Last Bond Movie You Watched? 2.0

CJB wrote:

DR. NO (1962)

It's good.

It's damn good, especially in its pristine Lowry digitally restored form.

Sheer Bond awesomeness. This is a Bond movie! No drama. Just good solid Bond adventure!

"and you've had your six" will always be my favorite line. I knew Bond and I would get together great after that.

Great pics, tiffy. Somehow, looking at stills can be even more interesting than watching the films.

Having written a couple of sentences on each Bond film of my current run I feel the need to not miss out on MOONRAKER.
The very beginning of the PTS, the fight for the parachute, the centrifuge trainer, Jaws at the carnival, Bond spying on the scientists in Venice (and the gas masks scene later on), the dogs hunting down Corinne, Bond lured to the pyramids by the girl, and everything following the start into outer space I really enjoy.
But what makes these scenes so good, sometimes magical (Bond lured to pyramids, first part in space), is Barry's terrific score. Cinematography and models/special effects are also important, but what really elevates the scenes so much is the music. Without it, those scenes would hardly mean anything to me (this is also true for the Corinne scene). Imagine someone else trying to score the film, it would be unwatchable.
Besides the scenes I've mentioned, the film is full of pointless plot and mostly lousy humour. Without Barry (and camera/set design/sfx), there would be nothing for me to recommend the film, or even to bear watching it. But the way it is, I can at least enjoy those bits a lot. (Though in the past I've already mentioned that vastly different tones within the film clash inappropriately).

A lot of people say Connery's Bond is a tough SOB in Dr No - which he is - but it's probably also worth nothing that there seems to be a warmer side there too, one that's not overly evident in later performances, such as when he starts singing "Underneath the Mango Tree" when he first encounters Honey. It's probably his best all-round performance as Bond and, by extension, the best of all the 007 actors. Guess the series peaked early.

The series peaked very early!

Last Bond film: Moonraker on Tiff Bell Light Box big screen

It was not a digitally restored version but it was a very good original print, with the old United Artists blue logo preceding the gunbarrel intro, and speaking of, I do like this technique of putting the gunbarrel at the front of the movie. Amazing the way it helps jack the audience for what is to come. :idea:

Wonderful seeing this magificent Bond classic in a full cinema, with the Barry soundtrack blazing away. MR is such a crowed pleaser it got a standing ovation when it was over. This movie is pure Bond gold. I would say the last truly epic great Bond film. Honorable mention GE.

The quintessential MR screencap: note supervillain in appropriate supervillain outfit. Note supervillain flanked by properly outfitted, uniformed armed henchmen. Also note, scantily clad, outfitted girls, populating fully functional, remote location, high-tech lair, contstructed out of natural rock formation and terrain. This is A-list Bond villainy worthy of Bond's time and estimable talents. Bonus points for the snake pond. Good show Drax!

http://screenmusings.org/Moonraker/pages/Mnrkr_665.htm

Observations: Bernard Lee's final scene as M sees him witnessing Bond "attempting re-entry". What an ignominious way to go. But better maybe than expiring in a dingy old chapel. Then, maybe not.

Rog is very relaxed and at ease. One of his finest Bond efforts.

Jaws doesn't actually kill anyone, other than whatever Drax henchmen he knocks off during the epic space station battle.

Drax's killer dogs are a breed known as the Beauceron, a French herding breed known for centuries in western Europe, and one of the breeds used to create the Doberman Pinscher. :study:

Watched TWINE last night. It's a fun movie. Just don't take it too seriously. Renard--and the lyrics to the title track--are the best things about it. He and Elliott Carver are terribly underrated villains. The PB era did villains rather well, actually.

Dr. No (1962, dir. Terence Young)

This is the most believable (including the 'toppling') and down-to-earth Bond film. A pure thriller, the closest to the novels they ever came, with a stellar performance by Sean Connery - the best in the series. Every directional decision indicates a perfect understanding of the material and of the entertainment form cinema. Both writing and cinematography perfectly create a thriller adventure. The dialogue is natural and unpretentious. The actors take their roles seriously and put in terrific performances so as to create a perfect illusion of an adventure the viewer can experience in an undiluted manner. DR. NO already includes the vital genre elements of suspense, danger, exoticism, eroticism, humour, megalomaniac but believable villains, a sophisticated culture; some themes are already touched upon like Bond's bachelor way of living (when Honey asks him if he was seriously engaged, and Bond's hesitant reaction, seemingly being slightly embarrassed), and Doctor No already knows about how Bond prefers his martini (nothing new in later films).
In short, DR. NO is high-class film-making.

