Microblog: A very long article Wikipedia article on the orientation of toilet paper [Jun 7th, 22:52] [R]

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Casino Royale

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_(1967_film)

Wikipedia

The real James Bond is retired, while another man continues le legend under his name. But as many secret agents of all countries are eliminated by SMERSH, Bond is coerced into coming out of retirement by the explosion of his mansion, in which M is killed. Bond returns M's toupee to his widow in Scotland. She really is Mimi, a SMERSH agent tasked with destroying Bond's celibate image, which fails. Bond then goes back to London and becomes the new M, where he learns the agents are eliminated because they cannot resist sex. Bond orders all remaining agents to be called James Bond to confuse SMERSH. He then hires millionaire and former agent Vesper Lynd to hire baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble. The goal is to prevent SMERSH agent Le Chiffre from recovering the money he embezzled from his organization by winning at the Casino Royale. Based on a tip from Mimi, Bond sends his daughter Mata to West Berlin to infiltrate a SMERSH training centre. There she foils Le Chiffre's other money-making scheme, selling compromising photographs of world military leaders. Tremble and Lynd then arrives at Casino Royale and foil an attempt to disable Tremble. The latter then observes Le Chiffre and discovers he cheats using infrared glasses. Lynd steals the glasses and Tremble wins the game. Le Chiffre then captures and tortures Tremble with hallucinogens. The latter is saved but then killed by Lynd. Le Chiffre is then eliminated by SMERSH. In London, Mata is kidnapped by SMERSH in a giant flying saucer. Bond and Moneypenny travel to Casino Royale to rescue her and discover there an underground lair belonging to the evil Dr. Noah, in reality Jimmy Bond, James' nephew. Jimmy's plan is to release a bacteriological agent that will make all women beautiful and kill all men taller than 4"6', leaving him as the big man who gets all the girls. Another, female James Bond whom Jimmy had kidnapped earlier poisoned Jimmy with a miniature atom bomb. Bond, Moneypenny and Mata escape from the lair back to the casino where Bond establishes that Lynd is a double agent. The casino is overrun by secret agents and a battle ensues, with American and French support, adding to the chaos. Jimmy finally explodes, destroying the Casino and killing all people in it.

[ Posted on August 21st, 2023 at 12:03 | no comment | ]

Tuesday, June 13th, 2023

No Time to Die

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Time_to_Die

Wikipedia

After Blofeld's arrest, Bond and Madeleine Swann travel to Italy where he wants to visit Vesper's grave. He is attacked by Spectre and concludes that Madeleine told them where they were. He therefore rejects her and retires in Jamaica until Leiter asks for his help in retrieving Heracles, a contagious nanobot-based poison developed by MI6 and stolen by its main scientist, Obruchev. Bond is contacted by Nomi, his successor as 007, but refuses to work for M. At a Spectre party in Cuba where Obruchev has been located, Bond is caught and expects to die, but instead all members of Spectre die from poisoning with Heracles (it is programmed with DNA and affects only its targets). Leiter is then betrayed by his colleague from the State Department and killed, Bond escapes. He goes back to MI6 and wants to interrogate Blofeld who was remotely overseeing the party in Cuba. He meets Swann, Blofeld's psychologist, who has been coerced by Safin (the man who, when she was a child, killed her mother in revenge for her father having killed his family) into infecting herself with Heracles to kill Blofeld. The latter confesses that Swann had nothing to do with the attack at Vesper's grave, and then dies from Heracles. Bond then tracks Swann to her childhood home in Norway where he meets her daughter Mathilde, and learns that Safin owns an island in the Sea of Japan. They are then attacked by Safin's men, and during a chase through the forest, Safin abducts Swann and her daughter. Bond and Nomi then infiltrate Safin's island and discover it holds a nanobot factory. They free Swann and her daughter and Nomi takes them off the island. Bond then orders a missile strike on the island, but while fighting Safin he is infected with an Heracles targeted at Madeleine and Mathilde. Knowing that he would cause their death, he decides to stay on the island and die when the missiles destroy the facility.

[ Posted on June 13th, 2023 at 11:37 | no comment | ]

Friday, November 13th, 2015

SPECTRE

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_%282015_film%29

Wikipedia

Following the posthumous suggestion of former M, and without knowledge of his hierarchy, Bond assassinates Marco Sciarra in Mexico City and goes to his funeral in Rome. There he learns that Sciarra was a member of SPECTRE, a global criminal organisation. Meanwhile, MI6 is to be merged with MI5 and M replaced by a single chief who has a blind faith in total surveillance. In Rome, Bond identifies the head of SPECTRE as Franz Oberhauser, presumed dead. He then gets a lead to Mr White in Austria, a former SPECTRE operative who tells Bond that his daughter will lead him to l'Américain. After saving the daughter, Madeline Swann, from SPECTRE assassins they go to L'Américain, a hotel in Tangiers, where Bond finds a secret room with White's notes on locating Oberhauser. The villain's base is in the middle of the Moroccan desert; after receiving Bond's visit and explaining that MI5's new surveillance network (linked to 8 other countries' own networks) will actually serve SPECTRE's purposes, Oberhauser (who was also revealed to be the murderous son of Bond's adoptive father and now goes by the name Blofeld) is left for dead. Back in London, M and Q work on preventing the surveillance network from going online while Bond saves Swann from being killed by Blofeld in the premature demolition of the former MI6 building. Bond then arrests Blofeld who was trying to escape.

