#No 007 can’t be played by an American actor

[s8h]

Post dinner consensus: Johnathan Rhys Meyers would be the best Bond (if he cleaned up)

JRM 4 007!

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

I propose a new rule for action film franchises.  Let’s call it the Settle Down There, Edgelord Rule.

Say you have a franchise--let’s use the Bond films as an example--where every single film, the fate of the entire fucking world hangs in the balance.  No matter what got accomplished in the last film, they’re right back at it in this film, having to save the entire world again.  But somehow, the stakes have to be higher than the last time, or it starts getting harder to get audiences back for more of the same, because it starts feeling really repetitive.

“Why’ve you dragged me back in from my life of sordid semi-retirement, M?” asks James fucking Bond. “Is it yet another doomsday device in the hands of a madman?”

“We should be so lucky, 007,” says Q, handing James Bond a fountain pen that is also a doomsday device. “This time it’s a doomsday device in the hands of two madmen, both of whom have extremely personal scores to settle with you.”

“Well in that case, I suppose I can hardly say no,” James Bond sighs wearily, already longing for the days when it was only a single madman with perhaps a nuclear warhead or two who harbored a vague and academic disapproval of spies in general.

The problem with the ever-rising stakes is that eventually it does become a bit ridiculous.  Remember when Fast and the Furious was about stealing consumer electronics for money?  And now barely eight movies later they’re stealing nukes and driving to space and somehow John Cena is involved?  Another two movies and they��ll be doing donuts on the moon to save earth from being blown up by previously-unmentioned alien conquerors.

So every so often, let’s say every third movie, writers should have to hit a reset button.  Not on the action or the mayhem or the actors’ intensity or whatever it is that gets eyes on screens and butts in seats.  Just, you know.  The stakes.

“Why’ve you dragged me back in from my life of sordid semi-retirement, M?” asks James fucking Bond. “Is it yet another doomsday device in the hands of a madman?”

“We should be so lucky, 007,” says Q, handing James Bond a fountain pen that is also a doomsday device. “This time the madman’s made off with one of the Queen’s corgis.”

“What?” James Bond demands, aghast. “How could you let this happen?”

“Their dog grooming credentials were impeccable. They passed every security check.  They’d have been allowed to groom Her Majesty herself,” M tells him grimly. “There’s something you should know, Bond.  It was... it was Trixie.”

“Not Trixie,” Bond gasps.  The look on his face is that of a man having a flashback to ‘Nam. “What do they want for her safe return?”

“That’s the sticky wicket, Bond,” Q volunteers, waving vaguely at a wall that begins playing a video.

On the wall, Willem Dafoe cuddles a corgi and stares dead-eyed at the camera.  When he speaks, it’s in an accent that’s vaguely Germanic but not like, enough to make any trade partners really mad about it.

“Trixie is such a good dog.  Such a good girl!” He looks at the dog, face becoming animated and warm. “Who’s a good girl?  Is it you?  It is you!  You’re a good girl!”

He looks back at the camera, eyes once again blank as a shark’s.

“I think, my friends, that Trixie is too good a dog for the rotting corpse of an empire that she was whelped into.  I shall take her with me, and together we shall venture into a brave new world of grassy farms with plenty of room to run and many, many children with which to play.  If you redeem yourselves, perhaps you shall live to see this world that I shall make.  Perhaps you shall live to go... to the dogs!”

The video cuts as he rubs the corgi’s ears and gives her a treat.

“That absolute bastard!” Bond snarls, hurling the fountain pen doomsday device across the room. “Tell me you have something to go on!”

And then we’re off to the races, with typical Bond-level shenanigans, fights, and body counts. 

It’s only that instead of having to come up with a scenario which is somehow more important or more dangerous than the last movie, which was already threatening to kill a billion people or knock the planet off its axis or whatever, it’s just a scenario in which everyone is really, really emotionally invested.

And before anyone starts up with the “these sorts of action-movie shenanigans are only reasonable with incredibly high stakes” argument, let me remind you that by the time they need this proposed intervention, we have already hit patently unreasonable situations and behavior.  Like, these are not reasonable people who are just in it for a boatload of money and somehow fell ass-backwards into a Bond villain scheme for making it.  They didn’t join the rotary club and oops their way into a series of flamboyantly homicidal consultation gigs.

If we can buy somebody going completely balls-to-the-wall, conspiracy-of-thousands, weirdo-cult-aesthetics, murdered-my-own-parents all-in on *checks notes* basically being the CEO of a slightly more criminal than usual international conglomerate that required precisely none of that? If we can buy the iron-jawed goons fist-fighting a guy who’s essentially at this point the goddamned terminator for a generous hourly wage?

Then I think we can buy a weirdo-cult-aesthetics conspiracy-of-thousands megalomaniac who just really, really likes that goddamn dog, or hates the protagonist, or wants to share the daguerreotype of Abraham Lincoln’s penis with the world as the Great Emancipator would have wanted, and the shadowy government-bankrolled action-hero forces driven by fate to stand in their way.

It’s not any less reasonable, anyway, and then when the next movie comes out you can go back to saving New York City from a nuke or Paris from a weather-control device or whatever and no one will be like "well this is a step down from the pageantry of the previous installment.”

I should add that there’s no reason the Settle Down There, Edgelord Rule can’t be applied to any sort of serial media.

Your doom-and-gloom tv show just keeps fighting worse and worse villains every single season?  Why not take a break next season and fight a homeowner’s association instead of an artistic serial killer?  Go on a hard-fought, poorly-lit, grim-and-gritty slog through the byzantine process of figuring out which impound lot the Impala got towed to after a bullshit parking ticket. 

Instead of having your teenage characters grapple with Even Worse Demons, they can just, like, egg their principal’s house when it turns out he’s a normal human-level petty tyrant and not a master vampire.  Your nemesis figured out your secret identity, and instead of trying to kill your family or whatever, they hacked your facebook account and friended all your obnoxious relatives/coworkers/friends-of-friends and are embarrassing you in public, and now you have to go on a ridiculously convoluted and dystopian spirit quest to get The Zuck Himself to reset your password.

The possibilities are endless!  Unless you keep ratcheting things up, anyway, in which case you’re eventually and inevitably going to wind up fighting Satan, then God, then Worse God, then Satan’s Dad, Which Is Somehow Not God? Don’t @ Us, Our Mythological Research Prior to Writing This Was Confined to Metal Albums and American Horror Films.

[tabloidtoc]

Star, January 25

You can now buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Meghan Markle’s life is a lie 

Page 1: Emma Stone’s baby joy -- after months of speculation thrilled mom-to-be Emma debuts her baby bump during a hike with a pal 

Page 2: Contents, Sutton Foster and Nico Tortorella and Debi Mazar filmed a scene for Younger’s final season 

Page 4: Candace Cameron Bure came out swinging again against commenters on a holiday pic she posted on Instagram of her and her husband Valeri Bure and kids Natasha and Lev and Maksim and she got a load of snark for the heavily retouched pic 

Page 5: Karlie Kloss usually steers clear of dishing on her sister- and brother-in-law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner but on January 6 Karlie broke her silence after Ivanka tweeted and quickly deleted a post calling a pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol building American patriots and Karlie begged to differ tweeting that accepting the results of a legitimate democratic election is patriotic and when one Twitter user urged her to tell her brother-in-law and sister-in-law she lamented I’ve tried 

* Olivia Jade Giannulli posted a clip of herself dancing maskless at a beach-house party and the New Year’s Day Insta came days after her mom Lori Loughlin was sprung from prison and the clip which featured her toasting with a glass of vino came less than a month after she aired her regrets in an interview -- the party girl feels she’s suffered too from the scandal and she was just letting off steam 

* Rege-Jean Page has sent pulses racing with his groundbreaking role as the rakish Duke of Hastings in Bridgerton but it was his reference to James Bond’s legendary martini preference in a tweet that had fans speculating he’s in line to take over from Daniel Craig as the next 007 -- the biracial actor has been vocal about the importance of inclusive casting 

Page 6: Jessica Simpson whose own father once bragged about her double Ds is enjoying a very particular benefit of her recent 100-lb slimdown which is she’s gone down two cup sizes and she says she feels more athletic and her body is more in proportion -- in addition to easing back pain she feels a different sort of weight has lifted because all that talk about her breasts made her feel they overshadowed her as a person 

* Drew Barrymore is nursing a private pain as her ex-husband Will Kopelman went public with his new love Vogue staffer Alexandra Michler and the two are serious while Drew is still single and she is alone and feeling like the odd man out -- there are times when Drew absolutely regrets divorcing Will especially now that he’s dating again and Drew was holding out hope for a reunion but when she discovered Will was seeing someone new she knew there was a good chance it may not happen and even worse her own attempts at finding romance have fallen flat as she’s tried online dating a few times but had no luck 

* Star Spots the Stars -- Jimmy Fallon and wife Nancy Juvonen, Jennifer Lopez, Eva Longoria, Ryan Seacrest, Jenna Dewan, Aubrey Plaza, JD Martinez 

Page 8: Star Shots -- John Legend gave his son Miles a zip around the water on a jet ski during a vacation in St. Barths, Ellen DeGeneres on a bike after lunch with friends in Santa Barbara, Brooke Burke dressed in wintry workout gear sipped a hot drink 

