Dearie Awards 2012: Foreign Film of the Year

Movie Dearest proudly presents the 6th Annual Movie Dearest Awards, honoring 2012's best in film, television and the stage! Also known as the "Dearies", this year's awards are dedicated to the memory of our dear friend and fellow critic/movie lover Neil Cohen.

And the first "Dearie" Award goes to our pick for Foreign Film of the Year:

Winner: AMOUR
Michael Haneke’s exploration of the waning days shared between a man (veteran actor Jean-Louis Trintignant) and his dying wife (Emmanuelle Riva, impressively stripped to her very essence) won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is favored to win the Academy Award.  One would have to be truly heartless not to be moved by their plight, regardless of one’s sexual orientation or relationship persuasion.  Haneke & Company illustrate par excellence that the music of the heart never stops playing.

Honorable Mention: SKYFALL

Some readers may be scratching their heads to see the latest 007 epic here (notice the category is not titled Foreign Language Film of the Year), but we felt it appropriate given the involvement of British director Sam Mendes, many British cast members including noteworthy turns by Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes, and the inherent British-ness of James Bond himself (currently personified by Brit hunk Daniel Craig). Also adding to Skyfall's international flavor is the scene-stealing Spainard Jaiver Bardem, who single-handedly (on 007's thigh, no less) brings the long-simmering homoeroticsm of the long-running series to the forefront as the film's big bad. Thrilling and thoughtful in equal measure, Skyfall is one of the very best entries in this enduring series’ 50-year history.

By Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.

Monthly Wallpaper - January 2013 - 2012: The Year in Film

As 2012 comes to a close, it is time to look back on the year in film, and what better way then with the Movie Dearest calendar wallpaper for next month!

Several of 2012's most talked about movies make up the collage, so you can spend all of January 2013 gazing at the likes of Abe, Bilbo, Cosette, Erik & Paul, Hitch, Hushpuppy, James, Merida, Magic Mike and Richard Parker. What a way to start off a new year!

Just click on the picture above to enlarge it to its 1024 x 768 size, then right click your mouse and select "Set as Background", and you're all set. If you want, you can also save it to your computer and set it up from there, or modify the size in your own photo-editing program if needed.

Reverend's Reviews: The Best & Worst of 2012 - Homos, Heroes and a Hushpuppy

Not only was a gay-themed movie the best of this past year, in my humble but educated opinion 2012 was a great year for GLBT and mainstream films on the whole.  I counted more movies rating A- or higher in my log than I’ve seen in several years, which made coming up with my top ten very easy.  I’ve actually “cheated” and linked together a few films of equal critical assessment and related themes, so you will find more than ten movies on my list below.  I also must confess there were a few much-ballyhooed holiday releases (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained) that I haven't been able to screen yet.

1.    Keep the Lights On (Music Box Films):  Writer-director Ira Sachs’ semi-autobiographical exploration of love and addiction between two gay men, played with admirable honesty by Thure Lindhardt and Zachary Booth, is the one perfect movie I saw all year.  While it has been criminally neglected for year’s-end awards by the Golden Globes and mainstream critics’ groups thus far, it is up for several Independent Spirit awards and won the Berlin International Film Festival’s Teddy Award for best GLBT film.  There is plenty to appreciate — and learn from — here whether one is homosexual, heterosexual or otherwise.

2.    Amour (Sony Pictures Classics):  Similarly, Michael Haneke’s powerful depiction of the cost of romantic commitment between an elderly man and his wife (the stunning Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) has universal applications.  A couple of horror movie-ish moments are the film’s only missteps, even though it ends up being something of a ghost story.
 

3.    Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight):  This instantly lovable, amazingly accomplished low-budget feature film debut by director Benh Zeitlin boasts fantastic performances by non-professionals Quvenzhane Wallis (as its 6-year old heroine Hushpuppy) and Dwight Henry.  It is also a timely affirmation of family and community as the greatest strengths against threatening forces.  The film has racked up numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

4.    Moonrise Kingdom (Focus Features):  It isn’t often that a movie comes along that is best and most immediately described as charming, but Wes Anderson’s latest is just that.  This saga of pre-teen lovers on the lam from an all-star adult cast including Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand and — best of all— Tilda Swinton as the nameless, villainous “Social Services” is a beautifully designed, totally enjoyable hoot for kids and adults alike.

5.    Robot & Frank (Samuel Goldwyn Films):  Frank Langella gives a lovely performance as a cantankerous, elderly ex-thief in the not too distant future whose children arrange for him to have an artificially-intelligent caretaker (voiced by gay fave Peter Sarsgaard of Kinsey and Green Lantern fame).  An unlikely and ultimately touching friendship develops between the two.  Oscar winner Susan Sarandon and another gay fave, James Marsden (Hairspray), also star in this gem, which won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance.

