Shocking! Positively shocking! (An all purpose 007 thread)

[Talulah, really!]

"Come, come Mr. CaBber[nb]Or Ms. this isn't necessarily "Man Talk."[/nb] you get as much pleasure out of arguing out this stuff as I do."

How wrong can you be.

Well....

Here the official list, released with my blessing -

_{Title and one word review are biggy's, overblown pretentious rubbish commentary mine, obs.}

Dr No - shit

Wrong, placed in context of its time, it is an excellent thriller and a fine introduction to what's to come.

From Russia With Love - good

Better than good, as an actual stand alone film it is probably the best of the series, a splendid thriller, full of lovely touches, beautiful locations, two wonderful villains, an actual story, proper character motivations, it is as good as if not better than anything in a similar vein being made around the same time.

Goldfinger - classic

The Bond film par excellence. As perfect and proficient a thriller/adventure film as was ever made.

Thunderball - good

It's alright, basically this is Goldfinger without any of the iconic bits that raise that film up.

You only live twice - good

Simply one of the most important films ever made since for better or worse this IS the blueprint for the modern blockbuster. It is simply a series of magnificently implausible set pieces strung together, an entertaining charade of spectacle, the plot is mere perfunctory shuffling of the protagonist from one situation to another.

The previous films show their origins in the novels[nb]Yes, yes, Thunderball is an adaptation of an original screenplay but it is by Fleming himself and the novel version precedes the film.[/nb] and are adaptations of literary works which have their roots in 30s Private Eye thrillers as much as anything. Bond functions more as an Investigator rather than a spy, YOLT has it's origins in 30s film serials like Flash Gordon, from here on in, pretty much every 15 minutes Bond has to be embroiled in some outlandish set up he must escape to move to the next level of laboured Herculean heroics, he doesn't instigate and drive the plot, the plot is something that happens to him, it closes in on him like mechanical walls.

Also, whilst the first four films are larger than life, they stay within the limitations of being broadly possible, here we are in Science Fiction land, another signifier we are in the world of Saturday morning serials. The settings and the sets raise this to a rare height in the series and are justly celebrated and routinely parodied, here, as much as anywhere is the pop culture mother lode of movie Bond iconography.

On her Majesty's secret service - classic

Indeed and possibly the truest to the character of the books.

Diamond are forever - good

Enjoyable hokum, though like Thunderball to Goldfinger, this is just You only live twice with the iconography missing.

Live and let die - good

Decent, resetting the Bond films back into context of their times.

The man with the golden gun - classic

Nonsense, it is fairly dull, sagging dreadfully in the middle, only raised by the presence of Christopher Lee who is marvellous and the interjections of the psychedelic pop art shoot out gallery scene, which is so obviously the best thing in the film, they stuck it in at the start and finish but notice this segment is more reminiscent of late sixties fare like "The Prisoner" than Live and Let Die which was working alongside the contemporary strains of  Blacksplotation films. Will return to this point.

The spy who loved me - classic

Yes, The You Only Live Twice of the Moore era, chock full from start to finish with iconic memorable moments that define this era of movie Bond, the exhilarating ski jump, the Lotus esprit (and a far better shot car chase than the opening of Quantum of Solace, Bond's best dare I venture?) and the fabulous sets again. Again, as fine an action film as ever made.

Moonraker - good

As before, the retreading Thunderball to The Spy who loved me's Goldfinger.

For your eyes only - good

Nah, it's dull, mainly due to the issue of pacing, too little plot and action spread over too long a film. It also suffers from one problem that reoccurs in the remaining Moore Bonds, the Dalton's and Brosnan's and one specific to Moore, namely that Moore is a limited actor who actually works rather well when the plot/story are splendid Fu Manchu nonsense but is open and exposed when the films retreat into some sort of pseudorealism. In the former his minimalist acting and taking it seriously work to ground the films unreality, he is the characterless Prince Charming in a nightmarish overblown fairytale,  the wooden actor in a square role. Put into something we are meant to believe is plausible and the whole thing falls over, he doesn't act, literally, like a realistic human being so why should we believe in it and thus it gets exposed for the spun candyfloss it is.