[ Posted on November 13th, 2015 at 23:45 | 2 comments | ]

Sunday, October 28th, 2012

Skyfall

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfall

Wikipedia

In Turkey, while chasing a mercenary who has stolen a hard-disk drive with a list of NATO agents, Bond is nearly killed by friendly fire (on M.'s order) and believed dead. Learning that M.I.6 headquarters has been the target of an attack, Bond returns, and despite failling his atptitude test, M. sends him back into the field to track the man who stole the data and find his employer. Bond kills the man before having any information out of him, but finds a clue that leads him to a casino in Macau. There he meets a girl who promised to lead him to the killer's employer, on the condition Bond frees her from him. The employer is Raoul Silva, a former British agent turned rogue, who seeks revenge on M., whom he blames for his capture and being tortured on his last assignment. Bond eventually captures Silva and takes him to M.I.6. backup headquarters, while M. is summoned to answer for the loss of the list of agents in front of a committee. Silva's capture was actually planned all along, and he escapes through the Underground network. Disguised as a policeman, he tries to kill M. in the audience room, but Bond arrives just in time to save her. He takes her to a safe place in Scotland, the Skyfall manor where Bond had grown up before his parent's death. Helped by the old housekeeper, they prepare to receive Silva's men. The manor is destroyed in the process, and M. is wounded. Bond eventually kills Silva before he kills M., but she dies soon after.

[ Posted on October 28th, 2012 at 18:28 | 1 comment | ]

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

GoldenEye

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldeneye

Wikipedia

007 and 006 get trapped while planting explosives in a Sovietic chemical weapons facility. 007 escapes, but 006 is killed. Nine years later, Bond witnesses the theft of a new stealth helicopter, protected against electromagnetic interference. Soon after, a Siberian radar station is destroyed by an electromagnetic pulse, and satellite pictures reveal the presence of the helicopter. The weapon used is the GoldenEye, made of two one-time use satellites emiting such a pulse and destroying all electronics in an area of tens of kilometers. One satellite remains, and the key to the system has been stolen by a criminal known as Janus. Bond goes to St. Petersburg to meet Janus (using Janus' competing crime lord as an intermediary), and discovers him to be the Trevelyan, ex-006, who was a traitor and not dead after all. With the help of the mandatory girl, the sole survivor of the destruction of the Siberian station, Bond chases Trevelyan and manages to learn that the control station for the second GoldeEye satellite is in Cuba. Bond and the girl go there and manage to destroy the satellite before it being used on London. Trevelyan's plan was to rob the Bank of England electronically and then erase all traces with an electromagnetic pulse, at the same time avenging his parents' death, victims of the Betrayal of the Cossacks.

[ Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 10:45 | 1 comment | ]

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Quantum of Solace

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_of_Solace

Wikipedia

Bond drives the man who was behind the assassination of Vesper in the previous episode to Sienna to be interrogated. He's a member of a secret criminal organisation named Solace, but manages to escape thanks to a traitor at MI6. Bond traces the traitor's contact in Haiti, where he meets Camille Montes and Dominic Greene. Greene is the chairman of Greene Planet, an organisation which supports environmental actions, but Greene is also a member of Quantum and schemes a coup d'état to make General Meneral Medrano the new president of Bolivia in exchange for a piece of land in the Bolivian desert. The CIA is involved, but they do not intend to stop him. Camille wants to kill Medrano (who killed her family), but Bond prevents her to do so. Bond then follows Greene to Bregenz when the latter uses a representation of Tosca at Lake Constance as a secret meeting place with business partners, involving pipelines. Bond discovers that an advisor of the Prime Minister seems to be involved with Quantum. Me believes Bond only seeks revenge for the murder of Vesper, and relieves him of duty, with no success. Bond then asks René Mathis (his partner in Casino Royale) to help him go to Bolivia and follow Greene. In La Paz they meet Canille again, but Bond is framed by the chief of police. Bond and Camille escape with an airplane found at the place Greene seeks to acquire, but are shot down by a military airplace sent by Medrano. They discover that Greene's goal is to control water, not to find oil. Back in La Paz, Bond contacts Felix Leiter, who tells him that Greene and Medrano are in a hotel in the middle of the desert and are going to sign a deal where Greene provides Medrano with funds to buy himself the support of the police. In exchange, Greene wants to control the distribution of water in the country. Camille and Bond arrive just at that moment, Camille kills Medrano and Bond gets answers from Greene before leaving him in the desert (where he will be killed by Quantum shortly after). Finally, Bond goes to Kazan in Russia to meet Yusef, Vesper's former lover who had driven her to betray her country for the profit of Quantum, and is about to do the same with a Canadian agent. To M's suprise, Bond doesn't kill Yusef.