Great shots! Particularly love the one of Sylvia playing golf and Bond on his knee!

But I've always really liked the small MI6 scene with the bird in the brown/blue attire. Very retro - I love it!

FieldsMan wrote:

Great shots! Particularly love the one of Sylvia playing golf and Bond on his knee!

But I've always really liked the small MI6 scene with the bird in the brown/blue attire. Very retro - I love it!

Is DN not the most awesome Bond move ever?! I'm speechless. Great pictorial. Almost as much fun as watching the movie.

And this is the classic Fleming Bond "uniform" The white shirt with the black tie, and dark suit.

tiffanywint wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Great shots! Particularly love the one of Sylvia playing golf and Bond on his knee!

But I've always really liked the small MI6 scene with the bird in the brown/blue attire. Very retro - I love it!

Is DN not the most awesome Bond move ever?! I'm speechless. Great pictorial. Almost as much fun as watching the movie.

And this is the classic Fleming Bond "uniform" The white shirt with the black tie, and dark suit, and cig a-danglin'.

FIFY

What's FIFY? :)

FieldsMan wrote:

What's FIFY? :)

Get with this interweb thing! It means "fixed it for you"

I'm surethe shirt is a "Sea Island cotton"

CASINO ROYALE (2006)

Gave it another go. I enjoy the pre-titles, Solange's rack, The Ocean Club scenes, and the casino scenes. Overall, I think it's a pretty dull film. That shootout at the end is absolutely ridiculous, too. Much better than QUANTUM, but inferior to SKYFALL.

Also, I really hate the romantic scenes. Awful dialogue and Eva Green really doesn't do well.

You should follow Manhunter's lead and post some screenshots... of Solange's rack.

You Only Twice on Tiff Bell Lightbox big screen; fully restored, pristeen, Lowry digital presentation. Bond nirvana! This was ultimate screen-Bond. No Bond-film looks better on the big screen, especially the gigantic Spectre rocket base. Even the pts outer-space opening, blown-up big and enhanced with the John Barry music at full volume, looked quite real. It was like being in space.

This scene looked real good blown up big too!




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In Japan, men come first!


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Ahh. Bondo-san like! No more face like pig!




Ultimate Bond set design. Note variety and style of vintage henchmen jump-suit attire, in red, yellow and white Marvelous!


Scale of massive set affords creative poster design!






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"You like my humble home Bondo-san?You can go nuts shooting up this place, although I get to blow it up when you're done. It is my my house, but you can push the capsule self-destruct button. Hans over here would be happy to go a few throws by the piranha pool too. Poor fish haven't eaten since Helga Healthy Chest took her little dip.You know I do it all for you Meester Bond."

A review of YOLT. This artist likes to put her heroine, Kim Possible, in James Bond's shoes.



Artist's Statement


Hey everybody, Look! Kim Possible is FINALLY back in action!

I've been wracking my brain over this one for quite some time. I just couldn't settle on a singular 'memorable' moment I wanted to recreate. I finally got the courage to do the Volcano battle at the end of the film. Of course with KP appropriately hogging much of the image, there's not that much left to worry about ;)

"You Only Live Twice" 1967

In my humble opinion, this is the first film which slipped in the James Bond franchise. While production quality had never been higher (particularly the aforementioned Volcano set designed by Ken Adam), the performances of the actors in general and sadly Connery in particular showed signs of weakness. Connery spends far too much of the film in a rather uninspired funk of at least a perceptible lack of focus and energy. The bond girl (credited as "Kissy", but in fact she is never given a name in the spoken dialogue!!) is not fleshed out at all, finishing the movie as kind of a moving mannequin.

The characters of Hans and Helga are the first ominous signs of 'formula' character developments and story lines.

For example, take Blofeld's henchman Hans and compare him to Carver's henchman Stamper in "Tomorrow Never Dies". Your typical silent but brutal henchman.

Helga herself seems a faint-hearted effort to recapture the iconic Fiona Volpe of just the previous film.

All of this paints a rather bleak picture of "You Only Live Twice", but to be fair it is still quite a competent film, at least compared with what was to come.
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http://www.deviantart.com/print/23791271/

SKYFALL

Excellent Bond film. Engaging plot, great performances (might be the finest role of Craig's career), and wonderful cinematography.

