4:50 PM
In the first five minutes of “You Only Live Twice” we see an astronaut go hurtling off into the vast coldness of space, hear James Bond says the words, “Why is it that Chinese girls taste different than other girls?” and then watch as he is killed.
Stakes…you have just fucking been raised.
An alternate title for this movie might very well be: “James Bond Goes To Japan” or “James Bond and the Ninjas”.
Pesky old SPECTRE is at it again. But this time they are taking money from the Japanese to start a world war between Russia and the US. God damn they are an efficient people.
AND we finally get to see the face of SPECTRE leader…#1.
He is an ugly, ugly man.
We see the first ridiculous Big Bad Guy Hideout. In this case, the inside of a hollowed out, dormant volcano.
We also hear the head of the Japanese Secret Service say, in reference to a woman Bond has chosen as his massage girl, “She is very sexyful.”
This line had the honor of being the first thing added to the Wall O’ Stuff in my dorm senior year.
This is one of the most parodied Bond’s, lampooned by both Austin Powers and The Simpsons (“You Only Move Twice” from the epic and perfect season 8).
The theme is a great one as well. Very fitting for the movie, although they never really explain how Bond survives being folded up into a diabolical Murphy bed and hit with like 1,000 rounds from three sub machine guns.
One of the most important elements of this movie is that James Bond is now a ninja. He had a three or four day crash course and now he is one with the shadows. In fact, he even kills a man with a throwing star. It is fantastic.
In the end, #1’s cat freaks out, there is one of the coolest scenes ever in which the Ninjas storm the base and face off against the forces of SPECTRE* where they fight with guns, swords, grenades, throwing stars and sheer brawn, and the whole fucking place explodes when #1 pulls the self-destruct lever.
Excellent Bond movie.
As for the ladies…
You Only Jizz Thrice = 3 (cute Asian JSS liaison who later gets the poison that was intended for Bond, ANOTHER smoking evil Redhead who turns out to be none other that SPECTRE’s #11**, another cute Asian girl who does not get poisoned…that we know of.)
*Ladies, if you are ever with a man and he is having erectile troubles, just say the phrase “SPECTRE vs. ninjas” and if he isn’t harder than steel in an instant, he is not a real man and should be castrated.
Now, what could be more shocking than killing James Bond in the lead in? Replacing him with another actor of course!
“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” ushered out the Sean Connery Bond and ushered in the George Lazenby Bond.
For one movie.
Then Connery was hastily ushered back in, in hopes that no one would remember “that Australian guy”.
And what better way to make us forget a Bond than to dress him in a kilt?
If you think I’m kidding, that’s all right. I don’t believe it either.
This guy wasn’t a terrible Bond, but he just didn’t have the face for it. It was sort of soft and forgettable, but other than that, I think he was okay.
OHMSS was when the tongue was surgically grafted to the cheek. You can tell because the first line of the movie is Q telling M the benefits of miniaturizing, then showing him Q Branch’s latest breakthrough…radioactive lint. The tongue on cheek action doesn’t end there though…
At the end of the lead in, we see a mysterious girl taken from Bond by kidnappers. After they have driven away, he turns to the camera (right at the fucking thing) and says, with a grin, “This never happened to the other fellow.”
On one hand, this could be an implication that the rank of 007 and the name of “James Bond” are just numbers, masks and that ANYONE can be Secret Agent James Bond, 007…but no, that was the late 60’s sticking its diseased fingers into the Bond franchise. Let’s go smoke some opium.
Aside from these two cheeky/tonguey moments, we see Bond resigning from MI6 and then packing a bag. He begins to remove items from his desk…first, the knife and scabbard that Honey Ryder was wearing in “Dr. No”, then the wristwatch/garrote wire that belonged to SPECTRE henchman Donald Grant in “From Russia With Love” and finally, the tiny breathing apparatus from “Thunderball”. When each item is pulled out, a snatch of the theme from that movie is played.
If that wasn’t enough, at one point, Bond is being escorted (at gunpoint) to meet who he thinks is a Big Bad Guy (but who turns out to be an ally named Count Draco) we see a midget janitor sweeping up…and whistling the “Goldfinger” theme.
Subtlety, thy name is Whistling Midget.
This movie focuses on Operation: Bedlam which is all about finding Ernst Stvro Blofeld after he escaped from the exploding volcano in “You Only Live Twice”. Bond hooks up with this Count and agrees to marry his daughter (Tracy) is exchange for info on Blofeld’s whereabouts. Romance xmax.
After a montage, her and James fall in love and Bond discovers part of Blofeld’s insidious plot. He then disguises himself as a genealogist and is taken to Blofeld’s hideout/research facility/mountain getaway. We see Blofeld is now Telly Savales, but since Bond is now George Lazenby, no one says anything.
This actually bothers me a bit: at the end of “You Only Live Twice”, Blofeld (Donald Plesance in this movie) and Bond come face to face for the first time, yet when Bond meets him in OHMSS, there is no recognition on either part.
We get to check out the first of several ski chases, complete with crazy stunts and terrible blue screen and M’s home, where we learn he is into butterflies. How British…spearing and quietly cataloguing beautiful, dead insects.
Bond finds out that Blofeld is brainwashing a bunch of International hotties to use them to spread a plague of his own invention called Virus Omega. Sounds scary but…Telly Savales. Bond and Draco drop in on Blofeld and blowfeld the shit out of his operation. All is well until the end of the movie…
The end of this movie made me cry as a child and, to this day, I have only seen it three times.
Once when I was a child, once my sophomore summer at Fordham and earlier today.
As a child, my mom would take me to Couch Potato Video on 2nd Ave. between 69th and 68th (it’s gone now, replaced by something colder and more modern) and I would, like all 7-year olds, look at every fucking movie in the place, and then rent one of the 30 or so I always rented (Labyrinth, Care Bears, some fairy tale series that used big name actors and told the original stories without the Disney glammer, Police Academy movies, Little Shop of Horrors (musical version) and others). All the Bond movies were in the same place and each one was watched so often by me that they each had an emotion attached to it. I remembered feelings rather than scenes. Every time I saw the box for OHMSS, I became sad. I’m not talking about pouty sad, I’m talking about tears welling up in my eyes sad.
What is it that so traumatized little Paul you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you.
After a prolonged luge chase (only one in the series regrettably), Blofeld appears to have been killed and Bond is married to his love, Tracy.
While driving to his honeymoon with Tracy, he pulls over to change a tire.
Suddenly, Blofeld and his heanchcow, Frauline Bunt, roll up and pull a fucking drive-by on Bond and his new wife.
Now, obviously an adult, knowing the dangers of Bond’s career, would have seen this coming, but as a wide-eyed, innocent 7-year old, I did not.
When I found out that James Bond’s new wife was dead, killed by Blofeld, I was ruined. I cried and cried despite the fact that “it was just a movie, it was just a movie” as my mother kept telling me. I felt so bad for James Bond, who was the sun and moon to a kid like me, and I was so affected by the death of his wife that I didn’t watch the movie again for about 15 years.
Upon this reflection, a greater truth becomes apparent: I don’t think I am able to say with any authority that any of these movies are good or bad. I can only talk about them and how good I think they are. As in, they are all good, but some range from good to super good to good xmax etc.
Keep that in mind, if you would.
On Her Majesty’s Swollen Bellend…
OHMSS = 3 (Tracy Draco Bond—pre-assassination, British chick who was allergic to chicken that sort of reminds me of Frenchy from “Grease”, foreign chick who was allergic to potatoes)
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