As a kid, I was one of the millions that grew up watching the James Bond films in total amazement – over and over on VHS and on the TV every Christmas. In the UK, James Bond is arguably the single biggest institution – everyone from your young cousins to grandparents has watched most of the films and has an opinion on their favourite Bond, film, Bond Girl, villain, poster… Globally, Bond is nothing short of a phenomenon, proving himself to be one of the UK’s biggest exports.

First Bond collection, bought film by film

Starting in 1962 the Bond films are the longest-running franchise in cinema history, and hold the 2nd best all-time non-adjusted box office for a film series after Harry Potter (beating Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Star Trek…) To pinpoint the one thing that makes Bond so successful would be impossible, but I suspect that it has something to do with 007 having a dream job, dream girls, dream gadgets, dream cars all topped off with a dangerous lifestyle.

At the risk of ruining all of my fond childhood memories, I’m going to watch every single Bond with a critical eye over the next month to find out how Fleming and Broccoli managed to mould a single spy into one of the most cultural, global & timeless icons of all time. Everyone’s welcome to join in. There’s a schedule below this post and more info here and here.

From memory, Bond is a modern day cowboy who’s swapped his six-shooter for a PPK and horse for horse-power. He does little thinking, and lives for danger, jumping foot first into the action. He’s well dressed, and has exquisite tastes in everything from food & drink though to clothes and women. Most importantly for the movies, Bond has blind loyalty to his country and will do absolutely anything to progress the mission – naturally, this always gets him into perilous situations, which is the lifeblood of each movie. Despite spanning almost 50 years it seems like the Bond films have stuck to the same formula for

Hero + Villains + Babes + Danger + Action = Great cinema!

Over the course of January we’ll see how that formula holds up!

Cheers,

Paul
Paragraph Film Reviews

3rd Jan – Dr No
4th Jan – From Russia With Love
5th Jan – Goldfinger
6th Jan – Thunderball
7th Jan – You Only Live twice

10th Jan – On Her Majesties Secret Service
11th Jan – Diamonds Are Forever
12th Jan – Live and let Die
13th Jan – Man with the Golden Gun
14th Jan – The Spy Who Loved Me
15th Jan – Moonraker

17th Jan – For Your Eyes Only
18th Jan – Octopussy
19th Jan – A View To A Kill
20th Jan – The Living Daylights
21st Jan – Licence to Kill

24th Jan – GoldenEye
25th Jan – Tomorrow Never Dies
26th Jan – The World is Not Enough
27th Jan – Die Another Day
28th Jan – Casino Royale
29th Jan – Quantum of Solace

Quick follow-up from my last post about James Bond January – more details here. It’s still not too late to sign up; from today there’s over seven weeks – or 54 days – until the Quantum of Solace posts get published. That’s a Bond flick every 2 1/2 days, so still totally achievable if you wanted to do every film!

Content wise, the posts don’t have to be limited to reviews, they can be memories, features, lists, observations, pictures, critiques or even anti-Bond posts! Anything that will generate discussion on the franchise is cool by me.

A final clarification – you can do one film, all twenty-two films, or any number in between. Just be sure that they match the schedule in this post and are all tagged “James Bond January” so everyone can follow this.

Here’s a list of the current participants, I’ll keep this as up to date as I can.

Aiden (Cut The Crap Movie Reviews)
Darren M (The M0vie Blog)
Marc (Go See Talk)
Heather (Movie Mobsters)
Caz (Lets Go To The Movies)
Andrew (Andrew at the Cinema)
Andy – (Fandango Groovers)
Clara (Via-51)
Mikey (The Reviewer)
Nicola (Average Film Reviews)
Andrew (Row Three)
Clarabela (Just Chick Flicks)
Sledge (Battle Royale with Cheese)
Erik (Film Jabber)
Klaus (Ming)
Jason (The Athletic Nerd)
Sarah (She Likes to Watch)
Joem (Does Writing Excuse Watching?)
Stu – (Undy a Hundy)
The Peoples Movies Blog
Susannah -(Not Really Working)
Java – (Java’s Journey)
Steve – (Watching the Detectives)

If you fancy spreading the word by re-blogging / linking / e-mailing / tweeting some info on your blogs – or to individuals that may be interested in this – it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Paul,
Paragraph Film Reviews.

Calling all film reviewers!!

Given that the Bond films are THE most successful, and one of the few universally-loved franchises in the history of cinema I thought it would only be fitting to to give the world’s greatest spy his own awesome feature.

The idea’s simple; everyone that wants to take part watches all – or any – of the Bond movies and posts up their reviews to the schedule (below) throughout the January, tagging them all “James Bond January” so we can all keep up with the event.

UPDATE POST HERE

Best case scenario: over the course of January the 22 clustered film reviews bring this project worldwide notoriety, re-emphasises why Bond is so great, the next movie is finally green-lighted and we all get a million blog hits!!!!Awesome!!!

Worst case scenario: a massive group of avid Bond fans all get to watch and discuss the villains, gadgets, cars and babes of every James Bond film – from Dr No through to Quantum of Solace!!StillAwesome!!

If you’re interested in participation, please comment or send an e-mail to the address below and I’ll put your name/blog link on list I’ll publish nearer the time. If you think you know anyone that would be interested, please, please, please forward this message to them. And feel free to re-post, hot-link, podcast or tweet this post.

It doesn’t matter if you want to do one, two or every single film; the more people that muck in, the better!

Cheers,

Paul
Paragraph Film Reviews
paragraphfilmreviews@hotmail.com

James Bond January – Schedule

3rd Jan – Dr No
4th Jan – From Russia With Love
5th Jan – Goldfinger
6th Jan – Thunderball
7th Jan – You Only Live twice

10th Jan – On Her Majesties Secret Service
11th Jan – Diamonds Are Forever
12th Jan – Live and let Die
13th Jan – Man with the Golden Gun
14th Jan – The Spy Who Loved Me
15th Jan – Moonraker

17th Jan – For Your Eyes Only
18th Jan – Octopussy
19th Jan – A View To A Kill
20th Jan – The Living Daylights
21st Jan – Licence to Kill

24th Jan – GoldenEye
25th Jan – Tomorrow Never Dies
26th Jan – The World is Not Enough
27th Jan – Die Another Day
28th Jan – Casino Royale
29th Jan – Quantum of Solace

UDATE POST HERE