The Definitive List of Bond Movies -- from Best to Worst

The Sticky Bottle Team received a few comments regarding our post “James Bond Never Road a Bike.”  Folks appreciated the information we provided of Bond’s creator Ian Fleming but they wanted to know where we stand on the movies.  What is our favorite Bond movie?  What did we think of Skyfall?  We will address the latter question first.  We feel Skyfall is a top ten Bond movie.  The SBT crew ranks the scenes in Scotland on par with any Bond movie on-location action in the past 50 years.  We also felt with Bond’s home and the home of MI6 being London we very much enjoyed the action taking place in the city.  We loved Javier Bardem as the bad guy but only wish he was introduced earlier in the film; we would have enjoyed seeing more of his character.

Now, as far as our favorite Bond movies…  We have ranked the top five, the next five and then the rest--and of course, the five worst Bond movies.

And so we begin.  The number one Bond movie of all time is Thunderball.  We love the Caribbean setting and the quartet of Bond girls are some of the best in the series (portrayed by Luciana Paluzzi, Claudine Auger, Molly Peters, and Martine Beswick).  Emilio Largo, played by Adolfo Celi, is an excellent villain with the white hair, eye patch, and requisite cadre of evil underlings.  The yacht Disco Volante, the underwater scenes, and the Junkanoo Festival are superb. Rik Van Nutter is solid as Felix Leiter.  The box office doesn’t lie and if adjusted for inflation, Thunderball would be the highest grossing bond film of all time; it still leads in the sheer number of tickets sold.  

The rest of the Top Five:

#2.  For Your Eyes Only.  This movie begins with a tender tribute to Bond’s late wife followed by the final disposition of the villain Blofeld (man in wheelchair).  Carole Bouquet is a worthy ally of Bond as Melina.  Julian Glover is another fine actor in the lead villain role and Topol, playing the good guy Milos Columbo is a fun character.  The scenes in Italy take full advantage of the Olympic sites in Cortina d”Ampezzo.  Bond makes use of the downhill slope, the ski jumps, and even the bobsled run on a desperate dash to stay alive.  The biathlon course and hockey rink also see action.  This movie also has some fine underwater action and the plot is a plausible Cold War covert operation.

#3.  Casino Royale.  James Bond returns from the doldrums of the Peirce Brosnan era.  Daniel Craig is immediately accepted as 007 in the opening credits sequence which is quickly followed by a great theme by Chris Cornell.  Mads Mikkelson is excellent as Le Chiffe and Eva Green is a stunning beauty and brilliant actress.  The train ride and the poker game scenes are magnificent theatre.

#4.  From Russia with Love.  The second Bond film is a true detective movie and Bond uses his wits and cunning to stop SPECTRE.  Robert Shaw is genuinely frightening as Red Grant and Bond has a true ally in Kerim Bey portrayed by Pedro Armendariz who steals every scene.  The short, all business Rosa Klebb is a fantastic villainess.

#5.  Octopussy.  This is the Bond movie with maybe the most complex story line with another solid Cold War plot.  The tuk-tuk taxi scene is a pure Bond adventure as is the fighting on-board the train.  The movie’s fast pace from London to India to Germany and back to India keeps the action alive.  A true Bond movie circles the globe and Octopussy succeeds.  The backgammon scene highlights the playfulness of Roger Moore and the ruthlessness of Kamal Kahn (an excellent Louis Jourdan).

The next five, with comments both good and bad: 

6.  Skyfall.

7.  A View to a Kill leads off with a great ski chase right into the excellent Duran Duran theme.  Christopher Walken as bad guy Max Zorin is superb as is loyal 007 friend Patrick Macnee as Sir Godfrey.  The movie is helped with the scenes set in France and San Francisco.   Tanya Roberts and Fiona Fullerton are not believable in their roles.

8.  Dr. No (pictured) is saved by Joseph Wiseman as the lead character.  A young Jack Lord as Felix Leiter is very well done.  The Ursula Andress bikini scene is motion picture history.  The dragon tank is silly and the plot is wobbly.

