Quantum of Solace

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Post by MovieWes »

I dunno. I thought that Sheryl Crow's Tomorrow Never Dies was a pretty good song. It was somewhere in between what you're talking about, IMO. And none of them, including this one, have been as pathetic and cringe-worthy as Madonna's techno-driven Die Another Day.
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Post by Penelope »

Oh, Jesus Christ Superstar! My ears are bleeding in horror right now! Is there some kind of curse, some reason why ALL of the last 5 (including this one) Bond songs have SUCKED MASSIVELY? Almost all of them try to replicate the "ominous", "melodramatic" sound of "Goldfinger," "Live and Let Die," and "A View to a Kill" forgetting that several Bond songs are low-key, melodic, gorgeously arranged tunes: "From Russia With Love," "We Have All the Time in the World," "Nobody Does It Better," "Moonraker," and "All Time High." I was sincerely hoping that we'd get a tune like one of those. But no.... WAH!!!!
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Post by MovieWes »

And in case anyone's interested, here's the song by Jack White and Alicia Keys!
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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I don't know. At least I hope not. Daniel Craig, IMO, is the best Bond since Sean Connery, so that would be disappointing. I'm still super-stoked about this movie regardless of the lack of the catch-phrase, "The name's Bond. James Bond."

Still, I can respect taking out the gadgets, Moneypenny, and Q, but there's some staples that should remain. Plus, Craig's delivery of the line in Casino Royale was the best since Connery first uttered the phrase in Dr. No.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Post by Penelope »

I'm starting to worry that Quantum of Solace may turn out to be another Licence to Kill: ultra-serious, ultra-violent and the dullest film in the series (I think it's the worst in the series).
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We've been expecting you, Mr... er...? New Bond blockbuster drops the catchphrases

The new Bond blockbuster 'Quantum of Solace' drops the catchphrases to return to the spirit of Ian Fleming's books

By Nicholas Barber and Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 21 September 2008

His name is Bond, James Bond: just don't expect him to introduce himself. For the first time in his 22 screen outings, Britain's best- known secret agent will not utter the words of introduction that have thrilled fans and appalled master criminals for 46 years.


Nor in his next adventure, Quantum of Solace, released in November, does 007 utter the other classic one-liner – "shaken not stirred" – when ordering his martini, according to the director, Marc Forster.

"There was a 'Bond, James Bond' in the script," he said. "There are several places where we shot it as well, but it never worked as we hoped. I just felt we should cut it out, and Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson [the film's producers] agreed, and Daniel [Craig, who plays Bond] agreed, too. It's nice to be open-minded about the Bond formula. You can always go back to them later on."

It is another radical departure for Bond who, in his last film, Casino Royale, found himself stripped of many on-screen staples.

Gone were the unfeasible gadgets on which he could always rely in a tight spot. The boffin who created them in the basement of the MI6 building, Q, played in the past by Desmond Llewellyn and John Cleese, was also therefore eliminated, along with Miss Moneypenny and her flirtatious banter. Bond even briefly abandoned his high-performance motor to drive a Ford Mondeo before reverting to an Aston Martin.

It is all part of a deliberate attempt to bring the agent with a licence to kill into the 21st century – the producers declined the film rights to Sebastian Faulks's Bond homage, Devil May Care, last month because it was set in the 1960s – yet also to take him back to his 1950s roots.

The move is welcomed by fans who have seen the films veer away from how Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, originally envisaged his cold-blooded hero.

Graham Rye, who edits the online 007 Magazine said that Craig, who made his debut in 2006's Casino Royale, is much closer to Fleming's vision.

"The Bond films had become tired and needed reinvigorating," he said. "Rather than going away from Fleming I think the producers have gone back to him."

Mr Rye added that the famous ingredients of the film, such as Q and Moneypenny, had only featured once or twice in the books. Nor does he make a habit of ordering martinis or introducing himself.

"His announcing of himself had become a bit corny," he added. "Casino Royale gets back to the spirit of the books, rather than all the silliness."

Ajay Chowdhury, who edits the Bond fan club magazine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, added that excising the famous lines was unlikely to upset Bond fans.

"The producers have been mixing and matching the famous Bond tropes – such as the theme song and the gun-barrel sequence," he said. "But this time there is a theme song by Jack White and Alicia Keys. If this line of script is not in there it's not going to undo the foundations of Bond. The fans didn't miss Moneypenny or Q. Bond is the only British character with worldwide resonance now, apart from Harry Potter. The producers are paying more attention to psychology and relationships, as well as adventure.

"Quantum of Solace picks up from Casino Royale, which was a really good thriller first and a good Bond movie second."

------------------

On another note, yesterday Marc Forster confirmed that the opening gunbarrel sequence, which was mostly cut from Casino Royale, has been restored, so I guess not all is lost.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Post by Penelope »

New trailer at the official website.