Octopussy - good
View to a kill - classic

Both of these are awful, poor Bond films, overstuffed fairground bears only viable for moments of collectable kitsch.

Living daylights - good
Licence to kill - good

Okay, but they suffer from the issue alluded to earlier, the pacing and that is symptomatic of a bigger issue that effects the Bond films (and also Doctor Who - hence this thread[nb]Sorry was initially going to stick this in the James Bond is a timelord thread, best ignore that point to be honest, it will be for the best.[/nb]), they only really work when they are aesthetically ahead of or on equal footing with their peers. Up to The Spy Who Loved Me they were. Lavish, fast moving spectacles that were better or as good as anything else you could see. From Moonraker onwards they start to falter and in no known universe where kids and adults alike were being treated to the vim, vigour and first class film direction of the Star Wars/Indiana Jones series at the big screen could the plodding, plotting and padding of the later Moore's and the average direction of the Dalton's make these rateable as good films. Bond was getting pensionable in cinematic terms.

Goldeneye - good

Working towards a solution, a better director, a decent enough actor pitching it Dalton's dourness and Moore's knowingness, back to having spectacle and set pieces, even the characters are more memorable if also more comic book than anything that was in the last few. Little bit too Bond by numbers and the soundtrack has dated really quickly.

Tomorrow never dies - execrable

No, Pryce's villain isn't right but everything else that isn't BMW placement is excellent, sharp and pacey, it shows in the motorbike/helicopter chase the films have caught up again to the speed of modern cinema. Underated.

The world is not enough - execrable

The problem that kills this one stone dead is Sophie Marceu, she combines two of the most significant elements of a Bond film, the Bond girl and the Villain to the detriment of the space Robert Carlisle and Denise Richards have to operate in. Robbie Coltrane is quite good fun though.

Die Another Day.

Fuck Yeah, Toby Stephens. Fucking hell, everything else. Worst in series.


Casino Royale - classic

Almost. And here is where Bond is back on track, right up to speed with Bourne and Bauer yet also able to add a touch of extravagant glamour that those guys can't have and with Daniel Craig you have, like Connery, a good enough actor to make pseudorealism believable (notice the first thing he does is batter a guy to death in a bathroom).

Quantum of solace - best bond film ever made

Controversial but note I'm not saying it isn't!
The silent slow motion scene at the Opera is where this film really strikes out boldly. Astonishing, especially in a Bond film.
On the other hand the car chase is over editted to the point of incomprehensibility shit (which at least shows they have been studying Nolan's Bat Man movies!!)

Skyfall - shit

Wrong! It isn't the masterpiece that some have sold it as, it works best, I think, as an arthouse impressionistic version of a Bond film, a looking glass dream of Bond, it uses the aesthetics and icons of the Bond world but rather than the story being driven by set pieces and plot it is driven by symbols and signifiers.[nb]That may just be a fancy way of saying it looks really nice but the story doesn't stand up.[/nb]

[biggytitbo]

The reason Quantum of Solace is the best Bond film, flawed as it is, is that Bond and the Bond girl are genuinely interesting and complex characters in a way never seen in any of the other films. It is the story of 2 deeply damaged people making a bleak but meaningful connection in their own demons and thirst for vengeance. It is the darkest the series ever got, but its also the leanest its ever been - its the shortest Bond film and is all the better for it. Bond with all the flab cut out.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

QoS isn't the best ever bond but it is excellent, one of the few modern Bonds that would be a very exciting film in its own right, if you stripped it of its Bond-branding.

Disagree about Casino Royale, it has excellent individual scenes but I found it clunky as a whole and much of it felt counterfeit.

Skyfall is pretty good, works as a film and is utterly beautiful, slightly jingoistic and Bond is an even bigger cunt than usual.

Brosnan's films -even Die Another Day -are all superior to Dalton's which are just stylistically bereft and have no real reason to exist. GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies have a keen cultural relevance and are very good fun. The later two are poor efforts and it needed a reboot.

[kidsick5000]

Casino Royale is still the greatest Bond film for me.
Good to see the reassessing of QOS here. I'm not sure why it got the flack it did.
Okay, the plane fight pushes it, but other than that... good stuff.
I hope they don't ditch Quantum entirely. There was a damn good concept there.

