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.