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Silence, sensitivity, and spies
These last couple of days have been really slow for email - even the journals list has been off its feed. Slow for journal updates, too (and no, I don't just mean me). Where is everyone? Did the entire online journalling community overcommit themselves or something? Or does everyone just have a bad head cold, like Karen?
Okay, I admit I'm not doing my part to encourage mail. What's happening is: After a long period with no major project at work, I have started a big one. I am the sole programmer, which means that if I don't get on the stick, I have no one else to blame. It's not an urgent thing - the timeline for me to actually make code changes runs through February, and it's not going to take nearly that long - but December in particular will continue to be a mess, because I'm going to all these meetings and trying to familiarize myself with someone else's code (always a pain), while at the same time I have to finish my code (for the mouth organ redesign) by the end of December as well. Oh, and I'll lose a week visiting Nonelvis' parents.
Fortunately a crucial step was passed tonight - we finally settled on a new site design that the two of us can agree upon. Nonelvis is a very finicky human when it comes to web design. That's why the design keeps getting simpler and simpler; we're reducing ourselves gradually to the least common denominator.
Speaking of which, this business with an Amherst high school deciding not to put on West Side Story because it slurs Puerto Ricans - has this penetrated national news, or are we the only ones hearing about it? The paper today noted that Amherst is astonishingly diverse - truly an international community - and hinted that this may be leading to excessive sensitivity in the name of political correctness.
Well, duh.
I mean, the same high school has already had problems with Fiddler on the Roof and Kiss me Kate. (The article didn't say, but I imagine the former was biased against Russians and the latter was considered sexist.)
I dislike West Side Story intensely - possibly more than any other musical. I think that the dialogue is horrible, the situations are trite (I'd rather just see Romeo and Juliet and have done), and the music - surprisingly - is uninspiring. But if it's racist, I'm a pink monkey.
I agree with a protester (that is, he's protesting the decision to censor the play) quoted in the story: If this keeps up, there will be nothing left.
But that doesn't mean overcompensating in the opposite direction either. If we ban South Park and The Man Show - as non-funny a pair of grotesques as I have ever seen - can we possibly arrange to keep Fiddler on the Roof and Kiss Me Kate?
I'll even let the censors have West Side Story as a consolation prize.
I know, I know - this still isn't talk about movies. You sure you don't want to hear about the chenille scarves and gloves I bought last night, or the earring tree I made this weekend, or my fruitless shoe expeditions?
What's that? No more of that femmy stuff? No more shopping stories?
Oh, fine, be that way. Movies it is, then.
I've been steeping in Bond films lately. TBS has been showing them, and for some reason the music of the films, in particular, has come up in email and conversation quite a bit.
If you are a Bond fan, I recommend the book The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson. It's a book for completists, full of catty remarks (lists entitled "James Bond, Fashion Victim" and "Cringe-Worthy Title Sequences"), film obscura (The Living Daylights is unusual for a Bond film in that the title of the film does not come onscreen simultaneously with its appearance in the lyrics), continuity errors (Blofeld's ring switching hands mid-scene, aircraft with incorrect markings, et cetera), and sometimes all three at once ("It's a shame that Maryam d'Abo's soaping of the bow doesn't match the bowing that Stefan Kropfitsch is playing on the soundtrack.")
I like the book because it helps me keep track of which film was when, and reminds me when I see From Russia With Love and nearly fall asleep: "Oh, yes, it was one of the early ones." The early Bond films were almost cerebral; Tomorrow Never Dies, by contrast, was so fast-paced that some critics compared it to a Jackie Chan movie. (And they spoke of it like this was a bad thing - go figure.)
Everybody who likes Bond films at all (and there are plenty who don't) has their mental list. Here's mine:
Bond films I'll watch over and over
Goldfinger
Live and Let Die
Goldeneye
The Spy Who Loved Me
Tomorrow Never Dies
Bond films I'd like to see again to see if they belong in the category above or the one below
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Never Say Never Again
The World Is Not Enough
Bond films which aren't bad, but bore me on repeat viewing
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
You Only Live Twice
Diamonds Are Forever
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
Bond films which are truly substandard
Moonraker
Octopussy
Worst Bond film of all time, so far
A View To A Kill
Bond films I haven't seen yet
Thunderball
The Man With The Golden Gun
Not, properly speaking, Bond films at all
Licence To Kill
Casino Royale
The last two require special explanation. I don't mean whether it was made by the Eon/Broccoli organization. (Never Say Never Again wasn't, but it's a legitimate rewrite of the Thunderball script.) Casino Royale isn't a real Bond film because it's a satire, and a hideously unfunny one at that. Several better film writers than I have deconstructed this movie and explained exactly why it's so bad, so I won't try. If you've ever been curious about it: Don't be.
As for License To Kill, the Bond in this film is so un-Bondlike that it can only be appreciated if you pretend it's a movie about a different hero, a rougher, sweatier, cruder, more thuglike hero, one you have no prior conceptions about. If you can accomplish that feat, it's a pretty interesting movie. If you can't, it'll make you crazy.
But ... getting back to present-day movies ... you'll note that I've dropped The World Is Not Enough into its proper place on that list - and I suspect that when I see it a second time, it will slide into the "perfectly adequate" stack, not the ones I want to watch again and again.
It was fast-paced enough, and they've given more time to Judi Dench (knowing a good thing when they've got it). There's a female lead whose character actually contains hidden complexities. But then there's also Denise Richards.
Richards is possibly the least convincing "brainy bimbo" in any Bond film yet - and I didn't think anyone was going to beat Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead. Richards' character is named Christmas Jones, and I am convinced that the writers did this stretch-of-credibility only so they could end the movie with a truly atrocious pun (one which is rather more vulgar than is common for Bond entendres, I might add).
The Owen and Lisa Show noted that the most recent crop of Bond films has been giving more and more emphasis to the supporting characters, theorizing that this is to cover up the weak spot in the middle: Bond and his women. I wouldn't normally agree with this - after all, Bond is still hardly ever offscreen - but then I realized that every time Judi Dench or Robbie Coltrane (reprising his wonderful Zukovsky role from Goldeneye) were onscreen, I perked up, and I was sad when they went away. So maybe there's something to this.
Anyway. It's a Bond film. It's not a bad Bond film. If you like Bond, see it; if you don't, don't.
Wow - I think I just busted the word count, and I still have four films to talk about. I guess I'll save this and start another entry ....
This is what happens when I don't write every day!
© Columbine
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