Let's Talk About Bond Songs, Baby

Encore Action has been showing James Bond films almost every night for a couple months. Of course, this means I've been watching a lot lately. Last night, for instance, Live & Let Die was on, followed by The Spy Who Loved Me. This got me thinking about the quality of the theme songs these films have sported over the years. I then, obviously, realized I needed to rank the Top 5. Before we get to that though, here's a little bit about a couple that didn't make the cut. "Tomorrow Never Dies" is the only Bond theme sung by someone who has had her ass a little bit groped by @ least 1 of the writers for Visions of Ypsi. (Actually, I was pushing her out of my way & accidentally touched her ass so it might not qualify as a "grope.") "Goldeneye" is the only Bond film to have a theme song sung by someone whose best theme song wasn't for a Bond film; Tina Turner should have given up on film themes after her awesome performance of "We Don't Need Another Hero" for Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The other reason "Goldeneye" gets special mention is because, while it was performed by Tina Turner, it was written by Bono & The Edge. Here we have a case of the entertainment industry tying to create the perfect song, ie: too many cooks in the kitchen. Lastly, Rita Coolidge, Rita Coolidge may have done it for Willie Nelson, & "All Time High" is a cool song, her country stuff in the 1970's was just so much better that it seems like a let-down.

Before we get to the list, we need to set down a few guidelines. Songs have been selected based on 3 categories: relationship to the content of the film, representation of the artist's general catalogue, & all around awesomeness. And now, your Visions of Ypsi Top 5 James Bond Themes:
5) "Goldfinger: It's a weird song & hard to believe it could have been a hit. Never the less, it rose to #8 on the US charts in 1964.

4) "Nobody Does it Better" Carley Simon's song from The Spy Who Loved Me is good stuff. Her voice is perfect w/o the cheesy '70's qualities found in many of her other songs. Of course, that means it doesn't represent her other work very well... hence 4th rather than 2nd.


3) "For Your Eyes Only" I never assumed Sheena Easton would get props on this site, but props where props are due. It's a cool song, & it works well w/ the movie. I've always really liked it.


2) "Live & Let Die" Many people would complain about this because they feel that Sir Paul should top the list. That however, would be an inaccurate claim. It's a great song, but it doesn't represent the complete Wings repertoire.


1) "A View to a Kill" This song scores high in all 3 criteria. It's perfect for a mid-80's Bond film, it sounds like everything else Duran Duran recorded, & it is simply awesome.

Carnies, Cokes & Cotton Candy

In the build-up to the big Kelly Miller Circus, we watched a couple circus movies: The Greatest Show on Earth (which wasn't even the greatest show on TV that night) & Roustabout (an Elvis film that bares the distinction of being the only Elvis Film I've ever seen). I wonder if Elvis movies (all 31 of them) might be a good follow-up to the Spacey movies. I realized while watching it that I really have a predilection for loving crap. At t turns out, Roustabout is only vaguely circus related because it's only 1/2 circus; the other half is carnival, but it's unclear what it's supposed to be. We also saw a Dukes of Hazzard episode yesterday morning in which Luke joins some sort of traveling stunt-driving road show which is sort of circus related. And I watched the last hour of Octopussy in which a rogue Soviet officer plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in a circus tent on a US military base in West Berlin & James Bond dresses like the knife thrower (& later, like a clown) to infiltrate the roustabouts & save the day. Did you follow that? Good; there may be a pop-quiz @ the end of the post. As far as other circus movies go, we forgot about Big Top Pee Wee & Dumbo didn't come in time... oh well. Roger Moore IS James Bond!As or the actual circus yesterday, I took Isaiah to watch the tent raising in the morning. He brought his little stuffed elephant toy to show the elephants. He liked the camels too, but the elephants were his favorite. Afterwards, I called my sister & she came out in the afternoon to go w/ us to the show. We went to the 4:30 show so as to get home early, make pizza, & chill out in the evening rather than leaving @ 9:30 & fighting w/ Isaiah's bed-time.

