Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

General Bond discussion from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Kristatos »

DAD for me doesn't stand up to repeated viewing the way other classic Bond films do. But I enjoyed it when I first saw it.

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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by dirtybenny »

The well worn talking points from a decade ago aren't going anywhere until Craig finally stops playing whatever it is that he calls Bond. These points have become "universal truths" with sycophants and the media despite being several movies out of date and shall do so until they are not necessary to EON anymore. Once he's gone Craig will be shoved aside as was Brosnan and all the criticism will come spewing forth we may even find ourselves in the awkward position of feeling sorry for the poor bugger!

Bashing DAD has been a favorite past time for Craigites for some time and it's ironic how as bad as that film was Craig's have done far worse to the franchise and only now that EON have ratcheted that foolishness up off the scale are people starting to sit up and take notice.
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Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Omega »

I don’t think dad is a great film, but the hate it gets is unreal. At the time it was seen as refreshing the series for another 40 years and Brosnan got to do more with the role than ever before. Lots of people praised for just allowing Brosnan some depth to play with.

In retrospect I truly wonder how people bash dad when the Craig era has committed greater sins. But I also believe most of the hate is left over talking points the studio started to try to save CR and Babs control of the series.


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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by dirtybenny »

Considering how "terrible" DAD was according to Craig apologists followed by the inevitable babble about the box office take of the bestest Bond EVA!!!!!! Skyfall, I get a chuckle consulting Box-office Mojo to find DAD at #5 on the list of Bond film grosses. Ah but Benny, that's not accounting for inflation! Ah! Of course! In that case DAD drops to an abysmal 6th.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Irony-man »

Of all of Brosnan's films DAD is the one I rewatch least. That being said, the 1st third to half of the film, essentially from the beginning until after the sword fight, it is actually a great Bond with a great self assured performance by Brosnan.

In thinking back however, I realize that for all of the classic Bonds (not counting Lazenby) their last Bond is the one I least watch. And of those I would rank them in terms of my favourites as DAD, LTK, DAF AVTAK. In fact I think that DAD and DAF share similar structural problems in that the first Act is very grounded and lean and then the third Act goes completely over the top.

I have tried to rewatch Craig's Bond, and fond CR to be more boring then I remember and Skyfall the most watchable. I have not seen QOS or Spectre since I saw them in the theatre (as a completist I have to see every Bond film and keep hoping that they will recapture the original spirit - I know...tilting at windmills!).

I may actually put DAD on my backyard movie screen this weekend just for the hell of it.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Blowfeld »

dirtybenny wrote:Considering how "terrible" DAD was according to Craig apologists followed by the inevitable babble about the box office take of the bestest Bond EVA!!!!!! Skyfall, I get a chuckle consulting Box-office Mojo to find DAD at #5 on the list of Bond film grosses. Ah but Benny, that's not accounting for inflation! Ah! Of course! In that case DAD drops to an abysmal 6th.
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Die Another Day followed the Moonraker outline with a splash The Man With the Golden Gun thrown in for good measure, right up to the montage of forty years of set props is was a good movie. As Bourne turned Barbra's head changing the direction of 007 in 2004 so did the Matrix series in 2001,at that time I believe this movie was the biggest contributing influence besides how preoccupied they all were trying to honour themselves for achieving film history. Cubby's children were all about showing off how modern they could make 007 which I don't believe worked for the series. I for one was looking forward to Pierce's next 007 believing they would tone it down a notch allowing us a decent swan song.

I have wondered if Quantum of Something was MGW's brain child, immediately after Casino Royal chuffed on their success there was an announcement the next story being something MGW had worked up years ago which Cubby put a stop to. I don't believe Quantum was anything MGW had penned. They also promised they were not going to revisit the original series or stories because it would be like touching the third rail as Barbara said. One BroFeld later we see how much their promises are good for.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Veronica »

Ah, yes, Brofeld. No matter how much Craig apologists babble about how the invisible car or something from the Moore era RUINED the franchise that Brofeld atrocity is simply unbeatable. I would be surprised if something else tops it someday.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

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Worse things could happen... ;)
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by dirtybenny »

New rant as always I appreciate your input!



