Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) and Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress)
The Mafia Is Not Primarily An Organisation Of Murderers. First And Foremost,The Mafia Is Made Up Of Thieves. It Is Driven By Greed And Controlled By Fear.
Between The Law And The Mafia, The Law Is Not The Most To Be Feared
"What if the Mafia were not an organization but a widespread Sicilian attitude of hostility towards the law?"
The Mafia Is Not Primarily An Organisation Of Murderers. First And Foremost,The Mafia Is Made Up Of Thieves. It Is Driven By Greed And Controlled By Fear.
Between The Law And The Mafia, The Law Is Not The Most To Be Feared
"What if the Mafia were not an organization but a widespread Sicilian attitude of hostility towards the law?"
The Mafia Is Not Primarily An Organisation Of Murderers. First And Foremost,The Mafia Is Made Up Of Thieves. It Is Driven By Greed And Controlled By Fear.
Between The Law And The Mafia, The Law Is Not The Most To Be Feared
"What if the Mafia were not an organization but a widespread Sicilian attitude of hostility towards the law?"
The best Bond villain was Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya).
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
Blofeld was played by Charles Gray, too, in Diamonds Are Forever.
...dot com bold typeface rhetoric. You go clickety click and get your head split. 'The hell you look like on a message board Discussing whether or not the Brother is hardcore?
Blofeld was played by Charles Gray, too, in Diamonds Are Forever.
And that movie sucked.
Jesus, Eon should have let Bond defeat SPECTRE once and for all in that revenge picture...lets hope they dont drop the ball again on QUANTUM OF SOLACE.
I find Diamonds Are Forever intermittently charming. The two homosexual henchmen, and the brutal ways in which they offed their victims. The chase sequence in the car park, and the general Las Vegas vibe to it - which, I admit, should have been exploited better (it's an inherently great location for films; the Bond films merit at least one good set-piece there).
Didn't Blofeld return for a cameo in the opening of one of the Moore films (possibly For Your Eyes Only)? Or was that someone different?
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I find Diamonds Are Forever intermittently charming. The two homosexual henchmen, and the brutal ways in which they offed their victims. The chase sequence in the car park, and the general Las Vegas vibe to it - which, I admit, should have been exploited better (it's an inherently great location for films; the Bond films merit at least one good set-piece there).
Didn't Blofeld return for a cameo in the opening of one of the Moore films (possibly For Your Eyes Only)? Or was that someone different?
It was FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, but you must remember, the reason why Eon quit using Blofeld and SPECTRE and all that shit was because of the lawsuit (which you can read all about on the Net) and without naming either, FYEO was effectively a killing off of both (notice where that occurs at the graveyard where Bond's wife is buried, who was murdered by Blofeld in OHMSS).
As for the movie, I thought DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER was guilty of the same problem that FOR YOUR EYES ONLY had.....being boring.
Capo, I have this rough Action Cinema Theory that if something you happen to see in real life that you expect would thrill/excite you, likewise such a thing in a movie should thrill/excite you.
Capo, I have this rough Action Cinema Theory that if something you happen to see in real life that you expect would thrill/excite you, likewise such a thing in a movie should thrill/excite you.
What you think?
Yes, but I suppose you could apply that to anything, no?
...dot com bold typeface rhetoric. You go clickety click and get your head split. 'The hell you look like on a message board Discussing whether or not the Brother is hardcore?
Capo, I have this rough Action Cinema Theory that if something you happen to see in real life that you expect would thrill/excite you, likewise such a thing in a movie should thrill/excite you.
What you think?
Yes, but I suppose you could apply that to anything, no?
I meant movies anyway. Shouldn't it apply to any genre; why limit it to action movies.
We find the happy ending of rom-coms endearing in the same way that we find "real life" happy endings endearing. Or, if you're sceptical of people living happily ever after in real life, rom-coms will probably rub you up the wrong way.
Should, or is, the way in which we respond to a film any different to the way in which we respond to any other external event? Are our reactions to art any different to our reactions to a so-called reality that exists independent of art?
...dot com bold typeface rhetoric. You go clickety click and get your head split. 'The hell you look like on a message board Discussing whether or not the Brother is hardcore?
Many will disagree with me, but I truly think that the first 20 minutes or so of DIE ANOTHER DAY is the best opening within the entire 007 franchise. I mean you have Pierce Brosnan infiltrating North Korea by surfing, get involved in a thrilling and exciting as hell hovercraft chase sequence shot by legendary stuntman/2nd Unit Director Vic Armstrong, get captured and tortured for over 14 months during the opening credits. Then the West exchanges him for a Korean bomber because they don't want Brosnan to possibly leak anymore Intel and is disavowed by MI-6. So Brosnan is feeling guilty that a terrorist walks free because of him, escapes his prison during his cardiac arrest (a rather awesome scene) and goes to Hong Kong where as a free agent assassin, the Chinese contract him out to murder the Korean for blowing up their guys, and send him off to Cuba.
