captainsolo

I've tried on some of those sets, but for some reason they usually go for major $$ on ebay, which is very odd, especially since UE sets sell for a fraction!

I'm beginning to think that maybe there never was a reissue of corrected discs.

I hate to say it, but you may have to try and make a backup to play on finickier players. This is what I've had to do on some older discs or ones that are really scratched up. Sometimes the PS2 just couldn't hack it and I had to improvise...or the high end Sony upscaling DVD player in the Communications dept. screening room that was actually a huge pile of stinking garbage that never worked properly and seemed to be designed more for eating discs than playing them-but I get ahead of myself. ;)

DominicCobb said:

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) 7.5/10 - I like to consider myself almost a Monty Python fanatic. That means I think they're the funniest thing ever, but I've only seen Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and a handful of Flying Circus episodes. It's a problem. I tried to alleviate that by watching this. I was a little disappointed. It's still outrageously funny, but its clear their best jokes were behind them. To top it off, many of the sketches ran a little too long. Still great fun, though.

 

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) 8.5/10 - Very well made film with great performances. Not an easy watch, though.

 

Mulholland Drive (2001) - 

...I don't even know. I just finished watching it so these thoughts are kind of off the cuff. Well, I'll start by saying it was very well done. Very good style. Very good, um...

Okay this movie makes no f*cking sense.

Or does it?

I'm not sure. But I think I liked it. A lot

Yeah, a lot of questions were raised, and I don't think I got any answers. But who cares, really? I could tell pretty early on that I wasn't going to get answers. And I've seen Eraserhead, so I kind of knew how Lynch rolls. I don't think it's really about the answers. At least, to me it's not. Well, I'll admit I hated it for a bit after it ended, but then I thought more about he film I had just watched, the whole thing. When it started to get good, I was on the edge of my seat until the end. I loved that. It was a thrill ride. It had great characters, themes. Part of me feels like Lynch said "f*ck it," and threw away the story for the final third. You know what? that's okay. It makes it that much more interesting. Yeah, I don't know what was really going on. But I like a good ambiguous film. There's a lot of different things that could've been happening. And I got some theories. 

So, yeah, I think I loved this movie. Maybe tomorrow I'll hate it. Maybe I'll love it even more. Right now, I'm giving it a 9.5/10 

Agreed on Meaning of Life. There are some great moments, but they are dragged down by the unfunny overlong sketches like the mining town song and dance number which reputedly ate up the entire budget of the film. But the liver donor sketch makes the entire thing worthwhile.

I have Alice on my watch stack, as it's early Scorsese I'll probably love it.

Mullholland Drive is without a doubt one of the WORST things I have ever sat through. It makes no sense from any standpoint, it has no purpose, drags on forever, and by the end you realize that you could have spent your time more productively doing ANYTHING else! I like Lynch as a person and admire his desire to break free of conventions but usually despise his films, none more so than this one. And so many people have it up on a pedestal! Ahhhhh!

Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell

I love this movie, which despite its underdevelopment and low budget actually makes a fitting coda to the adventures of the Baron. And what a great dark and wonderful setup!

3.5 balls out of 4.

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

Well produced doc about one of the legends of cinematography. He used a camera like a paintbrush, and you'll know exactly what I mean if you've ever seen a film he shot-especially his work for The Archers. A great artist of a lost art.

3.5 balls out of 4.

It was that, and a few other little bits. Here's the best summery of the SE mistakes:

These are the confirmed defects with the Bond titles, for which corrected repressings have been made. To get your replacement discs, call MGM Customer Service at 1-877-MGM-4YOU, and follow the directions for defective DVDs. You will be sent a prepaid UPS shipping label via e-mail which you can print out and use to send back your DVD(s). They will then send back the corrected DVD(s) to you (brand-new, shrinkwrapped copy like you would buy in the store). Corrected copies supposedly have **** around the title on the white sticker on top of the sealed DVDs (such as, **** Octopussy ****), but I have not always found that to be the case. My corrected NSNA did not have the stars.

