Topic: Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm going to make a new attempt some day, but next time certainly not right after dinner... 

Good idea,
otherwise your next stop will be the birth-scene.

[Achim]

Trainspotting is a great film! You should watch it soon, just not after dinner, or breakfast for that matter (to reference another scene of the film ).

[GSyren]

Maybe I should watch in during dinner next time. That should help me loose some weight.   

[GSyren]

As those of you who are on Letterboxd may have noticed, I started a James Bond marathon a couple of days ago; rewatching all the Bonds in chronological order. I didn't really write any reviews for the first three films, just a couple of lines. However, I had a little more to say about Thunderball, so here goes...

[GSyren]

Title	Thunderball (Disc ID: A94A-29A2-30C6-68DA)
Director	Terence Young
Actors	Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi, Rik Van Nutter
Produced	1965 in United Kingdom
Runtime	130 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, German DTS 5.1, French DTS 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Commentary, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Overview	The thrills never let up as James Bond dives into this riveting adventure filled with explosive confrontations and amazing underwater action! Sean Connery brings his characteristic style and magnetism to agent 007 as he travels to Nassau to track down a villainous criminal who is threatening to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust.
My thoughts	Thunderball is, in my opinion, the last of the really good films with Connery as Bond. It was rip-roaring fun when I first saw it in December of '65. Now it feels a bit long. But it's still a good film. It does have a few flaws, though. One is the very obvious continuity gaffe with Bond's face mask at the end of the underwater battle. Bond's blue face mask is ripped off, and he grabs a black mask off a dead baddie. In the next shot his mask is blue again, then black for a quick shot, then blue for the remainder of the sequence. The mask switching is not essential, and should have been edited out. Another flaw is the speeded up ending boat sequence. It makes the sequence look comical rather than exciting. But the worst thing in the film may not be a mistake at all. There is lettering on the side of the atomic bomb that reads “Warning. After hanging, bomb must be earthed”. The implications of this is that personnel that are allowed to handle atomic bombs may not have enough training to know this, but must read instructions on the atomic bomb itself. Now THAT is scary! But all in all it's still a very satisfying film. Few of the following Bond films would be as good as the four first ones, in my opinion. But my Bond marathon will go on regardless.
My rating

[GSyren]

Title	From Hell It Came (883316-195321)
Director	Dan Milner
Actors	Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, Linda Watkins, John McNamara, Gregg Palmer
Produced	1957 in United States
Runtime	71 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles	None
Overview	Tree of terror! Zombie vegetation stalks the living in a nifty-'50s screamfest. Beware Tabonga! On a remote South Seas island, no one is safe from this hideous... and unique... monster. Tabonga is part man, part tree, all doom. Formerly an island prince, he was unjustly put to death by a witch doctor. Now he's returned to life with roots, branches and a vengeance. Against natives. Against visiting American scientists who investigate the tree's radioactive green sap. Against anyone unwise enough to expect a tree to stay put. A macabre medley of creature feature, Polynesian kitsch and Atomic Age cautionary tale, From Hell It Came is the killer-tree movie you woodn't wont to miss!
My thoughts	I took a break from my Bond marathon in order to watch From Hell It Came. I had previously only seen a really crappy print of this film online. Seeing a quality widescreen print was a rather different experience. The film is deliciously silly. Being able to see the walking tree monster, Tabonga, clearly makes it even sillier, if that's possible. You really need to be a B-movie lover to enjoy this film. Or perhaps I should say “a Z-movie lover”? Everything about this film is bad. Apart from the monster itself, the worst thing is probably Linda Watkins' ludicrous attempt at a British accent. If you're in a mood for a so-bad-it's-good movie, this might fit the bill. If not, give it a pass!
My rating

[DSig]

I agree about Thunderball .. like they say about Doctor Who ... you never forget your first James Bond <G>

[GSyren]

