Marvel Catch Up

I am thinking about making this weekend my Marvel Movie Catch Up Weekend. I’m already halfway there. Only the two most recent movies hadn’t been seen, and now only the most recent.

Harry and I watched Wakanda Forever today. He’d already seen it. I liked it. It wasn’t as good as the first Black Panther. I found the bad guys kinda too goofy. Also, minor spoiler risk, there was a funeral scene that I found very difficult. Too close to home, I think.

Ant Man 3 is the only movie left now. I’m trying to talk everyone into going to the theater to see it tomorrow. I know the reviews are bad, but I hear that the fan reactions are quite a bit more positive. I think it’s worth a look. I should check to see if it’s playing at our local theater tomorrow. Hold on a second or two…

It’s playing, but no matinees. I checked Methuen, Lowell, and Salem, NH. Same at all three. Maybe I’ll wait for Disney+.

I Overslept

Today is Sunday and I did what many of us do on random Sundays… I overslept. My alarm was set for 5:30am. I got out of bed a couple of minutes before 7:00am. I also had a minor hangup that kept me from getting the day started for about 20 minutes and both of those things together mean it’s way too late for me to tackle car music today.

My exercise is done for the day. Yesterday I bumped my four mile morning jog (pronounced “yog” with a soft j) to five miles. Mostly because there were many days over the last month or so where I was not reaching my move/calorie goal without doing extra exercise, so for now I am just going to build that into the morning routine. I am eating breakfast right now and when I am done I will take a Covid test. I have been symptom free since my two exposures on Monday and Tuesday so I am confident in another negative test, but I am still going to test for another couple of days. Just to be sure. I have to go into the office on Wednesday and I don’t want to risk passing anything on to anyone.

What does the no-car-music-today change mean for the music project? I still have five songs that need lyrics, so I can take care of some of those. I think I might also try to add another song or two. Yeah, it’s overkill but I am seeing guitar leads on the horizon and my playing is so incredibly rusty that I could really use an excuse to just play/practice a little. That would be a good thing.

I did something silly yesterday. I started watching the directors cut of Star Trek the Motion Picture. Shatner’s Star Trek V is often considered the worst of all of the Star Trek movies, and while that may be generally valid, that first movie is pretty awful. I’m only halfway through the director’s cut but I haven’t seen anything obviously different. The endless exterior establishing shots are still endless. Endlessly endless. The acting is often less than stellar in Star Trek movies with the original series cast, but this one… this one is bad. Overall though, the movie isn’t quite as awful as I remembered. Maybe #5 really is the worst of the bunch.

Okay, let’s get the ball moving. I need to get myself something for breakfast that is more substantial than the protein bar I just finished. I’ll probably post a film pic too before I really get the day rolling. For now, talk to you all later. Good Day.

Another Day, Another Negative Test

That’s three days post-Covid exposure with a negative test. Let’s keep up the good work, shall we?

I ate a lot last night. I was kinda shocked at how I couldn’t stop myself. Today I had what is becoming a normal breakfast, a chicken patty and a supplemental protein bar, but I already had 50% of my liquid goal for the day before 8:00am. Is that bad? I don’t know. I hope to spread the second half of the goal out more as the day rolls on.

Music… there was no car music this morning. I have lyrics written for one song. I need at least three before driving to the movie theater parking lot is worth the effort. I hope to get to at least half of the 10 songs today so that I have a lot to do tomorrow. I want to have them all written and recorded by Tuesday. That will give me a week for leads and mixing.

As stated yesterday, the goal for today is to clean the hell out of the kitchen. Also, we put out some little catnip filled toys for the cats. I need to find them all and remove them from play. The two cats do not handle their drugs well. They get super aggressive toward each other when they are high on the ‘nip. That must be curtailed.

That’s the plan, kids. I believe today’s goals are achievable. Let’s see how it goes. Also, let’s try to watch Wakanda Forever, shall we? Yeah, happy Saturday.

New Years Celebration

How did you celebrate New Years Day?

