IT'S LET'S WATCH A MOVIE WEEK! Where I live-blog me watching a film and comment along the way! Most of these films I watched a while back, I just wanted to hold off talking about them until more people had a chance to see them. Because of the pandemic, and all that.

Today's movie is... James Bond in No Time to Die!

If you haven't seen it yet, this will obviously be a spoiler-filled entry. And probably not make a lot of sense. You've been warned.

If you're somebody who just wants me to summarize and not have to read through the smalltalk to see how I felt, here you go: No Time to Die is a fitting film for Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond. There's the thrilling action you'd expect, but considerable depth as well. Alas, this sometimes causes the film to drag and make it feel overly-convoluted, but ultimately it has enough going for it to do the franchise justice (even if Rami Malek is not really given the opportunity to make his mark as a Bond villain). My favorite Bond of the Craig era will always be Skyfall, but No Time to Die is second... or at least tied with Casino Royale for second. Thanks to everybody for making this last hurrah worth watching.
GRADE: B

• If I were this little girl, I would be screaming "HOLD YOUR FUCKING HORSES, MOM! I'LL GET YOUR GLASS OF BOX-O-WINE WHEN I HAVE A MINUTE!" I can't stand abusive crap like this.
• Daddy's business dealings are paying a visit. Dressed in cultural appropriation. Oopsies.
• Daddy is Mr. White? Well this will not go well.
• See.
• Well, this little girl did not come to play! She is going to fuck up this intruder with the upmost prejudice! And even clean up the body! How sweet!
• Yeah... always put a couple rounds in the head just to be sure. That's a mistake you generally don't get to make more than once.
• That not one of those bullets landed in her face is pretty remarkable.
• "We have all the time in the world." — Um. James obviously hasn't seen his old movies (in particular, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". That's not a very smart assessment to make.
• Vespa really did a number on poor James's heart. And that explosion really did a number on James's head! Ouchies!
• And here's what we REALLY want in a James Bond flick... a cool action chase! At least James has the luxury of being licensed to kill and of the fuckers who mess with him.
• I want spikey bombs installed on my car! How handy would that be?
• Daniel Craig has the bluest blue eyes. My ovaries are melting.
• Damn, James. People are always lying to you and out to kill you. To blame poor Madeline based on the word of people trying to kill you is pretty cold.
• Billie Eilish is as good a choice as any for an opening theme song. But, man, it will be tough to top Adele's Skyfall any time soon. This song is okay, but needs some elevation in there somewhere to feel like Bond. Oh well. At least it's better than that horrific Sam Smith pile of shit monstrosity... the worst Bond theme of all time.
• This is another gorgeously-filmed Bond flick. They always get top-tier directors and cinematographers.
• =sigh= Another bioweapon plot. I understand that this is a valid and very real scenario, but isn't there anything else going on in the world? This was well-covered in films like The Rock and Mission Impossible 2.
• Moneypenny! She was so great when she first appeared, yet we see less and less of her. and as much as I miss Judi Dench, this role is perfect for Ralph Fiennes.
• FELIX! Yay! Looks like we're getting all the players to say goodbye to Daniel Craig! I can say without a doubt that this is my favorite actor to play the part. Jeffrey Wright owned the role from his first scene in Casino Royale. This new guy with Felix is a dick. I hope that Felix isn't retiring and we get stuck with him for future films (assuming all the parts aren't recast).
• Nomi. No Me. I see that they are intent on continuing with the double entendres. It's tradition!
• Lashana Lynch would be a welcome choice as a Bond Girl. But she's an exceptional pick for the new 007. The fact that it caused heads to explode around the world... A WOMAN?!? A BLACK WOMAN?!??... just makes it even better. I, for one, would have zero problem if she continues on. Less than zero. How amazing would that be?
• Hilarious. MI6 dicks around with James, so James decides to take Felix up on his offer. And therrrrrre's Nomi! LOL!
• ANA DE ARMAS!!!! God she's adorable. I would watch her in absolutely anything. She stole my heart in Blade Runner 2049. She was fucking magic in Knives Out, and having her appear with Daniel Craig again is fantastic. I sure hope that her future in the movies is a good one. She can do anything. There's no need to relegate her to terrible films.
• "Three weeks training!" LOL. Give me a Paloma movie, please! But given the movie tradition of killing off Bond girls, I'd settle for her just surviving this film.
• Ah. So it is a targeted bioweapon. Bye bye Spectre. And it looks like the new 007 is no slouch at her job! You go, Nomi! And neither is Felix's agent! You go, Paloma with your three weeks training! Damn!
• Fuck. Yes. GIVE US A PALOMA MOVIE! She can be Nomi's new Felix! So happy that they aren't making her an incompetent screw-up. And how awesome would a friendly competition spy flick be between the two of them? The possibilities!
• "You were excellent." Yes. Yes she was!
• Wow. Another long movie. Only an hour in... and there's still an hour and 45 minutes left? What happened to 2 hour movies? What happened to 90 minute movies?
• Bond should put a bullet in Felix's dumbass co-worker. Or maybe Felix will do it.
