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)

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.