[ Posted on November 13th, 2008 at 22:43 | no comment | ]

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

Never Say Never Again

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Say_Never_Again

Source Wikipedia

James Bond is getting old, and MI6 doesn't need 00 agents any more. After failing a combat test, Bond is sent to a specialized clinic in order to get back in shape. He discovers something fishy there, and almost gets killed. Soon after, two nuclear bombs are stolen from the US Air Force by SPECTRE, and 00 agents are sent back to the field in order to say the world once more. Bond investigates Maximilain Largo, in relation with an Air Force officer, now dead, who is suspected to have been involved in the the theft of the bombs, and whom Bond has met at the clinic. Largo lives on a yacht in the Bahamas, and Bond meets him there once. Largo then leaves to Nice where he owns a casino and where he holds a charity event. Bond meets him a second time, and manages to escape death again. He later gets invited on Largo's boat for lunch, and is made (politely) prisonner, and taken to North Africa, where Largo owns an antique fortress. Bond manages to escape, find out where the bomb is located, fight Largo, disarm the bomb and save the day. At the end, he quits MI6 and moves to Bahamas with Largo's ex-girlfriend.

[ Posted on March 1st, 2008 at 16:51 | no comment | ]

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Octopussy

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://dvdtoile.com/Film.php?id=808

© DVDToile.com

The MI6 has just obtained a fake Fabergé egg in East-Germany from the hands of a dying 009, and decide to investigate the murder. They discover that the real egg is going to be auctioned soon at Sotheby's, from an unknown origin. Bond goes to the auction and manages to replace the real egg with the copy and notice the buyer, Kamal Khan, who is usually a seller rather than a buyer. Bond follows him to his palace in India, where he meets him and lures him with the real egg, equiped with a transmitter. The egg gets stolen by Khan's girlfriend Magda and Bond is kidnapped and taken to Khan's palace where he remains a prisoner. Khan presents the egg to the mysterious Octopussy, who lives on an island populated only by women and who makes a living from smuggling jewels. Later, in Khan's palace, Bond manages to witness a dialog between Khan and rogue Red Army General Orlov, about making copies of a lot of Russian historical treasures and about an attack that will taking place in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Bond then escapes and pays a visit to Octopussy, where he discovers that she owns a circus that is currently in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Going there, he learns that the circus is going next to West-Germany on a U.S. military base, and that the jewels are hidden on the circus'train. The wagon hiding the jewels is however secretely switched with another one, identical the the first one, except that it holds an nuclear bomb instead of the jewels. Bond discovers that Orlov's plan is to detonate the bomb in the U.S. base, to make it look like an accident and discredit the U.S. presence on German territory. Once the americans would have left, Europe would be vulnerable enough to be invaded by the Soviet Union. Bond manages to disamorce the bomb and to follow Khan back to India where he is preparing to flight. With the help of Octopussy's troops (who have been betrayed by Khan) he attacks Khan's palace, chases him to his airplane, saves Octpussy who had been made prisoner during the attack and get rid of Kahn.

[ Posted on May 31st, 2007 at 00:18 | no comment | ]

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

The World is not Enough

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://eu.movieposter.com/poster/A70-8302/World_Is_Not_Enough.html

