Thursday, August 18, 2005

Live and Let Die, indeed

I am one of those weirdos who favors Roger Moore over the other James Bonds. I know most people think Sean Connery was the best, but if you watch some of those over again, he's kind of a bastard, slapping women around rather flippantly. Plus in real life he was known as a racist.

Anyway I probably go more for that pretty-boy thing that Roger Moore has, rather than Sean Connery's burly-man appeal. Actually, my whole family liked the Roger Moore Bond films because he played up the mischievously funny aspect of James Bond.

I don't remember these films very well, but just now I caught part of Roger Moore's first Bond film, Live and Let Die, on AMC. I don't think I've ever seen this one. But my god, you have to see it! I imagine it doesn't get shown a lot, because people probably thought it sucked, but it's really off the wall and amusing. Plus, you see a gorgeous young, buxom Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn!) in her film debut, playing a tarot card psychic. I'd be willing watch this again. Maybe we can have a wacky James Bond movie party.

Since it's Roger Moore's first Bond film, he looks younger and therefore more dashingly sexy. Also the villains are hilarious and there's all this voodoo magic! Consider these highlights:

James Bond sees a snake on the bathroom floor from his vanity mirror, so he quickly spins around, to spraying his aerosol aftershave over a lighter at the snake, to kill it with a MacGyver-eqsue blowtorch.

Psychic Jane's character is casually lounging in a traincar's wall-mounted bed, until a villain suddenly slams the bed closed, so she's left folded up against the wall, muffled.

James Bond is sitting at a table, watching some disco singer in a crowded bar, until a trap door in the floor magically opens up and swallows him and the table. Nobody around him even blinks an eye while a waiter comes and replaces the table.

One character's demise involves expanding like a blimp and exploding like a hollow balloon.

Fun fact: This film won an Oscar! --for its title song, by Paul McCartney.

There is a henchman named "Tee Hee."

Live and Let Die? I think Live and Let Live!

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Roger Moore's pretty dope. Goldfinger and all them are pretty good, but none of them beats The Spy Who Loved Me. But back to Live and Let Die... didn't it also feature that one henchman who was later in Annie? How do I know that...?

12:57 AM  

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