Saturday, April 30, 2016

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981)

After the "James Bond in space" lunacy of MOONRAKER, I guess the filmmakers wanted to get back to a more traditional spy story with this next installment, so they opened the film up with Bond using a helicopter to dump a guy in a wheelchair down a giant smokestack.

After murdering a disabled guy, Bond is ordered to retrieve a Top Secret Navy device called the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) that was recently lost in a boat accident off the coast of Greece.  And he can use any means necessary...even if it means having premarital sex!!!

So off to Greece (or somewhere) he goes and before you can say "Superspy snizz." James has blown up a Lotus, crashed a prostitute pool party, banged some chick, went skiing, went diving, got shot at a bunch of times, crashed another car, turned down some pussy, climbed a mountain, ate dinner with that one guy from "Game of Thrones", got gawked at by that one guy from the other Bond movies, had a motorcycle thrown at him, gets attacked by some hockey players, hung out with a parrot, gets attacked by goons in dune buggies and has a gun pointed at him by that other guy from "Game of Thrones".  It's all very...expected, but still amusing.

As far as Bond films go I actually liked this one.  Although I'm still confused as to why he turned down the pussy by that one chick.  She was pretty hot.  Oh well, it's still worth a watch for spy movie fans.

Three thunderballs out of five.

Part 1 - Dr. No (1962)
Part 2 - From Russia With Love (1963)
Part 3 - Goldfinger (1964)
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 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)

Sunday, April 24, 2016

NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957)

Dana Andrews travels to England to attend a scientific convention debunking paranormal stuff like ghosts, witches, demons, wookalars, dogs and cats living together, etc.  When he arrives, he's informed that one of his colleagues has died in a mysterious way.  Was it electrocution due to downed power lines or...a demon?!  If you guessed "demon" you would be correct, but since Dana is a total skeptic he believes that there is a perfectly logical reason for his friends death.  He begins investigating and soon discovers that he himself has been cursed and he only has three days until the demon assassin gets all crunk on his bootyhole.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON is dated nowadays, but fans of classic horror movies will like it.  Medium pace, good usage of English locations (including one scene showing Dana walking around Stonehenge alone...yet the poster features a person beating another person with a club at Stonehenge), average acting, awesome-looking demon that's only shown in two scenes, the number 666 on a license plate.

I liked NOTD alright, but I can't ever see myself wanting to watch it again anytime soon, mainly due to the fact that Dana didn't have enough to do.  If he would've had at least one other interesting character to interact with things would have been much more entertaining.  As it is, the bad guy and the female lead (the niece of his dead friend) were both boring.

Mildly recommended.
666