The Most Ballin' Movie Ever

This is not an article about the greatest movie ever made. I want that to be clear. The word 'best' will not be mentioned once. Well, maybe a few times. But not next to the word 'movie'. This isn't about the most involving screenplay, or the most revealing performance, or the most breathtaking cinematography.

This is about ballin'. Like a beast.

From Urban Dictionary:
ballin' like a BEAST!!!
submitted by j-rob mad fresh
to ball so hard that all the foos who say they ballers get banged out one punch by your awesomeness.

Word, J-Rob Mad Fresh, word.

So what film would best (damn it) define that description? Certainly not CITIZEN KANE. Well, maybe. But KANE seems to lack a certain swagger that ballin' implies. Ditto to GONE WITH THE WIND. GODFATHER PART II seems a little too reserved, scholarly, even, to take the title. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN? Dude, don't be Uxbridge.

The most ballin' movie of all time is clearly THE SOUND OF MUSIC.


Yes, that THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Don't player-hate (please note the hyphen) because I'm chillin' like a bird. Have you ever seen THE SOUND OF MUSIC? Shit is like jetskis on water.

Okay, we've had enough fun with J-Rob Mad Fresh. But my point remains. There are many words one could choose to describe THE SOUND OF MUSIC, including 'delightful', 'heartwarming', and possibly even 'resonant', but all of these adjectives fail to describe just how badass this movie is. THE SOUND OF MUSIC is straight-up ballin' like a beast.

Now, I'm not sure J-Rob Mad Fresh would immediately approve of his phrase being bandied about like this. But let's examine the evidence. Most films that would aim at the coveted 'Most Ballin'' trophy could be separated into two categories: films that take on morality, and films that take on pure evil.

Take THE GODFATHER PART II, or HEAT, or FIGHT CLUB. These can all be put firmly into the "take on morality" category, and are great films, to be sure. They question our rights and responsibilities, delve into criminality, and question the ethics and values of our culture. They're often morally ambiguous and force you to think about your perspective on those issues. They're ballin' because they question the very essence of life.

On the other hand, you have films like INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, END OF DAYS, or 12 ANGRY MEN. These films are ballin' because they look evil in the eye and then punch that eye out through the back of evil's skull. They're often criticized by lovers of the first category as being morally simplistic or unrealistic, but if one accepts that there is such a thing as wrong, these films contain a courage just as ballin' as the former.

So, the question emerges: what's more ballin'? Playing chicken with the Devil, or the courage to defy God? The answer is, it doesn't matter, because THE SOUND OF MUSIC does both. Or, more accurately, Captain Von Trapp does.

I think when I say ballin', I'm talking about male role models. All of the films I've mentioned above contain strong male leads who bring an interesting package of masculine traits with them, whether it be Schwarzenegger's strength, DeNiro's codes of honour, or Henry Fonda's moral centre. But none of these guys have anything on Captain Von Trapp's package.

In THE SOUND OF MUSIC, the evil parallels are pretty obvious. There's no better cinematic equivalent for Evil than those pesky Nazis, and, oh boy, does THE SOUND OF MUSIC have some great Nazis. Like rapists, they roll into the virgin green hills of Austria with their red armbands and shiny black boots, then ask Von Trapp to help them or say goodbye to his lovely children. What does he do? Refuses every single one of their demands, kicks them in the shins and then, on his way out the door, gives them a song to remember him by. Take that, you nefarious evil-doers!

But Captain Von Trapp is no sycophantic worshiper at the altar of Good, though. Oh, no. No, he's more on the full-blown heretical side of things there. You see, he steals God's wife. Yeah, remember that whole thing about Maria being a nun? Von Trapp is like, "Fuck that. I'm going to steal this woman from Jesus, right after I tell Hitler to go screw himself, and then we're going to live happily ever after. I might even bang out six or seven more kids. Just try to stop me."

And that's why THE SOUND OF MUSIC is the most ballin' film of all time. Because Captain Von Trapp beats God and the Devil. Now that's ballin' like a beast. He also wears mad fresh sheep, too. J-Rob Mad Fresh would be proud. I know I am.

