Word: bonde
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Because of its extensive use of blacks, it attempts to broaden its appeal and double its audience. But it only offends. Fleming's loving portrait of Harlem by night is gone, replaced by a leering broad daylight cab ride into Harlem, whose one joke is of course Bond's whiteness in black Harlem. There is an obligatory Harlem shot (125th and Lenox probably). But this is obviously not Harlem, because this Harlem has no people, only pimps and pimp cars. It's a set piece, all clothes and cars. The Superfly ripoff is appalling. The book prided itself...
...aside, I like to think that there's no qualitative or quantitative difference between one Bond movie and the next. This series defines popular art for the middle class white masses, just as "Superfly" defines that art for the black masses. What surfaces in "Live and Let Die" is little more than ostentatious Action...
There is yet a more serious failure of approach. Each of the Bond series has been characterized by a certain flippancy of approach. Apparently no one ever felt the need for accuracy, or credibility. Consequently, we are expected to believe a chase sequence in which Moore merely maneuvers a cab through a meticulously placed set of cars, showroom new to boot, on an otherwise empty FDR drive. It could've been a Liberty Mutual auto insurance commercial...
...days of James Bond's multi-purpose cars are gone. He himself is reduced to a sort of easy domestic complexity, and good old Midlands ingenuity. Goldfinger succeeded precisely because it was so far-fetched. Live and Let Die forces Bond to stand on his own, and he's just not as interesting when he hasn't got a brace of devices for assistance...
...major problem is one of obsolescence. Bond movies can no longer rely on the Cold War for accessible plots. No more SMERSH or SPECTRE. Consequently, Live and Let Die is no more than an elaborate heroin swindle. The movie's Mr. Big turns into an ordinary villain, and a nondescript one at that. He is at no time believable...