(no subject)
Hm, it would seem that I promised a Dalton picspam, didn't I?
Image credits: The Lion in Winter caps; Hot Fuzz caps; Flash Gordon caps; The Living Daylights caps by me.
I honestly don't remember how I even got started on Timothy Dalton. I watched A Lion in Winter some time in high school during my budding ♥ PETER O'TOOLE ♥ KATHARINE HEPBURN ♥ ♥ phase, and found myself struck by a sudden burning whooooo the heck is that guy feeling:
Then I watched Hot Fuzz a few years later and surprised myself by LOVING THE HECK OUT OF IT -- yes, certainly for many many many non-Dalton reasons, but he and his moustache provided the pitch-perfect camp antagonism the film needed.
But, really, I guess the tipping point must have been that epic work of unparalleled brilliance... oh yes...
FLASH-- AAAA-AAAA-AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
I wish there was some way to properly capture my viewing experience of this film, but I think it's one of those things that... just... transcends experience itself. The scene: bored college student holed up in dorm room in middle of the night, putting off work as long as possibly because it's the weekend, looking for quick distraction to while away an hour or two, determined to get her money's worth out of that goddamn cable bill so yes she will watch those OnDemand movies however horrid, so maybe just the first fifteen minutes of Flash Gordon to see if it is worth watching... fastforward two hours, at which point in time, even though it is something like 2AM, I am sitting straight up in bed watching the credits roll and thinking to myself "OH MY GOD I MUST WATCH THAT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY."
HOW HOW HOW IS THIS MOVIE SO AMAZING? HOW?
OH. RIGHT. PRINCE BARIN MMMMMMMHM.
...There was hosiery involved. I was a willing victim.
And also:
SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP
SHIP SHIP SHIIIIIIIP
I, err, really ship them. Like, a lot.
Oh yyyyeah, this guy knows what's up.
(Also, oh man, look what I just found -- flash_slash! Sadly it looks quite unused and I'm afraid the greatness begins and ends with the profile page, but HEEEEE THIS HAS MADE MY WEEKEND.)
From that day forward he was officially my B-movie hero. I posted recently about my thoughts on the Jane Eyre mini, and even though I'm still somewhat undecided on how well I liked him in it there was still so much greatness to be enjoyed -- FORTUNETELLING SCENE, OH GOSH, JUST SAYING. Also, erm, height difference kink with him and Zelah Clarke? Once again, JUST SAYING. Oh how I wish I had the time to cap this while I still had the DVD out from the library.
So next would be The Living Daylights then, which, like I said... I actually liked! Whaaat! Maybe I was just blinded by the Dalton, but I honestly didn't even hate it as a Bond film. Um, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I somehow decided that I wanted to go back and watch the entire Bond canon? I don't remember what prompted the decision -- one of the new Daniel Craig movies coming out, possibly too much Mad Men and a desire for 60s design aesthetics, my British Empire course sparking the pop-culture-y parts of my brain... but anyway, yeah, so about a year and a half ago I embarked on my quest. I... hmm. Surprisingly I actually have quite a lot of thoughts on these movies, which is interesting because I don't really have a lot of feelings about them -- I think they're super fascinating time capsules, but if I try to watch them in anything other than a detached-English-major-slash-history-geek-slash-film-studies-dork I kind of want to spork my brains out (unless it's crack!Bond in which case... well, there's still an element of that, but there's also an element of WTF GONDOLA HOVERCRAFT, so). But The Living Daylights made me actually feel something! I kind of liked James! And I really did root for him and Kara! And, and, there is only one thing for it... EPIC PICSPAM RECAP. Yeah, warning, SPOILERS. (Is it possibly to spoil a Bond movie, really?) And sorry, no artful cropping/coloring/resizing because I took way too many caps and I'm too lazy to process all of them.
In case you were wondering whether there was a new James Bond in town...
...the dramatic head-turn tells no lies. Mmmmmmm windswept.