When Puns Go Wrong: OCTOPUSSY

Dear Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli, U.S. Navy man, film producer, loving husband to three wives and devoted father of three children: I'm glad you're dead.

I mean, I'm happy that you created and produced the Bond films, but let's face it: towards the end there, you were really screwing the pooch.

It's you who bears the brunt of the blame for the horrifying excesses of MOONRAKER, for the increasingly ridiculous pairings of 50-year old Bonds and 20-year old actresses, and I have a feeling you're to blame for the ridiculous title of Roger Moore's sixth appearance as Bond, OCTOPUSSY.


Really? OCTOPUSSY? That's not even trying. You're the same guy that made YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and LIVE AND LET DIE, great puns both. Of course, you had a little help from Ian Fleming there. But OCTOPUSSY? Why not just give in and call it YET ANOTHER JAMES BOND MOVIE WITH A FLACCID, DECREPIT PENIS SURROUNDED BY SURGICALLY ENHANCED BREASTS?

The Bond films are renowned for a juvenile, smirking attitude towards objectified women, with names like Pussy Galore and Plenty O'Toole looming large in cultural memory, but somehow, to me, Octopussy is offensive on a whole other level, and I think it's because 'Cubby' Broccoli was trying to give women a greater role in the Bond films.

That sounds incredibly sexist. What I mean is, he was trying, and failing miserably. Mr. Broccoli was a product of an earlier, man's-world culture, and the need to update the Bond films to reflect a more inclusive view of sexual politics was simply a job he was not designed for. Starting with 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, the film preceding OCTOPUSSY, there is a dedicated effort to make women more capable and resistant to Bond's charms, and Bond accordingly more monogamous and respectful (this on the heels of the cringe-inducing "a female doctor?" and "women drivers!" comments of the '70s). However, creating capable, professional women seems like it was antithetical to 'sexy' for Mr. Broccoli and the writers and directors of the '80s Bond films. Often, they settle for one or the other.

Bearing this in mind, the character of Octopussy actually plays an incredibly minor role in the film that bears her name. She's basically a middle man (if you'll excuse the gender-specific phrase), negotiating between the far more sinister villains of General Orlov and Kamal Khan, and eventually is persuaded (sexually, of course) into helping Bond dispose of them. She's kind of insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Naming this film OCTOPUSSY is like calling GOLDFINGER "PUSSY GALORE", in that Ms. Galore shares not only as outrageous a name as Octopussy, but also, a similar role: namely, to be sexually conquered by Bond and made to see the error of her ways, presumably on her way to the kitchen to make James a sandwich.

This often happens to the rarest of character types of the Bond films: that of the independent, financially successful woman. There are usually lesbianic overtones to their independence, their sources of income are often due to the result of some sort of illegal activity, and Bond always forces them away from their success (and vague homosexuality) with his magical transformative dick. Pussy Galore and Jill Valentine are examples of this type from the earlier films, and Octopussy is essentially the same stereotype, just veneered with a gloss of greater importance and an '80s hairdo. The early tagline, "No one does him better" is trying to be as liberating as it is enslaved to the ideology of the past.

Calling the film OCTOPUSSY may have been some sort of token gesture to women viewers, but it simultaneously takes the legs out from underneath that gesture by winking self-consciously at the terrible pun, not to mention the actual limitations of the character. It misses the whole point. In the final analysis, it doesn't indicate any kind of better place for women in the Bond franchise, but is merely the soul of a ten-year old boy giggling at the word "pussy". I'm not sure that'll bring back the female audience, Mr. Broccoli.

I actually enjoy large sections of OCTOPUSSY, specifically the post-titles sequence, wherein a clown-disguised 009 is pursued by a pair of knife-throwing twins and staggers into a diplomatic reception, red nose and all, before dropping a counterfeit Faberge egg at the feet of a shocked ambassador and dying. It's an incredible beginning to a great spy story. There are also some admirable attempts at creating relatively down-to-earth plots and villains, as well as some interesting looks at the Cold War culture. The whole thing is starting to feel the inertia of the Roger Moore era, though, and there's a definite feeling of going through the motions that carries over into A VIEW TO A KILL, in what would blessedly be Moore's final appearance as 007.