Rant: 44 Same as It Ever Was

And so it begins, or should I say doesn’t. Once more EON has begun rumblings of the great progress they’re making in the lead up to principle photography. Only history has shown what a great pile of bollocks those statements have been. Every film from Quantum of Solace right up through Spectre we were told a fantastic story was in the works with great twists, turns and revelations! However the only revelations were EON is full of lies. Remember when we were told preproduction on Bond 22 (Quantum) had already started before shooting on Casino Royal began, in fact that statement was made when Craig was being announced as Bond! We later learn EON had started filming Quantum with an unfinished script and were writing it as they filmed! How can you start working on a film in 2005 when you haven’t even got a script come 2008?!

The same was true with Skyfall four years in the making with a pretentious auteur director who should know better and writer John Logan is still getting flown on to the set to rewrite the script! Ah but Benny you fool don’t you know that was just Logan punching up the script! Just minor tweaking! Ok, but if that’s the case why fly him in to be on set, in this day and age of cell phones, fax machines and certainly the internet why would you need him there unless he was rewriting major dialogue?!

But worse than Skyfall was SPECTRE, we know a script existed before shooting began because it leaked and yet they were still doing reshoots a mere two weeks before the film’s premier! And they still kept the most ridiculous plot in Bond history if not the entirety of film itself! Of course I refer to brother Blofeld. Had I told you this plot device before the leak you’d have accused me of being a troll, because nobody would be that fatuous to sink to sub soap opera levels of screen writing, not for a Bond film! Oh yes, indeed they were, and I’m sure their lack of planning beforehand as well as the proclivity of Hollywood execs to underestimate their audience had plenty to do with it, just slap it together they’ll eat it up with a spoon after all “plot twist”!

But I digress because here we are at the precipice of a new film. A year ago we were told Purvis and Wade were starting the arduous task of writing a new Bond film. I have to ask why you waited two years to do so, it wasn’t like they were busy or anything. Why not get to it right away? However a few months later EON’s savior stepped in, that man’s name was Danny Boyle, another auteur to shepherd the series forward to new heights in the dramatic arts or kitsch, you decide. Unfortunately we’ll never know because the great one has bowed out citing “creative difficulties” read Madam Broccoli’s incessant meddling. So I guess we’re back to P&W to dust off their script which I’m sure is a masterpiece of screenwriting involving a rip-off of the closing scene from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the subsequent revenge, again!

EON you have one job, make Bond films, and you have as long as you want to make them. I for the life of me can’t understand why you wait until the last minute and throw them together in the most slap dash fashion. Why not have several scripts ready to go, then take care with the film making process to make fully fleshed out films, that you can actually be proud of. Four years is plenty of time to do this if you put in the effort, but I guess that takes too much energy.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Omega »

d**n god! Makes too much sense. Babs talked such bs trying to save face and rub a bond most didn’t approve of in our faces.


2007 Craig fans boys were convinced there was unused film from Cr that was going to be the first part of Bond 22. Some pointed out that credit for writing and directing among other things had to be upfront and without Campbell returning for bond 22 even if there was existing film of prefilmed scenes it could never be used with out a ton of legal ground work. Babs also originally wanted bond 22 in 2007 “it’s his year after all”. There were fanboys dreams of a story arc involving Craig that only he had the chops to pull off.
As we found out eon had no clue beyond Tarantino’s idea to punch up a story they though was unfilmable and rework a script original intended for Brosnan, in other words the old bond era made the only critically successful Craig era movie a success, on her own Babs lazily rips off Batman, Bourne and Austin powers with no story arc to speak of and when she does try to tie it all together it’s so painfully bad it makes the previous films lesser with its new revelations, instead of building up the myth of Bond it pissed on all of it.




