The Spy Who Loved Me is an entertaining jaunt in the world of James Bond, though neither the most or least satisfying.  It is perhaps most notable as being the film where many of the exotic locales and impressive stunts become de rigeur for the series.

My name is… 

We begin as we always do, with Roger Moore’s third outing as Commander Bond.  It is also the first time we truly get a sense as to why he earned the role.  First, however, it’s worth noting that Mr. Moore’s performance is attenuated roughly to the point where it stays for the remainder of his appearances in the series.  Gone is the whimsical, buffoonish playboy of Live and Let Die.  Mr. Moore is now the suave, charming, sophisticated bon vivant, and the script allows him to showcase a substantial degree of physicality.

The costume designers have left the wacky early 70’s styles behind and Mr. Moore appears as every bit the sophisticate, much to his credit.  There is one other solid aspect to Mr. Moore’s portrayal.  Despite the outward appearance of a superficial lover who knows just the right thing to say to bed a woman, many of his more serious lines are delivered with conviction.  When confronted by Amasova (Barbara Bach) on the death of her lover, Mr. Moore’s response is direct, forthright, and deadly serious.  His various battles with Jaws show he’s quite capable of a good fist-fight.  In perhaps the most brutal Bond murder since Sean Connery plugged a man in the back in Dr. No, Mr. Moore slaps his tie from the grasp of an assassin teetering on a ledge, and he falls to his death.  Finally, the assault inside Stromberg’s cavernous tanker demonstrates his natural leadership and military training.  All in all, he’s a very convincing Bond this time around, and even a bit of a bad-ass. (more…)

“Year One” is one of those rare movies that can’t possibly be as bad as the trailer makes it look … but is. Actually it’s kinda worse. Sex jokes, gay jokes, incest jokes, lesbian jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, bestiality jokes, no story, an episodic plot, fewer laughs and dialogue that’s mostly ad-libbed, makes extra sure of that.

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) play hunter-gatherer cavemen who don’t quite fit in with their small tribe. Both are clumsy, intensely disliked and in unrequited love with a couple of lovely cavewomen. After Zed breaks rule number one and tastes the forbidden fruit, he’s exiled. For some reason, Oh follows along and they set off on a series of tedious antics involving Biblical characters, the city of Sodom and whole lot of wondering as to what director Harold Ramis, the genius behind “Groundhog Day,” “Analyze This,” “Caddyshack” and “Vacation,” was thinking.

Judd Apatow is one of the producers, so that explains the overlong scenes full of unfunny, self-indulgent ad-libbing, but there’s practically no story. Like a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the duo heads off on the Road to Interminable drifting from one “comedic” set up to the next riffing along the way in that annoying, hesitant-enhanced, post-modernspeak that passes for clever dialogue nowadays: “Yeah, I know, but … you know, if you were … because I could … and then we would – you know what, forget it.”

Beyond plodding, many of the individual scenes are also choppy. Scenes end abruptly as though what the makers had on film was so bad there was no other choice. The whole affair reeks of sloppy, laziness or plain old poor planning that couldn’t be salvaged in the editing room. (more…)