Page 10: Leslie Jones on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, Christina Aguilera playing video games with her son Max 

Page 12: Kit Harington takes his dog for a walk in London, Sean “Diddy” Combs passed out gift cards and gift bags to those in need in Miami, Mindy Kaling online shopping 

Page 13: Gabrielle Union and her husband Dwyane Wade on a hike, Jenny McCarthy maneuvered her trash bins to the curb in Chicago 

Page 14: Coach Tom Jones on The Voice UK, EJ Johnson at the beach in Miami, Margaret Qualley and boyfriend Shia LaBeouf on a hike in L.A., Dua Lipa eating during a getaway in Tulum, Mexico 

Page 16: Normal or Not? Tori Spelling out in Los Angeles with her dogs and husband Dean McDermott -- normal, Nicole Kidman and an alpaca -- not normal 

Page 17: Jennifer Garner playing the drinking game from The Crown in which participants who can’t repeat a phrase correctly must smudge their faces -- not normal, Kate Bosworth celebrated her birthday with husband Michael Polish and some bubbly in Beverly Hills -- normal 

Page 18: Fashion -- stars stun in Pantone colors of the year Illuminating Yellow and Ultimate Gray -- Mindy Kaling, Thandie Newton, Jorja Smith 

Page 19: Ariana Grande, Zoey Deutch 

Page 24: Olivia Wilde made news stepping out as Harry Styles’ plus-one to his agent’s wedding in Montecito and he introduced her as his girlfriend as the two mingled and held hands -- the next day Harry and Olivia who hit it off on the set of her upcoming psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling in which he stars were spotted heading into his L.A. home -- wedding guests weren’t the only ones surprised by the new couple as Olivia’s ex Jason Sudeikis dad to her kids Otis and Daisy has been nurturing hope of a reunion since their split in late 2020 and he was surprised she’d go for one of the actors in her movie -- now Olivia is conflicted because she’s having fun with Harry but there’s no denying her feelings for Jason continue to linger and some are betting her romance with Harry will flame out in no time and no one would be surprised if Olivia and Jason ended up getting back together 

Page 25: Florence Pugh and Zach Braff had Hollywood abuzz after a pal wished her a happy birthday on social media and cryptically referred to her as FPB -- that extra B caused many to surmise that Florence has quietly exchanged vows with Zach and taken his last name and Florence hasn’t done much to shut down speculation by strategically hiding her ring finger in photos shared on Instagram 

* Zoe Kravitz filed for divorce from Karl Glusman after 18 months of marriage because she was fed up with having an MIA husband -- things between the two hit a breaking point after Karl failed to check in with his wife while filming Please Baby Please in Butte, Montana -- Zoe couldn’t take being ignored and when she and Karl finally spoke they had a big fight and she pulled the plug shortly afterwards 

* They called it quits in October after two years together but Bethenny Frankel and Paul Bernon are now giving their relationship another shot -- they split up because their long-distance romance proved too difficult but Bethenny really missed him and it turns out Paul missed her too and it seems second time’s a charm because a loved-up Bethenny and Paul indulged in PDA at a Miami studio as they watched her daughter paint with the artist

Page 26: Cover Story -- Meghan Markle exposed -- Meghan’s older half-sister is dishing some major dirt about the former actress’ rise to royalty in her new bombshell book 

Page 30: Inside Kim Kardashian’s escape -- Kim reached her breaking point with Kanye West months ago but took many steps before she finally left him 

Page 32: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over -- these celebs more than made up after breaking up and they made it all the way down the aisle -- Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo 

Page 33: Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Prince William and Kate Middleton 

Page 36: Beauty -- sweet dreams -- get better ZZZs and wake up looking gorgeous with products that nourish 

Page 38: Entertainment 

Page 48: Parting Shot -- Splashing out on a romantic getaway in Tulum, Mexico Bella Thorne and boyfriend Benjamin Mascolo made time to keep it tight on the sand 

[aion-rsa]

Why Jack Bauer Is America’s James Bond

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Despite what Marvel might have you believe, not all film franchises are perfectly serialized.

Take, for example, another kind of cinematic superhero: James Bond a.k.a. 007. The MI6 spy created by Ian Fleming and brought to screen by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli is timeless in the most literal sense of the world. Since Sean Connery passed the role of James Bond to Roger Moore for good in 1973’s Live and Let Die (Connery previously gave way to George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service before returning in Diamonds Are Forever), James Bond has become unstuck in time. 

As played in subsequent films over several decades by actors like Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig, Bond remains the same while the world around him changes. Some fans like to theorize that “Agent 007” and “James Bond” are aliases used by different MI6 spies throughout the years. But within the context of the series, there is only one Bond…James Bond. Bond is always middle-aged, looks good in a tux, enjoys stiff drinks and beautiful women. 

Read more

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The Cold War ended in the ‘90s and yet Bond, perhap the ultimate cinematic representative of its aesthetic, just kept calm and carried on as usual. Save for a handful of Craig’s latter year depictions, James Bond rarely learns any new tricks. He doesn’t develop. He is what he is – a hero of espionage and action. In that regard, the James Bond series is a surprisingly honest exploration of the occasional propagandistic aims of major blockbuster filmmaking. Bond isn’t a character in a story. He’s the United Kingdom’s idealized version of itself writ large on a canvas widescreen: a suave spy who is welcomed into every country to get laid and save the world. 

But what about the United States’ idealized version of itself? How has the Cold War’s lone surviving superpower let itself go without a similarly iconic (and occasionally nakedly jingoistic) cinematic creation? The answer is that America already does have an outsized action icon…he was just on television. 

Jack Bauer of early 2000s Fox thriller series 24 is American James Bond whether we want him to be or not. Just as Bond is the idealized Englishman, with his martini lunches and quick wit, Bauer is the America’s warped ideal of itself: angry, merciless, focused, and unfailingly effective. 

As portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland (who won an Emmy for the role), Jack Bauer started off as a fairly three-dimensional character in 24’s first season. That season picked up with Jack as a family man and a glorified pencil pusher at the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit’s Los Angeles office. Over the span of the first season’s 24 hours (24’s hook, of course, is that each season takes place over the span of a 24-hour day in real time), Jack slowly lost grip of his humanity, culminating with his friend Nina Myers turning out to be a mole and murdering his wife Teri. 

The death of Teri fundamentally changed Jack. For eight subsequent seasons and a movie, Jack became an Uncle Sam-style cartoon character obsessed with protecting his country from terrorists all over the globe, because his family was already taken away from him. Elisha Cuthbert as Jack’s daughter Kim was a prominent character for a few seasons, but as she was phased out so too was Jack’s grip on reality.

Unlike the James Bond series, 24 was particularly devoted to its chronology, with the very premise of the show meaning it had to have a close relationship with time. Jack Bauer would in theory grow as a character from season to season. But rather than developing, he mostly devolved into the most base version of himself. 

It’s in this way that Bauer actually became more like James Bond than one might initially expect. Regardless of who is playing him or what time period a particular film is set in, Bond’s characteristics remain static. By the end of 24’s run in 2014, Jack was similarly a Bond-ian relic of the past. Though the country was still feeling the effects of it, “The War on Terror” seemed as dramatically quaint for 24 as the Cold War did for James Bond. And yet here was this rugged American in the miniseries 24: Live Another Day, gripping the life out of a pistol and barking at perceived London terrorists in a gravely timber like a psycho.

24: Live Another Day was the last appearance for Jack Bauer and rightfully so at the time. The character had become a bit too anachronistic and his show, quite frankly, was frequently xenophobic. Still, as the continued success of Craig’s Bond films indicate (with No Time to Die finally set to arrive this October) perhaps there is still room for walking anachronisms in the entertainment world, as long as they’re approached correctly.

Fox has repeatedly attempted to rejuvenate the 24 brand. In 2017, the network greenlit a spinoff starring Corey Hawkins called 24: Legacy. Like its forefather, 24: Legacy, utilized a real-time format, only condensing 24 hours into 12 episodes like Live Another Day did. The spinoff was not successful and was quickly canceled following the conclusion of its first season.

Ultimately, Fox (now owned by Disney) hasn’t made any subsequent reboot attempts work yet because it has misidentified the appeal of 24 as a franchise. While the ticking clock aspect of telling a story in real time is novel and interesting, it wasn’t the reason the original series lasted for nine seasons. The real reason for 24’s success was Jack Bauer. Viewers are typically attracted to characters, not concepts. In Jack Bauer, many an American viewer likely found the embodiment of a paranoid nation they recognized.

There’s an undercurrent of anger and indignance in the American psyche. Exactly why is a question best left for sociologists. Perhaps it’s misplaced guilt over displacing a society to create a new one, or maybe it’s just the disappointment of being promised a Manifest Destiny and getting Wyoming. But whatever the reason, Jack Bauer is as apt a cartoonish American avatar as James Bond is a British one.

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So why then doesn’t 20th Television (again, now owned by Disney) just formalize the comparison and make Jack Bauer literally American James Bond? Just as Connery once handed off the baton to Lazenby and Moore, have Sutherland hand the role off to someone else. That actor would preferably represent the American physicality that Sutherland brought to the role (despite Sutherland being a Canadian, which is somewhat fitting given that the Scottish Connery was the first to play Her Majesty’s favorite spy). The new Jack Bauer would be played by someone who is short, stubbly, and angry rather than Bond’s tall, dark, and handsome. Throw the new Jack back into the field in a modern day ticking time bomb plot without bothering to explain why he is still middle-aged after 20 years. 

