Spy in July: My Bond Beginnings

It's the fiftieth anniversary of James Bond's first cinematic adventure, as well as the year his 23rd hits big screens. Many others, no doubt, will be revisiting this series throughout the year, or perhaps closer to Skyfall's November release date. I'm choosing July for a very personal reason. July 2004, you see, was the month that started my love affair with the movies, and it all began with James Bond.

Without James Bond, I wouldn't love cinema the way I do; I'm sure of it. And consequently, there's no way John Likes Movies would exist. During my early teenage years, I saw the movies everyone saw—Spider-Man, Star Wars, etc. I enjoyed the few James Bond flicks I'd seen (Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, Goldeneye) well enough, but until July 2004, checking out his 30- to 40-year-old adventures wasn't anywhere on my radar.

That summer itself was rather transitional for me, as well. Done were my basketball days; I had given up the sport after my freshman year of high school to work, which meant this was my first summer free from the demanding training schedule that accompanied playing on the team. My new pastime was movie-watching, and after revisiting one of the newer Bond films (I think it was Goldeneye), I sought out information on the series.

That brought me to James Berardinelli's site Reelviews. He'd reviewed every film in the series, and I loved reading his thoughts on them (still do). That was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak. I was pretty set on tracking down Bond's older films, and Spike TV made that a lot easier.

Their annual "Spy in July" marathon was approaching. Almost every day that month, the network ran Bond film after Bond film. I, of course, taped as many as I could, and ate them up when the time came. Even the shitty ones (oh, there are some shitty ones) were fun because they were Bond films.

From there, I started reading some of Berardinelli's other reviews and watched some older non-Bond films. That fall, I frequented the movies a lot more often, usually for pictures with a little more prestige. Flash forward eight years, and here I am.

This July, I'll be celebrating Bond with a series of posts, appropriately titled "Spy in July". I can't—and frankly don't really want to—review each movie chronologically. It'll be too much work in a one-month span, and Bond films are really hard for me to give proper reviews because the nostalgia factor is so high. The posts, then, will be explorations on the different eras of Bond—the early Connery films, the Blofeld trilogy, Roger Moore, etc. Of course, I've seen all the films plenty of times, so I'll share a few quick thoughts on each of them individually, as well as give you a thumbs-up-thumbs-down rating. At the end of the month, I'll rank the films, as well as my favorite Bond girls, Bond villains, Bond moments, and more.

If any of you are fans of the Bond series, I encourage you to participate. Leave a comment or email me some quick thoughts on your favorite Bond film, Bond scene, or if you have one, the first experience you had with 007. I'll gather them all up and post them together near the end of the series.

That's it for now, but fear not. I will return in "Spy in July: The Early Connery Films".