I’ll tell you how we celebrated New Years Day.

A Will Ferrel double feature.

Anchorman

Blades of Glory

I don’t know how there is still cocaine in the world because I have to imagine that the writing of these two cinematic masterpieces used up all of the world’s cocaine supply.

I Don’t Want to Work Tomorrow

The kids are here today. They go to their father’s house tomorrow morning and stay there until Christmas Eve. Then they stay over until Christmas morning before going back to their fathers until the day after New Year. Then on the 4th we hop on a plane and fly to Disney World for the better part of two weeks.

Christmas is one week away. That means we have five grueling work days to go before the first of the two holidays. Then we have a holiday, then four grueling work days until the second holiday which extends into a two week vacation. Damn, I hope it’s warm in Florida in January. We did February in 2020, now we try January.

I don’t want the kids to go, but if we’re going to monopolize their times on the trip to Florida then we should give dad equal time before we leave. It’s fair, even if it sucks donkey balls.

We finally completed the last christmas decoration of the year tonight. We bought this year’s ornaments and hung them on the tree. Can you guess what mine is? Of course you can. It’s a little camera. I’ll see about getting a picture of it later because what’s more artsy then a camera taking a picture of a fake camera?

We’re spending the day with Wes Anderson movies today. The French Dispatch is on right now. Is everyone in his movies a veteran of James Bond movies? I think so.

Ranking the Bond Flicks

Okay, so this is my very fast and loose attempt at ranking the Bond movies from favorite to least favorite. I spent about seven seconds thinking about this so it would probably change here and there if I thought about it more. This is not definitive, but it is my gut feeling right now.

From Russia with Love (1963) Sean Connery
Goldfinger (1964) Sean Connery
Casino Royale (2006) Daniel Craig
Skyfall (2012) Daniel Craig
Thunderball (1965) Sean Connery
Dr. No (1962) Sean Connery
You Only Live Twice (1967) Sean Connery
No Time to Die (2021) Daniel Craig
The Living Daylights (1987) Timothy Dalton
GoldenEye (1995) Pierce Brosnan
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) George Lazenby
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Sean Connery
Spectre (2015) Daniel Craig
Quantum of Solace (2008) Daniel Craig
Live and Let Die (1973) Roger Moore
For Your Eyes Only (1981) Roger Moore
License to Kill (1989) Timothy Dalton
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Roger Moore
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) Roger Moore
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Pierce Brosnan
The World Is Not Enough (1999) Pierce Brosnan
Die Another Day (2002) Pierce Brosnan
Octopussy (1983) Roger Moore
A View To A Kill (1985) Roger Moore
Moonraker (1979) Roger Moore

The Great James Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022 Is Complete!

Last night, just before bed, I finished The Great James Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022! Success! It took about 14 years to get through (seems that way at least) but I’ve binged 25 movies covering six Bond actors and I loved every second of it.

The last time I wrote an update I was wrapping up the last few minutes of Quantum of Solace. I had only watched that movie once before. Same with the two that followed it. I had never seen the final Bond movie before so most of what follows was either new to me or almost new to me.

Skyfall isn’t as good as Casino Royale, but it’s so close we’d probably trigger a run off if it were an election. Damn, that movie is phenomenal. I remember the first time I watched it being literally on the edge of my seat for the final 30 minutes or so. It happened again. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It took the recent trend of targeting M to a whole new level and it paid off perfectly. What a great flick!

Spectre was a bit of a step back. I think I enjoyed it more on the second viewing than the first. I may have been a little put off by the Blofeld reveal for some reason. I’m not sure. I really enjoyed it this time. Much more than I thought I would. It wasn’t as good as Skyfall, but that’s not surprising. I was a little worried that we were bringing back too many of the gimmicks from the pre-reboot era. We have a Q again. We have a Moneypenny again. Those things came back in Skyfall but they were more involved here. They aren’t gimmicky yet, but they actually made me a smidge worried for the next movie. All in all, Spectre is just another killer action flick. That brings us up to four excellent movies in a row, and it brings us to the end.

