Last Bond Movie You Watched? 2.0

It's been a decade since I last did a summer Bondathon. I did a few from 2003 to 2006. But I watched them too much and burned out. It's been about a decade since I've seen most of them except for a few sporadic viewings. Which is odd being a huge Bond fan, but I did a handful of marathons. On top of that, at that time, they were pretty much the only films I watched, so I over did it a little too much.

Since then it has been very, very sporadic viewings. I remember watching OHMSS and LALD before Skyfall came out. Too bad I don't remember how I ranked them. Think it might be time to bring it back. At least for one year. Last year/this year I did dive into License to Kill, OHMSS, and the TSWLM.

It has been refreshing watching them so much time off. For some, I know for a fact it's been at least 10 years (From Russia With Love, Thunderball, etc.) Think maybe next month/June I might start up a marathon.

dalton wrote:

Finally got through my first home viewing of Spectre after several failed attempts.  It'll also, most likely, be my last viewing of the film

Looking forward to reading your thoughts when you begin your Bondathon, Moore!

It should be interesting watching them all again in order. Although I fear this means I'll have to finally purchase SPECTRE on DVD. And watch it again. Hmmm...

Moore wrote:

It should be interesting watching them all again in order. Although I fear this means I'll have to finally purchase SPECTRE on DVD. And watch it again. Hmmm...

Same here, I liked it in the cinema but not seen it since and been putting off buying it for a while -a combination of price/special features and er, this forum. Decisions, decisions.

The PTS alone compelled me to buy the film, but I also wanted a complete collection.

Dr. No

Brilliant. Great mix of danger, sex, mystery, bizarre and humour. Terence Young just got it so, so right.

And the build up to being introduced to the Doctor himself is excellent.


2016 Bondathon:

Tomorrow Never Dies
Goldeneye
Thunderball
Dr. No
For Your Eyes Only
The World Is Not Enough
The Living Daylights
Skyfall
A View to a Kill
Octopussy
You Only Live Twice
Licence to Kill
The Man With The Golden Gun
Diamonds Are Forever
Moonraker
SPECTRE
Quantum of Solace
Die Another Day
Live and Let Die
Casino Royale

FieldsMan wrote:

Dr. No

Brilliant. Great mix of danger, sex, mystery, bizarre and humour. Terence Young just got it so, so right.

It is remarkable that Dr No rarely exposes itself as the first of the series, from a creative standpoint this film deserves far more kudos/credit than it generally receives, it isn't just a great Bond film, it is great Cinema.

Indeed. A lot of this 'formula' that GF allegedly established was already present in DN.

Diamonds Are Forever

As I have mentioned before, this is another Bond film I haven't watched in a good 10 years. Unlike some of the others where I might have caught a few minutes here and there on TV over the years, I don't think I've see a single clip of footage from this film since then. But I decided to watch it on a whim last night.

And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it which surprised me greatly. It never ranked highly before for me in the past and, yes, it certainly has its flaws. But overall I thought it was pretty fun. Campy? Sure. But it has some great moments of seriousness mixed into the camp that I had forgotten about.

It was like watching a new film for the first time. There were tons of things I had forgotten. I completely forgot about the scene where Bond is trapped in the coffin. Such a great scene to see Bond completely helpless. I also have to say, I know Norman Burton is usually at the bottom of people's list, but I actually enjoyed his performance as Felix. He actually seemed less of Bond's bitch in this movie than in most of the others. He holds his own.

I always enjoyed the montage about smuggling at the beginning of the film. The Amsterdam scene where Wint and Kidd are taking photographs of the corpse and they zoom in past them to see Bond arriving is always a fun shot from Hamilton. Charles Gray is still a better Blofeld than Waltz despite the drag. In regards to Connery, I actually enjoyed his performance here. While I think his prime performances were DN-GF. I think this is the better of his latter performances. Sure, he looks a little bored at times, but he looks relaxed and like he's enjoying making the film as opposed to YOLT.

One thing I never really noticed before: I also think this is one of the few films post-Goldfinger where Bond and Q don't jab or insult each other. In fact, I think the only two times Bond speaks to Q during the film are both compliments (the fake fingerprint and the voice disguise machine).


Minor gripes: Some of the city/Las Vegas scenes are a bit dull looking. Tiffany goes from interesting to bimbo after 5 minutes. If they had written her throughout the film like those first few minutes I think it would been a huge improvement. Plenty is still annoying, but not on screen long enough to be a bother. Oil rig ending is still as weak as I remember it being.

MOONRAKER

Didn't know when to let up; sometimes pushed the comedy and the fantastic just a bit too far.