And of course it's still a Bond film because a car is driven off of a cliff at least once.
My favorite random character -- Mechanic Plant Girl who seduces Mechanic Plant Dude so Bond & co. can escape. I really hoped she was going to be the Bond girl of this film, not gonna lie.
But, wait, KARA IS SO ADORABLE (okay so backstory from stuff I didn't cap -- so Bond and Saunders -- OH RIGHT SAUNDERS, MAN, OKAY, HE AND JAMES HAVE THIS EPIC SNIPPY BROMANCE -- are helping this guy defect from the KGB and they have to save him from a sniper but the sniper turns out to be this adorable cellist and of course Bond can't bring himself to kill her and then there's a more complicated backstory about how she isn't really a sniper but the girlfriend of the KGB guy who was just posing as a sniper to trick MI6 and, um, SHE'S ADORABLE. And also most of this misunderstanding gets taken care of extremely quickly so instead of being all "oooh mysterious femme fatale, you can never trust a woman, and her ladypart wiles could be evilly seducing Bond at any time," it's like... they are adorably trying to escape to Western Europe together. WHILE BEING ADORABLE).
There's this whole part where they sled down a mountain in her cello case but, trust me, caps could not possibly do it justice. So let's skip ahead to the part where James meets Saunders at the opera and they bitch at each other lovingly:
And then after the opera, James takes Kara to the carnival. TO. THE. CARNIVAL. THEY ARE SO CUTE OMFG.
GUYS THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING JAMES BOND ON A ROLLERCOASTER, OKAY. SOAK IN THE MOMENT.
...AND ON THE BUMPER CARS, OH GOSH IT GETS EVEN BETTER.
Favorite part, though? Playing a sharp shooter game to win Kara a stuffed animal, ahahaha.
The poor booth operator is like, "...I know you're James Bond, you cheating bastard. Take your teddy bear and be gone forthwith."
And then he takes her on the Ferris wheel and arranges to have it stopped at the top so they can share their ~special first kiss~ (RIGHT, THE MOVIE IS LIKE HALFWAY OVER AND HE HASN'T EVEN MADE IT TO FIRST BASE YET).
I... didn't actually cap the kiss itself. :/ I don't know what's wrong with me.
So then more Saunders stuff... "James! Remember that you are WORKING, not traipsing about in a Disney family film about jolly times and cutesy hijinks!"
"Then riddle me this, Saunders -- why are two grown men sitting in the carnival food court sipping tea from cheap china whilst wearing tuxedos?"
"... ... Goddammit. You win. WE REALLY ARE ADORABLE. SOMEBODY SHOOT ME."
NOOOO SAUNDERS WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAAAAAT.
...Because then he dies tragically. (He, errr, gets squished by a booby-trapped automatic door.) AND IT IS SO TRAGIC, AUGH, JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE.
:( :( :( :( :( :( :(
So then there's a pause in adorableness while Plot Stuff happens. Also, hey look, it's:
Virginia Hey!:
And John Terry!
UMMM, RIGHT, ADORABLE. So at this point Kara finds out who Bond really is and betrays him to KGB boyfriend because she thinks she's being played, except then when she realizes she being played by KGB boyfriend and not James she swiftly re-switches alliances and James is all, "Yeah, right, it's cool because I'm actually a nice-ish guy in this movie and I get why you would have suspected me."
Then comes a development that is equal parts "gosh, I wonder if this movie came out in the 80s?" and "ah, I see why they haven't reaired this one on TBS recently," as James and Kara find themselves in a Soviet prison in Afghanistan, bust themselves out, and ally with the local mujahideen to fight the Reds.
Meet Kamran, an Oxford man who returned home to shoot Communists.
WARNING WARNING ULTIMATE ADORABLE SCENE AHEAD
Kara just wants to go to England right away, but James wants to stay to deal with Bad Guy Plot Stuff I've Pretty Much Ignored. Kara is concerned when James returns from his talk with Kamran.