The answer to why Disney wouldn’t want to do such a thing is almost certainly all that aforementioned racism and torture. That is admittedly a, uh…roadblock. It really can’t be overstated just how xenophoci 24 was at times and how cruel it could be to characters and actors of Middle Eastern descent. Jack Bauer’s reliance on torture wasn’t just a dramatic crutch, 24 co-creator Joel Surnow genuinely believed in the value of torture as a foreign policy tactic. 

Suffice it to say, the series has not aged well. Then again, however, neither have many of the earlier Bond films. To a certain extent that’s the point of the Bond franchise. It understands that making movies is making myths. James Bond is every bit the mythical figure that Captain America or Iron Man are. The fact that Bond is so obviously an exaggerated character now has helped soften some of his more problematic edges. 

Bauer, on the other hand, comes from an era where Americans were both terrified of the looming threat of terrorism and were starting to invest in television as a more “serious” art form. As such, not everyone of the time was prepared to accept Jack Bauer as American James Bond, that is to say a cheesy cultural figure, not a vital supersoldier of freedom. 

In The Atlantic’s 2007 article “Whatever It Takes” about the politics of 24,  U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, recounts Jack Bauer’s effect on enlistees.

“The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about 24?’ The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do.”

The world has changed since then, obviously. But even now, it feels like it hasn’t fully set in that Jack Bauer is the American James Bond and should be treated with the same amount of reverence, which is none at all. Perhaps the only responsible move left is, in fact, to continue the increasingly ridiculous stories of the character with new actors.

In the right hands, Jack Bauer could be put to use as a blockbuster magnet and an appropriate critique of American foreign policy. In the end, icons don’t matter so much as what you do with them. 

The post Why Jack Bauer Is America’s James Bond appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[47burlm]

BOND JAMES BOND

“Connery set the style of how Bond looked, dressed, made love, smoked ... drank, handled a gun, drove a car — even what type of car he drove. ... Every Bond since Connery can't help but be compared with him.”

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He is best known as the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again) between 1962 and 1983.

Sean Connery, the ruggedly handsome Scottish actor who shot to international stardom in the 1960s after introducing himself to movie audiences as “Bond. James Bond,” has died. He was 90. Connery, who two decades later won an Academy Award playing a Prohibition-era Irish-American cop in “The Untouchables,” his family confirmed to BBC. A commanding screen presence throughout his long career, Connery came to define British novelist Ian Fleming’s dashing and deadly secret agent who preferred his vodka martinis shaken, not stirred. Other actors have officially portrayed Bond in films — David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig — but for many moviegoers, there was only one 007. A tuxedo-clad Connery famously introduced himself as Bond to a beautiful young woman — and to the audience — while playing chemin de fer in “Dr. No,” the 1962 action-thriller that launched one of the most successful movie franchises of all time.

Connery began acting in smaller theatre and television productions until his breakout role as British secret agent James Bond garnered him international recognition. Although the Scotsman did not like the off-screen attention the role gave him, the success brought film offers from famed directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and John Huston for dramatic roles, which made him a successful actor and major film star. Those films included Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965) Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000). Connery retired from acting in 2006.

His achievements in film have been recognized with an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (including a Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. He was also a recipient of the US Kennedy Center Honors lifetime achievement award in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.

Connery was polled in a 2004 Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as both the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century" in 1999.

[bluedraggy]

An essay on writing a fanfiction, and grieving for an OC.

(Spoilers for You Only Live 18 Times are complete. If you’ve not read it and have any intention of doing so, this essay isn’t a good idea to read first.)

I don't know exactly who my target audience for this essay is honestly, but in my conceit, I felt like writing it anyway. You're welcome to ignore it. No sexy khajiits here, alas. But I wanted to write something about my process of writing fanfiction, and YOL18T is a good example of that.

First, the concept of my Spyjirra stories started out simply enough - I got the idea of basing a story on the old 007 movies, but with a sexy Ra'Jirra khajiit and set in a future Elder Scrolls universe. I wouldn't say I literally copied from the movies, just got some general outlines from them. However, I had to upscale the TES technology to roughly 1700s era, with some bits of technology more advanced, others less than the literal period. So we have rifles and handguns, but no motorized vehicles. Magic still exists, but is fading.

When I started YOL18T I first watched the old Bond movie You Only Live Twice.  In it, "American and Russian spacecraft go missing, leaving each superpower to blame the other."  The protagonist fakes his own death, then is sent to investigate in Japan. They discover it's a conspiracy by SPECTRE, the standard organized villain corporation.

So I start with a similar plotline, but spacecraft are obviously way too advanced for even my future-TES universe. Instead, the plot revolves around ships with a new technology - engines. Hammerfell and the Imperials are the two superpowers, with Hammerfell playing the part of the Russians, though not quite exclusively.  In fact, I have Hammerfell being the more technologically advanced of the two. Anyway, so instead of spacecraft, both countries are testing new powered ships, but they are both destroyed and each side blames the other.

In my story, Elsweyr plays the part of the English, ostensibly an ally of Cyrodiil but Ra'Jirra leans towards liking Hammerfell better after the last story. The Aldmeri Dominion plays the role of SPECTRE, and I conceived of them having a submarine and torpedoes that they used to destroy the ships - though the submarine is magically powered since the Altmer still possess decent magical abilities.

I was able to link the first story to the second by having Ra'Jirra's fake suicide done in Hammerfell where she meets a couple of characters from the original story. But the main new OC is Wears-Only-Ropes, an Argonian sailor who is on the Imperial ship that is destroyed. It seemed natural that, since this story would be very naval-oriented, the Argonians with their ability to breathe underwater would play an important role in any navy, even though their own country is resolutely neutral and not really even ocean-going.

(Forgive me pls for posting Wears-Only-Ropes images you’ve already seen. I am still in mourning over her, in a more real sense than I have any right to be.)

In the Bond movie, a large portion of it is devoted to James Bond visiting Japan and some serious time is taken in describing the society there. I thought that having Ra'Jirra visit Argonia, (The Argonians wouldn't call it the Black Marsh after all), would be a natural replacement for Japan. So similarly I spend some time imagining the society that the Argonians would have.  Even the Sumo wrestling scene gets an equivalent Argonian sporting event - chase the eel.

So while I do follow the plotline of the Bond movie in very broad terms, the specifics are very different obviously.

Anyway, as I was writing, I realized early on that Ra'Jirra needed a partner - primarily so she has someone to talk to and I don't need to have internal dialogue, but also to give an alternate viewpoint on occasion. Since I tend to write sexy scenes once in a while, a male khajiit would make sense. (I don't think it's too sexist to have her be hetero. Besides, I had a rather clear lesbian scene in the prior story with her anyway.)  Then I realized that it would be cute if her partner was an Alfiq - one of the more bizarre forms of khajiit in that they're basically the size and shape of a housecat, but intelligent - though TES sources indicate they can't speak. So that would be a bit of a problem. I worked around that by having him be a biologist of sorts working with Lycanthropy who had been turned into an Alfiq. Also, he gets to turn back into his native form of a Cathay when the moons are aligned. So Ra'Jirra and he can occasionally have Sexy Fun Times. Plus he can talk. Okay, that's a good OC and should be fun to play with! A spy organization like the HMSS would certainly have good use of someone like that.

I then started the story with a chapter on Wears-Only-Ropes and the destruction of her ship.  Rather liked how it turned out. I thought it made for a pretty good "hook" to start the reader out with something big.  Then I had to abandon her for most of the next half. In fact, she doesn't actually meet Ra'Jirra till 3/4 of the way through the story, so she gets a few more chapters from her point of view. But I came to really like her as a character. Mixing some bits I knew of pirates (women pirates would typically go shirtless as did the men) I had the concept of her "wearing" ropes as a bra of sorts, thus the name.

Another thing that originally came from the Bond film... in it, James Bond flys a mini-helicopter at one point. Well, a helicopter is way too advanced, but I came up with the CATv3 instead - a sort of Jet Ski/Waverunner thing. Once I had that, I had to give it some sort of weapon. A set of mines would make sense, as the thing would be bouncing all over the waves so trying to aim it with a gun in the front wouldn't really work.  As soon as I got the idea of a mines on the CATv3, the logical way to destroy the sub became apparent.  

But the mines would be surface mines, meant to thwart attackers chasing her on boats or similar.  The submarine would be deep underwater... how? Oh. OH! OOOOOH!

Suddenly, Wears-Only-Ropes' fate was sealed. She would have to take a mine down to the sub. Ra'Jirra couldn't do it even if she wanted to. Argonians can breathe underwater. Ra'Jirra can dog-paddle for a little bit.

Even then I had hoped to have her survive. I really had grown fond of her. But, minimal though it is, I do try to ground my stories in reality as much as possible given The Elder Scrolls-inspired world. I researched underwater explosions.  I'd hoped that perhaps an underwater explosion - given the density and non-compact-ability of water might allow her to live. But my research showed that, far from being safer than airborne explosions, an underwater explosion is even more deadly. And the explosion would be huge. The mine wouldn't just detonate against the hull of the sub, it would trigger the explosion of all the torpedoes within.

