The James Bond Thread

What really excites me about this film is the director, because Sam Mendes has never done anything that could be construed as a "mainstream action" flick, he's an art house director who tends to do heavy dramas. Hopefully this means a very intelligent film that focuses just as much on characters and script as over-the-top action sequences.

His previous movies include; Revolutionary Road, American Beauty, Road To Perdition and Jarhead.

For you movie trivia buffs, Sam Mendes is the first Academy Award winning director (American Beauty) to make a James Bond film.

Fellow Bond Geeks might wanna pick up the current issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, as it's a special issue devoted to 50 Years of James Bond on film. I did a little geek happy dance when I pulled this out of the mailbox yesterday.

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Highlights include a retrospective of all the past films, an interview with George Lazenby (!) and of course a sneaky peek of the upcoming Skyfall....

Nice!!!! I will probably pick it up if I see it in a mag rack somewhere! I haven;t subscribed to EW in years!

Lazenby might not have been that great of a Bond...but the film he starred in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is one of the best...and also had my favorite female character; Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo portrayed by the insanely lovely Diana Rigg.

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S.D. wrote:

Lazenby might not have been that great of a Bond...but the film he starred in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is one of the best...and also had my favorite female character; Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo portrayed by the insanely lovely Diana Rigg.

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...and I have still been unsuccessful in getting hold of that flick... it seems to be the one Bond flick that is not available via my public library, which is where I've been getting all the oldies from... I swear if I find it on DVD at a decent price I'll just buy the damn thing. I honestly am still not sure if I've ever seen "Majesty's," if I did it was so many years ago that I remember nothin' about it.

$6.39 at Amazon.

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^^ Well, there you go. I'll keep that in mind.

Full trailer for "SKYFALL". This is my most-anticipated film for the remainder of the year.

Well, it appears that I may finally be seeing "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" soon. My brother called me today to tell me that one of his co-workers just bought that ridiculously expensive new "Bond 50" Blu-Ray box set of the entire 007 series, so the guy just GAVE my brother all of his "old" Bond DVD's (everything from Dr. No thru Casino Royale). In other words, my bro's just gotta get Quantum of Solace and he will be the proud owner of the entire Bond series on DVD!!!

Anyway, he told me that next time I'm down his way, I am free to borrow/steal any of the Bonds from that stack that I feel like watchin' so I am sure that "Majesty's" will be my first pick.

Shoot, why don't I ever get that lucky?? Haha.

That "Bond 50" set looks pretty sweet, by the way. Here's a video about it from IGN:
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Makes me wish I had a Blu-Ray player!!

Thanks to my brother, I was finally able to knock the last Bond film I'd never seen - 1969's still controversial "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - off my bucket list.

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Opinions vary widely on this flick - some folks think it's the worst in the series, others say it's one of the best. It was the one and only film to star George Lazenby as Bond, and y'know what? The guy actually did a pretty decent job, considering the amount of weight he must've been carrying on his shoulders. Before getting the 007 gig his highest profile acting role had been in a series of candy commercials on Australian TV. He certainly had the square-jawed hero look down, and his fighting skills were adequate enough, even if his delivery was a little wooden at times.

In the pre-credit sequence Bond rescues a mysterious lovely (Diana Rigg) who's about to drown herself in the ocean, then has another encounter with her in a casino. Eventually he's contacted by her father, a notorious Italian crime lord. He offers Bond a million pounds (!) to continue seeing his daughter, since she's come into contact with some questionable people and he thinks Bond would be a good influence on her. Bond goes along with it because Daddy's connections may be able to help him locate the elusive Blofeld, head of SPECTRE.

Future Father-In-Law makes good on his word and gets a fix on Blofeld, who's got a secret laboratory atop one of the Swiss Alps. He's supposedly helping a bevy of beauties find a cure for their "allergies," but when Bond goes undercover there he soon learns that Blofeld is actually planning to sterilize the world's food supply via germ warfare, using these lovelies as carriers he calls his "Angels of Death." Lotsa fightin', chasin', and explodin' ensues. Bond even marries "Countess Tracy" at the end of the film, though their honeymoon is cut short via drive-by shooting by Blofeld just before the end credits roll, in what is perhaps the most tragic incident in Bond film history.

"OHMSS" felt like it ran a bit longer than it really needed to (a by product of director Peter Hunt's intent to adhere to the events of Ian Fleming's original novel as closely as possible) but aside from that it was a pretty decent entry. Lazenby probably would've ended up being a pretty cool Bond if he'd stuck with the role, but supposedly he was already making noise about leaving the series even before "OHMSS" was released. He apparently butted heads with director Hunt and with the producers, who discouraged him from trying to develop his own "take" on the Bond character... they basically shoved the script into his hand and said "Here ya go kid, just do it like Sean Connery would've."