'Cubby' Broccoli would go on to make three more Bond films after OCTOPUSSY, almost all of which tried to reinvent Bond and the idea of the "Bond girl". He died during the production of GOLDENEYE, the film that finally brought Bond into the twentieth century. Mr. Broccoli's daughter, Barbara, took over her father's responsibility as the producer of the Bond films. Now, how long will it take for a Bond film to be directed by a woman?

Fetishizing the Past: History, Nostalgia and the Mad (Anchor)Men

I've been catching up on my television watching as of late, and one of the shows I'm finally giving a chance is AMC's "Mad Men". I know, I know. I'm pretty late to the party. But there's a good reason for that.


Every time I would hear about "Mad Men", I'd ask what it was about, and the response would inevitably come back with some variation on, "It's about the sixties ... and smoking ... and sexually harassing women ... and looking awesome in a suit." Well, I would think to myself, I would rather watch THE WIRE eight hundred times in a row than watch that. Then I'd sit back in a smug, self-satisfied way, and convince myself that THE WIRE is the finest piece of American television ever made. Which, to be absolutely clear here, it is.

However, "Mad Men" wouldn't go away. More and more people were talking about it. I started hearing things that intrigued me, like the main character not being who he said he was. I saw a picture of Christina Hendricks and unconsciously did a "Mary Steenburgen in Back to the Future III" impression: golly! And then I heard about the storyline tying into events like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Now, I haven't got there yet, having only reached episode six of the first season, but this is what truly excites me about this show (or at least this show's potential): I'm a history nerd. I will confess to owning THIRTEEN DAYS. I bought Soderbergh's CHE films, sight unseen. Hell, I own AND STARRING PANCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF, a made-for-HBO movie I had to write an essay on for a history elective and ending up buying because I thought it was so swell. I mean, Antonio Banderas as the legendary Mexican revolutionary? Colm Feore as D.W. Griffiths? Amazing!

I realize few people would echo those exact sentiments (for example, I feel like laughter at Mr. Banderas' casting would be a more common reaction), but I think many people have the same general response to period pieces: a fascination with the past. How else would you explain the enduring popularity of "Mad Men" in spite of the show's lackadaisical pacing?

BAM! Complisulted!

I kid. I haven't watched enough of "Mad Men" to really make an informed judgment yet, but I will say that the first six episodes of HBO's period-piece-response "Boardwalk Empire" has me far more interested in its sprawling story and compelling characters. So far, "Mad Men" is less about any of those things than it is about the fetishization of period details: stainless cigarette lighters, crisply ironed white dress shirts, and the smooth curved lines of bourbon glasses. It's no coincidence that the beautiful DVD packaging of the show features these objects, instead of the characters. At this point, the "smoking... sexual harassment...suits" criticism is bang-on. Not to say that it can't become more, but six episodes in, that is what "Mad Men" is about.

My apologies to everyone who told me that and saw me roll my eyes. You were right.

However, when I watched ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY yesterday, I started wondering where this reverence for the past comes from.


ANCHORMAN and "Mad Men" may not seem the most compatible of entertainments, but once you get past their tonal qualities, they do share a great deal of similarities. In fact, "smoking, sexual harassment, suits" might as well be Ron Burgundy's personal motto. The only noticeable difference between him and Don Draper is the horrifying moustache.

The similarities go beyond the protagonists, though. There is a sense of deep-rooted affection for the entire world that goes beyond a love of character or place: both of these works are in love with the past itself. Of course, the tone in ANCHORMAN is a much more comedic look at the excesses and political incorrectness of the 1970s, but there is a warmth to the innocence of the era that permeates the film.

I guess the word that most defines what we're talking about is nostalgia, and what makes these works so relatable is that everyone experiences nostalgia. It's not so much the specifics of the memory, but the feeling that the act of remembering something evokes. So while none of us (I assume) worked in the advertising agencies of '60s America, or have ever seen a news broadcast from the '70s, we can relate to it, because it feels like we're remembering it (even though we've never actually experienced anything like it).