9.  Live and Let Die makes full use of the 1970s “Blaxploitation” film genre.  The movie hits its stride in New Orleans with the boat chase scene highlighted by Sherriff J.W. Pepper.  The bad guys of Dr. Kananga, Tee Hee, and Whisper are excellent.  Paul McCartney’s theme song is the best in the series.  

10. Moonraker is everything fans want in a Bond movie: excellent sets, locations, and action.  Michael Lonsdale is perfect as Hugo Drax and the return of Jaws is welcome.  Lois Chiles is disappointing as Dr. Goodhead and the laser beam battle scenes are hard to watch as is the gondola ride through St. Mark’s Square.

The Good--but Not Our Favorites--list:

11.  Tomorrow Never Dies works well because of the cool evil of Elliott Carver (played by Jonathan Price), Stamper (Gotz Otto) and Dr. Kaufman (Vincet Sciavelli).  Teri Hatcher is beautiful as Paris Carver.  The BMW motorcycle race through Saigon is great action.  The stealth ship is very cool but the metal-toothed torpedo is silly.   

12.  Diamonds Are Forever is solid.  Vegas Baby, enough said.  But the film also succeeds with the evil duo of Wint and Kidd, the stylish Ford Mustang Mach I, and Jill St. John’s scantily clad Tiffany Case character.  The film suffers from poor special effects, a rather bland Blofeld, and the SBT crew cheers at the demise of the flimsy Shady Tree played by Leonard Barr.  Sean Connery seems to be a bit too old for the film.

13.  The Living Daylights is a good debut for Timothy Dalton.  He is an accomplished actor and more than able to bring a serious and dangerous tone to 007.  Joroen Krabbe and Joe Don Baker are terrible.  

14.  License to Kill offers the largest role to date for Q and fans are happy to see more of Desmond Llewelyn.  Robert Davi and a very young Benicio Del Toro are great villains.  This film suffers with another poor performance by the lead female, this time Carey Lowell.

15.  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service offers a scary Telly Savalas as Blofeld and a great  alpine setting.  The Angels of Death are all beautiful of course.  Another wobbly script, it seems Blofeld’s demands were simple: restore his standing as a Count.  Australian George Lazenby tries but he is not James Bond although he does deliver one of the best lines in the series when he is asked to explain some uncomfortable behavior at the dinner table (a woman writes her room number on his thigh with lipstick) he merely suggests it’s a “ slight stiffness coming on.”

16.  Goldeneye is a good movie in that it returned Bond to the silver screen after nearly seven years since License to Kill.  Izabella Scorupco and Famke Janssen are good Bond girls.  The tank scenes through St. Petersburg and stunt work help save the movie from the disappointing work of Alan Cummings and Gottfried John’s characters.    

17.  The World is Not Enough is highlighted by the sheer beauty of Sophie Marceau as Elektra King combined with a real mean streak.  Denise Richards is just not good as Dr. Christmas Jones.  The opening boat chase with the alluring “Cigar Girl” leaves you wanting more.

18.  Quantum of Solace is hard to watch save for the absolute beauty of Olga Kurylenko and Craig’s intense acting ability.  This movie comes very close to the bottom five.  The plot is a meandering globe-trotting misadventure.  

The Bottom Five:

#19. Goldfinger. For most of the movie Bond is held captive by Goldfinger.  It is slow-paced and the final scenes are silly and completely unbelievable.  Most Bond books and movies have incredible yet plausible plots but Goldfinger goes too far.  The golf match shows Sean Connery’s wit and charisma but the rest of the film is boring.

#20. You Only Live Twice.  This film suffers from very bad special effects and has a similar to Goldfinger “that-can-never-happen” plot.  Donald Pleasance may be the worst Blofeld and Karin Dor is just not very good as Helga.  Bond’s transformation from 007 to ninja is funny rather than serious.    

#21. Die Another Day.  Just a bad movie from start to finish.  The invisible car and Madonna as a fencing instructor says it all; bad, bad, bad.