James: "Don't worry, babe, I'm just going to waltz into the highly guarded prison we just broke out of so I can single-handedly hunt down deadly international arms dealers."
James: "It's perfectly safe."
Kara: "..."
Kara: "I think you have a problem with your brain being missing, sir."
James: "Don't sweat the details."
Kara: "Don't sweat the--!"
Kara: "SON. OF. A. BITCH."
EPIC PILLOW FIGHT.
Actual dialogue from this scene (well, paraphrased, but close-ish):
Kara: *swearingswearingswearing*
James: What does that mean?
Kara: It means... you... back-end-of-a-horse!
James: Did you just call me a horse's ass??!
And then they bond (ha, get it? BOND?).
♥♥♥
Okay, plotplotplot, fairly badass action sequence in which the mujahideen storm the Soviet camp:
And then James and Kara prove to be the AWESOMEST POWER COUPLE as he flies off in the plane full of the arms dealers' opium, and then gets Kara to drive her jeep onto the back of the plane as it is speeding down the runway about to take off.
And then once on board, Kara flies the plane while James does AIRBORNE HAND-TO-HAND BATTLE with the arms dealer henchman.
And then in all the excitement they almost FLY INTO A CLIFF.
But it's all good because they just drive the jeep right back out of the back of the plane.
James makes some lame action hero-y quip; Kara is like, "your cornball tendencies are quite suspect, buuut I think I kind of still dig you."
The wrap up: Kara is reunited with her cello, and makes sweet sweet music.
Kamran manages to make it to the concert like the thoughtful friend he is.
But... but... where was James? *tear* "It's the end of a Bond movie, that must mean our love is over..."
KIDDING.
He's waiting for milady in her dressing room, of course, like all passionate suitors do.
THE END.
In conclusion: I KIND OF LOVE THEM.
ETA: Whoops, I missed one! I can't find a good place to stick it back in, though, so... just... enjoy, independent of context.
I'm afraid the Wuthering Heights portion of this project will have to wait for another post, but I hope this was enough to go on for one evening.
Image credits: The Lion in Winter caps; Hot Fuzz caps; Flash Gordon caps; The Living Daylights caps by me.
I honestly don't remember how I even got started on Timothy Dalton. I watched A Lion in Winter some time in high school during my budding ♥ PETER O'TOOLE ♥ KATHARINE HEPBURN ♥ ♥ phase, and found myself struck by a sudden burning whooooo the heck is that guy feeling:
Then I watched Hot Fuzz a few years later and surprised myself by LOVING THE HECK OUT OF IT -- yes, certainly for many many many non-Dalton reasons, but he and his moustache provided the pitch-perfect camp antagonism the film needed.
But, really, I guess the tipping point must have been that epic work of unparalleled brilliance... oh yes...
FLASH-- AAAA-AAAA-AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Click to viewI wish there was some way to properly capture my viewing experience of this film, but I think it's one of those things that... just... transcends experience itself. The scene: bored college student holed up in dorm room in middle of the night, putting off work as long as possibly because it's the weekend, looking for quick distraction to while away an hour or two, determined to get her money's worth out of that goddamn cable bill so yes she will watch those OnDemand movies however horrid, so maybe just the first fifteen minutes of Flash Gordon to see if it is worth watching... fastforward two hours, at which point in time, even though it is something like 2AM, I am sitting straight up in bed watching the credits roll and thinking to myself "OH MY GOD I MUST WATCH THAT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY."
HOW HOW HOW IS THIS MOVIE SO AMAZING? HOW?
OH. RIGHT. PRINCE BARIN MMMMMMMHM.
...There was hosiery involved. I was a willing victim.
And also:
SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP
SHIP SHIP SHIIIIIIIP
I, err, really ship them. Like, a lot.
Oh yyyyeah, this guy knows what's up.
(Also, oh man, look what I just found -- flash_slash! Sadly it looks quite unused and I'm afraid the greatness begins and ends with the profile page, but HEEEEE THIS HAS MADE MY WEEKEND.)