That set-up right there is pure pulp badass storytelling, and if anything it reminds me of the same feeling I got from CASINO ROYALE a few years later, you know that sensation known as "engagement," or giving a shit about the story, which for a James Bond movie with me is quite remarkable. No surprise considering Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were credited scripters on both. Seriously, DAD could be Bond getting down and dirty like DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and LICENSE TO KILL so promised and yet so failed to deliver.
So how could a movie with such a great 1st act goes straight to hell once Brosnan is in Cuba, and become an incredibly bloated, noisy dumb, money spent like water, and quite easily the silliest 007 flick since MOONRAKER?
I think the first sign of trouble is when Bond is off to a secluded hospital island, and a title card names it...even though Brosnan and others had named that location earlier. I mean seriously guys, we're not that dumb, nor that short of an attention span. Plus, who gives a shit what it's actually called? It's just that place Bond is going, and that's all we need to know quite honestly, right? Still, you gotta glee at that sly joke where at this medical center for wealthy western elites, there is communist iconography from Castro to Che all over the place, an allegory of selling out the revolution. Plus Brosnan gives a pretty good line:
Cuban Contact:One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Bond:Zao doesn't care about other people's freedom.
I'm still surprised the Bush Administration never lifted that one.
Then ole Halle Berry pops up out of the water. You all remember when the media made such a big damn deal that an Oscar-winning movie star was playing a Bond Girl? Hell, MGM and EON were openly booking plans for a "spinoff" film franchise, the first for Bond, around her character of NSA agent Jinx. The problem was, as mighty as they try to strengthen her part, the filmmakers refused to abandon the fact that such "Bond Girls" in their nature are foil only used to fight, screw, show hot body, blow shit up, and get saved at the end. Speaking of which, will we ever have a Bond Girl that not only could kick Bond's ass, but also not need to be rescued? I mean Jesus Christ, even Hong Kong cinema martial arts legend Michelle Yeoh got stuck with that garbage in TOMORROW NEVER DIES.
Anyway, I still remember the audience at my screening just groaning at Berry's one-liners. Either they sucked written down, or she botches it...I can't really tell, maybe both?
Berry fails much like another Oscar-earned actor in Christopher Walken did in A VIEW TO A KILL. I mean both can be terrific players, or at least people thought they could be when they won awards. So how come they drop the ball with 007? I think the fault lies in that instead of trying to craft characters around the actors, such stars are pegged awkwardly into pre-existing parts, much like what you did when you jammed that square peg into the circle hole as a kid.
Contrast them with some great 007 supporting performances like Robert Shaw in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE or even recently with Mads Mikkelsen in CASINO ROYALE, parts that aren't that interesting on paper but which those folks are allowed to use their paid-talents to their extent, instead of jobbing to the status quo. Then again, that whole theory has a flaw, considering that if reports are to be believed, Mikkelsen wasn't even casted as the baddie in ROYALE until weeks after production started.
All I know is, when Berry is trying to avoid the killer laser beams, if she had slipped and had been sliced like a deli ham, the crowd at my screening would have cheered because she really was useless and forgettable, even for a Bond Girl. Funny enough, Brosnan told this one story on Conan O'Brien's program where while at a Dublin bar, someone asked to shake his hand. That guy then replied, "That's the closest my hand will ever get to Halle Berry's arse."
My bitching aside at Berry and Madonna's rather mediocre title song and cameo (both done I believe when she was sporting that fake British accent. Remember that goofyness?), DIE ANOTHER DAY was still working until Brosnan goes back to the UK, and here is where the movie jumps the shark. It's like this renegade action tale stopped and forgot to fill out the rest of the old school 007 quota, and went straight to hell...I must admit, it was DAD that finally convinced me that unless you have something cool or creative to do with them, don't even bother including Moneypenny or M or Q or whatever. They're pointless.
The same goes with the obligatory gadget sequence. Maybe its just me, but the best 007 toys are those that are rather practical in numerous scenarios, the sort you would want to carry around everywhere just in case, i.e. the grenade pen from GOLDENEYE. With DAD, didn't anyone else feel like when Brosnan does deploy his ring device, how contrived that whole set-up is? I mean thank friggin God that he got that gizmo before knowing that he was going to an ice palace...
