DEZ REVIEWS: Sex and the City

Just kidding.

a James Bond primer, part 2

CONTINUED from yesterday…

Roger Moore, 1973-85


For many Bond fans, including myself, Roger Moore was the Bond that they were first introduced to. That is a shame, because he was also the worst. Moore brought the element of slapstick humor into the series, and all of his films are rather schizophrenic. Sometimes they try to be serious action/espionage flicks, but then moments later they become cartoonish.

Live and Let Die, 1973 **
The Man With the Golden Gun, 1974 **
The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977 ***
Moonraker, 1979 **
For Your Eyes Only, 1981 ***
Octopussy, 1983 ***
A View To a Kill, 1985 *


ABOVE: Roger Moore gets ready for a duel against adversary Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). Scaramanga was possibly the most intriguing villain in Bond World, but he was wasted in one of the worst selections of the franchise, The Man With the Golden Gun

Moore’s first couple of outings were shaky indeed, but he finally found his footing with his third try, The Spy Who Loved Me, which many critics feel is Moore’s best (my personal favorite Moore film is Octopussy). The Man With the Golden Gun was a missed opportunity, as it featured Christopher Lee as the villain/assassin Scaramanga, who may be the best Bond villain in the entire series. But the rest of the movie is so poorly done, Lee is completely wasted here. Moonraker is notoriously bad; Bond in Space as they try to cash in on the Star Wars phenomenon (Bond doesn’t actually go to space in the excellent Fleming novel). Moore then surprises with his two best Bond outings, but goes out with the nadir of the entire series. The only thing to recommend for the dismal A View to a Kill is the Duran Duran theme song.

Timothy Dalton, 1987-89

Dalton doesn’t really get a fair shake. His Bond was a breath of fresh air for fans of Fleming’s original conception of Bond. Dalton brought a much needed (relative) gravitas back to the character, going a long way to erase Moore’s slapstick legacy. The problem was that the two films he did were mediocre (not his fault), and audiences were not used to such a coldhearted hero who dispensed with much of the charm and wit of the character.

The Living Daylights, 1987 ***
License to Kill, 1989 ***

Pierce Brosnan, 1995-2002

If there was ever an actor born to play Bond, it was Brosnan. In fact, he was the producer’s first choice as the replacement for Moore, but due to contractual restrictions with his TV show ‘Remington Steele’, Brosnan couldn’t get free to take the part. But he got his chance in 1995. Brosnan is perfect throughout as Bond; the fault during his tenure lies with the scripts and directors. In two of his four films, they start off very strong and have the potential to be some of the better films in the series, but about halfway through both films it is like the writers, directors and producers lost their nerve and had to throw in the standard Bond clichés just to be safe. I wish Brosnan had been given better material, because he deserved better.

Goldeneye, 1995 ****
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 **
The World Is Not Enough, 1999 **
Die Another Day, 2002 **

Daniel Craig, 2006-present

Sweet revenge. When it was announced that Daniel Craig would be the next Bond, Bondophiles were irate. Websites sprung up for the sole purpose of ridiculing Craig and trying to organize boycotts. A blonde Bond?! Blasphemy. Craig was seen as a tough guy actor with no charm or class. But once his debut as Bond was released, it was quickly hailed as perhaps the best Bond film ever made. I have to agree that it is at least the equal of some of Connery’s classics. Taking a cue from the success of the Batman reboot Batman Begins, the Bond producers decided to “start over” and investigate Bond’s early days. But instead of sticking with the Fleming timeline of Bond starting his espionage career during World War II, they wisely updated the character so he could get his start at the end of the Cold War. The result was a gritty, engaging and thrilling action film. On a side note: fellow Bond fan Willis and I had spent long hours discussing what needed to be done to re-energize the Bond films. I specifically recall saying that they ought to go back to the roots of the relatively simple but engaging plot of Fleming’s first Bond book, Casino Royale. Once Craig’s debut came out, I can happily report that they took most of our suggestions to heart.

Casino Royale, 2006 ****1/2

On deck is Craig’s next outing, Quantum of Solace, to be released in November of this year. I can’t wait. Something almost unheard of for Bond, this next one is supposed to be an actual sequel to Casino Royale and continue its storyline. Bond films have always been self contained, episodic adventures. It never mattered in which order you watched them. But apparently, this next film is supposed pick up “within one hour” of the ending of the last one and continue on. Very cool.


