Junk Bond (review of Spectre)

[Perdogg]

Below the fold is a review of Spectre. Read at your own risk.

This has nothing to do Black Bond, Gay bond, LGBT Bond, any combination thereof, Barry Bonds, Junk Bonds, Gary US Bonds, tax free municipal bonds, Gold Bond powder or Bread, Caitlyn Jenner, Tarquin Fim Bim Lim Bim Wim Bim Bus Stop Ftang-Ftang Ole Biscuit Barrel, CGI, or Peter Jackson.

[BlueDragon]

There was a thread here?

[mylife]

Am I?

I will cease and desist.

I thought it was a chat thread about the latest spy film

[DJ MacWoW]

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[Wheelman81]

One of the things I disliked about the early Bond films was that they were too campy for my taste. I have not seen Daniel Craig in many movies outside of the Bond franchise, but saying he can’t act seems a bit much. I think he comes across as the most dangerous Bond of them all, and he does well with what scripts he has been given. I loved Casino Royale, was immensely disappointed in Quantum’s plot, and thought Skyfall was somewhat of an improvement. I’m not rushing to the theater for SPECTRE, but will certainly watch on DVD with interest. (For a good contrast to Craig’s Bond, check out his performance in Road To Perdition. Still think he can’t act?)

[a fool in paradise]

This chickified review of the film has given me enough basis to skip it.

http://www.houstonpress.com/film/spectre-is-gorgeous-but-may-be-too-much-of-a-good-thing-7899164

By Stephanie Zacharek

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 | 5 days ago

Because women are particularly beguiling when viewed from behind, the camera loves to follow them: Anyone who’s watched James Stewart’s lovesick detective trailing Kim Novak, a platinum dream poured into a pale gray flannel hourglass, understands the voyeurism at the heart of Vertigo. With Spectre — the 24th James Bond picture and the fourth and probably final one to feature Daniel Craig as 007 — director Sam Mendes takes a tip, perhaps unwittingly, from Hitchcock, as well as from Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil: The picture opens in Mexico City with a regal, ambitious, Wellesian tracking shot that begins in the midst of a Day of the Dead parade and eventually finds its way to Craig’s Bond, standing in the crowd.

He’s wearing a holiday-appropriate costume, a sexy-threatening skull mask and a black topcoat with a silkscreened skeleton’s spine winding up the back. There’s a masked beauty on his arm, but who’s looking at her? The camera trails the couple as they trek through the reveling masses, and it’s impossible to take your eyes off that spine, a sensuous, rippling, imaginary x-ray of the man beneath. Why, oh why, don’t real 3-D glasses — the ones advertised in the backs of comic books and sold to young boys hoping to see through women’s clothes — actually exist?

We don’t really need to see through Daniel Craig’s clothes, because eventually he does take at least some of them off. But dressed or un-, he’s the chief pleasure to be had in Spectre, along with the joys of gazing at the feral-flower beauty of Léa Seydoux (as Madeleine Swann, the headstrong psychologist Bond falls for), Monica Bellucci (who appears only briefly, as an Italian widow in a merry widow) and the radiant charmer Naomie Harris (who again plays MI6 administrative assistant Miss Moneypenny, although like most administrative assistants, she’s sorely underappreciated and given only unimportant things to do)...

---

with lead in paragraphs like that, why continue?

[mylife]

What a bizarre review

[mylife]

I guess Stephie wants to be Bond.
In a weird chikified way LOL

[mylife]

At the risk of hijacking this thread was Rory a Spook?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROruo8G7Yo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QW8PL-bwdw

[mrsmith]

“the widow ... played for 5 minutes by Monica Bellucci. “
Speaking of lack of originality, I bet she didn’t open her own car door (ala the Thunderball opening)!

I watch all the Bond movies, I’ll watch this one. The Connery ones I re-watch.

[Impy]

The franchise has turned into cinematic equivalent of NFL Europe.

Jesus dude! That's depressing.

I had to know what the "hook" is so I looked at Wikipedia. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler, the text is in White scroll over to see So the bad guy is Blofeld after all their denials, yawn. Weak.

[Impy]

And the foster brother thing is just...weird.Weird.

[GOPsterinMA]

“The franchise has turned into cinematic equivalent of NFL Europe. That’s depressing.”

That’s disgusting. Ick.

[BillyBoy]

The "twist" at the end sounds just like the "twist" of the last Star Trek movie. Before the film came out, the cast and crew swore up and down that Benedict Cumberbatch played a bold unique character full of surprises who was definitely NOT Khan.

Sometimes I wonder if these creatively bankrupt Hollywood studio hacks share notes. "Hey guys, Paramount just turned a long established heterosexual character into a flaming homo! They did it to disguise that they shamelessly recycled the plot of a 30 year old movie! We better follow suit at 20th Century Fox!"

[BillyBoy]

>> Get John Malkovich to play the role! <<

Heh. If they did do that, I guarantee you some useful idiots on the internet would be PRAISING Malkovic Bond as "closest to the books" and "Best Bond yet". It's scary how people actually encourage Hollywood to ruin classics.

>> I watch all the Bond movies, I'll watch this one. <<

I still watch 'em IN SPITE of Craig in the title role. I had a bad feeling that whoever replaces him will be even worse and cause me to lose interest in the franchise permanently.