No Time to Die opened with the scariest thing I’ve seen in a Bond movie, and if you haven’t watched them all you wouldn’t know it was scary. First off, the mold was shattered when the movie opened up and the main Bond Girl from the previous movie was still around! Never before had that happened. Well, there was one girl in Doctor No who shows up briefly in another movie, but she wasn’t an integral part of either story. Not this time. The main Bond Girl in movie #24 is the main Bond Girl in movie #25. Awesome! Not even Bond’s wife did that, though she is referenced in at least two Roger Moore movies. That brings me to the scary point. In the cold open Bond tells her that they have all the time in the world, which is what he tells his wife just before… I thought she was going to be toast before the opening credits rolled. I needn’t have worried though because this awesome movie just plot twisted my ass back to the stone age. I mean I did see a lot of the twists coming, but they all landed perfectly. Daniel Craig deserves all of the Oscars for the scene where he goes back to Bond Girl’s house and sees the big twist for the first time. The look on the guy’s face was perfect. Everything about this movie worked. I loved every second of it. It wraps up the Daniel Craig era completely and it seriously made me want to go back to Casino Royale and watch the last five movies again, preferably in one very long sitting.

So there we have it. I have completed the 25 movie rewatch and it was just as lovely as I’d hoped. Now we just have to wait and see what comes next. No Time to Die ends with the usual “James Bond Will Return” message, but it won’t be Daniel Craig. Who will it be? Will they reboot again? Will they alternate-universe us in some way? I can’t think of any way they could continue the Craig story without ruining the ending of No Time to Die. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I thought about trying to rank the 25 movies from favorite to least favorite. I might try that later, but for now here’s the list once more, just for fun.

Sean Connery
- Dr. No (1962) 95% – Finished
- From Russia with Love (1963) 97% – Finished
- Goldfinger (1964) 99% – Finished
- Thunderball (1965) 85% – Finished
- You Only Live Twice (1967) 74% – Finished
George Lazenby
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) 81% – Finished
Sean Connery (Again)
- Diamonds Are Forever (1971) 63% – Finished
Roger Moore
- Live and Let Die (1973) 65% – Finished
- The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) 40% – Finished
- The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) 81% – Finished
- Moonraker (1979) 59% – Finished
- For Your Eyes Only (1981) 69% – Finished
- Octopussy (1983) 42% – Finished
- A View To A Kill (1985) 37% – Finished
Timothy Dalton
- The Living Daylights (1987) 73% – Finished
- License to Kill (1989) 79% – Finished
Pierce Brosnan
- GoldenEye (1995) 80% – Finished
- Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) 56% – Finished
- The World Is Not Enough (1999) 51% – Finished
- Die Another Day (2002) 56% – Finished
Daniel Craig
- Casino Royale (2006) 94% – Finished
- Quantum of Solace (2008) 64% – Finished
- Skyfall (2012) 92% – Finished
- Spectre (2015) 63% – Finished
- No Time to Die (2021) 83% – Finished

Small Changes Coming

Hey look, the gold draw pulls on the Ikea cabinet in the kitchen are now black draw pulls.

There is one more change coming today that is a little more substantial, assuming my non-carpentry ass can pull it off. Here’s a before picture.

The after pic will be… ya know… after.

Changing the subject back to the Great Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022. I had some wrong information about Amazon Prime Video. I thought all of the Bond movies were available but going away on 11/5, which is today. I was wrong. There was one movie that apparently was not available for streaming. It was only available for rental or purchase. Fortunately it was Spectre, which is one of only two Bond movies that we have in our iTunes account. I’m actually watching it as I type this.

There was another incorrect piece of info. Apparently a few Bond movies did not go away when the calendar flipped to 11/5. I still see a few Daniel Craig movies available for streaming, including Die Another Day which is the only other movie I have left to watch. How cool is that? Unless things change today or tomorrow, I will be able to complete the Great Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022 without having to buy or rent any additional flicks. Sweet!

