DIE ANOTHER DAY - Appreciation thread

McDonalds or Harvey's and I'm happy, but hold the fries to avoid the lead weight feel in the gut afterwards...



....More about Madge. She can't act at all and that's because...wait for it.....she's not an actress. She's a singer/performer and damn good at that gig.

But she doesn't have the acting mindset. An actor needs to become the character. Even a small character. An actor has to figure out the character before they even think about how they are going to deliver the lines.

I don't think Madge has the acting discipline or even understanding to to play small roles.

Did she make any effort to figure out who this Verity character was? I doubt it. Rather she comes across as trying to deliver lines.



By comparison,I harken back to Anatole Taubman who played Elvis in QoS. He's not the most interesting of Bond villains, even Bond sub-villains, but I can't fault his acting. He explained in the lead-up to the film, that he had thought long and hard about who this Elvis character was, what his relationship with Greene was, history,loyalty etc. He created a back-story for the character which he discussed with Almaric and the director, and only when he had done the work to figure out who this Elvis character was, did he attempt to be Elvis, and he pulled it off. Elvis was a sniveling ponce who was fiercely loyal to Greene.

Did Madge do similar work with Verity. I doubt it. Easier just to do wardrobe, hair and make-up and deliver lines.

tiffanywint wrote:

Did she make any effort to figure out who this Verity character was? I doubt it. Rather she comes across as trying to deliver lines.


Did Madge do similar work with Verity. I doubt it. Easier just to do wardrobe, hair and make-up and deliver lines.

Look, I believe Madonna is a talent-less whore just as much as the next guy, but I have to defend her here; what was she supposed to do? The role was only two pages long. There's no "there" there.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

tiffanywint wrote:

Did she make any effort to figure out who this Verity character was? I doubt it. Rather she comes across as trying to deliver lines.


Did Madge do similar work with Verity. I doubt it. Easier just to do wardrobe, hair and make-up and deliver lines.

Look, I believe Madonna is a talent-less whore just as much as the next guy, but I have to defend her here; what was she supposed to do? The role was only two pages long. There's no "there" there.

There is lots she could have done, if she was an actual actress. For example, the Taubman/Elvis approach. She could have created a back-story for Verity, a personality etc. and then delivered her lines in character.

Instead she just delivered the lines with faux gravitas. You get what you pay for. Hire a singer to do an actor's work and this is what you get. It's not like Tamahori could give her acting lessons on the spot so he went along with the lifeless delivery.

In all likelihood, Madge insisted on being in the film or Eon wanted her there for added star power, despite her shortcomings as a thespian.

Doesn't mean I can't cringe every time she delivers a line though.

tiffanywint wrote:

In all likelihood, Madge insisted on being in the film or Eon wanted her there for added star power, despite her shortcomings as a thespian.

I don't think there's any doubt that she had a package deal to both sing and act in the film; I believe that's a given. However, she has so little screen time in the film that it would have been hard for her to be awful enough to detract from the film. For all the faults DAD may have, her presence doesn't even rank as far as I'm concerned.

And just for the purposes of full disclosure, I must admit I have two or three songs of her in my 8-track deck: Open Your Heart, Express Yourself, and Vogue.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

And just for the purposes of full disclosure, I must admit I have two or three songs of her in my 8-track deck: Open Your Heart, Express Yourself, and Vogue.

I've got you beat. Big time. I am very embarassed to say, so I won't :pale:

On the subject of Madge's contributions to DAD, I'll once more offer my unpopular opinion that her song beats the s*** out of any other lazily formulaic Babs era effort. Not that that's difficult, but still....

As for the film, yeah, it's pretty awful when put up against the pantheon of utter class bestowed upon us by Messrs Young and Hunt or the solid 80s John Glen flicks, not to mention the TRUE Bond entertainment extravaganza which is Moonraker, but I'd still rate DAD as the best of the Brosnan Bonds, if only for the simple reason that Brosnan himself is far better in this film than he was when playing the "pussified loser" Bond of the previous three films. In DAD, he just gets on with his job, has no time for M's crap, takes the upper hand with the women and of course he's gonna look kinda respectable next to some of the most awful supporting characters the series has yet witnessed; a villain who wears a RoboCop suit and uses "force lightning", a villain named Mr Kil, some bald bloke with a face full of diamonds who can't act, a hardly-convincing Halle Berry, and another computer geek sidekick bloke who thankfully doesn't get as much screentime as GE's awful Boris Grishenko. Best I can say about DAD is that IMO it's the lesser of Brosnan's four evils.

Harmsway wrote:

But Taco Bell does eeeeeevil things to a digestive system.

So do vindaloos, and believe me, we conquered them years ago.

In all reality, there isn't a large enough Hispanic population here for Taco Bell to become a mainstay.

tiffanywint wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

And just for the purposes of full disclosure, I must admit I have two or three songs of her in my 8-track deck: Open Your Heart, Express Yourself, and Vogue.

