James Bond Movie Review: ****The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

 This movie pits Bond against an assassin who is also developing a solar weapon.  Christopher Lee as Scaramanga makes a very good villain.  His side kick is Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize).  In this movie there are two women, Goodnight (Britt Eklund) who is another agent, and Andrea (Maud Evans) who is the lover of Scaramanga, but Bond uses her, and Scaramanga kills her.  Scaramanga has been practicing for some time of killing Bond.  And he arranges everything so that eventually he gets his one-on-one with Bond.  It does not go as he had planned.  Goodnight gets away, and disposes of her guard, but pushes him in a vat, which triggers a chain reaction and a big explosion.  Goodnight and Bond make their escape on a Chinese junk.

I think that having Nick Nack, a little man, as the side kick added to this Bond movie.  No one expects him to be the bad guy, but there he is.  Moneypenny, M and Q seem to have larger roles in this movie.  Clifton James comes back creating a cameo of his character from the previous Bond film.  However he is now on vacation.

Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones

This movie starts with an impressive explosion, and it doesn't let go.  There are the cloners, and Jenga Fett (Temuera Morrison) as the bounty hunter and gene supply for the clones.  Obi Wan (Ewan McGregor) continues in his roll of training Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen).  the most complex roll is that of Anakin, and I don't know if anyone could pull this off 100 percent, but Anakin has to go from a little boy, to Darth Vader in three easy steps.  Sometimes he comes off as a whining spoiled brat.  Padme (Natalie Portman) puts up with his antics, and in fact falls in love with him.  The wed secretly to end this episode.  Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) is here again.  He is leading the separatist, under the direction of Lord Sidious/Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).  He is such a manipulator, and in fact the Clone Army, which saves the empire, is just that, a big manipulation.  However the Clones are able to save our heroes from certain death at the hands of the drone army.  There is a cameo part of the owner of a cantina.  He is such a fascinating characters.  "Cloners!" is a line so well given.  I don't know if this character was computer generated or not but it was voiced by Ronald Falk.  After Dooku defeats Anakin and Obi Wan, we get to see Yoda in action with his light saber.  It is fun to see him bouncing around.  Story is again provided by George Lucas.

Movie Review: ****Hugo

Tony and I watched this movie at the theater.  Hugo 2011 is a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and with Ben Kingsley who of course is better known for playing Ghandi.  It features a couple young actors, Asa Butterfield (future Ender Wiggin) and Chloe Grace Moretz, Hugo and Isabelle in the movie.  The story is very intriguing.  It never developed into the all powerful revelation I was expecting, but was surprising in the revelations and conclusions it did make.  The show is more about relationships of the boy with those around him.  He is living in a train station watching the clocks.  This is in fact his Uncle's job, who took him in when his father died.  However his uncle has disappeared.  There is an inspector who likes to grab kids and send them to orphanages.  The boy's father left him an automotron, which together they were trying to repair.  An automotron is essentially a wind up robot.  Tony liked the robot, even though he only moves and works properly once.  This once is enough however to provide the clue that leads to the adventure for Isabelle and Hugo, and in the end changes everyone's life.  This is a feel good movie, which has a happy ending for everyone, even the inspector.  I enjoyed myself, as did Tony.