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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by dirtybenny »

Another rant for you review and enjoyment, as always I look forward to your comments and any notes you may have.

Rant: 44 Will James Bond Return!

From the time cinematic Bond first stepped off the silver screen in Dr. No right up to today the phrase “James Bond Will Return” appeared at the close of the ending credits. However, now thanks to the latest internet rumors that slogan could be in jeopardy. According to the internet Barbara Broccoli, Daniel Craig and Co. are tickled by the idea of killing off Bond (I suppose I could quip that they killed him off over a decade ago, but I won’t). To be fair these are in fact just unsubstantiated rumors, but considering how ridiculous it seemed that Blofeld could ever become Bond’s foster brother, well anything’s possible.

Now it’s no secret Babzy hates Bond, at least the Bond as envisioned by his creator Ian Fleming or her father Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, his cinematic creators. Daniel Craig also shares this resentment as he’s stated he wanted to leave as soon as he took the role, not to mention the fact, according to his own statements, he’s only doing this film as a big payday. So it’s no stretch of the imagination to believe these rumors are grounded in fact.

Of course you best believe Babzy is no fool, she knows (or at least she better well know) the fact that she holds the rights to the very lucrative Bond franchise is the only thing that keeps her relevant in Hollywood, otherwise she would vanish from the landscape faster than Kevin Spacey after a half off sale in the boy’s department at Macy’s! As my last rant points out she can’t manage a film production and she has no money to bankroll her own, not to mention if she were to invest her own money she would be destitute in days from the deafening flop she would produce. So having said all that, it’s a cinch she won’t be killing off the character entirely.

So there are two ways this could go:
First, EON “kills” Bond, that is to say in a cliffhanger ending we are lead to believe he has been killed only to find at the start of Bond 26 he has in fact survived. Much the same way Skyfall opened with Craig getting shot off the train and after the credits we learn he has actually been bumming around in some beach town (not to mention the opening of You Only Live Twice). So an unoriginal idea they explored only one film ago. Rumor has it Babz sees this as leverage to woo Craig back. So not much of a cliffhanger as we’ll all know he’s coming back, especially when the ramp up for Bond 26 begins and it’s announced it’ll be starring Daniel Craig!

Second, EON really does kill Craig’s Bond in an attempt at an OMG they totes killed Bond “shocker!” Not only is this idea idiotic it’s unoriginal, again just one film ago in Skyfall they killed off Judy Dench’s M in such a “shocking” twist.

Of course what killing off Bond would really do is finally give Babz the freedom to remold Bond to her vision. She can give credence to the ridiculous fan theory that’s been kicking around a few years that “James Bond” is a code name given to those who hold the 007 designator. That let’s EON cast whomever or whatever they like as Bond. Black, brown, woman, or we can finally have that non-binary gender queer Bond we’ve all been craving so badly! Of course EON could just cast an actor of color (as the kids call them these days) as Bond without killing him off and I personally would be fine with that were it done correctly, but EON never one to let a soap opera trope go to waste, seems to think that’s impossible. So instead we’ll just kill him off and start over, throwing away all that made Bond a phenomenon in the first place.

Thus prompting the question, “Will James Bond Return?”
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Veronica »

James Bond will return. Barbara might talk the talk but she won't walk the walk. She must knows that if she kills the character that's providing her everything she has, she will be done. The question is, in what state will he return?
I just realised almost the same thing happened to another famous english fictional character. Sherlock Holmes. At first the BBC version was so applauded it seemed like it's the greatest phenomenon the current society will ever see. It never was of course, just the usual hype. But then the writers also got stuck with that darker and edgier mentality as well as forgetting the fact Holmes was supposed to be solving crimes not being... whatever he was in the latter seasons. The writers just like Barbara, violated the ground work of Doyle in the end by giving Sherlock
Spoiler
psycho forgotten sister who could predict terrorist attacks by being one hour on Twitter. At first she's a psycho but by the end it turns all she wanted was a hug.
Yeah. Got off topic a bit.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by Kristatos »

If they killed off Bond, it would only be so they could reboot him again, a la Spiderman.