6.    Cloud Atlas (Warner Bros.):  A lengthy, heady and visually spectacular adaptation of David Mitchell’s time-traveling novel that was an undeserved flop at the US box office.  Tom Hanks heads the big-name cast in multiple roles, and a gay romance is a key component of its puzzle-box plot.  The film was helmed by the trio of trans director Lana Wachowski and her brother Andy (of The Matrix fame) and Tom Tykwer, whose last movie was the bisexuality-themed Three.

7.    The Avengers (Marvel/Disney) and The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony Pictures):  Just when I was feeling worn out by the recent glut of increasingly-indistinguishable superhero movies, along came these two smart, thrilling epics by offbeat filmmakers (Joss Whedon and Marc Webb, respectively).  The long-awaited teaming of Marvel Comics’ greatest do-gooders as well as a seemingly-needless “reboot” of the web-slinger’s origins both struck gold dramatically and at the box office, with British actor Andrew Garfield proving to be a particularly inspired casting choice as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

8.    Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (Sundance Selects) and Somewhere Between (Long Shot Factory/Ladylike Films):  The two best documentaries I saw all year found their origins in China, though both are made by American filmmakers.  The former is a no-holds-barred biography of the famed artist and blogger, who has consistently defied government censorship in calling for greater freedom of speech in the People’s Republic.  Somewhere Between, meanwhile, provides an intimate, insightful look into the challenges facing children adopted from China by US parents.  Both films reveal it’s not such a small world after all.

9.    Bully (The Weinstein Company):  A timely, potentially life-changing documentary focusing on several young people bullied by their peers for one ridiculous reason or another.  It shows, shockingly but also somewhat predictably, that the juvenile perpetrators may not be so much to blame as their ignorant parents and impotent teachers, who repeatedly turn a blind eye to the abuse.  The movie sparked a silly ratings controversy but was ultimately released in a PG-13 version that ought to be required viewing in high schools nationwide.

10.    Skyfall (Sony Pictures) and Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 (Epix):  It is certainly fitting, though initially hardly guaranteed, that the 50th anniversary of James Bond’s cinematic exploits in 2012 would result in one of the very best and most financially-successful films to date featuring the superspy, as well as in an exceptional documentary tracing the often-tortured history of the Bond films.  Bond-age is obviously alive and well.  Oh, James!   

Honorable Mentions (movies that rated a B+ in my critic’s log but in no particular order): The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, The Sessions, Return, The Grey, The Invisible War, Sassy Pants, Brave, Love Free or Die, How to Survive a Plague, Argo, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Flight and The Cabin in the Woods.

And my considered picks for the five worst movies of 2012 are:
1.    Magic Mike (Warner Bros.):  Along with many of my fellow gays, I was suckered into seeing this male-stripper epic with a gaggle of my pals during its largely sold-out opening weekend.  The stripteases are coyly shot, the characters are way too hetero given the setting (with the possible exception of the club’s impresario, played to the hilt by Matthew McConaughey), and the central love story dull.  Give me Christopher Atkins in 1982’s One Night in Heaven any day over this!

2.    The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (Adopt Films):  I’m not sure which irritated me more: the obnoxious trans musician/performance artists at the center of this documentary or the in-your-face style employed by filmmaker Marie Losier.  At any rate, I’m sorry to say this is one GLBT-interest tale best left unseen by our community.

3.    Prometheus (20th Century Fox): This much-hyped prequel/sequel/reboot of the classic 1979 shocker Alien turned out to be baffling bordering on the incoherent.  Though stylishly made in 3D by the original’s director, Ridley Scott, and featuring memorable turns by Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender, it ultimately commits the sin of being more pretentious than terrifying.

4.    One for the Money (Lionsgate):  The bounty-hunting Stephanie Plum character created by novelist Janet Evanovich is definitely deserving of big-screen treatment.  Alas, this halfhearted effort wasn’t it.  Katherine Heigl gives the role her best but she seems stifled, as do her gay-friendly supporting cast members Debbie Reynolds, John Leguizamo, Debra Monk and Daniel Sunjata.

5.    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Summit):  Calling this closing chapter of the teeny-bopper vampire quintology the best in the series is fairly faint praise, since its predecessors are arguably the most artistically-deficient blockbusters ever made.  Credit gay director Bill Condon for the finale’s more adventurous spirit. 

By Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Rage Monthly Magazine.

The Films of 1983: Never Say Never Again

While watching Skyfall (2012) a few weeks back, I was struck by all the quips about James Bond's (Daniel Craig's) advancing age, and the film's reckoning with powerful idea that "time has passed." The new 007 film clearly recognizes that time waits for no man, and preserves no man.   This thematic strand reminded me that another film in the franchise (at least unofficially) also played with those very ideas once upon a time.

Of course, that film is Never Say Never Again (1983), the return of Sean Connery to the 007 role after an absence of a dozen years.  The film came out during the very year that many media outlets dubbed "The Battle of the Bonds" because Roger Moore's Octopussy (1983) was also released.

In Never Say Never Again, the audience encounters an older, slower -- but still lethal -- agent 007 as he faces both Blofeld's SPECTRE and also the specter of looming retirement.  More than that, Bond must deal with the idea that he is outmoded...a "dinosaur."  And indeed, we get words to that effect in Skyfall as well.  But in NSNA, Bond must recognize that he is, finally, getting old.

At least that's according to the new "M' (Edward Fox), who -- in a great reaction shot -- physically recoils after seeing Bond head-butt an opponent during a training exercise (the pre-title sequence which opens the film.)  He has no taste for such messiness; such brutal improvisation. 

The world has changed...and apparently passed Bond by in the process.  But, as Bond reminds us, in reference to his beloved Bentley, he may be old, but he's still "in pretty good shape."

Perhaps the quality I most admire about Never Say Never Again is its ability to pit an older, but still in good-shape Bond, against a buttoned-down era that seems, well,  drained of life  As Bond's over-worked, under-paid gadgeteer, Algy (Alec McEwen) comments mid-way through Never Say Never Again: "Bureaucrats running the old place.  Everything done by the book.  Can't make a decision unless the computer gives you the go ahead.  Now you're here.  I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence..." 

This amusing comment may serve a double, subversive purpose.  First, Q's comment works contextually, regarding the "re-activation" of the 00s (and Bond) in the narrative of Never Say Never Again, particularly against the backdrop of the new era of the corporate, computerized 1980s. 

But metaphorically, the line also serves as a pointed jab at the official EON James Bond film line, which had -- during the reign of Roger Moore as Bond -- adopted the apparently official stance that James Bond represents Disney-fied violence; or "violence for the family."

The re-activation of Connery's original, craftier Bond in Never Say Never Again is therefore not merely a breath of fresh air in terms of the movie's PC world; but in terms of a real-life world where the aging James Bond feature film franchise was no longer considered legitimately dangerous or cutting edge. 

After all, audiences at this point had seen Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien, Dirty Harry...and more was to come.  The Terminator, Lethal Weapon, Batman and Die Hard franchises were just on the horizon.

Accordingly, Never Say Never Again feels like the most dangerous, edgy, unpredictable Bond film in ages (particularly after the toothless and farcical -- if absolutely enjoyable -- Moonraker [1979]). 

Where the Bond films had long ago reduced main characters to off-the-shelf, familiar types like the General Villain (Goldfinger, Scaramanga, Stromberg, Drax, etc.) and the Soldier Villain (Odd Job, Nick Nack, Jaws, etc), Connery's return film largely restores the humanity and individuality -- and therefore the unpredictability -- to these familiar cliches and stock types.

Spectacular (if fantasy-based) stunt-work is also largely eschewed in Irvin Kershner's Never Say Never Again, in favor of the aforementioned head-butt and a concentration on more grounded, macho and personal fisticuffs (a hallmark of Connery's early, grittier era, back in the 1960s). 

So nobody is dangling from blimps-in-flight over The Golden Gate Bridge here, if you get my drift. Not that there's anything wrong, inherently, with the other approach. It's just a matter of preference, about how you like your 007.

There is also a deliberate, overt focus on sex in Never Say Never Again (particularly in Bond's coupling with the evil Fatima Blush [Barbara Carrera].)  Bond beds no less than four women in the course of the movie, actually.  Again, this is an approach that the official Bond series reversed by the late 1980s, making Timothy Dalton's Bond a one-lady-kind-of-guy (to accommodate in the culture the emergence of AIDS).

In short, Never Say Never Again feels a bit more passionate, a bit more human, and a lot less rote, less predictable, than some of the 1970s Bonds...even though it is loosely a remake of 1965's Thunderball.  

Your Reputation Has Preceded You; Or You Were a Very Good Secret Agent.  Really.

In matters of death, SPECTRE is strictly impartial...

Never Say Never Again tells the story of a wicked gambit on the part of Blofeld (Max Von Sydow) and SPECTRE. 

