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I grew up in the 60's, too, and totally fell in love with most things British - but the three things that have have lasted are The Beatles, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Definitely.
But as much as I love Uncle, nothing beats the Connery Bonds and Bond in general.
Uncle is probably the next best 007 worthy spyfy fare though.
We do have an UNCLE thread, don't we? Sorry I wasn't finding it ...
yep, here it is: (I mistyped it before) and now I try to post a link, which I have not been able to do before either (I just am so bad at new stuff ...):
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1701/the-man-from-uncle/p1
Well, yay! That works; I finally figured that out.
Good work!
Maybe Delfloria can regale us with his Uncle insights! He should have a few, with that user name.
Alas, I did not get to see You Only Live Twice in its first theatrical release. Too many other things were going on for me in 1967 I suppose. Please understand: I was born in 1954 and in 1967 I turned 13, advancing to Junior High School. Additionally, to address Sir Henry’s question: I have lived most of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area, near (or sometimes in) Berkeley CA, home of the University of California’s fabled Berkeley campus. Those of you who remember the ‘60s in detail will understand what that means…Protests, People’s Park, the flowering of the Haight-Ashbury. The “Summer of Love,” the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the commencement of the counter-culture…call it what you will and judge it however you like, for me it was happening just a few miles away and to people just a few years older than I. My sound-track for the late sixties and early seventies was supplied by the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, not by Monty Norman or John Barry.
Additionally: it is my considered opinion that there were three overwhelming pop culture phenomena in the decade of the ’60s, besides which all else paled: Bond, the Beatles, and Batman. “The 3 Bs” if you will. Obviously, I was and remain a fan of Bond or I wouldn’t be here. You can easily guess from my forum handle that I was and remain a fan of the Beatles. If you were to assume (from my bringing up the topic if nothing else) that I am a long-time fan of the Batman, you’d be “batting” 3 for 3. My life-long interest in heroic fiction spurred on by the uber-popular Batman TV show, I quickly became a devotee of the entire genre of comic book super-heroes. At that time, there was a LOT of fabulous work being done in that much-maligned field. Not only were the Caped Crusader and all of his costumed comrades in the Justice League of America at the height of their popularity…but across town, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and their cohorts in Marvel Comics’ legendary Bullpen were revolutionizing the genre with the creation of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers and many more…including Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Yes, I was an U.N.C.L.E. fan, too!) Suffice it to say, there were a LOT of claims on my attention…
So: I missed YOLT in its original theatrical release. Thunderball and Goldfinger had both run forever, it seemed; and I assumed there would always be another weekend to fit in a viewing of YOLT. Suddenly, one day, it just wasn’t there anymore. Vanished from the theatres far sooner, I felt, than had its predecessors. Suddenly, there was another Bond film coming…and this one (heresy!) without Sean Connery filling out the famous tuxedo. Reviews…were not kind. This new Bond was greeted by the media with suspicion, even hostility…and before the film even premiered, reports were out that he would not be returning to the role for any subsequent films. The Bond franchise was shaken, not stirred. I didn’t even think about attending a theatrical showing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in its initial release. What can I say? I was young and foolish; I had sex and drugs and rock’n’roll clouding my mind. James Bond seemed old-fashioned at a time when The Times, They Were A Changing and I was changing, too, as quickly as could be managed.
Nonetheless, on Christmas Eve of 1971, when a friend showed up at my door urging “C’mon, let’s get out of here! Let’s go see Diamonds Are Forever! It’s got the REAL James Bond in it, you know!” I made hasty excuses to my assembled parents and grand-parents. We piled into his older brother’s rattle-trap of a car, and tooled off to the local drive-in to see the REAL James Bond one more time. However…we didn’t actually DRIVE into the drive-in. Instead, we parked the car on the street just past the theatre’s exit…and as the “coming attractions” played, we crouched down and snuck in through the exit that was barricaded against cars trying to come through without paying…but of no use against a silent band of agents on foot! The half-full field of cars filled with paying customers took no note of us, and we were crouched too low to be seen by drive-in personnel. We hunkered down in the loose gravel of an unclaimed parking space, grabbed a few tinny-sounding speakers and brought them as close as could be managed…and proceeded to watch the movie, bundled up against the cool of the California winter night. It was my one and only covert operation with the mission being A View to a Free James Bond movie…and it was a complete success!
