Hero of the Day- James Bond

The name's Bond... James Bond

I'm sorry if people find this list to be a little cliche, but I make no apologies for including some of these people, this guy included. He's suave, he's badass, he's cool, the women want him, men want to be him, he's just an awesome dude. Remember all the things I said about Indiana Jones because he was fathered by Sean Connery? Well, this guy is Sean Connery, or at least was for a while. So whatever I said about Indiana Jones, applies to this guy... tenfold. I think it should be pointed out that even though this is a british agent, he has been portrayed by six actors and only two of them have actually been British. Sean Connery is Scottish, Pierce Brosnan is Irish, George Lazenbi is Australian, and Timothy Dalton is Welsh. Only Roger Moore and Daniel Craig are actually British. No matter what way he is portrayed, each person that has played him has done it a different way and they have all been great (accept Lazenbi and Moore, they're terrible). And of course, no James Bond movie is complete without an arsenal of gadgets. Some of them are cool, others are okay, and some are just plain silly. Do I have to bring up the invisible car from Die Another Day? My God was that lame. Of course they toned it down a bit in the most recent ones, but since I read that they have cast someone to play Q, we may get to see some more cool gadgets soon. Let's just hope there will be an absence of invisible cars or glass-shattering rings. Lamo.

Hero of the Day- Indiana Jones

Nazi's. I hate these guys

If I did this list and did NOT include him, I think I would have lost all credibility. Again, this guy is just a classic hero. The movies that he stars in are some of the greatest adventure movies of all time (The first three that is). After seeing this and Star Wars, I think it was pretty much cemented that Harrison Ford was another of my child hood heroes, and continues to be to this day (For the record, I have three movie heroes that have stayed with me through the years, two have already been mentioned here, and the third is still to come). In each movie he's in, he goes through a routine of getting his ass kicked only to come back and kick theirs twice as hard. Sometimes, all he needed was the propeller of a plane, a rock, or the wrong cup and the job was done. And even though he wasn't a cowboy or anything, the image of him riding on a horse with his gun in hand is so iconic and just seems right. Heck, that was part of the reason that I was so psyched to see Cowboys and Aliens. I just wanted to see Harrison Ford wearing that kind of hat, riding a horse and toting a six shooter again. And I saw that. So for me, personally, that movie didn't disappoint. But I'm getting off base here. It also helps that it was revealed in the third movie that he was fathered by none other than Sean Connery. I should end this post right here, because whatever arguments you may have had about Dr. Jones being a wuss are rendered invalid. If Sean Connery's blood runs in your veins, then that means that you have nothing but testosterone and badassery coursing through your body like a river of manliness! He's killed Nazi's, he's killed blood thirsty cultists, he's killed communists, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out he was the one that shot Osama!

Hero of the Day- Dirty Harry

You got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, Punk?

Since I started yesterday by sharing a childhood hero, I thought today, just to even things out, I'd share one of my more recent heroes. DIRTY HARRY. Why not? He's one of the most badass characters in all of film. His methods are unconventional, but they get the job done, so who can blame him? He didn't earn his nickname by playing by the rules! Screw the rules! He's so badass that the tagline for the movie says "He doesn't break murder cases, he smashes them!" I don't even know what that means and that sounds awesome. And who can forget that oh so awesome speech he gave not once but twice about his handgun (The last part of it is today's quote)? The character was played by Clint Eastwood and in my opinion, this is Eastwood's best character. I like Bill Munney, Josey Wales and Preacher, but this guy just kicks ass!

Top Five Guilty Pleasures

Okay, I know that I have made fun of a lot of well known and well loved films (and I’m nowhere close to being done), but like a lot of people, I have my list of movies that I like for some ungodly reason. In some cases, I can’t even explain why I like these movies, I almost hate myself for saying I enjoy them. So without more ado, these are my biggest guilty pleasure movies

1.    The Pirates of the Caribbean sequels- I make no apologies for liking the first one, but I can point out almost everything that is wrong with these movies. And for some reason, I still love them. Why? I don’t have a clue. Maybe it’s that I think the characters are awesome and the dialogue is fun and kind of witty.

2.     Van Helsing- This was a movie that I liked when I saw it in theaters (I was 12, give me a break), but the next time I watched it a few years later, I realized just how asinine it really was. However, Hugh Jackman and the comically over-the-top Dracula make it enjoyable

3.     Cat in the Hat- Hey shut up! The only scene that I actually like is the cupcake cooking show scene. It was like a homage to Mike Meyers’ days as a SNL cast member

4.     Hannibal- I love Silence of the Lambs (it’s in the top 5 for me), but this movie was just lame. So why do I like it? Well, I can’t say no to Gary Oldman, especially when playing a villain, and if I listed all the differences between the book and the movie, the movie would almost seem like a masterpiece. The book had so many unnecessary characters, gory scenes and just an overall weirdness factor that could (should) have just been totally left out. This is one of those moments where you say “Thank God they didn’t follow the book!”

5.    Anaconda- Good Lord is this movie bad. The writing is terrible, the snake looks extremely fake, as do all of the emotions the actors try to show. And don’t even get me started on Jon Voight’s indefinable accent. He sounds like he’s trying to do an Al Pacino Scarface impression! Yet for some reason, this is a movie that I find myself recording every time it’s on. This is one that I can’t justify. Maybe I love it for being so bad.

