Horror Film Review: Live and Let Die (dir. by Guy Hamilton)

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I know what you’re going to say before you say it.

“Okay, Lisa,” you sigh, “I hate to tell you this but Live and Let Die is not a horror film. Live and Let Die is a James Bond film. In fact, it’s the first one to feature Roger Moore in the role of Bond. It’s the one where Yaphet Kotto is the guy who’s both a Harlem drug dealer and a world leader and he’s planning on importing all this heroin from Haiti or somewhere and Bond runs off with his Tarot card reader who is played by Jane Seymour, who has mismatched eyes, just like you!”

“Thank you,” I say in my shy little way as my cheeks flush red and my mismatched eyes glance downward.

“However,” you continue, “it’s hardly a horror film. Live and Let Die is just the James Bond film where they go to Louisiana and end up chasing each other in boats and then Clifton James shows up as this redneck sheriff and its just kinda embarrassing.”

“May I speak now?” I ask as I narrow my multi-colored eyes at you, “Now, to be honest, I’ve only recently started to really watch all of the old school James Bond films from the 60s and the 70s but Live and Let Die is actually one of my favorites, even with Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper. I mean, the film’s actually a lot of fun, Yaphet Kotto made a great villain, and even if Roger Moore wasn’t quite as sexy and dangerous as Sean Connery was, at least he wasn’t all stiff and humorless like Daniel Craig. In fact, I think it could be argued that Live and Let Die was the first — and maybe only — truly Grindhouse James Bond film. I just find it interesting how the whole film is basically a hybrid of all of the big exploitation genres of 1973. The scenes in Harlem and really the film’s entire plot is pretty much ripped off from blaxploitation while the voodoo scenes all have this kind of campy, Hammer feel to them. Even the scenes in Louisiana are an homage to the southern car chase movies that were apparently big at the drive-ins back then.”

“That’s all good and well, Lisa, but how does that make Live and Let Die a horror film? And don’t say it’s because Felix Leiter is played by David Hedison, the star of the original Fly because–”

“Hold on,” I say, “this is the point where we show the trailer.”

“Okay, Lisa Marie,” you say, “now that you’ve indulged in your bizarre trailer fetish, explain just how exactly this is a horror film and don’t try doing that thing you always do where you link it to some weird-ass thing that happened to you like ten years ago.”

My nostrils flare as I begin, “Ten years ago, me and my family were taking a vacation in voodoo country…”

“Lisa Marie, did you not read the previous paragraph?”

“Oh, sorry.” I pause in order to get my thoughts straight in my head. “Well, first off, let’s start with the opening credits. Now, I’ll be honest here and admit that I’ve always kinda wanted to be one of those girls that are always dancing around naked during the opening credits of all the old school James Bond films–”

“That’s a shock.”

“–so I always end up paying attention to those opening credits. I mean, that’s my time to fantasize about being in a James Bond film. And I have to say, the opening credits of Live and Let Die — Agck! Seriously, everyone always spends so much time talking about how great the theme song is that they kinda miss just how freaky and nightmarish those opening credits are. I mean, seriously, when you’re at home alone and you’re watching this in a dark room, these opening credits are genuinely unsettling. Here, check them out.”

“Okay,” you say, “I can see how the credits might freak you out but that’s just like 2 minutes of a two hour film–”

“Oh my God, I’m so not even done yet!” I snap, “This film isn’t about James Bond fighting drug dealers. All of that stuff with Yaphet Kotto and the heroin and all that — it’s all just an excuse to get to what the film is truly about: James Bond vs. Baron Samedi, the man who can not die! As played by Geoffrey Holder, Baron Samedi’s only in a few scenes but he dominates the entire film. I mean, it’s actually kinda funny because every time Baron Samedi shows up, someone dies but the film comes to life.”

