James Bond is better than everything

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

Can't see the attraction, myself.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

007's car from Die Another Day is really something to see.

 

I wish I could make you vanish.

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

Speaking of which, good article looking at DAD on its 20th anniversary - 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/22/die-another-day-james-bond-movie-anniversary

@Naïve Old Fart Yes, the white Esprit explodes when a henchman uses the butt of his gun to break one of its windows that bears a 'Burglar Protected' sticker. 

Well, he can't say he wasn't warned ...     

[Disco Stu 15,508]

FYEO also has my favorite onscreen death in a Bond movie.  When the Countess is unceremoniously rammed by the dune buggy! 

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

You mean Mrs. Brosnan.

[Nick1Ø66 6,507]

Best Bond death was in the best Bond movie. Roger Moore is ruthless.

 

 

Pyramids! Poor Sandor.

 

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

It being 'homaged' in Quantum Of Solace was certainly unexpected. And it's not the only TSWLM nod in QOS ... the Universal Exports business card that Bond hands across at one point bears the name 'Robert Sterling', Moore's marine biologist alias in Spy.     

[Disco Stu 15,508]

3 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Best Bond death was in the best Bond movie. Roger Moore is ruthless.

 

When's the last time you saw this 

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

Saw what?

It says: "Video unavailable" 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Best Bond death was in the best Bond movie. Roger Moore is ruthless.

 

 

Pyramids! Poor Sandor.

 

What a helpful chap.

 

 

3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

It being 'homaged' in Quantum Of Solace was certainly unexpected. And it's not the only TSWLM nod in QOS ... the Universal Exports business card that Bond hands across at one point bears the name 'Robert Sterling', Moore's marine biologist alias in Spy.     

Well spotted, that man!

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

Speaking of references, I was watching SPECTRE, the other day (yes, I know, I'm sorry).

The nighttime shot of Tangier mirrors the daytime shot of Tangier, in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.

Also, Q is staying at The Pevsner, which is a nice nod to ex-Bond alumnus, Tom Pevsner.

 

 

Of all the Bond kills, I guess the two that are most ruthless, and most personal, are 006, in GOLDENEYE, and Franz Sanchez, in LICENCE TO KILL. Both of these kills see Bond exact revenge for personal acts against Bond (betrayal, and the murder, and/or mutilation of, friends).

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

There's more of an 'edge' to most of the violence in LTK (hence it being the first and to date only Bond to be certified at 15 and not A/PG/12) and to Alec and Bond's scrapping at the end of GE (bloodied knuckles, a headbutt in the uncut version etc).  

A reference I liked in SPECTRE was the MI6 safehouse in/disguised as a bookshop called 'Hildebrand Rarities', a nod to the Fleming short story 'The Hildebrand Rarity' which (in a pleasingly circular way) was the story from where LTK sub-villain Milton Krest was taken.    

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

2 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

A reference I liked in SPECTRE was the MI6 safehouse in/disguised as a bookshop called 'Hildebrand Rarities', a nod to the Fleming short story 'The Hildebrand Rarity' which (in a pleasingly circular way) was the story from where LTK sub-villain Milton Krest was taken.    

Of course! Again, well spotted.

I always thought that Quist, in THUNDERBALL, was meant to be Krest. Whatever.

Anthony Zerbe plays Krest with great sleaziness... and he has one of the best (and funniest) Bond villain deaths.

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

The version of LTK now available on DVD/BluRay (and presumably streaming) is uncut, so you get to see Krest's head go 'pop' (as well as the likes of hearing the screams of the 'Give her his heart' guy from the pre-credits sequence after he's dragged outside and the scenes of Dario going into the coke grinder and Sanchez going up in flames are a little longer).  

John Glen said that in the 80s, Bond's competition was from the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger so he had tried to up the violence etc. where he could within the confines of a PG-certified movie (hence the likes of Moore cold-bloodedly kicking Locque's car over the cliff in FYEO and Walken's machine-gunning of the mineworkers in AVTAK ... famously, Moore had to be talked into playing the former the way he did and outright disliked the latter). Guess LTK was Glen finally throwing caution to the wind altogether.       

