Vue Cinemas screening classic Bond movies
sadken96
Posts: 12MI6 Agent
If you are in the UK, check the "coming soon" section of the website for your local Vue cinema.
The three nearest to me are showing a number of Bond films, starting with Dr No on Saturday April 16th
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Thanks so much for sharing. My VUE cinema is also doing the same.
Thanks for the heads up @sadken96 This is ace!!
Just checked our local VUE and its showing them all. Only on the smallest screen but will be great fun to go to the cinema and watch the classic Bond films again. I'm really looking forward to the Roger films of my childhood and watching these in the summer, just as I did with when I was young.
My closet is about 50 miles away unfortunately.
They are doing all of them, yes; only for a day each but you can find the release dates here:
https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/ames-bond-films-returning-uk-cinemas-131814011.html
Excellent, thank you for forewarning 🍸
Odeon too
https://mobile.twitter.com/007/status/1512461601173131272
Is anyone concerned these are going to be censored versions? I just checked Vue's listing for Licence to Kill, and they have it as rated 'PG'.
Same goes for GoldenEye and Casino Royale - they are using their original theatrical '12' ratings, as opposed to the uncut '15' physical media releases.
If they're going to show butchered versions of some of these, I won't bother.
I'm not too concerned if they're the PG versions. Will be happy just to see the films in most of their entirety, on the big screen and enjoy the occasion.😊
Have decided to catch DN this evening at a local Vue. There are hardly any advance bookings so social distancing is unlikely to be much of a concern.
If the venue is comfortable I might watch several of these.
PG or 12 cuts on the films mentioned wouldn't overly concern me as it's always interesting to compare versions; I've always thought of PG as the default classification of Bond in the cinema anyway.
Enjoyed DN at a Vue tonight. The screen wasn't the smallest in the multiplex. In fact, it was as large as NFT1 at the BFI Southbank and larger than the Prince Charles Cinema's Screen 2 .
Watching DN on the big screen reminds me of my original experience of seeing it (in the cinema in the early 70s) in a way which viewings at home never really do. Numerous details are noticed which are missed on a TV screen (such as actually being able to see Bob Simmons' features in the gunbarrel sequence!)
Having recently watched Edmond T. Greville's 'Beat Girl' I was struck during this viewing of DN by how much Eon was trying to incorporate to their movie a similarly fashionable layer of style; certainly by involving John Barry, with his arrangement of the Bond theme - using it numerous times - but also by including hip dancing in the pop-art credits sequence and at Puss Feller's. (The guy who loses it on the dancefloor, to Jamaican pop, loses it big time on the big screen - just as the young Oliver Reed gurns, trancelike, to The John Barry Seven, or to four of them at least, and to Adam Faith in 'Beat Girl'!)
Cineworld obviously didn't want to feel left out
https://www.cineworld.co.uk/static/en/uk/bond60
I enjoyed watching FRWL at a Vue cinema this evening. There was only a handful of people at the screening so I hope Vue considers that the rest of this season is going to be viable at the particular cinema I'm attending. Who knows? Perhaps, for casual cinema-goers, a film entitled 'From Russia With Love' has off-putting connotations right now, Bond or no Bond. I hope attendance will pick up as the season progresses. Interestingly, this time, Vue dispensed with the preliminaries and trailers which had prefaced the DN screening last week: they cut to the chase and started with the film straight away.
Seeing FRWL again on the big screen, I was struck by how the eroticism in it is... well, erotic.. rather than simply an 'idea' of eroticism as a convention of the Bond films. Its sexiness is certainly overlaid with frequent helpings of disconcerting sadism.
Like DN, FRWL features some memorable dancing: Leila works her stuff in both the credits sequence and in the main body of the film. I was reminded of 'Beat Girl' again, especially the similarity of exotic excitement between John Barry's compositions for the strip-club dance in 'Beat Girl' and for Leila's belly dance at the gypsy camp. In each case, Barry adds class to a sequence which might otherwise feel simply like exploitation cinema.
As is often observed, Sean Connery's performance as Bond in FRWL hadn't yet matured into the relaxed assurance he exuded in GF but - again - when seen on the big screen it's striking how much of an 'acted' performance he gave for this second outing in the role, playing every scene with conviction, if occasionally awkwardly, and with finely modulated expression.