Using a heroin-addicted American air force officer, Jack Petachi (Gavin O'Herlihy), a villain named Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and Fatima Blush, or Agent 12 (Carrera), steal two American W80 thermo-nuclear warheads during a routine training exercise centered at Swadley's Air Force Base. 

Blofeld blackmails the West (NATO, in particular): pay an exorbitant fee or see the bombs detonated in two days time. 

As one anxious diplomat describes the plot, it is "the ultimate nightmare," this nuclear blackmail. And ironically, this story of loose nukes seems more timely and relevant in the 1980s -- a span when the hawkish, Peace-Through-Strength Reagan decried the "Evil Empire" and jokingly announced that "bombing begins in five minutes," -- than it did in the 1960s, when Thunderball premiered.

Agent James Bond (Connery), 007 -- who has spent most of his time in recent years teaching --  is re-activated and sent out by the officious M to recover the bombs. 

Following a stint at the health farm, Shrublands, Bond heads to the Bahamas, where Largo's yacht, the Flying Saucer, may be carrying at least one of the warheads.  There, Largo executes SPECTRE's plot, code-named "The Tears of Allah," all while deceiving his beautiful girlfriend, dancer Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger), about the death of her brother, Jack.

Now Bond must outwit and outfight Fatima with the help of his CIA buddy, Felix Leiter (Bernie Casey) and discover where the jealous Largo is hiding those warheads.  In doing so, he will require Domino's help...

Shaken but not stirred.

Behind-the-scenes, Never Say Never Again represents Sean Connery's return to the iconic role that made him a star following a dozen-year absence. 

It's an unofficial Bond film as well, one born from producer Kevin McClory's (1926-2006) early efforts with Ian Fleming to first bring James Bond to the cinema in 1959. 

A lawsuit awarded McClory the rights to produce a remake of Thunderball, a story that he initiated, and which was known, over the years as both Warhead and James Bond of the Secret Service.   But because the film Never Say Never Again was unofficial at the time of its successful theatrical release, it could not make use of such official Bond film touches as Monty Norman's world-famous theme song, and the trademark gun barrel opening. 

For some, this is enough to disqualify the effort from serious consideration as a great Bond film.

The title of Never Say Never Again itself arises not from Ian Fleming, but from Connery, who -- after 1971's Diamonds are Forever -- declared that he would never again don the tuxedo, order dry martinis, and carry a license to kill.  So the movie title -- much like Algy's line quoted above -- plays on two amusing levels; both as Bond's declaration to Domino that he intends to retire; and as an in-joke aimed at Connery who, despite protestation, is back as Bond one more time.

Just One More Game for the Rest of the World...

Domination, video game style.

Today, at least one scene in Never Say Never Again stands out as being a legitimate Bond classic. 

At approximately the hour-point of the narrative, James Bond tricks his way into Largo's casino in Nice, France. 

But rather than engage his wily opponent in high-stakes poker, or the oft-seen Baccarat (Chemin de Fer), Bond duels Largo in...a video game.

And it is no average video game, either. 

Rather, Largo has designed and constructed "Domination," a video game battle for ownership of the world itself.  The objective, Largo states, is "power."  Two players battle for territory, for land, while racking up dollars on the big screen.  The left-hand joystick controls two nuclear missiles that can be launched against an opponent; and the right-hand joystick controls missile shields which can block the W80 thermo-nuclear warheads. 

Players target with their lasers small geometric territories that light up on their screens.  The player that hits the territory first is the winner and owner of said territory.

Armchair general...

And Largo -- being a super-villain -- has wired his elaborate video game to deliver electric shocks to the players every time one's defenses are breached, or the enemy gets ahead. 

"Unlike armchair generals," suggests Largo, players of this game will "share" the pain of soldiers in the field. 

This is an important distinction in the world of Never Say Never Again.  Bond is one of those aforementioned soldiers in the field; and knows all too well about physical pain.  But the world of the 1980s apparently has little use for James Bond and his skill-set post-Detente, and the men who deploy him in the field  (armchair generals like "M") have no idea how -- as he states early in the film --  "adrenaline" (another word for pain) provides him an edge in the heat of the moment.

And that's how Bond beats Largo, literally, at his own game here.  

Largo may know better the game he created, of course.  He's holding all the cards (as he's also holding the missing nuclear weapons...) but Bond still has his "edge" in the field to rely upon.  The pain of the electric shocks gives him just the kick he needs to get back in the game (come out of retirement) and fight back for "just one more game...for the rest of the world."