ABOVE: The teaser posters are already out for Bond's next adventure, Quantum of Solace. Kudos to the Bond producers for going back to Ian Fleming titles ('Quantum of Solace' was an original Bond short story by Fleming)

Thanks for sticking with me on this journey through the world of Bond. In sum, if you are a neophyte or just want to revisit the most iconic hero in movies with a new appreciation, I would start with these three selections: Casino Royale (2006), From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964).

a James Bond primer, part 1

I know I’ve had lots of posts lately regarding cinematic heroes. For me, the ultimate cinematic hero has got to be James Bond, Agent 007 in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bond is the most successful screen franchise in history, with 21 official films released so far, and another on the way at the end of this year. I’ve been a fan ever since I was a little kid, having read all of Ian Fleming’s original novels and short stories. Explaining why a young boy or young man would enjoy Bond is easy enough: action, gambling, exotic locales and even more exotic women, gadgets, espionage. What else do you want?

Fleming’s Bond is quite different from what Bond has become on the big screen. The books are a bit darker, with no gadgets, less action and more espionage. They are straight-up Cold War-era spy tales. For instance, Bond probably draws his gun once or twice in the entire book of ‘Casino Royale’. But for better or for worse, it is the movies that really define Bond for most of us.


ABOVE: Bond's creator, author Ian Fleming

To be honest, Bond fans (such as myself) give the films quite a bit of leeway. Some are great, some are really bad, and some are ugly. But they are all a part of the greater canon. What I have done below is give you a brief guide. I have grouped the films by actor portraying the world’s most famous superspy. There have been six gentlemen so far who have portrayed Bond: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and now Daniel Craig.

I am leaving out two films, as they are not a part of the official United Artists/EON canon. In 1967, a bad slapstick spoof was made called Casino Royale starring David Niven as Bond, and also featuring Woody Allen and Peter Sellers. Also, 1983’s Never Say Never Again (essentially a remake of Thunderball) was released by Warner Bros. and starred Sean Connery in an ill-advised return to the character.

Each film is graded on a scale of * to *****.

SEAN CONNERY, 1962-67, 1971


For many Bondophiles, Connery is the one and only James Bond. Connery captured the danger of Fleming’s spy perfectly. You could believe that he was a physical threat, and being the 1960’s, Connery’s Bond was able to get away with a chauvinistic swagger that would not be acceptable today. I think back to the scene in Goldfinger where Bond has to talk business with his CIA buddy Felix Leiter, and he says to his female companion “say goodbye to Felix” as he sends her on her way with a nice slap on the ass. Ah, the good ‘ole days. It is funny in retrospect that Ian Fleming was initially opposed to Connery getting the role, as he thought Connery too “brutish and unrefined” to play the character.

Dr. No, 1962 ***
From Russia With Love, 1963 ****1/2
Goldfinger, 1964 ****
Thunderball, 1965 ***
You Only Live Twice, 1967 **
Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 **

BELOW: The key element to the continued success of the Bond films with young men. Below is Ursula Andress from Dr. No



BELOW: "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" (apologies for the garbled sound in the film clip)



Dr. No was an auspicious beginning, to be sure, but not all of the classic Bond elements were yet in place (no Q, for example). Jack Lord was probably the coolest Felix Leiter of the whole series. And Ursula Andress emerging like a goddess from the ocean…one of the iconic moments of cinema. Goldfinger is often considered the best Bond film, and it definitely has some great stuff in it. (See Roger Ebert’s famous essay on Goldfinger, where he outlines how it is the prototype for all future Bond adventures. Worth reading, an entertaining analysis.) The scene with Bond strapped to the table and the laser homing in on his nether regions may be the most famous Bond scene of all time. Goldfinger’s Pussy Galore has to be the best name for a Bond girl (Connery’s wonderful reaction when she introduces herself to him: “I must be dreaming”), although I am also a fan of Plenty O'Toole from Diamonds Are Forever. My money for the best Bond film ever is on From Russia With Love. The fight scene between Connery and villain Red Grant (played by Robert Shaw) is still exhilarating. Kind of downhill for Connery after his first three.

