AJB live commentary on TLD

Higgins

Time for another group-viewing, this time, it‘s

THE LIVING TEARDROPS





London Summertime: 20:00
Paris Summertime: 21:00
New York local time 15:00
LA local time 12:00

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT WE ARE ALL STARTING 10 MINUTES LATER !

The 19:00 deadline is set so that everybody has enough time to find their DVDs/Blu Rays, boot their players and get done with the menus and pause right before the gunbarrel sequence.

WE ARE STARTING PRECISELY AT 19:10


- Please make sure that everybody has their BluRay/DVD/VCR ready and start the player latest 19:00 GMT to get done with all the dodgy menus.
- PAUSE YOUR PLAYER RIGHT BEFORE THE GUNBARREL SEQUENCE STARTS AND
- HIT PLAY PRECISELY AT 19:10.
I‘ll post some timecodes during the thread just in case that somebody has messed it up

Higgins

Barbel, can you please stickie this and unstickie the other one?

Thank you!

welshboy78

Glad to see you are softening up Higgybum. I will be tuning in to see the Welsh Bond )

Higgins

Softening up?

I just don‘t want to risk my „AJB member of the year 2020“ potential by going the total dictatorial path *

* which is also known as the Barbel protocol

Number24

Okay. We'll watch The Living Daylights - or how Higgins learned to stop worrying and love Dalton :007)

Higgins

Don‘t give up hope, kid - though it will never happen X-(

Fiery-Bond

A superb idea. Station Sydney will be joining you, gentlemen.

Barbel

Higgins wrote:

Barbel, can you please stickie this and unstickie the other one?

Thank you!

Done, and welcome to our group watching, Fiery-Bond.

caractacus potts

I'm probably not going to be able to make this one either

I woulda suggested one more Moore since he made so many, and there were tonal shifts with the three different directors.
FYEO is probably the biggest contrast with his other sillier films.
Whereas ...Spy... and Moonraker are very similar to each other.

Number24

I agree, Caractacus Potts. But we can return to the films we skipped this time at a later date. this Corona thing will continue for months and we can even keep this fine tradition without sitting around with face masks on

Higgins

Don‘t worry, c p.

FYEO is my 2nd favorite Bond and I‘ll personally make sure that we are watching it.
BUT I want to keep the mix so that we can all enjoy our favorite actors and not stick with one theme for too long.
I am afraid, that if we‘d stick for too long with a certain actor, people may lose interest.

Barbel

I agree, and therefore suggest the next one after TLD should be a Brosnan... but I'm getting too far ahead, I know.

Shady Tree

Looking forward to TLD and would also support plumbing for a Brosnan after that.

Higgins

Must.Resist.Replying

SeanIsTheOnlyOne

Gymkata wrote:

So, we're gonna watch the 'good' Dalton movie. That works for me.

LTK is quite different from TLD but I don't consider it as a bad Bond film. Robert Davi played an excellent villain and the concept of making Bond a rogue agent obsessed with revenge was something brand new at that time. It's not a classic, but at least the producers tried to make something new. Dalton was a great 007 (the best one after Connery IMO) and I absolutely love the scene from LTK where Bond attempts to kill Sanchez with the signature camera gun. You can feel the genuine spirit of Fleming's novels in that scene.

I know every Bond fan has his own personal ranking and I respect that but for me, LTK is far better than many movies of the Roger Moore era...

Asp9mm

LTK brought me back to cinematic Bond. They had become so cheesy and far removed from Fleming.

Higgins

4 hours roughly, gents!

Barbel

The score is poor, too.

Number24

Gymkata wrote:

LTK suffers from some of the absolute worst acting in the entire franchise. Dalton's good (nice and intense in this one), Robert Davi is excellent, and Benicio Del Toro is 'out there' but still believable. Everyone else is uniformly garbage. Talisa Soto and Carey Lowell are horrible, most of the established actors (Everett McGill, Anthony Zerbe) are doing career worst work, and everyone else is just bad. Add in the TV quality cinematography (this looks like an episode of RIPTIDE) and the film just has a patina of cheapness around it that makes it all cringe-worthy.

It's a shame because the story potential is really there AND both Dalton and Davi are excellent in the film.

I think LALD and TMWTGG look cheaper. DAF too. I think a couple of the locations saves LTK from the TV look. I also like Carey Lowell's acting.

Higgins

Gymkata wrote:

Add in the TV quality cinematography (this looks like an episode of RIPTIDE) and the film just has a patina of cheapness around it that makes it all cringe-worthy.
.

Keep what you‘ve just said in mind when you are watching TLD tonight.
Imo, TLD looks much cheaper on all fronts.

At least LTK was shot in the sunshine in Florida and Mexico which is always good for a movie.
In TLD, we are getting grey Gibraltar, grey Austria, grey tangiers, dull Afghanistan (with 50% in the dark) and a toy soldier battle as climax

Higgins

Barbel wrote:

The score is poor, too.

