The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: The Monster Squad (1987), directed by Fred Dekker

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "The Monster Mash", by Bobby Pickett

     The world of cinema loves to pretend that childhood is a much better experience than it typically is. If you’re abused by your legal guardians, then it must mean that you’re a wizard just waiting to go to magic school. If you’re on a shitty sports team, then you’re destined to beat the best team in the league thanks to help of the badass rebel kid/girl who is good at sports and your coach, who was originally down on his luck but turns his life around by the end of the movie. No matter if you’re overweight, a different gender or ethnicity, disabled, the world of cinema would have us believe that there was a group of like-minded children just waiting to be your friends and go on awesome life-changing adventures with you. Maybe you’d get to be popular by the end of it, or get your first kiss from a girl by the end of it, but that world hinted at in these films. It was all a dirty, filthy, lie of course, but it was those worlds and those lives that we wished were our own, ones that we lived through vicariously whenever we watched those movies. Kinda like Being John Malkovich, but with the Bad News Bears instead.

     The Monster Squad is one such example of the ‘kids adventure’ genre, or to be more accurate ‘Goonies but with monsters’. The film follows the titular Monster Squad, a gaggle of kids (including a fat loser kid and the leather jacket wearing middle school badass) who are brought together due to their mutual love of monster trivia. The common belief is that monsters aren’t real, but when the lead kid comes across the journal of Abraham van Helsing himself, which details the ritual through which darkness can rule the world, said belief is shattered when Count Dracula himself (along with a literal squad of monsters) arrives in Small Town U.S.A. hellbent on getting the journal for his own nefarious plans. It’s Monster Squad vs. Monster Squad in The Monster Squad, the only movie that dares to claim an 8 year old boy is a fair fight for a centuries old creature of darkness.

     If you’ve already seen The Goonies, The Sandlot and Stand By Me, then you’ve already seen the pinnacle of ‘kids adventure’, and The Monster Squad might seem a bit redundant by comparison. The monster costumes are great though, and there’s a lot more violence in this movie than you’d see in the others, which is a definite plus. If you’ve got a weakness for these kinds of movies, or if you’re a parent looking for movies to show your kid on Halloween that aren’t too scary, then this one might be for you. Keep in mind that is a bit of salty language though, in case you have a problem with that sort of thing.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: The Believers (1987), directed by John Schlesinger

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Do You Fear For Your Child?" by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult

     The 30s saw the rise of movie monsters, and the 50s were big on aliens and giant insects, but in the late 60s and 70s it was all about the supernatural. Ghosts, demons, cults of various shapes and sizes, whether it was an instant classic like The Exorcist or a experimental flop like Incubus movie audiences just ate it right up. They still did even after the 70s in fact, as horror shifted to tales of serial killers and android assassins, and still later with Home Improvement. Even if people don’t really believe in any of it, the idea of it is still fairly popular, if the multitudes of ghost hunting shows on television is any indication. Turns out Dungeons & Dragons and Satan were connected after all, but only as cogs in the pop culture machine.

     In 1987 John Schlesinger, director of films like Marathon Man and the excellent Midnight Cowboy, decided to jump into the horror game with this film, The Believers. Martin Sheen stars as Cal Jamison, a police therapist who moves to the big city with his young son Chris after his wife dies in a freak spilled milk/coffee maker accident. Things seem to be going well, Cal’s met a lady friend in the form of Jessica (Helen Shaver), Chris meets a maid in the form of Carmen, everyone’s happy. For about a second a least, until Chris discovers an odd looking shell next to a ritual animal sacrifice while playing at the park with his dad. Suddenly Cal gets caught up in a bizarre case, one involving a emotionally disturbed cop and a dead child, murdered in some kind of bizarre ritual. It all seems to tie into a religion known as Santeria, born from precolonial Africa but still practiced today, an unfamiliar blend of paganism and Judeo-Christian imagery which to a lapsed Catholic like Cal seems like a load of hogwash. Just because Cal isn’t interested in Santeria doesn’t mean that Santeria isn’t interested in him though, and soon Cal finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a world that he refused to accept as real. A world that has something particularly special in mind when it comes to his son Chris. More special than dairy, even.

