Bond 25: No Time To Die

[keg in kc]

Daniel Craig returns as James Bond, 007 in… NO TIME TO DIE. Out in the UK on 3 April 2020 and 8 April 2020 in the US. #Bond25 #NoTimeToDie pic.twitter.com/qxYEnMhk2s

— James Bond (@007) August 20, 2019

[Mennonite]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

Personally, I think it’s his first one, Live and Let Die. Everything after seemed to just get cornier and cornier.

I really like Yaphet Kotto and Jane Seymour but the comic relief sheriff really hurt that movie, imo. And then they brought him back for The Man with the Golden Gun!






I've been doing a mini marathon of some of the better (imo) Bond flicks and I may need to revisit that one.


.......

Daniel Craig says he's been going to gay bars to avoid "the aggressive dick-swinging in hetero bars.”

“I've been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember. One of the reasons, because I don't get into fights in gay bars that often.”

(via: https://t.co/MBQoW2OcFg) pic.twitter.com/ywk0ZqBM3w

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 14, 2021

[Raiderhater]

Originally Posted by Mennonite

I really like Yaphet Kotto and Jane Seymour but the comic relief sheriff really hurt that movie, imo. And then they brought him back for The Man with the Golden Gun!






I've been doing a mini marathon of some of the better (imo) Bond flicks and I may need to revisit that one.

I enjoy the locations, especially New Orleans and the island, and the “voodoo vibe” that naturally fit with those places. Baron Samedi is a nice little small role character that helps sell that vibe.

I can’t disagree with you on the sheriff, and his return in MWTGG was even worse. There is plenty of silly and cheesy aspects of the film to roll your eyes over but, as I said those moments seem to just kept getting worse with each passing film (and in all fairness the first steps down that path were taken before Moore took on the role). But different strokes and all.

[Mennonite]

I'm still in the midst of my Bond mini-marathon. I thought I had seen all of the 007 movies, but it turns out that I was wrong. I had missed one, and it turns out to be a really good one:


The Living Daylights (1987)



This is easily one of the best of the series, imo. There is the obligatory Q comic relief scene, and a silly car chase scene early on, but the cheese is really toned down in this installment. What's more it actually has a coherent and entertaining plot which is a rare thing for this franchise.


Next:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)


The Winter Olympics version of Bond. Not very good. There are a lot of problems here. Foremost is that George Lazenby is a poor replacement for Sean Connery. Secondly, the movie looks dated even more so that the earliest films due to the Austin Powers-esque wardrobes on display. Another thing that bugs me is that some otherwise excellent action sequences are ruined by the use of fast motion; it just looks comical.

There are some good points. I like Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas manages to make Blofeld menacing. Too often, imo, Blofeld comes across as a chump. Outside of this movie, I think he works best as the mysterious, faceless, head of SPECTRE. He should never be used in a face to face confrontation with Bond, much less in a physical conflict.

And the ending also works. I have no idea how a movie that I've disliked watching for two hours can still have an effective final 15 minutes but this one pulls it off. The wedding scene with Moneypenny and the final scene on the roadside are both really good.


Next:

Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger

Connery is the best Bond, but I find all three of these movies kind of boring. There are some iconic scenes for sure but I think all three would have been better if they were trimmed by 20 or more minutes. Goldfinger is the best of the three, but for all the fun things about it, I still find parts of it dull. For instance, do we need both the gin rummy and golf scenes? Another problem is that there are several times when you ask yourself "Why doesn't Goldfinger kill Bond now?" and there's really no other answer than "Bond is the hero and he must win in the end."

Goldfinger highlights:

Oddjob fight and bomb disarmament scenes at the end, the golden girl, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die", Grandma with a machine gun at the guardpost.


For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Lame completely unmemorable villains and waaaaay too much cheesy comedy. It's amazing that they kept churning out these movies.

GoldenEye (1995)





There's a lot of silly stuff, but I think this is one of the more entertaining entries in the series. Famke Janssen is sexy and fun, Sean Bean makes a worthy adversary, and there are a lot of memorable stunt/action scenes. I never realized that the Russian chick butchering "Stand By Your Man" was played by Minnie Driver.

