BOND MOVIE POLL

[Vic Sage]

Ready for some Bondage?

you can vote for UP to 5 films (5 are not required)

[Benjamin Grimm]

I just voted for Doctor No, the only one that I really liked.

EDIT: I liked Goldfinger too, so I added that one.

[metsmarathon]

i saw most of these back when there was such a thing as a local video rental store that was not part of some nationwide abomination, and, well, i was a teenager. so i don't have the sharpest recollection of most of them, and what there is may be shaded by the reputation of hte movies and discolored by my own immaturity.

for instance, i actually liked timothy dalton's a view to a kill. there was a sweet fire truck jump over a drawbridge there, right?

[Vic Sage]

Dalton didn't do A VIEW TO A KILL. That was Roger Moore's last Bond movie, and it was one of the worst ever made.
Dalton did 2 films, LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENSE TO KILL. Maybe you've confused the latter one for it.

[Edgy MD]

Living Daylights brings me two assocations:

(1) Tmothy Dalton able to kick people in the head and swing down off of roofs in stealth gear, after a lifetime accepting that Bond may have solid hand-to-hand fighting skills, but he's a little creaky.
(2) The final single to chart in the US (#113 with a bullet) from a-ha.

[youtube:31a45etb]WzV4WGoyl4Q[/youtube:31a45etb]

[Vic Sage]

Dalton was strong, and looked the part, but had the sexuality of a bachelor uncle. he was a "Ken doll" Bond.

[metsmarathon]

Vic Sage wrote: Dalton didn't do A VIEW TO A KILL. That was Roger Moore's last Bond movie, and it was one of the worst ever made. Dalton did 2 films, LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENSE TO KILL. Maybe you've confused the latter one for it.

no, i misspoke. meant roger moore. yes, in hindsight, it was pretty bad. but at the time, i rather enjoyed it. fire trucks jumping over drawbridges and all that.

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: Dalton was strong, and looked the part, but had the sexuality of a bachelor uncle. he was a "Ken doll" Bond.

That honker, though. It gets everywhere (and I know whereof I speak).

The angular features come across as too diabolical and less cool. Looks more like the handsome villain in a fantasy (as he was in The Rocketeer and Hot Fuzz) than the handsome hero.

I think the Broccolis (Broccolini?) were trying to get Brosnan at this point but he couldn't get out of his TV commitments, so by the time he did get the role, he had only so many miles left.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

My memory is fuzzy but I think I've only seen the movies in the list below from beginning to end. It feels like I've seen a lot more because I know I've caught portions of other Bond films on tv (for example, those awful Roger Moore movies when he was fighting the metal-toothed villain Jaws. I think there's like six of them). I put asterix next to the three I voted for.

* From Russia with Love (1963) - I voted for this one because it doesn't have all the gimmickery that took over the franchise later and the love story plays honestly.
Goldfinger (1964) - My grandmother's first name is Honor and because of this movie people would say "just like Pussy Galore!"
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - I remember this one being lots of Vegas tackiness and Connery not at his best.
Live and Let Die (1973) - I remember this one being really, really racist.
Octopussy (1983) - This was on HBO constantly when I first got cable tv so it was the first Bond movie I saw. It seemed cool at the time, but I wasn't the most discerning viewer at the age of 11.
A View to a Kill (1985) - I saw this one in the movie theater. Again, seemed cool at the time. Or maybe that was just the Duran Duran video.
* The Living Daylights (1987) - This is the other one I saw in the theater. I voted for this one because I like Dalton's more mature Bond and maintain a lifelong crush on Maryam d'Abo and her cello.
* Casino Royale (2006) - A little bit long, but I was really impressed by Craig's take on the character and the reliance on wits and muscle rather than gimmickery. This is how they should've been doing them all along.

[Edgy MD]

Jaws wasn't the villian, so much as the henchman/assassin.

It was a theme in the earlier films to include an oddall assassin with a fetish for death and often a cartoonish M.O.: Kronstein, Oddjob, TeeHee, and Bambi and Thumper, among others. Jaws was part of a proud (though goofy) tradition.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Is it weird that I liked LIVE AND LET DIE in part because of its terrible racism? It's campy and awful, and yet somehow stylish, and there's the song, and that's why it got one of my votes.

My others: DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, CASINO ROYALE (muscular, dangerous Craig, and "realist" dark, stupid fun with plot holes you could drive a BMW concept car through), and the sharp, sharp Sellers '67-model vehicle CASINO ROYALE

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I think its Live and Let Die that has the great opening at a New Orleans funeral.