Either way, Lazenby was already out the door by the time "OHMSS" opened. Depending on who you talk to, either his ego got out of control from becoming so famous so quickly, or he declined to return on advice from his managers, who told him that the Bond character would end up "passe" in the new decade (the swingin' 1970s)... either way, it was obviously a poor career move for ol' George, who went on to near total obscurity soon after the film faded from theatres.

Glad you finally got around to seeing it. I think it's an excellent Bond film, probably not in my top 5 but pretty close to it.

I think the romance with Diana Rigg works great and is one of the only times in the Bond series (aside from Casino Royale) where Bond is allowed to actually fall in love and show a bit more humanity than usual.

Lazenby is passable, but the film is excellent and carries him along nicely.

The movie originally ended with the wedding and Bond & Rigg driving away. Roll credits. Then the pre-credit sequence for Live And Let Die was going to be the drive by shooting that kills Rigg and sends Bond over the edge. That was the way it was designed...but prior to release the Producers had already decided to leave Lazenby behind so they used the shooting footage at the end of the film. It was never supposed to have that dark ending, but they didn't want to have to hire Rigg to come back and re-shoot the sequence with another actor as Bond...so they included the whole thing and closed the book on the 1-film Lazenby era.

The special features on the "OHMSS" DVD were fairly skimpy but there was a pretty interesting group of interviews with Lazenby that summed up his experience with the Bond character.

The first clip showed the producers introducing Lazenby as the new Bond to the world press in 1968.. Of course, George had the tuxedo on, he had the haircut, looked the part, and was very polite to the reporters.

In the second clip he's being interviewed by the BBC a year or so after he'd left the role... he had long hair and a beard (kinda had a fat Jim Morrison thing going on), and he went on and on about how unfair the producers and media had been to him throughout the entire experience, and how he was looking forward to a long and fruitful non-Bond acting career. (Ha!)

The last clip was from the early 2000s and obviously with age comes clarity, cuz he admits that his ego got too big, too fast, and basically sez "I fucked up," haha. He obviously regrets his actions now that he's an older man. You almost feel bad for the guy.

I find it funny how George Lazenby's name is still occasionally used as a punch line to indicate a one-hit wonder or a short lived replacement.

A while ago on "The Daily Show," John Oliver (their British "correspondent") referred to Pope Benedict XVI as the "George Lazenby" of the papacy, compared to Pope John Paul II's Sean Connery.

Over the past few days I've watched:

A Nightmare on Elm St. 1 &3, Halloween H20, Evil Dead II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

SKYFALL - SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!




Saw Skyfall yesterday and it was an excellent Bond film - not the best, but a top Bond film for sure. Craig does an excellent job again. They did borrow some ideas from other Bond movies.

BEGIN SPOILERS

Like the "Bond Death" idea (hello You Only Live Twice), a hurt Bond (hello "The World Is Not Enough") but it worked in the context of the film. I was bugged by it at first, but ti really worked in this film and added a layer of suspense to many of the scenes (unlike TWINE, where you didn't believe for a second that his injuries were going to stop him)

Javier Bardem did an excellent job as the bad guy, playing him as creepy yet effective. With a lesser actor, the character wouldn't have worked. Some of the character idea background has been used before (the ex-MI6 agent that is the yang to Bond's Ying borrowed from Goldeneye) but it worked. Javier Bardem seems to like to play bad guys with a bad hair cut.....

Bond films always have at least one huge, epic action sequence. This one was at the beginning of the film, and it was a good one. Bonus - it was much easier to follow than the opening sequence of "Quantum Of Solace", which was extremely hard to follow (and a big part of why that film isn't thought of as a top Bond flick, though I did enjoy it quiet a bit.) They got the action scenes right this time.

The Komodo Dragon Pit sequence was very cool and a throw band to older Bond flicks.

The end piece was also a bit different - instead of destroying the bad guy's lair, the Bond family estate, called "Skyfall" is laid to waste. And so is the M of the past 17 years. They give her a huge send off. I guess if you are going to retire Dame Judi Dench you have to do it in a big way. Personally, I loved the way she was portrayed in the Craig Bond flicks - more hard ass than the Brosan flicks. Bond's relationship with M is played as her being a surrogate "mum" to orphan Bond. Her death scene was well handled - the bad guy succeeded in killing M, but he thought he lost because he was already dead. The ending also showed a back story to Bond that has not been shown on screen before, taking the elements of Bond's youth and building on it. One interesting fact, for the part of the Skyfall groundskeeper Kincand, the director originally wanted to get Sean Connery to play the role. But, he decided against it because he thought it would be a distraction to bring back the first Bond to play a different role. I think it would have been cool and they should have tried it.