“In fact,” I continue, now pretty much talking to myself, “when Baron Samedi first appears in the film, he’s killing this poor, terrified man by holding a poisonous snake up to the man’s face and oh my God, that scene freaked me out when I first saw it! In fact, it’s the only scene from a James Bond film that’s ever given me a nightmare. Even Eva Green drowning in Casino Royale didn’t freak me out as much as that snake scene did and you know I’m a lot more scared of drowning than I am of snakes. Which is odd since I live in Texas and there’s a lot more snakes around here than large bodies of water…”

“Slow down and breathe, Lisa Marie,” you say, “you’re getting off topic.”

“Right, sorry. Anyway, it’s a scary scene precisely because Baron Samedi seems to be enjoying killing the man so much. Then again, it could also be the fact that Baron Samedi had the most evil laugh ever. Seriously, listen to it in the scene below.”

As you watch the scene, I continue to speak, my words tumbling one after another out of my mouth, “But the scariest Baron Samedi scene isn’t even on YouTube. Seriously, YouTube sucks. I hate YouTube. I mean, you can find a thousand videos of silly people doing that Wii workout game in their underwear but you can’t find the freakiest Baron Samedi scene ever. Seriously, forget about Occupying Wall Street. Let’s occupy freaking YouTube and demand–”

“Focus, Lisa.”

“Sorry. Anyway, the freakiest scene in Live and Let Die and I would dare say the freakiest scene of the entire James Bond series, comes towards the end of the film. Baron Samedi pops up out of this grave and James Bond like shoots him and blows off half his forehead, right? And Baron Samedi just stand there perfectly still and emotionless. Then, his eyes slowly roll upward and stare up at where his forehead used to be. So, Bond shoots him like three more times and Baron Samedi just collapses like a rag doll. And then, suddenly, Baron Samedi — forehead intact — pops out of another grave and does that evil laugh of his! Oh. My. God! It is so freaky! I was watching it and I was just like…AGCK!

“And that,” I conclude, “is why Live and Let Die is a horror film.”

However, now that I’m finished, you don’t reply. I look up and I see that you’re gone.

And in your place…

Song of the Day: You Know My Name from Casino Royale (by Chris Cornell)

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Arleigh

So, I’m at home flipping channels when I saw that Casino Royale was about to start on one channel I kept going back to. Inspiration hit like a JSOW from high above and I decided to pick this Bond reboot’s title theme as the latest “Song of the Day”.

“You Know My Name” is the latest song of the day and one played and sung by one of my favorite rock vocalists ever in Chris Cornell. Anyone who has even listened to 90’s hard rock and alternative rock has to know who Chris Cornell is. He’s the longtime frontman for the alternative rock band Suoundgarden and then later on for the supergroup Audioslave. With “You Know My Name” he has joined a very exclusive club of Bond film intro singers. Not to mention an even more rarefied group of male singers who have sung the intro songs to Bond films. I could only remember and name three who have and they were Tom Jones doing the one for Thunderball, Paul McCartney for Live And Let Die and the Euro band Duran Duran for A View To A Kill.

Cornell sings the hell out of this song and I like the fact that the song’s title doesn’t match the film’s. “You Know My Name” sounds better than “Casino Royale” and the lyrics, as written by Chris Cornell (w/ some minor help from film composer David Arnold), really matches the grittier and more aggressive personality of the film and it’s main character of James Bond. I will say that this song is definitely better than most of the Pierce Brosnan Bond film intro songs which ranged from the great one sung by Shirley Manson and her band Garbage for the forgetful The World Is Not Enough right up to the very awful one by Madonna for Die Another Day.

The official music video created for the song also does a great job of paralleling the job of James Bond as a spy and Cornell as a rock star as being similar in some ways. Just one listen to this song and it’ll be stuck in one’s head for the rest of the day.

You Know My Name

If you take a life do you know what you’ll give?
Odds are, you won’t like what it is
When the storm arrives, would you be seen with me?
By the merciless eyes of deceit?

I’ve seen angels fall from blinding heights
But you yourself are nothing so divine
Just next in line

Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can’t deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?