From that day forward he was officially my B-movie hero. I posted recently about my thoughts on the Jane Eyre mini, and even though I'm still somewhat undecided on how well I liked him in it there was still so much greatness to be enjoyed -- FORTUNETELLING SCENE, OH GOSH, JUST SAYING. Also, erm, height difference kink with him and Zelah Clarke? Once again, JUST SAYING. Oh how I wish I had the time to cap this while I still had the DVD out from the library.
So next would be The Living Daylights then, which, like I said... I actually liked! Whaaat! Maybe I was just blinded by the Dalton, but I honestly didn't even hate it as a Bond film. Um, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I somehow decided that I wanted to go back and watch the entire Bond canon? I don't remember what prompted the decision -- one of the new Daniel Craig movies coming out, possibly too much Mad Men and a desire for 60s design aesthetics, my British Empire course sparking the pop-culture-y parts of my brain... but anyway, yeah, so about a year and a half ago I embarked on my quest. I... hmm. Surprisingly I actually have quite a lot of thoughts on these movies, which is interesting because I don't really have a lot of feelings about them -- I think they're super fascinating time capsules, but if I try to watch them in anything other than a detached-English-major-slash-history-geek-slash-film-studies-dork I kind of want to spork my brains out (unless it's crack!Bond in which case... well, there's still an element of that, but there's also an element of WTF GONDOLA HOVERCRAFT, so). But The Living Daylights made me actually feel something! I kind of liked James! And I really did root for him and Kara! And, and, there is only one thing for it... EPIC PICSPAM RECAP. Yeah, warning, SPOILERS. (Is it possibly to spoil a Bond movie, really?) And sorry, no artful cropping/coloring/resizing because I took way too many caps and I'm too lazy to process all of them.
In case you were wondering whether there was a new James Bond in town...
...the dramatic head-turn tells no lies. Mmmmmmm windswept.
And of course it's still a Bond film because a car is driven off of a cliff at least once.
My favorite random character -- Mechanic Plant Girl who seduces Mechanic Plant Dude so Bond & co. can escape. I really hoped she was going to be the Bond girl of this film, not gonna lie.
But, wait, KARA IS SO ADORABLE (okay so backstory from stuff I didn't cap -- so Bond and Saunders -- OH RIGHT SAUNDERS, MAN, OKAY, HE AND JAMES HAVE THIS EPIC SNIPPY BROMANCE -- are helping this guy defect from the KGB and they have to save him from a sniper but the sniper turns out to be this adorable cellist and of course Bond can't bring himself to kill her and then there's a more complicated backstory about how she isn't really a sniper but the girlfriend of the KGB guy who was just posing as a sniper to trick MI6 and, um, SHE'S ADORABLE. And also most of this misunderstanding gets taken care of extremely quickly so instead of being all "oooh mysterious femme fatale, you can never trust a woman, and her ladypart wiles could be evilly seducing Bond at any time," it's like... they are adorably trying to escape to Western Europe together. WHILE BEING ADORABLE).
There's this whole part where they sled down a mountain in her cello case but, trust me, caps could not possibly do it justice. So let's skip ahead to the part where James meets Saunders at the opera and they bitch at each other lovingly:
And then after the opera, James takes Kara to the carnival. TO. THE. CARNIVAL. THEY ARE SO CUTE OMFG.
GUYS THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING JAMES BOND ON A ROLLERCOASTER, OKAY. SOAK IN THE MOMENT.
...AND ON THE BUMPER CARS, OH GOSH IT GETS EVEN BETTER.
Favorite part, though? Playing a sharp shooter game to win Kara a stuffed animal, ahahaha.
The poor booth operator is like, "...I know you're James Bond, you cheating bastard. Take your teddy bear and be gone forthwith."
And then he takes her on the Ferris wheel and arranges to have it stopped at the top so they can share their ~special first kiss~ (RIGHT, THE MOVIE IS LIKE HALFWAY OVER AND HE HASN'T EVEN MADE IT TO FIRST BASE YET).