Do I regret my youthful indiscretion now, from the perspective of an older and supposedly wiser man? Well…not really. It was an adventure I’ll always remember, one that I like to think Bond himself might have undertaken in similar circumstances. Would I make reparations if I could? Possibly…but the drive-in itself has long ago closed, and Eon Productions has seen its fair share of my hard-earned money in the years since. Does it excuse me that my friend and his brother had not informed me of the caper’s plan until we were actually parked behind the theatre, and my only other option was to wait in the car alone until they returned? It doesn’t really matter; what happened, happened; I took part in it and lived to tell the tale. There was no champagne and no girl to kiss at the end of the adventure…but the next day I opened my Christmas presents surrounded by my family. The greatest Christmas gift I received that year was a story I can tell today.
BeatlesSansEarmuffs will return with the finale of these misadventures in BondViewing VERY SOON........
Kidding mate- good show.
:)>-
I loved Part 2 even more than Part 1 and will comment but first the weekly ratings and some errands to run.
1. Casino Royale- 4.33
2. Goldfinger- 4.23
3. From Russia With Love- 4.20
4. The Living Daylights- 4.12
5. Thunderball- 4.10
6. Licence To Kill- 4.06
7. The Spy Who Loved Me- 4.05
8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service- 4.00
9. You Only Live Twice- 3.92
10. For Your Eyes Only- 3.90
11. Live And Let Die- 3.83
12. GoldenEye- 3.75
13. Octopussy- 3.73
14. Tomorrow Never Dies- 3.63
15. Dr. No- 3.62
16. Quantum Of Solace (5/6 reviews)- 3.44
17. A View To A Kill- 3.28
18. The World Is Not Enough- 3.17
19. The Man With The Golden Gun- 3.13
20. Diamonds Are Forever- 3.02
21. Moonraker- 2.97
22. Die Another Day- 2.70
Below is the updated list of missing reviews-
QUANTUM OF SOLACE- No vote from 4EverBonded
SKYFALL- No votes from OHMSS, 4EverBonded, and NicNac
Excellent news this week all the way around. Chris jumped in to add more focus to the list, and hopefully BeatlesSansEarmuffs will expand the ratings to include 7 voters in the near future. Thus far Skyfall is doing very well as far as submitted reviews, and it already looks like it will find a place in the top 10.
Have a great weekend everyone!
A few years back I was serving as showrunner at an event where Miss Newmar was scheduled to make an appearance. It became my honor to assist the immortal actress during the course of this event. She was giving autographs at a table in the Main Exhibit Hall and was scheduled to address an audience in an auditorium elsewhere in the same facility. Miss Newmar declined to be seen walking in the hallways among the hoi polloi, preferring instead to simply appear in the auditorium as if by Hollywood magic. As there was a doorway marked “No Admittance Except by Authorized Personnel” near her autograph table, connecting with a warren of backstage passageways that led to the auditorium in question, this task was easily accomplished. However, the dedicated actress was wearing a costume of sorts for her public appearance, including dark sunglasses and boots with stiletto heels. At her advancing age (which we are of course too polite to consciously consider), the prospect of this female icon tottering through the dimly lit backstage hallways alone was simply unthinkable. Thus it came to pass that yours truly to escort Miss Newmar through the hidden passage to her scheduled appearance. Half-blinded by her sunglasses in the poor light, stepping carefully in her impractical heels, Miss Newmar kept her hand clasped tightly to my forearm for those all-too-brief moments we were alone together backstage. When we reached the panel room, everything unfolded as if Miss Newmar had dictated the script herself. The members of the panel preceeding hers left the stage promptly when their scheduled time ended. Before anyone in the audience was even aware of her presence, Miss Newmar strode confidently to the stage, mounted the table behind which the other guests had been sitting, and reclined languorously upon it. She looked as if she belonged nowhere else, and had simply appeared there by (yep!) Hollywood magic. I kissed her hand in a courtly gesture, introduced her to the awe-stricken audience, and left the auditorium to the sounds of Miss Newmar cooing seductively into the microphone.
