Volcano Cat, the Pop-Culture hangout

...And NO apologies if you expected ninety naughty teens...(I'm sure there's a blog for that sort of chicanery...) O.K., Kazoos at the ready please...

Having 'done' the Bond Babes (Dear Santa...) of the previous decades I thought I'd surprise you all/some of you/Mr.Ernestly Dribbling of Harelip, Arkansas with...(Kazoo fanfare here, please) The Babes of Bond 1995 - 2012!!!

Hey, at least I'm predictable. Stable? - that old chestnut....

GOLDENEYE - 1995
For whatever reason Timothy Dalton was deemed a failure, but a previous favourite was now free of his t.v. contract - (Insert your own transvestite jokes, I haven't got the heart) and the word was Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan...

Serena Gordon, a little known British actress plays Caroline, one of those annoying nineties women that thought everything was 'spiffing' - Bond scares the life out of her skidding around in his lets-go-back-to-Fleming DB5 before revealing his secret weapon - a bottle of bubbly and a couple of glasses hidden where the fun switches ought to be...

Izabella Scorupko is Natalya Simonova - they could have kept her real name for all I cared - Kam Fong as Chin Ho! (In case you are under forty - Go-ogle it)
Yes, Izabella - I mean Natalya, whatever - she is a Russian computer programmer at the Severnaya Space Centre - after it's destruction she is forced to flee for her life. Bond gets involved with her as he tracks down the Janus crime syndicate's evil Boss...

Dutch actress Famke Janssen is Xenia Onatopp - yes, despite this not being 'A Fleming', the search for amusing names keeps paying - and, as she's far hotter than goodie two-shoes Natalya, we know straight off she's a bad, bad girl (Bond Babe Rule One). Yes, she must be spanked...

Xenia likes to kill men by squeezing them between her thighs - or squeezes men she likes with her killer thighs, one of the two...

Move along, move along... nothing to see here...

TOMORROW NEVER DIES - 1997
Not generally regarded as one of the best, this should have been a belter; topical plot? - check, exotic locations? - check, top-of-the-range swanky-pants British Villain? - ditto! - and with the marvellous (See Something Wicked This Way Comes or Brazil for proof) Jonathan Pryce as Rupert Mur- I mean, Elliot Carver, the stage was set for another Goldfinger... Well, lets have a squizz at the chicks;

Lets start with a Great Dane - Cecilie Thomsen plays Professor Inga Bergstrom. A great Swede?. She's a linguist - and it's much too early for those sort of jokes...

Yes, a story about newspapers and Teri Hatcher's there... Paris is Mrs.Carver, and Mr.Carver is a touch jealous about what he sees as his property - Paris had a fling with James Bond in the past, and the flame ignites between them anew. Personally? - Nah, but she does look good in her smalls...

...Which I don't have a decent picture of. You dirty, dirty devils you...

Stop that Wai-Lin! - yes, Carver tries... but Michelle Yeoh is a tough cookie, China's 007 in fact, with plenty of nasty toys and a nice line in kung-fu to boot (the bad guys around...)
It's the nineties, remember, so the women are capable as well as hot...

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH - 1999
A personal favourite this; I rate this as the best Brosnan Bond in fact; the action, the settings and the plot are all top drawer... and that goes for the girls as well.

The action starts off with Bond in Bilbao, after some stolen cash and then to London Town with an explosion at MI6 and a boat chase. Known as Cigar Girl to the fans, the character Giulietta da Vinci is played by Italian actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta (No less) who gets chased down the river Thames by 007 in a chase that you really need to see to appreciate...
But who's the girl in the top-left? - why, MI6's own Dr.Molly Warmflash (It might be the millenium, but there's always room for a quality name-gag) Serena Scott Thomas, an English actress often referred to as 'top-totty' by the toffs. She, ahem, checks Bond out, pronouncing him both fit for duty and possessing exceptional stamina.
No offence, Dr.Sandhu, but my GP is nowhere near as hot...

