It's Back: Exceelent Movies I've Seen Lately

[nullnor]

Yep, you are going to love it.

watched the first episode. it's pretty good. i was trying to think of a way that it was possible. i thought information about the past can't be destroyed. this was an argument between Hawking and Susskind. i've been meaning to read that book the black hole wars. thinking things that go in a black hole get destroyed. but it's information stays on the event horizon. i haven't read how they solved it even after the black hole evaporates. if the universe is like a black hole the information goes on the universes horizon, the holographic universe. so the universe records and knows what the past should be.

and there's bells theorem, where entangled particles can communicate through space and time. if you change the spin of one particle the other will instantly change it's spin. so you have recorded information and instant way it can communicate. and then you have to jump to consciousness. if particles of matter are conscious, it's very limited because it's only a particle. but as you ramp of in complexity, like a human, you get self-awareness.

so if you go back in the past and try to change something, and the past pushes back, or why would a car try to run you over or a chandler fall of your head -these are things made of matter and particles that can instantly communicate with recorded information of the past. i wouldn't say trying to change that information isn't destroying it. but that would be the law that is coming after you. and as far as laws go, that's a big one. it's going to let you have freewill, but it's not going to let you violate it.

going into the past and trying to call your grandfather on the phone is a good example. there's energy in space everywhere, it's going to know it never happened. also, even if you go off track a little and use many worlds theory for answers, each choice you make perhaps only makes one other reality manifest at a time. so it would take many different actions and choices before that universe would really start to be different from the original. that's one of the things i liked about the show Sliders. each world was only a little different from the other until you started getting really far from the original.

you see this theory a lot in movies. the 2002 The Time Machine remake, where the main character couldn't save his girlfriend. i believe Looper did it too, or maybe that movie was the exception and they went with the Back to the Future idea where information was destroyed. so you have two ideas, either you can change the past and the information about it in the future is destroyed, or you can't change it and it can't be destroyed.

most of the movies i've seen the past was very subtle in thwarting your efforts. like not giving up it's secrets openly and attributed events to coincidences. but it's certainly possible it would be more up front about it.

[Gregg]

watched the first episode. it's pretty good. i was trying to think of a way that it was possible. i thought information about the past can't be destroyed. this was an argument between Hawking and Susskind. i've been meaning to read that book the black hole wars. thinking things that go in a black hole get destroyed. but it's information stays on the event horizon. i haven't read how they solved it even after the black hole evaporates. if the universe is like a black hole the information goes on the universes horizon, the holographic universe. so the universe records and knows what the past should be.

and there's bells theorem, where entangled particles can communicate through space and time. if you change the spin of one particle the other will instantly change it's spin. so you have recorded information and instant way it can communicate. and then you have to jump to consciousness. if particles of matter are conscious, it's very limited because it's only a particle. but as you ramp of in complexity, like a human, you get self-awareness.

so if you go back in the past and try to change something, and the past pushes back, or why would a car try to run you over or a chandler fall of your head -these are things made of matter and particles that can instantly communicate with recorded information of the past. i wouldn't say trying to change that information isn't destroying it. but that would be the law that is coming after you. and as far as laws go, that's a big one. it's going to let you have freewill, but it's not going to let you violate it.

going into the past and trying to call your grandfather on the phone is a good example. there's energy in space everywhere, it's going to know it never happened. also, even if you go off track a little and use many worlds theory for answers, each choice you make perhaps only makes one other reality manifest at a time. so it would take many different actions and choices before that universe would really start to be different from the original. that's one of the things i liked about the show Sliders. each world was only a little different from the other until you started getting really far from the original.

you see this theory a lot in movies. the 2002 The Time Machine remake, where the main character couldn't save his girlfriend. i believe Looper did it too, or maybe that movie was the exception and they went with the Back to the Future idea where information was destroyed. so you have two ideas, either you can change the past and the information about it in the future is destroyed, or you can't change it and it can't be destroyed.

most of the movies i've seen the past was very subtle in thwarting your efforts. like not giving up it's secrets openly and attributed events to coincidences. but it's certainly possible it would be more up front about it.

Good stuff here.

I thought it had a pretty good first couple of episodes then it becomes quite the ride. I hope you will stick with it and continue the dialog.