Have I mentioned before that I sometimes feel that I've led a charmed life? Well...I may not be rich or famous...but who can ever tell?
I suppose I was still resisting the very idea of another actor playing James Bond; any rate, I did not see Live and Let Die in its initial release. Soon enough, though, my resistance wore thin and I attended a double-billed showing of LALD and The Man With the Golden Gun. While Roger Moore was never my favorite Bond I still accepted him in the part quite easily. His was a very different Bond from Connery’s, heavier on the “suave man of the world” element but never quite believable to my eyes as a dangerous man with a license to kill. “Action” in the Moore era was more likely to consist of a car chase or a boat chase or a ski chase or a lady chase than any physical combat. Still, he was Bond officially and for longer than I expect anybody else to serve in the role ever again. Now that I was actually working, earning my own money, and driving my own car, I never missed another Bond film in its initial run in the theatres.
Still had a bit of catching up to do, though. Sometime in the mid-‘70s the ABC network offered the television premiere of OHMSS…spread out over two nights. No matter, I was there! Curiously, the film was substantially edited for this presentation: it OPENED with Bond’s ski escape from Blofeld’s mountain fortress…and hop-scotched, willy-nilly, through the official movie’s continuity, jumping back and forth through time in an attempt to…what? Keep the audience interested in one film split between two nights? Did Eon charge so much for the rights to this movie that ABC felt the need to spread the cost between both Saturday AND Sunday nights? Did they further decide that the only way to keep an audience interested would be to totally bamboozle us regarding the amount of gratuitous sex and violence they had eliminated from the actual film they were presenting? It was confusing, but I managed to figure it all out without too much trouble. I’d already read the book, after all…
Then, finally, some time in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, a small repertory theatre house in Berkeley held a Bond retrospective, showing all of the films on…well, if not the BIG screen, at least the medium-sized one. Over the course of several weeks, in no particular order, each Bond film was available for my perusal…and while I may not have gone back for a repeat viewing of some of my lesser favorites on nights when they weren’t showing one of the few I’d missed the first time around, I did finally manage to see OHMSS in its correct sequence…as well as the two Connery offerings I’d missed: You Only Live Twice and (finally! at long last!!) From Russia With Love. My quest was complete -- I’d seen all of the James Bond films and read all of the Ian Fleming novels and short stories involving the character.
And yet: James Bond Will Return, and so will his many fans. Via VCRs and DVDs, through Netflix and YouTube and technology I’d never even considered when I was first introduced to the character, we can now watch Bond marathons of multiple day durations on cable TV; we can own the entire series to watch for ourselves at any time we darn well please, we can nit-pick and analyze and drain every ounce of what was once special completely out of this series we so cherish. While the socio-political changes of the ‘60s and ‘70s up through today were never quite able to kill this vibrant character, will trolls and demographically-based marketing imperil him now? I just hope Quantum is the most dastardly menace 007 has to face in the future…but one way or another, I’ll be showing up at the theatre to find out!
We are lucky indeed these days to so easily have access to older films.
Makes me remember all of my times in the theaters and also loving the Bond marathons on TV.
You only need one shot. Make it count.
Going with an abbreviated review, so I can at least get this done. Sorry for the delay.
Bond 4.5 out of 5 After a decidedly excellent first turn as Bond, Craig here delivers again a well rounded, solid, nuanced, and multi-layered performance. I find faults with the film, but not with his portrayal. Excellent indeed. So two highly satisfying performances as Bond in a row, in my opinion.