Fight as I would as a writer, I couldn't justifiably have her live. Any number of solutions were possible, but they all were just too outlandish and smacked of Deus Ex-Machina solutions. No, she had to die in the explosion. Granted, she'd expected to. All her 'family' and friends had died in the original ship torpedoing at the first chapter. It would be fitting that she would sacrifice herself to their retribution. I couldn't deny her that. So, though I don't explicitly make it clear, she died.

It's weird how such a thing can affect me, her author. I really feel bad about it, even though it was both fitting and made for a more impressive story IMHO. I've toyed with the idea of her Twin Sister, etc, but that doesn't feel right either.  No, she's a one-story character, and YOL18T is her story as much as Ra'Jirra's.

One other thing, I needed a core motive for the Dominion's action. Sure, they were trying to instigate a war between Hammerfell and Cyrodiil - but WHY would they want to do that? The answer was right in front of me. Technology vs Magic. In my TES-future universe, magic is dying. The Altmer of the Dominion are the last capable magic-users (to any large extent), but the humans and their rapidly increasing technology were threatening. But not just that. I conceived of them using their magic to look far into the future, and what they saw there was a world in which humans were the only intelligent inhabitants. The khajiit, argonians and mer were all gone. It gave them a much more noble reason for their actions - even if they were also self-serving. And therein lies the core of the sequel and end of the trilogy actually. In YOL18T, I didn't do much with that, other than have the Dominion explain their reasons to Ra'Jirra.

And that's how YOL18T was conceived. I am currently doing an audio-recording of the story chapter-by-chapter. I'm not a good voice actor at all. In fact, I just pitch-shift my voice to portray the different characters in it. I spend most of my time adding background effects so it's not quite just a dry reading. Though I'm also currently writing the sequel and last story in the Spyjirra trilogy, I think YOL18T is the highlight - even though the current one is a "bigger picture" story than either of the first two and really doesn’t track along with the Bond movie in any way.

But I do miss Ropes. She deserved more than a single story. The one thing I might do someday is write more of her backstory. But prequels are a tough sell, esp. when you know how her story has to end. Eh... maybe not.  I tried to write a prequel once for Katia to explore her life before she came to Anvil. I aborted it as too depressing. I really prefer happy endings. So probably Ropes is gone for good. I hope her story is good enough for her.

[zooterchet]

How MI-6 Titles Work

Movie, Film, and Art Theory (Known MI-6 Profiles)

Batman: This villain, has mortally wounded you, giving you your specialty of aegis. If screened or printed, you have won well, inflicting Lethal Measures. Otherwise, you are Robin, you have been “Conned”.

James Bond 007: You are Bond, in the opening scene, before the credits. After that, you are the villain, on fiscal support for a bounty hunt; You.

Mission Impossible: You are the finest line of British Theatre, Shakespeare, and you insist on an Underling’s Job. The manse is an empty, palatial estate, the way you have wrecked it, and you have lost a marital engagement, through playing out the sequence of your own work. Your target, is Othello.

Secret Agent Man: You have foiled yourself in a blunder, to catch a case. You are strictly an artist, and must find the film reference, to your own tragedy, in the tragic fop of the film or movie; you have committed the offense, they are threatened by, and now you must return your ungained largesse, to charity.

Spider: You have recruited a writer, for the funny tunes, and you must manage your investment, or die. Death is poverty, homeless, wildebeasts, sacks of weed, in the African underbrush, where you made your money and cutting blade, in the Dutch-Belgian Wars, alongside the Bretons and Nords. If you really wanted to sign on for the Army, you wouldn’t have had a lit cherry, would you.

Cheech and Chong: You’ve destroyed America, in favor of the United States. You’ve created dozens of myths, and each one, must be destroyed, in such a way, that the crooked state trooper, at the start of the film, is you, at the end. Chong is your wisdom guide, but he should not be trusted, off the film set.

GI Joe: You are American Yakuza, the Japanese answer to the American spy even though the CIA, is America’s facsimile of your ancient honor, the Japanese thief, and now, you must keep ahead, with a new alliance. Your job, as an American veteran of Japanese descent, is an alliance with Cobra Commander, the head of the Buddhist League, the artists and toymakers and choreographers and actors and writers, behind the most lethal combat scores and strikes of our generation; the support propaganda devices of NATO, but only if you pay them.

Metal Gear Solid: As an agent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, your job is simple; a major MI-6 role, has gone downhill, and you are placed in recovery, to murder and remove a rogue MI-6, from this mortal coil. Failure, is not an option. Secrecy, is your calling, not your own hidden nature, but that of the coherency of MI-6, as the Irish division of the United Kingdom. Each of your foes, per game, is a potential ally or asset, but only if you don’t kill them, in such a way that the strategy is effective in gameplay.

Burn Notice: You acquitted yourself, so well, as a CIA agent, from an MI-6 service, that you’ve been forced into the life of a civilian, outside the war. Your breeding, background, reputation, blood, and quiet athletics, are superb, and you can’t stop, taking up a life of crime. We know you barely watch the shows, you think they’re for the kids, but it’s actually a pageant for America, to be men and women like you. You never cared, did you, Michael Weston. You secretly know what you are, a serial killer, and it bothers the CIA, because it means the same of them, that an MI-6 could infiltrate so carefully and easily, with a stock and bond project in the 7th grade, and the “Greed is Good” speech from Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, Michael Douglas as the player.

Lost: Your entire family fortune was ruined, by your new investment, id Software and your top hit game, “Doom”. The Carnegie Institute lies in ruins, your own worker drones, college kids, and your media sources, the Skulls, and your narcotrafficking lines, Canadian cops, shut off and closed down for good. Now you just have the origin of your family, as Andrew Carnegie, a simple scam’s man that understand the brand of a name, reputation, not some petty degree that you could’ve gotten if you were willing to put yourself through neptuating psychosis, your own gift to the world since you were but a child king, in Scotland, as a bankish murderer of Hecates and Highlanders. Is it time for the Kurgan’s Return, Swedish-Jew?

[dweemeister]

2018 Movie Odyssey for-fun awards

With the 2018 Movie Odyssey in the books, but the 2018 Movie Odyssey Awards themselves delayed until next week (Sunday, January 6), here is the penultimate tradition for the year. This is a collection of for-fun honors and dishonors for the 250+ films that I saw in their entirety this calendar year.

Actor I wanted to smack most in the face: Sydney Greenstreet, The Woman in White (1948)

Because when I read the book earlier last year, there was nothing I wanted to do more than smack Count fucking Fosco in the face. Almost all of the dudes in Braveheart (1995) were the runners-up.

Best experience in a packed theater: A Quiet Place (2018)

Because everybody went along with the film - nobody dared make a noise. :P

Best fight scene AND sing-off: “Marching Through Georgia” v. “Dixie”, which precipitates into the saloon brawl, Dodge City (1939)

That post-War tension between Union and Confederate veterans, though...

Best film title: A River Runs Through It (1992)

It only really makes sense by the film’s closing scene.

Best individual cue from an original score: “Battle on the Ice” by Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky (1938, Soviet Union)

Best last line, that, well, isn’t quite a last line: “Bolt the door, Maria,” from The Heiress (1949)

Best lyrics passage from an original song: “Charade”, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Charade (1963)

Fate seemed to pull the strings; I turned and you were gone. While from the darkened wings, The music box played on.

Best moment: The ending to The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Best movie dad: Josh Hamilton, Eighth Grade (2018)

“...why would you think you make me sad?... Being your dad makes me so happy, Kayla. You don’t know. You don’t know how happy you make me. It’s beyond anything. I can’t describe it to you... It’s so easy to love you. It’s so easy to be proud of you. I really mean that.”

Best movie family member, non-parent: Bette Davis, All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

Best movie mom: Anne Revere as Mrs. Araminty Brown, National Velvet (1944)

“There’s a time for everything. There’s a time for having a horse and the Grand National; for being in love; having children, yes, even for dying. All in proper order at the proper time.”

Best one-line kill: This moment from The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Best on-screen friendship: Pete and Elliott, Pete’s Dragon(1977)

Best use of dog poop as a plot device: Roma (2018, Mexico)

And I think it should win Best Picture!

Best use of non-original music: this Cantonese cover of “Material Girl” from Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Best use of testicles as a plot device: Pom Poko (1994, Japan)

It was that kind of year, kiddos!

Best vocal performance: Judy Garland singing “But Not For Me” from Girl Crazy (1943)

Biggest disappointment: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)

Fans of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan didn’t tell me about the blackface and the exoticism of tropical Africa! C’mon, guys!

Biggest surprise: Charade (1963)

Was not expecting this movie to be as good as it was! Certainly, as many people write, it is the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made.

Biggest (unpleasant) surprise: That ending to Hereditary (2018)

One particular shot gave me the worst feeling ever - a sinking one - in a theater.

Eye-gouging un-achievement in animation: The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967)

Forgot what happened an hour after I left the theater: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Greatest discovery (actor): Ganjirô Nakamura, Floating Weeds (1959, Japan)

Greatest discovery (actress): Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade (2018)

Greatest discovery (director): Lee Chang-dong, Burning (2018, South Korea)

I had never seen any of his films before!

I seem to be the only Asian-American who despised this: Bao (2018 short)

I thought it let the mother - who was showing signs of emotionally abusive and possessive behavior - off very lightly, with nothing for her to learn.

