#68: HALLOWEEN (1978)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, multiple times. I think the first time was in high school, but it might have been in university

BEST SEQUENCE

Tough call. Every murder is memorable in its own way, and you could definitely make an argument for Laurie's climactic cat-and-mouse chase with Michael, or even the opening sequence shot from Michael's POV. I'm going to go with the kill scene when he stabs a guy up against a door and then does the creepy head tilt gesture while gazing at the body

BEST LINE

"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes. The Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil."

- Dr. Loomis

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

96%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again."

DIRECTOR

John Carpenter

MAIN CAST

Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Nick Castle (as the masked Michael Myers, but not as the unmasked Michael; that was Tony Moran)

THOUGHTS

• Well, admittedly, it's not very seasonally appropriate for me to be posting this review on St. Patrick's Day. But what can I say, apparently the American Film Institute does not hold Leprechaun in very high regard. It would have been nice to review Halloween in October, but I did happen to watch it during the only snow-and-lightning storm I've ever experienced in my life, so that was a fair alternative
• Usually when I go into a rewatch of a movie I've seen before I have expectations about where it will rank on the Thrill Scale, especially when it's a movie I'm quite familiar with, like Halloween. I didn't actually think it would get a 10/10 from me, but it became quickly obvious that I had forgotten how chillingly effective this movie really is. I jumped, I yelped, I was scared out of my gourd
• Halloween was not the first slasher movie ever made, contrary to what some people believe. Depending on the criteria you require for a slasher, Black Christmas came out in 1974, as did The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and I'd even throw Psycho into the mix, from 1960. But in my opinion, Halloween did the genre better than anything that came before it or after. Much imitated but never bested, Carpenter made a tight, economical movie that doesn't feel dated and will never lose its power to scare
• Economical in more ways than one, too. Filmed on a small budget, Carpenter shows how much can be accomplished with moody lighting and creepy sound design. Just the sound of Michael breathing in his mask heightens every scene when he's stalking a character, and the shadows and the darkness onscreen are used perfectly. For a slasher movie, there's very little blood shown, and there doesn't need to be. And the score, written and performed by Carpenter himself, is iconic, especially when it kicks off right at the very beginning
• This was the film debut of newly anointed Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, and it feels great to type those words since I've been a fan of hers for a long time. A Fish Called Wanda is one of my favourite movies ever, and she's also great in Halloween, entirely convincing and believable throughout
• I think this is one of the best examples of using the camera's full range of vision to scare us, whether Michael Myers suddenly appears behind a character, immediately in front of them, or far off in the distance. This technique was also used to great effect in later movies like The Strangers or It Follows, just to name a couple
• This is the second John Carpenter movie I've reviewed, and it's also the second Carpenter film to get a perfect 10/10 from me. The Thing is one of my favourite movies, and it's interesting that while Halloween has been imitated for decades now, there's still really only one The Thing. Carpenter has a few other horror movies to his name, several of which I haven't seen. If we take The Thing and Halloween as Carpenter's top two horror movies, would anyone care to make an argument for what should take spot number three? Or even if another one of his movies is better than these two? I'm open to suggestions!

Up next: I think we'll hang out with Laurie Strode and Michael Myers a little longer. Supplementing the list with Halloween II, and maybe I'll even include a mini review of Halloween III: Season of the Witch

#69: THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

6

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

No

BEST SEQUENCE

The train hijacking sequence, or the final shootout

BEST LINE

"Well, how'd you like to kiss my sister's black cat's ass?"

- This movie is full of hardboiled cowboy talk like this, and this line is one of my favourites

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

91%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"The Wild Bunch is Sam Peckinpah's shocking, violent ballad to an old world and a dying genre."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them."