Women 3 out of 5 Lacking something here, perhaps I am just missing the romantic element with the main Bond girl. I do think that Olga plays Camille very well, though. She is different in some ways from other Bond girls; scarred and terrorized as a child, she grew up to be a Bolivian agent. She is tough, bent on revenge, yet had not yet killed anyone. I like her moments with Bond in the desert and the near finale very much. I felt she was more than competent in the role.
Then the lovely named Strawberry Fields (if I remember correctly, we don't know its Strawberry, though) shows up to bring Bond back. Gemma Arterton rather lights up the screen, I thought, and I was sorry for her to be killed rather quickly and in a homage to Goldfinger that fell flat for me.
Villains 3 out of 5 Well, Greene is reprehensible but somehow quite silly, wimpish, and whiny to me. Not truly menacing. General Medrano was well acted and definitely sadistic. I understand the dramatic tension with us hearing the shot but not actually seeing it (leading us to momentarily wonder if Camille was killed) - but I personally would have enjoyed seeing her kill him on screen. Oh yes, that would have been more satisfying for me. Yusef, finally found at the end of the film up to his same old disgusting tricks, is, in the end, a coward. Mr. White was in small part but we all hated from the get to due to Casino Royale. And Elvis was just forgettable. So not a strong group, no.
Humor 2 out of 5 Well, there is some. A few okay lines; can't say this was memorable. I liked the Bond couldn't find his stationery and was a teacher who had won the lottery. But well, not much really. CR had the right balance, but not here.
Action 3 out of 5 There IS a good deal; I just do not enjoy it. Not very satisfying as a whole - and I do blame the editing/camera work for that. I think the Opera scene is sublime, though, and memorable. The fire and shoot out/fight for Bond and Camille was well done.
Sadism - 4 out of 5 Medrano is clearly, visibly sadistic. Fields' death is disgusting and sadistic. Then Green's demise goes close to the same way.
Music 3 out of 5 When I watched it again, I tried to pay attention to the music. What I noticed to my surprise was I really did not like the music during the action scenes. It didn't add, but rather took away from, my enjoyment of them. However, bringing back haunting strains of Vesper's Theme in key moments and a bit from You Know My Name - those moments were lovely and appreciated. And the whole Opera scene was fantastic from a musical standpoint, too.
Locations 4 out of 5 The desert area in Bolivia is interesting and a fresh idea, Haiti seemed to sizzle, but I especially loved Italy. Lovely and a nice variety; not very typical locations for Bond films.
Gadgets 1.5 out of 5 I cannot recall anything memorable, other than his phone - what am I forgetting? ...
Supporting Cast 5 out of 5 Really stunningly good in this, for me, just above mediocre film. Especially Mathis, who puts so much heart into this story. Mathis, M, Leiter, Beam, Tanner, too, and at the end Yusef with Corrine (his current victim). Every one of these supporting actors did excellent, memorable work in this film. I absolutely love the character of Mathis, and I wish they did not kill him off. The way Mathis helps Bond and tries to get him to open up (and be able to sleep) and to find forgiveness for Vesper and for himself ... the way Leiter distrusts Beam, and the way he warns Bond ... the way M is portrayed throughout, a strong showing by Judi Dench ... and you can see Corrine subtly crumble inside as she believes everything Bond is telling her, barely audibly thanking him as she leaves the room ...really the whole shebang are right on. A great group. For me, this wonderful supporting cast helped make this film far more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.
Overall - I don't watch this film often, but when I do I rather like to fast forward through parts. In other words, I find moments in it to be delicious, moving, interesting - but overall, not a satisfying Bond movie for me. Thank goodness the actors in it were fully on their game - they shone, and none better than Daniel Craig. This would have been a much poorer film otherwise. The script has an interesting premise but it isn't followed well, in my opinion. And I truly disliked watching a good bit of the film due to the editing, pacing, etc. If only we could have lingered longer in some scenes, I would have been happier I am sure. I love action, suspense, momentum, but this film did not give me those. Overall, the pacing and editing of the Opera scene and the final moments with Camille in the burning compound felt correct to me, allowing me to savor those moments.
