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RIP Yaphet Kotto


Jive Turkey

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1 hour ago, Jive Turkey said:

great actor.  so many memorable roles.

but for me, he'll always be Alonzo Mosley.

 

Your OP has exactly the same sentiment I have.  He was such a great foil as Moseley for DeNiro in Midnight Run.   Such a great film.  
 

 

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He's hilarious in Midnight Run. Perfect casting - although that entire movie is basically perfect casting. 

Alien is one of my favorite films ever. 

He barely acted post 2000. I guess he just sat back and enjoyed that TV money.

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

He's hilarious in Midnight Run. Perfect casting - although that entire movie is basically perfect casting. 

Alien is one of my favorite films ever. 

He barely acted post 2000. I guess he just sat back and enjoyed that TV money.

Two things -- heard a story the other day about how Midnight Run was cast. Initially, the studio wanted a female to play the role of the "Duke" to create sexual tension between DeNiro and the character. It wanted Cher. The director said no way. The studio then suggested Robin Williams, who'd read the script and liked it. In the meantime, the director auditioned and hired Grodin and was pretty firm that he wasn't changing. The studio dropped out and another one stepped in. I can't imagine Robin Williams in that role.

Alien is damn near a perfect film.

 

10 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sad that he's being remembered as the silliest bad guy in the silliest Bond movie.  He had a great run in the late 80s - Running Man, Midnight Run, etc. Was supposedly the first choice for Captain on Star Trek above Patrick Stewart. 

I fucking love Live and Let Die to this day. Jane Seymour might be the greatest Bond chick of all time.

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16 minutes ago, C-Man said:

 

I fucking love Live and Let Die to this day. Jane Seymour might be the greatest Bond chick of all time.

I mean, granted she's hot.  No Pussy Galore or Honey Ryder, but hot.  But the whole Superfly Bond homage-to-blaxploitation, not-so-casual-racist plot is just hard to watch if she's not on screen.  

Maybe it's still better than Man with the Golden Gun, but that's it.  

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59 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sad that he's being remembered as the silliest bad guy in the silliest Bond movie.  He had a great run in the late 80s - Running Man, Midnight Run, etc. Was supposedly the first choice for Captain on Star Trek above Patrick Stewart. 

damn.  i completely forgot he was in Running Man.  it's been too long since i've seen that classic.

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1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I mean, granted she's hot.  No Pussy Galore or Honey Ryder, but hot.  But the whole Superfly Bond homage-to-blaxploitation, not-so-casual-racist plot is just hard to watch if she's not on screen.  

Maybe it's still better than Man with the Golden Gun, but that's it.  

The 70's Bond movies are definitely kitschy and they look dated, even moreso because Connery's from the 60's seem more, I don't know, timeless maybe. I like nearly every Bond movie made by Connery and Moore, though. I can watch them all to this day.

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1 hour ago, d2o said:

Loved him in Blue Collar with Richard Pryor.

and Harvey Keitel.  

“They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.”
YAPHET KOTTO - Smokey

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Yeah, I don't remember the "not so casual" racism in Live and Let Die.  I loved his role. I thought he made a great Bond villain, and he was the first black actor to star as the villain.  Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough?  At any rate as I've said on the Celebrity Death thread, he played some great roles from my youth and he was outstanding in all of them.  SO much so that I just can't imagine anyone else playing that part.  RIP Yaphet. 

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7 hours ago, C-Man said:

 

Alien is damn near a perfect film.

Pardon the mild thread jack, but I watched the entire Alien franchise in chronological order a little while ago and thought it was an interesting and (slightly) new perspective. 

https://amp.cinemablend.com/news/2474862/alien-movie-timeline-explained-all-alien-movies-in-order-chronologically-and-by-release-date

Edited by Prepuce of Doom
We ought to discuss the bonus situation.
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7 hours ago, C-Man said:

The 70's Bond movies are definitely kitschy and they look dated, even moreso because Connery's from the 60's seem more, I don't know, timeless maybe. I like nearly every Bond movie made by Connery and Moore, though. I can watch them all to this day.

