Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

I'm currently giving Quantum of Solace a re-watch, and while I still have some issues with it so far I'm liking more than I did previously (and a lot more than Spectre).

 

QoS is ten years old this year. Times flown.

 

I just love LALD , I'll never apologise . the black villains are great , it has some cracking dialogue , and great action scenes - the airport chase , the bus chase , the crocs , and that speedboat chase is the best action scene they'd done to that point and remains one of the best ever Bond action scenes .
TMWTGG is ***** tho .

 

There should be no issues, QoS is art.

(no but what issues?)

@gezvader28 - so LALD is a guilty pleasure, but that would still give him a 50% failure rate because also DAF.

 

LALD is not a guilty pleasure , I feel very good about liking it . I also like DAF .
Besides I'm not rating the directors on their success rate but on who brought key / defining movies to the series , so - Terence Young's films aren't my favorites but his contribution is so important because he originated so much of what others then built on .

.

 

You like DAF?

Get out.

 

@Ender Sai Well the action scenes are very poorly done. The shaky cam and choppy editing can make it hard to follow what's going on. I also think Greene is quite a weak villain. I get what they were going for, trying to make him more of a ruthless business man with a sadistic streak rather than the typical over the top Bond villain, but Mathieu Amalric tries too hard to make him seem menacing, it does the opposite. I thought Klaus Maria Brandauer did a much better job of playing that type of character in Never Say Never Again. Other than that, it's pretty solid IMO. In fact, it might actually like it more than Casino Royale (I'd have to watch the latter again to be sure).

 

Back to current reality:

http://deadline.com/2018/02/james-b...en-elizabeth-ii-mgm-trainspotting-1202298157/

John Hodge is writing a Bond screenplay that could be directed by Danny Boyle if it works out.

Also, I *like* Live and Let Die but that's because I like it, not because it's good. It, like Iron Man 2, has some individually good scenes but overall isn't great (and certainly looks like a UK attempt at capitalizing on Blacksplotation in the same way that Moonraker would try and do Star Wars). I also like a very little bit of Diamonds Are Forever, but mostly related to how terrible Jill St. John is.

Similarly, I hold a soft-spot for The Man With The Golden Gun basically because of Scaramanga... but when you compare those movies/plots, even Octopussy ends up coming up better (despite being terrible) with hindsight.

 

QOS improves with every viewing; I've been an enthusiast for a few years now.

For those who concur that "Another Day to Die" is an abomination of a Bond song, which existing tune would make for a better fit? I'd nominate Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain".

 

Heh!
And it usually comes near bottom in the polls , I know .

I love the dialogue :

Plenty :
Hey, what the hell is this? A pervert's convention or something?

I never had a problem enjoying the sillier ones along with the more hard-edged ones , they just have to be entertaining . DAF moves along great , Wint and Kydd are wonderfully weird , Tiffany's sassy and it has one of Barry's best scores . And a filthy song !

 

@gezvader28 Diamonds does have some great lines, shame the overall film is pretty awful.

 

One of my favourite directors (not just in terms of Bond films, but films in general)

 

Damn, I missed the director discussion. My rankings would be:

1. Martin Campbell — two very good films, one a basically flawless masterpiece that looks incredible
2. Terence Young — competent direction, but he did a fantastic job of establishing the series with two classics in a row
3. Sam Mendes — he’s worked with weak scripts, but on a visual level his films are spectacular. He’s upped the level so far visually that I can’t rank him too low even holding Spectre against him
4. Marc Forster — look, QOS is great, okay? Fantastic visuals, good film. He only gets knocked for the terrible editing of his film
5. Peter Hunt — I hate the sped-up fight effects he uses, but otherwise he’s got a competently directed, excellent film to his credit, with some dynamite sequences like Bond at the skating rink
6. John Glen — a workmanlike director, he has some serious Moore duds to his name, but also FYEO, TLD, and LTK
7. Guy Hamilton — Goldfinger’s overrated anyway, and everything else he did was junk. He’s not a bad director for hire, but that’s all he was
8. Lewis Gilbert — pretty much the same. A competent director for hire, did some good sequences, did some bad movies, but pretty typical of the workmanlike directors they were picking at the time
9. Michael Apted — meh. I don’t hate TWINE, but there’s nothing very good about it either
10. Roger Spotiswoode — TND sucks
11. Lee Tamahori — ****ing dire

 

Havac we are Bond-buddies. For life.

 

What's the dumbest scene in any James Bond movie ?

Bond films usually have one really dumb scene , but which are the worst ?
For me it has to be the end of FYEO when they just go into a comedy skit with an impressionist doing Maggie Thatcher , my jaw dropped , it was like they'd cut to a tv sketch show .

.

 

This:

 

This is a really tough thing to narrow down, but yeah... the scene shown above may be the winner.

 

I vaguely recall the ending of TMWTGG, where Bond screws Goodnight, engages in this protracted, juvenile routine of bringing her to orgasm while speaking to M, and fights Nick Nack with a stepstool (or something). It was at least as dumb as the DAD scene referenced above, only without the blaring music.

 

The Man with the Golden Gun - That ****ing slide whistle.

 

The entirety of Die Another Day 100% counts, as does TMWTGG slide whistle jumpsand 90% of Roger Moore's tenure as Bond.

But this has to top the lot:


This is another honourable mention

 

These really are all bad:

 

I've changed my mind, Jaws falling in love is the worst. That is pure cringe.

 

Lewis Gilbert has died - https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/biography-lewis-gilbert?id=04367

I love YOLT and TSWLM

 

Happy Birthday to...