There's one consistent thing about Bond pictures: the filmmakers are 100% committed to not giving a **** about the story making sense. This movie has one of my favorite examples. At the end Joe Don Baker has a totally random line about "tobacco plants." It's completely out of left field. If you think back to his first scene he has another random line where he asks Bond whether he likes to garden. Apparently there was some whole running gag planned about Baker's character having a green thumb and a tendency to talk about plants a lot. All of that stuff (thankfully) got cut out out but they couldn't be bothered to remove those two lines for some reason so Joe Don looks like a lunatic.


Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)


I just can't get into this one. The movie felt like a series of action scenes instead of a story. I also didn't think much of the Rupert Murdoch clone and his blond henchman as the movie's villains.

Say what you will about the quality of the movies the Brosnan era did have the hottest Bond girls. Famke Janssen, Teri Hatcher, Cecilie Thomsen, Halle Berry, Sophie Marceau, Denise Richards, Maria Grazia Cucinotta.

[Mennonite]

And the marathon continues...


Never Say Never Again (1983)

Embarrassing money grab. Horrible theme song.


Skyfall (2012)

Bond vs a creepy Eurotrash hairdresser!

This one is popular but I don't care for it. Look, if a movie has a character named Plenty O'Toole I'm not going to nitpick plot holes and such, but if the new Bond movies want to be serious I'm going to hold them to a different standard.

The bad guy's plot makes zero sense. Absolutely none. Secondly, Daniel Craig's Bond wears thin pretty fast; scowling is no substitute for a personality. Thirdly, why should I care about M or anyone else in these stories? They are all two dimensional and M (in any iteration) has never been a likable or interesting character. The ending is also stupid. It's like they lifted a few pages from a home invasion movie. The 70+ year old head of MI6 isn't going to use any of her vast army of spies and billions of dollars worth of sci-fi weapons technology to stop the bad guy. Instead she's going to make her final stand with one agent who has seen better days and an 80 year old groundskeeper. Oh, and they have to borrow a gun from the old guy because they just forgot that they might need one or something. And what about the list with all the undercover agents names?

On the plus side there are some beautiful location shots, and the action scenes were well done.



The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)



This is my favorite from the Moore era but it still isn't very good. It has an intriguing premise: a sexy Russian spy is forced to work with Bond to save the world even though Bond is responsible for the death of her lover. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really do anything with this idea. Part of the problem is Barbara Bach; she can't act at all. She doesn't even try to. She's just a lump. A sexy lump, but a lump nonetheless.



How bad of an actress do you have to be when you can look this hot and still **** up a movie?


The first 40 minutes or so are pretty strong; the opening ski/parachute scene is great, Karl Stromberg has a great intro scene where he feeds his mistress to a shark, Richard Kiel makes his debut as Jaws, and there are some nice location shots in Egypt. And then it starts to go wrong. It starts with a lot of cheesy one liners in the first Bond/Jaws clash and the tone for the rest of the movie is never as serious as it should have been considering the movie's premise.
The comedy is bad, but the lackluster direction is what really does the movie in. Scenes that should be thrilling consistently fall flat.

I would love to see this one remade.

[GayFrogs]

Originally Posted by Mennonite

At the end Joe Don Baker has a totally random line about "tobacco plants." It's completely out of left field. If you think back to his first scene he has another random line where he asks Bond whether he likes to garden. Apparently there was some whole running gag planned about Baker's character having a green thumb and a tendency to talk about plants a lot. All of that stuff (thankfully) got cut out out but they couldn't be bothered to remove those two lines for some reason so Joe Don looks like a lunatic.

[Mennonite]

Next up...

Live and Let Die (1973)

The Good:



Baby-faced Jane Seymour

The Bad:



Redneck Sheriff J.W. Pepper.

God this character sucks. That black guy's expression mirrors my own every time this guy shows up.

The Ugly:



Whacky Inflatable Yaphet Kotto!



Favorite part: the funeral parade assassination.

[T-post Tom]

Originally Posted by Kman34

Ana De Armas… she is beautiful…

Too fat.

[ROYC75]

Originally Posted by Kman34

Ana De Armas… she is beautiful…

And yet somehow, a single lady since 2013?

[Mennonite]

Make your move, Roy. Just kill a Russian spy or two and make a vaguely dirty quip and she's all yours.




7UP Presents: Moonraker (1979)



A bad comedy with a lot of obvious product placement. Only worth a watch if you are a big fan of Richard Kiel. The laser battle in space would be cool to see with today's CGI.




A View to a Kill (1985)



Dull stuff. It seemed cheaply made. They did a very poor job with the stunts in this one. Or at least with hiding the stunt doubles. Moore's last.

Thunderball

The undersea footage is boring as hell, but the stuff on dry land isn't much better. The writing is even sloppier here than usual. I don't think Bond was very likeable here either. I have no problem with him being a lady killer, but he comes across as a creep in this one.

On the plus side Thunderball does have the best looking girls of the Connery era. Claudine Auger, Luciana Paluzzi, and Martine Beswick are all top shelf.


Die Another Day (2002)



It's like a Roger Moore era movie but with a blockbuster budget and post millennium FX so they were able to crank the goofiness up to 100. The only reason to watch this one is for Halle Berry. The Bond producers cast some not so hot black actresses in previous movies, but she more than balances the scales. Speaking of casting: Pam Grier would have been perfect for Live and Let Die and Vanessa Williams would have been a great addition to A View to a Kill.

Oh, and John Cleese made a good Q.

[Mennonite]

So is nobody else here going to see No Time to Die? There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for it early in the thread, but it looks like only 3 of us actually watched it.



Next up in my re-watch:




Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Now I love a good action movie, but I may love a dumb action movie even more than a good one. As long as it's sufficiantly over the top to be entertaining and fun. Movies like Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Stone Cold (1991), and Live Wire (1992). Diamonds are Forever definitely fits into this category.





Who needs a coherent plot when you have Plenty O'Toole? Not to mention Bond strangling a chick with her bikini top, an awesome brawl in an elevator, the bizarro assassins Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint, Shirley Basey singing the title song, Jill St. John's ever changing (but always revealing) wardrobe, Jimmy Dean the Sausage King of Las Vegas, Bambi and Thumper, a classic Mustang that can go up on two wheels just by having the passengers lean really hard to the right, a faked moon landing, a flaming shish kabob death scene, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in drag.



"My dear, in 40 years this will get me a Courage Award at the ESPYs."

[Mennonite]

Wrapping up my 007 marathon.



Octopussy (1983)



An absolutely ridiculous movie, I admit, but it's so damn over the top that it eventually won me over. It's just bonkers. The clown killing, the crocodile disguise, the general who loves circuses more than anything else in life, the thug who yields a yo-yo with circular saw attachments, the stuffed tiger attack, the balcony escape scene, the mechanical horse's ass that hides a miniature airplane - the madness never stops!

Octopussy's bed: Am I the only one who thinks it looks like a vagina? I mean you can clearly see that it's supposed to look like an octopus, but when you look at it (and the curtains above it) it kinda looks like a twat. I can't be the only one who sees this. Either way it looks like it belongs on the set of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Atlantis."


Casino Royale (2006)

Still my favorite. Great action scenes. No campy humor. Pretty good bad guys. No major plot issues.


Spectre (2015)

Boring. Very very boring. With a script this weak you would think they would try to wrap things up as fast as possible but no this movie is two and a half ****ing hours long. The best part is that after you get the Austin Powers plot twist you've got another good 30 minutes or so to sit there and think about how dumb this movie is without being interrupted by anything interesting happening.


You Only Live Twice (1967)

So close to being a good movie, but the sloppy writing brings it down a few notches.

Things I can overlook:

- The fact that faking 007's death makes no sense in the context of the rest of the movie. Why fake his death, send the story to the newspapers (along with Bond's picture!), and then send him on a mission in the same region without any kind of disguise? This could have been fixed with two lines of dialog from M: "When I realized we couldn't get you out of Hong Kong alive, 007, I realized we'd have to get you out dead. Did you find any evidence linking China to SPECTRE?"

- Blofeld's brilliant plan to profit by starting nuclear armageddon.

- The villainess who doesn't recognise Bond even after seeing his obituary "in all the newspapers" who, instead of shooting him when she has the chance, decides to go with the classic "I'll get him on a plane, lightly restrain him, and then parachute out at 30,000 feet and just assume that he won't escape like he has a million times before." I love how none of these bad guys never think twice about sacrificing an entire plane instead of spending money on a single bullet. Scaramanga did it right.