NAIVE SPY: Whose funeral is it?
MOURNER TURNED THUG: Yours.

Or something like that. Definitely stylish though.

[Vic Sage]

Is it weird that I liked LIVE AND LET DIE in part because of its terrible racism? It's campy and awful, and yet somehow stylish, and there's the song, and that's why it got one of my votes.

The best Bond song ever, and that should matter. And the "terrible racism" was emblematic of the Blaxploitation films of the period. It was hip racism.

... the Sellers '67-model vehicle CASINO ROYALE

Now THAT'S perverse. I liked it, too, though. Maybe not top 5, but i always had a fondness for it.

[Vic Sage]

Edgy MD wrote: Jaws wasn't the villian, so much as the henchman/assassin. It was a theme in the earlier films to include an oddall assassin with a fetish for death and often a cartoonish M.O.: Kronstein, Oddjob, TeeHee, and Bambi and Thumper, among others. Jaws was part of a proud (though goofy) tradition.

Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, the assassins from DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, were the model for Neil Gaiman's killers, Croup and Vandemar, in NEVERWHERE.

[RealityChuck]

Only From Russia with Love and Goldfinger are memorable in any way (or, rather, in any good way*). Russia is better, though Goldfinger is fun.

The Daniel Craig Casino Royale wins for most boring Bond film; it made the David Niven version actually seem good.

*There are memorably stupid moments in many, like the underwater battle in Thunderball, the spaceship eater in Moonraker and Yaphet Kotto's really bizarre performance in Live and Let Die

[Vic Sage]

Chuck, it always surprises me (and it shouldn't by now, of course) that, considering how closely our particular interests overlap and align, how diametrically opposed are our views and tastes with regard to those common interests.

C'est la vie, as they say in Yiddish.

[Frayed Knot]

I pretty much checked out from Bond films a while ago so my few votes are mostly at the beginning of the list: Goldfinger, From Russia, Dr. No, plus Live and Let Die. Much of the middle/late period I never saw, or, maybe even worse, did and simply don't remember doing so.
I've heard enough good things about the new one to where I might give it a shot, although I was mostly bored by the Craig/Casino Royale so maybe not.

[Benjamin Grimm]

In the last couple of years I've seen each of the Sean Connery Bond movies, mostly for the first time. I did see some of the Roger Moore films when they were in theaters. I know I saw The Spy Who Loved Me, and maybe Moonraker, but I haven't seen any of the films that came out since then.

[Edgy MD]

I've seen them all done by bunnies. Does that count?

[metsmarathon]

that might actually help me differentiate...

[Edgy MD]

Unfortunately, it rather does the opposite.

[youtube:font4zgn]3zBnHCyrx6Q[/youtube:font4zgn]

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Vic Sage wrote: Is it weird that I liked LIVE AND LET DIE in part because of its terrible racism? It's campy and awful, and yet somehow stylish, and there's the song, and that's why it got one of my votes. The best Bond song ever, and that should matter. And the "terrible racism" was emblematic of the Blaxploitation films of the period. It was hip racism.

Agreed on the first point. On the second, well... LALD was more like TV-cop-show-doing-a-featured-episode-about-the-hip-thing than the hip thing itself; Sweetback and Coffy and the like were For-Us-By-Us trading on stereo- and archetypes... while LALD was most definitely not "By Us," so to speak.

Forgot to also give daps to the Yaphet Kotto weirdness, which/whom I always dug.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

The lack of love for GoldenEye worries me a little.

Agreed on the first point. On the second, well... LALD was more like TV-cop-show-doing-a-featured-episode-about-the-hip-thing than the hip thing itself;

I'm glad there's at least one sane person on Crane Pool.

My Top 5:
1. GoldenEye -- Most intelligent plot of any Bond film and credibile motivation of characters. 006 was a great juxapositon of Bond. Fantastic action sequences, memorable scenes galore.

2. OHMSS -- Two words: Diana Rigg. Some more words: Best SPECTRE film by far and Lazenby was closest to real (novel) JB.

3. LTK -- Sanchez was the most credible Bond villain, by far. I'll never understand what people found so repugnant about the Dalton Bond. His lack of willingness to use a rug perhaps?

4. TSWLM -- RM and Barbara Bach had the best on-screen chemistry. Possibly the best bond song as well (hmmmm, maybe this question should be put to a DI poll). Also submarine Lotus Espirt.