I wish we could see a circus w/o the residual guilt that always comes after watching animals jump through hoops (similar to the guilt I feel every time I eat meat). That said, we had a good time watching the animals jump through hoops. Isaiah loved the dogs, the tigers, & most importantly, the elephants. The older kids dug the ropes/tumbling stuff & Aiden seemed to love the clowns too. I think Elizabeth had fun, & Sam was paying much more attention than we expected he would. He's also developing a strong interest in watching the other kids. While Isaiah couldn't b bothered while watching the elephants, Sam couldn't be bothered while watching Isaiah. It was pretty cute. The down side this year was 2 fold. 1) It was moved from Riverside Park to Parkside Park which just isn't as good of a location. 2) It was hot as Hell in the tent. Other than that, a good time was had by all. They're playing Fowlerville this evening, so you should go check it out.

Quantum of Solace???

This Friday marks the release of the 22nd EON Bond film, & those of you who read this regularly know I'm some-what of a James Bond enthusiast. Though I've only seen 5 of the films in the theater (A View to a Kill @ Fairlane Towncenter in Dearborne w/ my soccer team, The Living Daylights @ the now defunct Gaslight Cinema in Petoskey w/ my friend Brad, Goldeneye @ Showcase Ann Arbor w/ Stephanie, The World is Not Enough @ the Goodrich Quality 16 in Ann Arbor w/ Stephanie & Casino Royale @ the Showcase Ann Arbor w/ Jean), I've made a habit out of watching them on TV since I saw For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, & Never Say Never Again @ the Rossis' house in the early '80s. The fact that there are 21 of these films (plus Never Say Never Again which isn't included in the official Bond canon), averaging about 2 hours each, & that I've seen them an average of 5.318181 times (I did the math to the best of my ability which is hampered by the fact that I'm guessing how many times I've seen each film... 8 for Dr. No, 2 for License to Kill... it might not be exact but it is close enough), suggests that I've spent 234 hours watching James Bond films which comes to 9.75 days of my life. This seems like a lot, but considering the fact that I've been alive for roughly 294,768 hours, 234 isn't really that much. Besides, I'm absolutely certain that there are many people out there who have spent a greater percentage of their lives watching Bond films, not to mention the people out there who have spent many more total hours watching them.

Although the film was released in the UK last month, it isn't out here yet so I obviously can't review it yet. Having spent so much time watching the others, I feel that I can make a basic preliminary observation though. The title sucks! Apparently, Daniel Craig came up w/ it in an attempt to avoid the hacky titles that deal w/ death & blood. Furthermore, it's taken from a Flemming short story about Bond @ a dinner party which apparently contains no action. It's more of a tribute to W. Summerset Maugham w/ the focus on irony & character development... not Bond's mind you, the character development of 2 people w/ whom Bond never actually speaks. Supposedly, the film has absolutely nothing to do w/ the story which means they could have come up w/ a better title & no one would have been the wiser. It sounds like they pulled random words out of a hat (incidentally, this is also how George Lucas came up w/ the prequal titles). Of all the ways they come up w/ Bond titles, this has to be the worst system. And as best as I can figure there are ways it's been done
1) Name of bad guy = name of film (Dr. No, Goldfinger, etc)
2) Random message in the film (From Russia w/ Love, For Your Eyes Only, etc)
3) Name of evil plan (Thunderball, Moonraker, etc)
4) Random line in the film (You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, etc)
5) Random secret agent lingo (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Licence to Kill, etc)
5.1) Occasionally, there is also a secondary consideration in the naming, specifically, it makes a cool song title ("Live and let Die," "A View to a Kill," etc)Unveiling a brand new naming system 46 years into the series just doesn't seem right. I'm sure I'm going to love this film as much as I love the rest, & probably more than I love most of them, but it's hard to really embrace a film w/ such a shit name. I'm sure this is the reason films like Manos: The Hands of Fate & Mitchell never really took off. The again, Forrest Gump was huge so I guess you never know.