Changing the subject back to using Dad’s camera lenses with my DSLR. The two pictures above were taken with Dad’s 50mm prime lens. I have to get a handle on the whole depth of field thing when using a super fast lens. I thought the draw pulls were in focus though the one on the top is clearly out. There’s also the little thing with the pic being under exposed a bit thanks to me probably reading the light meter on my iPhone wrong.

The other picture was actually taken from the dining room. The focal length on this lens is 50mm, which was probably too narrow for what I wanted, but my Nikon D90 is a DX sensor, which means it’s not full frame, which means a full frame 50mm lens works like a 75mm lens (I think that’s the right number… the conversion is 1.5 times the lens’ focal length, right? 1.5 x 50 = 75) which is WAAAAY to narrow for my kitchen. Oh well. It’s still wicked fun.

Right then. Time to finish breakfast and then get to work in the kitchen. I don’t think today’s task will take long.

The Great James Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022 Update Again, Yet Again, Still Yet Again

We’re getting near to the end now. The Bond movies will be removed from Amazon Prime Video at some point tonight (midnight?) and I will likely have three movies left to watch. I own a copy of one of them on iTunes. If the other two (including No Time to Die, which is the only Bond movie I have never seen) don’t move to a new streaming service right away I will rent them from iTunes. Everything is lined up for success.

So where was I? The last time I posted I had just started The World is Not Enough. It’s the first of a new trend of bad guys targeting M movies. It was okay but nothing special. The action sequences were starting to get cartoony again, and Pierce Brosnan was starting to seem a little out of his depth. He’s not bad per se, but he’s just no longer looking like someone who was born to play Bond. The pithy comebacks are not landing quite the way they used to. The villain is good. The henchman who can’t feel pain is blah. The diabolical plot is better than the previous movie but not all that interesting. It’s an average quality Bond movie. I liked it, but didn’t love it.

Die Another Day was better than I remembered it, but the longer I watched, the worse it got. I know it was the 20th movie and they wanted to honor that, but the call backs were just too much. The jet pack was cute and all but enough is enough. We’ve done the lasers thing before, we didn’t need to do it again. The bad guy was awful. The whole -I can’t sleep so I am rich- thing was dumb. The DNA replacement was idiotic. The invisible car was unforgivable. I mean… come on, folks. An invisible car? Give me a break, please. That wasn’t what bothered me the most though (close but no cigar). What bothered me the most was using slow motion in the action sequences. I hate movies that show action sequences in slow motion. I hate it.

Casino Royale is the only Ian Flemming novel that I read before seeing the movie. I read them all, in order of publication. Casino Royale was the first one. They didn’t make it into a movie until the 21st century because Flemming sold the rights to a different studio. The first film version was a made for TV movie in the US where Bond was an American CIA agent (I believe he was called Jimmy Bond). The first film was the spoof from the 60’s that I am pretty sure was written by Woody Allen. The book was good enough to make me want to read them all. The first few Connery movies are reasonably close to the books. Not exact but in the ball park. By the time Roger Moore comes around the only things the movies and the books have in common are the title and some of the character names. That’s all. The Casino Royale movie is someone close to the book. The card game and the torture scene are very similar. In the book it’s baccarat, not poker. I am pretty sure the double cross at the end came from the book too.

How is the movie? It’s the only post-Connery movie that legitimately holds up against the best Connery movies. It’s freakin’ awesome. It’s a reboot so it gave the studio the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start over, without the silliness and the gimmicks and the Bond-cliches. Where the Brosnan era action sequences were feeling goofy, these are riveting and intense. The goal isn’t spectacle anymore, it’s excitement and every single one of them works perfectly. This movie is so good it makes all of the crappy movies that came before it worth while. If I were to rank my favorite Bond movies I think Casino Royale would be forth behind From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball. Actually it might come in third, ahead of Thunderball. It’s not just a great Bond movie, it’s a great movie.