GEORGE LAZENBY, 1969


Poor Laze’. He had the impossible task of following Connery in the role, before it was accepted that multiple actors could play Bond. Ravaged by critics and fans alike at the time, Lazenby’s single outing as Bond has since been re-evaluated and is now considered one of the better ones. The film definitely has the trappings of the late 60’s, but Lazenby does a fine job. Telly Savalas makes for one of the more entertaining Bond villains as well. Had Connery been given this one to do, it may very well have been considered the best Bond film. Bond shows uncharacteristic emotion, even getting married (just to have his new bride murdered by Savalas’ Blofeld).

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969 ****

TO BE CONTINUED tomorrow…

Etta Knows the 'Real Shit'

As you might guess, I read liner notes for albums/CDs religiously. They are generally puff pieces for the artists, but sometimes there is great stuff there. I recently purchased The Definitive Collection by Etta James (my wife and I used her "At Last" for our first dance at our wedding). Etta co-wrote the liner notes, commenting on each tune. One of my favorite quotes is Etta's assessment of her performance of the Otis Redding classic "I've Been Loving You Too Long": "That's one of my best [tracks]. When it comes to love and feelings, this is the real shit - all the way."


ABOVE: Etta James delivers only the highest quality, vintage 'real shit'

Life on Mars?

Incredibly, last night we accomplished the same thing that we accomplished back in 1976, a soft landing on Mars. Sarcasm aside, it really is a big deal. Most Americans probably missed the story, but the Phoenix mission to Mars that landed successfully last night in Mars' polar region (the first successful landing on that part of the planet) could help to show, once and for all, that we are not alone in our universe.

After a pair of disasterous losses almost a decade ago, NASA was forced to scale back our Mars exploration programs. Over half of all attempts to land on Mars (by all nations) have ended in failure. But after the earlier polar lander crashed on the Red Planet in 1999, NASA went back to the drawing board and made some changes. Last night all of that hard work paid off.


ABOVE: Phoenix may be the key to proving that "life" exists or existed somewhere other than on Earth (artistic rendition, but this is what Phoenix likely looks like right now)

Being the nerds we are, my wife and I watched coverage last night of the dramatically dubbed 'Seven Minutes of Terror' (the time between entering the Martian atmosphere and touching down on the planet, which is the most likely period that something could go wrong). It was a very exciting and complicated seven minutes, where the lander had to go from over 12,000 mph to 5 mph in seven minutes, using the heat generated while entering the atmosphere to slow down. During the process, the lander had to enter the atmosphere, shed its heat shield, release a supersonic parachute system, use carefully timed thrusters and land softly on the harsh planet surface. The landing went off without a hitch, and NASA's future plans for Martian exploration may very well have been saved with it. The only other successful landing on Mars of this kind, "the soft landing", was in 1976 with the Viking rovers which landed in Mars' equatorial region. The other rovers that are still running around on Mars taking pictures landed through a different process. If we are to send people to Mars, which NASA intends to do sooner than you might think, we have to show that we can perform these "soft landings" regularly.

The key to the Phoenix is not the cameras that will send us amazing photos of a part of Mars we've never seen up close. The key is an eight foot long arm that looks kind of like it is part of a Tonka dump truck. This arm will dig in the soil of Mars. The reason we were so interested in landing in the polar regions is that it is believed that there is ice just under the surface, a sort of permafrost. Scientists think that this ice may contain organic compounds, the raw ingredients for life as we understand it. If we find that...I don't really need to explain the implications. If we find evidence in our tiny little outpost of a solar system of "life" on two separate planets, then the likelihood of many instances and possible varieties of life in other systems becomes astronomically high. That is incredibly exciting. Funny enough, some scientists believe that Mars is not even the most likely place to find life outside of Earth within our solar system. That would be Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. But for now, we'll be satisfied with finding evidence on Mars.


ABOVE: One of the first photos sent back from Phoenix last night. Doesn't look like much, but scientists are very excited about the patterns on the surface that you can see in the picture. This indicates repeated freezing and thawing, meaning ice and water.

DEZ REVIEWS: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"

Why is it that everything George Lucas touches these days (hell, the past two decades or so) turns to crap? He forever marred the perfect memories of the Star Wars saga with his new prequel trilogy. And now this. Although, to be honest, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is the only worthwhile film in the Indiana Jones series. In fact, it is one of the most perfect action films ever made. The second one was universally acknowledged as crap. The third one is loved by many for some reason, I guess it was mainly due to the stunt casting of Sean Connery as Indy's dad. But, really, it was crap too and a total retread of the first one. You would think with Steven Spielberg directing each of the Indiana Jones films, that would at least provide a high quality filter from Lucas's crapiness. But not so.