 #22. The Man with the Golden Gun. The 1970s are to blame for this poor movie.  Bond wears a leisure suit and drives a horrible motor vehicle--the instantly forgettable AMC Hornet.  Sheriff Pepper’s scenes are too far-fetched (a southern sheriff vacationing in Thailand?) and Bond’s allies of Lt. Hip and Mary Goodnight are poorly executed, especially Britt Eklund.  The only thing that keeps this film from being the worst is the excellent villain Francisco Scaramanga by Christopher Lee.   

The Spy Who Loved Me is the worst Bond movie of all time.  Curt Jurgens is a sad villain, boring actually and Barbara Bach’s poor acting skills and fake Russian accent are just too much to bear.  The underwater Lotus scenes are silly and the lair of Stromberg is ridiculous.  Even the music is bad with Marvin Hamlisch’s score a bit too synthesized.  Carly Simon who gave the world the outstanding “You’re so Vain” was less successful with “Nobody Does it Better.”  The pre-credits sequence is even lackluster starting with the music and ending with Bond pulling on a full-body yellow with red piping snow suit that is a hideous fashion nightmare and dare we say, effeminate.  

So, there you have it dear readers, the SBT crew’s definitive list of Bond movies.  What do you think?  Let us know your choices, send a comment.  We have set up a survey here: Click this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NLBLXR7.  We will post the results soon. 

Visit our website www.stickybottleteam.net for the Thunderball trailer.  Click on VIDEOS.

We have also been asked that if Bond did ride a bike in a movie what machine would 007 prefer.  The SBT crew feels that deserves some research and thought.  We will answer that question in a future blog posting.

Two New U.S. Velodromes? Maybe…

The SBT crew recently posted an article on velodromes and specifically the Forest City Velodrome in London, Ontario.  We briefly mentioned some US velodromes and promised to provide additional details.  Well, we are delivering the goods.  But first, some background…

We begin in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania in the heart of the Lehigh Valley.  “T-town” was near the home of Bob Rodale, an Olympic skeet shooter in the 1960s and avid cyclist.  Rodale returned from his Olympic experience determined to build a velodrome.  Rodale had the funding and being part of the publishing family responsible today for such magazines as Prevention, Men’s Health, Runner’s World and others, he held considerable local influence.  The velodrome was built in a cornfield Rodale owned and the facility hosted its first event in 1975.  The venue grew in status attracting riders from all over the world to its racing schedule.  The track also produced local hero Marty Nothstein from nearby Emmaus.  Nothstein enjoyed a long a career and was an Olympic and Pan American champion.  Bob Rodale died in 1990 following an automobile accident in Russia at the age of 60.   The velodrome and the facility, known as the Valley Preferred Cycling Center is open year round.  

In August of this year the Chicago Velo Campus (pictured) opened a temporary outdoor facility made of marine grade plywood.  It is an Olympic-sized track (166 meters) and riders must go through a certification process.  The facility has created a youth program and opened a bike shop and training center.  The facility has a price tag of $45 million with an optimistic opening date of 2014.  Located on the former US Steel South Works mill, the facility will have seating approaching 20,000 when complete.  Volunteers are hard at work now constructing a structure of airplane hangar proportions to enclose the temporary track.  

In 2016 New York City will cut the ribbon opening the Brooklyn Bridge Park Velodrome thus returning velodrome racing to the five boroughs.  The last velodrome racing events took place inside Madison Square Garden in the 1920s.  Cycling then faded with the Great Depression and World War II.  Cycling has since come back to New York; it began with Robert Moses (the man many blame for the loss of Brooklyn’s Dodgers) who, as the head of New York City’s planning department developed and pushed for bicycle lanes throughout the region.   This led to the construction of a variety of greenways and bikeways with the most popular possibly being the Hudson River Greenway (the most heavily trafficked bike path in the United States).  We’ll delve into that in a future post.

Financed by one person, the reclusive Joshua Rechnitz, competitive biker, member of a philanthropic family and native New Yorker, the velodrome is a $40 million makeover of the former Pier 5 warehouse near Furman Street.  The gift was until recently the highest monetary commitment from a single donor in New York City history (surpassed by the $100 million gift to Central Park by John Paulsen).  