Wouldn't Bell's Theorem be a possible explanation on how the past might push back? In that particles can communicate through space and time and yet are limited, maybe the way (car or chandelier) it pushes back is not sophisticated because of their limitations?

[nullnor]

Good stuff here.

I thought it had a pretty good first couple of episodes then it becomes quite the ride. I hope you will stick with it and continue the dialog.

Wouldn't Bell's Theorem be a possible explanation on how the past might push back? In that particles can communicate through space and time and yet are limited, maybe the way (car or chandelier) it pushes back is not sophisticated because of their limitations?

you're asking if there is an invisible hand like God because material objects can't think. and it's possible. i can recall this article https://www.discovermagazine.com/the...ience-religion

“I started with the statement that I believe that God acts in the world, but he is not a show-off conjurer who violates the same laws of nature that he made,” he says. “My question was, Is there a way of describing God’s actions that is consistent with science?”

there's also a question of whether or not the future influences the past. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the...rom-the-future

A series of quantum experiments shows that measurements performed in the future can influence the present. Does that mean the universe has a destiny—and the laws of physics pull us inexorably toward our prewritten fate?

i've been trying to avoid the topic of freewill here. there are many good theoretical physicists that think there isn't, and they've gone into detail explaining their position. i haven't studied it. it's a debate i'm not really interested in. so i think i know where to look for an elegant explanation of the accidental logic in the show. it was a nice show. too bad there was only 8 episodes. it's nice too, you know with the old cars and the past. we need more of that stuff these days before we forget and live in a world that seems faster. i doubt they hired a theoretical physicist or gravitational expert when writing the script like some movies will do like Contact or Matthew McConaughey Interstellar. but it's still fun to think about it.

it goes with the thinking if you go back in the past and shoot your grandfather it will create a paradox and you won't be born. but if you were never born, how did you go in the past? the way around that is the two slit experiment where your choice to go into the past created an alternate reality and you killed your other self's grandfather. which prevented your other self in that reality to be born. which would logically prevent a paradox and two of you existing in the same place. i like the many worlds theory and i think it's a better explanation of the quantum measurement problem than the Copenhagen interpretation. but i don't really like for explaining the fine tuning problem.

even when you know this stuff sort of it's easy to miss something. i remember while watching The Time Machine and something would always keep preventing Guy Pearce from saving his fiance. and then when he went into the future the Morlock pointed out that it would be a paradox because he invented the time machine after she died, so then how could he go back in time and save her. also the 1989 movie Millenium with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd was big on avoiding paradoxes. that may be a better example as if you had too many it would destroy the universe. and if you think about it, if you destroy the information about matter that falls in a black hole or whats in a universe, than it never existed. it's a paradox.
it's a love story. this is what makes shows and movies great. when they have something for everyone. it has science fiction, action, drama and romance. you don't usually see all those genres together at once. thanks for telling me about it. i enjoyed it.

[nullnor]

he had the freewill to keep going back in time, but there are laws of nature. and while he was allowed, he had to make a choice.

[Gregg]

you're asking if there is an invisible hand like God because material objects can't think. and it's possible. i can recall this article https://www.discovermagazine.com/the...ience-religion there's also a question of whether or not the future influences the past. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the...rom-the-future

i've been trying to avoid the topic of freewill here. there are many good theoretical physicists that think there isn't, and they've gone into detail explaining their position. i haven't studied it. it's a debate i'm not really interested in. so i think i know where to look for an elegant explanation of the accidental logic in the show. it was a nice show. too bad there was only 8 episodes. it's nice too, you know with the old cars and the past. we need more of that stuff these days before we forget and live in a world that seems faster. i doubt they hired a theoretical physicist or gravitational expert when writing the script like some movies will do like Contact or Matthew McConaughey Interstellar. but it's still fun to think about it.

it goes with the thinking if you go back in the past and shoot your grandfather it will create a paradox and you won't be born. but if you were never born, how did you go in the past? the way around that is the two slit experiment where your choice to go into the past created an alternate reality and you killed your other self's grandfather. which prevented your other self in that reality to be born. which would logically prevent a paradox and two of you existing in the same place. i like the many worlds theory and i think it's a better explanation of the quantum measurement problem than the Copenhagen interpretation. but i don't really like for explaining the fine tuning problem.

