The James Bond Thread

S.D. wrote:

Martin Campbell directed both Goldeneye and Casino Royale (interesting the same director launched two different Bonds) and they are two of my favorite modern Bond films.  

Yep - I was glad to see he was back for Casino Royale.

So my wife purchased a set of Blu Ray boxsets of a handful of the Bond films--not the 50 set that I covet, but a series released beforehand and never finished due to studio mishandling--three years ago, and since I've been in a Bond mood lately I decided to break them out for the first time. Started with Dr. No. Nope, sorry, still not a fan of this one beyond Connery, the women, and the aesthetics. The script is lazy, meandering, and generic. Hell, we don't even get payoff with the villain. But I understand the genesis of the whole franchise, and it is much much much better than Octopussy. So *** out of **** for the effort, and for Connery.

My favorites are Goldfinger and Never Say Never Again for classics, Casino Royale for contemporary. Still need to see Quantum and Skyfall.

BTW, I'm surprised no one here has gone aaaaall the way back to the very beginning:

I love Dr. No, just watched it again recently. I really like the vibe of the first 3 Connery films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldinger).

Skip Quantum of Solace and go directly to Skyfall.

Richard Kiel, the 7-foot-2 (!) actor best known for playing the villainous "Jaws" in two Bond films ("The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker") has passed away at the age of 74. R.I.P.

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"Goldfinger," considered by many to be the quintessential Bond film, will be 50 (!) years old this week...I revisited it yesterday to honor that fact, and yep, it still rules.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Goldfinger," considered by many to be the quintessential Bond film, will be 50 (!) years old this week...I revisited it yesterday to honor that fact, and yep, it still rules.

You are a woman of many parts, Pussy.

The official announcement came out today - the 24th (!) Bond film will be titled SPECTRE. Production begins tomorrow, and the movie will be out in November of 2015.

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Fat Freddy wrote:

The official announcement came out today - the 24th (!) Bond film will be titled SPECTRE. Production begins tomorrow, and the movie will be out in November of 2015.

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I'm all in. SPECTRE, eh? Rumor is that Christopher Waltz is really playing Blofeld and not the character named at the press conference

What a freaking cool name for a Bond movie. Looking forward to the teaser trailer.

Look who wants to be a James Bond villain:

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chewie wrote:

Look who wants to be a James Bond villain:

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So THAT'S what you were talking about on HOM. Good God that would be so incredible. All hail the Hawking.

Another member of the James Bond family has pased away: Richard Graydon, a stunt performer who doubled for George Lazenby and Roger Moore in ten 007 films, died this week at the age of 92 (!!)

According to this article, his most famous stunt appearance as "Bond" was during the cable-car fight sequence in Moonraker. He continued working as a stunt man into his 70s, appearing in Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Batman in addition to the Bond series.

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The recent rumor mill has been churning about Idris Elba being the next Bond after Craig. Even got Rush Limbaugh up in arms for daring to suggest a black man play Bond.

But I tell ya, Elba would be INCREDIBLE as Bond. One of my favorite current actors. Check out the BBC series Luther for a good indication of what a screen presence he has.

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I like Idris 'n' all but c'mon... 007 is a white boy!!!

Fat Freddy wrote:

I like Idris 'n' all but c'mon... 007 is a white boy!!!

Why, exactly?

He's male, British, has a level of sophistication in his delivery that works for Bond, he's physically imposing and has a screen presence that I think would work perfectly for that character.

I have a bigger issue with casting an Aussie (Lazenby) as Bond than I do hiring a black British actor.

I think after a decades-long run with so many entries, it'd be cool to change things up like this. I saw clips--dude's impressive.

It's never going to happen anyway, it was just one of the silly items that came out of the Sony leak, but it's still fun for conjecture.

When Idris was asked about it his response was "Wait, isn't Bond supposed to be handsome?"

Yea, I know it was just somebody @ Sony thinking out loud... but after 50+ years, don'cha think a change like that would be a little too radical? It would be like DC Comics suddenly  putting Batman in a pink uniform and saying "Yep, this is how it's gonna be from now on, deal with it, sucker."

Then again, no one seemed to like Daniel Craig when he was first announced as the new 007 either ("he's blonde!! He's too plain looking!", etc.) but now he's hailed as the best Bond since Connery.

Black British actors are different than most of the more stereotypical American counterparts. In the US you kind of have to at least partially fit the racial stereotype, you need to have some of that Samuel L. Jackson kind of street 'tude. In Britain more often than not it's just a character whose skin color happens to be different.