[Jay 41,617]

Liam Neeson revealed in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli contacted him several times in the 1990s to ask if he was interested in taking on the role of 007.

[Nick1Ø66 6,507]

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

 

Neeson missed out on the chance to have one of the all-time great bumper stickers:

'MY GIRLFRIEND TOLD ME SHE'D LEAVE ME IF I PLAYED 007. GOD I'M GONNA MISS HER'

[Jay 41,617]

That's the same article I posted immediately before you

[Nick1Ø66 6,507]

Yes Jason, I know. That's where the picture's from. 

[Jay 41,617]

I don't get it

[Meredith McKay 7,489]

Can you see his joke in the black text underneath the picture?

[Jay 41,617]

Ohhhhhhhh

 

Nope, if he typed something in his post I don't see it at all in dark mode

 

EDIT: I highlighted his post and can see the joke now.  Was that there when I replied, or added later?

[Meredith McKay 7,489]

Didn't know where to put this, so here it goes.

 

I found some samples used in Serra's Goldeneye in a old sample CD and figured I would make a little video and post it on YouTube:

 

 

@Naïve Old Fart

On 23/02/2023 at 8:48 PM, Jay said:

EDIT: I highlighted his post and can see the joke now.  Was that there when I replied, or added later?

Yea, it was

[Jay 41,617]

What? I asked an A or B question.  Answering "yea' doesn't tell me if the answer is A or B.

[Meredith McKay 7,489]

I meant yea to Part A sorry, it was there when you replied to him.

[Jay 41,617]

Ah ok. I just couldn't see it because I use dark mode then.

[Meredith McKay 7,489]

Yeah, I almost missed it myself. (I use Dark Mode as well)

[Jay 41,617]

Also when I first replied, the included image wasn't in a quote block, just by itself, so I thought that was the entirety of his post, not a thing that was meant to be connected to text below it (because I couldn't see there was text below it)

 

He later edited his post and put the picture in a quote block.

[Tallguy 5,230]

Good heavens! I've never seen this?

 

 

OK, I may have seen it when it aired, but it didn't make an impression on me. I've never seen Sean and Roger together!

[Edmilson 10,052]

After binging several Bond movies on Prime Video, my dad became a Bond fan (he didn't care for the franchise before that).

 

Now he spent the whole day listening to Bond theme songs on Spotify and his favorite so far will surely bother die hards: Sam Smith's Writing's on the Wall 

[Jay 41,617]

[Edmilson 10,052]

Lol

 

He was very surprised when I told him that, despite the Oscar, Sam Smith's song was not well regarded among Bond fans. 

 

But he also liked Billie Eilish's and Adelle's songs for the previous movies.

[tomsmoviemadness 3,947]

 

 

And just a thought:

How good would he be as M or a villain?

[Tallguy 5,230]

I am occasionally surprised when The Writing's on the Wall gets stuck in my head. Especially when I haven't listened to it and because I didn't think I knew it well enough for that to happen.

 

So it has to have SOMETHING.

 

The only Bond title song I have no use for is Another Way to Die. The Man with the Golden Gun just barely wiggles out of that category.

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

6 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 The Man with the Golden Gun just barely wiggles out of that category.

#Who will he bang? We shall see!# 

Sheer poetry.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Tallguy said:

The only Bond title song I have no use for is Another Way to Die.

I like the "low down and dirty", almost underrehearsed feel to the song.

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

 

 

And just a thought:

How good would he be as M or a villain?

Cox would be too "big", as M, but he'd make a brilliant heavy.

[crocodile 8,964]

On 20/04/2023 at 11:12 PM, Edmilson said:

After binging several Bond movies on Prime Video, my dad became a Bond fan (he didn't care for the franchise before that).

 

Now he spent the whole day listening to Bond theme songs on Spotify and his favorite so far will surely bother die hards: Sam Smith's Writing's on the Wall 

I actually like this song.

 

Karol

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

It's a lot better than the next one, by that stupid little Tourette's girl.