But wait...  The website www.brooklynbridgepark.org offers no velodrome information.  The work at the site has been met with skepticism and neighborhood protests so not one shovel has yet to be turned on the project in spite of the funding.  We’ll keep you posted…    

Visit our website www.stickybottleteam.net for a trip around the Chicago Velo Campus.

Oh Canada! Nice Velodromes

Most Americans and Europeans have the opportunity to ride year-round.  If you can pull on enough warm clothing you can get out on the roads and get the pedals moving.  Our friends in Canada haven’t such luck. Canada boasts a plethora of riding and biking clubs throughout the country but in spite of global warming it is still cold north of the 49^th parallel.   At the time of this post it was 1°C in Toronto with a high tomorrow of 2°C.  Combine the cold with snow and chances of a metric century Saturday are slim.

Canadians take it inside and ride in local sports clubs on machines or in spinning classes.  Many of the clubs have posted times for indoor training and riding, they stay on schedule.  Another answer is the indoor velodrome.  The nation has two of the three velodromes in North America with the Forest City Velodrome in London, Ontario and the Burnaby Velodrome in British Columbia.  The third is the ADT Event Center located in Carlsbad, California.  (The US lost an indoor facility when Boulder Indoor Cycling closed last year).   America’s newest velodrome is the outdoor Chicago Velo Campus set to open fully in 2014.  In 2016 an indoor velodrome will open in New York City.  The funding has been secured and construction will begin on the Brooklyn Bridge Park Velodrome Field House. (More on this in a future post).  This marks the return of velodrome cycling to the Big Apple.  

The velodrome capital of the world may very well be Japan.  The country has over 50 velodromes, all outdoor.  Most of these facilities were constructed for the purpose of Keirin racing, a type of peri-mutuel gambling and just one of four sports authorized by the government to permit betting. It has been an Olympic Sport since 2002.

Back to Canada…  The nation that has brought the world ice hockey, little ham patties they call bacon, and the hilarious Trailer Park Boys we can now add very cool velodromes with the best arguably being the Forest City Velodrome just outside Toronto in London, Ontario.  The facility was originally constructed as the London Gardens in 1963 as the home of the London Nationals Hockey Club (now the London Knights playing home games at Budweiser Gardens,  formerly known as the Labatt Center).  The Labatt Center was built in 2002 leaving the London Gardens vacant.  In less than four months the old hockey arena was converted into a velodrome.   The site operates year-round with professional training programs, youth programs, open recreational riding hours and more.  The track is owned by individuals holding shares in a public corporation, the Forest City Velodrome Association, a nonprofit.  

Before you show up north of the border with your bike remember this direct from the Forest City website: A bike acceptable for use on the track cannot have brakes and must have a fixed gear.  There has to be enough clearance for a 2x4 wooden stud set on its end to fit between the bottom of the pedal and the ground when the bike is upright and the pedal is in its lowest position.  The bike must have dropped handlebars.  And if it has quick release hubs the levers must be taped to the frame.  Your best bet is to rent a bike from the facility and prepare for the 50 km/h slingshot!  

Please visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net for a video of a Keirin race from Japan.

It's Cyber Monday! Buy a new bike light, our review!

The dynamo days are over.  Does anyone remember the dynamo?  Give up?  OK, the dynamo was the name for a simple generator that was able to self-create direct current.  The entire process of rotating coils of wire, magnetic fields and mechanical rotation to create direct electric current is known as Faraday's law of induction.  You may read about that science the next time you are suffering from abject insomnia.  Dynamo powered bike lights were some of the first practical bicycle lighting devices and were popular in the 1960s and 70s.  They were easily attached to the front forks and when aligned with the tire the spinning of the wheel created enough energy to power a small headlight.  The faster you went typically the brighter the light.  An SBT crew member admits to having a dynamo on an old (now vintage!) Schwinn Continental (pictured).

With the days getting shorter many riders: commuters and after-work recreational riders are finding themselves riding in the dark and so many questions are asked to the Sticky Bottle Team--what kind of bike light should I get, what the heck is a lumen, should I go with a battery or use a rechargeable, etc.? The SBT crew has done exhaustive research (ok, maybe just a thorough review), and here’s what to look for in a bike light. 