The director (Sam Mendes) and the screenwriter (John Logan) seemed to add some depth to the characters, creating a back story for the new M and Moneypenny (who gets a HUGE back story as a field agent before she decides to take a desk job). Ralph Fines will make an excellent M and Naomie Harris will be great Moneypenny. I look forward to seeing them in the roles in future films. And I loved M's old school Bond office at the end, which was obviously a 50 years of Bond thing. But it was very cool. They new Q also seems to work, I had questions about Q being younger than Bond with the previews, but the character works well in the technology age. Can't wait for the next one, and hopefully it won't be a full four years again! I read the plan is to release the next one in two years. John Logan has been hired to write the next two films (and Craig is also signed for two more films)

This film seems to take place 10+ years after Quantum Of Solace, where as that one took place directly after the end of Casino Royal. If you look at the film as taking place just 4 years after the last one, some aspects don't work as well.

The Cinematography is amazing throughout most of the film (the night scenes at Skyfall were a little dark) especially with the Shanghai scenes. Something I didn't know until after I saw the film is that it was shot using digital cameras and not on film. It worked well.

The title sequence is also one of the more memorable Bond opening credits in years.

Overall, a great film. Not the best Bond film, but certainly a top Bond film. Maybe in the years to come it will be thought of as one of the best, but I am of the opinion that much like music, a film needs to age before that can be decided.


END SPOILERS

Anyone else see it yet? What did you think?

Bump!!!!!

Watched The Man With The Golden Gun last night, hadn't seen it in year....... and well..... i wasn;t missing much. Rather a boring Bond flick - Roger Moore seemed to be trying to channel his inner Connery during parts of the movie, Mary Goodnight was a total fail (even though she was hot) and the redneck sheriff from Live & Let Die was a total fail as comic relief. The story wasn't that great either. On the positives, Christopher Lee was great as the villain, with Tattoo has his henchman. The movie seemed live a B movie.

This would be Moore's second turn as Bond, following Live & Let Die - a much better flick.

Currently SyFy is showing a Bond marathon, Tomorrow Never Dies is on now, followed by the worst Brosnan flick, The World Is Not Enough, which is slightly better than The Man With Golden Gun but still one of the worst Bond flicks (the direction was horrible, story not that great)

Both "Live & Let Die" and "The Man With The Golden Gun" are B-grade films, just very expensive B-grade films. They are both fun...but honestly neither of them are "good movies". I loved them when I was a kid, but neither of them really hold up beyond nostalgic reasons.

Honestly, the only really good Roger Moore vehicle is The Spy Who Loved Me. I could pick all the others apart for a variety of reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy them when they come on (especially Moonraker which I have a soft spot for), but for the most part they are rather shoddy films.

Compare something like "From Russia With Love" to any of the Roger Moore flicks and the Moore films end up being dated as hell...while the Connery flicks seem timeless by comparison.

S.D. wrote:

Both "Live & Let Die" and "The Man With The Golden Gun" are B-grade films, just very expensive B-grade films. They are both fun...but honestly neither of them are "good movies". I loved them when I was a kid, but neither of them really hold up beyond nostalgic reasons.

Honestly, the only really good Roger Moore vehicle is The Spy Who Loved Me. I could pick all the others apart for a variety of reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy them when they come on (especially Moonraker which I have a soft spot for), but for the most part they are rather shoddy films.

Compare something like "From Russia With Love" to any of the Roger Moore flicks and the Moore films end up being dated as hell...while the Connery flicks seem timeless by comparison.

Agree with you - still enjoy the heck out of Moonraker (which really was the first Austin Powers movie........) Personally, I though the only good Moore flick was For Your Eyes Only (also the first one I saw at the theater) - that was the closest he ever got to capturing the essence of James Bond.

I did have The World Is Not Enough on last night while doing other stuff - it could have been a good movie, but a couple things ruined it. The direction wasn't that great, Denise Richards (nice eye candy, but not at all believable as a "nuclear scientist) but the thing that really brought the film down was the Elektra and Bond dynamic - they turned it into Dr. Phil psycho babble and really dragged downed the film. She's going to nuke a town because she has daddy issues???? Bond has trouble pulling the trigger to kill her???? VERY bad characterization of Bond - that one scene sums it up. Bond would have just pulled the trigger without getting into any more psycho drama. I also didn't "injury" given to Bond - it didn't work in this film. In Skyfall, it worked perfectly and added to the tension of the film. When he first was injured in Skyfall, my first thought was "They tried this in TWINE and it didn't work!!!!!" But it worked in Skyfall.

