Easily Distracted

I was hoping to post something today in my James Bond poster series or maybe rank the Marvel Cinematic Universe films through Phase 2, but I've become distracted by an online auction for props from the television series Mad Men.  Items range from clothing and household props to commercial items like restaurant menus and to go bags.  I plan on spending my afternoon sifting through the hundreds of items available to bid on in the next week and get it down to maybe 25-50 that I can keep an eye on as the auction winds down.  It would be thrilling to own a piece of history from one of the greatest shows in the history of television.  I doubt I will end up being the winning bidder for anything, but I plan on trying to get at least one thing as a collector's item by the end of bidding next Friday.

James Bond U.S. Poster Rankings: No. 15

The next poster in this series is for Sean Connery's last official outing as British spy James Bond, and the designers behind the artwork didn't put in too many man hours to come up with anything other than this main design.

 

 

15. Diamonds are Forever

The above poster, released in American cinema theaters in 1971, is quite similar to what the rest of the world saw.  It was the same concept in America, Europe, and Asia to have 007, standing in his typical Connery pose, surrounded by two beautiful ladies.  Both women have diamonds piled in their palms and the three characters are being propped up by the mechanical arm of an odd-looking vehicle.  Behind Bond and the women is a barrage of explosions and helicopters.

 

While there are other Bond posters that are probably more appealing than this one that have already been revealed lower on this list of my favorite U.S. one-sheet posters, this one ranked higher than those due to the glitz and glamour of the ladies and the diamonds, which is due to the main location Bond visits in Diamonds are Forever.  007 ends up spending a good amount of time in Las Vegas, and it is because of that, which the casino showgirls and shiny jewels signify in the poster, that made me put this one a little higher on my list than it probably should be.  I have been to Vegas several times and recognize numerous of the locations seen in that part of the movie.

 

Like I mentioned before, the image you see above was used almost exclusively in the world-wide marketing of Diamonds are Forever.  There really isn't a better poster than that one, so again, like I did with Goldeneye, I will show some fan-made artwork.

 

 

This retro design includes actual characters from the film, instead of two random women who are only hanging out with Bond because of their level of attractiveness.  In fact, the prominent images seen in this poster are of the two henchmen, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.  In the background is where our hero can be found standing atop an elevator car.  Although the elevator Bond is standing on isn't the one the artist is alluding toward, one of the most thrilling action scenes found in the film takes place in an elevator in the first half of the picture.

 

 

This final piece of art design showcases photo stills from the movie.  The remaining space is taken up with cascading diamonds and casino chips, which is appropriate considering the Las Vegas location.

James Bond U.S. Poster Rankings: No. 16

Of the four promotional art pieces used to market his films while playing the role of 007, Pierce Brosnan saw the same formula three times in a row: Bond surrounded by a couple of beauties with explosions and action set pieces jumping off the page in some spot either below or above the stars of the film.  Only the domestic one-sheet poster from Brosnan's final outing as the superspy James Bond, Die Another Day, differed with a more minimalist approach to the design.  Among the posters from his first three adventures, this is the best.

 

 

16. Goldeneye

Considering the three films that used the same theme and art design for its posters were released between 1995-1999, I chalk up the repetitive motif to the time period they were created.  It is like today's posters that have its actors avoiding eye contact with the camera, staring off at some unknown and looming threat.

 

So to say that the U.S. one-sheet poster for Goldeneye is the best of the Brosnan era isn't the same thing as saying it is one of the best promotional pieces of the entire series.  I mean, it does barely slide into the middle tier of the 24 films Eon has made featuring James Bond.

 

Like Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is not Enough, Goldeneye has Bond flanked by the two actresses portraying the leading ladies of the picture and the remainder of the frame is filled with explosions and the movie's title/credits.  This one probably beat out the other two Brosnan posters simply because it is the better movie of the three.  There really isn't much to differentiate the three in originality though.

 

This is where I would normally show my favorite official artwork used from around the globe to promote Goldeneye and explain what it is that makes it better than the domestic one-sheet.  Unfortunately, the U.S. one-sheet is the best poster from everything I could find online.  So instead I am going to show off some fan-made artwork.  It should be noted, the below images contain spoiler-ish stuff.  If you haven't seen Goldeneye and plan to, don't scroll down.

 

 

This would never be used in today's era of pictorial marketing since it gives the viewer nearly nothing, but if you have seen the film then you are very aware of who that is supposed to be, and it looks quite great as a teaser poster.