Instant, shameless tearjerker: The ending to Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993)

Shadow? SHADOOOOWWWWW.....

Kick-ass moment: Mission: Impossible -- Fallout (2018)

The whole darn movie. Seriously.

Most awkward title drop: A View to a Kill (1985)

Just click the darn link! It’s the cherry on top to maybe one of the worst 007 villain performances ever, all thanks to Christopher Walken.

Most narrative (and literal) twists and turns: In Search of the Castaways (1962)

What the actual...?

Most stressful significant other: Alex Honnold, Free Solo (2018)

Not-so-prophetic film title: The NeverEnding Story (1984)

That movie flew by so quickly, I barely noticed there was any movie in it!

Presidential election of 2016 flashbacks warning: The One and Only, Genuine Original Family Band (1968)

As much as I adore Walter Brennan impugning “Reeeee-publicans”, anyone who loses the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote has got my sympathy.

Spends half the movie referring to themselves as their own name: The title song to Hans Christian Andersen (1952)

I get it already... your name is Hans Christian Andersen!

Tears. Ugly tears: Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)

Do I have to explain any more? I was one of Mister Rogers’ neighbors!

Worst parent (I’m retiring this category after this year, because there’s no topping this): Thanos, Avengers: Infinity War

Worst use of non-original music: “California Girls” from A View to a Kill

Oh good god no.

The 2018 Movie Odyssey Awards will be up -- hopefully by the end of the night!

[damnhotmsimmons]

From a new old interview. Two things to point out:

1.) Can't believe his dream role is playing 007 considering that he and Daniel Craig have the same name and he worked with Rosamund, who starred in Die Another Day. Also, as cool as it is, the chances of him being 007 are unlikely since he’s already in his 40s (and knowing how some people can be, there’s gonna be outrage of an Asian American actor is playing 007). Even if he doesn’t get to be 007, hopefully Daniel gets a chance to star in a big budget Hollywood action movie like the John Wick films, Jack Ryan, maybe work with the Russo Brothers etc. Cast him in more stuff Hollywood!!!!

2.) It’s pretty cool to see him try out different things and branch out in the entertainment industry by becoming a producer and writer in one project and a director in another. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of stories he developed as either of those three

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Review] This HELLRAISER’s JUDGMENT is Guilty of Being Cheap

Somewhere, in the underlining story of Hellraiser: Judgment, there’s a good idea. In its brisk 81 minutes, which somehow manages to doubly bore with its police procedural knockoff and apparent obsession with Cenobite bureaucracy, there is at least the foundation of something that could have made for a truly compelling Hellraiser entry. Unfortunately, director Gary J. Tunnicliffe decided to remake Seven, and thrown in some scenes that felt more like a back door pilot for Law & Order: Leviathan.

The idea: what if modern life is so sinful, that the mere idea of sin being bad and shameful is quaint. Everyone’s sin is an open book, and no one seems to care because we’re addicted to our phones, or something. Look, they’re demons, not Rhodes scholars! The basis for Hellraiser is that when truly terrible sinners run out of Earthly sin, the Cenobites come and offer next level sin through their puzzle box. What greater sin is there for a cynical culture is the belief we’ve “been there and seen all that”? The idea that there are no more surprises. We are numb to everything.

Too bad this latest entry didn’t follow its own advice because Judgment is just about as pedestrian as you can get. Fans can forgive the horridness of the previous entry, Revelations, because it was made under the cynical precept that Dimension was just putting something together to hold on to the Hellraiser rights. In this business, it’s called pulling a “Fantastic Four”. Tunnicliffe though, having worked behind the scenes for years on Hellraiser movies as a make-up artist, seemed like he had something specific he wanted to do. Whether or not he accomplished it is a question I can’t answer.

As for the film itself is every strung-out cop cliché you can think of in the packaging of an actor who looks like someone in casting said, “Bring me Michael Fassbender’s cheap American equivalent.” Detectives Sean Carter (Damon Carney) has been there, seen that, and read the book, but he stopped short of watching the movie version because you kids don’t read any more! That insult is directed at little brother and fellow detective David Carter played by Randy Wayne, who looks like he’d last about five minutes in Fifty Shades of Grey’s Red Room, to say nothing of the Cenobite’s Hell Realm.

These two detectives of nowhere/anywhere USA are investigating the serial murder spree of “The Preceptor”, who’s committing a murder in honour of every one of the Ten Commandments. The Preceptor has killed all the way through to #8, and who’s ever in charge of this surprisingly depleted police force has assigned Detective Christine Egerton (Alexandra Harris) to help the brothers make a break before the last two murders are completed.

If the limited budget of Judgement is hurt the most by any one thing, it’s the complete and utter lack of extras. All the scenes at the police station take place in the same small dingy detective’s office that Egerton rightly mocks as looking like something out of a hard-boiled 1940s film noir. Crime scenes are surprisingly sparse as one man guards a spot in the middle of an open area where there’s no press attention from a media that would undoubtedly be hungry for every last detail about such a salacious killer. Also, there is not a single CSI person collecting evidence! If these three people are responsible for the policing of an entire city, that explains a lot.

As for our old friend Pinhead (now played by Paul T. Taylor), whatever’s going in, he seems cool with it. Every once in a while, we cut to Pinhead, sitting in a room somewhere, starring at a wall. We’re introduced to a new Cenobite called the Auditor, played by director Tunnicliffe himself. The Auditor is part of the previously unseen Cenobite legal system (I guess?) where you recount for him your sins. Those sins are assessed by a character played by Feast director John Gulager, who eats the type written pages listing those sins, and then your guilt/innocence is determined by a jury of three naked women with half-eaten faces who put their hands in the Assessor’s barf after he throws up the pages. Spoiler alert: no one is found innocent.

Though I mock the Cenobite legal system, likely to my own detriment, I must also confess to finding this the film’s most interesting part. When Sean Carter finds himself before the Auditor, it felt like the movie was going somewhere new and interesting. We had to slog though just about every serial killer movie cliché catalogued in the last 20 years of cinema history to get there, but I would have been okay with that if the movie managed to keep this feeling of genuinely exploring new ground in a well-worn universe.

Sadly though, this Seven parody must answer itself as Ameri-Fassbender struggles with issues of being the toughest cop on the force, of being messed-up from his military service, of being a crappy husband, and on, and on, and on. This naturally leads to a plot twist, which is hardly unexpected, but far from earned. At 81 minutes, we’re not given nearly enough time to get to know Carter, or to be either shocked or impressed about the direction the story takes his character in. Instead it seems like a weak way to bring the Cenobites, always the most interesting part of any Hellrasier story, back into the plot.

It is in the end that we finally see Taylor show off his chops as one of the most iconic horror characters. I give Taylor credit for at least being able to wear the pins and the leather with a certain degree of majesty, but there’s no way that he can fill the shoes of Doug Bradley. That’s not to say that no one can out Pinhead Bradley, and maybe if Taylor had been given something more to do he could have proved it, but Pinhead’s appearance in Judgment seemed kind of pro forma.

In other words, the Auditor, played by the film’s director, was the Cenobite star, and that’s okay. As for human celebrities, we get A Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp as the landlady of one of the Cenobites’ victims, and the production must have only been able to afford her for one scene, because there’s actually a scene later when Sean talks to the landlady through an open door, which obscures the view of the hallway outside. Did Langenkamp get paid by the word? And why invite horror royalty to your set, and give her such a blah part as an eye witness? This is like getting Jason Statham for a James Bond movie, and having him appear as the bartender that makes 007 his martini!

This infuriating exercise seems to be brought to us by the same people at Dimension who just seem to crank out Hellraiser movies now as a way of holding on to the rights so that no one else can have them. Meaning that Tunnicliffe’s ideas might have been able to bear fruit if the studio wasn’t being so damn cheap. This is a series that has gone into space, dammit! Seriously though, whatever Tunnicliffe might have been going for, I doubt it was a 75 per cent warmed over remake of Hellraiser: Inferno, another chapter from this franchises about a haunted cop hunting a psycho killer with a silly name.

Next time, and there will be a next time, let’s hope that Dimension digs deeper in their pockets to let the director be able to execute a modicum of imagination greater than what’s accomplished in Judgement. In the meantime, this Hellraiser is for fans and completists only.

1.5/ 4 Eberts

The post [Review] This HELLRAISER’s JUDGMENT is Guilty of Being Cheap appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[aion-rsa]

James Bond Movies Streaming Guide: Where to Watch 007 Online

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In times of great stress it’s natural for us to all find some sort of escapism – and movies are the perfect way to forget about your problems (or the world’s) for a couple of hours. Personally, we’ve found the James Bond franchise to be among the best forms of such entertainment: the movies are pure adventure and fantasy, they have a comforting template that they mostly follow, and you can dive into the series — or even an individual film — without having to catch up on anything that came before.

That’s why it’s so heartening that — even though the new film, No Time to Die, has been delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis — most of the Bond catalog is available to watch via the major streaming platforms. Amazon has many of them streaming for free for Prime members, with almost all available to rent or buy. A number of titles are free to stream on Hulu or Netflix. Of course, you can also watch a lot of them (with commercials) on Pluto TV’s dedicated Bond channel, or on demand there as well.

Wherever you get your Bond, the exploits of 007 remain a sure bet to whisk you away for a while; it’s only a shame that we couldn’t send Bond to defeat the coronavirus as easily as he takes out his enemies. And with the recent passing of original James Bond Sean Connery at the age of 90, you might want to revisit his work, as well.