Die Another Day came on afterwards - I had seen it a few times before, but watching it right after The World Is Not Enough makes it seem like classic cinema. Enjoyable film - I know a lot of people didn't like the direction of the film (granted, it was more "fast and furious" style direction than Bond) and another unbelievable villain, but a bit of willing suspension of disbelief helps.) Madonna's cameo wasn't needed at all and her title song sucked. And the whole idea of Bond being tortured for 18 months in North Korea didn't work to drive the film. Other than that, I thought it was enjoyable and better than many of the Moore flicks and the second Dalton flick.

Now I want to re-watch each and every film!

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Now I want to re-watch each and every film!

^^ That's exactly what I've been doin' with the series over the course of this past year! Still have a few more to go!

I caught a little bit of "World Is Not Enough" (the only Brosnan 007 flick I don't own on DVD) on SyFy last night, hadn't seen it since its first video release years ago. As soon as I saw Denise Richards I sez to myself, "Oh yeah, now I remember, this one was kinda lame," haha. I'm still gonna have to catch it in its entirety again sometime soon, tho.

"Die Another Day" was mediocre at best. The highlight is the scene where Halle Berry walks up onto the beach in a very obvious homage to Ursula Andress' entrance in "Dr. No."

...and hey, "Goldfinger" is on SyFy right now! Woohoo!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

Now I want to re-watch each and every film!

^^ That's exactly what I've been doin' with the series over the course of this past year! Still have a few more to go!

I caught a little bit of "World Is Not Enough" (the only Brosnan 007 flick I don't own on DVD) on SyFy last night, hadn't seen it since its first video release years ago. As soon as I saw Denise Richards I sez to myself, "Oh yeah, now I remember, this one was kinda lame," haha. I'm still gonna have to catch it in its entirety again sometime soon, tho.

"Die Another Day" was mediocre at best. The highlight is the scene where Halle Berry walks up onto the beach in a very obvious homage to Ursula Andress' entrance in "Dr. No."

...and hey, "Goldfinger" is on SyFy right now! Woohoo!

I have it on while I am doing stuff around the house - one of the best Bond pre-title sequences ever! "Shocking..... Positively Shocking"

I think "Die Another Day" is MUCH WORSE than The World Is Not Enough. Invisible car? Bad guys lair made out of ice?

Give me a fucking break.

My bro gave me "Goldfinger" and "For Your Eyes Only" DVDs for Christmas today. Cool! (he sez "nobody's DVD collection is complete without Goldfinger"...haha)

Awesome. I remember seeing "For Your Eyes Only" on my birthday back in 1981. L-O-N-G time ago now.

S.D. wrote:

Awesome. I remember seeing "For Your Eyes Only" on my birthday back in 1981. L-O-N-G time ago now.

Yep, I just saw "Goldfinger" recently (within the past year) but I haven't seen "Eyes" since it first made the cable TV rounds back in the day. Lookin' forward to seeing it again.

Fat Freddy wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Awesome. I remember seeing "For Your Eyes Only" on my birthday back in 1981. L-O-N-G time ago now.

Yep, I just saw "Goldfinger" recently (within the past year) but I haven't seen "Eyes" since it first made the cable TV rounds back in the day. Lookin' forward to seeing it again.

Eyes was the first Bond flick I saw in the theater - my Grandfather took me. I watched it again this past year and I really enjoyed it.

Bond-Mania contines at Casa Del Freddy in 2013!

Most recent flick seen: "Moonraker"

"Moonraker" (1979)


James Bond cashed in on the late 70s "Star Wars" craze in this totally ridiculous, but still enjoyable, adventure. While investigating the disappearance of a space shuttle, 007 visits California, Venice, Brazil, and finally outer space, where crazed industrialist Hugo Drax plans to wipe out all of humanity from his private space station and then re-populate Earth with his hand-picked "master race." The climactic laser-gun battle between the bad guys and the U.S. Space Marines (?) aboard Drax's Death Star is a total hoot.

Silly as hell but tons o'fun, this flick is a sentimental favorite of mine cuz it's the first James Bond movie I saw as a kid (I even had a bunch of the "Moonraker" trading cards from Topps!), and I've been a 007 fan ever since.

I was 9 years old at the time and had no idea who James Bond was, nor was I aware that "Moonraker" was part of a film series that stretched back nearly 20 years by that point. All I knew was that it had guys shootin' at each other with lasers, and that was enough for me.

On a somewhat related note, picked up this book about the Bond series from the library today:
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This looks to be a VERY interesting in-depth look at the film series (up to the early '00s when Brosnan was still playing Bond), I've only flipped through it for a minute but it's packed with tons of vintage photos, poster art, and other geeky goodies.

When I reserved this book on the libary's computer, I had no idea that it was a gigantic coffee table sized volume... I mean this thing is HUGE, it's the size of a pizza box. The lady at the front desk looked like she was having trouble carrying it from the shelf to give to me. Looking forward to diving into this one!