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Fifty years ago today, on December 18, 1969, the sixth James Bond movie opened. Its initial reception was mixed, partly because the Bond mania of the 60s was simmering down, and partly because it was the first time that Sean Connery had not starred as Agent 007, in favor of complete unknown newcomer George Lazenby. While I didn’t see the movie until an ABC telecast sometime in the early 80s, I liked it from that very first viewing and it very quickly shot up my personal rankings until by the time I was fifteen or sixteen I was willing toDown the rabbit hole….

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Sir Roger Moore has died. I’ve loved all the James Bonds, to be honest. My favorite is George Lazenby, but I appreciate each and every actor who has played the part. There is a special place in my heart for Roger Moore, though, because he was my first Bond, and you don’t forget your first. That initial Bond experience for me was Moonraker in 1979, and I’ve been a James Bond fan ever since. Here’s Moore as I first saw him: Oddly, Moore’s first film as Bond is the Bond film I like the least — in fact, I dislikeDown the rabbit hole….

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After listening to one of my regular podcasts recently, I realized that there exists a deeply important topic about which most people seem to be deeply confused. As I have a good deal of understanding pertaining to this particular issue, I have decided to use space in my blog in an attempt to clarify things, so that discussion of this deeply important subject can move forward, freed of misconceptions and the errors that those misconceptions can create. These are matters of deep import, and my blog is a wasted opportunity if I do not use it to help the worldDown the rabbit hole….

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You know what this blog needs? More lists of things ranked in reverse order of how much I like them! So here is a ranking of all the James Bond theme songs. Before I start, a brief proviso: by “theme song”, I mean, “song that plays over the film’s opening credits”. This is necessary because there are some places where the particular movie’s most memorable song plays at some other point, and in some latter cases, the films have multiple songs. So that’s my definition of “theme song” for this post, and even that definition will have an exception orDown the rabbit hole….

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A while back, Michael May started an exploration of James Bond, by going back to Bond’s literary roots. In the inaugural post, Michael mentioned a couple of Bond-related podcasts, one of which I’ve been listening to semi-regularly for the last few months. It’s James Bonding, and it has two comedy writers, Matt Gourley and Matt Mira (the “two Matts”), discussing the films one at a time, with guest commentary from people they know. I’ve found listening to this podcast to be an interesting distillation of everything about geek-discussion and geek-debate: sometimes it’s a blast, other times it’s totally maddening. ThereDown the rabbit hole….

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On Thanksgiving Day, The Wife and I have a relatively new tradition of going to see a movie together after dinner (and sending The Daughter off packing with my parents). We’ve done this six of the last seven Thanksgivings, and on three of those, we’ve been lucky enough to see a James Bond movie. So…what of Skyfall? It’s very, very good. Here are some spoiler-free observations (with more extensive, and heavily spoilerish, observations after the page break): :: Daniel Craig continues to own the role a little more, each time out. He gives lots of little windows into the soul ofDown the rabbit hole….

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John Barry, one of the most distinctive film composers of all time, has died. Barry could often, for me, be a “hit or miss” kind of composer, but when he hit — which in my experience was more often than not — oh man, did he hit. He’s probably best known for his work on the James Bond series, but Barry had a very long career of composing. He had a seemingly inexhaustible ability to come up with lush, gorgeous melodies, and he had an approach to film scoring that was all his own (and which, sadly, fell out ofDown the rabbit hole….