Some "nuke the fridge" moments in cinematic franchises for me:

- Watched every Batman film since Keaton's 1989 debut. The second film with Bale as throat-cancer Batman and Joker In Name Only caused me to lose any interest in seeing a third Bale Batman movie. Odd that so many people worship that film.

- Watched every Superman film since Reeve's 1978 debut. The worthless 2013 "reboot" just being a Michael Bay style remake of Superman II with lots of CGI video game type fights caused me to give up on the Superman film franchise.

- Been enjoying X-Men movies since 2000, have all 7 on DVD, and will be watching the 8th one when it comes out in 2016. But last week they announced the Deadpool "spinoff" will change the character to be the "world's first pansexual superhero". That's nice. Striked that film off my list.

-- Loved the silly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies as a kid. Thought the attempt to revive the movie series in 2007 with CGI turtles was adequete. Lost all interest when they "rebooted" the franchise with Michael Bay producing some creepy "realistic" turtles and casting Megan Fox as "April O'Neill".

- Seen all the Pink Panther films, even the crappy post-Peter Sellers death ones of the 1980s, which pretty much exploited his memory for $$$. Finally gave up on the franchise when they "reimagined" it with Steve Martin in the title role.

- Love the original Indiana Jones trilogy. Never watched the 2008 revival with Shia LeBeouf as Indy's "illegitimate son, Mutt", and glad I didn't. Felt sorry for the gullible audiences who were convinced it would be good.

Haven't given up on Star Trek, Star Wars, Rocky Balboa, or James Bond...yet. My gut feeling says seeing Terminator 5 when it comes out on DVD will kill off any chance of me seeing future Terminator stuff. I'll keep you posted.

[Kickass Conservative]

I still love the scene in Goldfinger where they Crush a 5,000 Pound Lincoln Continental at a Junk Yard and drop it in the bed of a Ford Ranchero.

Why they had to crush the Car made no sense, but the Ranchero (built on a Ford Falcon Platform) would have been crushed by the Weight.

The Villain driving it must have weighed 250 pounds, which made it even funnier.

[Impy]

The "twist" at the end sounds just like the "twist" of the last Star Trek movie.

Yeah same thing. Apparently lying to the audience is ok and this cheap nonsense is supposed to be "cool" or something.

"world's first pansexual superhero".

Pan? So what does that even mean, men, women, hamsters, teddy bears, lawn gnomes? Anything with a hole? "Bi" isn't risque enough for them?

[GOPsterinMA]

I have zero idea why “The Dark Knight” is so revered. It’s an ok movie, nothing more. And Heath Ledger gets uber worship for what? OD’ing. His Joker pales in comparison to Jack Nicholson’s.

And speaking of “Batman” movies, the first one, with Keaton & Nicholson is the standard, period. The second one with Keaton, DeVito, Walken was pretty good too.

Other points:

I got sucked into “Indiana Jones and the Last Ca$h Grab”. I remember my GF and I turning to each other and saying:,”What did we just watch?” when it ended.

“Star Wars”: I could spend months discussing this. Based on the SJW Abram’s reboot of the “Star Trek” franchise, I see these films being PC bilge with massive plot holes that are either ignored or band-aided over with special effects, just like in the “Star Trek” reboot.

The masses will go see them and the films will generate metric tons of revenue. But these flicks will be most likely be worse than the 3 prequels, where at least there was the anticipation of watching Darth Vader be created to captivate imagination. Are these sequels going to follow the canon storyline that leads to the final destruction of the Sith? I highly doubt it.

I stopped watching “Terminator” after the 2nd one, which has to be one of the best sequels of all time.

I have free passes to see “Creed” tomorrow night...I’m on the fence about going. Stallone finished the “Rocky & Rambo” franchises seemingly on high notes. Now, a “Rocky” semi-sequel and “Rambo: Last Blood” on deck? Does he really need the money? C’mon.

[BillyBoy]

If it's free, I'd go ahead and attend the showing. In the event the movie sucks, you can warn the rest of us.

It sounds passable, but ironically it has same plot as the worst Rocky movie, Rocky V.

In both Rocky V (1989) and Creed (2015) Rocky has hung up his gloves and retired from the sport, and wants to stay out of the spotlight, but is persuaded to come back when he takes an aggressive young boxer under his wings (Tommy "the machine" Gunn in V, Apollo Creed's illigimate son in Creed), and agrees to serve as his trainer.

Audiences still wanted to see Rocky punch someone in V, so the movie includes a street fight between Rocky and Tommy. I heard there's a similar scene in Creed: some punk kids attack Rocky, and he beats the snot out of them.

[GOPsterinMA]

I didn’t go to the screening last night. The GF had no interest in going and I didn’t feel like rolling solo.

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

“M” was disastrous in SPECTRE. Too “political”...

I wish we’d seen more of Q’s gadgets and less of Q himself. I also wish Max (”C”) would’ve been more developed (and perhaps they could have shown us moviegoers the relationship between Max and Franz from the start rather than 3/4ths of the way down. This would have been more interesting — kind of giving us a Hitchcock feeling from the start.)

The one liners were so cheesey, it reminded my of the Roger Moore era. The love interests seemed thrown together without any real connection other than being in the right place at the right time. And did Bond really hit on someone’s daughter???

But the lack of “sinisterness” of Christoph’s villain character was a complete waste of the man’s talent. Action scenes were about a 7/10.

I’ll probably still get it when it comes out on DVD for my son’s collection.