DSL's Movie/TV Reviews and Discussion

[Dr. Strangelove]

Funny you bring that up because I re-watched all of the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton Bonds over the past year. I like both of Dalton's movies. I get why people don't think License to Kill is a good Bond movie, because it's a revenge film instead, but that movie is 80's as fuck.

Anyways my opinion of nearly all those movies hasn't changed much in decades. The ones I always liked I still like.

But then...I said what the heck, let's start the Pierce Brosnan ones. And wow...I remember really liking Goldeneye back in the day but man...I am worried I was really wrong. I only watched 20-30 minutes the other night but *woof*, not nearly as good as my memories. I recall watching it a lot in the late 90's but probably haven't seen it start to finish in at least 10-15 years. Maybe it gets better.

Something I had completely forgotten is that the music is kind of awful.

[Hannibal]

The first half hour of Golden Eye is abysmal. The rest of it is OK.

The Roger Moore movies never did much for me. Moore was always too jokey and clowny for me. He could do the humor but not the action. At least not convincingly. And during that era they overdid the humor. Timothy Dalton is IMHO the only guy other than Connery that had the range to crack jokes and seduce hot women one minute and then kick the shit out of a bunch of henchmen the next. I wish that he had stuck around to do more movies.

TLD has great action scenes. Easily the best Bond action movie if you ask me.

JFC those stunts. Incredible. Great music too. If I'm not mistaken, the last Bond movie composed by the original musician.

[Tom W]

Congo is one of the worst movies of all time. That and Battlefield Earth (that I suffered through again recently) are def on my list. The thing is people knew Congo (22% on RT - which is high) and Battlefield Earth (3%) were bad. .

I remember seeing Congo in the theater when I was at VaTech finishing my Master's program. It was the same day that Michigan blew a 16 point lead to Northwestern (WTF?) and on the way back from the theater my transmission locked up and my car got rear ended when I was calling for assistance.

Sitting through that movie was easily the worst thing that happened that day.

[Cody_Russell]

GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough are enjoyable IMO. ... Die Another Day, eh. Woof.
Big fan of the Daniel Craig Bond films. The dark and serious tone is different, but executed well... particularly, “Casino Royale.”

...

Worst film of all-time? I know it was low budget, but watching “Birdemic” was like hell. It’s the basement of movies. Awful is so many ways....

[Dr. Strangelove]

The first half hour of Golden Eye is abysmal. The rest of it is OK.

The Roger Moore movies never did much for me. Moore was always too jokey and clowny for me. He could do the humor but not the action. At least not convincingly. And during that era they overdid the humor. Timothy Dalton is IMHO the only guy other than Connery that had the range to crack jokes and seduce hot women one minute and then kick the shit out of a bunch of henchmen the next. I wish that he had stuck around to do more movies.

TLD has great action scenes. Easily the best Bond action movie if you ask me.

JFC those stunts. Incredible. Great music too. If I'm not mistaken, the last Bond movie composed by the original musician.

Yeah, that's one of the hidden gem Bond movies. No one talks about it. And it's more of a down-to-earth plot too. Even if the Afghanistan part of the story is a little cringey in light of subsequent events

That's also one where I've read they struggled deciding over which song to use for the credits. That Pretenders song that Necros always listens to is so much better than the ah-Ha song over the credits. Works great being incorporated into the score too like in that scene.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Worst in the entire series is probably either A View to a Kill or Die Another Day. Moonraker is in the conversation too.

[AlabamAlum]

MWT Golden Gun was ridiculous too.

[Hannibal]

IMHO the series bottomed out with either Moonraker or Skyfall. Skyfall is horribly dumb.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Please elaborate on your hatred of Skyfall. It and Casino Royale are the two best post Dalton films, IMO

[Hannibal]

I only saw the movie once so I can't remember a ton of details. But...

Q as a floppy-haired 25 year old nerd seemed like a lame attempt to attract a younger audience at the expense of actually having a realistic character in that role. Negatively referencing the exploding pen of Goldeneye was not only dumb 4th wall breaking stuff, but also an attempt to establish a sense of "realism" that was then thrown in the garbage elsewhere in the movie when it was convenient.

Bond takes a high caliber bullet at the beginning of the movie and is sinking to the bottom of the sea but then he is drinking tequila after the opening credits. Um, OK.

The villain seemed to me like a blatant ripoff of The Joker and all of his perfectly executed, complex schemes that require almost Godlike foresight are way too implausible for me to look past them. Including the "getting myself captured was all part of my evil plan" trope. The omniscient villain is just lazy writing. FWIW that's why I also think that The Dark Knight is one of the most overrated movies ever made.

[Dr. Strangelove]

RIP Squiggy.

[Dr. Strangelove]

So last weekend for no real reason I watched a couple Blaxploitation movies, both free on Amazon Prime

MV5BNTY2OGMwODMtNGU0Ny00OWQ0LTg5ODEtYzU4ODBiMDIyYmE2L2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzc5MjA3OA@@._V1_UY1200_CR79,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

TNT JACKSON (1975)
Starring: Jeanne Bell, Chiquito, Stan Shaw, Ken Metcalfe
d. Cirio Santiago

Diana Jackson (otherwise known as "TNT") flies into Hong Kong to find the dirty muthafuckas that killed her brother. That's it. That's the movie.

Cashing in on both blaxploitation and kung fu movies, this vehicle for Jeanne Bell and no one you've heard of was made in the Philippines by a prolific Filipino director who Tarantino has cited as an influence.

Jeanne Bell cannot act nor can she fight. In certain action scenes it is wonderfully obvious that a small asian man in an afro wig is playing her. She was selected for the role because of other assets, chief among those being that she was a Playboy centerfold in 1969. At one point, in a genuinely entertaining scene, she fights off a group of dudes topless.

The plot really doesn't matter but there's basically three bad guys: a rich goatee'd blonde dude named Sid, who is the boss, a black guy named Charlie who provides the security, and an Asian guy named...Wong? I can't remember. He seems like an unnecessary middleman in securing drug deals for Sid. Sid also has a girlfriend who ends up being an undercover cop that helps out TNT a bit. Charlie is the one who actually killed her brother and they flirt with each other a lot and eventually have sex before she figures it all out. DRAMA. Then she punches a hole through him and THE END the movie is over.

By no means is this up near the top of blaxploitation movies that I've seen but you could do worse. It's also fairly short, not even 75 minutes.

[iam416]

That’s not Congo

[Dr. Strangelove]

Is it free on Prime? I'm NOT paying for that

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oh fuck my life Congo is almost 2 hours long.

Wait, it was directed by the same guy as Arachnophobia? Wow, that's a tough fall from grace, Frank.