Sometimes the plot stretched hard to get Bond and Holly into action sequences that otherwise would not have been dictated by the story i.e. the whole idea of being better off on the outside of a gondola 1500 feet off the ground. What did Bond think would happen as his and Holly's weight, at the angle they were traveling and the speed they were moving, reached maximum effect?

Jaws doesn't kill anyone in this movie, does he?

But the movie is not terrible. It's got some great scenes. Bond shooting his own assassin during a pheasant hunt, and cooly handing the gun back over to Drax. Corrine being chased by dogs is jarring and very down-to-earth and cold-blooded for a film that had Jaws flapping like a bird a few minutes earlier. It's like the movie isn't sure what it wants to be.

Hand-to-hand combat scene in the Venini Glass showroom was tops. I liked Holly and James' banter.

The movie is, at times, very stylish or evocative; at times mysterious and sexy. For example: the tour guide momentarily losing her train of thought when she sees 007; Bond following Holly through the museum; the shop girl who said "Can I interest you in something?" and then proceeds to stare at Bond like she suspects he's shoplifting or something.

Also liked how Drax's girls were all cool and emotionless. The only real emotion I saw was when one of them looked irritated that the boa constrictor failed to kill Bond.

I think the film, without meaning to, raises a lot of questions that most films at that time never bothered to consider. Who were these Drax Girls and Drax Guys? Where did they come from? Did they understand they were leaving their entire lives behind? Family? Friends? To have sexy time in zero-gravity? Were they genetically bred this way? Maybe Carl Mortner was in charge of Drax's secret breeding program.

I think Jaw's transformation would have been better handled had he been alone on the spaceship. The loneliness of seeing everyone else partnered would start to make him rethink his longterm prospects on the station; And then Bond comes along and basically spells it out for Jaws. Not sure having Dolly was the best course to take; were the producers suggesting that what a mass serial killer really needs is someone to love them?

Would've preferred the motorcycle chase originally written for Moonraker instead of the Venice boat chase, but I think we ended up with the motorcycle chase in FYEO...still, Bond having a gondola that turns into an ugly, very ugly, speedboat just took the piss if you know what i mean. Just a bit too much stupidity.

Some of the f/x hold up really well. And it's a travelers dream, as it manages to incorporate some classical music combined with French art, Italian locations, and local Rio customs.

Moonraker was very ambitious for it's time; they just needed to learn when to leave well enough alone in some spots and if they had the movie would be better remembered.

Good write up. I agree with a lot of it, particularly the film's ambience. I've always said an excellent film is buried beneath the gags.

OHMSS

What bugged me the most was "I told you that crowd would discourage them." You 12 years old, mate? Quite a few really awkwardly-written lines like that.

Otherwise it's good.

Octopussy (1983)

One thing that I always end up taking away from this film is how balanced it feels. The film has a lot of the campier humor that fits Moore's performance so well but also has one of the more tense scenes in the series with Bond infiltrating a circus to prevent a nuke from going off (also love the quick scene where Kamal Khan's car wouldn't start on the first few tries). Overall still my favorite Roger Moore film as it feels like this and Moonraker are the ones that truly feel like "100% Roger Moore" Bond films and really define what you get with Roger Moore as Bond. And like Moonraker this is just a barrel of monkeys to watch.

Balanced isn't quite the word I'd used to describe Octopussy - in fact, in the 3 Favourite Scenes thread, we were discussing how it's tonally schizophrenic, but it's good to read a different opinion.

Watched SPECTRE again tonight.

Yes, maybe making Blofeld 'family' wasn't the wisest move (although I do like that a place for the Oberhauser stuff from Fleming was found in modern-day Bond) and it could've admittedly been tighter in places. But overall, I still like it.

Goldfinger.

With a martini.

Classic Bond. I always worry that the second half will drag - it is definitely the weaker half, but Barry's music, the acting and Adam's sets make it a treat to watch. And if you take all of that in, it breezes by.

But the first half is undeniably excellent. It's cool, sleek and effortless.

2016 Bondathon:

Tomorrow Never Dies
Goldeneye
Thunderball
Dr. No
For Your Eyes Only
The World Is Not Enough
The Living Daylights
Skyfall
A View to a Kill
Goldfinger
Octopussy
You Only Live Twice
Licence to Kill
The Man With The Golden Gun
Diamonds Are Forever
Moonraker
SPECTRE
Quantum of Solace
Die Another Day
Live and Let Die
Casino Royale

There is little else in all of cinema simultaneously as utterly ridiculous and yet superbly cool as Connery removing the wetsuit to reveal the immaculate tux beneath.

Indeed. Great moment!

SPECTRE (2015)

Finally watched it a second time. What a ham-fisted load of cuntbollocks this was. It's hard to believe that people who make major motion pictures for a living made this.