The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name

If you come inside things will not be the same
When you return to the night
And if you think you’ve won
You never saw me change
The game that we all been playing

I’ve seen diamonds cut through harder men
Than you yourself
But if you must pretend
You may meet your end

The coldest blood runs through my veins

Try to hide your hand
Forget how to feel
Forget how to feel

Life is gone with just a spin of the wheel
Spin of the wheel

The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
…

Book Review: The Eurospy Guide by Matt Blake and David Deal

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, believe it or not, I feel very insecure when I come on here to talk about movies because, unlike most of my fellow writers and the site’s readers, I’m actually pretty new to the world of pop culture and cult films. Up until 8 years ago, ballet was my only obsession. It was only after I lost that dream that I came to realize that I could feel that same passion for other subjects like history and writing and movies. In those 8 years, I think I’ve done a fairly good job educating myself but there’s still quite a bit that I don’t know and, at times, I’m almost overwhelmed by all the movies that I’ve read so much about but have yet to actually see. And don’t even get me started on anime because, honestly, my ignorance would simply astound you. What I know about anime — beyond Hello Kitty — is pretty much limited to what I’ve read and seen on this site. (I do know what a yandere is, however. Mostly because Arleigh explained it to me on twitter. I still don’t quite understand why my friend Mori kept using that as her own personal nickname for me back during my sophomore year of college but that’s a whole other story…)

The reason I started soul searching here is because I’m about to review a book — The Eurospy Guide by Matt Blake and David Deal — that came out in 2004 and I’m about to review it as if it came out yesterday. For all I know, everyone reading this already has a copy of The Eurospy Guide in their personal collection. You’ve probably already spent 6 years thumbing through this book and reading informative, lively reviews of obscure movies. You may already know what I’ve just discovered. Well, so be it. My education is a work in progress and The Eurospy Guide has become one of my favorite textbooks.

The Eurospy Guide is an overview of a unique genre of films that started in the mid-60s and ended with the decade. These were low-budget rip-offs — the majority of which were made in Italy, Germany, and France — of the Sean Connery-era James Bond films. These were films with titles like Code Name: Jaguar, Secret Agent Super Dragon, More Deadly Than The Male, and Death In a Red Jaguar. For the most part, they starred actors like George Nader, Richard Harrison, and Eddie Constantine who had found the stardom in exploitation cinema that the mainstream had never been willing to give to them. They featured beautiful and underappreciated actresses like Marilu Tolo and Erika Blac and exotic, over-the-top villainy from the likes of Klaus Kinski and Adolfo Celi. Many of these films — especially the Italian ones — were directed by the same men who would later make a name for themselves during the cannibal and zombie boom of the early 80s. Jess Franco did a few (but what genre hasn’t Jess Franco experimented with) and even Lucio Fulci dabbled in the genre. Their stories were frequently incoherent and, just as frequently, that brought them an undeniably surreal charm.

And then again, some of them were just films like Operation Kid Brother, starring Sean Connery’s younger brother, Neil. (Operation Kid Brother was an Italian film, naturally.)

Well, all of the films — from the good to the bad (and no, I’m not going to add the ugly) — are covered and thoroughly reviewed in The Eurospy Guide. Blake and Deal obviously not only love these films but they prove themselves to be grindhouse aficionados after my own heart. Regardless of whether they’re reviewing the sublime or the ludicrous, they approach each film with the same enthusiasm for the potential of pure cinema run amuck. It’s rare to find reviewers who are willing to pay the same respect to a film like The Devil’s Man that they would give to a sanctioned classic like The Deadly Affair.

Along with reviewing a countless number of films, Deal and Blake also include two great appendices in which they detail the review some of the film franchises that came out of the genre and provide biographies of some of the more prominent stars of the eurospy films.

The highest compliment I can pay to The Eurospy Guide is that, even with all the various films guides I own (and I own a lot), I found films reviewed and considered in this book that I haven’t found anywhere else. Everytime I open this book, I learn something that, at least to me, is new. The book was an obvious labor of love for Blake and Deal and I love the results of their labor.

So, if you already own a copy, you rock.

And if you don’t, order it.