But why would we want to do this? Why would we want to relive things we haven't lived through in the first place? I think the issue at the heart of nostalgia is that we know how fragile (and important) history is. History is how we construct narratives in every facet of our lives, and without narratives, it's exponentially more difficult to arrive at a truth. Just ask that crazed genius, David Lynch.

BAM! Complisulted!

I kid. But I do think that the reason Mr. Lynch has never dabbled in the historical film genre may be that he's not interested in cinematic meaning deriving from narrative, but rather from mood and emotive qualities. However, on both a personal and societal level, we're constantly examining why we got where we are and how we got there, forming narratives to help us understand. Therefore, memory, both personal and cultural, is one of our most cherished possessions.

And that's why we fetishize the horrifying moustaches and gleaming cigarette lighters of our past: they all tell us something about who we were, where we've come from. It's why we can enjoy Will Ferrell screaming at us for an hour and a half. He's a reflection of us, a chubby, hairy signpost of our history.

And it's why I'll give "Mad Men" some more time to impress me. At least until the Cuban Missile Crisis kicks in. Now who's up for a little THIRTEEN DAYS?

No one? Oh. Okay.

The PAUL Dating Quiz

First things first: this isn't my magazine. It was given to me to review, and I'm a professional, so I'll do it.

I mean, I did already have a copy of it. Technically, it's mine. I bought it. But I don't do it regularly. I don't subscribe or anything. I could say I saw it lying open at a doctor's office, and I flipped a few pages to pass the time, or that it's my girlfriend's, but those would be lies.

My girlfriend? Oh, she's been in the Andromeda sector for years, you can't meet her.

The truth is, I like doing the quizzes.

Small side-note: I would advise you to skip pages 23-29, as the article on the sexual lives of Gamorreans was a little too in-depth for me.

But yes, the quizzes! Is there anything more limitless than a woman's health magazine quiz? Other than the universe, I mean. Ba-doom! Ching! They're great! You can find out if you have low zero-G aptitudes, what spacesuits are best for you, and that always-popular "are you a bitch?" one they seem to recycle every three months. And the best part is, they're always multiple choice! You can't lose, because if you don't like the result, you can just pick a slightly different catty response and become a completely different person!

Although, this cycle's quiz was a bit of a doozy. A real lack of imagination in the available responses.


I mean, Apple? Who would name their child after those monsters? Why not just name your baby Space Holocaust, or Starbuck?

Listen up, COSMIC: we expect better quizzes. I want to indulge in my multiple personalities with rampant glee, so smarten up. You've been put on notice. Hell, just give me the "are you a bitch" thing. Stick with what you know.

Brandon Forsyth blogs from the centre of the Douglas Black Hole. Readers are advised to send comments and criticisms via electronic mail, as lightmail is highly ineffective at this location. COSMIC 32467.2 will be on newstands and hololounges starting Monday, unless there was a miscalculation with the chronocalculator, in which case, we apologize, it won't be published for another 1000 years.

Badass Jesus: The Violent Christs Of ROBOCOP and Michael Jackson's MOONWALKER

I'm on an extended vacation of sorts at the moment, and one of my goals is to catch up on a bunch of reading I've had piling up over the last few months. Two of the books on my pile are Christopher Moore's "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" and Philip Pullman's "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ", so I've had Christianity on the brain for the last few weeks. But it's not just my reading material - lately, Jesus is everywhere.

Now, before you get too panicked, let me assure you no one is going to ask you to lift up your heart here. No one is going to read you an extended section of the Bible, then pause dramatically and ask you to say "Jehovah" at the applicable times. This ain't that.

But when I sat down yesterday and watched Michael Jackson's incredible vanity project MOONWALKER, I wasn't really prepared for the levels of Christ imagery I was going to get. And it made me think.


For those that are unaware, MOONWALKER is a music video compilation of Mr. Jackson's BAD album, half-assedly compiled into a narrative about stopping a nefarious drug dealer, Mr. Big (Joe Pesci), whose goal is to get the children of Earth addicted to his drugs. It was never released theatrically in North America, although it did garner a European release, and has since become a cult object for those lucky enough to find it on video. And I found it in a quaint British village grocery store, next to a bag of Cajun Squirrel crisps and a squirt bottle of mayo. It was meant to be.