As for Robert Shaw's performance as Grant, particularly in the stalking scenes before Grant poses as Nash, I found that his physicality and impassive persona reminded me somewhat of Daniel Craig: I know it's no endorsement of Craig's Bond to say that Grant brings him to mind more than Connery's original OO7, but there it is!
I look forward to the publication later this year of the BFI Classics volume on FRWL by Llewella Chapman.
Thanks for your thoughts, Shady.
I was very much looking forward to watching FRWL at my nearest Vue as well. I'd planned my whole day around it, but didn't bother purchasing a ticket on line as there were - as you say - only a few seats booked. Instead I planned on arriving at approx. 7.15pm, buying the ticket, a drink, etc. with plenty of time to spare. I don't drive any more, so I checked the bus times - the stop is only five minutes walk from my house - and reckoned the Vue at Croydon Valley Park would be easy to access from the 463.
Ha !
All was going swimmingly until I got off at the stop intended for Croydon Valley Retail Park. There's basically no access into the retail park from any stop along the road. I wandered up the road, down the road and found nothing but delivery access bays. In the end, more out of curiosity, I walked into and along a delivery bay which looked as if it led to park. No CCTV. No hi-viz for me. Luckily no deliveries. I found myself by the Burger King drive in. I had six minutes before showtime and the Vue was around the corner. Of course, it is no longer easy getting a ticket at a Vue. The touch screen in the downstairs lobby wouldn't work. When it did, FRWL was not listed, so the assistant directed me upstairs to the service counter where I was able to purchase my ticket, mentioning in passing how pleased I was to arrive on time given there's no access to the retail park from the bus stop. "Yes," he said, "You have to walk through the delivery bays." Madness. "Don't worry though, there's twenty minutes of adverts." "Really?" says I, "That's great, I can get a drink and use the loo." "You have to order your food downstairs." "Really?" That was not a happy 'really.'
So, I trundle back downstairs, figure out how to make the touch screen work, order and pay for a bottle of water and a small pic n mix. I go back upstairs, I have to have the QR code scanned for my newly purchased ticket. I collect my drink and a tub for my sweets. I go to the loo. I fill the pick n mix tub with pink and white mice. I spend a couple of minutes composing myself, turning off my phone and I'm all set. Screen One, From Russia With Love, here I come. I push open the door and I can see a third of the screen. There is a ripple of discontent from the on screen audience. Kronsteen has just exited the chess game. I've missed the first eight minutes of the film.
Me and Bond are clearly not wedded this year. Coupled with my disaster at the Prince Charles, I think cinema has got it in for me in 2022.
I return to the service booth. "Is everything alright?" "No. I was told there were twenty minutes of adverts, but the film has already started. I've missed ten minutes, so I won't be watching it now."
They were very apologetic. The guy who originally served me seemed quite perturbed the presentation information was wrong - he called his supervisor to check it. I got my refund, but I left disheartened and disappointed. At least I now know the trials of the Vue Cinema in Valley Park. It's changed a lot since I last went there, but I drove a car then and access to the place was a darn sight easier.
I came home and watched Masquerade on my DVD recordings. It wasn't quite FRWL, but it filled the evening. At least I got a tub of white mice to chew through on the 463 bus home.
Sorry about that @chrisno1; this must have been very frustrating. Hopefully you'll have a chance to catch FRWL at one of the other cinema chains running Bond seasons? If Vue are going to leave out trailers and ads, etc., from the programme for the rest of their own Bond screenings, I'd personally welcome that, but, unless it's made clear in advance, there's a risk of disappointing people who count on having a few minutes to play with before taking their seats. Sounds like the guy at the service counter at the Vue in Croydon Valley Retail Park got it wrong. He should have said, "You are required at once" :-(
Back at my same Vue this evening for GF. This time a larger screen was allocated and the full preliminaries - ads and trailers - were back. Still only a smattering of people, though, including a couple of mobile phone offenders.
GF's hugely entertaining, of course. It's a film with an expansive canvas and a glorious palette (but arguably the fantasy elements and humour are sometimes ramped up at the expense of the tautness and tension enjoyed in FRWL: attache case damaged during production, one might say...)
Three films in, the genre is fully formed; a gold standard is set for the majority of Bonds which follow...