The Man with the Golden Gun - In Chapter 21, at approximately 81:30, at the beginning of the car chase, the disc will pixelate and lock up on many DVD players due to a mastering error.

Octopussy - In Chapter 12, at approximately 37:00, Bond flips a bad guy onto a bed of nails. The owner of the bed says something and the English subtitle translation is missing ("Get off my bed!")

Never Say Never Again - In Chapter 19, at approximately 65:50. There are about 4 minutes of footage missing from this point, the beginning of the second layer of the disc. The missing footage starts right after Bond gives a cigarette case to a security guard in a closet and tells him it's a bomb. Scenes from this missing footage include Bond saying his line, "My name is Bond, James Bond." to Domino as she stands in front of an arcade game machine and Bond having a conversation with Largo as Largo stands behind a bar. Largo challenges Bond to play the game in this scene.

The Living Daylights - In Chapter 7, at approximately 19:30. After the plant worker pushes her supervisor off of her bosom, there are missing English subtitles which translate her words ("What kind of girl do you think I am!)

---

These following Bond titles also have errors. Corrected versions have not yet been made, but in a HTF Post by MGM officials on April 30, 2001, they had this to say: "License To Kill and On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Corrected versions of these titles will be made available when MGM re-releases these DVD's sometime in 2002. If you are unhappy with your current DVD, you will be able to exchange it with MGM customer service at that time." It is unknown which problems exactly they are correcting, and if they will correct all the ones listed below.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - In Chapter 18, at approximately 75:05. Weird "humming" audio over a scene of a rock climber actually belongs to 3 seconds of missing video which occurs right before this scene. Also, some missing lines (quoted from someone else's report): On the DVD, right after Telly Savalas delivers the line, "Tracy, don't be so proud. Your father's own business is not entirely within the law", it cuts to Bond and Draco in the helicopter, completely cutting the line "His brotherhood also have exotic ways of keeping it a closed shop" which is on the laserdisc and VHS tape. The stock car race scene has completely different editing and appears to be about 20 seconds shorter than the versions on my laserdisc and tape (I didn't time it so I can't be exact). Finally, after the stock car race, when Tracy says "We didn't even stop for the prize", Bond's line "I told you that crowd would discourage them" has also been cut.

Licence to Kill - In Chapter 44, at approximately 98:00. When the guy explodes in the chamber, there is apparently a popping sound and the blood actually splattering against the window which is missing. There may also be additional gore and violence in other parts of the movie missing (unconfirmed).

I bought my SE OHMSS a few years ago at Big Lots and it is uncorrected. I've thought that the only way to ensure correct SE discs is by buying the three volume blue-gold-silver box sets.

Isn't that always the case? ;) I think I might get both the MGM LD and the Japanese one rumored to be uncut but full screen.

I think primarily a better pressing on the MGM being a few years newer, and the Fox is indeed rotty as my Side 3 is speckle filled. Hopefully I can get an MGM soon to do a shootout, but I don't expect much difference.

Some of the SE discs had errors that were supposedly corrected by the time of the 3 volume boxes, has anyone ever had any that were correct? IIRC these were among them TLD with the missing subtitle captions restored, something on LTK and OHMSS with the missing lines restored.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/16mm-GOLDFINGER-1964-IB-Technicolor-Print-SEAN-CONNERY-Agent-007-James-Bond-/181029351847?pt=US_Film&hash=item2a2630b1a7

Auction for 16mm IB Tech of Goldfinger, with printed matting in frame. This looks similar to the 16mm IB tech FRWL posted a year or so ago. I know these photo captures cannot be used as a true resource, but it does give an idea as to the true appearance of the film and just how much of the overall darkness has been lost. This coloring looks like a cross almost between the alternate Criterion coloring and the traditional we're used to on the MGM/UA transfer.

Nah, I just find it kinda funny when official releases utilize consumer available products for their work.