Hero of the Day- Luke Skywalker

I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.

What better way to start off a month of heroism than with one of the most iconic, noble heroes of all time? And what an even better way to start this off than with one of my personal childhood heroes? For those of you who don't know me outside of the realm of cyberspace, you should know that I am a huge Star Wars nut, and have been for the better part of my life. So I don't even have a choice, I have to put Luke Skywalker on here. Luke is a classic hero, and his image has become a staple of pop culture. Even those that aren't familiar with Star Wars at least know who this guy is. Luke's journey from the deserts of Tatooine to the swamps of Dagohbah to the throne room of the emperor is a classic one and deserves to be seen by all. He started out as a simple farm boy and grew up to become one of the most powerful figures in the galaxy, he went from killing rats with his T-16 to killing storm troopers with a laser sword. That is quite the transition if you ask me. It's also interesting to see the emotional journey that he embarked upon. He may have started out whining, but he learned from his mistakes, built off of them and used his experiences to better prepare himself for that inevitable confrontation with the Emperor. Luke is a great hero with a classic journey that we all wish we could jump into the screen and be apart of. At least I do. What isn't cool about flying an X-Wing?

Starting tomorrow...

As I mentioned in my review yesterday, I will be starting a new thing in December called "Hero of the Day" Where I feature a different hero from either film or literature, and talk about why they have been so revered in our culture. While I don't want to spoil who WILL be on the list, here is a list of people who WON'T appear:

Edward Cullen/ anybody in Twilight: Why? Because these are the people that we are supposed to relate to, and yet I end up hating everybody

Harry Potter: I don't really hate this character, but oddly enough, of all the things found in these books, the main character was the least interesting thing to me. All of the other characters were fascinating but Harry just fell a little flat in my opinion.

Rocky: No real reason, I just knew a number of Rocky fanboys growing up, and they were all douche bags, so this is my way of sticking it to them. Suck it!

Anakin Skywalker: There is no Anakin! There is only Darth Vader! I refuse to believe that the dark lord of the Sith was a prissy teen!

Anybody played by Nicholas Cage or Kevin Costner: Do I really need to explain?

Ethan Hunt: Two words: Tom Cruise

Scrooged

Technically I already reviewed this movie in my Christmas Carol section. But I don't care, this one stands apart from all the others. In what way? 2 words: Bill Murray. How can you not be drawn in to this? He's one of the funniest people alive! Just hearing the name puts a slight smile on my face. Apart from that, this is also a much darker version and the things that made you sad in the other versions make you downright depressed in this version. But at the same time, those things that made you smile in the other versions also makes you smile even more in this one. This is a much more engaging version of the story. You know how in my Small One review, I said that Don Bluth had a knack for making people cry their eyes out but still made them feel satisfied with a happy ending? Same basic principle here. Though like I said, it's a bit more intense. In the other versions, Scrooge's father was distant from him because his mother died giving birth to him, and merely looking at him caused his father to feel sadness at the loss of his beloved wife. In this version, the mother is still alive, but the father is a downright ass. Apparently, he's a butcher who thinks that all kids should be working from day 1, as is shown when he gives his son a hard time for not having a job despite the fact that he's four. Getting a job at four! In other versions, Tiny Tim was a crippled and sickly child who might possibly die because he wasn't getting the care and treatment that was needed. In this version, he's scarred for life after the death of his father and even goes crazy in the future. When Murray is visited by the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, it is shown that the character ends up in a mental institution with bandages on all four limbs. Damn! Somehow, seeing a child in a padded cell gets to me more than seeing his parents standing on his grave. I don't know why, my priorities must be messed up. But just like with Don Bluth movies, we are treated to a happy ending filled with laughs. I might need to go into therapy after experiencing this many emotions in so little time.

There are other examples of this version taking more of a creative license, especially when it comes to the way the ghosts are portrayed. Past and Present are almost polar opposites of what they were like in other versions, and Marley is a freaking zombie in this version. I think it was pretty clever and pretty brave at the same time for the filmakers to go that direction.

Also, I think it should be pointed out that this was directed by Richard Donner. Who is that you ask? Well, apart from directing The Omen, Superman, The Goonies as well as all of the Lethal Weapon movies (which is like a less-awesome but still pretty awesome buddy cop version of Die Hard), he's nobody. Wow, he goes from religious horror to comic book heroes to action-comedy to comedy and then kid-adventure movie. Talk about range. So yeah, that's a pretty big fact that deserves mentioning.

What more needs to be said? It's an unconventional take on a classic story with unconventional characters, unconventional humor and one of the most unconventional comedians of all time. At least the characters he plays are unconventional, I don't know about him personally.

Final Grade: A-, I loved it, but there were parts that got to me a lot more than a Christmas special should.
Yours truly,
MP

So those are my choices of Christmas specials to review. There were others that I was going to review, like The Santa Clause or those Rankin-Bass stop-motion cartoons based off of classic songs. I was going to include these, but then people told me that they were expecting me to review those, so I decided to do the sensible thing and let them down.

Starting December 1st, I'm going to do a month of heroism, where each day, I pay tribute to the best and most iconic heroes from movies, literature, and history.