Casino Royale

DC is really much better in SF. By comparison, he is rather emotionally flat in CR. Then again, I suspect this emotional flatness was intentional. But I'm not crazy about it. Still, it's a classic Bond film, no doubt about it.

trevanian wrote:

Vesper wrote:

I agree about Greene's death but I have the exact same problem with it as you do with the scene with Yusef. "Everything you want to know about my organisation" is given off screen. We actually learn nothing.

We don't need to, in either scene. It is easy for us to infer the information obtained in Greene's case presumably lead to Yusef, and in Yusef's case, leads originally to Mr White, though with that scene gone you can infer mi6 went on to smash QUANTUM completely or at least do some major damage. Ladling on expository revelations when you're running for the curtain can really hurt the end of a movie (look at the last minutes of PSYCHO, which seem like a PSA on mental health.)

I do like Schaefer's cinematography a whole lot, and just wish people could appreciate it, but the editing really does the imagery a disservice.

Late response but I want to point out one of the fundamental laws of storytelling is showing and not telling.

Quantum and Royale build this big freaking mystery over who Quantum are, what they do etc. Bond's entire motive in Quantum is to find out about this organisation and destroy it. To leave the audience out of the scene where he finally gets this information is completely cheating the audience of any narrative payoff. It's plain bad storytelling.

If Greene had told him nothing, we wouldn't need to see the scene. But because he did, it's important to the story.

I've waited two years to learn more about QUANTUM, the secrets to Vesper's betrayal, and to Le Chiffre's saying that "Your friend Mathis is really MY friend Mathis."
We learn next to nothing about it all. What really annoys me more than that is the build-up of tension and viewer expectations in the Russia scene at the end which is interrupted just about when I was happy to finally find a scene worth giving a damn about, that reminded me of what a thriller scene in a Bond film should be like. It remained rudimentary.

I always felt ROYALE never meant to build up anything concerning the organization and such, that it was QOS that made a big deal out of it and blew it. QOS should have focused less on the Quantum angle and more on Bond's personal quest. It should have been about him finding Vesper's boyfriend, not the whole episode with Greene who was nothing more to Bond than a means to find that Algerian.

Python wrote:

I always felt ROYALE never meant to build up anything concerning the organization and such, that it was QOS that made a big deal out of it and blew it. QOS should have focused less on the Quantum angle and more on Bond's personal quest. It should have been about him finding Vesper's boyfriend, not the whole episode with Greene who was nothing more to Bond than a means to find that Algerian.

Exactly. QOS was a rushed, pointless clusterfuck. The whole thing would've been about five minutes long if you cut out the unneeded action scenes and filler plot (i.e. Greene and Bolivia's water).

It's just proof that nuBond only make an effort when the stakes are high enough. Like TND, QOS was a given smash-hit, thus making a great film wasn't a priority.

Quantum of Solace (2008, dir. Marc Forster)

My father hadn't seen it yet, it was shown on TV in all its glory, so I took the opp and watched it with him (dubbed version, of course, since it was on TV ;) ).
I have nothing new to say compared to my last review. There are only few directorial choices I really don't like (script is the major problem). I don't like the opera shoot-out - it's edited too fast and it's too pretentious. They had worked out an elaborate counterpointing of the opera on stage and Bond's actions, but the whole muting shit and editing quickly alternate between moody pretentiousness and hardly an emotional payoff at all.
Forster manages to create some moments of really fine atmosphere, but they are few and far between. The action is mostly horrible, the car chase and rooftop stuff could have been acceptable with better editing. I like all the scenes with Giancarlo, particularly the scene at his house, on the plane, and his death (but then, the "forgive yourself" and dumpster stuff ruin it). I also like the desert hotel stuff in the end, though the Camille revenge bit - all of her story arc, actually - is horribly fake and clichéd. The set design is really interesting, and the explosions and axe fight are pretty stylish and enjoyable.
The rest isn't worth a rush.
I still don't see why the Bolivian police was expected to be so stupid as not to make a direct connection between the dumpster body and the dead police men. And I thought the police was bribed? Wouldn't they know about Mathis anyway? Or were only parts of them bribed? How can we know? Furthermore, right after that scene M is told on the phone that Bond was being suspected for having killed Mathis - so what is the point of throwing him into the dumpster? And what would that shot from above on to the dumpster mean - here lies the useful body that will destract the police from Bond's scent? The tone of the scene doesn't give that impression at all.