So, what’s new, psycat90?
“Goldfinger,” no doubt, even if Shirley Bassey is a bit of a bitch.
Can’t understand people slagging “Die Another Day.” It was certainly a departure from the norm for a Bond theme but I thought it was brilliant. Part of its brilliance is Madonna’s manipulation of the “Bond theme” genre as a tool of self-promotion.
The Carly Simon song is decent but it suffers from the clunky inclusion of the film title.
“View to a Kill” is fun.
How is that inclusion clunky? I think it’s done gracefully.
Color me unimpressed with Madonna’s self-promotion: it’s really the only thing she does well, and even that is becoming old and tired. There’s a Roger Dodger-type depreciating monologue at her expense in here somewhere, but I was just hoping she’d get wacked during that inane sword-fighting sequence. No such luck.
Stranger
I really like “Live and Let Die,” mainly because I played it in band in junior high. And the saxophones (including me) got the sappy opening, which was fun.
I’m not really a Bond fan.
I wouldn’t call it brilliant, but I do like it.
It just comes off to my ear like “we have to get this phrase in here, let’s put it…here.”
Maybe I’m just odd, but Madonna is about the only person on the planet who in my mind Can Do No Wrong.
I’ve tried to express my rationale for feeling this way about six different times in composing this post but I keep finding myself using phrases like “transcending human boundaries” and the like and it’s just not gelling coherently. I’m a bit intoxicated at the moment so that isn’t exactly helping either.
The James Bond Theme
Goldfinger
Nobody Does it Better
Moonraker
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
Live and Let Die
I must confess to a hankering for the theme from the original Casino Royale by (if memory serves) Burt Bacharach, played by Herb Alpert. Movie was too cheesy for words, notwithstanding the talent they roped in. Nothing bombs worse than attempted satire that bombs. But those trumpets! Sensational.
Dude, have you even seen Swept Away? The only thing I’ve ever seen her in where’s she’s decent is The Driver: Star, and then only because she plays a barely fictionalized version of herself.
Stranger
Well, no, of course not, because if there were such a thing as this “Swept Away” you speak of it could require me to re-evaluate my “Madonna can do no wrong” policy.
Actually the policy applies to music rather than film so this Swept Away thing you speak of doesn’t really figure into the equation regardless.
Man, me too! Best by far. I saw Bill Nye the Science Guy do a parody…
Friction Fingah
He’s the man
the man with the frictiony touch
it hurts so much
In no particular order, my top 3:
Live and Let Die
A View To A Kill
Goldfinger
The rest are entirely forgettable.
Hardly unique, given Tom Jones, Matt Monroe and Louis Armstrong had all done Bond Themes before.
I think “We Have All The Time In The World” from OHMSS is a lovely song, while “Goldfinger” is the gold standard by which Bond themes will forever be judged, and “The World Is Not Enough” was surprisingly good. But why all the hate for the film?
mm
Deja Vu, anyone? And mine probably wasn’t the first, either.
Agreed! Nobody Does It Better than Carly Simon. Makes me feel sad for the rest. 
Her best movie was Vision Quest.
Good lord, no love for A-Ha’s Living Daylights theme?
I’d place it third on my favorites list - behind Shirley Bassey’s Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger - but considering how few of you named only one favorite, I’m surprised to not see it listed at all.
Worst is Moonraker, with Live and Let Die just a notch above it. I think L&LD benefits too much from Paul McCartney’s reputation. Musically, IMHO, it stinks.
Six words: Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. Appropriate for a Broken Lizard jokefest, asinine in a Bond movie. That film was such a self-parody of Bond movies that it kicked the feet out from under Mike Myers. It’s like Kevin Federline: such a absurd parody of what it’s trying to be that there’s really no way to exaggerate it’s most bizarre qualities. Still, it’s head and shoulders above Die Another Day, though. And Denise Richards could kick Halle Barry’s ass all over a stage any day of the week, thespian-wise, which is no complement to either party. Berry really needs to give back her Oscar and collect the “Lifetime Misachievement Award” from the Razzies.
Stranger
Chris Cornell’s song “You Know My Name,” the theme song to the newest Casino Royale, didn’t do much for me the first time I heard it. But I liked it just enough to get it from iTunes, and now I like it a little more every time I hear it. Good bass line, and lyrics that allude to the movie without hitting you over the head.
I guess I’d have to say that’s my favorite, closely followed by Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” from The Spy Who Loved Me, which is winsome and sexy, and Shirley Bassey’s theme from Goldfinger, for its sheer Sixties kitschiness.
Probably “Goldfinger” because it’s so iconic and because well… it’s Shirley Bassey! I also like “Thunderball”.
VCNJ~