Unless they get Fassbender or someone of Fassbender quality and blow my tits off with the next one, the series needs to be retired before it devolves into a Last-Season-Of-Seinfeld-esque death spiral.

EDIT: Also, two random observations:

1. I'd imagine an explosion and a building collapse would lead to a cessation of frivolities, but we see police officers standing around nonchalantly and the Day of the Dead parade continuing as if nothing happened. Perhaps they do things differently south of the Great Wall.

2. The depiction of a traffic-free Rome was wildly inaccurate, even by the standards of a Bond film.

I imagine the idea behind your first observation is that the parade is so loud and energetic that it masks the sound of the building collapse. But even writing it makes it sound silly. Still, not even the worst part about the film.

Too many to mention, but I'll try a few more:

- (C)unt is one of the most dreary villains ever devised. We never come close to finding out any tangible motivation. He repeats the same lazy spiel (almost verbatim) from the MP in Skyfall regarding how the entire 00 Section is archaic and should be replaced by a fat Japanese child playing Pokemon Go. And seriously, another mole in MI6? Also, what was with that perpetual, precisely-kept bum fluff on his face?

- Slapstick gags may work when you're a dapper gentleman with an eyebrow that inches higher than his frequent erection, but when you're a grumbling, grunting thug it tends to fall a little flat.

- The plane vs jeeps Commando sequence. At some point, it really defies all logic that a person would show so little regard for his own safety and the safety of the person he's trying to save.

- The EVERYTHING-IN-THE-LAST-FOUR-FILMS-WAS-LINKED rubbish made up by some idiot. There was no indication at all that Silva, for example, was anyone but his own man. And honestly, so the two biggest crime bosses in the world (Silva and Blofeld) are both members of the same gentlemen's club and each has a respective personal vendetta against M and Bond? What a coincidence!

- That whole last act with Vauxhall Cross was probably one of the worst 30 minutes of any Bond film. It was plainly obvious to anyone even vaguely familiar with 007ism that Bond's stay at Blowjob's desert lair should have been extended. Chuck in the obligatory dinner scene, torture, and difficult escape and you might have had a damned good final act.

Can't disagree with any of that... At every corner of the film is a flaw. At least with DAD, the film had a plot line that hadn't been done before, adding something new with it's entry in the series. SPECTRE is simply a retread of a Skyfall storyline, told differently and not nearly as effectively.

For me Skyfall was the Bond film they had been trying to make since TWINE, the same ideas and themes just kept cycling until we finally got a satisfactory mix. However rather than move on we get them all over again only and bizarrely in a less successful package than ever before. For some reason the team are stuck in a rutt, unable or unwilling to give Bond a real and distinct identity either because of heady pretension or else overt contempt of what that would make him. All too often now we see the atypical elements of the YOLT/MWTGG novels defining the entire character and as such we end up with a Bond that just isn't Bond for the vast majority of the time.

It'd be interesting to see where they go from here. In SPECTRE the nods to Bondian tropes just fell flat. Everyone in the theatre cheered when the DB5 was revealed in Skyfall, but no one gave a flying fuck in SPECTRE. Even a Bondoisseur like myself can't muster a Bondrection if I see the same exact homage two films in a row.

The thing is, all those tropes felt pretty natural in just about every Bond movie pre-Craig. Then they spent two films (CR and QOS) largely ignoring those tropes and so, in SF and SP, it just feels clunky. It's reached the point where homages no longer make you warm and tingly, but make you think "Oh, they're referencing a movie that came out over half a century ago. Again."

So how they keep Bond's identity unique and yet fresh and relevant will be a challenge. Who knows if it'll be met.

Fiennes commented that Bond 25 needs to head in a lighter direction. But who is best equipped to make a decision over the direction of Bond 25? I've lost faith in Babs, Logan didn't do well with SPECTRE, and Purvis and Wade probably won't return (though I'd like to see them crack out another Bond film without their work being rewritten).

I don't agree about all Bondian tropes in SP falling flat, and certainly don't think they did in SF - in fact, they felt fresh in SF. QOS was one of the most self referential films in the series, and that felt more clunky than anything that came before or after it. But in regards to SP, the opening, while not perfect, felt like a solid Bondian sequence, the car sent to pick up Bond and Madeline, and the Q scene was done well so not all tropes fell flat. The desert lair could have actually be expanded upon and the gadget laden car chase would have worked better if the gadgets actually worked on a street that was actually populated with other cars.

But the tropes are mostly cosmetic. A good story at it heart will organically nurture the Bondian feel. I just hope that SPECTRE misfiring isn't an indication to the producers that audiences don't want the Bond tropes. I certainly do - it's what separates Bond from everything else.