Diamonds Are Forever

My dad is a big 007 fan (whose Dad isn't?). I spoke with him tonight to wish him a happy Father's Day and mentioned that we were watching Diamonds Are Forever.

Dad's the kind of guy that doesn't need (or really want) to watch movies over and over because he can remember them so well. Mention a Bond film and he'll ask, "That's the one where he..." followed by an example of some outrageous stunt or specific type of car featured in that film. He's almost always right.

There's a lot about my dad that I don't know. I know he graduated from high school in 1965 (or 1966?) in St. Cloud, Florida. I knew that shortly thereafter, he found himself in Aurora, CO, where he received his draft notice. He was deployed to somewhere in Germany, of all places, where he spent the rest of the Vietnam War. Somewhere in Germany, I have a half-sister I've never met. Dad rarely talks about anything prior to meeting my mom.

I figure Dad's seen most of the Connery Bond films in the theater, but I'm not sure which ones. In fact, I'd wager he saw most of the Bond films released before I was born in 1975.

We used to watch Bond movies on ABC when I was little. We never had money to see them in the theater. The network was good about running the Connery and Moore films (though never the Lazenby one, which is a shame). That's how I saw most of the Bond films prior to glorious standard-definition, stereo, 4:3 VHS. Those that I hadn't seen, I eventually rented myself.

We got cable in the early '90s, and suddenly I'm seeing all these James Bond marathons on TNT. After years of missing movies in the theater, I suddenly had more movies than I had time to watch — sort of like present day, actually.

Going chronological for this project was tempting (just putting all of them under "007" or "Bond" and going straight through the series), but I've watched all of the Bond films in chronological order at least twice before — no need to do that again, really.

A Sean Connery film comes first in alphabetical order, because I no longer own Casino Royale on DVD. There's a reason for that.

When I bought my PS3 in November 2009, I attempted to establish rules for Blu-Ray buying (and saving money, because I was afraid of the temptation to double-dip my entire collection). The main rule went as follows: If I own the film on DVD, then I can't buy the Blu-Ray copy.

With more than 500 DVDs, replacing all of them on Blu-Ray is not only cost-prohibitive, but a bit unnecessary. Upconversion makes most newer DVDs look and sound fine on my gear.

However, with 500 DVDs, what's left to own? Where's the fun in collecting if you own everything in the previous format?

I decided to put together the Bond films first. The only ones I owned on DVD were Casino Royale, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Quantum of Solace. That left 19 Bond films to collect, and to date, 11 have been released on Blu-Ray.

My first Bond film on Blu-Ray was...Casino Royale, followed by Quantum of Solace.

So much for rules.

I developed a new rule for double-dipping: If I do, then I must part with the DVD version. No sense in having two different formats of shiny disc in the house, right? Soon after, I got rid of the two Daniel Craig films on DVD.

Ah, but I'm a completist. I knew I would want all of the Bond films on Blu-Ray if I were making a transition — and that would include the Bond films that aren't so hot. Thankfully, not all of them are available on Blu-Ray yet.

Diamonds Are Forever is the last official James Bond film starring Sean Connery, and is not to be confused with the last appearance by Sean Connery as James Bond, the out-of-canon and slightly offensive-smelling Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again.

Fun facts: Jill St. John plays a Bond girl here. Jill St. John married Robert Wagner, who played Number Two in the Austin Powers films, which spoofed Bond films (including this one).

Diamonds Are Forever is also one of two Sean Connery Bond films not available on Blu-Ray just yet (the other being You Only Live Twice). I'm not sure why EON Productions and MGM are holding back on these, but have pushed Moonraker out in high-def, but I don't make the decisions. I just write a blog. I also don't mind Moonraker as long as we're on the subject. More on that later.

Anyway, long story longer, I bought all of the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD sets, based on some convoluted reasoning. If you're following the logic, I prevented myself from buying all the Bond films on Blu-Ray by buying them all on DVD.

But I reserve the right to sell off the DVD sets if I want.

No one ever said a collector's rationale was logical. That's the beautiful thing about rationalizing superfluous purchases.

p.s. Jimmy Dean is in this one. Rest in peace, Sausage King.