© MoviePoster.com

Bond recovered a large sum of money belonging to Sir Robert King, a personal friend of “M”. When getting close to his money at MI6 headquarters, King gets killed by an explosion; the bank notes have been covered with an explosive triggered by King's lapel pin, which had been replaced by a fake. While investigating about King, Bond notices that the money he retrieved is exactly the sum that had been paid as a ransom to free King's daughter Elektra some time ago. M had helped King to retrieve his daughter, but had refused to pay the ransom, rather using the daughter as a bait. The kidnapper was Renard the Anarchist, who took a bullet in the brain when MI6 was trying to kill him, after Elektra managed to escape. The bullet is moving towards the center of the brain, making him progressively loose his sense of touch and smell and insensitive to pain. M sends Bond to protect Elektra. He meets her at a pipeline construction site inherited from her father in Azerbaidjan but she refuses his help, not trusting MI6 anymore. Bond later saves her life from an attack; he also tears a piece of cloth bearing a russian marking from one attacker. He then meets Valentin Zukowski, an acquaintance of his in his casino in Baku. Zukowski recognizes the marking as that of an antiterrorist unit of the Russian ministry of energy. He tells Bond that Elektra's pipeline has several competitors who may be willing to get rid of her. Later, while snooping around Elektra Bond notices that her chief of security is somehow related to the former attackers. He follows him and takes his place at some meeting with who were waiting for him. They trust him and take him to a facility in Kazakhstan where nuclear weapon are being disabled and destroyed. He meets there Dr. Christmas Jones, the nuclear scientist in charge of the process and pretends to be a Russian scientist. Bond notices that Renard is also working at the facility and is trying to steal plutonium. Renard manages to escape with a nuclear head, blowing up everything, and Bond and Jones barely escape themselves. Bond then suspects that Eletktra and Renard are actually working together because of something they both said in different occasions, but Elektra convices him otherwise. Elektra then lures M to Baku and kidnapps her, while Bond is sent with Jones to investigate a possible terrorist attack in the pipeline. Instead of defusing the bomb (which appears not to be nuclear), he lets it explode in order to make Elektra believe that he is dead. They then go meet Zukowsky again on the Caspian Sea, because Bond made a connection between him and Elektra. Zukowsky admits providing her with material with the help of a nephew of his who is the captain of a russian submarine. He also tells Bond that they are currently in Istanbul, and takes them there. They then discover that Renard has taken over the submarine and plans to put the plutonium into its nuclear reactor in order to provoke a meltdown that would look as an accident. This would destroy all the pipeline of King's competitors. Bond and Jones get then caught by Renard because of Zukowsky's assistant being an accomplice of him. Jones is taken to the submarine while Bond is left with Elektra who tries to torture him, but he is saved by Zukowsky who died just after. Bond kills Elektra and manages to enter the submarine. There is then an big fight between Bond and Renard; Bond wins and saves the world.

[ Posted on March 15th, 2007 at 01:27 | no comment | ]

Sunday, December 3rd, 2006

Casino Royale

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381061/

© Imdb.com

James Bond's first mission as a 00 agent. A mission in Uganda fails lamely when Bond wrecks havoc in an embassy while supposed to spy on a terrorist. Asked by MI6 to take some time off, he continues his investigation which leads him to the Bahamas, and from there to the Miami's Airport, where a new prototype plane, scheduled for test flight is the target of another hired terrorist. The attacks are ordered by Le Chiffre, the banker of the world's terrorist organizations, who invests his customer's money in hasardous financial gambles. Because of Bond's intervention, he just lost all the money of an Ugandan rebel chief. In order to regain money, Le Chiffre organizes a high stakes game of poker in a casino in Montenegro. MI6 sends Bond there, since he's the best card player of the service and Le Chiffre's loss would destroy his organization, accompanied with Vesper Lynd, from the Treasury, who is assigned to keep an eye on Bond's spendings. The game is interrupted by pauses, during which Bond is almost killed by the Ugandan rebel wanting his money back from Le Chiffre and poisoned by Le Chiffre who doesn't want Bond to win the game. Bond barely escapes the latter attent to his life, and finally wins (thanks to Felix Leiter, a CIA agent who extended Bond's credits after Lynd refused). Vesper Lynd gets then kidnapped by Le Chiffre and Bond rushes to save her, but he gets caught and tortured by Le Chiffre who wants the password that would give him access to Bond's bank account that was setup for the poker game. Bond's life is saved just in time by an unknown third party. He then leaves to Venice with Vesper (with whom he desperatly fell in love). She however betrays him, withdrawing all Bond's (and Her Majesty's) money and brings it to an unknown character. Bond follows her, but is attacked by the henchmen of the unknown one. He doesn't get the money back, and fails to save Vesper's life who commited suicide rather than facing Bond. He then learned that she was trying to save the life of her fiancee, who was kidnapped by terrorists (the same ones she made a deal with that saved Bond's life when tortured by Le Chiffre). Vesper however had left Bond a note before leaving to the bank, setting him on the trail of Mr. White, the one who took the money in Venice. Bond tracks White down, gets the money back and his takes hie revenge on him.

The script is quite similar to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale novel (although terrorists, poker and Montenegro replace respectively the russian spies, baccara and the french riviera, not mentioning the abusive usage made of mobile phones, the Internet and electronic gadgets). The movie is quite different from the others by its structure (the poker game is central to the story although there is no action, except during the breaks) and the fact that Bond fells in love. Also, it is definitely a prequel to the series, but at the same time, it is clearly set in time after the previous episodes…

[ Posted on December 3rd, 2006 at 23:39 | 1 comment | ]