And most especially, the ending rather saved this film. The very end when Yusef is cornered, captured, interrogated (which we don't see) and Bond meets with M in the snow. Lovely ending that truly lifted the whole movie, and thank goodness it did. That very fine ending, that wasn't rushed and was so beautifully acted by Dench and Craig, enabled me to walk out of the theatre feeling that Bond at least now would be moving on in a better way. He was coming to terms with Vesper ... and with the job he has chosen to continue.
Onward to Skyfall ... where I, and so many of us, breathed a huge sigh of relief (coming as it did after QOS).
Help: I may be quoting Bond incorrectly (under the title at the very top: What does Craig actually say? "You only need one shot" or "You've got one shot" or what ...?? Anybody who can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it. It's been a week since I saw the film yet I like that quote; I'd like to get it right.
Bond: "Have you ever killed someone? Your training will tell you that when the adrenaline kicks in you should compensate... but part of you isn't going to believe the training because this kill is personal. Take a deep breath, you only need one shot. Make it count."
Nice review @4Ever, and I really think that killing Mathis off was probably the biggest mistake the producers have ever made! Such a great actor and a great character with wonderful chemistry with DC's Bond. Shame.
@Beatlessansearmuffs
Love the stories. Good for you, escorting the original Catwoman. Newmar crushes the competition IMO, not only her contemporaries of the time, Lee Merriweather and Eartha Kitt, who btw were also quite good, but also those that came later such as Pfeiffer, Berry and Hathaway. You've inspired me to relate my Bond baptism experiences. So here goes.
I can relate to the Batman, Uncle and Avengers love. I became a Bond nut, while these high-camp shows were in post-run major syndication. Mind you, I was only heavily exposed to the Bat though. Batman got saturation TV play, after school. I was only just aware of Uncle and the Avengers, having probably caught a few episodes here and there. But I did love the colourful escapist camp vibe of all of these shows.
My first Bond viewing was DAF in cinema. I caught it as a boy, on 2nd release, on a suburban double-bill with the Sidney Poitier, Tibbs feature,The Organization, as the opener. I'd begged my dad to take us to see it, as the posters looked "real neat," so he relented and took a few of us popcorn-munching, cola-slurping kids.
DAF in cinema blew me away. It turned me into the Bond nut that I remain to this day. What I loved about it was that it was like Batman but "real." This was real danger. I knew Batman would neve get killed, but DAF was like Batman on steroids. The pts was almost a direct lift from a Batman scenario but way more tense. I was going bonkers in my seat already, by the time Bassey came on with that eerie opening title, which almost put me in a trance....... and it just got better and better. I didn't want the film to end. And I didn't care one way or the other about Sean Connery. It was the whole escapist, real-danger vibe of the film that grabbed me.... guns, campy girls and villains, but deadly and menacing villains. Connery, who I'd never heard of, was just the "old guy" playing Bond and holding it all altogether.
Needless to say I was instantly transformed into a life-time Bond addict with this showing. The other kids were not as affected though. Philistines.
As luck would have it, Bond would appear regularly on double bills over the next year, so I managed to catch everything else in cinema but for DN by the time LALD debuted.
First off I caught TB and YOLT in cinema. To this day, that was the best afternoon I've ever spent in cinema. These two Bond spectaculars back-to-back on the big screen was something to behold. I remember noting how young Connery suddenly looked. It probably took about two weeks to come back to reality, after seeing this double-bill. What a way to start the Bond odyssey with 3 straight Connery-Bond vs Spectre-and/or-Blofeld epics.
Next was a triple showing of DN,FRWL and GF. Unfortunately our little posse didn't get to the cinema in time to catch DN (getting these other kids together with all the mommy permissions, was like herding cats) but we did manage to arrive in time, with popcorn and sodas in hand, to settle in for the other two films.