     The thing about The Believers is that it takes a lot of cues from horror movies of the past, particularly The Omen and The Wicker Man. Skeptic protagonists, supernatural conspiracies, dead kids, the whole nine yards. Which isn’t really a problem, a lot of films are informed by the past, but The Believers apes those films too well, to the point where it picks up the issues those films had as well. Issues like the protagonist taking ridiculously long to admit that shit is going wrong, plots that seem a bit overly complicated for what the antagonists are trying to accomplish, a slow burn with a runtime to match, etc. Things that you didn’t notice or could forgive when it came to those movies, but grate a little with The Believers, which hasn’t built up the level of goodwill as those films have.

     Not to say that it’s bad per se, it’s just...ok. The acting is fine, the cinematography is clean with plenty of great shots, but for some reason the believability factor (ironically) isn’t quite there, as it was in films like The Wicker Man. That film almost seemed real in its own way, The Believers is a little bit too polished for its own good. Not to mention the noticeably awkward pacing. We spend about an hour and twenty minutes on this slow burn figuring out the case thing, Cal resolutely against the idea of magic being real and then like a snap of the fingers he’s murdering chickens and casting magic spells. There’s no real build-up to it, in fact in the previous scene he’s screaming at a poor woman for using magic, so it comes as bipolar and an awkward concession to move the plot forward. I mean it’s your movie John, if you wanted extra time to more properly document Cal’s character arc you could have just done that. You’re already asking about 2 hours of your audience’s time, what’s an extra 30 minutes or so?

     Seeing as it is ok rather than bad however, and not nearly as racist as you’d expect it to be given its subject matter, The Believers gets a tentative recommendation. There’s not much that comes to mind to say about it, beyond that it’s watchable and won’t leave you utterly annoyed by the end of it. However it’s not really top of the queue watch material, especially if you haven’t seen The Omen, The Wicker Man or even Rosemary’s Baby yet. While it might be one of those films that needs multiple viewings for it to really hit home, aswas the case for me and The Omen actually, I don’t know if you’re gonna want to spend your Halloween watching just one movie. You do you though.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Raising Arizona (1987), directed by Joel Coen

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Way Out There", by Carter Burwell

     One of the first movies that really dug itself into my soul as a budding movie fan, beyond that Tim Burton obsession way back, was a Coen Brothers movie. 1998’s The Big Lebowski to be precise, a Raymond Chandler-esque mystery story that traded the Golden Age of Hollywood in all its dirt and grime with the burnt-out, post-modern apathy of the early 90s. I was stuck with Comedy Central’s ‘edited for TV’, which was a hackjob if ever I saw one, with entire subplots and scenes removed, but even through the butchery I was able to catch enough of the magic to make me fall in love with their work from then on. With the Coens, they’re never just telling a story with their films, they’re crafting their own little worlds that slowly reveal themselves to you as intricately crafted webs of actions, consequences and so on. Worlds that are full of losers, assholes, and otherwise terrible people, but people who show a level of emotional depth and complexity that you wouldn’t expect. While maybe not as rabidly popular as Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers have reached that same level of critical and commercial acclaim that some directors can only glimpse at during their careers. Well, except for The Ladykillers.

     Have I blown enough smoke up their asses yet?

     Despite my love for the Coens, they’ve never actually appeared on any of the previous Marathons. In fact I’ve only ever reviewed one film of theirs on the blog, the illustrious Fargo (now an illustrious television series), a couple years back. Since then I’ve had a disturbing lack of Coens in my life, and it’s about damn time that we rectified that situation. Of course the Coens don’t generally deal in the Halloweenish films genres, but that’s never stopped us before, has it?