Idris has such a fantastic voice, I could just hear him saying "Bond, James Bond".

Re-reading this thread a few days ago inspired me to write a HubPage about 1983's infamous "Battle of the Bonds," in which "Octopussy" and "Never Say Never Again" were released in the same year:

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I've got a couple of 007 movies in my Netflix list that will be disappearing at the end of the month so last night I re-visited "From Russia With Love," which I've reviewed earlier in this thread so I'll just reiterate that DAMN, Daniela Bianchi, who plays the Russian lovely "Tatiana," has gotta be one of the hottest Bond girls in the history of the series:
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Somewhat related, reading a biography on Sean Connery recently led me to discover this bizarro little film which thankfully has been posted on YouTube in its entirety: "OK Connery," aka "Operation Kid Brother," a 1967 Italian made Bond ripoff/spoof which stars Sean Connery's lesser known brother Neil as a substitute secret agent. I'm probably gonna check this one out this afternoon/evening.


The kicker about this flick is that it co-stars a large number of people who are familiar from the "real" 007 movies, including the aforementioned Daniela Bianchi, plus Bernard Lee (aka "M") and Lois "Miss Moneypenny" Maxwell, playing characters very similar to the ones they play in the "legit" Bond films.
The Connery bio I read claims that Sean was not happy about Lois and Bernard appearing in this ripoff, and accused them of helping to "exploit" his brother...but Lois Maxwell shut him up by telling him that she and Bernard Lee were paid more money to do the Italian spoof than they ever made doing a "real" Bond movies. Haha. You GO Lois!!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Re-reading this thread a few days ago inspired me to write a HubPage about 1983's infamous "Battle of the Bonds," in which "Octopussy" and "Never Say Never Again" were released in the same year:

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Nicely written article. I saw both of these films in the theater that summer, at the time (when I was 13) my choice was Never Say Never Again.

I re-watched both films a few years ago and now I would have to say NEITHER would get my vote. I think Octopussy is almost the nadir of the Roger Moore films (only A View To A Kill is worse) and Never just seems like exactly what it is...a low budget ripoff of Thunderball.

I have several Bond movies in my Netflix list that are due to drop out of the system by Feb. 1st so I've been trying to get to as many of 'em as I can before they disappear. The other night, it was 1987's The Living Daylights, which I haven't seen in a long while.

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Timothy Dalton's debut as 007 is, unfortunately, a pretty "meh" affair. Legend has it that the film was originally drafted while Roger Moore was still playing Bond and therefore it had to be hastily re-written to match Dalton's more serious portrayal of the character. However, a couple of out-of-place comedic bits still remain in this mostly-stone faced Cold War tale, which takes Bond from Gibraltar to Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan as he pursues a turncoat Russian colonel who's dealing Soviet weapons on the side. His love interest this time out is Maryam D'Abo, the colonel's clueless girlfriend who then helps Bond when she realizes her former boyfriend's true nature.

The Living Daylights has a few decent action scenes but the story becomes an overly complicated muddle by the halfway point. Maryam D'Abo seems like a nice gal, but she can't act worth a lick and her Little Dutch Boy hairdo makes her one of the plainest Bond Girls in the history of the series.

Dalton probably would've ended up being a pretty decent Bond but this debut vehicle certainly didn't help him make the proper "splash" with audiences.

Also, the godawful "Living Daylights" theme song (performed by Scandinavian one-hit wonders a-ha, of "Take On Me" fame) definitely ranks near the bottom of the list of Bond themes!!!

Somewhat related note, "Daylights" was the first Bond movie I ever saw in a theater back in '87. I actually saw it twice; once here at home and once again in Frankfurt, Germany, where I was spending a month as an exchange student. It was a very surreal experience for me to watch 007 speaking badly dubbed German. The film's title in Germany is "Der Hauch des Todes," which if memory serves translates to "The Gasp of Death." I can only assume that the change in title is because the English colloquialism "The Living Daylights" has no counterpart in the German language. I have a photo somewhere of the giant poster that was on the Frankfurt theater's front marquee, with the German title against a giant image of Dalton in the gun-barrel.

My first James Bond experience in the movie theater was "The Spy Who Loved Me".

By the way, my re-visiting of "Living Daylights" makes it official: I have now re-watched the entire 007 film series since I started this thread in 2012, including the "non-canon" flicks, i.e. both "Casino Royales" (1954 and '67) and "Never Say Never Again."

Wow, I *am* a NERD. Haha