 

 

The pencil drawing design is interesting and the title and film credits would need to be added somewhere, but overall this is a solid piece of work.  It also includes a pretty iconic, but often overlooked, image from the movie.

James Bond U.S. Poster Rankings: No. 17

The next promotional artwork in my ranking of the domestic posters from the James Bond film series used several different styles and images during its promotion in the United States.

 

 

12. You Only Live Twice

The marketing department for You Only Live Twice either couldn't make a final decision on which drawing they wanted to go with or the advertising direction was to lambaste moviegoers with multiple elements of the film's action and sex appeal.

 

The first poster, labeled U.S. One-Sheet Style A, can be seen above.  It has a lot going on with an inverted Bond walking along a catwalk-like ladder high above a fiery pit with helicopters and rockets buzzing around him.  This poster, the first of three that were considered the theatrical posters used to promote the film, is an exciting one and does an excellent job of giving the viewer an idea of what to expect in the movie.

 

The following is the U.S. One-Sheet Style B.

 

 

This one also uses the helicopters from the previous poster, but includes a fan-favorite gadget from the quartermaster, or Q.  The gyrocopter, named Little Nellie in the film, has become one of the iconic vehicles from the 007 series.  And like so many other photos from the posters of James Bond movies, Sean Connery, playing the British secret agent, plays it super cool in his trademark pose, not even bothering to steer Little Nellie for fear he might be perceived as less dapper than what audiences had come to expect of their favorite spy.

 

The final domestic theatrical poster, the U.S. One-Sheet Style C, played up the sensual tastes of Bond movies.

 

 

Bond is found in a bathtub surrounded by beautiful Japanese women, being bathed, among other things that are assumed with the way some of those women are rubbing up against him.  Not wanting to forget that this is an action film, the artist included a woman, seen on the far right, bathing Bond's firearm.  That campy bit of detail makes me laugh every time I see it.

 

Probably my favorite poster for You Only Live Twice is the U.S. One-Sheet Advance.  The page is mostly taken up with popular images from the previous four adventures with the only new artwork being the film's title and Bond taking to his "cool as a cucumber" pose at the bottom holding an astronaut's helmet.  While the poster doesn't do much in the way of promoting the upcoming movie, it is a nice collection piece for the first five films of, what was at that point, one of the most popular series ever.

 

Another reason I like all of the You Only Live Twice posters is the tagline "This man (Sean Connery) IS James Bond."  The story behind that tagline is an unofficial Bond movie was being released the same year as You Only Live Twice and it starred major names like David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Wells, William Holden, and Deborah Kerr.  It even included former Bond girl Ursula Andress.  The rival movie was Casino Royale, which was the only Ian Fleming book that the producers at Eon didn't have the rights to film in the official series at that time.  Promoters of You Only Live Twice wanted to let audiences know that even though they had a choice of which James Bond to see that year, their version was the one they knew and loved.

 

It turns out they didn't need to do much to remind audiences which was the better series as the spoof version of Casino Royale, five directors later, turned out to be a hot mess.  It is widely considered to be chaotic and unfunny.

Nolan Ryan : Derek Holland :: American Hero : ???

While at the Ranger game Sunday night with the family, my daughter, son and I took a walk around the ballpark (twice) during the disaster of a finale in a three-game sweep by the Los Angeles Angels.  The purpose of our walk was to kill time, find the dollar ice cream kiosk, and see the sights of the Ballpark in Arlington (I refuse to call the stadium by its official name).  After taking a photo of the kids standing with the Nolan Ryan statue behind center field, my 7-year-old daughter, Emery, asked who Nolan Ryan was.  I explained that he was a great pitcher who ended his career and put up some amazing stats at the end of that career while playing for the Texas Rangers.  I also included the footnote that he returned later, but has since left, to work in the front office.

 

Soon after we came upon some memorabilia for sale and among the bats, balls, and framed photos for sale was the famous fight between Ryan and Robin Ventura, where Ryan has Ventura in a headlock and is pounding away.  The framed and autographed item for sale also included a picture of Ryan after the fight with blood smeared on his jersey and dripping from his nose.

 

Emery, seeing the picture, asked who it was that was bleeding and why.  So, being the baseball fan I am and wanting to pass along knowledge of the game and its colorful history, I told her and Jack about the tale of Nolan Ryan's victory over Ventura.  It was a fierce campaign that started because of an errant throw.  Ventura, offended due to being struck by the projectile, charged our hero on the mound of battle.  One would think that youth would prevail, but no, it was wisdom and grit that won the day.  Ryan, who had 20 years on Ventura, got him in a submissive hold and delivered a continuous, and seeming endless, number of blows to the head.  The hero and villain's allies cleared the benches and 32,000 onlookers delighted in the savagery.  It was a good day and to the victor went the spoils.