I appreciate that these are supposed to be homages to the pulp comics and Saturday morning adventures of yesteryear. So things are not supposed to be exactly realistic. Yet when watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark", I could at least talk myself into believing that "yeah, OK, a guy could probably survive that." But throw any semblance of plausibility out the window here when Jones walks away from an A-BOMB BLAST when he is almost at ground zero.

Fine, even so. If it is done well and has some unexpected twists and turns, then I can forgive the implausibility. Nothing is surprising or done particularly well here. As Indy says himself, "same old, same old". The 36 or so jokes about Indy's age were totally unnecessary, you could see it for yourself on the screen. Harrison Ford, once so charming and gritty as one of the great action heroes, looks tired and like he's going through the motions to collect his paycheck. Karen Allen returning as Marion Ravenwood (the only interesting female character of the entire series) was welcome, but even she was not given too much to do this time around. Her character has lost all of the fire and maddening stubborness that made her Indy's match in the first film. Shia LeBouf does a fair job as Indy's heir apparent, considering the script he was given to work with.

I commend Spielberg for kicking it mostly old school and using real stuntmen vs. all CGI. That was refreshing. Although, the CGI that is used is pretty bad and completely ruins the spirit of the old films. CGI has no place in an Indiana Jones film.


ABOVE: Cate Blanchett's evil Russian: "I vill keel you if you don't give me vat I vant!" Or something along those lines. Harrison Ford thinking: 'when do I get paid?'

I find it astounding that Lucas, Spielberg and Ford pushed this film off for over a decade because they claimed that they could not settle on a script or story that was up to Indy's standards. So they greenlit this? This convoluted, tired, cliched story? My god, how bad were the scripts that they passed over? The villains here are evil Russkies vs. the old standby Nazis. It's 1957 instead of the World War II years. But that doesn't really matter. They still have those bad guy accents and expendible uniformed henchmen who can't hit the side of a barn with all of their firepower. Come on, if they are shooting at Indiana Jones from about 15 feet away with machine guns, at least let him get hit in the arm or something. I saw almost every ambush or cocked-gun-sound-behind-someone's-back-just-as-they-are-about-to-do-something-important coming before any of these characters did. Why? Because I've seen the other three movies. You'd think Indiana Jones would have figured that out by now as well.

Man, I need to go watch my "Raiders of the Lost Ark" DVD to remind myself why Indiana Jones was so special in the first place.

** out of *****

NBA Playoffs, round 3

The "second season" of the NBA grinds on, with the first game of the conference finals set to go tonight.

A look back...The Kobe Show (aka L.A. Lakers) handled the Utah Jazz without much trouble, beating them 4-2. Likewise in the East, Detroit took care of Orlando without breaking much of a sweat, 4-1. More importantly, they were able to get their series done quickly so the injured Chauncey Billups could rest from his injury. Detroit can't advance beyond the conference finals with Billups out. Boston continued to have more trouble in the playoffs than expected, going seven games against Lebron and Cleveland, but they did advance. The San Antonio / New Orleans series was interesting, and the frustrating, methodical and consistent Spurs handled the Game 7 pressure better than the Hornets and beat them last night in The Big Easy. (So JMW, your dreams of making it rich on the Hornets bet you placed in Vegas are officially dashed).

I did better on my predictions this time around. I said the Lakers in 6 and the Spurs in 7...right on. I predicted Detroit and Boston victories as well.


ABOVE: David Stern and the NBA brass want Kobe Bryant in the NBA Finals...

BELOW: ...but I think they're gonna get Tim Duncan instead (Duncan is the one being strangled)


Up next, we've got two great conference finals match-ups. In the West the Lakers take on the Spurs. Kobe, Gasol & Odom vs. Duncan, Parker & Ginobili. Awesome, can't wait. In the East we've got the only two great East teams: Boston vs. Detroit. Predictions are really tough at this stage, but here goes. I say Boston in 7 and San Antonio in 7. As much as David Stern and the NBA are salivating over a possible Celtics/Lakers final, I think San Antonio will finally win their back-to-back championship.