It's as hard to rank the Moore Bond flics as the other 8 programs in the new Big12.  They all have the same structure and appearance, and are distinguished mainly by their lead villain.  You can make a case that live and let die and the Golden gun are the best because they use the same director from the Connery years. 

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It's as hard to rank the Moore Bond flics as the other 8 programs in the new Big12.  They all have the same structure and appearance, and are distinguished mainly by their lead villain.  You can make a case that live and let die and the Golden gun are the best because they use the same director from the Connery years. 

For Your Eyes Only should be in that list as well. It was probably my favorite.
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2 hours ago, Hate said:


For Your Eyes Only should be in that list as well. It was probably my favorite.

By far the best Moore Bond film.  Man with a Golden Gun is a boring thinkpiece.  Octopussy and Moonraker are silly.  A View to a Kill is wholly ridiculous- I kept waiting for Moore to break the fourth wall and start laughing when he made quiche for Tanya Roberts.  
 

No surprise the overcorrection was to the dull, machine-like Dalton films.  
 

Ffolkes was the best Moore Bond film now that I think about it. 

Edited by Liquor and Poker
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23 hours ago, Hate said:

Yeah, I don't remember the "not so casual" racism in Live and Let Die.  I loved his role. I thought he made a great Bond villain, and he was the first black actor to star as the villain.  Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough?  At any rate as I've said on the Celebrity Death thread, he played some great roles from my youth and he was outstanding in all of them.  SO much so that I just can't imagine anyone else playing that part.  RIP Yaphet. 

LALD was "racialist" playing on the blaxploitation genre popular in the 70s. The cab ride to Harlem captured the mood of white paranoia.  

 

The black gangsters were every bit as intelligent and strong as the white authorities.  I assume it would be called "racist" by today's woke mob because Yaphet's Mr Big turns out not to be interested in racial equity. Instead he is another capitalist megalomaniac equal to the others.

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31 minutes ago, notre dame joe said:

LALD was "racialist" playing on the blaxploitation genre popular in the 70s. The cab ride to Harlem captured the mood of white paranoia.  

 

The black gangsters were every bit as intelligent and strong as the white authorities.  I assume it would be called "racist" by today's woke mob because Yaphet's Mr Big turns out not to be interested in racial equity. Instead he is another capitalist megalomaniac equal to the others.

Live and Let Die also had the first black Bond girl, which was probably a pretty big fucking deal at the time.  I guess if you want to look for racism in the first Bond film to feature a black villain and a black Bond girl you can find it.  It seems that it was pretty progressive for its time. 

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1 hour ago, Hate said:

Live and Let Die also had the first black Bond girl, which was probably a pretty big fucking deal at the time.  I guess if you want to look for racism in the first Bond film to feature a black villain and a black Bond girl you can find it.  It seems that it was pretty progressive for its time. 

 

007 didn't hesitate to knock it down !

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On 3/16/2021 at 3:30 PM, Liquor and Poker said:

I mean, granted she's hot.  No Pussy Galore or Honey Ryder, but hot.  But the whole Superfly Bond homage-to-blaxploitation, not-so-casual-racist plot is just hard to watch if she's not on screen.  

Maybe it's still better than Man with the Golden Gun, but that's it.  

 

On 3/16/2021 at 4:59 PM, C-Man said:

The 70's Bond movies are definitely kitschy and they look dated, even moreso because Connery's from the 60's seem more, I don't know, timeless maybe. I like nearly every Bond movie made by Connery and Moore, though. I can watch them all to this day.

 

I'll watch any Moore Bond flick on a loop before I watch Die Another Day or The World Is Not Enough again. And that's saying something considering View To A Kill is pretty damned bad.

Those two are hands down worse than anything Moore ever did.

RIP Mr. Big

Live-and-Let-Die-151.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

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