Here’s how and where you can watch…

Dr. No (1962)

The first Bond movie and still one of the best, Dr. No introduced so many elements of what became the series template for decades to come. Unsettling megalomaniac villain, world-spanning evil plan, drop-dead beautiful women, pulse-pounding chases and cold-blooded killings…they’re all here. And then of course there was the late, great Sean Connery, rugged, smoldering and deadly as the definitive screen Bond.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

From Russia with Love (1963)

Connery’s second outing as 007 is probably the closest to Fleming’s books in terms of overall tone and style. This is a lean, thrilling adventure that puts Bond up against one of his most fearsome enemies: the cold-blooded assassin Red Grant (Robert Shaw). Their train fight is one of the best scenes in the franchise.

Available on Amazon and Hulu, to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Goldfinger (1964)

Bond’s third outing was the Avengers: Endgame of its time, a cultural event not to be missed. Director Guy Hamilton introduced more humor into the proceedings, while Connery tweaked the character accordingly. Add to that more action, a larger than life villain and an epic scope, and you have the movie that many still consider the best of the series.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

Thunderball (1965)

After three straight winners, Thunderball is where the 007 series first started to wobble. Although it features one of the best Bond villains and some of the most beautiful Bond women, the movie is overlong and bogged down with too many underwater sequences. Thunderball is still fun in many ways — the first 40 minutes or so are marvelous — but it spends way too much time in the water.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

You Only Live Twice (1967)

The final entry of Connery’s initial run as 007 proves that bigger isn’t always better. Although the movie finally introduces long-lurking nemesis Blofeld and takes Bond to a massive secret lair disguised as a volcano in Japan, the series started to feel flabby and the star seemed visibly bored. It was also the first Bond movie to stray wildly from the source novel, a decision that in this case didn’t work.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Casino Royale (1967)

Producer Charles K. Feldman acquired the rights to the first Bond novel before the official series from Eon Productions was launched. He subsequently produced this spoof of the 007 series, which bears only the title of the book and the name of the Bond character (who is played by David Niven). Six credited directors, a bevy of screenwriters and a boatload of international stars couldn’t salvage this infamous mess of a movie.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Australian model-turned-actor George Lazenby made his sole appearance as Bond in this sixth film, an exceptionally faithful adaptation of the emotionally devastating Fleming book it’s based on. Lazenby manages to acquit himself nicely despite being the first actor to follow Connery, while Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas are outstanding as, respectively, the love of Bond’s life and the instrument of her death. Once considered a misfire, OHMSS ranks among the very best of the series.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Diamonds are Forever (1971)

A pale echo of the earlier Goldfinger (from the same director, Guy Hamilton), Diamonds are Forever is remembered as the movie that lured Sean Connery back for one more turn in the tuxedo (until 12 years later, that is). The sober, character-driven style of OHMSS is jettisoned for a cartoonish romp that has its fun moments but is largely disposable.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore’s debut in the role — after Connery exited for a second time — is, sadly, a largely cringeworthy affair. Based on Fleming’s second 007 novel, the movie’s attempt to fuse blaxploitation with Bond is awkward and, nowadays, borderline racist. Moore doesn’t quite find his footing either. The upside? The title song by Paul McCartney and Wings is a stone cold classic.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Based on Fleming’s final Bond novel and considered one of the worst of the Roger Moore era, The Man with the Golden Gun has two things going for it: a relatively tough Moore performance and one of the best Bond villains of all time in Christopher Lee’s title baddie, Scaramanga. Lee’s presence literally saves whole stretches of the film, which is often undone by juvenile humor and lame supporting characters.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Third time was the charm for Roger Moore, as The Spy Who Loved Me gambles on going for all-out spectacle and delivers handsomely. Moore strikes the right balance of grit and humor, the action is thrilling throughout and the villain’s henchman, Jaws (Richard Kiel), is a slam dunk. This is rightly considered the high point of Moore’s run as well as one of the series’ finest entries.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

Moonraker (1979)

Although remembered with some derision as “Bond in space,” Moonraker really only takes 007 to the stars in the final act for a wacked-out battle that looks too much like a cheap grab at some of that then-lucrative Star Wars money. Until then, however — and barring some bad comedy starring the encoring Jaws — Moonraker is a fairly straightforward thriller with a deliciously droll villain (Michael Lonsdale).

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Moore gives perhaps the best performance of his seven Bond films in a taut thriller that scales back the gimmickry and comes closer to the feel of the original Fleming than any other film in the Moore era. There are some cringeworthy elements (such as an awful Lynn Holly Johnson as a 007-infatuated pro ice skater), but this also features Moore at his most cold-blooded and cynical. 

Available on Amazon and Hulu, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Octopussy (1983)

An aging Moore and director John Glen (back for the second of five films — the most of any 007 director) keep the For Your Eyes Only vibe going with less spectacle and more practical spy film action. Maud Adams is good as the title femme fatale, but the film gets snarled in a convoluted, uninteresting plot that features some especially flat humor and one of the weakest Bond villains.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Sean Connery was coaxed back to play an appropriately aged Bond in this non-canon 007 adventure. A remake of Thunderball that was legally made possible due to certain rights owned by a solitary producer, Never Say Never Again benefits from the Connery charisma, a distinctive villain and some stylish sequences. But it can’t help feeling like a strange mirror universe cash grab at the same time.

Available on Pluto TV, to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

A View to a Kill (1985)

Moore bows out with a rather silly Silicon Valley adventure in which the actor’s 57 years (at the time) are clearly visible throughout. Christopher Walken is an excellent, quirky villain and henchwoman Grace Jones is also an impressive presence, but it was clear that the Moore formula of suave bonhomie and locker room humor was long worn out.

Available on Amazon and Hulu, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

The Living Daylights (1987)

Timothy Dalton’s debut as 007 was billed as a return to the feel and texture of the Fleming stories, and it even borrows elements from the short story it’s based on. Dalton is a much harder-edged Bond than his predecessor Moore, but the movie is overplotted and its action mostly unremarkable.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

License to Kill (1989)

Dalton settles into the role in his second (and as it turns out, final) appearance as Bond, this time in a tale that puts Bond on a personal mission of revenge against a powerful South American drug lord. Somewhat maligned for its rather sadistic violence, License to Kill is an underrated entry in the series that occasionally pushes the envelope for 007 in ways that hadn’t been done for a while.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Pluto TV, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

GoldenEye (1995)

After nearly winning the role years earlier, Pierce Brosnan makes his long-expected debut as 007 in a rather thoughtful thriller that questions both Bond’s relationships and his place in a post-Cold War world. Brosnan is assured in the role, if a little bland, but GoldenEye still manages to feel a little like both the earlier Connery classics and some of the better Moore romps.

Available on Netflix, available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Jonathan Pryce is excellent as the movie’s Rupert Murdoch-like media mogul villain — who intends to start a major war to bolster his news network’s ratings — and Michelle Yeoh makes a solid foil to Bond as a tough Chinese agent named Wai Lin. Brosnan’s sophomore Bond outing has a subtle satirical edge to it and some exciting scenes, but stretches of it seem more impersonal and functional than stylish.

Available on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Despite strong work from Sophie Marceau as a 007 first — a principal villain who’s also a woman — and Robert Carlyle as her damaged terrorist henchman, Brosnan’s third film is marred by another incomprehensible story and Denise Richards as one of the most embarrassing Bond women ever. The humor and serious moments clash awkwardly, harming what could have been a much better entry.

Available on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Die Another Day (2002)

Just like Connery and Moore, Brosnan goes out on a low note with this ridiculously overstuffed mess that features both an invisible car and a high-tech lair made out of ice. The plot is even more incomprehensible than usual for the lesser outings, and the presence of Halle Berry as a sort of female version of Bond doesn’t generate much excitement either.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Amazon UK

Casino Royale (2006)

Four years after Pierce Brosnan exited in one of the silliest Bond films, Daniel Craig took up the mantle in an instant classic that returned the series literally to its roots. This largely faithful version of Fleming’s first book features Craig as a relatively new but deeply haunted 007, who gets one last chance to turn back before becoming the ruthless assassin of legend.

Available on Amazon, Hulu and Netflix, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Widely derided at the time, and deservedly so, for Marc Forster’s nearly unwatchable direction — the movie’s editing is absolutely atrocious — Quantum of Solace was also hurt by a writer’s strike that left the script somewhat undercooked. But Craig is excellent again, and the movie works a little better if you watch it right after Casino Royale, as an extended epilogue.