 

Once finished with my heroic ode to Nolan Ryan, Emery asked about the guy in the picture next to Nolan.  "Oh," I responded, "that's Derek Holland.  He's a goofball."  And off we walked.

 

 

Fast & Furious 6 Runway Debate Solved

Since watching the sixth entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise, I have had a huge question regarding the plot (I know, clean storytelling in this film series is a lot to ask).  Needless to say, if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want it spoiled, you probably don’t want to read any further.

 

Are you still here?  Okay then.  We will proceed.

 

The finale of the movie takes place on an airstrip with cars in pursuit of a massive cargo plane.  With stunt work, fistfights, car crashes, and explosions going on for nearly 13 heart-thumping, adrenaline-fueled minutes, once the credits rolled my first question to Joanna was, “Soooooooooo, how long was that runway?”

 

 

Apparently, I am not the only one that noticed the seemingly endless amount of concrete that allowed for the breathtaking moments found during the Fast & Furious 6 climax.  The Internet is littered with people ripping the movie for this exact question, along with another ludicrous stunt that involves jumping across a highway and catching a person in midair at 100 miles an hour (without even a broken bone or fractured rib to show for it).

 

During the final action sequence, the cars and plane travel in excess of 100 mph for approximately 12-and-a-half minutes, resulting in countless, and sane, viewers wanting to scream out, “No airstrip is this long!”  Likely the only reason they didn’t do so in the theater is that we save our condemnation for stupid filmmaking for the Internet, where infuriated reviews belong.  That way we don’t have to defend our opinions with reasons or facts, but can simply let loose for 150 profanity-laced words on a message board and there are no consequences to reckon with the next day.

 

Well, I pretty much let it go and chalked it up to poetic license in order to ramp up the action for a film series known for preposterous set pieces (i.e. dragging a safe the size of my dining room through Rio de Janeiro).  And I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie, but then they had to continue on with the franchise and after seeing Fast & Furious 7, I just had to look into this runway issue.

 

Like I mentioned before, I am not the only one who was curious about how long of a runway would be needed to support the amount of action that took place at the end of Fast & Furious 6.  Pop culture website vulture.com even took a crack at answering the question for those who were too lazy to do the actual research.  Their work can be seen here.

 

The problem with the linked article is that it doesn’t take into account that some of the action overlaps for multiple characters.  In fact, that brings us to the remarks made by those who defend the film’s ending.  The most popular defense is, “People need to realize that a director has to show so many things going on at the same time.  If you viewed everything at the same time it would show exactly what is happening all at once and extremely cut down the length of time the plane was trying to take off.”  Another way of wording that is from this poster who stated, “The runway wasn’t long actually.  LOL.  When you put all the scenes of the different actions together in real time it’s a total of about four minutes.”  There is even a video on YouTube that strengthens this point of view.

 

Another popular argument states, “All the complaints about the runway and people are guessing how fast the plane was going.  Until you know how fast it was going you can’t prove the scene was unrealistic.”

 

While Vulture did get some of the facts wrong due to not overlapping characters sharing the same actions at the same time during the movie, they did provide some helpful scientific information.  Thanks to cast interviews and information from the president of the Independent Pilots Association, we can calculate how fast the cars and plane were traveling at different points during the scene.  So with that information, and the research I did on my own with a repeated viewing of the film, I can safely calculate how fast the vehicles were traveling and how much distance the runway travels.

 

First I would like to thank Vulture for getting me the details regarding rate of speed, but knowing how fast each character was traveling at any specific moment in the movie is only half the problem.  You must also figure out how much screen time every character received.  Below is a list of the characters (including the plane itself as it gets some alone time during shots) and how much time they spend during the movie’s climatic battle:

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) – 3 minutes, 12 seconds

Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) – 4 minutes, 6 seconds

Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) – 3 minutes, 24 seconds

Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) – 3 minutes, 9 seconds

Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) – 3 minutes, 54 seconds

Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) – 4 minutes, 34 seconds

Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) – 4 minutes, 36 second

Han (Sung Kang) – 3 minutes, 18.5 seconds (the half-second is because of slow-motion)

Gisele Yashar (Gal Gadot) – 2 minutes, 49.5 seconds (again, slow motion caused a half-second)

Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) – 2 minutes, 49 seconds

Riley Hicks (Gina Carano) – 2 minutes, 12 seconds

Klaus (Kim Kold) – 1 minute, 40 seconds

Vegh (Clara Paget) – 1 minute, 22 seconds

Henchmen in Car 1 – 2 minutes, 36 seconds

Henchmen in Car 2 – 3 minutes, 24.5 seconds (the final participants during slow motion)

Pilots – 1 minute, 20 seconds

Plane – 1 minute, 22 seconds

 

The way I figured this out was by renting the movie from Netflix and watching the finale, stopping and starting each time a new character was introduced.  I am very confident my calculations are correct, but you are more than welcome to do the same and see if I have made an error anywhere.