Guess there's no tapes anywhere of Dr. No score material.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

I've wanted to see this one for years and years but the DVD is waaaay OOP. The fourth Hammer Frankenstein finds the Baron tucked away in a small village entrenched with a silly old doctor as he attempts to achieve his latest conundrum, a way of beating death and examining the body's relationship to the soul itself. After the abysmally disappointing Evil, Terrence Fisher returns to the series he began for a film that, despite production limitations, forgoes the typical "monster movie" pitfalls and like Revenge of Frankenstein gets at something else, but this time into the fragile world of the metaphysical and ethereal. The ideas presented alone are worth the watch, and some of them are truly mindblowing.

In short, through discovering a rudimentary cryogenic process and developing an impenetrable energy, Frankenstein isolates the human soul.

3.5 balls out of 4, and I just wish that the overall story and production was stronger to fully suit such a brilliant idea.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)

If Woman had a sense of kindliness to it, this one would have a sense of nihilism. This is a bold, dark, ballsy and truly nasty film! Cushing's Baron Frankenstein always hovered on the edge of evil and blind scientific ambition which always prevents the audience form disliking the character. Not anymore. This time around, the Baron is a truly 100% deplorable human monster, capable of anything remotely possible in the name of his own scientific pursuits be it murder, blackmail, torture, rape, violence, manipulation, theft, surgery and anything else conceivable. This is where it comes to a head, the darkest of all possible scenarios for the Baron's future.

To set this film up if you've never seen it, imagine a typical Hammer film. But in the opening here, a figure stands in a doorway only to behead a man walking down the street with a scythe. This is some type of disfigured monster, only to be revealed as a mask concealing the Baron himself. The whole idea behind this film series is that it is the Baron who is the Monster and not any of the Creatures he makes.  Now this idea has come full circle and with the physical recognition of this overarching theme, the Baron is free to be a monstrous as he wishes.

The plot basically deals with the Baron's attempts to find and converse with a colleague who had discovered the secret of  freezing and preserving the brain. Sadly the man went mad, and Frankenstein must blackmail an asylum doctor and his fiancee into helping him to steal the man back in order to get into his brain.

As most who have heard of the film know, there is a very controversial rape scene that after some digging around I found was actually inserted at the request of US distributors who wanted some sex/nudity content. (Not really a sex scene is it?) The scene was quickly inserted against everyone's wishes and sticks out like a sore thumb. (A very sore one.) Ironically this was removed form US prints and for some reason reinstated for the DVD.

As a whole, the film begs for more development, but aside from this the actors and Fisher's direction are absolutely top notch. The latter has some sequences in this film which are completely brilliant. This is a great film marred only by too tight of a production schedule and not enough story development. The ending is fantastic, but the film itself should have been longer.

Something like a 3.75 balls out of 4. This is brutally nasty, and Cushing is so dark that you realize Tarkin would have blown up anywhere on a whim.

As in they just captured LD analog audio??? Talk about non-professional, that's something we could do. (and you did!)

Holee crap! An actual Dr. No score release???

Wait...isn't it the original "soundtrack" with 10-12 minutes added? After comparing tracklistings I think this may be the case, but how much of the score could that include I wonder?

I wish they had been able to do more on the 2003 remaster series, but EMI wouldn't give any more time or $$$. Plus on some titles they did some remixing which always threw me, not to mention that the project was only done at 24bit 44.1khz sampling rate. Some original vinyl sounds better. The second half of Thunderball that was unreleased for so many years actually sounds better in the Suite version found on disc 2 of the 1992 Best of Bond compilation.

Many are still incomplete: FRWL, GF, TMWTGG, TSWLM, MR, LTK and a few others IIRC.

Goldfinger finally added the four tracks from the original British score, but is still missing some bits. Spy as released was an alternate re-recording and the original score has never been issued. Even "Nobody Does it Better" is different as heard in the film versus the release! Moonraker's master tapes are still supposedly lost in France somewhere...do we have any French Bond fans who are also musicians working in studios...? ;)

What about the moving groundbreaking Bill Conti FYEO score? ;)

Agreed, Barry is probably the underdog of the great film score composers. Even when the film was crap, he could make something out of it completely unexpected and fascinating.