I believe DAD lost my crowd back in 2002 when they guessed the plot twist with the villain about a half-hour before the movie got around to it, and when his assistant is revealed to be a MI-6 mole, that she'll heel turn on Bond. I know there is an art to action storytelling, and yet its not rocket science either, but you've failed big time with both misfires. Then we get another 007 villain with a goddamn space laser (can't the franchise just retire that older-than-dirt plot device?) and the biggest crime of all is the violation of a very basic action cinema theory I cooked up some time ago: If something you see in real life would probably be incredible to witness, it should be similarly on the big screen. Well, when Bond is out-driving the laser or crashing through the palace to save Berry.....I was bored, and so was my audience.
Really, how about a movie that opens great with everyone hooked, and ends with them lukewarm?
To put it another way, the only other time at the movies afterwards where such a super big-budget action extravaganza failed to even stimulate most people in a crowd, it was Stephen Sommers' infamous VAN HELSING. Damn.
DIE ANOTHER DAY was a massive box-office hit world-wide, which is no surprise for the 007 label, but apparently the budget was so ridiculously high, the profit margins was rather thin. DAD would be a turning point when Brosnan, tired of the sub-standard scripting and refusal of EON to escape the formula, demanded to share creative control for his fifth Bond movie, and EON promptly told him to take a hike, effectively firing him.
In the wake of the BOURNE movies and their license to print money, 007 was rebooted and effectively Purvis and Wade were told to do their thing, forget the "formula." So really, as much as I whine at DAD, we should be thankful really that it sucked so much. I mean without BATMAN & ROBIN, no BATMAN BEGINS and thus no THE DARK KNIGHT. Likewise, no DAD, no CASINO ROYALE.
For me this was the worst of the lot.. so dramatic..
The Mafia Is Not Primarily An Organisation Of Murderers. First And Foremost,The Mafia Is Made Up Of Thieves. It Is Driven By Greed And Controlled By Fear.
Between The Law And The Mafia, The Law Is Not The Most To Be Feared
"What if the Mafia were not an organization but a widespread Sicilian attitude of hostility towards the law?"
From the historical drama classic THE LION IN WINTER to the very campy FLASH GORDON to being the Errol Flynn-esque baddie in THE ROCKETEER to being the villain in the very recent comedy HOT FUZZ, Timothy Dalton has proven himself to be an actor capable of being incredibly awesome. Yet he unfortunately is still tainted as somewhat of a failure by many because of the perception that he's one of the lesser men to have played cinema's greatest spy in James Bond.
I held that same opinion for years, if based simply from the fustrating mess that was LICENSE TO KILL and the parts of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS I had seen here and there on televsion over the years, all unimpressive but I never actually sat down and watched it from beginning to end. Now that I have, I will shock people (all ten who care) and say that not only was I wrong, but Dalton was actually pretty darn good here, and doesn't deserve the loser rap at all.
What sold me on Dalton for DAYLIGHTS is after he refuses to kill the cello player-turned-sniper, instead shoots her gun off her hands, his co-worker threatens to report to M that he disobeyed a direct order. His response?
"Stuff my orders! I only kill professionals. That girl didn't know one end of a rifle from the other. Go ahead. Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it."
In the pre-CASINO ROYALE era, that bit of dialogue just blows my mind. I mean Sean Connery and Roger Moore both never said anything to this effect, and in fact I always had the impression that they wouldn't because they really enjoy their jobs of killing too much. But Dalton here, he has a code of honor (only Bond movie to have one, I believe) and if it comes down to a choice between honor and the best gig in the world, he'll go drinking shaken, not stirred, martinis in the unemployed line. Plus, you gotta love that one shot of him smoking at the estate meeting, giving off the body and facial language of, "what the hell am I doing here wasting my time?"
Later on, there is this scene where Dalton holds a Russian general (John Rhys-Davies) at gunpoint. Now every other action film where this occurs, we accept that the hero won't pull the trigger...but I tell ya, Dalton convinced me with his acting that he would. Did I ever believe that Connery was a badass? Yes. Did I ever buy Moore as a manwhore? Yes. But did I or you ever buy either simply skull-capping anyone?
Nope.
But the most badass Dalton moment is his finale brawl with the top henchman. The thug is hanging on for dear life on Dalton's shoe, and Bond takes his blade and starts cutting the laces off. The poor guy begs Bond to not do it, and Dalton does it anyway. Now that's just damn cold-blooded gangsta of him.
I've never read the original Ian Fleming books, but apparently Dalton here was quite faithful to the violent-operating professional bastard that was the literary Bond. So my question now is, why is it that people rejected Dalton but fully embraced Daniel Craig in CASINO ROYALE?
