Alexander

Oh, I do, man! I do!

I've been a huge fan of the original Ridley Scott "Alien" film for about as long as I can remember. I was too young to have seen it in the theater when it was released, but I must have seen it between then and the release of "Aliens" in the mid-80s because I had already seen it when I saw the sequel (I was one of the few who preferred the earlier film). Since then, I've seen each of the films as they were released (although I've so far passed on the AvP films) and while I have enjoyed each one, the first film remains my favorite. Recently - via Netflix - I've been watching the "special edition" versions of each of the subsequent films (meaning that I own "Alien" on DVD so I've been renting the other three films in the "Quadrilogy" box set versions) and I have to say that I've modified my views in light of these new versions. "Aliens" has been improved greatly by the additional footage. When the film was released theatrically, I was disappointed by the transformation of a fantastic horror/suspense film ("Alien") into a dumb action/splatter film ("Aliens"). The new version restores a good deal of suspense and fleshes out the characters (Bill Paxton doesn't seem nearly as annoying in this version, possibly because he seems a bit more human). Particularly important is a detail regarding Ripley's daughter (which sets up her relationship with Newt later on in the film). "Alien 3", much maligned for NOT being the action film "Aliens" was, is also improved in the new version. Life on the prison planet is given a bit more detail here, which makes it more interesting (to me, at least). I've been a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet since I saw "Delicatessen" in the early '90s so I was VERY excited to learn that he was to direct "Alien Resurrection." Again, I think I liked it a good deal more than the average viewer did when it first came out. Interestingly, although Jeunet did make a special edition version for the DVD, he admits that he was perfectly satisfied with the 1997 theatrical version and does NOT consider this a "director's cut." There are a couple of fleshed out scenes (including a bit where the Ripley Clone talks about Newt), but the main changes are Jeunet's original opening credit sequence (reminiscent of his "City of Lost Children") and cute ending where the Ripley Clone and Call (Winona Ryder) visit what's left of Paris (a kind of Francophone "Planet of the Apes" ending...fitting actually, since the original "Apes" novel was by a French author). Of course, my fascination with the Alien franchise has a lot to do with the xenomorph itself. I think it's a fascinating creature and I've always loved speculating on it based on what little we know based on the films (I've never gone in for the "expanded universe" of the novels and comic books). It seems to me that the xenomorph is unique in that it seems to reproduce largely asexually. The Queen seems to produce eggs without fertilization (the Queen taken from the Ripley Clone in "A:R" produces eggs as soon as it reaches maturity). The eggs themselves contain the facehugger parasite, which one assumes must contain the embryo of the chestburster. Since the fully grown alien Warrior takes its physical characteristics from the host (aliens hatched from humans are bipedial while the one hatched from the dog (or the ox in the special edition) in "Alien 3" is a quadroped), one can deduce that the embryo implanted by the facehugger has an incomplete set of chromosomes and that it is then joined by genetic material from the host. It's fascinating to think about because you have to wonder what sort of evolutionary circumstances could possibly lead to such a complex reproductive cycle. I personally think that the xenomorphs have been geneticially modified (if not completely genetically engineered) by the Space Jocky Aliens (seen in the ship explored by the Nostromo's crew in the first movie) for use as shock troops. The xenomorphs are deployed and quickly estabilish a colony, using the genetic traits of the dominant life-form on a given planet to best adapt to the environment. Once the colony is established and the Queen is producing, all life forms become hosts for new Warriors until there's nobody left. The Space Jockies (not my term, btw) then must have had some way of either controlling or destroying the xenomorphs so they could take over and colonize the planet. I like to imagine that the Space Jocky found by the Nostromo's crew was a victim of one of the eggs in his ship's cargo. The eggs seem to be able to lie dormant almost indefinately, waiting for a life form to come an activate them. I know I'm a geek, but it's just so cool to think about! Anybody else here a fan? Anyone have any alternate theories?

My daughter (eight-and-a-half) gave up naps before she was two and HATES to go to bed. Most nights even IF we can get her in bed by nine or nine thirty, she's not asleep until after eleven. But once she's out, she likes to stay out! She rarely gets up before ten on weekends. You literally have to use the jaws of life to get her up on school days (you would think that the sleep depravation would put her out early on school nights, but no). She gets all this from me, of course. I also HATE going to bed. I have to push it until I literally can't stay awake another second (I pass out on the sofa most nights, usually somewhere between three and five in the morning). If I can sleep, I will sleep until the early afternoon. My circadian rhythms have been a mess for years...

Doesn't look like Cropper & Dunn to me. Me neither. It's certainly not impossible! I certainly like this Drake guy better than Peter Frampton!

My all time favorite Christmas album:

Botflies seem to be mainly found in tropical climes (South and Central America/Africa), but it seems that some species are found in the southern US as well as southern Onterio and northern British Columbia. The larvae are sometimes found in the bodies of caribou and reindeer and are a delicacy among Native populations. Eek!

From Wikipedia: "They do not kill the host animal, and thus are true parasites (though some species of rodent-infesting botflies do consume the host's testes/ovaries)."

I note that there is a movement to have chess made an Olympic sport... Should Chess Be an Olympic Sport?