I've got you beat. Big time. I am very embarassed to say, so I won't :pale:

Haah. I'm never embarrassed. I''ve been exploring Madonna actually. I never really took much interest in her music, or her as a person, to be honest. She was just there. I think she's an influential/important figure and has an identity, but I haven't come to a concrete consensus yet. I like a few of her songs, and when she nails something, it's nailed. But on the whole, at the moment I'm not really convinced there's consistency in the back catalogue (something that is important) to take on the all time greats. As for her DAD song, I disliked it for quite a while. But I like it now. Goes well with the title sequence too.

Peter Vitesse said he liked touring with the old cow because her shit was so simple. He could play keyboards with one hand and drink beer with the other.

sharpshooter wrote:

I've got you beat. Big time. I am very embarassed to say, so I won't :pale:

Haah. I'm never embarrassed. I''ve been exploring Madonna actually. I never really took much interest in her music, or her as a person, to be honest. She was just there. I think she's an influential/important figure and has an identity, but I haven't come to a concrete consensus yet. I like a few of her songs, and when she nails something, it's nailed. But on the whole, at the moment I'm not really convinced there's consistency in the back catalogue (something that is important) to take on the all time greats. As for her DAD song, I disliked it for quite a while. But I like it now. Goes well with the title sequence too.[/quote]

Thing is, there's a decent tune in DAD buried underneath all the gimmicks and synthesized voices. When a song sounds like it didn't properly download and is missing chunks of rhythm and lyrics, that's never a good thing. The song was instantly dated and will never have a classic feel to it. I can turn on a classic rock station or a adult-contemporary station and hear LIVE AND LET DIE or ALL TIME HIGH in 2011, but I haven't heard DIE ANOTHER DAY on the radio since it topped the charts back in 2002. I still hear NOBODY DOES IT BETTER and A VIEW TO A KILL on the radio, but never DAD..or TLD...or TND.

I don't think Madonna has ever recorded a song as awful as DAD. I think she got trapped in trying to do a Bond song, but not a conventional Bond song, but rather something with her sexual stamp all over it, yet still a Bond song, so she ended up with the mess we got, which barely sounds like a song.
Aside from DAD, Madonna is an amazing talent. For a singer with only average vocal range, she has managed to craft one catchy pop song after another for over 3 decades. I do have many of her albums but this has a lot to do with being a young guy in her 80's prime. Even though I'm a Stones, Who, Zep, Purple guy to the core. I love rock n roll. But I did have to make a concession to the dance pop scene in the 80's as that was where the girls were. The rock bars were all loser dives, where the stoner guys outnumbered the girls 10-1.
So it wasn't hard getting caught up in the whole Duran Duran, Madonna, Bananarama scene where video and dance music ruled and Madonna was the queen who made really hot videos too. So because of the exposure, I have a Madonna collection :pale: but even then I wouldn't have bought her stuff if it wasn't catchy - so there is no denying her raw talent - not to mention ferocious work ethic.

tiffanywint wrote:

I do have many of her albums but this has a lot to do with being a young guy in her 80's prime. Even though I'm a Stones, Who, Zep, Purple guy to the core. I love rock n roll. But I did have to make a concession to the dance pop scene in the 80's as that was where the girls were. The rock bars were all loser dives, where the stoner guys outnumbered the girls 10-1.
So it wasn't hard getting caught up in the whole Duran Duran, Madonna, Bananarama scene where video and dance music ruled and Madonna was the queen who made really hot videos too. So because of the exposure, I have a Madonna collection

Methinks he doth protest too much!

:)

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Thing is, there's a decent tune in DAD buried underneath all the gimmicks and synthesized voices.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a fan of the City of Prague Philharmonic/Silver Screen Records/Nic Raine, but I kind of like this arrangement of DAD:

Sharky wrote:

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a fan of the City of Prague Philharmonic/Silver Screen Records/Nic Raine, but I kind of like this arrangement of DAD:

Excellent pick. I told you there was a decent arrangement underneath that mess of vocals and gimmicks that Madonna laid down.

BTW, is that Jessica from LOGAN'S RUN in your avatar? Now SHE would have made a great Bond Girl back in the day.

Check out Walkabout.

:*sm*: :*sm*: :*sm*:

Sharky wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Thing is, there's a decent tune in DAD buried underneath all the gimmicks and synthesized voices.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a fan of the City of Prague Philharmonic/Silver Screen Records/Nic Raine, but I kind of like this arrangement of DAD:

While that track is okay, and definitely proves there were a few motifs which Arnold could have bothered working into the score, I'd still prefer the real deal of simply an instrumental of the actual Madonna track or, better still, just the Madonna track as released, only minus the "Sigmund Freud" part. I like the techno-trickery of the original which, along with Madge's presence and the staccato strings motif, are the best three elements of the track IMO. I still think Madonna's DAD is the only Babs-era Bond song which actually brings the Bond songs up-to-date.