The main girl in The World Is Not Enough is Elektra King. French actress Sophie Marceau plays her with conviction, presenting her sympathetically. Remember Rule One? - yep.

At this point I'll throw in my ha'pence worth (English expression; means opinion) and declare Ms.Marceau to be definitely in the top five Bond Babes - possibly top three. She fine, is I believe the current Americanism. The scene where she strangles and then sits on top of Bond while making a remark about the physical side-effects of strangulation on men is one you won't easily forget.

Just to prove that, like fine wine, women improve with age - here's the delectable Ms.Marceau more recently;

Sadly, Christmas is approaching; Christmas Jones, no less (Denise Richards). Possibly the least convincing nuclear scientist of all time, Richards is mainly there to save Bond from himself - providing a good girl for our favourite secret agent to save. Oh, go on - I won't look.

On the right...

DIE ANOTHER DAY - 2002

Brosnan's final outing; the twentieth film of the series was loaded with references and in-jokes; from the Players poster in the abandoned tube station (A veiled reference to the novel Thunderball) to the glass floor of Gustav Graves' icelandic lair (Remember Blofeld's map-in-the-floor from Diamonds are Forever?) not to mention the revolving triangular mirrors at the DNA Clinic (Scaramanga's Fun House - The Man with the Golden Gun). I couldn't stand this one when it came out - but now I rather like it - invisible cars aside...

Madonna as Bond Babe? - only briefly. As well as providing the title track (Not her finest hour) the star featured as fencing coach to a certain Miranda Frost.
Portrayed by English gal Rosamund Pike, Frost was named well, giving Bond the icy brush-off before apparently melting. Oddly hot, Pike is one of those strange girls that make you sizzle without apparently knowing why... and yes, Rule One still applies...

The main Bond Girl? - Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson of course; Halle Berry providing back-up in the form of an NSA agent sent after Graves. It's still a Bond flick though, so the following apply; A; Despite real-World disparity, Britain still really runs the show and B; Despite proving herself capable, deadly and a cold-blooded killer, Jinx must still ensure she has to be rescued at least twice by 007. At least she doesn't scream 'Ha-elp Ha-ELP' a-la Penelope Pitstop...

More?, you want MORE? - oh well, your wish is my command...

CASINO ROYALE - 2006
Daniel Craig takes over here - and, so far he's up there with Connery in my book. Granted, my favourite Bond remains (Sir.)Roger Moore - but the best Bond doesn't have to be your favourite. For many, the best is whoever was doing the job at the time when they first saw a Bond film...

Caterina Murino (Italy) is Solange - wife of the very nasty Dimitrios; Deja Vu anyone?. Yes, Mrs.Dimitrios comes a cropper after a night of passion with Bond.

Before we get to the main girl, lets take a quick detour with the lovely Valenka. At the time of writing, the Croatian/American beauty Ivana Milicevic is in her late thirties - not that she shows it. Valenka is Le Chiffre's sidekick and girlyfriend - mainly there as wallpaper, she gets menaced with a machete and drops digitalis into Bond's drink - and not much else.

Its a dirty job alright.
Eva Green?, if you say so; the French art-house actress is Vesper - Vesper Lynd. Lynd is a United Kingdom Treasury Officer (I think); basically she's in charge of all that money that 007 needs to buy a seat at the table opposite Le Chiffre and play high-stakes poker. Pretty much most men's fantasy, Bond gets paid to play and an exquisite girl to fall for. Fall? - Bond? - yes, because this Bond (As in the Fleming original) has flaws, weaknesses and is capable of falling in love. Lets see why, shall we?;

If those eyes don't stir something in you I'd advise scribbling a hasty will, followed by a doctor and a large shot of adrenalin.

Not the first time we've seen Bond travelling by train; that last great romance of travel. Actually, not my experience at all - we live by the tracks here in Sussex, all I can say is if you have a fetish for badly overcrowded, late, dirty boxes and staff that bring to mind cattle-trucks or the train in Schindlers List sell everything and buy a ticket...