Of the non-Barry scores, the best IMO is George Martin's LALD.

zombie84 said:

I never really got the Bond series. They are okay movies, I like some of them and have seen almost all of them, but I would put them in the same category as Michael Bay films, some of which I also enjoy in the same sort of dumb, comic-book sort of way. I just never got why people go ga-ga over Bond while condemning similarly stupid films to hell. Half the Bond films aren't worth watching, and of the other half that are, only half of that are really good, so that's like.....6 out of 22? Casino Royale looked like a really good film but when I finally saw it I found it to be only better-than-average. I dunno, Bond has just never excited me. Decent films, worth watching, just nothing special. I look forward to seeing Skyfall since it's supposed to be great, but I'm really only expecting something above-average, and I will definitely be waiting for home video. I only see one or two films a month, including repertoire cinemas, and my money has better places to go.

End unpopular Bond rant.

The fictional spy is our modern day equivalent of the escapist adventurer, or at least Bond is that way. The films and novels broke taboos when originally released, but over time the films began to simply want to create credible plotboilers that were credibly made. This really started when the Broccoli-Saltzman partnership broke up in 1974/75 and reared its head first fully on For Your Eyes Only. Compound this with the loss over time of the essential original crew members.

There are 10 to 15 great films with some being merely good, 1 interesting compromised experiment (LTK), the troubled Brosnans, the Craig abominations, and the two unoffcials.

But they are always intelligent and well crafted ('till 2006), which is why I think the Michael Bay comparison is absolutely unjustified.

To each their own, but I am the guy who's thesis was on 007. Not obsessed...;)

Oh dammit, outbid on DTS TND LD again. Oh well, now to check these UE errors out...;)

Evil of Frankenstein (1964)

Messy, but still somehow maintains some of the Hammer dignity. The continuity and events of the first two films are thrown out, the Monster is back with terrible makeup and serves no real purpose, the sets and production are uninspired, the plot is completely uninspired and because a deal had been struck with Universal seems to have been cobbled together from the worst Universal sequels. Even the interesting points or subplots aren't developed in any sense so they are quickly forgotten. Freddie Francis helms this one and like his Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, the visual look is striking, close and rather gritty combined with a grittier and dingier looking setting but with a story that is completely lacking.

The only reason to sit through this is for Cushing, who is as always fantastic. The conviction, weariness and sheer helplessness he puts into the line "Why? Why won't they leave me alone?" is the finest part of the film.
Personally I write this off as a one-off much like the abysmal Scars of Dracula is for the Dracula Hammer cycle.

2.5 balls out of 4 drunken hypnotists with a lust for glory who inadvertently obtain full control over Frankenstein's creation. (and yes, they somehow make even this boring and mundane.)

That's the one on my wishlist. Ironically, NSNA and CR look like their original theatrical presentations far more than the official films. Cr appears to be the same video master used for the DVDs and lacks the pop that the film should have in vintage 35mm. NSNA looks to be a fresh revival of its master with some minor cleanup but also lacking overall despite better showing off some of Slocombe's composition.

What you're seeing Asaki is yet another repressing of the UEs as single discs minus all extras, likely with the new single BD artwork. This makes about the 6th or 7th repackaging of these so far.

Single disc issues, Lenticular cover issues, lenticular 2 disc issues,  2 disc issues, White/grey backing single disc issues, white/grey backing 2 disc issues, and now BD single cover single disc issues. Good grief.

xhonzi said:

DominicCobb said:

Well M and Kincade were with him so the connection isn't that good. 

I don't think the comparison is the bit that he was the only one home, but that he rigged his house with what was in it, just like Kevin did.

But here's the stupid thing- Kevin's just a kid without access to anything other than paint cans, string, and micro machines.  (and the other stuff he rigged his house with).  He does the best he can... because he's a kid.  Now, I can't remember- is there a reason he doesn't call the cops?

Skyfall- Bond can lead Silva and his thugs anywhere, and he has (apparently) some amount of time to plan it out and get the suplies he needs.  I'm sure whatever guns, bombs, tanks, exploding pens he wanted he could get... he's James Bond.  Q is helping him.  And he doesn't even show up to the house with guns?  Or ammo?  WHAT?!?  They have half a box of shotgun shells and one shotgun.  Because Bond, who apparently doesn't want to or deserve to live, didn't think to bring guns to a gunfight. 