DIRECTOR

Sam Peckinpah

MAIN CAST

William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan

THOUGHTS

• Maybe I just don't find Westerns all that thrilling, and that's totally fine. This is about as Western as they get, a story of rough and tough men fighting it out in the wide expanses of the Mexico-US border in 1913, and I just didn't find it very engaging
• I also wasn't blown away by the previous Western movie, The Magnificent Seven; it was fun enough, but it wasn't amazing. And that sense of fun and lightness isn't really found in The Wild Bunch, a much more serious movie. Now, for some (including the AFI) this may be what makes them consider The Wild Bunch the superior movie, but for me the dourness made it harder to get into. Although it is worth acknowledging that the violence is more sudden and shocking when it happens due to the longer stretches in between action scenes. And when the violent scenes happen, they happen big, especially in the climactic gunfight. There's a fair chance that The Wild Bunch has the highest body count of any movie I've reviewed so far, possibly even higher than something like Terminator 2
• As per usual for Western movies, the scenery is pretty amazing
• A while ago I said that I didn't expect to see so much Angela Lansbury in these movies, and I also didn't expect to see so much Ernest Borgnine! I didn't like his performance very much in The Poseidon Adventure, but he was way better here, and his character, Dutch Engstrom, may have been my favourite. Borgnine will be showing up again shortly in The Dirty Dozen
• So, while I wasn't entirely engrossed by The Wild Bunch as a movie, I did find it interesting as a very obvious inspiration for two very good video games, Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. And, I didn't find any information explicitly confirming my suspicion, but I'd bet money that the Red Dead character Dutch van der Linde was at least partly (if not entirely) named after Ernest Borgnine's character here
• I'll be watching at least two more Westerns eventually, but not for a while. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is #54, and then it's High Noon at #20. I might also try to find an opportunity to shoehorn in one more Western that I have seen before, and that I remember liking, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Maybe I'll even include the rest of the Clint Eastwood Dollars Trilogy, which I haven't seen. Could be a good follow-up to Dirty Harry, #41

Up next: But hey, if Westerns maybe aren't my preferred flavour of thrills, it's hard to argue against the classic slasher movie, and this is a big one. 1978's Halloween

#70: DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, many times

BEST SEQUENCE

The whole movie is great from start to finish, but the opening 20 minutes are pretty memorable, showing the initial bank robbery attempt and how quickly every single thing goes wrong. I also liked every scene between Al Pacino and Charles Durning

BEST LINE

"ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

96%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Framed by great work from director Sidney Lumet and fueled by a gripping performance from Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon offers a finely detailed snapshot of people in crisis with tension-soaked drama shaded in black humor."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does."

DIRECTOR

Sidney Lumet

MAIN CAST

Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning

THOUGHTS

• This is the second Sidney Lumet movie I've reviewed. When I talked about 12 Angry Men, I wondered if I was goosing my thrill score because it's an undeniably great movie, while not perhaps as thrilling as some others. At times I wondered the same for Dog Day Afternoon, but I'm going for it. This is a tense, gripping, unpredictable movie, with amazing and realistic performances, especially from Pacino, and the fact that it's based on a true story just ties everything up in a bow. This is definitely one of my favourites, and despite having seen it many times before, I was completely engrossed once again
• I don't entirely agree with the IMDB synopsis, since "bizarre nightmare" makes this sound like a stranger movie than it is. It's really quite grounded; the plot follows a logical sequence of events, and the actions of the characters make sense
• I think it was an interesting (and good) choice to make nearly every character likeable to some extent. The would-be bank robbers, the bank employees, the bank manager, even Charles Durning as the main cop in charge. It comes across that Durning's Sergeant Moretti sees the situation they're in as the real problem to deal with, as opposed to the bank robbers themselves. Even the FBI agents who eventually take control of the situation aren't outwardly antagonistic, they're more just pragmatic with a job to do
• For a movie that came out in 1975, I feel like it's ahead of its time in a couple of noteworthy ways. Firstly, it has a distinctly anti-cop stance. Aside from Charles Durning, the police officers who surround the bank seem to be pretty trigger happy. The real-life events which inspired this movie happened shortly after the Attica Prison Riot of 1971, in which 43 people were killed, mostly by law enforcement gunfire. Al Pacino's Sonny uses this as a taunt and as a rallying cry when he sees the cops reaching for their guns, shouting "ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!" and, in the process, getting the crowd of spectators on his side
• Secondly, the movie's depiction of gay, bi and trans characters is honest and sympathetic. While the real-life Sonny, John Wojtowicz, stated that the movie was only 30% accurate to the real events, he did say that Pacino's characterization of himself and Chris Sarandon's performance as his partner were accurate to real life
• Although, one notable thing that changed from real life to movie, for obvious reasons: in real life the robbery was initiated with a ransom note that read, "This is an offer you can't refuse." Considering the bank robbers were played by Al Pacino and John Cazale, who had previously appeared in The Godfather, the source of this quote, it would have been kind of hilarious if they'd kept it in the movie
• In his own quiet way, John Cazale makes a fair impact on the AFI list, appearing in three movies that we'll talk about, more than even Pacino, at two. Cazale will also be appearing in The Deer Hunter and the aforementioned The Godfather. The actor died relatively young from lung cancer at 42, but every single movie he was in was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar - this one, The Godfather I and II, The Deer Hunter, and The Conversation. Dog Day Afternoon lost the Oscar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but it was in good company with a fellow nominee we'll be talking about much later, a thrilling little film called Jaws
• The events of the movie take place on a hot afternoon in August, and you can almost feel the heat and the humidity. I said something similar about Body Heat a while ago, and it also brought to mind Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, another movie with a very strong message about police brutality
• Finally, I've decided that I'm going to start including the director and the main cast for each movie, because really there's no reason not to, and in fact I should have been doing this from the beginning. Moving forward, they shall be included!