[Edmilson 10,052]

I agree. No Time to Die was a pretty lame song.

[Tallguy 5,230]

Here's how I rate the Craig Era Songs.

 

1. Casino Royale - You Know My Name (probably top 5 overall)
2. Skyfall (Maybe top 10?)
3. SPECTRE - The Writings on the Wall
4. No Time to Die
5. Quantum of Solace - Another Way to Die

[TolkienSS 485]

I'd put Writing On The Wall above both Skyfall and You Know My Name.

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

Writing On The Wall starts well with glorious Barry-esque orchestration, then Smith's balls-in-a-vice warbling kicks in and all is lost. 

Eilish's song sounds like they let the mumbly teen recording studio intern have a go for a laugh instead of having her fetch the coffee.  

[Tom Guernsey 3,052]

59 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Writing On The Wall starts well with glorious Barry-esque orchestration, then Smith's balls-in-a-vice warbling kicks in and all is lost. 

Not a fan of his singing style either and it doesn't really work for a Bond song. I'm not sure it would be much better if sung by someone else though to be fair, it's still pretty nondescript. The fact that it's the orchestration (which I assume is by someone else - although kudos if he did it himself!) which you remember kinda tells you all you need to know. For me, it falls squarely into the category of "Bond songs that sound like someone trying to write a Bond song" - the ChatGPT of Bond songs if you will. In that category I would also put the Adele song (which is better but not great - apple crumble) and most definitely Another Way to Die from Quantum of Solace, which sounds like a patchwork of different Bond song tropes glued together so it's not even a coherent pastiche.

 

1 hour ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Eilish's song sounds like they let the mumbly teen recording studio intern have a go for a laugh instead of having her fetch the coffee.  

Harsh but fair. I'm not pre-disposed to like mumbling teenage songwriters so I appreciate I'm not her core demographic, but the hype surrounding her effort seemed considerably disproportionate to the actual quality of the result. I guess it seems churlish to criticise others for writing pastiche Bond songs when that isn't really a major issue, but it needs a bit more something, somewhere. It doesn't help that it takes an age to get going but even then never quite gets anywhere.

 

I miss the good old days when I thought Madge's Die Another Day was the nadir of Bond songs... in retrospect, it's actually pretty great (I think I have a natural Madonna aversion), managing to be something a bit different, but still being quite a good fit for a Bond song, as well as being pretty catchy. It's not like For Your Eyes Only or The Living Daylights sound like Goldfinger, but they are still work both as decent songs and as Bond songs.

 

[TolkienSS 485]

Die Another Day is abysmal. In any comparison.

The actual movie, however, as crassly clichee as it is, and as worn out its tropes are, is still more entertaining than the last two sorry excuses for Bond films.

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (the film) is ok. I'd put it second on my Brosnan Bond list.

[Tallguy 5,230]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (the film) is ok. I'd put it second on my Brosnan Bond list.

 

This is true. (I'll go out on a limb and guess that Goldeneye ranks first?)

 

TWINE and DAD are each half a good Bond film. TWINE alternates good and bad (character scenes alternate with boom boom 'splosions). DAD has a pretty good first half and then goes full Bad Guy Hamilton for the back half. TWINE's bad parts aren't terrible. DAD's bad parts are. Once they get to the ice palace not even Rosamund Pike can save them. It makes you want to watch the avalanche from On Her Majesty's Secret Service on a loop.

 

Both of them have a fair amount of good character stuff for PB to do. I always felt Brosnan's colder more tortured side was something the producers grudgingly get by and then they made it the entirety of Craig's character. There ain't no justice. (I liked Craig.)

[Sweeping Strings 2,777]

Brosnan stated in interviews a desire to have Bond 'leaning into' the Vodka Martinis a little too keenly as a coping mechanism, to maybe be brought in from the field owing to a psychological problem etc. Certainly the villains in his films verbally snipe about his psyche, values, ego etc. more than they would've done with Connery or Moore.   