I remember thinking these two older Bond films, seemed a tad dated compared to the first three I had seen....... and boy was this Connery guy, even younger and skinnier looking than he was in TB and YOLT. Remember my first experience was the heavier, older Connery of DAF. GF was different, as for the first time, Blofled and his cat were absent from the proceedings.
Next up was a double-bill of OHMSS and DAF. I was chomping at the bit for this one. Yet another new Bond film to savour, with some other guy in the lead, and a repeat viewing of the film that had started it all. I summoned the posse, and we traveled halfway across the city by bus, to an old theatre in the west end, that was jammed with a mix of kids, teens and adults enjoying this Friday night Bond double-dip. The atmosphere was great. Lots of cheering in the cinema that night.
OHMSS blew me away, and there was the Avenger girl in it too. Awesome. Lazenby, whose name I immediately forgot was quite adequate as Bond, I thought. I didn't miss Connery at all. OHMSS is that great a Bond film. It had the same effect on me as the other spectacles had. And it was good to see Blofeld and the cat back, along with the orange-uniformed army of henchmen and the whole Spectre vibe.
And that was it for catch-up. Next was the first release of LALD, which I saw on opening day matinee, on the last day of school. We got out early for summer break, so the posse had been prepped in advance to group and get downtown for this first showing of LALD..... which not surprisingly I thorougly enjoyed. Moore was only adequate as Bond IMO. I was a little worried about him as Bond going-in, because his Saint didn't seem anywhere near as tough as this Connery guy, but the film was so escapist and camp-Bond fun-dangerous, that Moore was not an issue. He played the part well enough. The movie itself delivered in spades, so I wasn't going to fuss over Moore's less than stellar performance.
As the decade wore on though and the Moore films took over, I became a Connery purist. Moore didn't quite measure up, and during the '70s the Connery vs Moore debates raged everywhere. Mind you they were light hearted discussions, but generally most guys fell into the Connery camp, while girls were much more accepting of the Moore Bond. But it was Moore's limitations as Bond, that ultimately caused me to appreciate the understated brilliance of Connery's depiction of the character. With nothing to compare with before, I had taken Connery as Bond for granted, notwithstanding Lazenby, who I had considered to be a worthy stand-in.
I eventually caught DN on black-and-white TV, which was quite lame. I didn't actually see it in cinema or in colour though, until around 1982 as part of a full-series of Bond double-bills playing at a downtown mulitplex.
Other great Bond double-bills that I caught as a teenager in the '70s post LALD were, TB/GF and LALD/ TMWGG.
I also managed to get all the Fleming titles read between 72 and 75, as I managed to scrounge up paper-route money to buy the paperbacks one at a time. I read them in hodge-podge order, based on what I made of the covers blurbs, and whether there was also a movie attached to the title. First novel I read was YOLT, which I borrowed from a neighbor. His parents had it lying around. I'm embarassed to say I still have it. Hey, they never asked for it back. The rest I bought fair and square. Being an adolescent, I didn't fully appreciate what Fleming was doing. I've since re-read the Fleming ouevre in order as an adult obviously, but even as a kid I could follow the action well enough, as Bond pursued the mission, even if the writer did seem to go off on all sorts of weird and sometimes incomprehensible tangents.
4Ever always does a nice job with her reviews. I really enjoy her perspective with her being both a lady and a Bond fan. And she has stirred up some strong opinions from both originals and guests regarding Mathis.
I am in full agreement with one and all that Mathis was a great character, and it was tough to see him go. Giannini is such a fine actor if you know him from other roles, he chooses them carefully and never seems to put himself in the same position as Robert Carlyle found himself in while filming TWINE. But with Mathis, and more Giannini himself, inevitably I had to ask myself some questions.