even when you know this stuff sort of it's easy to miss something. i remember while watching The Time Machine and something would always keep preventing Guy Pearce from saving his fiance. and then when he went into the future the Morlock pointed out that it would be a paradox because he invented the time machine after she died, so then how could he go back in time and save her. also the 1989 movie Millenium with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd was big on avoiding paradoxes. that may be a better example as if you had too many it would destroy the universe. and if you think about it, if you destroy the information about matter that falls in a black hole or whats in a universe, than it never existed. it's a paradox.
it's a love story. this is what makes shows and movies great. when they have something for everyone. it has science fiction, action, drama and romance. you don't usually see all those genres together at once. thanks for telling me about it. i enjoyed it.

I am very glad you enjoyed it.

I am also glad that you took the time to chat about it. Thank you.

[Gregg]

he had the freewill to keep going back in time, but there are laws of nature. and while he was allowed, he had to make a choice.

Yes he did. I think that was a huge part of the whole story and all of the smaller stories.

[revo]

Thanks to the quarantine -- and Amazon Prime -- I've started to re-watch all of the James Bond movies, since I'm a big Bond fan and they have all of them available up until the Daniel Craig era. I started with Man With the Golden Gun, but after that decided to watch in order, and I'm currently midway through You Only Live Twice.

Dr. No (1962) - the one that started it all, it doesn't really translate well to today's movies. I found it hard to keep my attention. It's not so much the early action/effects, but the direction -- some scenes linger on waaay too long. A young Sean Connery was remarkable as Bond, although this one doesn't have many of the trademark Bond witticisms as usual. Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder (the first Bond Girl) is fantastic looking, although all of her lines are dubbed. Interesting that while blacks are few and far between in the older Bond movies, the movie opens with 3 Jamaican assassins, and one of Bond's allies is a black man -- pretty progressive for 1962. I'd give it 5 out of 10, which is 2 stars lower than whenever I rated it initially on IMDB.

From Russia With Love (1963) - another one that is hard to keep up with, but does have some iconic moments. Donald "Red" Grant becomes the 1st of the familiar evil henchmen (played by a young and muscular Robert Shaw), and there's also the familiar "#1" (as also parodied by Austin Powers later on). Q makes his first appearance. Lotte Lenya (immortalized in "Mack the Knife") plays ruthless German henchwoman Rosa Klebb. I was struck by how good looking some of these early Bond women were, especially Daniela Bianchi (who as Tatiana Romanova, also had her dialogue dubbed in). I gave this a 6 out of 10, a drop of 1 from whenever I last viewed it.

FRWL Trivia
Pedro Armendáriz, who played Bond ally Kerim Bey, was terminally ill during shooting and needed a stand-in to film the final scenes. Due to pain from his terminal illness, he committed suicide four months before the movie was released.

Goldfinger (1964) - if the first two Bonds were merely very good, Goldfinger is probably the best of the entire Bond canon. This is the Bond movie that sets the tone for the entire series -- hot babes, a great plot, great action, iconic scenes, iconic villains, great names ("My name's Pussy Galore." "I must be dreaming!"), the title sequence, the theme song (which also plays throughout the movie), and of course, the ultimate in Bond witticisms. This film also debuts the iconic Aston Martin with all of the bells and whistles (which, of course, became the idea for the car in the great early 1980s video game "Spy Hunter.") Has the greatest Bond scene ever, with the laser about to rip apart's Bond's manhood - "Do you expect me to talk?" "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" 10 out of 10, an increase of 1 from when I last viewed it.

Goldfinger Trivia
- Gert Froebe, who plays the title villain, had his lines dubbed
- Sean Connery wore a toupee for this movie and all future Bond movies
- Ian Fleming died 4 months before the movie's release
- sales of the Aston Martin DB5 increased by 50% after the movie's release. Ironically, Aston Martin initially did not want their cars in the movie, but changed their tune afterwards, and even provided them for free on an ongoing basis

Thunderball (1965) - this one I had always considered my favorite Bond flick, but I would put this behind Goldfinger now. The underwater fight scene is still legendary. This flick has some amazingly hot babes, including SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe and Domino Derval. 9 out of 10, a drop of 1 from my prior rating.