...versus a soldier in the field...

This tense, brilliantly-executed sequence with the Domination video game is the most significant one in the film for a number of reasons.

First, it again reveals Bond out-of-his element in the modern, high-tech world.  This older, slower James Bond  is not part of the video game generation.  We are used to seeing him play and excel at cards, not manage a joystick.  So the game is a metaphor for Bond being out-of-step with the modern world.

Yet 007 soundly beats Largo here -- at the video game -- for the same reasons he ultimately defeats him in the larger narrative: because of his "edge," because the pain (delivered by the electric shocks, in this case) activates his adrenaline.

There's something about being a "soldier in the field" -- some combination of instincts and experience -- that takes over in Bond and refuses to "lose."  Largo -- for all his intelligence and savvy -- doesn't have that same sense of experience, and the game sequence makes this point.

Two video game monsters, side-by-side.

In one truly great and telling visual composition, Kershner even reminds us that Largo is a creature of today -- or the film's day in 1983 --  a video-game villain.  He stands perched beside an old arcade game on which a fantasy-styled monster has been painted, and the point is made by putting the two "creatures" in close-proximity. 

Even Largo's command center -- where Largo spends much of his time -- is highly computerized, consisting of a wall of screens and keyboards.  Largo also has a secret window (another form of viewing screen...) through which he can peek illicitly into Domino's dancing studio. 

Again, he's a watcher, not a doer -- an armchair general rather than a soldier in the field -- and that quality proves his undoing.  He doesn't understand what physical pain and danger can drive a man to do; what they can drive Bond to do.

The idea of video-games and computers taking over the world is one of the "big" ideas of the cinema of 1983, as we have seen from War Games, Superman III, and even the horror anthology, Nightmares.   

The overwhelming fear expressed in these films is that our technology will run amok, and challenge human civilization.  Never Say Never Again is "one of the pack" and it updates Bond for the video game age as much as Skyfall updates Bond for the Drone War Age.

They Don't Make Them Like This Anymore...

In shades of black and white, Bond's space in the frame is squeezed out.

Pretty clearly, Never Say Never Again is a special Bond film for one reason primarily: it acknowledges that Bond is actually a human being who ages, and not an unflappable superhero in a white dinner jacket.   This 1983 film thus allows James Bond to age and evolve -- something the canon Bonds did not permit of this particular hero until the reboots with Daniel Craig. 

This idea of Bond aging (both gracefully and not so gracefully...) adds a layer of real human interest to the narrative.  Bond still has his edge; but it is it sharp enough -- in his mid 50s -- to get the job done?  

That's the movie's big question, and Connery is great here at playing the same man we love and remember, but some distance down the too-short road towards mortality; when he has more yesterdays than tomorrows ahead of him.

And secondly but of equal importance, director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back [1980] has executed a clever tactic in the visual presentation of Never Say Never Again.  To put it bluntly, James Bond no longer owns the frame.  

Rather, he intrudes into it and his space is intruded upon constantly.

Between a rock and hard place? More limited visual space for 007.

I always say that the medium of film reaches its apex when visual form echoes, reflects or augments film content, and that's precisely what Never Say Never Again accomplishes with tremendous flair.  

Remember, the overriding idea here is that Bond is a man out of step with the "new," high-tech but bloodless world of the 1980s.  He is not the swaggering, cocksure, center-of-the-frame hero of the 1960s.

It's a more dangerous world for the older, less-physically imposing Bond, and so he has to fight for a foothold in it every second.  Accordingly, Kershner provides the audience these moments of tremendous spontaneity and danger, during which Bond must put his instincts (and that adrenaline; that edge...) to the test.  

In other words, Bond is not blocked and framed in Never Say Never Again as he is in the canon Bond films.  He is not an impervious figure of power.  Rather, he's visually jeopardized and threatened, almost constantly.

During a fight, Bond flees...into a slamming door.

For instance, during a deadly, extended fight at Shrublands -- which goes from a weight room, down a flight of stairs and into a working kitchen -- Bond attempts to escape his opponent by hiding, first, and then running away, escaping. 

In a great and laugh-out-loud moment, a female chef flees the tight kitchen as the nemeses fight...and Bond tries to run after her...but the door slams in his face and he has a moment where -- using that edge -- he must improvise.  You can almost visualize Connery's Bond thinking, "thanks a lot, lady..." and then getting on with it.

Again and again, Kershner positions 007 in this unconventional and amusing fashion.  Emerging from behind a tree, even...skulking about.  Or in a tight shot of stark black-and-white shading inside his modern French villa; Bond's available space in the wide-frame "cut off" by the off-screen but nonetheless considerable threat of Fatima Blush.

