Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Shaken ... stirred ... just give me the damn drink: "GoldenEye"

True story: I once knew a woman named Mona Allday. Isn't that the perfect name for a Bond girl? She really should have trademarked it ... or at least been good looking.

Showtime had a free preview week recently, and in my bachelor days this would have sent me running for a 10-pack of video cassettes so I could stock my video library. "Trancers 4?" Sure!" Sadly, I'm exercising more discretion these days, but that didn't keep me from recording a James Bond movie more notable for who assumed the 007 mantle than the story itself.

As you may know, "GoldenEye" was the first turn by Pierce Brosnan, known to that point almost solely for "Remington Steele." (Not that "Nomads" didn't rock, I'm sure.) If you couldn't tell by the mugshot on this site, I'm a fairly big Bond fan but was wary of Brosnan. Seemed too much of a pretty boy to me, and there was too much hype about him finally becoming Bond; they wanted him after Roger Moore and had to settle for Timothy "I was drunk when I agreed to do 'The Beautician and the Beast'" Dalton.

Dalton was OK but no big loss after his two movies. As for Brosnan ... well, he surprised me. Can't say any of his four Bond films is in the Hall of Fame; I've always been a Connery man and rank "Goldfinger" No. 1, but "The Spy Who Loved Me" is pretty good, too. But "GoldenEye" could have been a lot worse. The story -- a Soviet space-based weapon is stolen -- is OK, and the villain isn't bad. Mainly it was good to see Brosnan willing to get dirty and even mean. Heck, I think his hair even got messed up once.

Of course, I should mention what really grabbed me the first time I saw this movie: Famke Janssen. Oh, mama ... where did she come from? Before she got all family-friendly in "X-Men," Famke traded blows (easy, folks) with James Bond as Xenia Onatopp, a Russian pilot with a lethal pair of legs. Man, was she hot, and who knew a Russian accent could sound so sexy? Sign me up for the nearest bread line ...

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