'Really, Shady? Amazing these tidbits you come up with...'
Shouldn't this be in the Last Bond Movie seen section?
Here courtesy of Bond Twitter are some of the script notes Sean Connery made outlining his objections to Goldfinger - overruled mostly despite being well made - it would be a different kind of film this time round.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
good find @Napoleon Plural though its never going to be found again in this thread, perhaps should be in the Pros and Cons of Goldfinger thread?
Connery's mostly right, those are all plot holes or weaknesses that we've mostly debated before. But whats especially interesting... is he's read the book! now I wanna see more Connery notes on the films
The notes are intelligent - hard to credit how Connery approved Never Say Never Again really, even if much of it was made up on the hoof.
I can repost it on the other thread or you can, I don't mind. I may look for the Twitter handle that posted this nugget for more from the same source to make a GF reference.
I think these Prince Charles Bond showings are not doing me any good... Thankfully I may knock them on the head once Rog's tenure is over.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
how are they not doing you any good? they're doing us loads of good, you're writing brilliant essay length reviews following each one, best analyses of the classic films we've had in ages. c'mon Napoleon, sacrifice your sanity for the greater good!
@Napoleon Plural Fascinating document!
I guess my aim in making a remark or two about each film I see at Vue in this thread is to keep it bumped on the off-chance that any passing casual browser can pick up where the Vue programme is up to at that point.
My provisional intention is to see most of the Bonds at Vue, but probably to skip the 80s (except AVTAK, which I find interesting atm, and LTK, one of my favourites) and pass on the Craigs. I want to see the Brosnans on the big screen again.
Props to Connery if he played GF in a style which went against his instincts, in order to realise the director's/ writer's intentions. He does it brilliantly and GF is really the film which makes him a superstar.
The PTS interests me because in the main it's a sequence which Connery acts as if he's still in FRWL. The force with which he rips the dummy seagull off his head and the expression on his face at that point perhaps indicate the actor's personal feelings about the introduction of more camp humour. By contrast, the look on his face as he inserts the carnation in the lapel of his white tuxedo jacket exemplifies his skill at light comedy.
Terence Young is back for Saturday's TB...
It seems our local Vue have pulled some of the films. It was supposed to be Thunderball this Sunday, but has disappeared from their listings. Obvioulsy not enough interest and they (probably justifiably), think they'll get more bums on seats by showing additional screenings of Dr Strange and Downton Abbey in the small screens instead of vintage James Bond. Very frustrating though. Think I'll go and buy a new big TV and home cinema system! 🤗
Thats ironic: "the Biggest Bond of All", the one that had lineups round the block, showings 24 hours a day, cancelled due to lack of interest. There might not even be a Marvel Cinematic Universe were it not for the success of Thunderball back in its day
TB is still listed at the one I'm attending but with only three advance bookings. I hope they hold their nerve over the weeks to come... it's bad form to promote a season and then pull it or part of it.
There's only two sold at the Purley Way. Hmm. Maybe it's the weather. Or maybe it's those interminable underwater scenes.
They're waiting to see if you turn up, @chrisno1 - if so, then they'll cancel!
Hardly surprising James Bond gets cancelled in this day and age, though.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
😷😷😷 ha! You wait, Napoleon, I'm on my way now for some pic n mix & a coke !
I hope you enjoyed the screening as much as I did @chrisno1 There were only five or six people at mine but I notice there are already a few people advance-booked for next week's YOLT.
Seeing TB on the big screen meant something to me because I haven't viewed it in the cinema since the 70s, when I saw it in a double bill with DN. (DN was on first. Ardent young Bond fan though I already was, I recall finding that particular marathon eventually quite tiring, with my attention drifting by the time Largo and his divers were steadily ferrying atomic missiles around.) A few years ago I went to see TB at the BFI Imax but owing to a technical difficulty they couldn't show it and screened DN instead!
So tonight was great! The picture is busy with all sorts of detail easily missed during home entertainment viewings and it's easier to imagine the wow factor that even the slower underwater scenes (the scenes before the spectacular fight) would have held, in all their blue-green glory, for original audiences in the 60s.
