Dec 2024 – JG Judgementally Comments…

Doctor Who Christmas Special – “Joy To The World”

Christmas Specials are back! But is there anything actually special about it?

What’s The Episode? The Christmas 2024 special, “Joy To The World”.

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) arrives at a Time Hotel where a briefcase with ideas above its station is possessing then killing the wearer as it upgrades it access. He nips into one of the rooms in the Time Hotel which leads to a 21^st century Earth hotel room and Joy (Nicola Coughlan), who’s alone on Christmas. In attempting to rescue her, he gets stuck on Earth for a year living a normal life with unflappable hotel owner Anita (Steph de Whalley). Once the plot resumes, he discovers that the suitcase houses a star seed from Big Evil Arms Corp Villengard. The plan is to use the Time Hotel to detonate it in the past, give it time to grown, and sell it as an unlimited power source. The Doctor stops this – well, Joy does really, by allowing herself to take the star seed into her, be killed, also somehow save the other people we’ve seen the briefcase kill and her Mum as well, who died in hospital (implicitly of Covid but certainly during the time of Covid at least). And the star’s detonation happened over Bethlehem in the year 0001, in what we are assured is a “twist”.

From Russia With Love

James Bond is back! But can the second outing live up to the promise of the first?

For the first time, James Bond Is Back! After the success of Dr No, a second film was all but a certainty, so here it is. Connery’s still in the title role, M is still in the big leather office, and Moneypenny’s still manning the phones, so everything’s in place.

Pre-existing Prejudices
As with Dr No, personally few. I definitely haven’t seen this in over two decades, though I know this is lots of people’s favourite from the Connery era, and often just their favourite full stop. For me, it’s the one with the Lesbian Russian Spy Lady and her bladed footwear, the fight in the train carriage, and Blofeld’s first appearance, but that’s about it.

The Actual Movie
Again I must break my own self-imposed rule and mention the title sequence, because right away the film opens with the famous gun barrel sequence, this time with the correct Bond theme playing over it, not screechy electronics, and Connery firing at the camera. The extent to which this makes it feel like a real Bond movie is hard to overstate.

Dr No

Back where Bond became Bond. But is Dr No a good film or just the place where it all starts?

Where it all began! After apparently every actor to ever appear on screen being offered the role, Sean Connery eventually steps into the tux and brings British secret agent James Bond to life for the very first time, in the role that will go on to define his entire career .

Pre-existing Prejudices
Surprisingly few. I’ve seen this film, but I doubt I’ve seen it in… thirty years maybe? Longer? I definitely saw it as a kid, and probably I even liked it, but beyond a few random images I have almost no memory of this at all.

Godzilla Minus One

Godzilla’s back and, for the very first time, Oscar-nominated! But does G-1 deserve the plaudits?

What’s The Movie? Godzilla Minus One

What’s It All About, JG? In 1945, a kamikaze pilot, Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), lands his plane at a repair station on Odo Island, pretending it’s malfunctioning in order to avoid completing his mission. While there, Godzilla (a relatively small version) emerges and smashes the place to smithereens. Shikishima is ordered to his plane to use the gun but freezes up and can’t open fire so almost the whole population is wiped out. Returning to Tokyo and riddled with survivor’s guilt, he first discovers his parents have been killed, then takes in Noriko Ōishi and the orphaned baby she’s caring for. Over the course of a year they slowly grow closer while Shikishima gets a job clearing mines with a whacky collection of crew (“Doc”, “The Kid”) that both sides put down during the war. At the same time, the nuclear testing mutates Godzilla and he becomes a… bigger rampaging monster? Yep! They witness Godzilla destroy a naval ship then it heads landward to wreck as much of Japan as the special effects budget can stretch to. During this attack, Noriko sacrifices herself to save Shikishima. Finally, Godzilla uses its heat ray to trigger what is very obviously a nuclear explosion, before returning to the sea. Doc, along with a collection of citizens and some decommissioned ships, contrives a plan to take out Godzilla by sinking it to the bottom of the sea and then shooting it back up again while Shikishima distracts it from the air in the lone plane Japan has post World War II. Shikishima, now suicidal after the loss of Noriko, sees this as his chance to redeem the deaths on Odo Island, and once Godzilla has been sunk and resurfaced, flies the plane loaded with explosives into Godzilla’s mouth… only to eject at the last second. Godzilla is stopped and, in the final scene, we discover Norkio survived and is in hospital.

And in the final shot… Godzilla survived too.