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Comments
It was a few moments in the score (when they arrive at the ranch, for instance), the women with the pointy boobs, the gangsters, the ticking bomb, Bond meeting the president...
Also a few lines of dialogue that don't sit right with me:
"We must have a few fast falls together sometime."
"He kills little girls like you"
"Little boys too"
"Three more ticks and Mr Goldfinger would've hit the jackpot."
These lines just feel kinda cheesy to me. A bit TOO cheesy.
Standard dialogue for the 60s ? Same goes for the pointy boobs, they were the In
Thing then. ;)
Yeah, guess so. FRWL and DN have both aged better IMO, despite being slightly less watchable. ;)
If that makes sense. IMHO FRWL is the superior movie. :)
Its definitely the first "visual" Bond film. Oddjobs hat, the golden girl, the laser scene, the golf, Fort Knox etc. So much is shown rather than said. The first two are a bit more wordy. Still, different strokes for different folks. Dr No is my favourite. :)
and think " This is bloody brilliant" I can fully understand why it was such a big
Hit back in 1962. Must have been like when I first saw the Matrix, made many
Other films look slow.
Yes Bond and Miss Taro was the first time that a couple had been seen in Bed together on film.
Hmm. Maybe I'm mistaken, although I definitely have heard that more than once.
I think the Germans did it back in the 20s. They were very liberal before the nazis came along.
Film in 1933. The actress being Hedy Lamarr, who also invented a "frequency skip" signal
To radio control a torpedo. The US army didn't proceed with it, but the idea is now the
Basis of broadband and Bluetooth. ;) " Not a lot of people know that"
I decided to have another go at it, to see if anything has improved for me since the last watch. In a nutshell, the answer is no.
A few random points:
1. they had a great opportunity to use the 'Glen falling man scream' twice in the pretitles and imho, should have. Once when Sciarra was kicked out of the helicopter, and then again when the pilot was thrown out. Given they used the 'Glen animal scare' later at White's, I think they should have. Pity
2. I'm not sure why Bond decided, during the heat of battle, to pull Sciarra's ring off his finger. It just seemed strange. In addition, the fact that Q then determines everything off this one metal object while sitting at his laptop in Austria just seems too convenient. It's almost more important to the plot than Gollum's legendary ring, if you think about it.
3. I actually don't mind Newman's score in places and will go so far as to say I find it excellent in certain spots. Suspenseful and different. However, it's in the 'action scoring' sections where it gets very repetitive, and quite frankly, annoying for me.
4. That 'piss yellow colouring' is one of the worst aspects of the film for me. I see it 'everywhere!' (imagine me shouting this like Mr. White for emphasis) and it annoys the hell out of me. How distracting. I don't know what Hoyte was thinking.
5. Unfortunately, on the blu ray, I cannot 'one button' fast forward Smith's ballad. I tried, and it takes me to the scene where Bond is walking away from M's office with MP following him. How sad! So I had to manually fast forward it while watching the credits and then stop as soon as it finished, which is a slightly more convoluted process.
6. The decision to play that Vivaldi piece at Lucia's when the assassins are about to kill her is an excellent one. Chilling and fitting for the scene.
7. I noticed on this watch that what could have been beautiful, scenic locations were made to look like 'sh!+' (imho). I don't know what Hoyte was thinking here. The clinic in Austria, Mexico city (apart from the actual tracking scene with all the people), Tangier - all drab and dull. I have physically been to locations like the one where Bond is piloting the plane, and they are absolutely gorgeous in real life. I got none of that feeling when watching it here. It was almost like they went out of their way to make it look like lackluster CGI everywhere (even if it might not have been). The one exception was Bond on the boat in Lake Altausee (which coincidentally was used a lot in the trailers). Moreover, they don't really dwell in the locations enough. The aforementioned Lake Altausee should have been used more, because it is just stunning.
8. I only realized this time out how stupid Bond's plan with the plane was. There were so many instances where he could have killed Madeline (who he was ostensibly trying to rescue) with the risky techniques he was using. They really should have gone for a different set piece because this one did nothing for me.
9. I noticed two scenes in particular in SP that are almost complete repeats of what took place in SF. However, while they were iconic scenes in the former film and very memorable, they seemed almost throwaway in SP. I'm referring firstly to the insipid lecture that M gives C about 'not to kill' etc at the new HQ, which is very reminiscent of the much superior M/Minister dialogue in SF. I'm referring secondly to the 'psyche evaluation' between Madeline and Bond at the clinic, which is a tamer (and less interesting) version of the same thing from MI6 HQ in SF. Truly baffling why they did this.
10. The part where Bond loses it on Blofeld when he's playing the tape of Mr. White shooting himself came out of nowhere and doesn't sit right with me. Something about his reaction and behaviour just seemed forced and overly agitated - like they were trying to shoehorn some 'feelings'.
---
That scene is the point where I continue to 'tune out' of this film. I just can't get through the rest of it. The torture scene, London, the epilogue....etc. There has never been a Bond film before that I cannot sit through to the finish (yes, I can even complete TWINE), but SP has done that to me three times at home now.
The parts up to Madeline's intro are the best for me. From there, it just all goes downhill rapidly. It's not really Seydoux' fault imho. She doesn't deliver her lines all that well, & I don't think she's a great character as written for Bond to give it all up for her, but that's not it. The script just collapses on itself after her intro. Moreover, I just find all the performances (including Craig's) terribly unengaged. The more I watch SP, the more I find it a strictly 'paint by numbers' affair.
Pity, because I tried to like it, but it seems to get worse with each try.
Interestingly, during my second theatre watch, it was at Tangiers that folks started texting in two rows below me. They continued doing that all the way to the end, apart from a brief respite during the Hinx fight.
I'm beginning to think @Birdleson may have been right all along with his assessments.
AWTD & DAD now seem almost tolerable, although deep down I know they are just a garbled mess.
The TSWLM and FYEO scores are wonderfully of their era, unapoletically so. I suppose I just revel in the time warp.
This: it has its moments, and I do enjoy the title song, but Barry most certainly would've made things better if he had worked on it.
And the song is my co-favourite along side Nobody Does it Better.