Michael Kamen was gold back then at the time.
I agree that it has aged badly, particularly compared to Barry‘s magic ( however Barry delivered 3 uninspired routine scores with OP, AVAK and TLD.)

But back,then the score was the Gold Standard of the industry and it was the smallest issue which moviegoers had with the movie

Higgins

Number24 wrote:

I think LALD and TMWTGG look cheaper. DAF too. I think a couple of the locations saves LTK from the TV look. I also like Carey Lowell's acting.

Sorry, TMWTGG looked anything but cheap.
Particularly at a time when Thailand and Hong Kong where very exotic locations.
There is no Ken Adams set there, yes, but the cinematography is top notch!

Barbel

Higgins wrote:

Barbel wrote:

The score is poor, too.

Michael Kamen was gold back then at the time.
I agree that it has aged badly, particularly compared to Barry‘s magic ( however Barry delivered 3 uninspired routine scores with OP, AVAK and TLD.)

But back,then the score was the Gold Standard of the industry and it was the smallest issue which moviegoers had with the movie

Not this one. And the score that followed was even worse.

Re your earlier point- I agree that Barry's work on OP was "uninspired [and] routine" but it did improve on AVTAK then again on TLD.

Higgins

I was speaking about Michael Kamen.
Everybody with the exception of Sir Miles perhaps agrees that GE was crap.

But Michael Kamen back then was the hottest and best paid cinema composer of the time.
His scores where hits and well accepted.
Nobody but the fundamentalists had issues with his score and it was solid for LTK.

Barbel

Higgins wrote:

Nobody but the fundamentalists had issues with his score

I'm impressed that you went round asking so many people back in 1989, Higgins. Did you use a questionnaire? Did your watch, perhaps, have a calculator built-in to deal with such high numbers?

Number24

Gymkata wrote:

Barbel wrote:

The score is poor, too.

It's not particularly memorable, no. The theme song is ok but unremarkable.

Another thing: the whole thing with David Heddison as Leiter doesn't work. The age doesn't work for Leiter here as he doesn't feel like a contemporary of Bond's. He feels like an uncle or something, not a peer. Also, when the thing all ends and Bond talks to Leiter, Leiter is surprisingly upbeat and cheearful. 'Thanks old buddy!' I mean, you just had your wife killed and lost your leg. He should be glum if anything.

What's weird is that Glen thinks it's his best film. That's just baffling to me that he could honestly think that. From a directing point of view, it may be slightly better than AVTAK but that's not much of a reach. He peaked with FYEO, his first film, and it was pretty much all downhill from there. In truth, I think that him assuming the director's chair may have been the worst thing to happen to the Bond films as he simply lacked any real panache.

I actually think David Heddison was the best Leiter until Jeffrey Wright turned up, but with the notable exeption of his last scene in LTK. In fact I wish Heddison was in TLD too instead of that bland guy.
Glen was a workmanlike director. He knew the craft (I think both TLD and LTK are well shot), but like you say he seldom showed panach. In an alternate reality I think Ridley Scott would have made an excellent LTK.

Number24

Higgins wrote:

Number24 wrote:

I think LALD and TMWTGG look cheaper. DAF too. I think a couple of the locations saves LTK from the TV look. I also like Carey Lowell's acting.

Sorry, TMWTGG looked anything but cheap.
Particularly at a time when Thailand and Hong Kong where very exotic locations.
There is no Ken Adams set there, yes, but the cinematography is top notch!

But I think Thailand does look cheap in TMWTGG. It was/is an exotic travel destination, sure, but I rarely think "I want to go there". The exeption is after Bond goes to "China" and Scaramaga's island,

Barbel

Gymkata wrote:

I'm not sure if I can make TLD. I'll try but I can't guarantee it.

I hope you'll be there.

Number24

We'll miss your GIFs (and you )

Higgins

Barbel wrote:

Higgins wrote:

Nobody but the fundamentalists had issues with his score

I'm impressed that you went round asking so many people back in 1989, Higgins. Did you use a questionnaire? Did your watch, perhaps, have a calculator built-in to deal with such high numbers?

Would you agree that in 1989, Kamen was the most booked and highest paid composer for cinema?
Would you also agree that his LTK score was pretty much of the quality of the scores that he did for other movies at that time - ergo it was not significantly worse than Die Hard or Action Jackson etc (Robin Hood was a highlight imo, but still very much in line of music that he made)?

That is what I mean. Kamen was very popular and his work on LTK was solid and as everybody expected from him.

Higgins

Gymkata wrote:

Oh, and because I'm apparently known as 'the gif guy', here are some for you to enjoy.

First: this one is dedicated to Higgins as this is his absolute favorite moment in any Bond film, period:

pathetic....