A tragic figure, Vesper manages nicely to adhere to Rule Number One while still winning Bond over. I doubt any other actress could have pulled this off - Green really balances the whole thing exquisitely, helping the new Bond into the role no end.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE - 2008
This is everyone's Marmite - you either love it or hate it. Personally? - well, I'm not so sure either way; I certainly don't love this one. Hate's a bit strong; there's some amazing stuff here - that car chase for starters. A real scorcher. Never mind - what were the girls like?.
Camille Montes; The actress Olga Kurylenko is from mixed French and Ukrainian stock, which explains why it's hard to pin her origins down as Camille. She plays a Bolivian girl out for revenge for the death of her family at the hands of evil General Medrano...

Kent-born Gemma Arterton makes an appearance as - no kidding - Strawberry Fields, an MI6 agent sent to bring Bond back in; 'M' thinks he's gone over the fence (i.e. renegade) and somehow thinks a pretty girl suitable for the job of recovering him. With Bond's reputation?...

Yep. Bo-yoy-oing. Quelle Surprise... Anyway, in a rather unpleasant throwback to Goldfinger the villain of the piece has Fields fatally covered, not in gold paint, but oil... black gold...

And speaking of unpleasant throwbacks, it IS my blog after all... so let's rub all that oil off her and see what she looked like alive...

Nurse...it's happened again...

Stana Katic - Not a hotel in Serbia, but a Canadian actress of Dalmatian descent - anyway, she plays Corrine Veneau, the Canadian agent seen at the end of Quantum... Fans of ABC's series Castle will recognise her as Detective Kate Beckett... Ooh look, more Olga pics...

SKYFALL - 2012
Yes, the latest in a long line of Bond films brings us up to date with a tale of revenge and redemption at the very heart of Britain's MI6 - never mind the fact it's been the Secret Intelligence Service for donkey's years, MI6 sounds cooler -
This is being widely and loudly hailed (With loudly-hailers, presumably) as the best Bond ever - the critics, those lovable funsters seem to have fallen for Bond in a big way. As I have seen it, I have to say, well - yes, it's fantastic; what could have been a by-the-numbers thriller played safe emerges in it's own right as an edgy, risk-taking production that actually delivers on the hoary old promise of back-to-Fleming... All of which neatly covers these proceedings with a veneer of respectability - hey, it's not ogling at wimmin; it's cultural!...
(Yeah, like botulism, I can be cultured...)

Naomie Harris is an English actress famous for Pirates of the Caribbean-Something Or Other - one of those at any rate. She plays Eve. Any good at secrets? - o.k. then; her last name is Moneypenny. Can/Worms/Opened. A black Moneypenny! - well, why not? - having seen her performance she can certainly do the business; although her shooting lets her down (Personally, I would have gone 'NO SHOOT' on that decision, but I was munching overpriced popcorn in Brighton, not on a hillside with a second to decide and a pushy old biddy giving it rooty in my ear...). I honestly feel trying to replace dear old Lois Maxwell with another Samantha Bond or Caroline Bliss would be, well, dishonest. This Moneypenny can work both sides of the desk - so when 007 goes off on his next job, she'll know the score...

Verynice, I mean Berenice Marlohe is Severine, the doomed former vice-girl that Bond uses to get to the mysterious figure behind the attack on MI6 HQ.

French/Cambodian, Marlohe is beautiful - with seemingly effortless class and style. Everything we expect from our Bond Girls...

The magazines are falling over themselves to get to her...

So. That's it; the Babes of Bond. Fifty years of stunning, gorgeous women - from the helpless victims to villainesses in their own right, despite the tone of our trip, the girls are - inevitably, more than eye-candy. Strong women need a strong man, surely - and Daniel Craig takes the baton from a noble string of Bonds...

But; haven't we missed something?, what about the other Babes of Bond?.

It's the twist-in-the-tail folks!; depending on your definitions, 'Babe' can vary dramatically...