I noted above that Never Say Never Again is an edgier, more dangerous style of Bond film, and that feeling suffuses the film, thanks to the manner in which Kershner perpetually frames the iconic character.   Bond is a man who is imperiled and affected by what is happening around him in the frame, and must -- by power of his instincts and edge -- forge his own positive outcome.

Furthermore, Kershner contrasts his visual depiction of Bond (fighting for survival and placement in the frame) with his depiction of the colorful, even flamboyant, highly idiosyncratic villains. 

Effortless, dangerous power in the foreground.

Fatima Blush, for instance, is often filmed from a low angle (atop staircases, or looming over Bond, right before her demise), giving the impression of tremendous power and constancy. 

When she detonates a bomb in Bond's hotel in the Bahamas, Fatima does so without even a casual look over a shoulder, and Kershner's gorgeous framing again suggests a villain in total, effortless control of the environs.  

Again, look at that careful, beautiful framing and placement above for just a second.  What you see there is raw, well-established power dominating the foreground of the frame, while chaos reigns -- unimportant -- behind her.

Kershner also permits seemingly spontaneous, apparently unplanned moments from Klaus Maria Brandauer play out for maximum impact.  This villain is a dangerous character, and the actor virtually steals every second he can get in the limelight...and perhaps more too.  This Largo is a power-hungry grabber, a drama queen, a man who solicits attention, and Brandauer goes nuts with the role.

Swapping spit with Largo.

Whether it's delicately blowing a soothing kiss on his electrically-shocked hands after losing to Bond  in Domination, or kissing Domino for so long -- and so passionately -- that a line of spit visibly connects their lips, Largo "dominates" the frame too.

Again, Kershner's patience and unique approach to the performances (particularly with the quirky Branduer) make Never Say Never Again feel more dangerous, spontaneous, edgy and immediate than many official Bond films of roughly the same era.  Where they rigorously adhere to a specific formula and template, Never Say Never Again attempts to explode the formula, presenting a vulnerable, mature Bond who must, again and again, really fight (and improvise) for his life. 

In my book, Brandauer is the most deadly threat to Bond since Goldfinger; an amused sociopath who is drunk with power, and this Bond -- going back to Ian Fleming's literary vision -- seems the most human (at least until Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig came along...) 

Never Say Never Again suffers a bit from a weak, anti-climactic finale (Domino spears Largo and the whole affair is over...), but otherwise the film must rank as one of the best of all the Bond films.  It showcases another side of the hero, and in defining Bond's "edge" helps us to understand -- finally, after twenty years and a dozen films -- what makes this hero tick; what makes him thrive.

Just as the Bond character was growing stale and old, and distinctly non-edgy, a fifty year old Connery (and a brilliantly-stylish Kershner) provide the hero just what he (and the audience...) needed:  a healthy dose of gratuitous sex and violence...shaken, not stirred.   Skyfall features many callbacks to the Bonds of yesteryear, but it owes the most, in my opinion, to Never Say Never Again.

Valedictory head-butts for everyone...

Movie Trailer: Never Say Never Again (1983)

Collectible of the Week: Moonraker James Bond (Mego; 1979)

In terms of sci-fi movies and collectible toys, 1979 was a banner year. 

Movies such as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, Buck Rogers in the 25^thCentury, The Black Hole and Moonraker premiered that year, and every title on that list also saw memorable toys produced by Mego Corp.

I collected toys from all those sci-fi franchises, but never had the full line ofMoonraker action-figures, alas. 

Still, I vividly recall seeing these 12.5” -tall action figures on the shelves at Toys R Us and wishing for them.

Recommended for children three and over was this action-figure of Roger Moore as James Bond, described here as “The World’s Greatest Secret Agent…Legendary Commander 007.”  On the box is emblazoned the legend: “Action-packed Spy Adventures in the Fabulous Realm of Space.”

The most amusing facet of the action-figure, however, is that Bond wears a (loose) bow tie over his space suit.

Other figures in the “fully articulated, fully poseable” line included Holly Goodhead, the menacing Jaws and Drax. I remember seeing all of the figures in stores many times, save for Drax, and to this day, Jaws fetches a pretty penny on E-Bay.

What makes this particular Bond toy special and memorable to me is that Moonrakerrepresents the first occasion since the 1960s, I believe, that James Bond action-figures were mass produced and widely available.  This is the first time, in other words, Bond was in toy stores in his 1970s Roger Moore persona.

I also had a Moonraker model kit in 1979, which, of course, was merely a space shuttle model with special decals.