Thunderball trivia
- Earl Cameron, who plays Bond ally Pinder, is still alive at the age of 103!
- this is the only Bond movie where every other Double-0 agent is seen

I'll give the review for The Man With the Golden Gun when it's its turn in order.

[revo]

You Only Live Twice (1967) - this was Connery's "retirement" flick (seems like every Bond actor couldn't wait until their time was up), which of course we know didn't hold. After two great entries with Goldfinger and Thunderball, this one kind of falls flat, with 007 heading to Japan to deal with SPECTRE and Blofeld's attempt to take over the world by provoking the US & USSR through capturing their space capsules (which with 1966 special effects, looks extremely hokey). There's also one very regrettable scene where Connery is made to look Japanese. Donald Pleasence is the canon's pre-eminent Blofeld, but unfortunately this marks his only appearance in the role. Overall it's not terrible, I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10, which is 0.5 stars lower than when I first rated it.

YOLT Trivia
- Connery quit the role because of his hatred for co-producer Harry Saltzman
- this was the last Bond movie to make extensive use of overdubbing the foreign actors
- this is the first movie to show Blofeld's face, of which Pleasence added a great touch with his scarred eye
- the actor playing SPECTRE Number 3 (Burt Kwouk) also appeared in Goldfinger as another character, Mr. Ling. He's one of a small handful of actors to play two separate roles in multiple Bond movies.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - with Connery's "retirement," George Lazenby steps into 007's shoes and doesn't do a terrible job. The opening scene, where Bond saves his future wife Countess Tracy but she flees, is funny when he breaks the fourth wall by saying "This never happened to the other fella." Lazenby bungled it by arrogantly announcing, once the movie was completed, that he wouldn't return to the role, making him more of a forgettable one-off than anything else. There was a time when I thought this was one of the best in the canon, but a re-watch proves that I was off the mark. Between Lazenby, a horribly miscast Telly Savalas as a New York accented, world class skiing Blofeld, a lack of gadgets and a lack of hot Bond girls, this one sinks to the bottom. I initially rated this an 8, but I'd drop it down to a 6.

OHMSS Trivia
- This was George Lazenby’s first EVER movie role!
- Ilse Steppat, who played evil henchwoman Irma Bunt, died just four days after the international release of OHMSS.
- There's a scene where Bond gets his coat of arms and the words in Latin on it, "Orbis non sufficit," mean "The World is Not Enough," which of course, was the name of the 1999 release.
- The producers evidently wanted to harken back to older Bond movies, as the opening sequence shows cuts from prior movies. Additionally, in one scene a janitor is heard whistling the theme song to "Goldfinger."
- This is the only movie in the canon where Bond drops to one knee in the opening gun shooting sequence.
- George Lazenby was by far the youngest actor to portray Bond, just 29 during filming (although he looks much older)
- Timothy Dalton was offered the role before Lazenby, but at age 22 considered himself to be too young. He was also offered it again in 1979 and declined again, before finally taking the role in 1986

[revo]

Arrrgghhh......I was midway through Diamonds are Forever — and enjoying it far more than I remembered — when I went back to finish it and much to my dismay, the entire James Bond canon left Amazon Prime on April 30! They made no mention of the fact they were only going to have it for a month!! Bah!

[revo]

Finally....

Diamonds are Forever (1971) - the return of Sean Connery! Of course, it lasted just this one film (Never Say Never Again doesn't count!) before he left again, due to his simmering feud with co-producer Harry Saltzman. A diamond smuggling operation has Bond stalking Blofeld and his doubles in Las Vegas, who are being produced through plastic surgery (of course Bond kills two clones but not the original). This movie has one of the hottest Bond girls ever in the aptly-named Plenty O'Toole, played by busty Lana Wood (Natalie's sister), as well as perhaps the strangest henchmen in the entire series in Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd, two openly homosexual assassins. Mr. Kidd is played by Putter Smith, a musician making his first ever acting appearance, and unlike George Lazenby in OHMSS, it painfully shows. Jill St. John simmers as bad girl turned good girl Tiffany Case, and real life C&W star and sausage king Jimmy Dean makes an appearance as reclusive mogul Williard Whyte. The last scene of On Her Majesty's Secret Service shows Bond's bride getting killed in a driveby shooting, yet no mention of it is made in this movie. It's a relatively campy flick, and I can see why many think it's a weak entry, but I enjoyed it. I'd give it a 6.5.