I've yet to watch From Russia With Love. I worry it may be too dated but having finally seen North by NorthWest - which is brilliant - it may pass the test.
Tried watching the Dalton films recently. They really should have got a new director in. The action is quite lacking. And I don't know what budget cuts were made for License To Kill, but the DOP must have come from Days Of Our Lives - it has the look of a TV movie.

[kidsick5000]

Good place to post this too
http://the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2011/04/21/Banned-James-Bond-Commentaries

So, Criterion made these laserdiscs of the first three Bond films, put these very in depth commentaries on them, only to have EON to say "nah you don't". Now the commentaries have resurfaced as mp3s. Hurrah.

[Mister Six]

QoS isn't the best ever bond but it is excellent, one of the few modern Bonds that would be a very exciting film in its own right, if you stripped it of its Bond-branding.

And if there was a single competently blocked, directed, shot and edited action scene in it. And if the villain was anything more than a wet fart with greasy hair. And if there was even the vaguest hint of a plot. And if the 'Quantum' stuff paid off, rather than just evaporating in the billion years between films. And if Bond actually had any kind of convincing story arc (that they had to bring in another character to add any kind of narrative weight is damning).

A victim of the writers' strike, and it shows.

Especially painful due to its position between the astounding Casino Royale and Skyfall, which wasn't as astounding as some say, but was a noble experiment and a decent anti-Bond flick.[nb]They should've killed the groundskeeper, though.[/nb]

[billtheburger]

No one has ever explained to me how he manages to get his gun through customs all over the world.

[Talulah, really!]

No one has ever explained to me how he manages to get his gun through customs all over the world.

Take your pick from these.

http://debrief.commanderbond.net/topic/63922-what-does-bond-do-with-his-gun-at-airports/

And if there was a single competently blocked, directed, shot and edited action scene in it.

Granted the car chase is awful, the airplane sequence is perfunctory and let down at the end by the CGI (something Bond films seem to struggle with (see also the surfboarding in Die Another Day more like SNES than SCEPTRE)) but the Opera shootout is stunning and the end at the hotel in the desert is good enough as I recall.

And if the villain was anything more than a wet fart with greasy hair.

Think that making him a little more Peter Lorre via a touch of Napoleon worked well, something different.

And if there was even the vaguest hint of a plot.

Don't get this at all, it has a perfectly standard Bond movie plot, neither richer nor poorer, it is much better written than Skyfall which has huge holes in it, bad dramatic structure and nicks its main idea out of the little seen film The Dark Knight.

Where for instance is QOS lacking in plot compared to the relatively similar but longer and more bloated with it Captain America:Winter Soldier[nb]The most recent blockbuster I've seen[/nb] which presumably has plenty of money to hire writers with and wasn't worked on during a writers' strike?

And if the 'Quantum' stuff paid off, rather than just evaporating in the billion years between films.

That's not a fault of the film, that's the decision of the film makers to go off and do Skyfall isn't it?

Another great thing about Quantum of Solace is the completely nuts Trenchcoat and boots combination that Agent Fields turns up in, it's fantastic that Gemma Arterton carries that off, it's so WTF are they thinking with that!?

[Talulah, really!]

I've yet to watch From Russia With Love. I worry it may be too dated but having finally seen North by NorthWest - which is brilliant - it may pass the test.

Saw on the big screen a few years ago, it holds up superbly, the odd bit of back projection aside (the CGI of the day!)

Tried watching the Dalton films recently. They really should have got a new director in. The action is quite lacking. And I don't know what budget cuts were made for License To Kill, but the DOP must have come from Days Of Our Lives - it has the look of a TV movie.

Yep, more than anything that is what kills the two Dalton films, they just look cheap and knackered in too many scenes.

And where are we on Never say never again? It's never made much of an impression on me beyond Rowan Atkinson's in it and the video game bit is nearly as badly dated as the computer identikit thing in For Your Eyes Only.

[biggytitbo]

Gemma Arterton's appearance in QoS is baffling. It always seemed like they were suggesting she was naked under the trenchcoat to me. It makes no sense, but then her character was clearly inserted in at the last minute to get a bit if rumpy pumpy in the story since they'd decided to actually do something interesting with the main Bond girl not just have her be another Conquest for Bond.