It's laughably pieced together, especially the first half of the film, which is just a collection of music videos awkwardly sandwiched together with incredibly lazy linking scenes. It's mostly just a collection of Michael running away from the paparazzi, or his mindless screaming fans, into worlds of fantasy where he can sing and dance for a few minutes of bliss, before someone invades the fantasy and ruins everything. This section of the film could inspire a whole article about Jackson's troubling escapes to fantasy, and the depictions of his critics and admirers, but that feels a little too easy, and the second half of MOONWALKER is where the really interesting stuff happens.

That's the half where the whole Mr. Big plot comes in, and Jackson's child friend is kidnapped. Michael decides to go all RETURN OF THE JEDI on Mr. Big and strolls into his base to demand the release of Captain Solo, or whatever the hell the kid is called. Kerri? Kelly? It's not important. Before you can say Great Pit of Carkoon, this ingenious plan has failed terribly, and Jackson is surrounded by men with guns. But Michael doesn't have R2-D2 standing at the ready with a lightsaber; he is R2. Jackson literally transforms into a giant robot of righteous vengeance, and spends no time in wasting these goons with shoulder- and pelvic-mounted laser guns and rocket-propelled grenades (it's as uncomfortable to watch as it sounds). And when Pesci comes out with a giant laser gun of his own, Michael transforms (yet again) into some sort of jet fighter and blows up Pesci and his death ray in a terrific fireball.

What's particularly interesting to me in this fascinating disaster of a half-movie is the violence that Michael uses to resolve the situation. Aside from a giant, sloppy blowjob to Jackson's talent and ego, the film is quite clearly portraying him as a Jesus-like figure, and has messianic overtones from the get-go. These only become clearer over the course of the film, as there's a resurrection, an ascension, and a return to preach (to a cover of the Beatles' "Come Together", no less) spread throughout the final 10 minutes of the film. But whereas the Biblical Jesus patiently withstood the temptations of Satan for 40 days and turned the other cheek to his enemies, this Jesus wastes fools with lasers and (at one point) a tommy gun, to visuals as pornographic as any Schwarzenegger or Stallone '80's orgy of violence. How did this happen?

I think we need look no further than Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP for the answer to that one.


ROBOCOP came out in 1987, the year before MOONWALKER, and while it's clear that Jackson and whatever hack creative team he put together have cribbed bits of pop culture from everything from the Transformers, to WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, to the fucking California Raisins, it's pretty clear what the main inspiration was. ROBOCOP has a strong, if satirical, law-and-order and anti-drug stance, and it looks like Jackson ate it up, along with the awesomeness of being an indestructible cyborg.

But what was ROBOCOP really about? Paul Verhoeven has called it a film about "the American Jesus" and, for the purposes of this article, let's call it "the Modern Jesus". I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion of American values, and I don't think that's (necessarily) what Verhoeven has in mind when he calls it that. He looks at America as the policeman of the world, as the people in charge of order, as fulfilling the role of the Modern Saviour.

When we look at it from this perspective, the Modern Jesus is an incredibly violent figure, and that has more to do with how we look at resolving problems today than any particular nation-state's ideology. No one believes in turning the other cheek. We've seen how that plays out. Neville Chamberlain, anyone? I think the vast majority of us believe that some degree of physical violence is needed to keep the bullies of the world in check, and that most of us want to marvel at our own magnificence and make out with Megan Fox as we sit victorious on the shoulders of our giant robot warriors. We don't want to be Shia LeBeouf - I repeat, we don't want to be Shia LeBeouf - but we do want to win (this is not an indictment of the American film system's need for clear-cut definitive victories).

This is completely antithetical to Jesus' ministry, and it almost feels like this is the issue at the heart of modern Catholicism's constant youth crisis. At some level, it feels like the biblical Jesus loses. Sure, he had to die to open the Kingdom of Heaven. Sure. That might be the case, but I don't think anyone was hanging a "Mission: Accomplished" banner over the crosses at Golgotha (this is not an indictment of the American military and political systems' need for clear-cut definitive victories).