7 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Not a fan of his singing style either and it doesn't really work for a Bond song. I'm not sure it would be much better if sung by someone else though to be fair, it's still pretty nondescript. The fact that it's the orchestration (which I assume is by someone else - although kudos if he did it himself!) which you remember kinda tells you all you need to know. For me, it falls squarely into the category of "Bond songs that sound like someone trying to write a Bond song" - the ChatGPT of Bond songs if you will. In that category I would also put the Adele song (which is better but not great - apple crumble) and most definitely Another Way to Die from Quantum of Solace, which sounds like a patchwork of different Bond song tropes glued together so it's not even a coherent pastiche.

 

Harsh but fair. I'm not pre-disposed to like mumbling teenage songwriters so I appreciate I'm not her core demographic, but the hype surrounding her effort seemed considerably disproportionate to the actual quality of the result. I guess it seems churlish to criticise others for writing pastiche Bond songs when that isn't really a major issue, but it needs a bit more something, somewhere. It doesn't help that it takes an age to get going but even then never quite gets anywhere.

 

I miss the good old days when I thought Madge's Die Another Day was the nadir of Bond songs... in retrospect, it's actually pretty great (I think I have a natural Madonna aversion), managing to be something a bit different, but still being quite a good fit for a Bond song, as well as being pretty catchy. It's not like For Your Eyes Only or The Living Daylights sound like Goldfinger, but they are still work both as decent songs and as Bond songs.

 

It used to be a privileged kinda gig, given to artists who had proven themselves with at least a couple of albums under their belt. Last couple were given to artists who had been around for about 5 minutes in comparison. Smith's revelation that he'd written TWOTW in about 10 minutes didn't help. 

[Tom Guernsey 3,052]

58 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

It used to be a privileged kinda gig, given to artists who had proven themselves with at least a couple of albums under their belt. Last couple were given to artists who had been around for about 5 minutes in comparison. Smith's revelation that he'd written TWOTW in about 10 minutes didn't help. 

Agreed on all counts really... although I have to concede that how long it takes you to write something doesn't necessarily correlate with its quality, if people think your song is dreck, saying you dashed it off in 10 minutes doesn't help your cause. Then again, we are probably in a minority and most people thought it was the best Bond song ever cos it's, like, you know, not old fashioned and that... ;-)

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

So... let's rank the Bond songs (if we haven't already).

 

My personal top-5:

1/ The Living Daylights

2/ GoldenEye 

3/ Licence To Kill 

4/ If You Asked Me To 

5/ Surrender

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Tallguy said:

This is true. (I'll go out on a limb and guess that Goldeneye ranks first?)

No limbs needing to go out on. You are correct.

GOLDENEYE is, put simply, a class act.

[Nick1Ø66 6,507]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

So... let's rank the Bond songs (if we haven't already).

 

My personal top-5:

1/ The Living Daylights

2/ GoldenEye 

3/ Licence To Kill 

4/ If You Asked Me To 

5/ Surrender

 

1. Nobody Does it Better
2. For Your Eyes Only
3. Moonraker
4. Skyfall
5. Goldfinger

 

Honorable mention to Live and Let Die & From Russia With Love, which are both great, but I think only women should sing the Bond songs.

[Tallguy 5,230]

17 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

but I think only women should sing the Bond songs.

 

Nuh UH!

 

So I'm trying to do a top 5. Can't do it.

 

Also, I assume we're excluding The James Bond Theme and On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

[tomsmoviemadness 3,947]

My personal Top 5 song is:

 

1. Live And Let Die
2. Skyfall
3. Goldfinger
4. A View To A Kill
5. Licence To Kill

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,552]

My personal Top 5:

1. Goldeneye
2. Skyfall
3. The World is Not Enough
4. You Know my Name
5. Tomorrow Never Dies

 

[Naïve Old Fart 11,226]

3 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Also, I assume we're excluding The James Bond Theme and On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

 

Let's stick with songs, for now, but if you want to add top-5 individual tracks, then...

 

1/ Exercise At Gibraltar 

2/ Journey To Blofeld's Hideaway

2/ Flight Into Space 

4/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service 

5/ Helicopter Ride