     H.I. McDunnough is what you might call a ‘recidivist’. He’s not a bad guy per se, he’s never intentionally hurt anyone and he rarely says an unkind word, but he just can’t stop himself from committing crime and getting his ass thrown in jail. Not that it doesn’t have its advantages; It’s during the processing for his various crimes that he meets Edwina (she’s the one that takes his mugshots), and the two fall in love and eventually get married. Life is good, at least until the question of children is brought up, and it is revealed that Edwina is incapable of getting pregnant. Adoption is out as well, because of H.I.’s criminal record, so it seems like they’re out of luck. Well, they could try just...taking a baby. Like that rich guy Nathan Arizona, he’s just had five kids at the same time! There’s no way he and his wife can take care of all of them the way they need. If H.I. and Ed were to, say, take one of the babies, no one would care right? H.I. and Ed get a child of their own, Arizona has one less kid to deal with, everybody wins! Right?

     Raising Arizona is definitely a weird one. It’s got all the parts of a Coen Brothers movie: Loser protagonists, spoonfuls of philosophy, interesting music (ladies love yodeling), Frances McDormand and John Goodman, everything you need for an amazing film. However, I don’t think I’ve seen a movie by the Coens that was so goofy. Gallows humor isn’t a stranger to Coen films, and they’ll even exaggerate things from time to time, but Raising Arizona is downright cartoonish. The design of the Arizona Quints bedroom, which has a crib that feels like it should be housing Popeye’s nephew rather than actual babies, the entire ‘left the baby at the store’ scene, it gets into downright wacky territory. These are the guys who reimagined the Odyssey in the Depression-era American South, and we’re getting material that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in one of the Home Alone movies. If you’ve got certain expectation of what their films should be like, it’s possible this might feel more on the level of My Name Is Earl rather than Fargo, for better or worse. Earl and H.I. are bother Southern gentleman with mustaches and wild hair who have a criminal history and are trying to do right by others.

     Silly though it may be, I find Raising Arizona to be an incredibly endearing film. Maybe it’s because I’ve had a baby/child in my life for a couple years now that H.I.’s growing fear of the pressures of responsibility and the world devolving in greater and greater levels of chaos with the inclusion of a baby seems all too familiar. However Raising Arizona is right in the sense that a baby is a source of joy as well as hardship, and seeing this gaggle of irresponsible fuckups falling under the baby spell is great fun. It’s crazy and surreal because bringing a life into the world and subsequently being everything to that life is a crazy and surreal thing. It really alters your way of thinking about the world.

     Surprising as it may be, Nicholas Cage puts in fantastic work here as H.I. McDunnough. I know the common opinion of Cage, formed from films like The Wicker Man and Ghost Rider, is that he’s a ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of performer, but honestly I think he fits in perfectly alongside Frances McDormand, John Goodman and Holly Hunter (haven’t heard from her since Crash). Softspoken, more literate than you’d expect, Cage embodies the look of a man consistently beyond his depth every single day. Yet another thing that I totally identify with, by the way.

     Recommending a Coen Brothers movie isn’t exactly a hard thing to do, but if you’ve never had a chance to and you’re wanting to try it out, then this is a good way to start. If you’re a fan of weird 80s comedies like Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure or Heathers then you’ll be in a pretty good spot. Your opinions on having kids might not change, but at least you’ll have a good time this Halloween.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Gandahar (1987), directed by Rene Laloux

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "The Robots", by Kraftwerk

     Yes, even the Europeans have animation. Some of you out there might be surprised, considering the Academy doesn’t care about animation beyond whatever Disney has crapped out that year and even less about animation outside of the U.S., but it’s true. That Tintin movie Spielberg came out with a couple years ago? Based on a Belgian comic book, which had a very popular cartoon series in the 90s. The movie Heavy Metal? Based on the sci-fi magazine Heavy Metal, which is based on the French sci-fi magazine Metal Hurlant, and featured several French artists. Wallace & Gromit? Incredibly British, as it turns out.