The point is, as Steve Buscemi gleefully told us in ESCAPE FROM L.A., "this town loves a winner" (in this metaphor, I think 'this town' is supposed to be either 'us', or 'history', or possibly 'America' - it was really just an excuse to post a link to the ESCAPE FROM L.A. trailer) - Snake Plissken isn't inheriting the Earth through meekness, he's doing it by playing Bangkok Rules whilst wearing a badass leather trenchcoat.

What we're really getting at here is that our fascination with "the anti-hero" has reached a point where the anti-hero no longer exists. The two have become intractably linked. Our old heroes, Jesus, Superman, et al., are not only in the same category as the Dirty Harrys and Punishers of the new era, but they're actually the same. We haven't rejected the old heroes, since they're the basis for what we know; rather, we've rejected their stories and morphed them into something more modern, more palatable; in a word, more violent, and with clear-cut victories.

We don't really believe in Gandhi. We don't really believe in Martin Luther King Jr., either. We believe we have to use force to fight, to get what we want, to win. The Jasmine Revolution, probably our most modern example of some sort of ahimsa-like philosophy, is actually evidence of that - no one gave the Egyptians much of a chance until they held Tahrir Square, when they responded to violence with violence. That's when it became clear they would succeed. We no longer believe in the long-term, patient, non-violent victories our old heroes represent: in the words of the Egyptian protestors, we want victory now. Preferably with some sort of robot warrior, just so that it's as new as possible.

While looking for that video of Verhoeven talking about ROBOCOP, I discovered he has written a book called "Jesus of Nazareth", which is "a new vision of Jesus as a child born from the rape of Mary by a Roman soldier, as a spiritualist who performed exorcisms by screaming and spitting in the mouths of the possessed to drive out demons, and as a militant revolutionary who urged his followers to arm themselves."

Shit. That pile of books is going to get higher. I hope Jesus has a robot sidekick.

My Review of 4 Bond Films: File Under "BDSM, Non-Consensual"

The last thing he could remember was the mustache.

For a brief second, Daniel Craig allowed himself the smallest of smiles. The sudden flare of white-hot pain that shot through his entire jaw removed any of the humour from the image of reporting a giant mustache to the police. Jesus. It felt like his entire chin was detached. He groaned, and could feel the salty tang of blood against his lower lip. He moved his left hand to wipe it away, but felt his arm restricted by the cold embrace of metal on his wrist. He looked down, only to discover he couldn't see a thing. A rising panic began to overwhelm the throbbing aches and pains he began to feel throughout his head. A blindfold? Handcuffs? What the hell was going on?

A voice, cold and crisp, cut through the pain and confusion. "You're awake."

Daniel tried to strain his head towards the voice, but an electric current of pain shot down the back of his neck and cut his motion short. He gasped in shock, a bubble of blood escaping his mouth and starting to trickle down his lips.

"I wouldn't strain yourself." There was a trace of enjoyment in the British voice, a sadistic quality that sent a chill down Daniel's neck. He stiffened in fear.

"Good," the voice chuckled. "Stay."

Daniel could hear footsteps circling him, each click of heel-toe seemingly lasting an eternity. His heart was racing. There was another sound, consistent between the footsteps, a slithering, heavy sound that conjured the unlikely image of a giant cobra circling him. He quelled the panic in his heart and tried to focus on breathing.

The footsteps and the slithering sound came to a halt. "Mr. Craig." The voice dripped with icy disdain. "I'm sure you're feeling most ... uncomfortable at the moment."

Daniel opened his mouth, about to reply that yes, he was bloody uncomfortable, amongst more vociferous objections, but before he could form a word, he felt something cold and sinuous drop in his lap. He was suddenly aware that he was naked. The words caught in his throat, and his fear began to know an entirely new dimension.

The voice was suddenly close, a hiss in his ear. "But as uncomfortable as you might be now, I can promise you that there are entire worlds of discomfort that you have never even dreamed of."

The object in Daniel's lap began to move, drawing back up his chest and over his shoulder. He could feel the bumpy knots in the thin material as it tortuously caressed him. He was torn between moving away from the sensation and staying frozen in place.