Up next: Our second Western, The Wild Bunch. We'll see how it compares to The Magnificent Seven

#71-D: SKYFALL (2012)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Nope

BEST SEQUENCE

The first thirteen minutes, featuring car and motorcycle chases, heart-pounding stunts on top of a train, and a fateful gunshot

BEST LINE

After receiving his gadgets from Q

Bond: "A gun and a radio. It's not exactly Christmas, is it?"

Q: "Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don't really go in for that anymore."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

92%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Sam Mendes brings Bond surging back with a smart, sexy, riveting action thriller that qualifies as one of the best 007 films to date."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"James Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost."

THOUGHTS

• The movie as a whole is extremely entertaining, but man, that pre-credits sequence set a very high bar that I don't think the rest of the movie could clear. Non-stop action, and some of the best stunts of the four Bond movies I've reviewed
• Runner-up best sequence is probably Bond's pursuit of Silva through the London Underground. The climactic assault on Skyfall had some exciting moments, but I wanted to like it more than I did
• And speaking of things that I wanted to like more than I did, something about Javier Bardem's performance as Raoul Silva just didn't resonate with me, and I can't entirely place my finger on specifically why. I was even a little disappointed, as the general consensus seems to hold Silva as one of the best Bond villains. Hell of an entrance, though, with his introductory speech about rats on an island
• There's a wealth of talent in the supporting cast. Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris - they all had memorable moments and bounced off of Daniel Craig nicely. Naomie Harris, especially, had some sizzling chemistry with him, I thought
• Also, the fact that Naomie Harris was playing Miss Moneypenny was treated as an end-of-movie reveal, which didn't really land with me since Wikipedia gives it away in the first paragraph (I usually have Wikipedia open to assist with my note taking when watching movies)
• Adele's theme song might be my favourite Bond theme. It was also the first Bond song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, despite others previously being nominated, including "Live and Let Die," "Nobody Does It Better," and "For Your Eyes Only." "Skyfall" also kicked off a streak - the songs from Spectre and No Time To Die also won Best Original Song, for Sam Smith and Billie Eilish respectively
• Gorgeous cinematography. Especially in the Shanghai scenes, I was reminded of the cinematography from Blade Runner 2049, a movie whose visuals also stuck with me. Appropriately enough, the great Roger Deakins was responsible for both 
• I meant to mention it in my Casino Royale review, but it's just as relevant here - Daniel Craig has an excellent action movie star way of running 
• And thus, we shall bid farewell to 007! I had a lot of fun with all four of the movies I reviewed, and the completist in me even has an urge to go back and run the series just for my own enjoyment, not for reviews. I probably won't do it anytime soon, but one of these days I might just throw on Dr. No and see how it grabs me
• Oh, and one last thing before we move on. If you don't think the "James Bond Theme" is a kick-ass piece of music, then you don't get to watch the equally kick-ass gun barrel sequence 25 times
  
  

Up next: Back into the AFI list proper, with a favourite of mine. Al Pacino stars in Dog Day Afternoon, from 1975

#71-C: CASINO ROYALE (2006)

 THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, once, sometime around 2010

BEST SEQUENCE

For a movie with so many huge set pieces, this might be an unexpected choice, but I really liked the truck chase on the runway of the Miami airport

BEST LINE

Bond: "Dry martini"

Bartender: "Oui, monsieur"

Bond: "Wait. Three measures of Gordon's; one of vodka; half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it over ice, and add a thin slice of lemon peel."

- The Vesper martini, and the recipe I've used while watching these movies, although I had to substitute Lillet Blanc for the Kina Lillet

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

94%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Casino Royale disposes of the silliness and gadgetry that plagued recent James Bond outings, and Daniel Craig delivers what fans and critics have been waiting for: a caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007"

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"After earning 00 status and a licence to kill, secret agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro."