The chief culprit I fear may be the formula. As like every other pre-ROYALE 007 movie, we get the obligatory gadget scene, and later set-pieces for Bond to display their effectiveness. That gag of a stereo boombox bazooka labeled a "Ghetto Blaster," is that racist? Anyway, the problem is that the whistle gas-bomb or whatever is rather underwhelming. I mean how useful is such a device if you're stuck in the desert, and can't produce enough moisture in your mouth to whistle? Better yet, what if you can't whistle period? Then with Bond's trusty wheels the Aston Martin with the rockets, shit explodes of course but....I just sorta don't care. Why?
I blame that partly on director John Glen. Originally a second-unit director in the franchise, he got promoted and shot all the Bond movies in the Reagan Decade. He's a competent and serviceable filmmaker, but the same could be said for Spam. For all those ages that EON produced a new Bond picture every 2-3 years with pretty much with the same crew, the formula and action cinema of the franchise has been locked down into an expensive if bland science. In fact, I would argue that the least interesting scenes in DAYLIGHTS is the action stuff, including that whole Mujahideen raid on the Soviet airport in Afghanistan. Not boring or bad mind you, I just think that's the overall story of the action scenes in all the 80s Bond entries. I also noticed how so many Bond movies seem to have the guy getting chased by enemies on snow, and that DIE ANOTHER DAY stole the "escaping falling airplane by driving car off it" schtick from DAYLIGHTS.
Still, he had some touches I dug. For one, the opening action teaser in most 007 flicks are either irrelevant or significant to the plot. With DAYLIGHTS, it seems totally random until its tied in as being a consequence of the apparent new Soviet directive Smiert Spionam ("Death to Spies.") Second, when the top KGB henchman assaults a MI6 stronghold using grenades shaped like milk bottles. Whatever I loved that because it was campy stupid or awesomely stupid, I can't tell. Also, what other movie you know of where diamonds are being smuggled in a cooler with a heart transplant?
No what works best in DAYLIGHTS is early on with the spy intrigue in Czechslovakia, when Dalton is trying to pull off a Soviet defection, and realizing that all this shit just doesn't calculate. People have criticized DAYLIGHTS for having bland villainy, but I like that they aren't yet some more egomaniacs trying to take over the world or blow it up, in fact the stake of all creation doesn't rest on Bond's shoulders as usual. It's a good down-to-Earth pulpy throwback having an arms dealer (Joe Don Baker) and his asshole clique try to scam both Americans and Russians to get their high-tech weaponry sold.
I had criticized LICENSE TO KILL in that Dalton was not convincing as a Moore-scripted seducer or as a one-liner spouting machine, but he does both good if not great in DAYLIGHTS. I grinned at his delivery of "make that two," as seen in the trailer above, or talking about how he has a "pipeline to the west," and we cut to an oil pipeline. He also had good chemistry with DAYLIGHT's Bond Girl Maryam d'Abo, who herself wasn't just another pretty model that couldn't act her way out of a paper bag (Denise Richards anyone?). Not saying that she was special or anything, but competent as a villain's mistress jammed into this deadly conpiracy not out of free will, and having a BOURNE IDENTITY relationship of convenience with Dalton. Before the action goes I laughed when after escaping from their prison cell, she cries of how they're free and Dalton calmly replies as matter of fact: "Kara, we're inside a Russian airbase in the middle of Afghanistan."
Speaking of which, there is something stupid and uncomfortable about the ending when those Afghan "freedom fighters" arrive at Carnegie Hall. With one strapped to deck with bullets, how did he get them passed customs? Also, why was it that 1980s Western movie heroes like Rambo and Bond were foolish enough to help guys who would later become Al Qaeda? Oh and to twist the knife even further, I read somewhere that DAYLIGHTS was the favorite 007 movie of former Taliban leader Mohammed Omar, but I can't confirm it.
Overall I would say that THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS was the best Bond film from the 1980s, and Dalton got screwed. Audiences and critics used to Moore's cheekyness trashed DAYLIGHTS as being "too serious", an opinion echoed by Roger Ebert who ironically would later give full four stars to CASINO ROYALE. At its peak it's a nice reality and balls check for the franchise, at its worst a return to same-old, same-old. I wished that the gritty spirit of the first half had been retained throughout the whole feature, but still its a pretty good movie.
In other words, respect the Dalton or he'll give you the boot off the plane as well.
This was the first film i went to see at the pictures at the grand old age of 5... Good film..
The Mafia Is Not Primarily An Organisation Of Murderers. First And Foremost,The Mafia Is Made Up Of Thieves. It Is Driven By Greed And Controlled By Fear.
Between The Law And The Mafia, The Law Is Not The Most To Be Feared
"What if the Mafia were not an organization but a widespread Sicilian attitude of hostility towards the law?"