Ed Tom Kowalsky wrote:

Methinks he doth protest too much!

:)

Khanners, what's this we hear about your Michael Jackson collection?

I'm the last bloke on earth who should be doing this, but it's pretty apparent that we've got a cadre of DAD fans on the site. So what th' 'ell.

About the only thing I recall appreciating was Bond cruising along in Cuba in the '57 Ford. And Bond's convo with the cigar guy. I think his name might have been Raoul.

Well, that's the lot.

It only occurred to me recently that:

While Graves is fobbing off African conflict diamonds as an Icelandic find, it just took one Cuban tobacconist with an ordinary loupe to recognize the stones for what they were.
?
Despite that, I still love DAD for what it is - a greatest hits sampler celebrating 40 years of cinematic 007. Then the series was rebooted.

I can live with that - it's a pity that so many others can't.

AMC Hornet wrote:

While Graves is fobbing off African conflict diamonds as an Icelandic find, it just took one Cuban tobacconist with an ordinary loupe to recognize the stones for what they were.
?

Maybe he had a backstory that got cut. He could be a Cuban revolutionary who used to deal in conflict diamonds to help fund uprisings in Latin America. As the region stabilised, MI6 turned him into an informant.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

AMC Hornet wrote:

While Graves is fobbing off African conflict diamonds as an Icelandic find, it just took one Cuban tobacconist with an ordinary loupe to recognize the stones for what they were.
?

Maybe he had a backstory that got cut. He could be a Cuban revolutionary who used to deal in conflict diamonds to help fund uprisings in Latin America. As the region stabilised, MI6 turned him into an informant.

That's an interesting idea, but it's still pure supposition. Benson added nothing to Raoul's backstory in the novelization, so we're left with a Cuban cigar-maker who also happens to be able to recognize what part of the world a particular chunk of compressed carbon is from.

Still, it's not the biggest stretch ever to occur in a Bond film - especially DAD.

Having just viewed DAD again, yes that is a little odd, that Raoul is suddenly an expert in diamonds. He is however an intelligence op of some sort, so its expected he would have much knowledge of many things useful in intelligence circles. As Shadow suggests he might have backstory that qualfies him. Mind you Bond prattles on like a bit of a diamond expert himself. Mabye a basic understanding of diamonds is common to such intelligence agents.

Anyway until now, I've always just rolled with that scene. Yes of course they can intelligently discuss diamonds, these two. But Bond films have a way of suspending disbelief. Scenes are presented with such natural gravitas that one tends to lap it up. Unlike Flint or Helm for example where you know they are talking a lot of nonsense.

A few additional DAD homage moments that I stumbled across again, that maybe aren't as obvious as some of the more in-your-face moments.

===Jinx floating in water drowning, is homage to Wai Lin floating in water drowning during the climax of TND

Jinx punching at the ice, desperately trying to hang on to her last level of air before being submerged, is homage to Christmas Jones during the sub scene, where she scrabbles at the hatch-glass, desperate for Bond to open the hatch before she is submerged.

At Buckingham Palace there is a shot of a couple of dudes on horseback, complete with helmets,lurking behind the assembled media throng, which is an homage to the horse riding thugs in AVTAK

Graves exotic diamond mine terrarrium set-up, lush with green plants and water is an homage to Drax's rain forest set-up in MR. Both man-designed layouts look very similar.

As Jinx finds her way into Graves phony diamond mine, there is a very deliberate close-up shot of a quickdraw or draw, the device used by climbers to connect ropes to bolt anchors -- a piece of equipment prominently displayed during Bond's rock-face climbing episode in FYEO.

Bond suddenly revealing himself seated in chair to surprise Graves, evokes Bond's turning in chair to greet the phony Widow Bouvar in TB.

If paying attention, virtually every scene in this film is designed to evoke something from a previous Bond film.

I suspect that once one is in spot-the-homage mode, one will find homage where none was actually intended. Some of your catches strike me that way, Tiff.

One could likewise claim that the shot of the airliner bringing Bond back to London was an homage to the shots of a 747 in flight in LALD, or that Bond borrowing a revolver from Raoul echoes his picking up Blofeld's revolver in YOLT.

At some point in a 20-film series, things are likely to happen again. There was a ski scene and a hijacked submarine in TWINE - were they deliberate homages to TSWLM? Probably not.

I for one enjoyed all the 'spot the homage' moments in DAD, and I suspect that I still haven't found them all, but there's only so far I'm willing to go to stretch a point. If there is an authoritative list posted somewhere (ie: a list provided by EON, not Wiki) then I could compare my findings with what was intended. If there isn't, then that is probably deliberate too, like the 'clues' to Paul's death supposedly embedded in the cover of the Abbey Road album.

Maybe Bond's knowledge of diamonds tails on from DAF. Or maybe I expect too much of Brosnan's Bond being the same Bond, perhaps more or less, as the one from DAF and before.

Perhaps Tiff was being halfway facetious? With him you never know!

:)