     As far as French animation goes, some movie fans might know the name Fantastic Planet, which was the name the English crowd gave to a French animated film released in 1973. While the actual plot of Fantastic Planet is probably lost on most audiences, the thing that sticks most in their minds is the visual design. Part Terry Gilliam picture manipulation, part Salvador Dali LSD nightmare, the film is unlike anything that you would see out of an American studio before or since. Not just because America has a bias against all things animation, but because the entire mindset around filmmaking is different. The French (to use a blatant generalization) love art, they love things to be fantastical and whimsical and surrealistic, even when it comes to their horror and their science fiction. Americans (to use another blatant generalization) love their sci-fi hard, the explosions large and a 3 to 1 ratio on violence versus sex. It’s not an issue of which one’s better than the other, it’s just how our respective cultures have progressed over the years.

     That being said, I have to say that Gandahar still isn’t all that great a movie. It looks interesting enough, beautiful even, bringing to life a world that seems to be directly inspired by such talents as Alejandro Jodorowsky and French comic artist Moebius. The story is packed to the brim with symbolism, for those that are interested in that sort of thing. Nature vs. technology, male vs. female, there’s more obvious allusions here than a 1st year film student’s term paper. The main villain looks like a giant penis for god’s sake, how much more on the nose can you get?

     All the animated boobs in the world however doesn’t change the fact that for a movie about a guy trying to save the world from an army of killer robots, not of exciting things actually happen in the movie, and even if it did, the limited animation quality would have made it seem like it was happening at a snail’s pace. It was an issue I had with Rock & Rule as well, where everything felt like it was moving in slow-motion, but it is far, far more noticeable in Gandahar. I don’t know if it’s an issue with budget or, again, it’s just a cultural preference that I’m not privy, but it almost doesn’t even seem worth doing an animated film if there’s so little you can do with it. Sure, there are scenes and effects that can only properly be done through an animated medium, but when your characters are relegated to having coy conversations with each other and behaving like animatronics, then it seems like you’ve managed to sidestep the point.

     Those of you who are super into animation, or if you like your sci-fi mostly fantasy and your fantasy mostly sci-fi, you just might find something to enjoy about Gandahar, or Light Years as its dubbed version was known. Otherwise, pretty pictures don’t make up for an ultimately boring film, and that’s why I can’t really recommend it. You’ll find more interesting films, and more cartoon breasts, in your nearest Bakshi filmography, so I suggest looking there instead.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Hellraiser (1987), directed by Clive Barker

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Hellraiser", by Krokus

     Stephen King. Love him, hate him, or totally indifferent to him, the man has firmly established his legacy in the annals of horror. I mean 200 short stories, 54 novels and 7 novellas, and around 80% of those have probably been adapted into TV shows, comics and movies over his 30+ year literary career. Hell, some of those movies (The Shining, Misery, Carrie, Stand By Me, etc.) have even been good, while some (The Langoliers) are shitty enough to be funny. The man is basically the Charles Schulz of alcoholics in Maine, a writer prolific enough to be a genre unto himself. There are those that came before, and there are those who are better, but Stephen King is the Starbucks of suspense fiction. He’s fucking everywhere.

     In the halcyon days of the mid 1980s however, there came a new writer to stake his claim in the ‘books that your mom reads’ market. His name? Clive Barker, a young maverick that, for a time, was considered the hot new thing in horror literature. While he may not have had the name reognition of King, he made up for it with post-punk artiness. You wanted horrible murder? You go for Clive Barker. You want graphic depictions of deviant sexuality? You go for Clive Barker. You want a movie that combines horrible murder and graphic depictions of deviant sexuality with a horror fantasy twist? You go for Hellraiser.