I must admit that, despite the presence of Marc Forster at the helm and Paul Haggis contributing to the script, it looks very good.
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Post by Penelope »

By the way, shouldn't the header for this thread be officially changed to Quantum of Solace?

The secret to the perfect Bond theme
Shirley struck gold, Madonna didn’t. What is the secret to the perfect Bond theme? Bob Stanley thinks he knows

John Barry has called it “million-dollar Mickey Mouse music”, but a James Bond theme on your CV is as close as pop gets to an Olympic gold medal. As Jack White and Alicia Keys prepare to add to the canon, they should be aware that when you create a bad Bond theme you are disappointing the whole world and you will never, ever, get another chance.

The best – Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, A View to a Kill – are internationalist anthems. Some themes have been more literal than others. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service may star the worst Bond, George Lazenby (who was allegedly so unpleasant that his co-star Diana Rigg chewed garlic before each kissing scene), but it has one of the best title cuts, a wordless Moog-driven monster, suitable for skiing at breakneck speed or dancing with equal abandon.

Licence to Kill, on the other hand, features a brazen, smoking barrel-blast of timpani after Gladys Knight sings “KILL!”, just in case you’d forgotten that the following movie may include strong language and scenes of a sexual nature.

My group Saint Etienne recorded an album at Tambourine studios in Malmö, Sweden, some 12 years ago. The Cardigans had created all of their albums there with the producer Tore Johansson. He let slip late in the session that the Cardigans had been asked to record the next James Bond theme but, riding high in the American chart with Lovefool at the time, hadn’t yet gone round to it. I couldn’t believe it. We had to tread on their toes as quickly and crushingly as possible, and write a Bond theme that would blow them out of the water. Or even slice them down the middle with a laser beam.

The film was Tomorrow Never Dies: we ascertained that it was about an antihero called Tomorrow who is immortal – not quite in the same league as Ian Fleming naming a villain after his least favourite architect, but we weren’t being picky. Along with our arranger Gerard Johnson we booked a day in a London studio and worked out a demo called Tomorrow Never Dies. Clearly, this entailed us avoiding most of our favourite lyrical subjects (cars with the top down, escaping the city, listening to the radio, sitting in the pub) and contemplating some less familiar to our world of pop – cars with ejector seats, escaping from megalomaniac baddies, having sex with eight women in 96 minutes.

The music came rather more easily. All three of us are John Barry fanatics and – though Monty Norman is wont to frown and remind us that he wrote the iconic signature tune – it is Barry who has set the benchmark, not just for Bond but for all spy movie soundtracks.

The classic moves that make up the James Bond noise are all Barry’s: the frisson of woodwind as Bond moves with silent stealth of a black cat in carpet slippers; the shattered glass of a brass stab; the sweep of strings as a helicopter swoops over the Alps, followed by a brief flash of garter and a wry, raised eyebrow.

Barry was 26, he says, when he got a call from Noel Rogers, “a big supporter of mine at United Artists music. He said: ‘There are these two guys called Saltzmann and Broccoli and they own the rights to the James Bond stories.’ I said: ‘I only know Bond from the Daily Mail comic strip. He said: ‘That’s all you need to know.’ They wanted a theme – two minutes long.”

Monty Norman wrote it; Barry arranged it: “I remember standing in line at Piccadilly to see Dr No. And the theme was all over it. Every time he said, ‘The name’s Bond’, it went ‘dung-dug-a-dung-dung’. They paid me £250! Noel said: ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I’ll try and get you the next Bond score – it might become a series.’ ”

There is also coyness that separates the best Bond themes from also-rans. It’s one of pop’s toughest asks, says Lulu, who gamely handled Man With the Golden Gun. “You need to have the largesse of John Barry and be true to Ian Fleming. The suggestiveness of Don Black’s lyrics still make me smile, but it can’t be plagiarism. McCartney did it, taking it out of John Barry’s hands – he worked it beautifully. It’s a big, big track. Big bangs work well! Because you want to have a little snigger, you want to go, oooh.” Roger Moore, who also knows thing or two about Bond movies, thinks that “the most successful songs, and those that are now deemed Bond classics, are invariably the ones with a narrative within the lyrics.” His favourite is Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better, “because nobody did. No, it is a terrific song as it embodies everything about Bond’s character and why he is better and more popular than other movie spies.”

Not everyone wears the Bond-theme crown with the carefree ease of the purring Miss Simon. AHa were outsiders for the role on The Living Daylights and treated it with the same cool disdain as the Cardigans. John Barry compared working with them to “playing ping-pong with four balls”. Once the theme was finished they distanced themselves from the movie though, oddly, their next single, The Blood that Moves the Body, had all the swagger and brio, the high-wire tension and taut melancholy of a classic Bond theme that The Living Daylights had lacked.

