Bond. James Bond.

It’s the longest running movie franchise in history, running from 1962 to 2008 and beyond. The main character has been played by six different actors to date, another one taking over when the present one becomes too old. But no matter who he is played by, he gets his bad guy and his girl (or several girls). I think I’ll let him introduce himself:

Bond. James Bond.

I’m going to say right off the bat that I have not seen all the films; I am not a crazy Bond fan. The action is pretty awesome, but all the movies are what I like to call “Blicks” (Boy flicks, the opposite of a Chick Flick). A blick can be defined with the following criteria:

1) The main character is male and impossibly cool. They are usually employed as a cop, a detective, a secret agent, an athlete, or any other kind of loner.

2) Something explodes within the first 10 minutes of the movie

3) There is no female character development. They are there for eye candy and are strictly two-dimensional.

4) The plot line is forgettable.

5) The moral of the story often is: the government isn’t going to do anything about it, so you better do it yourself.

Don’t get me wrong. I like blicks on occasion. I love the Die Hard movies, Lethal Weapon, and even the oldie blicks with Humphrey Bogart. The thing that bugs me most about blicks is the lack of awesome female characters. I mean, they give the girls names like Pussy Galore , Plenty O’Toole, Octopussy and Dr. Holly Goodhead (No, I’m not making this up). Way to not objectify the ladies, Hollywood.

I might not like the James Bond movies because I didn’t grow up watching them. I tried watching Goldfinger this summer, but stopped when Pussy Galore flew in with her plane posse and proudly declared her name for all to hear. Even Sean Connery didn't believe it ("I must be dreaming"). With all the implied sex scenes and deaths by bowling hat, I kept checking the ratings with disbelief (This is PG?!) I finally just assumed that Bond did not die, since he has a gazillion sequels, and stopped watching. And James Bond got over the deaths of his precious Bond girls quite easily. I mean, is this guy even human? He just stares in disbelief at his brightly rainbow colored (dead) girls and then moves on with life, hunky dory. (Oh, did I forget to mention that the Bond girls are usually killed by dipping them in oil or gold or something like that? Do all these completely different villains get together and just decide to kill the girls like this just to screw with James and make things emotionally traumatic for him? I don’t think it’s working, it doesn’t affect him that much) . Also, in the beginning of Goldfinger, why don’t the intruders in Bond’s hotel room just kill him? Why bother knocking him out?

These movies present many ample opportunities for James Bond to die, why don’t the filmmakers just go with it? (Oh yeah, because the Bond movies have grossed nearly $5 billion worldwide. Bond = $$$).

All this Bond talk has made me thirsty. I’m going to go make a martini, shaken, not stirred.