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Saturday, November 17, 2012

The names Misogynist, James Misogynist.

Well The Prince & I had a high pressure planning meeting this morning. Whoever had the idea to move house on both sides of the planet at once has freaking rocks in their head! No pressure here then. Not much.
Trying to focus on the positive & looking forward to reuniting the stash.

*SPOILER ALERT* Discussions of the plot of Skyfall

We thought we should do something nice to reward ourselves & keep ourselves grounded so we went off to see the latest Bond film. We were really looking forward to it as we have seen all the clips & interviews in the last few weeks.

Well we left the theatre very disappointed. There were some magnificent scenes especially the motorbikes across the tiled roofs and sweeping views of the Shanghai skyline.
However the story lines left a very bad taste. Now don't get me wrong, Bond movies have always been bastions of machismo & that is part of the charm but why do they feel the need to do this at the expense of women? I know they have never really treated women as anything other than scenery but they had been moving away from that to some extent in the recent movies. This movie seems to hurtle right back to the old days with the likes of Ursula Andress & Solitaire.

The underlying storylines in this movie are interesting to say the least. The new young Q is dismissive of the experienced Bond, Bond is sceptical of the abilities of the young Q. 
Loads of dialogue about the old being outdated, past it, time marching on & new ways of doing things. This was in reference to Bond, M and the movie genre in general.

There is a big push to get rid of M, she is seen as having lost it & become incompetent. Things beyond her control are seen as her fault & she should fall on her sword & "retire". Similar things are said of Bond.

It seems to be a narrative directed at the franchise in general, kind of a justification of why they continue after 50 years.

The portrayal of women in the film harks back to the old days. There is the high class call girl, being used by the bad guy, terrified to stand up to him & get away. (did I mention Solitaire??) Her death is like a sport for the bad guy with the bonus of torturing Bond (of course he has slept with her). This supports the conservative view that "bad girls get what they deserve" in the end.

Bond & a bad guy are fighting on the roof of a moving train (as you do), his female colleague does not really have a clean shot but is instructed by M to "take the bloody shot". Of course she hits Bond & we next see her assigned to a desk job. The implications here are that a female spy would hesitate & because she hits Bond she has made a mistake that deserves demotion. Later we see her as the new Moneypenny, the new M's secretary, where she claims that some people (ie: her as a woman) are not suitable for field work. 

Whatever the feck ever happened to girls can do anything??

As a bonus, the bad guy is gay and has an Oedipus complex with M. At one stage he propositions Bond. Bond knocks him back but makes an allusion to the fact that he has walked on the "wild side".

Bond kills him in the end.

And then there was the anonymous person sitting in our vicinity who kept dropping toxic farts all through the movie.

Not the best of times.

Here is a picture of Princess Daisy & Diego Pavlova proving that they can share space next to the Mama. Well for a little while at least.

Loving what I do. Not so keen on the farter.

Lush x










8 comments:

  1. Priceless movie review. I never get out to the cinema so you've not spoiled anything for me. Between himself being away a lot and himself hating cinema farters, talkers, seat kickers and the like it is DVDs for us. I'll have forgotten all about this by the time we get this particular DVD.

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    1. For all those reasons I too am not fond of the cinema experience. I usually wear ear plugs, double duty of eliminating the talkers & chip packet rattlers & it makes the movie not so loud.
      I never mind if people tell me the full storyline, in fact sometimes I really want to know.

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  2. lmao! Not impressed with cinema farters... Never liked Bond movies at all either. Love seeing Sean as bond, but not the actual movie or plot etc.

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    1. See, I have always loved the Bond movies, silly escapist fantasies with extremely great location shots. Maybe I am just getting more intolerant of the misogyny as I get older, as a storyline it's getting really tired. I know it is not just in Bond films. It's everywhere & that's what makes it worse for me.
      And I am a Rev Head at heart - so upset about what they did to the DB5!! LOL
      I absolutely LOVE Sean, he could just read me the phone book.

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  3. Can't say I'm really a bond fan and went under pressure! But I enjoyed it. I agree it harked back to the old bond style, which personally I think is better than some of the more recent ones. I must've missed all the anti female stuff!

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    1. Don't get me wrong, we did enjoy the movie. Cinematically it is gorgeous, great story, excellent script, perfect pace, suspenseful, moody, Dame Judy Dench, all the good things.
      The point is that the anti female stuff IS there & it is so subtle that you are right, people don't even see it.
      I am very sensitive to it at the moment, especially as it is really huge in Australian politics currently. Just needed to write it down to get the angry off my chest. :)


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  4. Your email address won't let me reply to you. Sorry if you think I am ignoring you and best of luck in the move. Hope the IT gremlins leave you alone.

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  5. Having now seen the film....yes, I agree....and the storyline was certainly extremely weak! Javier Bardem was brilliant though. Bond looks like he needs to catch up on his sleep and eat properly...and I wish they would cut down on all those wide legged I'm a hunk and I know it poses! Still an enjoyable evening out though!

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