Most Bond movies end with Bond having to improvise on the spot with what he's got (including at least one gadget that Q gave him 2 hours ago whose use now becomes apparent).  The odds are often against him, and he always wins, but he'd be an idiot to intentionally create an impossible odds scenario.  He usually has an hour or less to save the world, so he doesn't really have time to get whatever resources he wants...

But in Skyfall, he has EVERY opportunity to get whatever resources he wants.  He stops to get the car (which was beautiful and fun, despite the fact it makes little sense) but he didn't bother to get anything else?

And why was M actually in the house when this happened?  Couldn't she have retreated to the church as soon as the baddies showed up?  Couldn't she have been in New Hampshire?  Silva didn't so much as track M to the house as follow Q's bread crumbs there, so she didn't have to actually be there, right?

That is true. I got the whole "must do it myself to hide you from villain so that I can then lead him to you and kill him." But to go out in an open area with no resources whatsoever is extremely foolhardy and only something the real Bond would do as a last resort when stranded and alone without any hope of support. This was extremely stupid and could have gone badly in any number of ways, and in the end he fails anyway.

And no, SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THERE! It was merely to save time, plot and kill her off as was their intention. (Thank God!)

I expected it to be a far more plausible scenario of drawing Silva out and then picking off the team alone from behind in a more Bondian fashion with some resources culled from either private sources of MI6 or anything. Or even do what was done without support when Bond was down to his last card, bruised battered and bleeding in desperation as Fleming wrote many times. But no, this guy is just an idiot.

It's an empty lumbering partially asleep beast of a movie. What exactly was the point again?

And why does Bond observe the assassination in the way he does? "Ok, just let you finish up there...and ok tell me...ok fight you for a bit...ok whoops dead...ok...oh hi random bimbo...ok yeah don't mind me I just killed that other guy..."

Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

How did this get past me for so long? Here is a film without a Frankenstein Monster as we think of, is an idea film, a morality play of sorts, and a film that truly has balls to do something altogether different. All this topped off by a deliciously ridiculous darkly humorous and damning conclusion.

This combined with the genius of Cushing gets...my full 4 balls out of 4. Wow.

And THIS is how you do a classic early widescreen film on DVD!! HD master, anamorphic 1.66:1, mono sound, grain intact, a few nicks and marks here and there, but stunning transfer and already 10 years old! Whoa, take that Hammer and shove your silly screwy BDs!

Wow, I like that this has turned into a historical debate on a Star Wars forum. Proves we've grown up a bit hasn't it? ;)

That was essentially my point in a nutshell Warb. It is a far more complex issue over the pretext to the conflict, and I always hated how everything is always resolved down to an entire war being fought over slavery alone. It was a needless war to begin with, and then came the trials of an incorrect Reconstruction which didn't help anyone.

SilverWook said:

How many of these know-it-all-alls have even seen a  movie projector up close, or handled a reel of film?

Never trust anyone who doesn't know how to thread a projector. ;)

Exactly. If you haven't worked in or know anything about a theater, distribution, or exhibition you shouldn't even be in the industry. Never had to lug around big fully loaded shockproof reel cases, or fix sync, or get so bored you swapped a reel of The Lake House with X-Men 3 have you Mr. TFN 720p sir?

Thanks for the update.

Just silliness. I once satirically joked about personally seceding and running my own nation of pop. 1 in order to establish myself as a rich lord etc. but that was only in jest.

That there are 23 states with petitions now is just pitifully stupid. This will go away quickly.

And despite what the history books may say, the Civil War was not all about the slavery issue. There are many, many, many issues that arose between North and South over many decades of ignorance, aggression, competition and economic struggle.

Almost forgot my LMS.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

One of my all time favorites and absolutely the savior of the horror film as we know it. Brilliant, creative, ingenious narrative setup with multifaceted ending, legendary color cinematography, and the unification of Cushing & Lee.

