Casino Royale (no spoilers)

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by tooblue

How can you call You Only Live Twice goofy? It elevated the stakes with regards to villainy in the already utterly cartoonish world that is a Bond film.

Gritty? On Her Majesty's Secret Service was awkward and clumsy and … a snoozer. Oh, and Telly Savalas as the master villian … ?

Elevating the stakes is not exactly the issue at hand. Much of the excessive goofiness in YOLT is done through dialogue, and particularly through Bond's lines. The Bond character starts taking an ironic distance from the plausibility of his own actions like never before. The Bond of Dr. No and From Russia with Love was earnest about his tasks (and a bit less so in Goldfinger and especially in Thunderball), the Bond in YOLT has a cavalier indifference (and even irony) about them. This cavalier indifference in the portrayal of Bond is much of what I'm getting at in contrasting Die Another Day and Casino Royale, and in Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, although the reliance on gadgets and large-scale and over-the-top action is part of it too.

As for OHMSS: Lazenby is sometimes awkward, but Bond is taking his tasks entirely seriously in this film. The story is much more about espionage, and even about Bond's romance with Traci than it is about over-the-top action, armies of underlings who are terrible shots, a freak-of-nature henchman, sci-fi-like technology, and the like. Savalas is miscast, but his performance of Blofeld is less cartoonish than was that of Donald Pleasence in YOLT (Pleasence's outrageously maniacal eccentricity is one of the positives of YOLT--it works in that film--but it would be weirdly out of place in OHMSS).

There is no doubt that On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only, and Casino Royale have a certain cartoonishness about them (that's part of the appealing escapism of Bond films), but it is much more muted than in the films that immediately precede them. It's really just part of the meta-formula behind the Bond franchise.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

The Bond character starts taking an ironic distance from the plausibility of his own actions like never before.

This same ironic distance as you call it is the fuel that drives my least favorite Bond film Never Say Never Again. And yet that’s what I enjoy most about YOLT –you can almost hear a giggle in his voice as he delivers his lines.

The eccentricity of the master villain is brilliant and his lair in a volcano is prepubescent boys rapture. I absolutely love the capsule gobbling spacecraft and outstanding special effects for its time. It is the one movie in the series that has a little of everything successful found in each film … that movie alone made Austin Powers a viable parody!

My thoughts on the rest of the series if you’re interested …

Dr. No
Ursula Andress is the first and last Bond Girl! The movie overall feels like a better than average, unusually mature and longer than normal Johnny Quest episode.

From Russia with Love:
The films chauvinism and machismo rivals Song of South’s insensitivity. The scenes on the trains make for some of the most compelling and ruthless espionage story telling of any film in the series.

Goldfinger
Overrated, cheeky … anti-hero lesbian named Pussy Galore? … Myth of Fort Knox as a central theme of the story? … My dream car is an Aston-Martin! Hat wielding super henchman, first real comic bookish bad guy vs. wisecracking licensed to kill GQ man?

Thunderball
Bond gets his edge back, at times you actually fear he’s in over his head; sexy, cruel and bodacious henchwoman; a truly plausible maniacal master plan.

I’ll continue these thoughts later.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Please keep going.

My dad introduced all of his kids to the Bond films and they're one of my little indulgences. Feel free to rank order them. Here's how my list looks (at least today, my preferences tend to shift. Since you mentioned it, I'll include Never Say Never Again.)

1. From Russia With Love
2. For Your Eyes Only
3. The Spy Who Loved Me
4. Goldfinger
5. License to Kill
6. Casino Royale (tenatively)
7. Goldeneye
8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
9. Octopussy
10. Thunderball
11. Live and Let Die
12. The Living Daylights
13. You Only Live Twice
14. The World is Not Enough
15. Dr. No
16. Die another Day
17. Never Say Never Again
18. A View to a Kill
19. The Man with the Golden Gun
20. Tommorow Never Dies
21. Diamonds are Forever
22. Moonraker


When my cousin came for Thanksgiving we watched one film from each of the Bond actors and then saw Casino Royale. We watched Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (of course), Octopussy, License to Kill, and Tommorow Never Dies.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Please keep going.

My dad introduced all of his kids to the Bond films and they're one of my little indulgences. Feel free to rank order them. Here's how my list looks (at least today, my preferences tend to shift. Since you mentioned it, I'll include Never Say Never Again.)

1. From Russia With Love
2. For Your Eyes Only
3. The Spy Who Loved Me
4. Goldfinger
5. License to Kill
6. Casino Royale (tenatively)
7. Goldeneye
8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
9. Octopussy
10. Thunderball
11. Live and Let Die
12. The Living Daylights
13. You Only Live Twice
14. The World is Not Enough
15. Dr. No
16. Die another Day
17. Never Say Never Again
18. A View to a Kill
19. The Man with the Golden Gun
20. Tommorow Never Dies
21. Diamonds are Forever
22. Moonraker


When my cousin came for Thanksgiving we watched one film from each of the Bond actors and then saw Casino Royale. We watched Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (of course), Octopussy, License to Kill, and Tommorow Never Dies.

I now raise the stakes: Top 5 Bond songs:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (John Barry)
2. View to a Kill (Duran Duran)
3. Nobody Does it Better (Carly Simon)
4. Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings)
5. All Time High (Rita Coolidge)

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

I now raise the stakes: Top 5 Bond songs:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (John Barry)
2. View to a Kill (Duran Duran)
3. Nobody Does it Better (Carly Simon)
4. Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings)
5. All Time High (Rita Coolidge)

this starts and ends with "for your eyes only" - coincidentally its my favorite bond movie

[Surfah]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

this starts and ends with "for your eyes only" - coincidentally its my favorite bond movie

Amen. I always wanted to and hope to someday have sex to this song...man, I can hear Sheena Easton now.

Great song. Bill Conti the composer is the man responsible for some of the best soundtracks out there.

[Sleeping in EQ]

The Moore films really have great title songs (with the exception of The Man with the Golden Gun). My list looks like this:

1. Nobody Does it Better--The perfect Bond song and nobody does it better than Carly.

2. For Your Eyes Only--Also very, very good.

3. All Time High--A gorgeous melody and the slide guitar is a nice touch.

4. Live and Let Die--McCartney is on his game here.

5. A View to a Kill--Not a big fan of Duran Duran, but this song works well.

Honorable mentions: The Shirley Bassey songs and Sheryl Crow's Tommorow Never Dies.

[MikeWaters]

I like "the man with the golden gun" song.

and what's up with the Casino Royale not having nude women in silhouette in the opening credits? and also almost no Bond theme music? Something very wrong.

[mpfunk]

For Your Eyes Only is the obvious choice for number 1, the rest are just fighting it out for second.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I like "the man with the golden gun" song.

and what's up with the Casino Royale not having nude women in silhouette in the opening credits? and also almost no Bond theme music? Something very wrong.

Fra nkly, disposing of the silhouettes made it m,ore palatable for my wife and I. I missed the bond theme as well, but I think it was itnentional. Given that this was the re-telling of the story, I think they teased us until the very end becasue he had not truly become Bond untuil the very end.