Confessions of a James Bond Virgin

Despite being a self-proclaimed movie-buff, as hard as it is to admit, it's inevitable that there will be some gaps in my knowledge and omissions from my movie-watching experience. Some are acceptable: for example some films or series just don't interest me, and despite my desire to stay informed of the movie landscape, sometimes life is just too short to sit through a movie you're not into just for the sake of being a completist. However, sometimes there are those glaring omissions that are all-but unforgiveable and will get you looked down upon by your peers; those films or series that are just too iconic and downright important to the medium's history to simply ignore, whether you're into them or not.

One of those series for me is James Bond. Don't shoot! It's not that I'm not interested in the franchise, it's just one of those series that has so many entries and me being me, I have to start at the beginning and it's always just seemed like a big commitment to get into.

Full disclosure, I have seen all of the Daniel Craig films, but prior to that my only exposure to the franchise was through brief glimpses on the last day of term at school, when inevitably someone would bring in a Bond film (always a Pierce Brosnan one!), but due to the fact that no-one ever actually watched them and the fact that we never got to see more than 53-minutes worth before the period ended, I'm not counting them. So, despite being aware of all the iconic imagery and tropes that Bond has given birth to over the years, I'm essentially a Bond virgin.

That's why when a friend of mine who is a huge Bond fan suggested we start a Bond marathon from the very start, I was all for it and decided it was the perfect opportunity to do something like this. These won't be reviews in the conventional sense, but more just a stream-of-consciousness type list of observations as I watch. God-willing I'll be posting one for each film in the series, working up to November's release of the latest instalment Spectre. I'm really excited to see what I think of them.

So first up, I'm informed, is 1962's Dr. No. Here goes nothing...