  It's happening again. Another James Bond movie is coming out in a matter of mere weeks! If I were into guilt, James Bond would be a guilty pleasure of mine. (As it is, more of a gilty pleasure, ho ho...) Now, I know I'm not supposed to like James Bond movies. All that sexism and secret agent whoring around and unethical political behavior and exloding vehicles, so little discourse. Honestly, though, I really like a lot of explosions in my movies, and I probably wouldn't be an international relations scholar today if it weren't for 007.
I like the gadgets. I like the explosions. I like James' really stupid jokes. I like the incredibly stupid names of the women he boinks. I like the way the clothes and the furniture and the vehicles look. I like the ridiculous plot points.
I like the music. I like the wacky fight scenes. I like the exotic locations. I like the villains' lairs and elaborate plots. I like the underwater action shots. I like that Pierce Brosnan has stopped that really faggy prancing he did in Goldeneye, although he really is still too pretty to be Bond.
If you've seen *all* the Bond movies again and again, including the non-Broccoli ones, you know that there is not a single one that the original Austin Powers doesn't spoof. You know that On Her Majesty's Secret Service was by far the most anomalous one, with the one-time Bond, George Lasenby (in a kilt no less, rowrrrrrrr! ) getting rescued by Diana Rigg and then marrying her minutes before Telly Savalas' goons bust a cap in her ass (who loves ya, baby?). You know that You Only Live Twice has by far the most gadgets, including the incomparable Little Nelly. You know exactly how many casinos Bond visits and how many underwater fight scenes he's been in, and that Michele Yeoh wasn't the first Bond babe to kick ass. My personal pre-Yeoh favorite would have to be Melina from For Your Eyes Only: a natural low-bullsh*t beauty with a crossbow.
More recently, I've wanted Teri Hatcher to get whacked for quite some time now, so Tomorrow Never Dies was rather satisfying in that regard. Of course, everybody knows Connery was by far the best Bond. He's closer to looking the part, too. In the books, Bond looks a lot like Hoagie Carmichael--he's not supposed to be a pretty boy like Prancy Pierce. Roger Moore was probably the worst one, although he did more of the movies than any of the other Bonds. Toward the end there, all those face lifts were really taking their toll, too.
Every time he responded to something another character was saying, it looked like his eyeballs might fall right out of his head. Also, the wind would blow his turkey wattle around and not his hair. You know what I never figured out? How come the villains don't just put a Baccarat table at the edge of a cliff? When Bond comes running over, they can just shove him right off. My favorite Bond movie moment is probably still when I went to see The World is Not Enough with my friend Michael (yes, the same one who read to me).
Michael is something of a lecherous world traveler himself, and also an international relations scholar, so I knew it would be a treat to see it with him. At one point, they showed an establishing shot of a building and subtitled it "Baku", and Michael said incredibly loudly and with great disgust, "Oh, *that's* not Baku! " People turned around and shushed and everything. Only Michael could get away with that kind of proclamation. I could go on and on, but I can tell I'm starting to scare you. Let me just say how delighted I am that we're getting another Bond movie and leave it at that. 
