Thursday, March 3, 2016

Bondlets: The Living Daylights

1987


We entered “The Rassilon Era” of James Bond in the same way I was introduced to most of the 007’s Films.  Thanks to a planned delayed opening, we watched this one on a Sunday night.  Thanks to modern media storage, it didn’t take us four hours to get through it due to innumerable commercial breaks on the ABC Sunday Night Movie.

My daughter played “Spot the Bond” successfully in the cold open, and wondered aloud if the bikini lady on the boat was the, “Bond girl, bad girl, or pre credits girl?”

The (brief) time of the monogamous (ignoring the pre credits girl) 007 was marked with “no nakeds” in the credits scene.

  
As always, befitting one of my genetics, she loved the Q Branch scene - specifically the Ghetto Blaster and exploding milk.  James’s video cleavage distraction was stated to be “weird.”  I guess old habits died hard for the now one woman agent.

I’m not sure if it shows that she understands how these movies work, or she’s reached the age where she understands male/female interactions now, but she unquestionably knew that Bond was going to go back for Kara’s cello.

While not a car person by any means, she felt bad at seeing the paint job on the high tech Aston get messed up, and found the whole chase funny and captivating.  She was none too happy when the car was self-destructed, “Who does that?!?”

See, it is possible to have a darker Bond, and still keep some elements of sight gags and fun in the mix. Dalton certainly has the best murderous rage glare of all the actors who took on the role, and his other emotions also came off as more genuine.

A bit of the “dark” edge of the film may have been filed off by my daughter’s observations: Such as when she sighted Necros and proclaimed, “He looks like a milkman…oh wait he’s with the poopys.”

As much as she complains about the Lord of the Rings films being too long, as soon as General Pushkin showed up, she excitedly yelled, “GIMLI!

She did, however, demonstrate she understood the fundamental functioning of one of these cinematic adventures.  When 007 was questioned as to why his ideas and methods were the proper one for the situation, she yelled at the screen,
“Because he’s James Bond and you’re some lady in the movie.”

Much like her dad, I think I have a budding Foley fan on my hands, as she regularly pointed out things like how much she likes the way walking sounds in films.

Though they named it the “plane pooping scene” both McGinley women, whether they were obviously watching from the beginning, or were pretending to hide behind a newspaper, were captivated by the climactic fight.

My daughter thought Whitaker’s overkill special handgun was awesome, and called the use of the keychain whistle to deliver the final “blow.”

That’s my girl.

Wow…this movie had the Afghanistani Mujahedeen as good guys…
With direct ties to the drug trade…
And a joke about being heavily armed and passing through airport security.


Times change indeed.


Click Here for Bondlets Index

No comments: