Bond 25: No Time To Die

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Back to the subject at hand, I decided to rewatch From Russia With Love last night. I clearly was misremembering it and it was definitely  great, but I still can’t put it above CR.

Also, it was clearly the inspiration for Austin Powers.

[HexMachina]

15 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Dr No is kind of icky. It’s heaviky inferred Honey is gang-raped by the guards (No sends her away saying the ‘men can keep her amused’ or words to that effect) and when we see her again she’s tied to the ground missing her trousers.

And after that plus the near-death, does Bond get her back to Kingston for medical attention? No, he maroons them in a boat so they can have sex.

Plus it has the woman and the black man whittering on about dragons.

There are a few that i just can’t rank highly due to the ick factor or “did they really go there” factor. Live and Let Die is one, Skyfall is another.

[WarGalley]

1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

There are a few that i just can’t rank highly due to the ick factor or “did they really go there” factor. Live and Let Die is one, Skyfall is another.

what was the ick factor in Live or Let Die?

And man, ya'll really making me want to watch From Russia with Love again.

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

There are a few that i just can’t rank highly due to the ick factor or “did they really go there” factor. Live and Let Die is one, Skyfall is another.

 

1 hour ago, WarGalley said:

what was the ick factor in Live or Let Die?

And man, ya'll really making me want to watch From Russia with Love again.

Well the fact that every black person in New Orleans was part of a vast criminal conspiracy and they used lines like “Take this honkey outside and waste him” probably would be what she means.

I don’t worry about it.  You can’t judge yesterday’s art by today’s standards.  The movie was jumping on the blacksploitation bandwagon.

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Back to the subject at hand, I decided to rewatch From Russia With Love last night. I clearly was misremembering it and it was definitely  great, but I still can’t put it above CR.

Also, it was clearly the inspiration for Austin Powers.

Austin Powers was influenced by all those Connery Bond films, but if I had to pick one that was the heaviest I’d go with You Only Live Twice.  Blofield.  The Cat.  The Volcano Lair.

[Zorral]

Watched Casino Royale and started Quantum of Solace (2010) (can there be a worse title evah?).

Serious Bond reboot.  I hadn't realized way back then.  Also probably far too focused on Date to pay any real attention to screen.  Also, Haiti isn't real Haiti, and they'd probably not done that way if it was after the 2010 Haiti earthquake -- or so one would really hope.

No magic suit, car or watch -- huge difference.

No nuclear devices etc. -- huge difference.  Ultimately, seemingly, more interesting?  I never saw Spectre.  and I confess I went to Skyfall because ya, like the rest of the world, I loved Adele's theme song.  The first great Bond theme song in many a Bond.

 

[Rhom]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

Watched Casino Royale and started Quantum of Solace (2010) (can there be a worse title evah?).

Serious Bond reboot.  I hadn't realized way back then.  Also probably far too focused on Date to pay any real attention to screen.  Also, Haiti isn't real Haiti, and they'd probably not done that way if it was after the 2010 Haiti earthquake -- or so one would really hope.

No magic suit, car or watch -- huge difference.

No nuclear devices etc. -- huge difference.  Ultimately, seemingly, more interesting?  I never saw Spectre.  and I confess I went to Skyfall because ya, like the rest of the world, I loved Adele's theme song.  The first great Bond theme song in many a Bond.

 

I thought about ranking Bond themes...  but the music would be much more subjective and era specific than even the movies are.

FWIW I think I like A View To A Kill by Duran Duran and The Living Daylights by A-Ha way more than I should!  

[Zorral]

Sorry.  Have NO idea how this got posted twice.

[RumHam]

54 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Sorry.  Have NO idea how this got posted twice.

I had the same thing happen yesterday.  You hit post once, it lags for a second and then posts twice. 

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Quantum of Solace (2010) (can there be a worse title evah?).

and like, they took the title from a bond short story that was totally unrelated to the movie. So it's really baffling. I suspect someone(s) was on coke rifling through a list of unused Bond story titles thought it sounded AWESOME. 

[Raja]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

The first great Bond theme song in many a Bond.

 

I really liked Radiohead's song for Spectre, pity it never got picked up ( to be fair, I'm a big fan of radiohead so I'm a little biased)

I should probably watch spectre before this new one comes out

[Veltigar]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

She looks too much like my mom for her to do anything for me.

Your mum looks like Hagrid?

[Veltigar]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

No nuclear devices etc. -- huge difference.  Ultimately, seemingly, more interesting?  I never saw Spectre.  and I confess I went to Skyfall because ya, like the rest of the world, I loved Adele's theme song.  The first great Bond theme song in many a Bond.

 

The best one since Goldeneye. I quite like the one for CR and Die Another Day, but I have no problem admitting they aren't great. Probably the only flaw of CR is the fact that it lacks a Bond song worthy of its quality. 

 

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Watched Casino Royale and started Quantum of Solace (2010) (can there be a worse title evah?).

Serious Bond reboot.  I hadn't realized way back then.  Also probably far too focused on Date to pay any real attention to screen.  Also, Haiti isn't real Haiti, and they'd probably not done that way if it was after the 2010 Haiti earthquake -- or so one would really hope.

No magic suit, car or watch -- huge difference.

No nuclear devices etc. -- huge difference.  Ultimately, seemingly, more interesting? 

 

CR is the perfect example to proof that not all reboots are bad. This stripped down version of a Bond tale has something what pretty much all other Bonds lack and that is emotion. Unfortunately, the franchise never did anything interesting with. QoS was a forgettable mess and instead of using Bond's grief and anger over Vesper's faith to great effect, they just squandered it. Skyfall was a waste of saying goodbye to M and Spectre... let's not get into that trainwreck. It's like they tried to revert back to the Roger Moore Bond template (), walking away from what made this series come alive in CR and using the worst Bond for that kind of silliness (Craig is one of my absolute favorites in the role, but there is nothing silly or whimsical about his take on Bond). 

[Heartofice]

45 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

CR is the perfect example to proof that not all reboots are bad. This stripped down version of a Bond tale has something what pretty much all other Bonds lack and that is emotion. Unfortunately, the franchise never did anything interesting with. 

I feel very conflicted by CR. On one hand it really is a great Bond movie, one of the best. I really loved the new grittier take on Bond, I loved Craig and it felt like a fantastic setup to a new franchise. 

But on the other hand, every subsequent movie has been a bit of a dud. This has made me wonder if the direction taken by CR, that those movies have followed, was the right one. 

On paper it makes sense to give James Bond more depth, to give his character more backstory and inner conflict, to make him feel more like a normal human being. That seemed like a good idea after the disastrous Die Another Day. But so far I really don't think I give a damn about Bond's back story, it has seemed so irrelevant and uninteresting. Skyfall fell into a crater plot wise when they went to Scotland and went on about Bond's past... so maybe we don't need to know very much about him at all.

Bond for me has always been an archetype  more than a real character, and some franchises don't need to add flesh to the bones of their characters. In fact I think it's a failing of a lot of modern movies that they think we need to see a backstory before we can care about a character.

I look at the mission impossible series and although they are not a perfect example of it, I think they are often making better Bond movies than James Bond. They know the formula: do a bunch of awesome action sequences, do them well, fit a story in the middle somehow and let the charisma of the actors pull it all together. Ethan Hunt has some depth in those movies, but I think the best ones just gloss over it a bit and get on with making awesome movies.

You could probably do that with Bond as well. I think if they were going to reboot the series I'd want to go back to a much shallower experience. I don't need a long form story arc between movies to keep me interested. Tell me a good story over 2 hours, have some great action scenes, give me a Bond who is aspirationally cool and awesome (not some conflicted relic that everyone takes time to pile onto) , some clever one liners and let me leave the cinema feeling satisfied.  That doesn't mean I want a Roger Moore movie or Die Another Day, I just don't think the franchise needs to rip off Jason Bourne or turn each movie into an intimate character study.

[Darryk]

On 2/6/2020 at 10:24 AM, Derfel Cadarn said:

Dr No is kind of icky. It’s heaviky inferred Honey is gang-raped by the guards (No sends her away saying the ‘men can keep her amused’ or words to that effect) and when we see her again she’s tied to the ground missing her trousers.

And after that plus the near-death, does Bond get her back to Kingston for medical attention? No, he maroons them in a boat so they can have sex.

Plus it has the woman and the black man whittering on about dragons.

The Connery films are all hugely problematic in that regard. Goldfinger is the worst; Bond himself basically forces himself on the love interest in the hay.

Although I do still enjoy the Connery films I'm not one of those who holds the Connery version of Bond sacrosanct, they haven't aged well at all for me. For me Brosnan and Craig are both superior bonds, as was Moore for what they were.

[Heartofice]

22 minutes ago, Darryk said:

The Connery films are all hugely problematic in that regard. Goldfinger is the worst; Bond himself basically forces himself on the love interest in the hay.

Although I do still enjoy the Connery films I'm not one of those who holds the Connery version of Bond sacrosanct, they haven't aged well at all for me. For me Brosnan and Craig are both superior bonds, as was Moore for what they were.

All these movies are a product of their time and I watch them with that in mind. It’s interesting to see how norms have changed, so I don’t judge their quality on what is offensive in 2020.

Roger Moore has tons of offensive stuff in his movies by today’s standards , but most of it is very consistent with how 70s movies and tv looked back then, so he’s hardly an angel.

Doesnt mean I wouldn’t put Connery on the top of any James Bond list, he simply IS James Bond.

[Conflicting Thought]

15 hours ago, Rhom said:

I don’t worry about it.  You can’t judge yesterday’s art by today’s standards.  The movie was jumping on the blacksploitation bandwagon.

 Did black people and women thought it was ok to do and show those thing back then?  It didnt face any criticism at all?. 

Also i dont think is that clear that we cant "judge" art from the past with "modern" eyes. I mean, im sure black folk had some opinions on black face for example. 

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

 Did black people and women thought it was ok to do and show those thing back then?  It didnt face any criticism at all?. 

Also i dont think is that clear that we cant "judge" art from the past with "modern" eyes. I mean, im sure black folk had some opinions on black face for example. 

You can of course judge movies from the past with modern eyes, and we will always be doing that. The difference is how you react to those movies.

[Zorral]

20 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

You can’t judge yesterday’s art by today’s standards.

There are quite a few reasons that many works can and should be judged by more enlightened standards, such as, just for one single instance, Birth of A Nation, which perpetrated the First Great National Lie -- that African Americans are evil, or at best stupid, and need for their own sakes and their own to be denied freedom of thought, movement and choice.  And thus the good white southerners were forced into the War of the Rebellion, and lost only because the coalition between evil northerners and their own god-decreed property unfairly by gawd beat Us White Supremacists by cheating and We were worse victimized by African Americans and northerners than people have been victimized and tortured before -- the Great Glorious Lost Cause.  Ya, and people are believing that line of hogwash even now, thank you Hollywood and D.W. Griffith.  

Yes, you really can judge that one and so many other works on stage, screen and in print -- and newspapers too -- of the time, along with the official policies of Woodrow Wilson for apartheid. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Brosnan films are available on netflix streaming.  Craig's Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace showed up this month on HBO.  I've got Skyfall and Spectre in my netflix queue now.

Kept thinking about this:

But, like standins for Cuba were in the Brosnan Bonds, Haiti isn't real Haiti (and  Madagascar is the Bahama)s, though they'd probably not done it that way if it was after the 2010 Haiti earthquake -- or so one would really hope.

By this I mean, once again the west -- as in real life the UK and Britain blithely destroy the infrastructures of several small, developing countries' cities and landscapes, so they do in the flix for our entertainment.  Just, as, in so many ways, the international 'peace keeping troops' did by bringing cholera -- which Haiti never had previously -- to the population by not digging proper latrines and the rest, as well as making sure -- thank you Hillary and Bill - that Haiti's minimum wage not go above 8 cents an hour, or whatever they pay even for piece work, getting rid of the disease resistent, non-fat indigenous pigs in favor of those artificial feed overweight porkers, who all died since nobody can afford the feed, and they couldn't stand the climate.  So many ways the US and France particularly -- and the Lebanese merchant class -- have destroyed Haiti's cultural and agricultural sustainability.

 

 

[Ran]

Birth of a Nation is a monumental work of art, groundbreaking for its era. So is Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. That's the artistic judgment that one can make from today's standards.

As Roger Ebert said, both of those films are great films that make evil arguments, rather than bad films because they make evil arguments. 

[Conflicting Thought]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

There are quite a few reasons that many works can and should be judged by more enlightened standards, such as, just for one single instance, Birth of A Nation, which perpetrated the First Great National Lie -- that African Americans are evil, or at best stupid, and need for their own sakes and their own to be denied freedom of thought, movement and choice.  And thus the good white southerners were forced into the War of the Rebellion, and lost only because the coalition between evil northerners and their own god-decreed property unfairly by gawd beat Us White Supremacists by cheating and We were worse victimized by African Americans and northerners than people have been victimized and tortured before -- the Great Glorious Lost Cause.  Ya, and people are believing that line of hogwash even now, thank you Hollywood and D.W. Griffith.  

Yes, you really can judge that one and so many other works on stage, screen and in print -- and newspapers too -- of the time, along with the official policies of Woodrow Wilson for apartheid. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Brosnan films are available on netflix streaming.  Craig's Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace showed up this month on HBO.  I've got Skyfall and Spectre in my netflix queue now.

 

 

I didnt say you cant judge the art of the past, i said the exact opposite.

You are quoting me wrong, i never said that.  Pls change it. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Birth of a Nation is a monumental work of art, groundbreaking for its era. So is Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. That's the artistic judgment that one can make from today's standards.

As Roger Ebert said, both of those films are great films that make evil arguments, rather than bad films because they make evil arguments. 

No one argued otherwise as to what they are -- but they are still packed with what helps incite and support evil behaviors too.