As far as I know, there is no reason they are doing this except that they can. It's one of the reasons I love them.
It's the last weekend of November/first weekend of December, Thursday to Sunday, and they have tiered price entries for various levels of engagement.
And it's obviously a labor of love. You have to get the rights to show the films. You have to get all the prints. (It's probably digital projection, but the Sun does still do some projections of film.) You have to have staff come open the place no later than 7:30 a.m. to accommodate the first 8 a.m. showtimes, when they ordinarily would not be in for two to three hours after that. You have to have some stay well past midnight, when their last shows ordinarily don't start past 9:30, because Moonraker and The World Is Not Enough (of all films) start at 11:30 on those Friday and Saturday nights. Because, of course, they're going in order, though I probably needn't even clarify that.
They're going to allow you to work on Thursday, but not Friday.
The festivities kick off at the reasonable time of 5:30 on Thursday, November 30th, with the one that started it all, 1962's Dr. No. From Russia With Love and Goldfinger also get knocked off the schedule that day.
Things start bright and early on the first day of December with Thunderball at 8 a.m., followed consecutively by You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever, to wrap up Sean Connery and also get in the only George Lazenby movie. At 5 p.m. the transition is on to Roger Moore with Live and Let Die, followed by The Man With the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me and the aforementioned Moonraker.
Saturday the 2nd continues Moore's Bond reign with For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Timothy Dalton takes over for two at 2:40 with The Living Daylights and License to Kill, then it's Pierce Brosnan time starting at 7:20 with Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. Three different Bonds in one day, for the second day in a row.
Brosnan's final film, Die Another Day, kicks off Sunday morning at the same 8 a.m. start time, and then the baton is handed off a final time to Daniel Craig. You mightn't think that Craig would take all day, but then you'd be forgetting he made Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre and No Time to Die, each of which was made in the era of bloat, when a Bond film rarely clocked in any shorter than two hours and 30 minutes. Still, the final film starts at a reasonable 8:05, to get everyone out and home for a decent night's sleep before starting work again.
How many people will go to all 25 films?
Not many. But if they want to, there is a ticket package for that.
For $377 you can go to all the films. Some people will buy this package, probably, even though the more reasonable ten-film package is likely to be more popular. That one's only $155. But it might be fun to say you bought the bigger package. The Sun probably could have given people a bigger price break on the big one. If you are going to go to 25 films over a four-day period, I reckon you should be able to do so for closer to $10 per film.
But wait there's more.
There is a super extravagant $777 VIP pass, which includes a ticket to all the shows plus an item from the candy bar for each show. Now this is just wrong. Granted, if you are going to be in movies all day, you have to eat. But I don't know how great you'll feel after eight popcorns or bags of chocolate, even if it is the only thing you eat that day -- especially since that'll be your diet for two days in a row on Friday and Saturday.
I should tell you that if this weren't enough, there is what they are calling an "amuse bouche" the weekend before, when three unofficial Bond films will be shown. That's when the Casino Royale from 1967 and Never Say Never Again will be shown. How does that get me to three? There is also something called "Casino Royale TV," which maybe differs from the Casino Royale movie. But given that this plays at the same time as the other Casino Royale on that Sunday the 26th of November, I guess you can't watch both.
So the big ticket packages include those movies as well, which they are pitching as 28 movies total, though two of them play at the same time. If that's a beef you have, well, you're probably doing it wrong.
Again I come back to the idea that a) there is no reason to do this, b) there are very few people who will probably actually shell out for these tickets and c) there is no c, but you have to list three things. In an era in which the bottom line is considered on literally any venture undertaken that involves some level of financial risk, it's refreshing to see the passion burn this brightly in the Sun programmers, against all odds and with very little prospect of real remuneration for their efforts.
I have to participate in this somehow.
Now, this is of interest to me anyway because I have been working my way through the Bond movies, having started mid-way through the career of Roger Moore and seen every movie since then. Within the past 20 years, I finally saw Dr. No, and then began working my way forward in Connery's movies from there. It's been slow going as I haven't even gotten to Lazenby yet, which means there's still one more canon movie starring Connery after that.
If I were to pick up on Lazenby's movie, which is next up for me, it would mean needing to attend a showing at 12:20 in the afternoon on that Friday. I can't make that work with my work schedule.
However, I could do some homework in the next six weeks before then and finish off both Lazenby and Connery. Then I could rock up at 5 p.m. in time for the first-ever appearance of "my Bond," Roger Moore, in Live and Let Die.
This sounds like a plan.
Now, if I want to take it a step further, I could stay for the rest of the night to watch The Man With the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me, getting out of there before the wretched Moonraker -- which is the oldest Bond movie I had seen until I finally watched Dr. No. This would finish off all five of the remaining Bond films I haven't seen as of today. And hey, if I weren't already burned out from three straight Bond movies, I suppose I could stay, as that headspace might be the perfect to experience the ridiculousness of Bond going to outer space.
The one thing the Sun website doesn't say is whether I can buy a ticket to just a single movie. It's probably obvious that I can, but I suppose if I had to pay $155, then I should at least stay for the four that night.
And if I do manage to do this, the event will have been going on long enough that I'll be able to tell if anyone has been there for all seven of the movies that had played before I showed up -- or all nine if you include the previous weekend, or all ten if they managed to make a copy of themselves to watch both older versions of Casino Royale. It'll be the perfect environment to strike up that sort of conversation, since the others present will be eager to chat.
And if there isn't anyone else at Live or Let Die, at least I can get an update/commiserate with the staff.
Part of me would enjoy dipping in and out for the rest of the weekend, but to be honest, Bond movies have little repeat viewing value for me. In fact, there's only one Bond movie I've seen more than once, which remains the one I had on VHS when I was young, Octopussy. I've probably watched that seven or eight times in total.
Though never on the big screen, so maybe I'll have to come back the next morning for at least that one.
If you happen to be an Australian, more specifically a Melburnian, reading this, you can find more information and buy tickets here.
No comments:
Post a Comment