I was able to sample the new UK BD. Oh boy is it baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddd.

4 balls out of 4.

http://thehificelluloidmonster.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/the-curse-of-frankenstein-1957/

bkev said:

^What Captainsolo said! I feel as if the Moore Bond movies struggled to remain relevant by picking up on recent trends in pop culture and trying to utilize them; while Moonraker is the most blatant example, you can see it a little in each. While Moore as Bond has a bit of a bumbling aspect to him (the first time I saw L&LD I asked myself why Bond kept ... losing,) his portrayal is certainly fun. He has a suaveness that I'm not even sure Connery ever pulled off. It always made sense why he got the girl. I love him for different reasons than other actors; in fact, the problem I have with picking a favorite is that in my opinion there never WAS a bad Bond actor. Just bad movies that went along with him.

Thanks! I agree with never being able to choose a favorite actor or film. All are individually different.

Trooperman said:

I actually really love Moonraker and I thought Roger Moore was a worthy follow-up to Sean Connery.  The strong 70s feel of the Moore movies adds to the enjoyment for me because I love that period of filmmaking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oieAo5NiYjc

Listen to that melancholy, admittedly dated opening song.  Beautiful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg_SuMy812c

Beautiful travel montage

"Moonraker" is the most underrated of all the title themes. Brilliantly melancholic song.

Barry's score is quite wonderful and the recording in France gives it an otherworldly quality that perfectly fits the film. Sad that the master tapes were lost preventing a complete score release.

SilverWook said:

Always going to have a soft spot for Moonraker, as it was the first Bond I ever saw in a theater.

I still marvel at all the shuttle launch scenes. Derek Meddings and his crew nailed it two years before the real thing ever happened!

I wonder if anyone at NASA ever toyed with the idea of calling one of the real orbiters Moonraker? ;)

They should have! ;) The effects are quite good, especially for being done by hand on a limited sfx budget. I honestly maintain that Moonraker isn't a bad film, and does not deserve its reputation at all. Overall it's better than For Your Eyes Only for example, and is also the last of the over the top Bond films that went for pure spectacle. Also, it is the 70's version of Thunderball in terms of excess.

Trooperman said:

Skyfall (2012)

My initial reaction:

Holy shit.  That was not an action movie.  That was a movie warning its audience that they were going to go to hell. 

I was there. ;)

Seriously, I am amazed this movie got made. 

Same here.

Totally unlike any other Bond film.

Because it isn't!!

xhonzi said:

Skyfall- Maybe a 6.5/10.   MINOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

I'm not very upset about this one, but it didn't really do much for me.  I thought some of the scenes were done well, and others not so much.

This was my reaction to it: either James Bond is a fantasy character that hits every unnamed target he shoots at (boss fights last longer) and survives 300 ft falls into shallow pools, can drive/pilot anything, shrugs off bullets and never ages- all in a Tuxedo with perfect hair... or he's something more real, who gets old, gets shot by accident, only gets a gun from the quartermaster, and has the PM asking whether he's relevant in today's cyberworld.  In other words- he's Jason Bourne.

In this movie, he seems to alternate betwixt these two and you're never quite sure which one you're seeing.  Back to the sex-slave girl- in one scene, the gritty reality of the dark and nasty things that real bad guys do to real people in our real world, and in the next scene she's just a hot chick that's wanted Bond since the moment she saw him.  (Just like every other chick.)

Do these movies take place in the real world, or not?

However (this is where I get positive) I did think that it was extremely clever and totally surprising that while I thought I was watching the continuation of a James Bond prequel, I was actually watching a stealth reboot of one of my childhood favourite series.  When they showed Bond's parents' graves and they said Peter and Kate Mccallister, my mind was litteraly blown!  So, they finally confirmed that Bond is, in fact, a code name given to each 007 they recruit and that this Bond was, in fact, once Kevin Mccallister!  GENIUS!

Conclusion- too silly to be serious, too serious to be fun.