What I can't overlook:

The stupidity of Bond's Jap disguise. To call the makeup job half-assed is an insult to butt cheeks. And it's all so pointless. From a storytelling point of view all you need to do is get Bond from the village to the top of the hill to discover the bad guy's hideout. Instead of just having him walk up the ****ing hill they go through ten or fifteen minutes where Bond has to be "transformed" and also take time to train as a ninja. Oh, and they also take a few seconds to kill the Japanese spy girl who has been helping him for the entire movie and then immediatly replace her with another Japanese spy girl who serves the same purpose without even missing a beat. They waste all this time for nothing - the two of them just casually walk to the top of the hill. Hell, Bond doesn't even wear his ****ing "disguise"!

A lot of these movies get ruined by this type of shitty writing. It's either issues that could be easily fixed, or stupid stuff that is added for no damn reason. 60 years later and the franchise is still doing it too.


Never Say Never Again (1983)

I dismissed this as an "embarassing money grab" upthread, but after thinking about it it does have some good points. Fatima Blush is cool. Connery gets some good one liners. The action scene with the sharks is good as well as the motorcycle chase.

It's a bad movie for sure, but it's not totally bad. The awful musical score, casting mistakes, and the fact that the best actors didn't have much to work with in the script end up ruining it ultimatly.


Quantum of Solace (2008)

What the hell happened here? A very disappointing follow-up to Casino Royale. This is one of the worst filmed movies I've ever seen. I've never seen a movie with this many quick cuts. It's like you are constantly skipping ahead 15 seconds for every second that is actually passing. It's almost nausiating.

The villains are also some of the weakest of the series. Maybe the weakest.


The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

What a wasted opportunity! Christopher Lee as the world's greatest assassin, Herve Villachez as the world's smallest factotem, exotic Asian locales, sexy young Britt Ekland and Maud Adams in her pre-OctoMILF years and yet the movie is still one of the worst. The problem is that there is a great 45 minutes worth of story here but it's buried under another 80 minutes worth of crap. Oh well at least Britt was cute:




License to Kill (1989)

The worst of the worst. I thought "The Living Daylights" was one of the series' best but this sequel is horrible. It doesn't feel like a Bond film at all. It's more like a stereotypical 80s "tough cop out for revenge" movie. The problem is that these guys have absolutely no idea how to make this type of movie. Dalton looks incredibly uncomfortable. He's a fish out of water from start to finish. The story is terrible; the direction is worse. It's hard to understand how a big budget movie can look flatter and cheaper than contemporary 80s tv dramas but it does. This is compounded by the fact that most of the American actors they hired were minor has-been tv actors. When the typical Bond silliness crops up near the end it comes across even goofier than usual due to how (tediously) grim the rest of the movie has been. They should have hired some director from Golan Globus or PM Entertainment to direct this thing. It would still have sucked but at least it would have had a pulse.

I did laugh at the "Turn off the bloody machine!" line near the end.



The World is Not Enough (1999)

Why does the writing of these blockbuster Bond films feel as slapdash as some of the old American tv shows from the 1960s? Those shows had to deal with small budgets and merciless deadlines where they had to produce 30 episodes per season - so what is the excuse of the producers of the Bond movies?

I saw this in the theater and didn't like it. When I re-watched it the other night I found it to be a lot better than I remembered. The action scenes weren't as good as the other Brosnan era flicks, but it has a much more serious tone that I liked. There were some odd things that I didn't quite understand but I assumed that I wasn't paying enough attention. I watched it again last night and, no, I actually hadn't missed anything; the script is a disaster.

There are a lot of lines that are just nonsense - they sound like lines you would throw into a script as you write it knowing that you will go back later and write a proper piece of dialog. Except in this case nobody ever bothered with a second draft. The plot is rubbish too; there are so many problems that I couldn't possibly enumerate them all.

Positives: The pre credits scene is quite good and features some excellent stunt work. The theme song by Garbage is one of the better Bond theme songs. Pierce Brosnan gives a more varied performance than you usually get in these movies. The biggest plus? The women! Three of the best looking Bond girls appear in this movie:





A defense of Denise Richards: Nearly every review of "The World is Not Enough" mentions how terrible she is, and, yeah, she is miscast, but she is actually one of the best "good" Bond girls, imo. Compare her performance to those of the actresses who played Dr. Goodhead, Honey Rider, Mary Goodnight, or Solitaire and she comes across as the second coming of Meryl Streep. Jesus Christ, Roger Moore may has well been handcuffed to a pretty mannequin in most of his movies.