• Oh... Ash is a bad guy. Yikes. AND OH SHIT! HE SHOT FELIX!!! Dang. I hope Felix doesn't die. Again. Haven't they killed the character once already? I remember him getting eaten by sharks in License to Kill, but I think he survived (but his wife died, of course).
• Yep. Felix is dead. Sad. Especially since he's my favorite Felix.
• Bond. James Bond. Complete with the theme music! I live for this shit!
• LOL. Moneypenny and Nomi has the funniest exchange yet!
• Okay... they made Q a gay man. Bravo. Progress. But I am willing to bet a hundred bucks that you won't see his boyfriend. Which is to say that he might as well not be gay at all. We get a reference to "him" and that's as far as it will go. To actually show him in a relationship with a man would just be bridge too far. It usually is. Even in 2022.
• So... Q learned his lesson. Sandboxing tech from an unknown source. Good boy.
• And... told you.
• Will Madeline not recognize the man who killed his mom? She saw a big chunk of Safin's face, and they gave him some very recognizable and unique scars. And yet she forgot everything, I guess. — Ah. She remembers his mask though! Well that's nice.
• NANOBOTS! Well okay then. At least they tried to make bio-weapons new! If somebody can build nanobots which would only target email spammers, the world be forever grateful.
• Well then. Madeline is going ahead with using Nanobot Potion No. 9... so bye bye Blofeld, I guess. That's the last of Spectre.
• Oopsies. James touched Madeline's wrist, which means now he's infected with Nanobot Potion No. 9! So cool that Christoph Waltz is making another appearance. He's perfect casting for Blofeld, I just wish that his movie could have been better. Spectre was kinda disappointing. It was tired. And haphazard. And lacking in thrills. But it was a slick entry... Waltz made it worth a watch, that's for sure.
• This whole "Once Heracles is there, it's there forever!" angle is kinda nonsense. I mean, surely a second nanobot could be created to eliminate the first one? And how hilarious is it that Bond took a cue from Mission Impossible 2 to name their virus. The virus was "Chimera" in MI:2 (and the cure was Bellerophon).
• Oh James. No means no. Except to him no almost always means yes, so I suppose he is unfamiliar. And let me guess... this little girl is James Bond's kid? — Except Madeline says that she's not. Which means that she most definitely is. At least James has a good sense of humor about it all. Assumably Madeline would be carrying the blue-eye gene recessively to make this possible, because her eyes are brown.
• "We're going on an adventure, darling." Oh I'll just bet!
• Damn! Good on you Madeline! Put a cap in his ass!
• And here's revenge on Ash for Felix. Good. No offense to James, but I would have saved him so that I could have strangled him with my bare hands.
• "Thank you, 007." Yes. YESSSSSS! They didn't bring in Lashana Lynch just to sideline her when things get moving!
• The sight gag with Q's tea set is so good. They've actually given us a lot of callbacks and cool nods like this, which is appreciated.
• Rami Malek is a talented actor and I was really looking forward to seeing how he would do as a Bond villain. To his credit, he's done a darn good job with the material he was given... he's menacing, evil, sadistic, creepy, and cruel... but he seems so underutilized. It's the villain which defines a Bond film, and it's always been that way because villains come and go while Bond is always the same (even when played by different actors). But Malek isn't really given an opportunity to make his mark. There's been no show-stopping moment. His biggest flexes so far have been showing up in a mask and taking a little girl away from her mother. Perhaps he will yet have his moment, but we're running out of time.
• God. Just shoot this Obruchev guy so that even if you fail with the mission, Safin can't make this piece of shit construct any more designer viruses to target people.
• Yeah. This little discussion with Safin is grinding the film to a stop. Somebody should have rethought this.
• At last. Thank you, 007. Jesus this little Obruchev worm was annoying as fuck. I have no idea why he wasn't killed immediately. Good luck creating your master race with your balls melting off, asshole.
• Yeah... see... this entire endgame should have been rethought. Bullets flying everywhere and I'm bored. It's all just so random and unfocused. If somebody would have tightened this up, the movie would have earned a B+ from me. But right now it's feeling more like a B or B-.
• Though, I have to say, Bond doing it all his own way while ignoring Q's intricate plan is funny.
• Welp. I guess we know how this is going to end.
• See... I am so much more awful than James Bond. I would have shot Safin in the balls and let him lay there in agony while waiting for the bomb to drop.
• And they killed James Bond. Or this iteration of James Bond, rather. I have to wonder if Daniel Craig requested this of the writers in order to come back one last time (he wanted to quit two or three movies ago). The question remains... will they start all over with a new James Bond? Or will they give Nomi a shot? Even just one shot. Give her a 007 flick and see what happens. Why not? Well, that's obvious... the status quo is where we live. Even in the movies.
• Louis Armstrong's gorgeous song is an apt closer. While never an actual James Bond Theme, it was the defacto theme from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• BUT COME ON! JUST GIVE US A NOMI AND PALOMA MOVIE! WE DESERVE THAT MUCH!!!