[grassbath]

My issue with Skyfall was that it posed itself as a kind of epic Bond-to-end-all-Bonds, breaking ground, redefining the rules, but it felt like every major explosive set piece in it was a retread of something from elsewhere in the series. One fantastic scene, though, was the courtroom inquiry and shootout - extremely tense and I recall being impressed in some way by M's statement about criminality and threat evolving into an online, "unseen" format.

Watched The Man With The Golden Gun again the other day, for the first time since I was about 10. Despite the usual Moore daftness it has the potential to be a really great film. They should have kept the Bond/Scaramanga vendetta as the plot's central tenet - when it turns out that Scaramanga is after the Solex Agitator he becomes just another hands-rubbing world-domination villain and it detracts from the menace somewhat. Plus the climax of the film is given away in the pre-title sequence. And Christ, that's got to be one of the worst Bond songs ever hasn't it? "HE HAS A POWERFUL WEAPON!!!"

I'd also like to put a good word in for Octopussy, which some loathe but I think the circus bomb disarming sequence is one of the most thrilling climaxes in the series, actually enhanced by Bond dressed as a clown.

[Thomas]

The Craig reboot era is my favourite, though - as was once pointed out by someone on here - he's been 007 for eight years, and each film of his has ended on a 'now he's James Bond' note. He spends all his time becoming James Bond, only to have to do it again in the morning.

If I've got a problem with Skyfall, it's that Bond is (fittingly, of course, for the fiftieth anniversary) painted as this worn and aged figure, about ready to pack it in, which jars with the fact that this version of the Bond universe has only seen the man on two cinematic outings, with the second set minutes after the first. It just puts Craig's Bond on unsteady ground, for me. He's not that old, is he?

From Russia With Love is excellent. Like - in my opinion - Casino Royale, it makes for a fine standalone spy thriller.

[biggytitbo]

Saw on the big screen a few years ago, it holds up superbly, the odd bit of back projection aside (the CGI of the day!)

Yep, more than anything that is what kills the two Dalton films, they just look cheap and knackered in too many scenes.

And where are we on Never say never again? It's never made much of an impression on me beyond Rowan Atkinson's in it and the video game bit is nearly as badly dated as the computer identikit thing in For Your Eyes Only.

Never say never again gets points for having Bomber in it. Bomber does like that. But it has that cheapness that afflicts the Dalton ones, and Connerys toupe is terrible.

[biggytitbo]

My issue with Skyfall was that it posed itself as a kind of epic Bond-to-end-all-Bonds, breaking ground, redefining the rules, but it felt like every major explosive set piece in it was a retread of something from elsewhere in the series. One fantastic scene, though, was the courtroom inquiry and shootout - extremely tense and I recall being impressed in some way by M's statement about criminality and threat evolving into an online, "unseen" format.

Watched The Man With The Golden Gun again the other day, for the first time since I was about 10. Despite the usual Moore daftness it has the potential to be a really great film. They should have kept the Bond/Scaramanga vendetta as the plot's central tenet - when it turns out that Scaramanga is after the Solex Agitator he becomes just another hands-rubbing world-domination villain and it detracts from the menace somewhat. Plus the climax of the film is given away in the pre-title sequence. And Christ, that's got to be one of the worst Bond songs ever hasn't it? "HE HAS A POWERFUL WEAPON!!!"

I'd also like to put a good word in for Octopussy, which some loathe but I think the circus bomb disarming sequence is one of the most thrilling climaxes in the series, actually enhanced by Bond dressed as a clown.

Yes it's great, but A View to a Kill is even better. A near endless array of superb set pieces and stunts, an elderly Roger Moore in a corset and hairpiece, Christopher Walken, probably the best theme tune, what's not to like?

[Talulah, really!]

probably the best theme tune,

The Paul McCartney fan club just called, "Licence revoked."



COME ON, SING ALONG JEN!