Available on Amazon, Netflix and Hulu, available to rent or buy on Amazon UK

Skyfall (2012)

Craig’s second finest outing as Bond has impressively stylish direction by Sam Mendes and is one of the most beautiful-looking 007 films of all time thanks to DP Roger Deakins. Javier Bardem is marvelously ghoulish as the villain, and Judi Dench gets an emotional send-off in her seventh and final appearance as Bond’s boss M. Skyfall finds the right, gripping mix of characterization and epic action.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon, Amazon UK

Spectre (2015)

Bond arch-nemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) and the title crime organization appear for the first time since 1971’s Diamonds are Forever in one of 007’s most polarizing entries. The action is great and some of the series callbacks are fun, but Craig seems bored and tying everything from the last four films back to Bond’s childhood is a contrived, unnecessary mistake. Spectre is better than you might have heard, but not as good as it could be.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Available to rent or buy on Amazon, Amazon UK

The post James Bond Movies Streaming Guide: Where to Watch 007 Online appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2UNvQ6O

[ethanalter]

How to make a sexy sea monster and other 'Shape of Water' secrets revealed! (exclusive)

Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fairy tale The Shape of Water represents a breakthrough in human-fish relations. That’s not just because this lovingly crafted homage to classic ‘50s creature features is up for 13 Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. It also pushes the envelope well past love stories like Splash and The Little Mermaid, where men and mermaids enjoyed relatively chaste romances. In contrast, The Shape of Water’s lovers — mute janitor, Elisa (Sally Hawkins, a Best Actress nominee) and South American river god (Doug Jones) — get hot and heavy during the course of the film, instantly making them one of the most memorable interspecies couples in movie history.

Del Toro recognized early on in the production process that his love story hinged on audiences finding the Fish-Man as attractive as Elisa does. So, he devoted more than a year — and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own funds — towards sculpting a version of the creature that was, to put it bluntly, a total stud. “It needed to be very attractive, a creature you could fall in love with,” the director remarks in this exclusive behind-the-scenes clip that Yahoo Entertainment is premiering today. (Watch the video above.) Del Toro handed that challenge off to top creature designer, Mike Hill of Legacy Effects, who built a suit for Jones that was further enhanced in post-production by Dennis Berardi, head of the visual effects company Mr. X, which oversaw the effects work for The Shape of Water.

Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones as the lovers in ‘The Shape of Water’ (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The technique was pure hybrid,” Berardi explains to Yahoo Entertainment in a separate interview. “Generally speaking, when you see the body and head movements of the Fish Man—or the asset as we called him — that’s Doug Jones in a suit. But whenever you see him underwater, then he’s animated. I would also say that every single shot where you have the creature onscreen, the eyes and brow area are digital, because the way the mask worked, the eyes were a thick resin plug that didn’t articulate. Our methodology was to work from the eyes out, preserving as much of Doug’s performance as possible. But every single shot has varying degrees of visual effects in it, from micro-expressions like eye blinks to full-body animation.”

Unfortunately for Berardi, visual effects was one of the few Oscar categories in which The Shape of Water missed out on a nomination, with nods instead going to Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and War for the Planet of the Apes. But he and his team absolutely share a role in the movie’s success, infusing the creature’s costume design (which is up for an Oscar) with additional life. Having collaborated with Del Toro on both Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak, Berardi has regularly enjoyed a front-row seat to the director’s creative process. Read on for additional trade secrets behind The Shape of Water and its strapping Fish-Man.

It started with a sketch. Berardi’s first glimpse of The Shape of Water‘s aquatic heartthrob was as a two-dimensional sketch in one of the notebooks that Del Toro always has on hand to jot down ideas and images as they pop into his brain. (Some of those notebooks have been published in anthology collections.) “He showed me a sketch of their embrace,” the effects supervisor remembers, referring to an early version of the clinch between Elisa and the “asset” that appears on the movie’s poster. “It was such a romantic image, and he told me, ‘This is a movie that’s in love with love.’ You had a creature that had to be a leading man that Elisa had to fall in love with and that the audience had to fall in love with. He told us right at the beginning that this wasn’t a monster — it’s an intelligent being with a soul, and eyes that had to be soulful and deep.”

The creature also had to be a top-notch swimmer whose movements read as pure poetry in the water. To aid with that, Berardi had his team study Olympians like Michael Phelps as a starting point. “Those guys are powerful and swim somewhat gracefully, but nothing as graceful as what Guillermo really wanted. So then we looked at dolphins, sea lions, otters and seals, and settled on this hybrid of a humanoid swimming, with a bit of a dolphin kick. Seals actually became a lot of inspiration as well, because they move slipstream through the water very gracefully.”

Junk in the trunk In one of The Shape of Water‘s standout sequences, Elisa and her lover act consummate their powerful attraction in a bathroom that she transforms into a makeshift water tank. It’s an erotically-charged moment and del Toro takes full advantage of his R-rating, allowing the two to see, and touch, each other’s naked bodies like any homosapien couple would. Boundary-pushing as this scene may be, it stops just short of the final frontier: merman genitalia. And that’s just fine for Berardi, who would have been responsible for helping imagine what the creature’s junk might look like. “Guillermo’s got too much taste for that,” Berardi remarks with a laugh, pointing out that Elisa and her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) instead discuss her lover’s size after their intimate encounter. “His inspiration for the movie was when he was six years old watching Creature from the Black Lagoon and hoping that the creature gets the girl.”

That’s a note that del Toro passed along to Hill as well. “This thing has to be attractive to a woman,” the creature designer remarks in the above clip. “My directive was that I wanted to make him handsome.” For his part, Jones clearly appreciated the matinee idol physique that Hill crafted for his aquatic alter ego. “My lips are a little fuller, there’s a strong jawline and the body they sculpted on me is very athletic. He’s handsome in a fish-like way.”

Hawkins and Jones in an embrace in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

The shape of (digital) water If the Fish-Man was a hybrid of practical and digital effects, the water he calls home is almost entirely digital with one notable exception — the aforementioned love scene in Elisa’s bathroom. “That’s the only scene where we had the actors in water, ever,” Berardi reveals. “We had a water tank that we built and submerged the bathroom set, with the actors, in the tank. It was done in such a safe way that they could just be hovering around the surface with footholds and handholds. They’d film for 20 or 30 seconds, and then come back up easily because the water level was just above their heads. Sally and Doug were both game.” Everywhere else, though, the H20 was all CGI, and even with all the advancements that have been made since The Perfect Storm — the movie that Berardi cites as a breakthrough for digital water effects — simulating water is still one of the most difficult jobs for an effects house.

Interestingly, the most challenging shot involved another tank of sorts, the iron lung capsule that serves as the creature’s prison as he’s transported from South America to the Baltimore research facility where the film’s events unfold. “There was no water in that capsule,” Berardi says. “It would have been way too unsafe to have Doug in there. But we had to see water sloshing around through the glass while the asset is in there. The creature also had to slam his hand on the glass, so his digital hand would have to come through the digital water and hit the glass. All of that is 3D and volumetrically rendered. That was the shot that kept me up at night.”

Richard Jenkins and Jones in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

Here kitty, kitty Cat fanciers will be happy to hear that no real felines were harmed in the making of The Shape of Water. The same can’t be said for the computer-generated cat that the creature chows down on while hiding out with Elisa and her friend, Giles (Richard Jenkins). And the Fish-Man is a messy eater, too, getting blood all over the floor and himself. That may sound like a big turnoff, but del Toro felt it was crucial to showcase his hero in his less glamorous moments. “Guillermo didn’t want to make a traditional Beauty and the Beast-type story where the beast can’t really be himself. He’s eloquent, strong and heroic, yes, but he also needs protein!”

For the first part of the scene, Jones worked with an on-set cat wrangler to provoke a flesh-and-blood feline into a hissing fit. When the time came for the creature to open the cat’s head like a Pez dispenser, Berardi’s team took over. “We put a green sock puppet in Doug’s hands, replaced that with a digital cat and then severed the head. We went through about 25 iterations about what the cross section of the neck needed to look like, and showed Guillermo the grossest ones we could devise — anatomically correct with the spinal cord, nerve endings and all that stuff. We totally went there with it. That was also a moment where we took over Doug’s head and did it digitally: we fluttered the gills and had water spray off of them. That was probably one of the most fun things for us to animate.”

The Shape of Water is currently playing in theaters and available on digital services. The film arrives on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 13.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

How ‘Wonder’ completely transformed kid star Jacob Tremblay… and earned an Oscar nod

‘Wonder Woman’ wasn’t alone: 15 great movies dissed by 2018 Oscars

Charlize Theron addresses calls to play first female 007

[ozma914]

Doctor ... Who is a Woman?