P.S. "Haha! Take that! He's ROBIN, FRINK'S MOTHER!!!" Didn't work for me here either.  But the last 10 seconds were cool, if a bit headscratching when accounting the logical implications.

Interesting points. The current iteration does indeed flounder between the cinematic legacy, Fleming and the cinematic Bourne.

Loathed the unnecessary character reveal. Loved Fiennes role however.

georgec said:

005 said:

006/007

008?

MINOR SKYFALL SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm not sure what I think of Skyfall. I like what the movie tried to do, bringing the story a bit closer from all the "bad guy wants to blow up stuff" in other films. But the middle of the movie felt like going through the motions.

Oh, and was it necessary to include Wolf Blitzer in a news scene? That kind of garbage takes me out of a movie. I don't need to see Wolf Blitzer's face to realize that it's a news broadcast on the television in that scene. That's another lame Hollywood trend - "If we put an actual news figure in that scene, people will think it's more real!"

Gah.

Yes the bit with The Wolf was a bit too obvious. Hearing his wonderful monotone wasn't what i expected when in Bond-verse.

The film hit me sideways and I still am not sure whether I hated it it or didn't. As someone who actively studies all 007 aspects it's a very mixed bag, which confuses me even more. All I can say is

SPOILER!!

Judi Dench got the boot!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!

SPOILER end.

And NOT SO SPOILER: Purvis and Wade are out as screenwriters. YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do hate plot summarizing and trying to avoid spoilers. I couldn't hardly talk about the film in my blog review, in order to avoid spoiling much of anything.

I have the TSWLM edition, and they are indeed housed together as separate transfers on one single sided DVD9. For all intents and purposes these transfers are identical to what are on the SE discs.

The MGM issues will look identical to the SE DVDs/1990's VHS and virtually everything else older. The 1989 discs were repackaged into two box sets but with pressing dates 2-3 later so there may be some slight-very very slight improvement in transfer. The Goldfinger and Thunderball CAV boxes use these transfers with full CAV but with some added edge enhancement at least on TB.

The Criterion DN/FRWL/GF use show prints and are at 1.75:1 instead of 1.66:1 original ratio. The MGMs are correct.

Buying both box Connery boxsets is the easiest route, and nowadays can be had pretty cheap. Sound is all great, fully accurate PCM mono save for the title song in Goldfinger which was inserted as stereo instead of mono on all 1989 and onward MGM discs. The most worn audio is FRWL (lots of hiss but never detracts from presentation) and the most worn print is surprisingly DAF.

NSNA is only on a Warner letterbox disc, but I don't have a copy. I don't imagine it should look much if any different from the initial MGM DVD. The lossless original sound would be the draw.

As for advantage over later issues, you get the films as originally presented, warts and all versus the SE DVDs with compression artifacts/cropping on the first three films/Edge Enhancement etc./lossy audio vs. the UE/BDs which lose grain structure, color timing, have no lossless mono.

I'm honestly of the opinion that LD is still king on these titles.

Wow, good luck with these! I've considered getting a few HK LDs for PCM original audio, but with some of these films it was hard enough to find DVDs let alone passable foreign LDs.

The 5.1 remixes on ABT I and II are horrible. III was such a bad film I try to forget.

This is exciting news for such overlooked films here in the States  like PS I and II, the ABT films, City on Fire, and if I may suggest Bullet in the Head?

BTW any thoughts on the uncut Drunken Master II? The version I saw was supposedly uncut but cropped and from a very poor master.

James ironically was from New York.

LALD has IMO the best non-Barry score, George Martin really nailed it.

The low-key aspects really help the film's impact in addition to the non-stop setpieces/snakepits. Bond is a thinking cold blooded intellegence agent again and Moore is quite ruthless in his use and manipulation of others to achieve results.

The blaxploitation elements are regrettable nowadays yes, but as with TMWTGG to a lesser extent with kung-fu if you can look past them the film's overabundance of charm knocks you over.

It's also notable for being the only solo Tom Mankewicz screenplay.

Oh heck I'll admit I'm just writing about my childhood favorite to avoid thinking about SKYFAIL.