     So by this point I think everyone knows the story of Hellraiser, timeless tale that it is. Man finds glowing box which kills him, Man’s brother and frigid wife (who was apparently brainwashed by the Man’s dick, from the way she carries on) move into his house, Man partially regenerates due to spilled blood, Man compels frigid wife to murder guys to satiate his bloodlust, S&M monsters show up, there’s a bone dragon somewhere, yadda yadda yadda. Which is more than I could say about any of King’s books, far as I know, not a single bone dragon in sight. No incredibly marketable bondage demons with bizarre puzzle boxes either, though that might be for the best. We don’t really need a bondage demon arms race.

     Ridiculous plot aside, where this movie truly excels, more so than any Stephen King adaptation I can think of, is in the special effects and art design. Seeing Frank’s skeleton pull itself off of the floor, as his brain and internal organs reform is perhaps one of the best effects I’ve ever see in a horror film, and his ‘incomplete’ form is exactly what I think a man without skin would look like. Pinhead and the Cenobite Gang are likewise pretty damn interesting to look at, and it’s a shame that apparently only Pinhead returns in future installments of the franchise, considering he’s the least visually interesting monster in the movie in my opinion. Of course I imagine that ‘least visually interesting’ means ‘less expensive’, which is why he gets to be on all the posters.

     Hellraiser seems like a movie that makes more sense as a book, and Clive Barker doesn’t seem to have had enough film work (he had only directed two films before this, the last one being almost a decade prior) to prevent it from feeling too obtuse. However, the special effects and Barker’s distinct fetishes really manage to turn this movie from being yet another King-like thriller into an worthwhile horror film, especially if you’re an 80s gorehound like myself. If you are a fan of the ‘weird’ kind of horror movies, The Thing, From Beyond, Re-Animator for example, then you’ll find something to enjoy here, at least on a surface level. But remember, the safe word is ‘Halloween’.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Lost Boys (1987), directed by Joel Shumacher

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Good Times", by INXS and Jimmy Barnes

     Vampires. Even though they’ve been part of humanity’s collected folklore for hundreds of years, it seems like in the past 70 years or so we’ve really ran the concept into the ground. Ever since the publication Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ in 1897, and perhaps more importantly Universal’s film adaptation with Bela Lugosi in 1931, pop culture and the horror genre in general have been obsessed with the idea of vampires. Alien vampires, cheerleader vampires, Mexican stripper vampires, and all manner of vampire hunters, slayers, and otherwise killers. There’s been interviews with vampires, Gary Oldman vampires, Eddie Murphy vampires, and it was a vampire (Blade, played by the inestimable Wesley Snipes) that gave a poor Disney-less Marvel the hope that one day they could sell out their IP’s and make billions selling bland action movies to Hollywood. In fact, there are so many damn vampires nowadays that I’m fucking sick of them. If I never saw another vampire for the next decade, I think I could enjoy a healthy and productive life with no trouble.

     So of course we’re talking about a vampire movie now.

     We’re not unfamiliar with vampires on the Marathon of the Soul. Last year, in fact, where I tried to be as eclectic as possible with my choices we still ended up with two movies with vampires in it (Monster Squad and Nosferatu). There were even more when I was originally compiling the list for potential films; From Dusk Till Dawn, the Universal Dracula films, the Hammer Dracula films, etc., etc. The Lost Boys was always in the running for placement, but it ended up getting lost in the shuffle during that slipshod show I was running at the time. So it’s in this time around, nuff said.

     Directed by Joel Schumacher, the man behind Batman & Robin (infamously known as the worst Batman movie until Chris Nolan shat out The Dark Knight Rises), and produced by Richard Donner, the man behind Superman, The Omen and The Goonies, The Lost Boys takes the classic tale of seduction and the undead prevalent in most vampire and transplants it to a California beach community. Rather than the young virginal maiden falling prey to the devilishly handsome creature of the night, we have the young virginal Mike falling prey to the mysterious and alluring, though possibly not legal Star, a member of a gang of murderous vampires (featuring a pre-Excellent Adventure Bill S. Preston) led by the evil David, played by Kiefer Sutherland. When Mike ends up accidentally becoming the undead, it’s up to his nerdy little brother, played by Corey Haim, and his nerdy little brother’s friends, one of which is played by Corey Feldman to kill the head vampire and save the day. Why the head vampire? Who cares, it’s magic.