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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by acid »

Good rant. Like I said in BJ's thread, if they really do kill him off, it amounts to a gimmick to generate publicity. Rebooting afterwards with a different Bond actor without alluding to Bond's survival would then ruin the continuity of the previous movies even worse than CR did. The more you screw with the continuity, the weaker the character becomes.

As I also said in the other thread, the possibility of major characters like Bond and M dying has one very slight advantage that it could increase suspense in the movie because there's no longer a presumption that they are invincible. But I think that small advantage is totally blown if the death is leaked all over the media before the movie comes out anyway. As you said, once it's been done a few times, it loses its impact anyway. Either way, I think it's an awful idea to kill Bond.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by dirtybenny »

I think they dispensed with any notion of continuity with the first 40 years, Brofeld proves that. Now I don't know if I'd be too disappointed with a Craig Bond death, it'll kill off his rediculous timeline and who among us wouldn't cheer the scene when played? But as you say killing off the character then starting over sets a poor precedent, now every recasting we need to start over with an entirely new time line?
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Post by Omega »

I think it makes sense in its own way because the whole Craig era is in its own DCU crapverse. There’s no way to pretend Craig has anything to do with Connery through Brosnan and after Craig what actor wants to continue the misery gut bond stuck in the microverse that revolves around bond which was the opposite of what Fleming wanted. Everybody had the sense since Cr that Craig was incompatible with the main series and the Cr reboot/prequels were going to be more or less on their own. Eon has to recast sooner or later, they are running their own brand into oblivion right now. Audiences are looking past bond 25 to bond 26, not a place any franchise wants to be. Maybe they think ripping of Logan and Deadpool will help. I wouldn’t be surprised if Craig thought it be great to go for the r rating, although as we know the studios shoot for the pg13 sweet spot.


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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by acid »

Yeah that's true, I'd gladly wave goodbye to the Craigverse :Happy: but we'd really need the media and fans to see that it was the end of just his timeline and not the classic Bond's. Once they kill Bond, it's done, they've crossed that boundary, so they might be more likely to try that stunt again with future actors.

By the way, in November Man when he's going through the files of the agents that were killed, am I remembering right that one of the photos is Daniel Craig?

About the only way of showing Bond's death that I'd consider acceptable would be a sort of flash-forward to a very elderly Bond far in the future, dragged out of retirement for some great cause. I don't think that sort of thing has any place in a Bond movie though - it would be more at home in a Simpson's Halloween special!
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

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Yeah, I'd be happy killing of Craig's Bond and then have Aidan Turner star in a movie that followed on directly from DAD. But somehow I don't see EON doing that.

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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

Post by John P. Drake »

I never saw this appeal to Aidan Turner, personally. I mean, he won't be a bad choice, I guess, but he's far from being the best choice.

After seeing him in The Man from UNCLE and Mission: Impossible - Fallout, as well as how he handled himself like Bond during interviews, I want Henry Cavill in the role.

Sure, that's not happening with Barbara Broccoli, but suppose we had a hypothetical Cubby as a producer, Cavill would be the best choice.
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Re: Dirty Benny's Weekly Rant

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John P. Drake wrote:I never saw this appeal to Aidan Turner, personally. I mean, he won't be a bad choice, I guess, but he's far from being the best choice.

After seeing him in The Man from UNCLE and Mission: Impossible - Fallout, as well as how he handled himself like Bond during interviews, I want Henry Cavill in the role.

Sure, that's not happening with Barbara Broccoli, but suppose we had a hypothetical Cubby as a producer, Cavill would be the best choice.
Cavill would be a close second for me, but I think Turner has the same dangerous quality that Connery and Dalton both brought to the role in their own ways.

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