Movies I Have Seen Lately

[The Baron]

Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.

[Richard Willis]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

….decades after the federal government made the international slave trade illegal (while slavery itself was still legal in the soon-to-be Confederate states).

I have heard about this last slave ship and will add this to my endless to-be-watched list.

A quibble: Slavery was still legal in the seceding states, the wanna-secede “border states” and the rest of the United States.  After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, slaves couldn’t just flee to the North. They had to go to Canada or Mexico.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

GOLDENEYE: It's interesting (to me, anyway) to compare and contrast Goldeneye with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Casino Royale (all first outings for new Bonds). [I forgot to mention yesterday that OHMSS also qualifies as a Christmas movie.] In reality, "Goldeneye" was the name of Ian Fleming's Jamaican residence.

Goldeneye's teaser sequence is set "nine years ago," which places it immediately after the last Moore Bond. It's almost as if the producers wanted to gloss over the Dalton movies entirely. Or not. I think when Connery switched to Moore or when Moore switched to Dalton, the audience was supposed to believe they were the same character played by two different actors. That wasn't the case with Daniel, whose Bond was definitely a different character than all previous Bonds. I think that case can be made for the Brosnan movies as well, but there's some wiggle room.

Even the teaser sequence wasn't necessarily set early in 007's career, leaving the audience free to decide for themselves whether this is an all-new Bond or the same one played by a different actor. Depending on one's individual preferences, the Dalton movies could have taken place within the nine-year gap, or there could have been several "untold tales" missing from the new Bond's adventures. That's the interpretation I choose.

One of the reasons I prefer James Bond movies to superhero movies is that the Bond movies don't feel the need to constantly rehash the main characters origin every time a different actor assays the role. Every time there is a new Batman, say, we get a new version of the origin story. We didn't get James Bond's proper "origin" until 21 movies in!

Goldeneye also features a new M, played by Judi Densch. She rerers to her "predecessor" which, if one so chooses, could refer to Bernard Lee (or Robert Brown). Also, a new Moneypenny is played by Samantha Bond (no relation). 

So, AFAIAC, Goldeneye represents a reboot of the franchise and Pierce Brosnan is (so far) the best Bond since Sean Connery.

[doc photo]

I didn't care for Brosnan as Bond until I re-watched his run a few years ago. I now place him behind Connery and Craig as favorite 007's. His first three outings as Bond are worth watching - Die Another Day however - meh - the one stinker in the bunch.

[Richard Willis]

Actors with TV contracts were problematic. I have not independently verified the following:

It's said that hey really wanted Pierce Brosnan years earlier. His TV show, Remington Steele, was supposed to be cancelled in 1986 at the end of season 4. He thought he was moving on to play Bond, but they forced him to stay for season 5. Season 4 had been 22 episodes. Even worse, the season they forced him to do was cancelled after only 6 episodes.

This IMDB trivia item indicates that both OHMSS and Lazenby were not the original plan:

Between the resignation of Sir Sean Connery at the beginning of filming You Only Live Twice (1967) and its release, producer Harry Saltzman had planned to adapt The Man with the Golden Gun in Cambodia and use Sir Roger Moore as the next Bond, but political instability meant the location was ruled out and Moore signed up for another season of The Saint.

(It's kinda annoying that IMDB refers to actors as Sir or Dame when at the time they didn't have those titles.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"(It's kinda annoying that IMDB refers to actors as Sir or Dame when at the time they didn't have those titles.)"

Not only that, but they do not take their titles with them to the grave. After a Sir or Dame dies, it is no longer proper to refer to them by their former titles they held in life. 

TOMORROW NEVER DIES: Bond takes on media mogul Rupert Murdoch Elliot Carver. This is the movie that introduced me to Sheryl Crow (that is, I knew who she was but never really listened to her stuff prior to her theme song). Joe Dopn Baker reprises his role as CIA agent Jack Wade. (Why didn't they just let him be "Felix Leiter"?) Teri Hatcher is in it and so is Michelle Yeoh. Tracy observed that Yeoh's Wai Lin does everything Bond does "in high heels and backwards." That's more than just hyperbole: she walked down a wall in high heels and drove (helped drive) a motorcycle backwards. 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH: The teaser sequence is very "Roger Moore" but it gets better after that (although Tracy didn't like it). Judi Dench plays a more active role than any of the other Ms. It's likely this would have been Desmond Llewelyn's last outing as Q anyway, but sadly he was killed in a car accident after filming had wrapped. At least he got the chance to formally hand the role over to John Cleese. Robbie Coltrane reprised his role of Valentin Zukovsky Goldeneye. (He died earlier this year.) Denise Richards plays Dr. Christmas Jones. Bond manages to avoid any jokes about it until the end, then fires off three in a row. "Christmas Jones" is as Fleming-esque name, but Chester Gould named a character "Christmas Early" in Dick Tracy.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Thanks for the clarification, Richard.

Richard Willis said:

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

….decades after the federal government made the international slave trade illegal (while slavery itself was still legal in the soon-to-be Confederate states).

I have heard about this last slave ship and will add this to my endless to-be-watched list.

A quibble: Slavery was still legal in the seceding states, the wanna-secede “border states” and the rest of the United States.  After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, slaves couldn’t just flee to the North. They had to go to Canada or Mexico.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

DIE ANOTHER DAY: The Daniel Craig Bonds were (mostly) original stories which drew heavily on Bond lore, but I see now that that trend started here. Bond is captured while on a mission in North Korea during the teaser sequence. He then endures 14 months of captivity and torture. A prisoner exchange is arranged, but only because secrets are being leaked and Bond is suspected of having cracked. (Otherwise, Bond fully expected his actions to be disavowed.) He didn't crack, but even M doesn't believe him. He is stripped of his "00" prefix and dismissed from Her Majesty's Secret Service. This movie was released in 2002, and M tells Bond that "Things have changed while you were away," which I at the time took to be a clear reference to 9/11. 

The whole bit about being captured and turned by the enemy is similar to what happened to him in The Man with the Golden Gun (the book); Moon's transformation into Graves is a mirror of Blofeld's transformation from Telly Savalas into Charles Grey in Diamonds Are Forever (the movie); the diamonds themselves are also from DAF, of course; the Cuban health club is a call-back to Thunderball; the laser beam is from Goldfinger (the movie; in the book it was a buzz saw); and the whole scene with Q is chock full of Easter egg props, from Rosa Klebb's tricked out shoe from Goldfinger to the jetpack he used in Thunderball to fake crocodile submersible from I-don't-even-remember-which movie-it-was-in. 

I enjoyed Die Another Day equally as much as Brosnan's other three outings as Bond, and I'm curious, Kevin, what specifically you didn't like about it...? 

After five Craigs, one Lazenbys and four Brosnans, Tracy has reached her limit so we're going to move away from James Bond movies for a while.

[doc photo]

It has been awhile since last watching it so it is tough to give specifics as to why Die Another Day didn't work for me. I think it was mainly the over the top effects, especially the ice palace sequence and invisible car, that seemed like a return to the Roger Moore films. Also I didn't care for John Cleese as Q or Halle Berry's Jinx. I believe a Jinx spin off was being considered at the time and too much emphasis was placed on her character as a set up for that series

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Fair enough. (Yes, the ice palace sequence was very "Roger Moore.") 

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

BLACK ADAM. I watched it last night. I would have rather seen someone like Oded Fehr in the part, but I'm sure it would never have been made without Dwayne Johnson. I loved seeing Dr Fate and Hawkman on screen, but I wish we had seen the Marvel, um, Shazam Family in there somewhere.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

That about sums it up.