As I type this I am watching Quantum of Solace. It’s good, but it’s not even close to as good as Casino. All of the positives regarding the action sequences are still there. It’s super intense all the way through. Daniel Craig continues to be the perfect violent, vicious, mean and nasty killer Bond. The story just isn’t quite as good. It’s not bad, but it’s just not as good as Casino Royale. I am down to the last 15 minutes so I will consider this blurb my official entry.

Here is the complete list of movies, along with the Rottentomatoes.com score that I don’t always agree with. Three more movies to go, and when it’s all done I will finally be able to say that I’ve seen them all.

Sean Connery
- Dr. No (1962) 95% – Finished
- From Russia with Love (1963) 97% – Finished
- Goldfinger (1964) 99% – Finished
- Thunderball (1965) 85% – Finished
- You Only Live Twice (1967) 74% – Finished
George Lazenby
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) 81% – Finished
Sean Connery (Again)
- Diamonds Are Forever (1971) 63% – Finished
Roger Moore
- Live and Let Die (1973) 65% – Finished
- The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) 40% – Finished
- The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) 81% – Finished
- Moonraker (1979) 59% – Finished
- For Your Eyes Only (1981) 69% – Finished
- Octopussy (1983) 42% – Finished
- A View To A Kill (1985) 37% – Finished
Timothy Dalton
- The Living Daylights (1987) 73% – Finished
- License to Kill (1989) 79% – Finished
Pierce Brosnan
- GoldenEye (1995) 80% – Finished
- Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) 56% – Finished
- The World Is Not Enough (1999) 51% – Finished
- Die Another Day (2002) 56% – Finished
Daniel Craig
- Casino Royale (2006) 94% – Finished
- Quantum of Solace (2008) 64% – Finished
- Skyfall (2012) 92%
- Spectre (2015) 63%
- No Time to Die (2021) 83%

We Didn’t Win

The bad news is we didn’t win 1.2 billion dollars in the Powerball lottery last night. The good news is no one else did either. I guess we just have to wait until Saturday for all of our financial fantasies to start coming true. That’s fine with me.

I weighed in yesterday morning, as usual for Wednesdays. I said I was going to weigh in on Friday (tomorrow) as well, as usually for the 4th of each month. Why then did I weigh in today as well?

Jen has this really cool Bluetooth enabled scale. She steps on the scale and it sends the result to an app on her iPhone, which then calculates a bunch of values including BMI, and then updates the Apple Health app. When all of this surgical fun started I had to buy a second scale because the groovy Bluetooth scale didn’t read anything above 350 pounds and I was over 450. I bought a scale that went up to 500 and I’ve used it ever since. Yesterday after I stepped on my scale, Jen asked me why I am not using the groovy Bluetooth scale. I didn’t have an answer.

Last night before bed I setup the app on my iPhone and used Jen’s scale for the first time. It told me I was up 0.8 pounds. Nope. No thank you. This morning when I woke up I stepped on the scale right away, which is how I do things on Wednesdays. It had me down 0.4 from my official weigh in yesterday. That’s better. From this point on, I am using the groovy Bluetooth scale. Tomorrow I will step on the scale again to celebrate the monthiversary and I will use that number to update my spreadsheet. Today’s number will not go on the spreadsheet. Today’s number is unofficial. This is the way. I have spoken.

While doing my morning trotting in place today I finished the forth and final Pierce Brosnan Bond movie, Die Another Day. It’s not awful, but it did feel a little too… Austin Powers-ish for comfort. The good news is, the next movie in line is Casino Royale, and that’s the single best non-Sean Connery Bond movie that exists. I’ll start that one at some point tonight and hopefully finish it in the morning. The Daniel Craig era is imminent.

My father is in the hospital. He went to the ER yesterday and was admitted last night. I don’t have any news. I’m seriously worried about him even though the rational part of me knows he’s going to be fine. My brother and sister were with him yesterday and will be with him today. If he’s still in the hospital tomorrow I’ll take over. I just let my boss know that I might need to be out. I should be all set. Now I just need some news, and I need to stop worrying.

For now though, back to work with you!