5. FYEO -- best location of a Bond film, but RM was beginning to look tired.

HM: TLD -- What Bond films should have been more about: East vs West.

Connery may have been a great Bond but his film oscillated between tedious or ridiculous plots.

PS my vote for TLD should have gone to LTK.

[nymr83]

You read my mind SS as I saw the state of the poll and was scrolling down to lament the lack of love for Goldeneye, my favorite Bond movie (AND a great game on the old Nintendo 64)

[Vic Sage]

GOLDENEYE definitely gets bonus points for reviving the character after the aging, increasingly ridiculous Roger Moore and the utterly mediocre neutered charm of Tim Dalton ran the franchise into a ditch in the 1980s. And its the best of the Brosnan films, and certainly a good film overall.

But the notion that one could make a list of top 5 Bond pictures without listing a single Connery movie seems to me willfully contrarian... not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

The plots of Connery's films were ridiculous? yes, but that is to damn water for being wet. All BOND movie plots are ridiculous. They're superhero movies. They were tedious? That's in the eye of the beholder. Certainly the level of craftsmanship available for action films from the 1960s was different than that of the 1980s-90s. And certainly the pacing of that era seems creaky compared to the ADD-addled/MTV-style editing of subsequent eras. But i find the latter aesthetic, endlessly recapitulating the formula that the Connery films established, to be more tedious by far. Certainly the various levels of mediocrity in the subsequent Bond portrayals, when compared to Connery's rendition, were utterly and consistently disappointing until the arrival of Daniel Craig, who is another honest-to-goodness actor.

And whatever else Bond movies are about, they are about Bond. Without a great Bond, you can't have a great Bond movie.

And ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE did not have a great Bond. Not even a good Bond. I would agree that it's a very good film overall, and underrated i think, and Diana Rigg is one of the best things to come out of the 1960s... but George Lazenby? Lazenby was a male model whose delivery of lines was so poor and with an aussie accent so thick he had some of his scenes dubbed. His post-Bond career was a joke, highlighted by an appearance in the soft-core Emmanuel. And he's going to be favorably compared to real actors like Connery and Craig? or even Dalton, Brosnan and Moore? Alright, but i respectfully, though adamantly, disagree.

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: And whatever else Bond movies are about, they are about Bond. Without a great Bond, you can't have a great Bond movie.

I hope it's not won't be to willfully contrarian of me to say so, but the next great Bond movie will be the first.

[Vic Sage]

a great Bond movie is not the same thing as a great movie.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

And ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE did not have a great Bond. Not even a good Bond. I would agree that it's a very good film overall, and underrated i think, and Diana Rigg is one of the best things to come out of the 1960s... but George Lazenby? Lazenby was a male model whose delivery of lines was so poor and with an aussie accent so thick he had some of his scenes dubbed. His post-Bond career was a joke, highlighted by an appearance in the soft-core Emmanuel. And he's going to be favorably compared to real actors like Connery and Craig? or even Dalton, Brosnan and Moore? Alright, but i respectfully, though adamantly, disagree.

The aspect of OHMMSS that appeals to me the most is the fact it depicts Bond as a human being with frailties, rather than a superhero (something that wasn't seen again until LTK).

My point about Lazenby was that he was closer to the real Bond's appearance than any other actor -- somebody you wouldn't give a second glance to if you saw him in a bar per IF.

a great Bond movie is not the same thing as a great movie.

I'll take a stab in the dark: The difference is the lack of a character arc of the central protagonist?

Nymr83 wrote: You read my mind SS as I saw the state of the poll and was scrolling down to lament the lack of love for Goldeneye, my favorite Bond movie (AND a great game on the old Nintendo 64)

GoldenEye 64 was the shit. I got the reimagined HD version on PS3. Somehow, it's not the same thing.

[Vic Sage]

The aspect of OHMMSS that appeals to me the most is the fact it depicts Bond as a human being with frailties, rather than a superhero (something that wasn't seen again until LTK).

yeah, that's part of my problem with it, as i alluded to in my discussion of SKYFALL. Realism is anathema to Bond.

My point about Lazenby was that he was closer to the real Bond's appearance than any other actor -- somebody you wouldn't give a second glance to if you saw him in a bar per IF.

That's fine, but i don't really care about the fidelity to the books. I'm looking at them purely as movies, standing on their own, and a Bond at whom you wouldn't give a second glance is not a Bond i'm particularly interested in watching.

a great Bond movie is not the same thing as a great movie. I'll take a stab in the dark: The difference is the lack of a character arc of the central protagonist?