     If it seems like I’m a bit flippant about the movie, I guess I am. It’s not a bad movie by any means, because it’s on the list. There’s some comedy here, and the artistic design is actually quite interesting at times (which is one of the high-points of B&R), but it’s so ‘of it’s time’ that I find it hard to really get into it. Haim & Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland with a mullet, the softcore sex scene with a glow filter and ballad in the background, the poster of a half-naked dude on Haim’s closet, that crap that they tried to call music...If I were a teenager in 1987, if I were a teenager in general, I’d probably watch The Lost Boys and think it was the coolest shit ever, because it has everything a disaffected youth like me would find interesting: Sex, functional immortality, comic books, taxidermy jokes, the works. I still like a lot of those things, but I feel like I’ve either finally become a man (doubtful), or I’m just not the demographic this film was marketed towards, and this film’s foundation is so rooted in that late 80s demographic that it’s unable to attain the level of timelessness that other kid-adventure style movies achieve despite the time period. Could be both, could be either.

     If you’ve already seen The Goonies and The Monster Squad, and you’re looking for a similar type of movie with a bit harder edge, then check out The Lost Boys. Once you get past the vampires dressed like Axl Rose and the Echo & the Bunnymen posters on the wall, it actually ends up being pretty fun by the second half. Perfect fare for a Halloween movie night I’d say. Might even inspire a few ideas for your next costume party, if you’re so inclined. Tis the season, after all.

The Living Daylights (1987), directed by John Glen

watched ParaNorman recently. Not gonna make an entry about it, but it was an alright movie. I love stop-motion animation, as I've mentioned before, although the movie itself felt kind of light. Not nearly as much paranormal activity as I expected, but then I was expecting Night on Bald Mountain kinda shit.

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "The Living Daylights", by A-ha

     I wish I knew the right way to start off this entry, but I've never been that much of a James Bond kind of guy. Not to say that I haven’t enjoyed some 007 movies in my time: Skyfall, Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, all enjoyable films, all what I would say are good films...but I don’t connect with them as strongly as I do with other movies. James Bond is supposed to be the male fantasy, super suave, travels all over the world, has sex with hot chicks, drives cool cars, etc. I enjoy that on the basic level that was undoubtedly intended for, but when it happens every single movie, doesn't that get old after a while? Even the supposedly more realistic film of the Craig Bond films fall into this repetitive behavior, changing the ancillary characters around a bit but not really changing anything truly meaningful. Maybe that’s what has helped James Bond remain a franchise for so long, the allure of status quo with a new coat of paint every few years, like a multimillion dollar production of Gilligan’s Island where all the spy gadgets are made of coconuts. Is it too much to ask that a James Bond movie have an attractive woman who a. is not ‘the chick minion’ and b. doesn't immediately have sex with some British dude she’s known for like 2 days? 

     Anyway, The Living Daylights begins with Bond being ordered to protect one General Koskov, a potential defector from the Soviet Union from an assassination attempt. Bond does so (by disarming a suspiciously over attractive sniper), but Koskov is recaptured several days later seemingly by KGB agents. All the evidence seems to point to the actions of one General Pushkin (a perfectly reasonable Soviet beforehand) who has formed a kill list of American and British secret agents in order to escalate tensions to the point of nuclear war. 007 is ordered to execute Pushkin while he’s at a conference in Tangier, but James has his doubts; about Pushkin, about Koskov, and especially about that attractive sniper, who didn't even know how to use a rifle. It’s just the kind of combination of events James Bond needs in order to have a rip-roaring adventure, and adventure he does.