"You are here to answer one question, Mr. Craig," the voice said as the rope-like material continued to stroke his body. The end of it finally dropped off his shoulder and made a wicked snapping sound against the floor behind him. Daniel could feel his entire skin ripple with goosebumps as he realized that this lunatic had a whip.

"Are you ready for the question?"

Daniel could only nod his head in agreement.

"Who's your daddy?"

The question was so ridiculous, Daniel could only laugh at it. His entire body was wracked in cold agony as he chuckled, then embraced in hot fire as the whip came crashing down on his back. His laugh vanished in a second, replaced by a gasp and cold air.

"Think that's fucking funny, eh?" The whip crashed down again. "Maybe I should rephrase it." The footsteps came up behind him, the whip gently coming to rest on his back. It began to lazily trace the area between Daniel's shoulder blades, like sandpaper to his nerves.

The voice was at his ear again, a cold whisper. "Who's your... progenitor?"

The injustice of this all began to grate against Daniel. "I don't understand!" he raged.

There was a pause as the whip fell from his back. The hot fire of the whip was gone, but now the air itself seemed to attack his chafed skin, a thousand tiny icicles in his back. "Let me make it clear to you, Mr. Craig. Who do you owe all your success as James Bond to? Who have you copied? Whose villains were down-to-earth gun- and dope-runners? Who was a human Bond with emotional motivations? Who?"

The whip crashed down, driving the icicles into his muscles.

"Who?"

The whip emphasized the repetition.

"I don't know!" Daniel protested

"Yes you do! Say my name! SAY MY NAME, YOU DIRTY BLONDE BOND BITCH!"

"SCREAM 'TIMOTHY DALTON!'"

The mustache. Jesus. It all made sense.

Not Even Wim Wenders Could Make MOONRAKER Good

For years, I laboured under the impression that MOONRAKER, the 1979 James Bond film, was a cheap response to STAR WARS that, in its rush to theatres, essentially just copied the script of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the 1977 Bond film. Watching both of these films again, it's clear that's not entirely true. There is a sharp difference between the two, and the difference is that MOONRAKER is terrible. Let's take a closer look:

It becomes clear to me, as I think about it, that many of the criticisms about Roger Moore's Bond are actually of his performance, and, indeed, the overall tone, in MOONRAKER. Now, I don't want to turn into some sort of Moore apologist, but what is one supposed to do when faced with this kind of absurdity except try to grin your way through it?

This movie should never have been made.

The Infuriating Smirk of Roger Moore

Do you think there's an ideal age to see a film? That a movie will play better to a specific age group or demographic because the ideas in it are more relevant to those people?

If so, I think I was introduced to the James Bond films at the exact right time. I was around 11 or so, and the heady mix of girls, guns, and car chases went straight into my blood, like an adrenaline shot to the heart. I suspect the same is true for many young men. Our fondness for Bond is rooted in late night viewings of underwater spear gun battles and beautiful blondes in need of rescue. They're viewed in dens and basements with uncles and grandpas. They are simultaneously the fairy tales and the porn of our tween years.

I've written briefly about how Bond films are childhood fantasies writ large, but I find that they're almost all (with a very few interesting exceptions) actually a very particular fantasy we have as boys: the fantasy of growing up. Bond was the culmination of what I thought I'd become: the suave lady-killer, the dangerous rogue, the renowned expert on every subject under the sun. In a word: invulnerable.

Which is why the Roger Moore Bond films are, for the most part, unbearable.

Moore's approach to playing Bond was to smile his way through the metal-toothed and midget henchmen, knowingly grin at the Agent XXXs and Holly Goodheads, and double-take at the massive space stations and blimps of his enemies. He was having fun, and he wanted you to join in on the childish adventure. I suspect those that like Mr. Moore's portrayal were those who saw them as young boys, not as interested in vodka martinis as they were in space laser gun battles.

To those of us who were more intrigued by baccarat and Faberge eggs, though, that ever-present smile looked more like a smirk, refusing to play it straight. We could never connect to the fantasy while the ostensible narrator was grinning at us, mocking our desire to indulge in the ridiculous daydreams of childhood. To borrow a British phrase, he took the piss out of the whole thing.