_{assassination's standing still
The first crystal tears, fall as snowflakes on your body
First time in years, to drench your skin with lovers rosy stain
A chance to find the phoenix for the flame}[NB]Checking those lyrics, I see that for years where I thought Le Bon, Simon Le Bon was straining singing "the fiddle case" is actually "fatal kiss", I thought they had based the song on the shooting script and some ideas that went into The Living Daylights. Makes about as much sense.[/nb]

[thugler]

Not a fan of QOS at all, baffled by some saying it's the best bond film. It's extremely boring and serious. It's a silly spy film! not a serious drama.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Dr. No shit? For me, it's probably the best Connery one. From Russia With Love is great too, Goldfinger doesn't do it for me at all. It just has a look that I really don't like, and poor locations.

OHMSS would have been great if Lazenby didn't stink the whole thing up.

I like Roger Moore's Bond for what it is, camp Bond parody. Live and Let Die is ace though, and View to a Kill has a fabulous theme tune and possibly the best Bond film incidental music.

Goldeneye is very good, the other Brosnan ones are pretty dire.

All the Daniel Craig ones are good. I think Casino Royale is probably the only Bond film (maybe FRWL too) which could actually be considered a classic film in its own right.

[kidsick5000]

Plus the climax of the film is given away in the pre-title sequence. And Christ, that's got to be one of the worst Bond songs ever hasn't it? "HE HAS A POWERFUL WEAPON!!!"

Nooo. THere's far more worse in the Bond catalogue. For Your Eyes Only, All Time High, License To Kill. I'd much rather have the Wah Wah guitar and rasp of LuLu any day.

I'd also like to put a good word in for Octopussy, which some loathe but I think the circus bomb disarming sequence is one of the most thrilling climaxes in the series, actually enhanced by Bond dressed as a clown.

Absolutely. There's a real drama to the moment (put aside the fact that they decided Bond would do full and detailed clown make-up).
Octopussy is one of the most bipolar Bond films with clear divides between scenes that feature the persona of Roger Moore and that of James Bond.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

From Russia With Love is excellent. Like - in my opinion - Casino Royale, it makes for a fine standalone spy thriller.

Which is ironic since the book itself explicitly refers back to the earlier instalments, during the "SMERSH conference" chapters, and they even allude to Diamonds Are Forever (the preceding book, and the first one not to have Russians as the villains).

It's odd that the film of Dr No preserved the opening London office scene in which Bond changed his gundue to it letting him down in the last mission. In the book, that is referring to his troubles at the finale of From Russia, With Love. It's nice that the film of Live And Let Die brings in "Quarrel Junior", alluding to the original Quarrel, who was in the book of LALD but got killed in Dr No.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I liked Octopussy but I haven't seen it in a very long time. I thought A View To A Kill started great but somehow lost its way after the first 30 minutes. It doesn't help that the EVIL SCHEME involves attacking the San Andreas Fault, which was Lex Luthor's target in the first Superman film, which instantly made the whole thing seem uninspired.

Dalton's films suffer from the production team being unsure whether they wanted to move Bond toward serious thriller territory (storylines about drug cartels, less gadgetry) but then chickened out for fear of losing the audience. I don't really like the Brosnans except Die Another Day which brings back the preposterousness of early Moore storylines and gadgetry yet also manages to fit in some fairly realistic stuff about being captive in North Korea - and also the various sly references to the rest of the canon.

Casino Royale was good, but I found QOS terribly dull and I couldn't manage more than about 20 minutes of Skyfall when I was stuck with it on a transatlantic flight.

I'd like to re an attempt to do an entirely by the book Bond, ie. set in the 50s with the Fleming plot. I think Moonraker would be best since that is probably the nearest IF went to the looney techno-thrillers that Moore appeared in.

[Queneau]

I've never watched or read any Bond but that fucking Adele song made me want to kill people.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Quantum of Solace did go too far away in the "back to basics" approach that had worked for Casino Royale.
The thing I loved about Casino was that they had removed all the camp elements that were linked to James Bond, just put together the best adaptation they could do of a particular novel, tried to make it work with Daniel Craig's particular strengths as an actor, and shot it as a modern thriller. We lost the original influences that had carried over from picture to picture, the efficient style of Terrence Young, the set design by Ken Adam, the confident sophistication of Sean Connery, which had actually ossified after decades of more or less skilled continuation, but I had the feeling to witness the beginning of a potential great franchise, that was also the new take on Bond.

