Brian's Thoughts on Movies

Every time a James Bond film is released many media outlets release a ranked list of the films.  Bond fans also love to create lists of their favorite elements of the series on different sites.  In the spirit of such lists I have created an overall list of my Bond films ranked in order of preference.   Additionally, I have listed several categories below but most of them are broken down by leading man (actor who played Bond) since each actor represents his own era of films and I felt it more fair to judge these elements within their own generation rather than against the whole.  I did not include the non-Eon Bond films, Never Say Never Again (1983) or the 1953 or 1967 versions of Casino Royale.  I also excluded George Lazenby from most of the categories since he is only in one film so there was no other point of comparison. This is just a personal list and is by no means supposed to represent anyone’s opinion other than my own.   There are choices both popular and unconven

The future events of Back to the Future Part II take place on October 21, 2015 .  I have decided to use that day to post my thoughts on the film which I feel is a little underappreciated.  Back to the Future is one of the most enjoyable films ever made.  Michael J Fox, already famous on TV from Family Ties, became a big screen star for a few years after portraying Marty McFly, a 17 year old from 1985 who goes back to 1955 and inadvertently interrupts his parents' meeting, threatening his own existence.  Fox plays Marty as good hearted and resourceful but a little irresponsible and immature.  Doc Brown, Marty's scientist friend, is played wonderfully by Christopher Lloyd as a zany wild scientist at two ages (presumably his 30s and 60s).  The friendship between this unlikely pair is the heart of the series.  The joy of the film is watching Marty ensure that his parents ultimately fall in love (and makes their 1985 lives happier in the process) and then with great

“Life gets harder as you near the summit” (fortune cookie opened by me immediately after watching Life Itself). The above statement certainly may apply to Roger Ebert, who was the most prominent voice of American film criticism for many years.   Any film fan born before 2000 should know Ebert’s name and though he may at some point be forgotten every podcast and/or show that uses a two reviewer format can trace its origins to him.   Ebert, for those not in the know, was half of a two man team who from 1975 to 1999 had a show called Siskel and Ebert At The Movies, along with a few other titles.   The half hour show aired in syndication weekly and always had the two undistinguished looking men who were newspaper critics briefly debating five films or so that had come out that week.   Each critic would rate the film thumbs up or down.   Since both men had very different tastes two thumbs up generally meant the film was a can’t miss for audiences (although they did give two thumb

                                                             Prior to discussing Unforgiven , allow me to explain my (lack of) credentials of my familiarity with some of Eastwood’s work. Unforgiven came out when I was about 20, and I watched it on video and thought it was a very good morality tale with incredible performances   but there were some factors that affected my enjoyment of it. For starters I was largely unfamiliar with Eastwood’s work as a director or actor, having only seen The Rookie, (his largely forgettable attempt at a Lethal Weapon type buddy film) and a few scenes that my dad (who was a big Eastwood fan) had shown to me when they popped up on TV (“Make my day” from Sudden Impact and the climactic bare knuckle fight from Any Which Way You Can) so the aspect of the film which relies on audience familiarity with the Eastwood cowboy myth was a little lost on me.    Additionally, at that age I could not relate to William Munny’s demons at all though I thoug

On November 3, 2011, the announcement for the title of the 23 rd Eon Bond film awoke my curiosity.   Skyfall would obviously not be a villain’s name such as Dr No or Goldfinger, so would it be the name of a mission (though, that seemed a little obvious)?   Skyfall turned out to be the name of the hunting lodge Bond had lived in as a boy, a perfect title for a film in which by looking into Bond’s past, he comes full circle in the relationship with his mother figure, M. Please note that, as always, I will be discussing the film’s plot in details so if you do not want to know what happens, particularly in the third act of Skyfall, please revisit this post after you have seen it. In Casino Royale by starting with Bond at the beginning of his career, series writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have tracked Bond’s development as a secret service agent and how he grows into the role physically (in Casino Royale he is almost too strong and eager for danger, by Skyfall Bond faces s