This is, however, a generalization. Bond films all tell the same basic story, so we tend to combine them all into an actor's "version" of the Bond character (hence the often-repeated criticism of Timothy Dalton's Bond as "too dark and serious", although only one of Dalton's films is "serious" in any sense of the word). The truth is that each film has a distinct Bond, which plays distinctive notes about the character. To illustrate this, let's look at Moore's second effort, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.


THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is a fascinating failure, a film that has so many great scenes and moments to add to the Bond mythos, but one that is ultimately done in by it's inability to play it straight. Oddly enough, almost none of this is Moore's fault. His Bond is the most grounded character in the whole mess, and for the most part, he plays it dead serious. The scene between him and Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress, is of particular note. In the scene, Bond trails her and breaks into her hotel room, confronts her, then viciously slaps her and nearly breaks her arm. It's one of the darkest scenes in any Bond film. There's a sense in this scene of a brutal realism, of a lethality in Moore, that earnestly portrays the assassin that Bond is. It's a scene that never plays up Bond's sexual prowess to resolve the situation, and never winks at the audience. In as much that it comments on Bond's chauvinism and violent tendencies, it's a much more mature look at those childhood fantasies about the invulnerable male.

But for every scene like this one, which disturbs and pushes the viewer, there is an overlong scene with J.W. Pepper hurling racial epithets and generally embarrassing the franchise, or a gangster apologizing to a cardboard cutout of Al Capone for shooting it, or a midget butler bringing, of all things, Tabasco sauce to his master. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is scared to commit to the story, like a child who knows he's too old to order off the kid's menu, but just wants a hot dog really bad.

It is the only Bond film to ever really comment on Bond's "licence to kill" (other than, of course, LICENCE TO KILL), and the moral ambiguities inherent to such a thing. Christopher Lee's Scaramanga is a shadow of Bond, a fact Lee is only too fond to play with. There is a great dinner scene where the differences between the two men are laid out, and one feels like Bond is protesting just a tad too much. Like many of these great scenes in the film, though, it is immediately proceeded by a silly, winking scene that makes fun of it all. Lee is immediately saddled with a lengthy monologue about "solex agitators" and channeling the power of the sun in order to explode Bond's plane with a blast of solar energy. It's not enough that Scaramanga wants to kill Bond - now he's got a world domination scheme! It's ludicrous, and Lee looks like he's trying to get through it all as quickly as he can so he can get back to the duel between the two men.

But even the basic idea of the duel gets undermined by Scaramanga's ridiculous LaserQuest-y maze that the duel takes place in, replete with funhouse mirrors, a giant grizzly bear statue, and a life-size mannequin of James Bond. It's like Laser Quest with the lights on; no fun for anyone.

By the time we get to A VIEW TO A KILL, Moore's seventh and final outing as Bond, no one's even trying anymore.


Iceberg submarine with a British crest on it? Check. The title sequence now has neon in it. Ooh. Microchips are important. Hooray. Moore is so old at this point (58) that his most exciting stunts are performed by a horse. The Bond fantasy is about growing up, not growing old. There's nothing cool or exciting about 007 in this film - even the one relatively new trick in Bond's repertoire, snowboarding, is undercut by the use of The Beach Boys' "California Girls" (sadly, not a middle-finger-flipping gummie bear to be seen).

In fact, the most interesting characters in the film are the villains. Christopher Walken's Max Zorin and Grace Jones' May Day are the two most memorable antagonists in the Moore era. Walken's character is a gem, a steroid-bred lab baby, brilliant but psychotic, a KGB agent gone rogue. It plays perfectly to his unique delivery, and he seems to have great fun letting loose, killing both adversaries and allies with gleeful abandon. But it's Grace Jones who steals the show, with her lithe steroid-fuelled assassin. Her arc is a little cliché (her line after Zorin betrays her: "I thought that creep loved me!"), but her commanding presence breathes some life into an otherwise dull movie.

As good as these villains are, it all seems so paint-by-numbers at this point. The Bond character isn't really about anything in this movie. He just moves where the script tells him to go and does the things he's expected to do. Moore tries to coast by with that damn smirk, and it becomes obvious that the toothy grin is only getting toothier by the day.

But maybe when I'm 58, it'll play better to me.