Who is the best? Who is The greatest? Who is the The Goat? What’s your top ten this? Who’s your top five that? What’s the greatest movie, song, basketball player? Goat Goat Goat. Here’s a goat there’s a goat, everywhere’s a goat goat.
I saw someone’s name on a shabby old cafe marquee. This person was The Greatest Of All Time at co-owning a restaurant, I presume. Somewhere else, a church had G.O.A.T incorporated into their marquee somehow. I don’t remember the exact context and I don’t have the energy to use my creative license to fake one.
Admittedly, I’m guilty of contemplating favorites, bests, and compiling lists- as much as anyone else. Lately I’m thinking we could take a step back from all this rating business though. We’re all one- all connected.
I watched the most recent James Bond movie with my little brother a week or so ago. He lives in Houston, I live in San Antonio. Nick told me he was going to visit me for my birthday. He asked me what I wanted to do. I’m not feeling very creative these days. It would have been nice to show him the Riverwalk, but it was dark out. The Alamo is a tiny thing one drives by and is underwhelmed. I was tired. We’re all tired.
Ultimately, We ate at Shake Shack and then we went to see No Time To Die, the latest Bond movie.
When I was young, I lived with my brothers and our parents in a rural desert-like place called Valley Center. I remember the night when my Dad showed me and the boys a computer screen with mostly black, grey, and blue colors as he explained that the computer was communicating with other computers- but effectively, we had no internet, or cable TV. We didn’t get a single channel over the airwaves and my parents didn’t seem to make any effort to receive one. The old TV just sat in the living room as a piece of decor, until Friday night when we’d rent movies and eat pizza.
I’d typically find a spot on the floor. Belly-down as my folks explained to me who James Bond was and what he did. He was basically in the British version of the CIA. He was cool, clever, and quite suave with the ladies.
Bond movies were among the good ones. They always delivered. Even the so-called campy, or cheesy Roger Moore versions. 007 films were entertaining, fast-moving, and exciting. Chase scenes, all that. I liked it. We liked it. Maybe you didn’t. That’s fine.
James Bond wasn’t studied in either of the film classes I took in Junior College. During my twenties, when I developed a more pretentious love of films, I didn’t view Bond movies for all their commentary. No special edition DVD’s. No hanging on every word of the director as he reminisces over the day a scene was shot.
I think you catch my drift.
But my brother was coming to town and I didn’t know what we were going to to. We weren’t going to a bar. I decided on Shake Shack because I knew exactly where it was and I trusted the execution of a chain restaurant.
This post is being churned out because I was in bed this morning thinking about the Aston Martin Daniel Craig drives in No Time to Die. Not the ten million dollar silver car from the early 60’s, but the black one from the mid 70’s- the one he drives toward the end. I’ve always liked that car. It looks a little like the original Ford Mustang while also resembling an Aston. In words, that sounds like it might be terrible but I think it’s not. I’ve always like this old, under-stated Aston.
My little brother whispered over to me in the theatre- which one is that? They’re both awesome, but the subject here is the one one the right.
–Oh that’s a 70’s Aston, yeah I’ve always like that one. It’s like a fancy old Mustang.
Toward the end of Craig’s final Bond, there is an homage to the famed opening credits sequence where Bond quickly fires back at the camera followed by blood soaking the screen from top to Bottom. In No Time to Die, Craig (my favorite Bond), re-creates the shot. He’s positioned aesthetically in a cylindrical form in an old, abandoned, nuclear facility in the middle of the ocean when he turns and quickly vanquishes a foe with a single bullet from a small gun. We see it from the foe’s perspective, as we do in every opening sequence since the beginning of Bond.
The recreation of the iconic shot and simply the presence of the old, quieter Aston make this movie “good” to me. And they’re the kinds of details that are attended to during the process by people who love what they do, no matter how much they’re paid. And that’s why No Time To Die is a good movie deserving of a good review- to me, anyway.
sanfranciscostreetfighter 