Sir Roger Moore is Dead

[Nickdfresh]

What?!

Seriously, the thing that stands out most to me about the Brosnan Bond flicks are the stunts, particularly the car gags.

I meant my Bronson gaffe, he would have been a great Bond!

[Terry]

I meant my Bronson gaffe, he would have been a great Bond!

LOVE the pic!!

Jill Ireland could have been the Bond Femme Fatale in every Bronson Bond flick.

Maybe Bronson's Bondian catch phrase could have been something suitably subtle...like, when Bronson Bond is about to execute an enemy, he aims his gun at him and asks (a la Death Wish 2): "Do you believe in Jesus? Well, you're gonna meet him," then pulls the trigger.

[Nickdfresh]

Very cockney!

[Nickdfresh]

In the end, "Death Wish" and the Bond films are pretty close actually. The Bond ones are just more sophisticated...

Fuck, Mannix, a recently discovered classic I've started watching on the local TV Land affiliate sets the standard for dumb macho shenanigans for educated white guys....


I've been shot 55 times in eight years, bitch! You feel lucky, punk? Do ya'!"

[Terry]

In the end, "Death Wish" and the Bond films are pretty close actually. The Bond ones are just more sophisticated...

Fuck, Mannix, a recently discovered classic I've started watching on the local TV Land affiliate sets the standard for dumb macho shenanigans for educated white guys....


I've been shot 55 times in eight years, bitch! You feel lucky, punk? Do ya'!"

The first Death Wish movie, I think, is a well-made flick that manages to be fairly thoughtful in terms of addressing the concerns people in urban areas circa 1976 had about street crime. Perhaps thoughtful isn't quite the word, but the first Death Wish managed to be not...shall we say...an immersion in Grindhouse exploitation.

The second Death Wish was just a nasty bit of business. No real pretentions toward touching upon ongoing concerns of urban crime other than a few passing remarks in the script. The movie just unapologetically and voyeuristically wallowed in prolonged rape scenes and wanton violence. Which is to say, I quite enjoyed the movie.

My favorite, however, is Death Wish 3, which is just so beyond the pale...surely just as nasty in terms of the sexualized violence, but ridiculously over-the-top cartoonish in terms of scale (a characteristic not uncommon to virtually every Cannon film during their prolific 1980s run of flicks). I mean, at one point Kersey blows this Bronx street hood out of a window...with a bazooka! And this follows a 15 minute automatic gun battle in the streets of the Bronx...I mean, as bad as the Bronx was, it still wasn't downtown Aleppo! Whereas Death Wish 2 was a pretty grisly, joyless viewing experience, Death Wish 3 comes off to me as almost a black comedy because it's so silly and outlandish in terms of anything approaching reality.

The rest of the Death Wish series following 3 was a case of steadily diminishing returns. I mean, Bronson aged out of the role long before he stopped making the sequels (even with DW3 he was pushing the age envelope). However, I'd actually say the first Death Wish movie was probably (for me) a better film than ANY of the Bond movies.

There certainly something to be said for macho tough guy tv and movie roles up to and including the late 1980s. The newer generations of tv and movie tough guys always seem to be more concerned with looking fit and posing than actually just being tough. Or, like along the lines of...say...Bruce Willis, one can't buy into the pushy posturing.