One, would an actor of Giannini's caliber want to be locked into a recurring role? I supposed it was possible, but I also supposed that maybe he wouldn't. If the answer for him is the latter, which I think is more likely than not, his character had to be killed off. Why? Because if not, people would continually ask if he was coming back. And Mathis is not a recurring character like M, Q, Moneypenny, or Leiter in Ian Fleming's world, so the former may never have been on the table. I think it's a bit premature to blame writing off the character solely on EON. Because to that you could equally play the "devil's advocate". If Giannini didn't want to continue, ask yourself could you see someone else playing Mathis? Personally, I could not. It's a question everyone has to ask themselves in this situation.
Two, there's the expenses of retaining performers of Giannini's caliber that we've seen since 1995 for support roles. Dench didn't come cheaply, and now neither does Fiennes. I'm sure that comparatively speaking, Harris, Whishaw, and Wright command a good dollar more than the original cast of Lee, Maxwell, and Llewellyn. With Skyfall's huge success featuring support characters so strongly, even to the point that Dench and Harris overshadowed the actual Bond girl, I feel the series has to move back into a more classic direction where Bond, the villain, and the women are more prominent. Mathis was there to mentor an inexperienced Bond, and not become a recurring character. There was a story to be told between him, Vesper, and Bond and wonderfully told it was. We've all agreed that by QOS' end Bond had become the more polished and discriminating character we knew him to be. There was no need to keep Mathis around to mentor someone who didn't need it any longer. And Leiter has always been Bond's field sidekick of sorts.
I'm afraid the Mathis ship has sailed, and it cannot return. My focus at this point in regards to the series is not to dwell on the past, but to move forward. For the past, I need the gun barrel back in the beginning and a girl in the end much more than I need Mathis. I feel the Craig/Wright team has so much more to give us and look forward to that. I look forward to more of QUANTUM and hopefully a head bad guy, or lady. I wouldn't mind either way.
@Timmer- always good to see a fellow veteran of the KTBEU forum return and come in to visit. Sadly for you, I don't think you'll find much in the way of support for DAF among the originals. We're all of the mind that it should have been a proper sequel whether Connery or Lazenby in the role. And that QOS was a better Bond film, if not by a large margin. DAF, as you've agreed with me about, has to be looked at with a different eye to be enjoyed. You have to forget OHMSS as much as possible. Personally, I think it compares more favorably with the likes of a Matt Helm flick. And since Bond fans tend to take their films more seriously than Helm fans, well...
I enjoyed Robbie Coltrane's character of Valentin very much, and I had him in three films I think (am I really remember that wrong? Was it only two?). While his character was played for laughs, he brought different levels to it also.
With Mathis, his character is so poignant and, I don't know, he just carries more emotional weight. :o3 I still would have liked him in one more Bond film- yes. Not as an ongoing recurring character like Leiter or Moneypenny, though.
As for DAF: Yes, when I reviewed this one, it had sunk lower from my initial delight on viewing it. I saw it in the theatre (original run - I am truly one of the "oldies" here) as a 13 year old - and boy, at that time, die I love it, @Timmer! I wanted to live in that film, go to Amsterdam, be that girl, have fun with Bond - it was dazzling and made me a huge Bond fan right from the start (just like you). :x (Well, not exactly like you; I'm a gal). And I adored the entire beginning and theme song, yes yes yes. Backtrack a few pages and read my review of DAF. You may enjoy it. :D
(going a little emoticons crazy, this rainy Japanese morning ...) ;)
Right the second time - it was two appearances in GE and TWINE.
Just want to say how much I have been enjoying this thread. The quality of the reviews, both positive and negative, has been fantastic. A thread I always look out for first when I come onto MI6.
@SirJames- thanks! Even when we get negative on a film, I've almost always seen a good and logical reason for it. Likewise, even the less popular original and recognized Bond films always have at least one or two good things going for them and we tend to note those positives. This is probably why I get bent out of shape when people like the DCINB crew come trolling in to insult our readers- those as an example are extreme views and not in keeping with what a true Bond fan is supposed to be.