Video Essays

Persona.

It’s on HBO Max.

The first ever Eyebrow Cinema Christmas Special.

That Moore ranking is insane.

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Since PG Cooper did a whole video on the “last James Bond movie”, here’s a thought, is Goldeneye the last James Bond movie? Having rewatched it this past week, it truly feels like a classic style Bond movie (the villain even has an evil lair) but updated for the 1990’s. They didn’t capitalize on that with Tomorrow Never Dies. Pierce Brosnan’s second outing is a fun action film, but that’s all it is, an action film. You could have given Brosnan’s character a different name and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

That brings us to the World Is Not Enough, infamously known as Doomsday’s least favorite Bond movie. That means Doomsday feels that Moonraker and Die Another Day are better movies. Let that stir in your head while you bitch about my current Moore ranking.

I don’t dislike TWINE. The boat chase is awesome. Elektra King is a good villain. And we learned that Christmas comes more than once a year. But I’m puzzled by what the movie was trying to accomplish.

Pierce Brosnan is playing it straight, he’s more Timothy Dalton here than Sean Connery. The plot is a bit more grounded, basically, Elektra wanted to take control of the oil pipelines in post Soviet territories. But all this clashes with John Cleese as R, Denise Richards performance and the return of the Russian mobster from Goldeneye. Where’s Jack Wade in all this? The movie even ends with a Roger Moore style sex gag. Did they take two different scripts and merge them together? TWINE feels like they planted the seeds to what would become Daniel Craig’s tenure, but Broccoli & Wilson were two scared to move away from the classic format, so they compromised.

Although, it’s funny that in the course of three movies, M and Moneypenny went from calling Bond a Cold War era dinosaur to doing Roger Moore era pratfalls.

I’m not done yet.







Alright, Canadians. You ready? Let’s go.


I watched, maybe, 5 minutes of PG Cooper’s video. The gist of it is that George Lazenby’s Bond has “feelings”, so it’s the last James Bond movie. Yeah, okay. Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig exist. That kills the argument right there. Also, in spite of all the efforts made by the filmmakers, George Lazenby is not the same Bond as Sean Connery. We saw how Connery reacted when he got the Masterson sisters killed in Goldfinger. He’s not the crying type. He’s the strangling Blofeld to death type. Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig play it closer to Connery than Lazenby does. Lazenby is a pussy bitch, like Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan being emotional on the beach. If you’re gonna make a thesis that a certain Bond movie is the last of the classical era, the answer is Moonraker. Yes. Moonraker.


Moonraker (1979)

It has been two years since Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond came to an end. It’s actually a lot longer than that when you factor in Covid delays. Daniel Craig hasn’t been James Bond since, really, 2019 when No Time to Die wrapped up production. We’re about two weeks away from 2024. What is the future for James Bond? What does James Bond even mean in the 2020’s? Other than Goldeneye, which I mentioned earlier today, there hasn’t really been a classic style Bond movie since Moonraker all the way back in 1979. Star Wars was only one movie back then — and a shitty holiday special. That’s how long ago that was. The John Glen movies were just 1980’s action films. Other than Goldeneye, the Pierce Brosnan movies had an identity crisis. And then there’s Daniel Craig’s Jason Bourne masquerading as James Bond. Moonraker really and truly closed the door on what would be considered a classic style Bond film.

Moonraker begins with the theft of a spaceship. We already saw this occur in You Only Live Twice and similarly occur (but with a submarine) in the Spy Who Loved Me. And you could also count Thunderball since the theft of nuclear weapons in that film is as cartoony as anything in the Lewis Gilbert movies.

Before the plot could move forward, we get the first big stunt. James Bond is pushed out of a plane and has to fight for a parachute. There was no CGI back then. Stunt people had to do this for real and it’s why people went to watch James Bond movies.

This is followed by the opening credits that features a song co-written by John Barry and performed by Shirley Bassey. Quite fitting for the last James Bond movie.

Now that the movie has properly began, we meet our villain Hugo Drax. The character of Hugo Drax does exist in the novels, and there is a novel called Moonraker, but neither has anything to do with this movie. Hugo Drax, as created by Ian Fleming, was a former Nazi scientist now working for the good guys. That version of Hugo Drax has more in common with the time-traveling villain from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. This Hugo Drax is just Blofeld under a different name because of contractual reasons. Drax’s big scheme is to execute a 20th century Noah’s Ark.

We’ve barely scratched the surface and already have an outlandish plot, Shirley Bassey and James Bond getting shoved out of a plane. Bond survives that first attempt on his life (in the Bond universe, no one ever just shoots the guy) and begins his investigation in California. There he meets CIA agent Holly Goodhead (yes — that’s her name) and survives another attempt on his life. This one reminiscent of the exercise machine in Thunderball, but less ridiculous. Is PG Cooper paying attention? These are called tropes. In that section of the movie, there’s another callback to Thunderball, one involving Bond firing shotguns with the villain. In the midst of all this, Bond finds the time to have sex with one of Drax’s employees and gets her killed. How many women have died because they slept with James Bond? The man is his own sexually transmitted disease.

Here’s where the movie lost IanTheCool. Don’t worry, Ian. I got ya. Bond’s investigation in California leads him to Venice where he locates a factory making glass vials for Drax Industries. We get a big action scene, more stunts and a pigeon doing a double take. The factory leads him to Rio de Janeiro, where Drax is using a rare orchid from the Amazon to create a nerve gas deadly to humans. He meets up with Jaws, the henchman from the previous Bond movie, and more action scenes and stunts occur. This all culminates in Bond and Holly Goodhead going into space and engaging in a battle with laser guns.

As you can tell, Moonraker is no different than Casino Royale. They’re practically the same movie. Okay. Maybe not. But is Moonraker any different than Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me? Is it any different than Goldfinger breaking into Fort Knox? Is it any different than Blofeld creating a space weapon in Diamonds Are Forever? Is it any different than Christopher Lee solving the energy crisis in Golden Gun? This is what Bond movies used to be, Saturday morning cartoons. So what if George Lazenby cried in that one movie? Elmer Fudd finally killed Bugs Bunny and cried like a little bitch afterwards. Sometimes cartoons get serious, bro. Moonraker really marked the end of a particular era for James Bond. For Your Eyes Only started an era of James Bond movies that eventually led to Daniel Craig. Roger Moore is the key to all this, not George Lazenby. Your essay? Wrong.

Top Ten Best Movies Watched in 2023

“Rosie O’Donnell as Betty Rubble? She should play Fred!” That’s a real quote by Doomsday that appears on this video. What’s the timestamp? Well, you’re gonna have to watch the video and find it yourself.”

I was also 18 when I first watched The Manchurian Candidate. It’s one of those films that blew my mind when I saw it.

Yeah, Interested