Model Kit of the Week #5

Cult-Movie Review: Skyfall (2012)

It’s unofficial, of course, but if you scrape just beneath the surface of Skyfall (2012) -- the new James Bondthriller -- the designation “M” clearly stands for “Mother” or “Mom.”

Unconventionally, this twenty-third Bond film is a modern action movie concerning a mature woman (played by Judi Dench) who has -- perhaps not fully realizing it -- become the only parent to two grown and needy (or maladjusted…) sons. 

One son, a man called Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), has rebelled against his mother for her sins, choosing to reject all of her lessons because he feels unloved and abandoned.

The other son, James Bond (Daniel Craig), realizes that this powerful mother figure is responsible for giving his life some sense of purpose, and thus goes to extreme, life-and-death measures to protect her from his enraged “brother.”

Also -- and please make no mistake about this fact – the new Bond Girl of Skyfall is clearly M, not Naomie Harris’s Eve, Severine (Berenice Marlohe), or anyone else, for that matter. 

For the first time in Bond history then, the primary Bond/female relationship does not concern sex or romance, but the maternal, mother-son relationship.

On these relatively startling grounds alone, Skyfall distinguishes itself from the twenty-two previous cinematic installments in the James Bond series. 

Delightfully, however, Skyfall also thoroughly re-invents Bond’s place in the world, lamenting the 21^st century reliance on computers and unmanned drones over “human intelligence” in the dangerous game of espionage.  The film thereby forges the (the Luddite?) argument that sometimes the old ways -- like a knife in the back -- still get the job done best.

Skyfall also celebrates fifty years of James Bond movie traditions and history.  Therefore, one can readily gaze at this prominently-featured Luddite argument as a rationalization, as a self-justification, in some sense, for the continuation of the long-running franchise in the second decade of the 21^st century. 

Even today, in the age or push-button soldiers, we need 007. 

This argument about the primacy of human values in the Remote Control Age is so exhilaratingly presented that Skyfall often feels like a grand revelation.  Everything “old” is new again, and this Bond film brilliantly sends Agent 007 into a brave new world, even while re-establishing all the old characters (like Q and Moneypenny) and old genre gimmicks we’ve come to expect (like the Aston Martin’s ejector seat).

It’s quite a deft balancing act, and Skyfall is at once cheeky and legitimately sentimental in tone.  It would be easy to term so exciting and revelatory a Bond film the best series installment in years, but Casino Royale -- just six years in the past -- must still earn high marks for resetting the series, grounding Bond, and introducing Craig.  Without those accomplishments, the highs of Skyfallmight not have been conceivable.

Instead, the arrival of Skyfall forces long-time Bond fans to concretely reckon with the once-impossible-seeming notion that the Sean Connery Era has, at long-last, been surpassed 

Bond is back and -- no hyperbole -- he’s better than ever.

“Mommy was very bad.” 

Skyfall opens in Turkey, as James Bond, 007 (Craig) and an operative named Eve (Harris) attempt to recover a stolen hard-drive that contains the files of every undercover NATO operative working in terrorist organizations. 

Eve is ordered by M (Dench) to take a difficult shot against the possessor of the drive, the evil Patrice (Ola Rapace). But Eve hits Bond instead, thereby losing the drive and an agent.

Some months later, Bond -- who is believed dead -- resurfaces when the MI6 building in London is bombed.  M escapes the attack, but feels political pressure from Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) to explain the loss of the hard-drive, and now a terrorist attack on British soil.

Although he is not yet physically or psychologically ready to return to duty, M nonetheless sends Bond out to track Patrice.  The trail leads Bond to Raoul Silva (Bardem) a vengeful former MI6 agent eager to make M “think on her sins.”   

With Silva launching one terrorist attack after another -- all aimed at killing M -- Bond decides to take his superior off the grid, and back to his family’s long-abandoned country estate in Scotland, called Skyfall.

“Less of a random killing machine, more of a personal statement.”

As I wrote above in my introduction, Skyfall primarily concerns a family dynamic.  In this unusual family, M is the mother, Raoul is one son, and Bond -- believed dead but actually out carousing on the beach -- is the Prodigal Son.

Bond finally returns to save his mother’s life after Raoul enters the picture.   Apparently, Raoul has interpreted M’s dedication to duty as a personal statement against him, a mirror of Bond’s situation.  Silva, however, conveniently overlooks the fact that he was the one who first transgressed on a mission to Hong Kong some years earlier.