I... didn't actually cap the kiss itself. :/ I don't know what's wrong with me.
So then more Saunders stuff... "James! Remember that you are WORKING, not traipsing about in a Disney family film about jolly times and cutesy hijinks!"
"Then riddle me this, Saunders -- why are two grown men sitting in the carnival food court sipping tea from cheap china whilst wearing tuxedos?"
"... ... Goddammit. You win. WE REALLY ARE ADORABLE. SOMEBODY SHOOT ME."
NOOOO SAUNDERS WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAAAAAT.
...Because then he dies tragically. (He, errr, gets squished by a booby-trapped automatic door.) AND IT IS SO TRAGIC, AUGH, JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE.
:( :( :( :( :( :( :(
So then there's a pause in adorableness while Plot Stuff happens. Also, hey look, it's:
Virginia Hey!:
And John Terry!
UMMM, RIGHT, ADORABLE. So at this point Kara finds out who Bond really is and betrays him to KGB boyfriend because she thinks she's being played, except then when she realizes she being played by KGB boyfriend and not James she swiftly re-switches alliances and James is all, "Yeah, right, it's cool because I'm actually a nice-ish guy in this movie and I get why you would have suspected me."
Then comes a development that is equal parts "gosh, I wonder if this movie came out in the 80s?" and "ah, I see why they haven't reaired this one on TBS recently," as James and Kara find themselves in a Soviet prison in Afghanistan, bust themselves out, and ally with the local mujahideen to fight the Reds.
Meet Kamran, an Oxford man who returned home to shoot Communists.
WARNING WARNING ULTIMATE ADORABLE SCENE AHEAD
Kara just wants to go to England right away, but James wants to stay to deal with Bad Guy Plot Stuff I've Pretty Much Ignored. Kara is concerned when James returns from his talk with Kamran.
James: "Don't worry, babe, I'm just going to waltz into the highly guarded prison we just broke out of so I can single-handedly hunt down deadly international arms dealers."
James: "It's perfectly safe."
Kara: "..."
Kara: "I think you have a problem with your brain being missing, sir."
James: "Don't sweat the details."
Kara: "Don't sweat the--!"
Kara: "SON. OF. A. BITCH."
EPIC PILLOW FIGHT.
Actual dialogue from this scene (well, paraphrased, but close-ish):
Kara: *swearingswearingswearing*
James: What does that mean?
Kara: It means... you... back-end-of-a-horse!
James: Did you just call me a horse's ass??!
And then they bond (ha, get it? BOND?).
♥♥♥
Okay, plotplotplot, fairly badass action sequence in which the mujahideen storm the Soviet camp:
And then James and Kara prove to be the AWESOMEST POWER COUPLE as he flies off in the plane full of the arms dealers' opium, and then gets Kara to drive her jeep onto the back of the plane as it is speeding down the runway about to take off.
And then once on board, Kara flies the plane while James does AIRBORNE HAND-TO-HAND BATTLE with the arms dealer henchman.
And then in all the excitement they almost FLY INTO A CLIFF.
But it's all good because they just drive the jeep right back out of the back of the plane.
James makes some lame action hero-y quip; Kara is like, "your cornball tendencies are quite suspect, buuut I think I kind of still dig you."
The wrap up: Kara is reunited with her cello, and makes sweet sweet music.
Kamran manages to make it to the concert like the thoughtful friend he is.
But... but... where was James? *tear* "It's the end of a Bond movie, that must mean our love is over..."
KIDDING.
He's waiting for milady in her dressing room, of course, like all passionate suitors do.
THE END.
In conclusion: I KIND OF LOVE THEM.
ETA: Whoops, I missed one! I can't find a good place to stick it back in, though, so... just... enjoy, independent of context.
I'm afraid the Wuthering Heights portion of this project will have to wait for another post, but I hope this was enough to go on for one evening.