THOUGHTS

• As has been established, I've seen relatively few Bond movies in my lifetime. However, I am nothing if not a student of pop culture, so while that may be the case I do feel like I have a good sense of what a Bond movie is. And if Goldfinger and GoldenEye are great Bond movies, Casino Royale is just a great action movie, period
• There may be some out there who watch Casino Royale and miss the typical trappings of the previous movies: the one-liners, the gadgets, the casual womanizing. But these are also the aspects of the older movies that make them feel incredibly dated and ripe for parody. Casino Royale takes itself seriously, and for my tastes that's what makes it the better movie
• Which is not to say Daniel Craig's Bond is entirely lacking in levity. He has great chemistry with Eva Green as Vesper, and there's some witty repartee in their dialogue scenes. And therein lies the distinction: this Bond's personality comes through in the dialogue scenes, not in the action scenes when he's actively being shot at or killing people
• Although, speaking of Bond movies being dated, this one has a parkour-running bad guy, a pivotal sequence at a Texas hold 'em poker tournament, and everyone's walking around on their Sony Ericssons. 2006. What a time to be alive
• As mid-2000s as it is, though, that parkour scene is awesome, probably the favourite sequence for many people. I love that Bond doesn't suddenly turn into a parkour expert, because of course he doesn't. Parkour guy swings through a two-foot-wide hole at the top of a wall of drywall, and Bond just smashes through it like he's the Kool-Aid Man. I also liked when the bad guy's gun is empty, so he just throws it at Bond, who catches it and chucks it right back
• It's impressive how gripping they could make a poker game, and a lot of that is thanks to Mads Mikkelsen's smug and sleazy villain, Le Chiffre. He's also very effective in the chair scene which follows the poker tournament. You know the one, when Le Chiffre interrogates Bond and Deez
• As mentioned, I first saw this movie over ten years ago. I remembered a lot of the big moments, a lot of the action sequences, but that truck chase at the Miami airport slipped my memory, and it just blew me away. It's true, I appreciate a good car stunt, and it also reminded me of my favourite action scene of all time, the truck chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, I haven't read anything to indicate that this is the case, but it even struck me that this scene might have been a bit of an homage to Raiders
• Very cool opening credits sequence, and the song by Chris Cornell is a banger
• Finally, a little bit of James Bond trivia. We all know that Bond's codename is 007, but there's a bit more meaning behind this. The 00 number is only given to the agents who have a licence to kill. This may be a more well-known fact than I'm aware of, but I remember finding it interesting when I learned this

Up next: My last Bond review, and a movie I've never seen but always wanted to. Skyfall, from 2012

#71-B: GOLDENEYE (1995)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never, unless you count playing through the N64 game

BEST SEQUENCE

Probably the tank chase, but the opening sequence and the climactic showdown are also pretty awesome

BEST LINE

M: "You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts."

Bond: "The thought had occurred to me."

M: "Good, because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you."

Bond: "Point taken."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

80%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"The first and best Pierce Brosnan Bond film, GoldenEye brings the series into a more modern context, and the result is a 007 entry that's high-tech, action-packed, and urbane."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Years after a friend and fellow 00 agent is killed on a joint mission, a Russian crime syndicate steals a secret space-based weapons program known as "GoldenEye" and James Bond has to stop them from using it."

THOUGHTS

• It's interesting how strongly the GoldenEye video game sticks out in my memory, considering I never even owned a Nintendo 64 myself. It was just so iconic that even just from playing it at friends' houses, I kept thinking about it while watching the movie for the first time. I'd recognize set pieces and action sequences, and the most recognizable aspect was probably the scenery
• That opening set piece is pretty fantastic, from the bungee jump that kicks off the movie to the (admittedly laugh-inducing) motorcycle jump off a cliff to catch up to a plummeting plane in midair. As silly as it all is, though, it's quite convincingly shot
• Which leads into the very trippy opening credits. Considering the cultural footprint that so many Bond themes have had over the years, it's worth mentioning that I've never heard the GoldenEye theme before in my life, and it's kind of a snooze. Noteworthy considering the pedigree - performed by Tina Turner, and written by Bono and the Edge. Also noteworthy about the opening credits, Sean Bean is billed right after Pierce Brosnan, so it was clearly pretty early in Bean's career if the name recognition wouldn't spoil the mid-movie twist
• And speaking of Brosnan - he's handsome, he's dapper, he's capable, but he's pretty bland. The movie around him is entertaining enough, but he's kind of just there. Henceforth I shall call him the Bland Bond (as opposed to Daniel Craig, who is the Blond Bond)
• I really liked Judi Dench in her brief screen time as M, and I look forward to her reappearing in the Daniel Craig movies. I also appreciated this movie's reckoning with the Bonds of the past, as exemplified by the quote up above
• Alan Cumming was really grating as Boris. I like him as an actor, but that character can take a hike. Also, it was an incredibly mid-'90s move to give him a character trait of fiddling with a pen while frantically typing one-handed on a keyboard trying to crack a computer code. Of course this computer whiz doesn't need two hands to type; he's just that good!
• This movie might be one of the most egregious examples of needing to suspend one's disbelief when foreign characters speak strongly-accented English instead of the language that they would most logically actually be speaking. There is absolutely no reason why a bunch of Russian characters, at a Russian control centre, would be speaking and typing in English to each other. Of course I understand the practical reasons why the filmmakers would go this route but once I noticed it happening I found it hard to ignore
• And speaking of things that are hard to ignore, boy oh boy, the CGI used in the outer space footage. Gravity, this is not
• It may seem like I'm ripping this apart, but I did actually have a good time with this movie. There's a lot of silliness, but the action is really solid. Big explosions, cool gun fights, a charismatic villain, and a great final fight scene
• But I shall leave you with the worst post-death quip of the film. After the secondary big bad dies from being crushed into a tree as a result of being tethered to a crashing helicopter, Bond says "She always did enjoy a good squeeze." Bond, you nitwit, that's not an expression! It doesn't count as a clever reference if it's a sentence that no one in the world has ever said before you!

