Day 22170

I must admit that I enjoy James Bond movies and I have strong opinions on the best and worst ones. For the record, Connery was the best Bond followed by Daniel Craig. Timothy Dalton earns a close third place. The best movies are probably “From Russia With Love” and “Casino Royale.”

While I will admit that my enjoyment is pure male fantasy action adventure, but now that I’ve seen these movies so many time, my enjoyment has reached a new level of enjoyment. Seriously, how can one not laugh about big ol’ Sean Connery undercover as a Japanese fisherman in “You Only Live Twice.” No wonder he quit after that.

Obviously, the Bond movies reflect the times in which they were made, and I’m very much aware why some people, especially women, might have a problem with them. I also realize that the movies, and the books on which they are based, appeal a certain audience.

With repeated viewings of anything, one has a tendency to find some things bothersome, and odd things cause amusement. I realized this as I was watching “Goldfinger” over the weekend.

There is a scene in which Goldfinger hosts a gathering of Mob bosses to unveil his plan to rob Fort Knox. The room in which they are gathered is seemingly a game room in which the bosses are playing billiards. When Goldfinger reveals his plan, he pushes a couple of buttons and the room converts to a map room, the pool table turns over to reveal a control board in which Goldfinger pushes buttons to illustrate points on the map as well as a scale model of Fort Knox.

All I could think was of the poor support staff who got all of this presentation together for the boss. This is a guy who has no problems killing underlings who displease him, so there had to be a lot of pressure to assure his presentation went well. Fortunately, in the movie, the presentation went off as planned, but we all know that’s Hollywood bullshit. No presentation ever goes off without a hitch.

It brings to mind years ago when I was a reporter attending an endless string of meetings in which PowerPoint presentations where the focus. I don’t think there was a single one in which everything worked like it was supposed to. At the time I would think that what they needed was a sixth grader to run it for them; my young children and their classmates had learned how to give presentations at a very young age.

Now those kids are in the workplace and, oddly enough, the PowerPoint always works fine.

It made me think that these days Goldfinger would have had an amazing multimedia presentation to show off to his potential partners in crime. (Which, oddly enough, in the movie he killed all of them after the presentation. I mean, why bother?)

Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work. I have a big presentation I have to get to.