Movie Moan: Bond-A-Thon
Sun, May 15, 2011 This week's Movie Moan is just Phil and Jamie at the helm. So instead of discussing movie-news (It was a tad on the lighter lode side), the two spend the hour or so talking about one of their favorite subjects: the James Bond film franchise.
Ever since they had a "Moaning About a Movie" with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, they've been promising to profile one film specific to each of the six actors. For this week's podcast, their attention is aimed at three very distinctive entries in the still-thriving series.
3:20 mins - 1971's Diamonds Are Forever with Sean Connery (featuring Jamie's favourite film clip in the history of the universe - the toasty Jap).
20:20 mins - 1981's For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore (featuring never before seen alternate endings which are no more absurd than the one they actually used).
42:50 mins - 1989's Licence to Kill with Timothy Dalton (featuring the full uncut version of Antony Zerbe's exploding head).
By that counting, that still leaves Pierce Brosnan and current 007 Daniel Craig. But don't worry, guys, they'll have their moment too.
As usual, download us as an MP3 below but watch us in video above to get the full experience.
Reader Comments (6)
Very entertaining discussion. You guys didn't mention something that absolutely sabotages FOR YOUR EYES ONLY in my eyes (pun intended), which is the comically and tonally offbase music scoring of the car chase IIRC. It ruins the sequence for me! You have dated, synthesized music playing during what's supposed to be a tense car chase, and it just always brings me out of the movie. I also don't like how bland everything is, with the exception of the opening. Bland villain, bland climax. Not much makes an impression, which might be why you guys say it's one of the least remembered Bond flicks. I understand why the filmmakers decided to go the direction they did after MOONRAKER (heck, I would have too), but it think the concept might have sounded better on paper than how it actually ended up on film.
As for DIAMONDS, I like that one, and having read the first half of Fleming's 007 novels, it's my favorite of the bunch so far. Regarding LICENSE TO KILL, it plays like you said -- pretty much a standard American action film from the late 80s. If you were to only watch that one 007 film, you would probably barely even register that the character is a British creation. It's weird that Dalton tried to play the character according to how Fleming wrote him, but the film as a whole moves away from the British ambience of Fleming. Weird juxtaposition. Also, while the character is more Fleming-esque, at the same time, Fleming did put humor into the novels, just not wink wink humor ala Roger Moore. But he did put in stuff that came at Bond's expense, and there were times when other people bailed Bond out in the novels. So he wasn't a superman character. My point is that an effort to make Bond super-serious seems to me not to be quite Fleming-esque, just as Moore's wink wink portrayal of Bond wasn't quite Fleming either. I still don't think Fleming's Bond has truly been captured on celluloid. I guess that's what makes the character so great for film -- all the different portrayals it allows.
Sad to here Jamie dislikes LIVE AND LET DIE. It's my favorite of the films. Please get around to that one sometime. :0)
Thanks for taking the time and effort with your response Zodfather.
Bill Conti's score is painfully dated I'll admit but I do think it matches the tone of that car chase. It is meant to be comical. Bond's stuck driving a piece of shit that he can barely fit in.
As for the climax, apart from some wonky editing, I think it's pretty spectacular. Bond climbing up the mountain with the bare minimum of climbing equipment beats Tom Cruise showing off in 'Mission Impossible II' any day of the week for me. We didn't even mention the superb final moment where Bond throws the ATAC off the cliff to stop it falling into the hands of the Russians.
"That's detente comrade, you don't have it, I don't have it".
It's a perfect cold war thriller ending.
I will be taking Jamie to task on 'Live And Let Die' in a future installment I promise. I don't understand what his problem is with that film.
Diamonds is probably my least favorite of the un-official Bond films. It has those snappy Manciewicz one-liners, but the plot doesn't really make much sense (I'm still at a loss, as to what happens at that funeral parlor).
FYEO is very memorable in my eyes, because it was the first Bond film I ever saw! As a result, I find it very difficult to dismiss Moore as Bond. As a four/Five year old, I wasn't thinking about how old he looked, I wasn't thinking about how cool and (yes) inspiring the man was and how much I wanted to be him (a feat I still haven't quite managed). Yeah, the villian is no great shakes and it is probably a little too low-key for its own good, but the stuntwork was a total revelation to me at the time and still stands up to this day.
License to Kill I've never had a problem with. Yeah, it was a reaction to the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard films of the time, but I saw License before those. Like FYEO, it felt so fresh and new to me (as a seven year old, even though the film has a 15 certificate!) It's interesting that you bring up the "He was married once... but that was a long time ago." scene, because I saw lisense before OHMSS... but yet that momment made total sense to me. Even at that tender young age, I could cage that Bond's marriage ended badly. I've also always loved how nihilistic Bond was in this film... him tossing the money out of the plane, the devil may care glint in his eye, as he drives the turned on its side tanker truck towards the drug runners...
but then again... no Welshman should ever play Bond!
In the same way that no Englishman should ever play Superman!
Oh, wait a tick...
That thing at the funeral parlor in Diamonds is just an incredibly elaborate way of smuggling. Bond delivers Peter Franks' body and the diamonds from he retrieved from Tiffany Case to the parlor, which is the next link in the chain (from there to be picked up by lousy comedian Shady Tree) while Franks' payment is enclosed in Franks' urn.
As to whether Mr Wint and Mr Kidd are trying to take out Bond with or without the consent of Mr Slumber and Shady Tree isn't quite so clear but once they realise the diamonds he delivered are fake, they stop him from getting cremated.
Yeah, but don't they set fire to him? Surely, he should have (atleast) second-degree burns below the knees? I always found it too much to take that Bond would just walk out of the place, especially, since that funeral parlor was in the middle of frigging nowhere! How the hell did he get back to the hotel... did he hitchhike? Did he rip-off a hearse?
Atleast, Moore looked genuinely vulnerable after being trapped in that g-force simulator in Moonraker
Also, I don't mean to darken the tone, but I read this last night...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13574208