Title	The Man with the Golden Gun (Disc ID: 7654-3EAA-D664-374B)
Director	Guy Hamilton
Actors	Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Hervé Villechaize
Produced	1974 in United Kingdom
Runtime	125 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, German DTS 5.1, French DTS 5.1, Czech Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Commentary, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish
Overview	James Bond has been marked for death, and he'll need all his lethal instincts and seductive charm to survive in this action-packed adventure! Roger Moore returns as Agent 007 and faces off in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). Featuring a wild automobile chase though Bangkok and Bond's stunning confrontation with an entire martial-arts school. The Man with the Golden Gun delivers nonstop excitement!
My thoughts	Bond marathon #9 I've never been a fan of the Bond films with Roger Moore. It's not that Moore is a bad actor, far from it. But he doesn't fit my image of Bond. But more than that, the scripts he was given doesn't fit my image of Bond either. There's just too much silliness in most of them. And this one is no exception. You might think that having two Swedish Bond girls would please me. Well, I do like Maud Adams, and I wish her character hadn't been bumped off so soon. Britt Ekland is another matter, though. Not only has she never been much of an actress, but her character is so silly and incompetent that you wonder how she ever got recruited to MI6 in the first place. Then there is Sheriff J. W. Pepper. Why? It was bad enough to have him in Live and Let Die. Reprising him here is just adding insult to injury. Sorry, Clifton James, I'm sure you're really better than this. This is one role you should have turned down. The car jump was spectacular, only they ruined it with that silly slide whistle sound. On the positive side we have Christopher Lee. He is excellent as usual. Along with the excellent production values, he is the saving grace in the film. Still, Bond is always Bond, so a mediocre Bond film is still entertaining.
My rating

[GSyren]

Title	The Spy Who Loved Me (Disc ID: 2CDC-8069-EC43-CFF7)
Director	Lewis Gilbert
Actors	Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Richard Kiel, Caroline Munro
Produced	1977 in United Kingdom
Runtime	126 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Dolby Digital Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French DTS 5.1, German DTS 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Commentary, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish
Overview	Nobody does it better than Bond, and he proves it once more in this explosively entertaining adventure that takes him from the Egyptian pyramids to the ocean floor and to a gravity-defying mountaintop ski chase! Roger Moore brings inimitable style to Agent 007 as he teams with beautiful Russian Agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) to stop the megalomaniac Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) from unleashing a horrific scheme for world domination.
My thoughts	Bond marathon #10 The Spy Who Loved Me isn't the worst Bond film, but it is arguably the least original. It's just full of ideas pinched from earlier Bonds, most notably You Only Live Twice. At times it almost feels like a remake of YOLT. But there is also a fight on a train (done twice before in From Russia with Love and Live and Let Die) and a transforming car (into a plane in The Man with the Golden Gun, into a minisub here). We also get a glimpse of Willy Bogner's excellent ski photography which was so spectacular in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The best thing in Spy is the end of the pre-credit sequence; the skiing of a cliff with a parachute. As much as I disliked the character Jaws in this film, when I first saw Spy I just could not imagine that they'd bring him back in the next movie, and make him even sillier. Did the producers learn nothing from bringing back J.W. Pepper in The Man with the Golden Gun? Of course, not everything in Spy is bad. To begin with, Maurice Binder's credit sequences are always entertaining. The production values are always good in the Bond films. Barbara Bach and Caroline Munro are nice to look at. And I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Valerie Leon (the hotel receptionist). Remember her from Blood from the Mummy's Tomb? So, not only is the script derivative, it also stumbles a good bit over the fine line of silliness. And things are about to get worse (in Moonraker) before they get better...
My rating

[Achim]

I was still quite young when this came out (10, to be precise). While I didn't see the film in the cinema (I was still too young), I did know the trailer and all kids just loved that car! Especially when it escapes the helicopter and turns into a submarine. I had a toy car of it, which even could shoot rockets from the trunk area (of course, those were lost within the first few days of owning it ). Jaws is a good enemy here, especially that scene at the pyramids when he slowly disassembles the vehicle that Bond is trying to escape in.

[DSig]

It is odd that they went comedic with Roger Moore.  He was very *british* in "The Saint" and I think could have done almost as fine a job as Sean Connery did (don't throw things).  It would have been different and as a young man Sean Connery WAS as cool as I had read in the books but .. a serious Roger might not have been too bad.
Too bad we will never know.

[GSyren]

Yes, I liked Roger Moore better as The Saint. He could certainly have been a much better Bond with better scripts. I guess I will always have Connery as "my" Bond, though. I read most of the Bond books during Connery's reign, so I always pictured Bond as Connery. If I had read them a decade later things might have been different.

Most people seem to like Jaws as a Bond villain. I didn't. I thought the whole concept with the steal "teeth" was just over the top. And how did he get the jaw strength to bite off a chain? Nope, just too unrealistic. Not that the Bond films are all that realistic, but there is a limit.

[DSig]

Jaws was certainly no Oddjob (yea Harold Sakata)

[GSyren]

Jaws was certainly no Oddjob (yea Harold Sakata)

i can't argue with that. He was certainly one of the best henchmen. Not many really stand out. Some "henchwomen" perhaps...

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My favourite "Oddjob" will always be Nick Nack