DaF Trivia!
- Mr. Wint is played by Bruce Glover, father of Crispin Glover (George McFly in the Back to the Future movies)
- Slumber Inc. henchman Marc Lawrence also shows up in The Man with the Golden Gun as a similar character. I have no idea if this was intentional or not.
- Shirley Bassey sings the title song, making her the only performer to sing more than one Bond song (three, with Goldfinger and Moonraker being the others)
- this is the last 007 film to feature the villainous outfit SPECTRE until the 2015 movie of the same name
- Irma Bunt, who was Bond's bride's assassin in OHMSS, was to appear in this movie to get whacked as a means to put a cap on the storyline, but actress Ilse Steppat died just after the movie's release in 1969



Live and Let Die (1973) - Roger Moore's debut as Bond. A second consecutive Bond flick to take place in the USA in an obvious attempt to regain American audiences, this one has Bond in NYC, New Orleans & Jamaica to take on heroin dealer Mr. Big/Dr. Kananga, the series' first black nemesis. In fact, nearly all of the movie's baddies are black, probably a nod to the popularity of Blaxploitation films around that time. A speedboat chase through the New Orleans bayou is one of the series' best, but the offing of Mr. Big is one of the campiest -- he gets inflated like a rubber balloon and explodes, and the effects are super-cheesy. My 9-year old watched it with me and pointed out all of the bad effects along the way. Sherriff JW Pepper is a classic cheeseball and is hysterical (and probably the inspiration for Jackie Gleason's character in Smokey & the Bandit), which is why he returns in the next Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun. This is a good start for Moore, I'd give this a 7 out of 10.

LALD Trivia-
- the theme song is probably the entire series' best, sung by Paul McCartney & Wings, and is the first rock theme song in the Bond series
- the actor who plays Felix Leiter (David Hedison) returns as Leiter in License to Kill, 16 years later. This is the last appearance of Leiter until The Living Daylights in 1987.
- the movie's bad guy, Dr. Kananga, was named in honor of the owner of the alligator farm where a scene was filmed. Ross Kananga also performed the famous stunt where he runs on the backs of alligators to escape.
- a young and beautiful Jane Seymour plays Solitaire, and even though the film's credits say "and introducing Jane Seymour," this was not her first movie role
- An ally in Jamaica is "Quarrel Jr." who is obviously the son of "Quarrel," an ally who appeared in the first Bond movie, Dr. No
- Bond has his first interracial romantic scene, which was cut out for viewing in South Africa and Japan


The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) - Christopher Lee appears as Scaramanga, a world-class assassin who is using solar technology to hold the world hostage (this movie takes place during the 1973-74 energy crisis). Scaramanga also has a passion of killing the world's top agents and hitmen, and has them delivered to his island home near Thailand. This is where he kills Rodney, the mafia hitman we saw in Diamonds are Forever, and he taunts Bond by sending him a golden bullet with his name on it. The beautiful Maud Adams plays the Bond girl Andrea Anders, another in a long line of beautiful women who are initially bad but get courted by Bond and change course. Britt Ekland also stars as MI6 companion Goodnight. Herve Villachaize is Nick Nack (what a great name), a diminutive henchman of Scaramanga. I'd give this one a 7 out of 10.

TMWTGG Trivia!
- A martial arts scene at an arena was added because the whole Karate fad took off around 1973
- co-producer Harry Saltzman sold 50% of his share in the Bond franchise in order to fund the production of this movie
- this entry was supposed to be filmed before OHMSS, but it was delayed because its location in Thailand was too close to Vietnam, then in the thick of the Vietnam War

[nullnor]

watched a 1986 British cartoon called When the Wind Blows about a older couple in rural England initially surviving nukes. it has a little David Bowie and Roger Waters. the animation isn't bad. it's very 1986. it's actually not that great but one of those things you should know about.

it would sort of be like putting a 12 year alone in front of a TV and watching Jaws. best cartoon ever Watership Down.

the ending song by him isn't bad. my favorite 1986 cartoon movie Transformers. favorite 1980's cartoon Heavy Metal, and this cartoon is slow with nary any music... it's low on the 1980's bucket list but i am glad i at least am aware of the effort. ending song wasn't bad. https://youtu.be/EylA_1WRcpc

[Mithrandir]

Good stuff Revo.