Given this family dynamic, Skyfall also concerns -- in a strange way -- the value of forgiveness.  Bond is able to remember that M’s stewardship provided him a home and a purpose, and he forgives her for ordering Eve to take a shot that nearly results in his death. 

M is similarly able to forgive Bond’s trespasses and welcome back the Prodigal Son, the boy who went out into the world with the inheritance of responsibility and purpose and squandered that inheritance on booze, sex, and scorpions.

By contrast, Raoul Silva -- who evidently still loves M (or Mom…) -- can’t see his path to forgiveness, and remains consumed by overwhelming hatred because of Mom’s abandonment.

This family dynamic plays out in Skyfall even in terms of setting and locations. Bond -- a boy forever in search of the parents he tragically lost in childhood -- brings M back to his family estate, Skyfall to play house, after a fashion.  There, 007 also re-connects with an old friend and mentor Kincade (Albert Finney), a surrogate father figure.

The three characters -- working and living together at Skyfall -- are,briefly, a family, replete with a home and a hearth.  Bond thus recreates the family home he never had in his youth.  Raoul arrives and destroys that home, refusing to forgive Mom and rejoin the family.

In exploring this dynamic, Skyfall is perhaps the most human and personal of all the Bond films.  It explores not only the elements of Bond’s tragic and lonely past, but excavates the nature of his (violent) life in terms of how he sees his connections to others.  For Bond, M and Kincade are the only family he can count on when the chips are down, though there is the suggestion that Mallory may become a father figure as well. 

Outside this dramatic through-line, Skyfall establishes a roiling tension and competition between 21^st century espionage and Bondian-style espionage, which came of age during the Cold War of the 1960s. 

This tension is expressed best in the quips back and forth between the mid-life Bond and his young, new Q (or Quartermaster), played by Billie Whishaw.  Q tells Bond that “age is no guarantee of efficiency,” and Bond’s response is that “youth is no guarantee of innovation.” 

In other words, a person with experience and expertise still has something to offer in the world of espionage.

Q also comments explicitly on a painting in an art gallery where he first meets 007.  The painting depicts a warship’s decommissioning. 

“It always makes me feel a bit melancholy,” Q opines. “Grand old war ship…being ignominiously haunted away to scrap... The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see?”

What Bond sees, of course, is that he is that old warship, and the one succumbing to the inevitability of time.  

He isn’t as young as he once was, and he faces the possibility that he will soon be obsolete, outmoded in the Remote Control Age.  But the events of Skyfall prove otherwise.  There is still room in the world for Bond’s brand of “human” intelligence.

Even M gets into the act of discussing the present and the past by quoting Alfred Tennyson’s Ulysses at a critical dramatic juncture:

“Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved heaven and earth; that which we are, we are; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

This is Bond’s gift to the world, and perhaps England’s as well.  Bond and England no longer dictate the movement of Heaven and Earth, but their wills remain strong, and when threatened, they will not yield.  They are, as they have been….heroic hearts.

The emotionally-delivered Tennyson quotation above thus permits Skyfall to proudly re-assert Bond’s importance in the cinema, and even Bond’s place in the world. Jason Bournes and Ethan Hunts of the world be damned, there’s still a place for Bond, James Bond in the 21^stCentury.

The battle between Silva and Bond is not merely one of brothers, but of belief-systems, the film cleverly reminds us.  Silva is the high-tech terrorist hiding behind anonymous servers and diabolical hacks. Meanwhile, Bond is the old-world dinosaur who still enjoys his Aston Martin’s ejector seat, and takes M off the grid, to a brick-and-mortar home he hasn’t seen in years. 

It’s digital vs. analog…and analog carries the day.

The amazing thing is that in our convenient and robust Web 2.0 Age, we root in Skyfall for analog to win. 

We long for the romance and sheer individuality of a character like James Bond.  He calls not upon gadgets, tools, or software to win the day, but some deep internal reservoir of individual will and discipline.  We may be constantly perfecting our tools and gadgets, but Bond has perfected his human mechanism, and in reminding us of that, Skyfall has perfected the Bond formula.

It’s appropriate that the last act of Skyfall involves an all-out siege which is more Peckinpah and Straw Dogs (1971) than Ian Fleming, because the analog world does feel, at times, under siege, doesn’t it?  The Old Guard seems to be crumbling, a brick at a time, and some people view this shift as the End of History, and not as the beginning of Something New, perhaps Something Great. 

In an age of irrational exuberance about gadgets, apps, and computerized military capabilities, James Bond and Skyfall remind us that a reliance on humanity -- on our experience and wisdom-- can be the most potent weapon of all.

Here’s to another fifty years of James Bond and his heroic heart.