White and Keys would be smart to remember that James Bond isn’t just the world’s greatest spy, he’s also a pop phenomenon – in 1964, at the peak of Beatlemania, the Goldfinger soundtrack knocked A Hard Day’s Night off the No 1 spot in the States and stayed there for four months. Anyone who agrees to sing the theme must be willing to be subsumed by Bond’s all-powerful musical clinch. Tom Jones understood this. After singing Thunderball he apparently fell to the floor with exhaustion, while Shirley Bassey’s red-blooded roar showed full commitment to the cause twice over. AHa’s icy shrug simply didn’t cut it; nor did Madonna’s overly bleepy Die Another Day – it sounds more Madonna than Bond, and that’s a nono. “I’m gonna avoid the cli-ché,” she sang, which suggests that she’d missed the point.

The bar is set so high that even themes now seen as classics were initially regarded with suspicion. Moore recalls the producer Harry Saltzman’s reaction when he first heard the demo of Live and Let Die: “Saltzman was unconvinced, and he turned to George Martin and said: ‘Ok, but who are we going to get to sing it?’ George replied that he had just listened to Paul McCartney, one of the biggest recording stars of all time.”

“Harry was just bad about everything, everybody,” Barry says. “He wasn’t the sweetest guy, put it that way.” Saltzmann also took a lot of convincing to use Goldfinger, which he hated. Michael Caine, Barry’s flatmate at the time, remembers the composer working long into the night until, over breakfast, he played the opening three notes. “It’s Moon River,” Caine said bluntly, to Barry’s chagrin. The blaring three-note brass line was swiftly added to disguise the similarity.

As for Saint Etienne’s stab at Bond immortality, our calls weren’t returned. Tomorrow Never Dies was possibly the only Bond film for which several acts were approached. A bunch of (presumably) failed Bond themes sneaked out rather apologetically over the next few months in 1999, usually as B-sides with barely rewritten, thinly disguised titles (Pulp’s Tomorrow Never Lies, Dot Allison’s Tomorrow Never Comes). No one came clean and admitted the folly of these oddly titled songs – after all, we’d all been playing our cards close to our chests, stroking the white cat on our laps, thinking how clever we were one to be step ahead of all our pop rivals; a Bond theme, that’ll show ’em!

Someone has twigged, though, and they have dubbed some of these songs over the film’s opening credits on YouTube. The winners, were this a version of The X Factor, with Oddjob replacing Simon Cowell, are the Danish group Swan Lee, whose quintessentially torch-song take on Bond has run up three times as many views as its nearest competitor. The official silver medal goes to kd lang, whose version was an early frontrunner but was eventually bumped down to the end credits by Sheryl Crow’s pleasant but rather forgettable theme (well, I would say that wouldn’t I?).

We can console ourselves with the knowledge that other names who have been rejected for the Bond seal of approval include Dionne Warwick (Thunderball), Aretha Franklin (You Only Live Twice), Alice Cooper (The Man With the Golden Gun) and Blondie (For Your Eyes Only); only Frank Sinatra has had the nerve to stare Bond down and pass up the opportunity. It’s the biggest, most dangerous game in pop. For White and Keys, immortality or immolation await.
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Post by Penelope »

"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston

"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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Post by Reza »

I was amazed to see Bollywood starlet - Shilpa Shetty - being part of the cast list of the new Bond film. Wonder if it is a substantial role?
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Post by MovieWes »

The teaser poster

Image
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Post by Franz Ferdinand »

Ahaha I love those illiterate morons. Finally the Bond movies are getting intelligent titles and they cry about it. I guess we can't blame them when they were weaned on Brosnan as Bond.
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Post by OscarGuy »

I'm sure the griping over Quantum of Solace is probably because most of the people who are complaining don't understand the words individually (except maybe 'of', but even that might be expecting too much) better yet as part of the whole.
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Post by Penelope »

Zahveed wrote:
Penelope wrote:
Zahveed wrote:I like the titles for these new bond films. It's a lot better then the meaningless shit like The World Is Not Enough.

Actually, "The World is Not Enough" is the motto on the Bond family crest; this is referenced in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Oh... :D

What about Tomorrow Never Dies?
That's meaningless shit. As well as Die Another Day; I don't recall either title being used by Fleming in any way shape or form in the books or stories.
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Post by Zahveed »

Penelope wrote:
Zahveed wrote:I like the titles for these new bond films. It's a lot better then the meaningless shit like The World Is Not Enough.

Actually, "The World is Not Enough" is the motto on the Bond family crest; this is referenced in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Oh... :D

What about Tomorrow Never Dies?
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