Doctor Who fans are aghast, or deliriously happy, that the show's main character is having a sex change. Non Doctor Who fans are saying the same thing they always say when they hear details about the show: "Huh?" We'll get to the good Doctor--whose name is not Who--in a moment. This is set against the bigger question of whether it's okay to change the race or gender of an established character, always (so far) to a person of color and/or womanliness. In general, if it's another case of political correctness gone rampant (I call it Political Over-Correctness) I'm not a fan. "The next James Bond needs to be black!" "Why?" "So we can have a black James Bond!" "Okay. Or, you could just create a black secret agent from scratch." "Yeah, but ... then he wouldn't be James Bond!" Honestly, it's not something I care enough about to argue over, which sets me apart from most people who care at all. If the TV and movie industry disappeared from the face of the earth right now--which isn't the worst idea ever--I'd just go back to reading books for entertainment. Interestingly, if the race of a character in a book isn't specifically mentioned, most people either don't think about it at all or put their own skin color on the character. It never occurred to me, until I saw the wildly entertaining TV version, that Shadow Moon from American Gods was black. You can call that racism or you can call it being color blind, whatever. People will color anything I say here with their own views anyway. James Bond is an interesting case when it comes to gender and race swapping, because the franchise has already done it--just not with 007. Bond's CIA buddy Felix Leiter has already turned from white to black--twice, if you include 1983's Never Say Never Again. The famous Moneypenny had a similar transformation, while Bond's boss M became a female ... although it should be noted that M is a title, rather than an individual. You can complain about it all you want, but for me when it does work, it works spectacularly. Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica was just as much fun and kick-ass as a woman in the reboot, for instance. From the time I was old enough to read comics I knew Nick Fury as a white guy, fighting his way across Europe in World War II. Now I can't imagine him looking like anyone but Samuel L. Jackson. Which brings us back to Doctor Who, who Samuel L. Jackson could totally play if he wanted to. Are you going to tell him no? On the question of changing a character's looks just for the sake of changing them, the Doctor is a special case. Sometimes the actor playing a character is changed without explanation, as with the James Bond series. (Wait--who's this new Darrin on Bewitched?) Sometimes it's a reboot, as with Battlestar Galactica, and thus not really the same character. But Doctor Who ... Okay, in case you don't know, I'd better offer a brief explanation. The original Doctor Who, back in 1963, was an old guy. He was a grandfatherly type, on a show designed as a fun way to teach kids history. (He's a Time Lord, you see.) But the actor began to have health problems, and it was soon apparent he couldn't continue in the roll. It seemed Doctor Who was doomed to retirement. But wait, the writers said. We've already established that he's an alien. Suppose this particular species of aliens, when facing death, could cheat their way out by transforming into a new body? Regenerate into, say ... another actor's body? That was twelve Doctor's ago. More, really, but we don't have time to go into that complication. In fact, the Doctor has already been a woman, played (very briefly) by Joanna Lumley in a 1999 charity episode. So there's no story reason why the Doctor can't be female. In fact, one of his main antagonists, also a Time Lord, already regenerated from male to female. The show has had many strong female and minority characters in the past, and the Doctor's most recent companion was a black lesbian. (Is lesbian still a permitted word? I don't care.) That's Bill, on the left. Black, prefers women, young, smart, and most importantly fun.

So that's where we are in the Doctor's complicated half century. In the Christmas episode the current Doctor is going to meet the first Doctor--that kind of thing happens, from time to time--and then presumably regenerate into someone who looks a lot like the actress Jodie Whittaker. If they did it to freshen up the show and keep things interesting ... well, why not? I'm not sure it's any more of a shock to me than when uber-young looking Matt Smith regenerated into still another grandfatherly type. I wasn't thrilled back then ("my" Doctor is David Tennant), but I came to like Peter Capaldi's version. That's why I don't understand the so-called fans who are closing the doors of the TARDIS and going home. I know it's not just mysogeny, as some narrow minded people claim. Not always, anyway. Honestly, I suspect it's just resistance to change in general, and I get that. Contrary to what some will tell you, sometimes change is bad. But you won't even give the new Doctor a chance? Why not? With that attitude, the show would never have made it out of the sixties. And we'd have missed a lot of fun. There's a new Doctor in the TARDIS

[zooterchet]

Movie, Film, and Art Theory (Known MI-6 Profiles)

Batman: This villain, has mortally wounded you, giving you your specialty of aegis.  If screened or printed, you have won well, inflicting Lethal Measures.  Otherwise, you are Robin, you have been “Conned”.

James Bond 007: You are Bond, in the opening scene, before the credits.   After that, you are the villain, on fiscal support for a bounty hunt; You.

Mission Impossible: You are the finest line of British Theatre, Shakespeare, and you insist on an Underling’s Job. The manse is an empty, palatial estate, the way you have wrecked it, and you have lost a marital engagement, through playing out the sequence of your own work.  Your target, is Othello.

Secret Agent Man: You have foiled yourself in a blunder, to catch a case.  You are strictly an artist, and must find the film reference, to your own tragedy, in the tragic fop of the film or movie; you have committed the offense, they are threatened by, and now you must return your ungained largesse, to charity.

Spider: You have recruited a writer, for the funny tunes, and you must manage your investment, or die. Death is poverty, homeless, wildebeasts, sacks of weed, in the African underbrush, where you made your money and cutting blade, in the Dutch-Belgian Wars, alongside the Bretons and Nords.  If you really wanted to sign on for the Army, you wouldn’t have had a lit cherry, would you.

Cheech and Chong: You’ve destroyed America, in favor of the United States. You’ve created dozens of myths, and each one, must be destroyed, in such a way, that the crooked state trooper, at the start of the film, is you, at the end.  Chong is your wisdom guide, but he should not be trusted, off the film set.

Storm Shadow: You are American Yakuza, the Japanese answer to the American spy even though the CIA, is America’s facsimile of your ancient honor, the Japanese thief, and now, you must keep ahead, with a new alliance.  Your job, as an American veteran of Japanese descent, is an alliance with Cobra Commander, the head of the Buddhist League, the artists and toymakers and choreographers and actors and writers, behind the most lethal combat scores and strikes of our generation; the support propaganda devices of NATO, but only if you pay them.

Metal Gear Solid: As an agent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, your job is simple; a major MI-6 role, has gone downhill, and you are placed in recovery, to murder and remove a rogue MI-6, from this mortal coil.  Failure, is not an option.  Secrecy, is your calling, not your own hidden nature, but that of the coherency of MI-6, as the Irish division of the United Kingdom.  Each of your foes, per game, is a potential ally or asset, but only if you don’t kill them, in such a way that the strategy is effective in gameplay.

Burn Notice: You acquitted yourself, so well, as a CIA agent, from an MI-6 service, that you’ve been forced into the life of a civilian, outside the war.  Your breeding, background, reputation, blood, and quiet athletics, are superb, and you can’t stop, taking up a life of crime.  We know you barely watch the shows, you think they’re for the kids, but it’s actually a pageant for America, to be men and women like you.  You never cared, did you, Michael Weston.  You secretly know what you are, a serial killer, and it bothers the CIA, because it means the same of them, that an MI-6 could infiltrate so carefully and easily, with a stock and bond project in the 7th grade, and the “Greed is Good” speech from Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, Michael Douglas as the player.

Lost: Your entire family fortune was ruined, by your new investment, id Software and your top hit game, “Doom”.  The Carnegie Institute lies in ruins, your own worker drones, college kids, and your media sources, the Skulls, and your narcotrafficking lines, Canadian cops, shut off and closed down for good.  Now you just have the origin of your family, as Andrew Carnegie, a simple scam’s man that understand the brand of a name, reputation, not some petty degree that you could’ve gotten if you were willing to put yourself through neptuating psychosis, your own gift to the world since you were but a child king, in Scotland, as a bankish murderer of Hecates and Highlanders.  Is it time for the Kurgan’s Return, Swedish-Jew?

[glamourandgrime]

What next for 007?

With the passing of Roger Moore on May 23rd 2017, so departed the second actor to play James Bond since David Niven in the original Casino Royale of 1967.

But lets talk about the future of James Bond for a moment.

Daniel Craig has not been shy at showing his lack of enthusiasm at reprising his role as 007, telling Time Out he’d rather “slash his wrists” after the last installment; Spectre. If Craig is done with James, then who will be the next suave special agent to wear the tuxedo?

We are living in a time of change and supposed tolerance. We have had our first black US president. Despite that, racisim and zenophobia is still an issue as seen by many who voted for Brexit last year. Recent terrorist attacks in Manchester reflect contempt towards the western world. Like it or not, we are not living in a society where change and diversity is universally appreciated.

Has James Bond modernized enough to change colour? Would such a change be met with support, or is this just another politically correct neo liberal statement that’s trendy right now? Would making him black improve the franchise or change it all even?

There are many black British actors today that would comfortably fit the mould of James Bond in terms of build, charisma and attitude.

Idris Elba for example has been repeatedly mentioned as a contender. His portrayal in Luther alone proves that he has can handle the action and suspense. He certainly has the attitude and sex appeal.

Rising star David Oyelowo ( Interstellar, The Butler) is the closest we’ve come to a black Bond, having narrated the audio book for Trigger Mortis, a new Bond book written by Anthony Horowitz.

But a Black Bond would not be unanimously met without opposition.

Legendary Live And Let Die antagonist Yaphet Kotto would be in the “stay white” camp.

The 75-year-old Kotto, who portrayed Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big opposite Roger Moore’s 007 in the 1973 film, spoke to The Big Issue about his feelings regarding Bond potentially being black and he is not in favour. Kotto explained:

He cannot be black. Political correctness be damned. James Bond was established by Ian Fleming as a white character, played by white actors. Play 003 or 006, but cannot be 007. A lot of people say we should be allowed to play everything. Don’t be ridiculous … Black men should stop trying to play roles created by whites. These roles are not written for black men.

But does Kotto have a point? Would changing Bond’s colour change his fundamental image and character to a point that it’s not Bond anymore?

The idea that Bond could be black raises other possibilities. Why can’t 007 be American, or homosexual even?

Thanks to Daniel Craig, the 007 franchise is in fact in a healthy state, as a world box office taking of $880 million in the last installment of Spectre proved. No disrespect to Pearce Brosnan, but Craig’s blond bond brought a rougher, edgier and even more vulnerable side to the character. Previous to that, there was more than a hint of cartoonish caricature about the 007 world, when we saw cars that could become planes and then boats in a matter of seconds.

In that conclusion I think the world is ready for a black bond, but considering the success of what went before, I doubt if studios are willing to take the risk in giving us one. Never say never though.

  What next for 007? was originally published on Glamour and Grime