Up next: It's the introduction of the aforementioned Blond Bond. Daniel Craig in Casino Royale

#71: GOLDFINGER (1964)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, but only once and it's been a while

BEST SEQUENCE

The assault on Fort Knox

BEST LINE

Bond (strapped to a table, an industrial-strength laser inching towards his genitals): "Do you expect me to talk?"

Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

99%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Goldfinger is where James Bond as we know him comes into focus - it features one of 007's most famous lines ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred.") and a wide range of gadgets that would become the series' trademark."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"While investigating a gold magnate's smuggling, James Bond uncovers a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve."

THOUGHTS

• There have been 27 movies made about James Bond. Seven actors have played him, in seven different decades. While it was only the third film in the series, Goldfinger is seen by many to be the quintessential Bond movie (and similarly, Sean Connery is seen by many to be the quintessential Bond actor). I checked out a few lists ranking the Bond series, and Goldfinger was always near the top, and usually #1. It has the highest percentage on Rotten Tomatoes of any Bond film. I saw it once, I think in high school. I didn't remember a whole lot about it, but I did remember having a good time watching it
• But good God, I forgot how utterly, entirely ridiculous the whole thing is
• It's certainly a romp. The action is solid, the villains are menacing in a charismatic way, and Connery is cheer-worthy (as long as you can get past the casual misogyny - some moments really didn't age well)
• But man, be prepared to groan a few times. And honestly, I see this as a feature, not a bug. It's the style of these movies. You can't have James Bond kill someone without lightening the mood with a terrible, borderline non-sequitur pun. For example, bad guy gets electrocuted; when asked what happened to him, Bond says, "He blew a fuse." Or, a different bad guy gets electrocuted. Purely for his own amusement, Bond says, "Shocking. Positively shocking." As they say, one good electrocution joke deserves another
• The post-death quip was one of many Bond-isms parodied in Austin Powers. And, while I have no statistics to back this up, I think there's a fair chance that there are more people at this point who have seen the Austin Powers movies than have seen Goldfinger. The funny thing about parodying Bond, however, is that some of the gags that appear in Austin Powers are barely more ridiculous than what they're directly imitating. Cases in point: the character Alotta Fagina? Based on Pussy Galore from this movie. The character Random Task, who is lethal when throwing a shoe? Based on Oddjob, who is lethal when throwing a metal-rimmed bowler hat. All of these things are absolutely asinine! There's no upper ground between the parody and that which is being parodied!
• Goldfinger is a great villain, and I like that he's introduced cheating at cards. It's a clever way of establishing his character, to show that this immensely wealthy man just likes to win and he doesn't care how he does it. Similarly, while it's not the most action-packed stretch of the movie, there's something that I find really entertaining about the golf game between Bond and Goldfinger
• While the movie ended up being quite a lot sillier than I remembered, there's still so much that works here. The theme song is a banger, the gadgets are nifty, the action set pieces and fights are fun, and you've got all the iconic lines ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred"). Speaking of which, I mixed myself a martini to watch this movie, and I plan on doing it for the other Bond films coming up, too. And boy, that is a stiff drink! But James Bond wouldn't have it any other way

Up next: Given my age (I was born in '86), it might be surprising that I haven't seen Pierce Brosnan's first go as Bond, which came out in '95. But as positively shocking as it is, it's true. I certainly played the video game a lot, but up next will be my first time watching GoldenEye