Now just a bit more science, sorry but sometimes it’s necessary. Let's start with lumens as this is typically how lights are rated. A lumen is a measure of the total "amount" of visible light emitted by a source. The SBT crew feels that lumens are a better measure than candlepower, watts, and lux--other units to measure a light's output.   To get a feel of luminosity take the standard 100 watt household light bulb, it produces about 800 lumens.  Indeed, lighting has come along way since the first “Edison screw” light bulb in 1909.

Riders can spend literally hundreds of dollars for a light yet do you really a light as bright as a car headlight (just under 1,100 lumens)?  To cut through the bike light clutter Modern Bike (www.modernbike.com) has put together an innovative bike light comparison guide showing a wide range of lights in real night time conditions. And pictures do indeed tell the entire story. For our money the best light out there in both cost and performance is the Metro 300 USB Rechargeable Headlight from CygoLite (www.cygolite.com). At less than $50 or 6 lumens/dollar, it provides plenty of light on your night rides plus it's rechargeable with a 2-hour in-use time at the highest intensity, more than enough time for the ride home.  

Next time you visit your local shop, ask the staff about lumens and lighting.  They may not recall old man Faraday’s law  but they will be able to shed some light on your issue and help you get home in the dark.  

For more product reviews (with less science and history) please visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net. 

The Midtown Greenway--A great ride in any weather for some.

In the 1999 motion picture Office Space the character of Tom, at his wits end and frustrated with a line a questioning from “the Bobs,” shouts out an exasperated, “What is wrong with you people!” The SBT crew recently flipped through the winter edition of the Rails to Trails publication and came across the story of the Midtown Greenway, a nearly six mile straight line asphalt trail that cuts straight through downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Winter in Minnesota sees temperatures on average below freezing and the city receives over 50 inches of snow.  Yet, people still ride the Greenway (with all of the white stuff that falls in the twin cities, “Greenway” would seem to be a contradiction in terms) which leads the SBT crew to let loose with Tom’s quivering refrain: “What is wrong with you people!”

But before we throw a blanket of contempt on Minnesotans we do have to explore the history of the Greenway.  The line was originally constructed in the late 1870s by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul and Pacific Railroad (simply the Milwaukee Railroad) as part of its main line to the Pacific.  In 1912 it was decided to move the line below grade so a nearly straight line trench was dug and the rails were moved below street level.  In 1985 the Milwaukee Railroad was absorbed by the Soo Line and much of the Milwaukee line was converted to light rail operations.  By 1993 light rail services were discontinued and almost immediately the idea of the Midtown Greenway came into being.  The Greenway has been a success from the start (it opened in 2000) and it is part of the reason Minneapolis has been named the most bicycle-friendly city in the country by Bicycle magazine five years in a row (the last coming in 2011).  Interestingly enough at the Pacific terminus of the Milwaukee Line near Seattle, Washington another of the company’s abandoned lines has been converted to a trail within the Iron Horse State Park in the Cascade Mountains.

The Midtown Greenway is a highway of sorts allowing bike commuters from residential areas easy access to the downtown districts.  It has become so popular there is even an evening and afternoon rush hour.  In sum, the Greenway has on average 5,000 daily users.  The trail is open all day, every day no matter the conditions.  The Greenway is owned and maintained by the city and riders claim the trail is plowed of snow before many city streets.  A small of group of volunteers known as the Trail Watchers patrol the Greenway protecting riders.  That is just one group of volunteers, other volunteers plant trees (4,000 last Arbor Day) and one group commissions art for placement along the trail.  The Greenway has plans for expansion beyond the Mississippi River but has yet to receive approval.  Of the many highlights along the trail is the ride over Lake Calhoun on a section known as Chain of Lakes Trail.  Another is the Midtown Global Market at 10^th Avenue.  A former Sears building, the market has been converted into specialty groceries, coffee shops, bakeries, restaurants and bars.  

With all the Midtown Greenway has to offer the SBT crew can see why it is popular year-round.  But still, we’ll wait for spring.   We have short 30 second video of the Greenway in the snow on our website www.stickybottleteam.net.