     The is the first James Bond film to star Timothy Dalton in the tux, taking over the role after Roger Moore. You don’t often hear much talk about Dalton Bond, perhaps because he was in only two films, but I think he slips into the role just fine. He’s perhaps a muted version of Connery’s Bond, if you can understand my meaning, or perhaps a proto-version of the Craig Bond; a suave gentleman when need be, but analytical as well. Dalton’s Bond feels like an assassin as well as a secret agent, like he spends his days straight up killing dudes rather than saving the world from evil plots, which makes him rather more a real secret agent than any other Bond that had been done previously. Unless you count Roald Dahl, who was apparently a huge poon hound when he was in the secret service.

     Maryam d’Abo plays the Bond girl this time around, a Czech cellist by the name of Kara Milovy. She looks lovely, aside from the fact it almost looked like she had a unibrow, so I suppose she earned her paycheck this time around. I wasn't really taken with her character (the ‘girl is in love with a guy who’s actually a villain’ angle has been done before) up until the end, when she began to do things by herself rather than wait for Bond to do things for her. Other than that though, she wasn't all that remarkable. A solid C at best.

     The Living Daylights also suffers from a lack of a strong antagonist. Goldfinger, Dr. No, Blofeld, fantastical near super villains are the cornerstone of the James Bond franchise (even if you count the down to earth From Russia With Love as the greatest James Bond film, you have to admit it’s in the minority in terms of content). TLD’s main villain, such as it is, is a black market arms dealer by the name of Whitaker, played by occasional MST3K subject Joe Don Baker. Whitaker has an interesting enough gimmick, a pretend soldier completely obsessed with warfare to the point he keeps wax warlords in his house, but he’s barely in the movie at all, and most of the antagonist screen time is given to his subordinates. It’s like if in Goldfinger if James Bond fought Oddjob the whole film, and Goldfinger only showed up a couple of times to make gold-based puns before he died. Not only that, but the minions who do most of the antagonizing aren't that interesting either, just some assassin and a Russian general, and neither of them have a razor sharp throwing hat. I know that asking for camp might be a bit antithetical in these modern times, but if the best serious villains you can make are ones that don’t feel threatening then it doesn't matter how much more realistic they are, because they’re interesting to watch. I will give them points for the exploding milk though.

     So who does the main theme in this entry into the James Bond franchise, which has featured songs by such figures as Paul McCartney, Carly Simon and Sheena Easton? a-Ha. Yes, the Norwegian new wave band a-ha does the main theme for The Living Daylights, the appropriately titled “The Living Daylights”. I’m a fan of the new wave sound, and I think a-Ha puts in a good performance, but it doesn't really feel like a Bond theme. There’s no sense of grandeur, none of the larger than life feeling that truly brings the mind the character of James Bond, it just feels like a song playing at the beginning of a movie. Hell, Live and Let Die is supposed to be a particularly shitty movie from what I've read, but that theme! That’s a theme so good it gets played on the radio with no context at all and it still rocks the house every time.

    If your local radio station doesn't play “Live and Let Die”, request it as soon as possible. Your listening area will be a better place because of it.

     The Living Daylights seems trapped within its era, stuck between the tired Moore Bond movies and the soon to be awful Brosnan Bond movies. This movie feels like it might have been trying to emulate FRWL, and Dalton could have pulled it off, but then he ends up sledding down a hill in a cello case and watching scientists trying out ‘the ghetto blaster’. The uneven feeling of mood whiplash and lack of remarkable villain make this an unfortunately average movie, but it’s still got a lot of that Bond feel to it, and those interested in seeing an oft-forgotten James Bond (not as much as Lazenby, but still not well known) might like to check out the differences. Better luck next time, 007.

     James Bond will return in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But that might be a while.

Result: Tentatively Recommended