I love all of the Connery films 9 or 10 's for me

OHMSS is a solid 9 for me.

[revo]

Thanks to the quarantine -- and Amazon Prime -- I've started to re-watch all of the James Bond movies, since I'm a big Bond fan and they have all of them available up until the Daniel Craig era. I started with Man With the Golden Gun, but after that decided to watch in order, and I'm currently midway through You Only Live Twice.

Dr. No (1962) - the one that started it all, it doesn't really translate well to today's movies. I found it hard to keep my attention. It's not so much the early action/effects, but the direction -- some scenes linger on waaay too long. A young Sean Connery was remarkable as Bond, although this one doesn't have many of the trademark Bond witticisms as usual. Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder (the first Bond Girl) is fantastic looking, although all of her lines are dubbed. Interesting that while blacks are few and far between in the older Bond movies, the movie opens with 3 Jamaican assassins, and one of Bond's allies is a black man -- pretty progressive for 1962. I'd give it 5 out of 10, which is 2 stars lower than whenever I rated it initially on IMDB.

From Russia With Love (1963) - another one that is hard to keep up with, but does have some iconic moments. Donald "Red" Grant becomes the 1st of the familiar evil henchmen (played by a young and muscular Robert Shaw), and there's also the familiar "#1" (as also parodied by Austin Powers later on). Q makes his first appearance. Lotte Lenya (immortalized in "Mack the Knife") plays ruthless German henchwoman Rosa Klebb. I was struck by how good looking some of these early Bond women were, especially Daniela Bianchi (who as Tatiana Romanova, also had her dialogue dubbed in). I gave this a 6 out of 10, a drop of 1 from whenever I last viewed it.

FRWL Trivia
Pedro Armendáriz, who played Bond ally Kerim Bey, was terminally ill during shooting and needed a stand-in to film the final scenes. Due to pain from his terminal illness, he committed suicide four months before the movie was released.

Goldfinger (1964) - if the first two Bonds were merely very good, Goldfinger is probably the best of the entire Bond canon. This is the Bond movie that sets the tone for the entire series -- hot babes, a great plot, great action, iconic scenes, iconic villains, great names ("My name's Pussy Galore." "I must be dreaming!"), the title sequence, the theme song (which also plays throughout the movie), and of course, the ultimate in Bond witticisms. This film also debuts the iconic Aston Martin with all of the bells and whistles (which, of course, became the idea for the car in the great early 1980s video game "Spy Hunter.") Has the greatest Bond scene ever, with the laser about to rip apart's Bond's manhood - "Do you expect me to talk?" "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" 10 out of 10, an increase of 1 from when I last viewed it.

Goldfinger Trivia
- Gert Froebe, who plays the title villain, had his lines dubbed
- Sean Connery wore a toupee for this movie and all future Bond movies
- Ian Fleming died 4 months before the movie's release
- sales of the Aston Martin DB5 increased by 50% after the movie's release. Ironically, Aston Martin initially did not want their cars in the movie, but changed their tune afterwards, and even provided them for free.

Thunderball (1965) - this one I had always considered my favorite Bond flick, but I would put this behind Goldfinger now. The underwater fight scene is still legendary. This flick has some amazingly hot babes, including SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe and Domino Derval. 9 out of 10, a drop of 1 from my prior rating.

Thunderball trivia
- Earl Cameron, who plays Bond ally Pinder, is still alive at the age of 103!
- this is the only Bond movie where every other Double-0 agent is seen

I'll give the review for The Man With the Golden Gun when it's its turn in order.

Earl Cameron died yesterday at the ripe old age of 103. RIP.

[Judge Jude]

wow, Revo, nice jink!

[DMT]

It's not an excellent movie by any stretch, but if you have young daughters, they'll enjoy Feel the Beat [Netflix]. And one of my friends' daughters is in it.