QoS felt then like the cheap direct to video franchise to a blockbuster, with a few successful experimentations (the opera scene) and many failed experimentations (why kill Gemma Arterton with oil?, what's up with the theme song?, why the different fonts for the different countries?). Craig and Dench are great, the rest of it could be taken from a preposterous Bourne rip-off and nobody would spot the difference.

I loved Skyfall, even if it's stuck between being a continuation of the reboot, and being a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the franchise. The mentions about Bond aging and being irrelevant to the world security are without a doubt addressing criticisms about the franchise being a thing from the past. And I thought that Mendes found some clever solutions to blur the lines and connect classic Bond with the new incarnation. They, for instance, found a way to reintroduce Moneypenny, a character that the Brosnan entries had sidelined for good reasons. The speech by Judi Dench about the purpose of British intelligence in a modern world was also a great way to define the new center of the franchise. If you didn't have a smile when you saw the Aston Martin behind the garage door or noticed that M's new office looks suspiciously like the sets of the sixties, up to the coat rack in the middle of the room, you have no soul.[nb]Not necessarily because you're a redhead, but it may help.[/nb]

And one thing that works in the new films is what Thomas mentioned. In every film, the character has to become Bond, to prove his value in front of dubitative superiors and failed attempts. That's a thing that started to be very irritating in the first timeline after Thunderball. Bond had saved the world from nuclear doom. Everybody just let him do his thing, because, hey, he's the hero. Moore was the teacher's pet next to M and Q. They had a few quips against him but he was basically the boss of the entire service during the terribly written exposition scenes at MI6.
Dalton had a more ambiguous relationship to authority, and Brosnan could clash openly with Dench, as they actually had a good actor to play M and took advantage of that, but he never ceased to be the world famous James Bond in these films. In the Craig era, they actually managed to give him the right amount of power within his hierarchy, and it's obvious he won't save the world at the end of a mission, or, if he does, nobody will hear about it.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Sheesh, the thread started so well too.

[El Unicornio, mang]

why kill Gemma Arterton with oil?

Wasn't that just supposed to be a sly nod to Goldfinger? It is a daft way to kill someone, but less daft than death by being painted gold (which wouldn't kill a person anyway, at least not in the way it's described in the film)

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Wasn't that just supposed to be a sly nod to Goldfinger? It is a daft way to kill someone, but less daft than death by being painted gold (which wouldn't kill a person anyway, at least not in the way it's described in the film)

Goldfinger was obsessed by gold, and it was his signature. It's daft but it makes sense in the context of the character.
Meanwhile, in QoS, it's "Yeah, we should kill a character using oil, which is actually a red herring in this episode, and artistically quote another death from a film that doesn't exist in this fictional universe. So, we'll have to bring some bucket of raw oil and make the English broad look like she was a dead seagull on the shore after an oil spill. That'll give a lesson to this James Bond, more efficiently than a bullet in her head."
That's unfortunately Marc Forster's trademark to favor style over substance. He also insisted on the four big action scenes in the movie being connected with the four elements (earth, water, air and fire) for some reason.

[Blumf]

And Christ, [Man with the Golden Gun theme's] got to be one of the worst Bond songs ever hasn't it? "HE HAS A POWERFUL WEAPON!!!"

Crap lyrics, but I love the brass on that tune. As such, it always gets my vote as a sort of supporting the underdog thing.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

John Barry had to write the score in something like three weeks. He was never satisfied with the result. In return, the next time he was involved, he came with what's basically the best thing in Moonraker.

[grassbath]

Crap lyrics, but I love the brass on that tune. As such, it always gets my vote as a sort of supporting the underdog thing.

I think another thing I hate about it is how awkward the transition to the bridge is - "love is required, whenever he's hired..." It's all over the place. Maybe not the worst ever, now that Madonna's "Die Another Day" has crawled out of the brainditch i tried to abandon it in.

[Blumf]

I wonder if Barry could have polished it up better given time, or if it'd always be a dog.

[Thomas]

This is my favourite ever Bond moment, I was happy to see it referenced in The Trip to Italy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wi88xfECJ0