This is a franchise that manages to get flat performances out of legitimately great actors so I have to give Richards some credit for at least putting in some effort. She's not a great actress but her performance here wasn't any worse than that of (Acadamy Award winning actress) Halle Berry in the next film.

[Mennonite]

Originally Posted by RockChalk

Just a complete ****ing smokeshow

She's one of the best things about the new movie.

Check out Ana de Armas in training for #NoTimeToDie. pic.twitter.com/KKRlrYGTUU

— James Bond (@007) October 19, 2021

Very cute in the second Blade Runner movie, too.

[Tribal Warfare]

[Mennonite]

^ Every one of those criticisms is true...and he's still the best Bond.

The video guy's ranking of Bond actors is pretty bad, imo. Anybody picking George Lazenby at #1 is just being a contrarian.

My Bond Actor Rankings:

01: Connery (Charisma of a movie star)
02: Brosnan (A mix of both Connery and Moore and handsome enough to make the ladykiller thing believable)
03: Moore (Likeability of a tv star)
04: Dalton (TLD vers. not LTK vers.)
05: Craig (Kind of wooden. Scowling isn't a replacement for a personality or charisma)
06: Lazenby



Bond Movies Ranked from Best to Worst:

Casino Royale (2006)
GoldenEye (1995)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Octopussy (1983)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Dr. No (1962)
No Time to Die (2021)
Die Another Day (2002)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
The World is Not Enough (1999)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Skyfall (2012)
Moonraker (1979)
Spectre (2015)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
A View to a Kill (1985)
Live and Let Die (1973)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Thunderball (1965)
License to Kill (1989)


Hottest Bond Girls:

01 Teri Hatcher as "Paris Carver"
02 Denise Richards as "Christmas Jones"
03 Luciana Paluzzi as "Fiona Volpe"
04 Halle Berry as "Jinx"
05 Maria Grazia Cucinotta as "Cigar Girl"
06 Famke Janssen as "Xenia Onatopp"
07 Claudine Auger as "Domino Derval"
08 Britt Ekland as "Mary Goodnight"
09 Jill St. John as "Tiffany Case" (Good face, good body, bad wigs)
10 Tanya Roberts as "Stacey Sutton" (I cheated here. Makeup and wardrobe didn't do her any favors in "A View to a Kill" but there is no way I can keep her off the list after growing up watching her in Beastmaster (1982) and Sheena (1984). I mean c'mon now...





Bond MILFs:

01 Monica Belluci as "Lucia Sciarra" (10 or 20 years younger and she would have been at the top of my list of Bond girls.
02 Maud Adams as "Octopussy" (She's just classy looking)

Honorable mentions:

Izabella Scorupco as "Natalya Simonova" (Hotter in real life than in GoldenEye)
Cecilie Thomsen as "Inga Bergstrom" (hot but barely in TND)
Barbara Bach as "Anya Amasova" (looks great in a Russian hat)



Favorite Pre-Title Sequences:

GoldenEye (1995)
Casino Royale (2006)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
The World is Not Enough (1999)
You Only Live Twice (1967)



Best Opening Credits:

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Goldfinger (1964)


Favorite Theme Songs:

"James Bond Theme" by Monty Norman & John Barry (Dr. No)
"Live and Let Die" by Wings (Live and Let Die )
"The World is Not Enough" by Garbage (The World is Not Enough)

Favorite Henchmen:

Oddjob
Jaws
Xenia Onatopp
Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wynt
Fatima Blush


Favorite Movie Posters:

Dr. No (United Artists, 1962) Spanish One Sheet
Thunderball (United Artists, 1965) One Sheet
Octopussy (MGM/UA, 1983) British Quad
Live and Let Die (United Artists, 1973) Six Sheet
For Your Eyes Only (United Artists, 1981) British Quad


You can view these posters here:

https://www.limitedruns.com/blog/mov...s-of-all-time/


Not included on that site is the video game cover version of From Russia With Love. I've always liked this one:

[crayzkirk]

It was enjoyable. Will add to my collection of Blu-Ray movies for re-viewing at a later time. I'm sure that I missed some important parts.

Spoiler!

I know all Bond movies have a high tech gadget that needs to be overcome however I don't like the idea of the no win scenario. Also, the bionic eye was a bit cheesy. I guess Bond just isn't destined to ever be happy and settle down (not that it would be settling...)