 

Going off the amount of time each character is seen during the finale, it turns out Tej Parker has the most screen time.  Who would have thought?  To give the naysayers as much benefit of the doubt as possible, we will assume that the longest possible time it could have taken for the scene to unfold in real-time with everything overlapping for every character would be 4 minutes and 36 seconds.

 

However, you can’t simply take that number and multiply it out by a certain speed because during the scene the plane is shown slowing down and speeding up.  To break this down even further, I have used the technical information from the Vulture article to show that Tej was traveling at 100 mph when the plane comes into view, 115 mph once the plane lands on the runway, 143 mph, which is the average speed of 115 mph and 172 mph as those are the speeds of when the plane was coasting on the runway to the minimum speed needed to take off, and finally 172 mph.

 

Tej was traveling 100 mph for a total of seven seconds at the beginning of the chase, 115 mph when the plane lands on the runway for 19 seconds, 143 mph for 120 seconds (again this is an average because the plane accelerated from 115 mph to 172 mph at a continuous rate), and 172 mph for 124 seconds.  The final six seconds of screen time was coming to a braking halt at the end of the runway.  We will get into that a little later.

 

Doing some calculations to show how far Tej traveled during each moment of the chase, he went 1,026.69 feet during the seven seconds he traveled 100 mph, 3,204.73 feet at 115 mph, 25,167.6 feet at 143 mph, and 31,281.48 feet at 172 mph.  This is a total distance of 60,680.5 feet traveled.

 

Okay, so now we need to add in the final six seconds of braking.  At 170 mph, which is how fast he was traveling when the plane came crashing back down to the runway, he would have traveled a minimum of 690 feet in order to come to a complete halt.  Since we are trying to come up with the shortest possible distance traveled to give those defending the outlandishness of the scene every benefit of the doubt, we will assume that is all that he traveled.

 

Adding in the 690 feet, we have a total of 61,370.5 feet.  Again, benefit of the doubt, I won’t even include any additional feet of runway, despite not knowing exactly where the runway began and seeing that there was about an additional 150 feet of concrete before a dead end once the cars came to a stop.  I could probably add about 500 more feet, but I think without it I will still prove my point.

 

The minimum amount of runway you would need to complete the scene shown in Fast & Furious 6 was 61,370.5 feet.  That means the plane traveled a little more than 11 miles before stopping.  According to Wikipedia, the longest runway in the world is Edwards Air Force Base in the United States.  It comes in at 39,600 feet, or 7.5 miles.  You’ve been scienced Fast & Furious lover.

 

Analysis:

I mostly did this study in film editing because I wanted to know for sure whether the amount of time during the climactic finale and the distance traveled during that time was excessively long or if it was just my imagination and biased animosity toward the franchise, but I also put in the time and effort for another reason.  That was to point out the flaws in fashioning an action scene like the one at the end of Fast & Furious 6 that drags on for nearly a quarter of an hour.  Not only did you defy the normal parameters of physics and logic, but the problem also becomes that it takes the viewer out of the story because of the absurdity of the storytelling.

 

By having multiple characters and so many different storylines going on simultaneously, the audience becomes overwhelmed and eventually gets bored with the excessiveness.  Michael Bay’s Transformers series runs into the same problem in that by the time you get to the finale, you have seen robot aliens beating up on one another for three hours and you just don’t care any longer.  We become desensitized to the conflict after a certain point and our mind starts wandering to other points of interest.

 

That’s not to say an action scene cannot go on for more than 10 minutes without letting up at some point, but there needs to be a sense of realism going on (if the film is supposed to be based in reality) and there has to be characters we care about.  After 12 hours of fast cars and furiously bad acting, most members of the audience don’t give a flip about the Toretto gang or why it is they are battling these villains in and outside of a cargo plane.

 

But thanks to some hard work and head-hurting calculations, we definitely know that there is not a runway in the world that would have supported that action sequence.