The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: James Bond movies
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There’s a lot of good stuff in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, some of it really good. Director Hunt and editor John Glen have a great time with the fight scenes. The film opens with a hurried, though a playful introduction to George Lazenby in the title role, then moves immediately into one of the…
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I love Goldeneye’s plotting. It’s clear they plotted the film to be most enjoyed the first time through, but in terms of reveals and action sequences. The opening sequence doesn’t work particularly well in the end, though, a problem I had the last time I watched the film as well. It’s simply not interesting on…
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Denise Richards is not convincing as a nuclear physicist. That statement made, Apted might get her best performance ever in this film. It’s still awful. Her lack of charisma is painful; one has to wonder how Brosnan and Apted were able to put up with it, given the rest of the film’s considerable accomplishments. The…
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My wife walked out on You Only Live Twice. She got up and left about forty minutes in. I finished it because I figured forty minutes was halfway and I could make it. It was tough. The film’s memorable because of the beginning, where James Bond dies. It’s an interesting scene, even though it’s never…
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Thunderball is real boring. The problem is two-fold. First, the opening is heavy. After the pre-title bit (which is goofy with the jetpack), it’s a pseudo-Hitchcock, with Connery off in a spa. He sees strange things going on and gradually romances his masseuse. Intercut with these scenes are the bad guys preparing to do their…
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Fun. I’m trying to think–besides the Ocean series–of fun Hollywood blockbusters these days. It seems like fun is out. Certainly with James Bond. Die Another Day is a lot of fun. In fact, unlike some of the other Bond movies–the ones I can remember well–it seems to be more concentrated on being fun than anything…
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How can a film, with such a beautiful, awe-inspiring fight scene (Bond and Oddjob), have such terrible editing overall? In fact, how can the technical side be so contradictory… terrible direction from Guy Hamilton on most scenes, but fine or excellent when he’s on set. Terrible editing for most of it, but then the rest…
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Occasionally, I feel like the English language doesn’t allow for–without a lot of adjectives–a reasonable description of something. In this case, I can’t possibly describe the heights of stupidity License to Kill’s screenplay reaches. I mean, for a film to feature a South American drug kingpin with a base more appropriate for Dr. No, it…
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John Glen does a litany of disservices to The Living Daylights, mostly due to his inability to direct actors–Timothy Dalton specifically–but also on a number of technical levels. Glen relies far too much on rear screen projection for banal driving shots. Some of the other technical aspects–the bland sets and terrible lighting of them–aren’t necessarily…
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I had read somewhere Casino Royale wasn’t going to be chock-full of CG like the recent Bond films, but maybe I misread it. As a series, the Bond films are supposed to be about stunt work and explosions. Casino Royale is actually light on explosions and practically absent of stunts. There’s lots of stunt-looking stuff,…
The Stop Button 