hour or more of this guy talking. I hated his guts from the moment I saw him so I was in Hell. Finally towards the end there's another fight scene and it's the same ol' shit we saw earlier. Fuck this boring turd. Zero gore, medium attractive girl in a schoolgirl uniform, zero blood, zero tits, annoying as fuck script filled with way too much talking. Skip it.

When I saw the DVD cover I was expecting a gritty Japanese version of the original THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, instead it's more akin to a Power Rangers episode or X-CROSS. Very disappointing. I love how the cover says "Uncut Special Edition"...what's to be "Uncut"?! This movie wouldn't even get a PG-13. I don't even think anybody even cussed once!

If anybody needs me I'll be in my room watching reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

DAYBREAKERS (2009)

A few decades in the future a virus has turned the majority of people turn into vampires who dress like they live in the 1940's and drive cars that make a bizarre wrrrrrrrrrrrrr sound. To satisfy the populations demand for human blood, corporations hunt and farm humans for their blood. But Ethan Hawke doesn't drink human blood and even tries to help some humans he's found.

Interesting concept, but DAYBREAKERS is not an interesting movie. Which is sad because I really like the idea of a vampire world, there's some many ways the story could go (do the vampires breed?, do they have churches? if a vampire is trapped in a child's body can it legally have sex with an "adult"? what's it like for the vampires that have day shift jobs? are there vampire animals? do vampires want to explore outer space?, etc.).  Instead DAYBREAKERS boringly narrows the story down to hematologist Ethan Hawke who is working on a blood substitute. By chance, he nearly has a car wreck with a band of human refugees who have teamed up with ex-vampire Willem Dafoe.  Ex-vampire you ask?  Yes, he used to be a vampire until a car wreck cured him...or something.  I don't know.

Anyway, boring story stuff happens until finally some machine guns come out and something happens or not. Once I saw this was just another Hollywood by-the-numbers small band of people vs. the Big Corporation/Government story I started daydreaming about taking a nap.

Very little violence, CGI blood, zero gore, boring vampire world. Skip it.