Just a couple of examples of little things I picked up on the big screen which I'd overlooked on TV screens... I noticed how well Philip Stone and some of the other attendees at the SPECTRE board meeting act their amazement at the scale of the project Number 2 announces, after their shock at the demise of their embezzling colleague. I also couldn't help registering how pretty the girl is who helps front the humanitarian-aid cover to SPECTRE's Paris HQ... and that she's the same girl primly wearing spectacles and taking notes as Number 1 orders the execution of Lippe. Moneypenny's opposite number?
Watching a chronological season like this does make me realise, though, how, by TB, Bond was starting to 'jump the shark', so to speak, compared with the stand-out quality of FRWL as a suspenseful thriller.
Yes, thanks, @Shady Tree no problems today. I even found the secret entrance to Valley Park. Vue cinemas have changed a lot. The guy sitting in the same row as me said they'd refurbished during lock down. Well, I got a reclining seat with a drink and food table and enough leg room to dance in. I didn't recline the seat, I think I might have ended up looking at the ceiling. The seat was huge. Two of me might have been comfy. Maybe that's stretching it. The tiered rows were great for a good view, but I missed the proximity of the other punters. There were not many of us and it felt as if we were a long way apart. On a curious and infantile note, I wondered why the girl on the back row was dressed up as if she was on a seriously extravagant hot date; as usual the man with her didn't seem to follow the trend. For my quick take on TB see https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/comment/1044113#Comment_1044113
So, checking again on Vue website for my local cinema, Friday evening, Thunderball reappeared for Sunday!😊 So I jumped at the chance to go.
First time for me seeing it on the big screen and it was a nice experience. I counted about 10-12 at our screening.
It was great to see classic Bond on the big screen again.
Upon reading previous posts, I wasn't sure if/how many adverts/trailers there would be, so was in my seat for 5.50pm (6pm start). Big mistake. There were the full 30 mins of trailers and adverts. The same as for Operation Mincemeat last week.
When the film finally started, I was at first a little disappointed with the picture quality, fine/good in some areas but poorer in others. But I soon got used to it. I knew this wouldn't be 4K quality (or whatever latest picture quality is) but think I had forgotten it was just going to be shown in standard print form?
Agree with what others have said, you do notice little things when you're transfixed to the big screen with no distractions, that you may have missed on countless previous viewings. Let's face it our eyes and minds can tend to wander a bit during certain scenes in some Bond films, either because we've seen them sooo many times, or they're overlong and/or not amongst our favourites. I can't remember the last time I watched the whole of the bomb transfer/battle underwater scenes without taking my eyes of the screen. Probably also helped not having pee/martini refresher breaks, which are nice at home but obviously take you out of the film somewhat.
A couple of things I noticed that perhaps I should have already spotted years ago are Connery's stunt double used more than I remember, including the very short sequence when he's swimming up the canal to the steps behind Palmyra (I might be wrong?) And the mystery white faced watch Bond wears in the Helicopter with Felix when searching for the Vulcan. Anyone know what this is?
Connery owned the screen and his performance is excellent. Still looked in terrific shape, bronzed and toned, before putting on those few pounds for YOLT and DAF. Great one liners. The one that got the biggest laugh from all was when he responds to M's "Do you thinks she's worth going after?" "Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that, sir".
Again, agree this film must have looked incredible upon it's release with all the exotic locations, beautiful people, bright colours and big actions scenes. Claudine Auger even more stunning on the big screen, and how I wish we could have another classic James Bond uplifting/fantastical film ending🤞
"You can watch it all on TV." So Blofeld observes snarkily to Bond, in the control room of his volcano lair (without deigning to explain how an outside broadcast unit has been able to capture spacecraft kidnappings in orbit and transmit them directly to his monitor!)
Why watch it all on TV, though, when it can be seen in all its big-screen glory at Vue cinemas?
I thoroughly enjoyed catching YOLT at my local Vue this evening - a visual and aural Bondian feast!
Tonight there were ads but no trailers, continuing an inconsistent approach to the preliminaries across this Vue season so far. In a shameless Money Supermarket ad which I saw for the first time this evening, Judi Dench unofficially reprises her role as M, with a Naomie Harris lookalike standing in for Eve. I felt rather let down by Dame Judi that she'd agree to foot-note her M character in such a trivial way... but with YOLT to follow, the annoyance quickly passed!