I played soccer as a kid for many years. I'm not a terribly athletic person, so the kids always insisted that I play defense (they wanted the glamor of scoring). The result is that I became one of the league's top defensemen. When I was in college, I would play soccer games with my floormates (I lived on an all-male floor, so having an interest in sports was required) and they were impressed. Its hard to get a ball past me (for some reason, though, I'm not a good goalie. I think it requires a different set of skills. A defenseman can be a lot more aggressive, going TO the person with the ball and repelling it) or at least it used to be (haven't played in years). My daughter is doing soccer now and I'm LOVING watching her games. She's also doing basketball, which I've never really played, but which I enjoy watching nevertheless. Also, while in college, my floormates helped to set up an inter-dorm baseball league and I played on their team. I was a catcher, but I wasn't very good. I much prefer watching baseball to playing it.

How's his dog doing?

I picked this up last week and thought it was quite good. I didn't know that Rosenwinkle was in it, though!

Eh. It's an okay list. There's the usual Boomer Bias, but that's hardly new. I will say that most (not all) of the choices are, indeed, great vocalists. However, I will also say that compliling a list of the 100 greatest vocalists and including jazz musicians (Nina Simone, for one) and NOT including Billie Holiday (not to mention Sarah, Ella, etc.) is absurd.

I've gone through periods where much of Hard Bop stuff on BN bores me. You let it go for a little while and listen to something else. Come back to it with fresh ears.

No ! :rsmile: I have a DMM pressing of "Blue Train" that sounds pretty darn good!

QOS has it's flaws, no question, I just disagree with Ebert's assessment of the film as somehow betraying Bond.

I do know that nothing is permanent. That's why I noted above that a future film might well take up where "Die Another Day" left off.

If Ms. Fields is named "Strawberry" (which I thought of during the movie, myself), it never happens on camera. But yes, she is a readhead so the name "Strawberry" immediately suggests itself, but the film is subtle enough to let the audience supply its OWN joke...

No, there is another path: I just don't care. I'm sorry, what? Not care about James Bond? Those words don't compute for me. Sorry.

Moore is probably my least favorite Bond, despite the fact that he was the Bond I grew up on. I came to develop a deep appreciation for Connery and rank Brosnan just behind him. Rewatching "The Living Daylights" the other day, I also came to appreciate what a raw deal Dalton (who is probably the most distinguished actor to take on the role (until Craig, anyway)) got. It seems to me that Dalton was the victim of two things: First, by 1987 I think the viewing public had largely forgotten Lazenby, so for most viewers there had only ever been two Bonds: Connery and Moore. People had not yet accepted the idea that Bond was a character that many actors would play over the years. There was Connery who had originated the role, and Moore who had taken it up in 1973. That was it. Dalton was - for a lot of people - a transitional Bond. They rejected him, only to embrace Brosnan almost ten years later (by which point Lazenby's reputation had been largely rehabilitated and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" regarded as one of the all time best Bond films). By the time Craig came along, there had been five previous Bonds, and it was easier for people to accept him. So Dalton basically had the bad luck to follow Moore when for a whole generation, Moore WAS Bond. Second, "The Living Daylights" was the first Bond film to be made in the age of AIDS (1983's "View to a Kill" was made at a time when people still regarded AIDS as a "gay disease") and the disasterous decision had been made to make Bond a "one woman man" for that film. It wasn't so much that audiences couldn't accept a monogomous Bond for a film (Bond had been shown in the past to fall in love, as he did with Diana Rigg's character in "On Her Majesty's...") so much as they couldn't accept the IDEA of a Bond who didn't screw co-stars and femme fatales. In short, I don't think viewers would have made a fuss if the filmmakers hadn't made an issue of it in the press at the time (they also make an issue of it on the DVD "making of" documentary). In fact, I don't think audiences would have even noticed that Bond was only sleeping with one woman (after all, circumstances can conspire to make sure that Bond isn't having any dalliances with other women) if the filmmakers hadn't pointed it out. Overall, "The Living Daylights" isn't a bad film at all, despite it's low reputation, and I think that Dalton is due for a reassessment.

Not true. No one has to ACCEPT anything. I have no intention of watching or paying any attention to the reboot. The new Bond series is dead to me. Eh. I'm not sure I agree. You don't have to accept it for yourself and you don't have to go see the films, but on some level you MUST acknowledge that these films are there and that this IS the new reality for 007. Similarly, when I was a kid, I had grown up on my father's Marvel comics (he kept a big bag up in the attic). I loved those comics, especially the X-Men. Around the mid-to-late '70s/early '80s, I became aware of the "new" X-Men (which had started with "Giant Sized X-Men #1"). To me, these "new" X-Men were imposters. The X-Men I knew and loved was Cyclops, Marvel Girl, the Angel, The Beast, and Ice Man. The X-Men featuring Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Banshee, and others were just a bunch of pretenders. I ignored them for years. It wasn't until I was in high school that I started reading the "new" X-Men (which by then wasn't "new" at all). What I learned from that experience is that to deny the reality of a given situation (while it is my right) was ultimately futile. It gets me nothing but frustration. I learned that I can have the best of both worlds: Cherish the old and appreciate the new. My wife feels the same way you do. She hated "Casino Royale." She hated Craig (her favorite Bond will always be Brosnan). She has no interest in "Quantum" and doesn't have any intention of seeing it. And that's fine. But to say that the Bond films stopped with "Die Another Day" is foolish at best, because they didn't. I'm sure there are partisans who love the Tim Burton "Batman" films or even the Ang Lee "Hulk" film and refuse to accept those recent "reboots" as well. But unlike Lucas's "Special Editions" of the first three "Star Wars" films, these reboots are not an attempt to rewrite history. The older films are there and they will always be there. Who knows? Someday, a filmmaker might come along and make a Bond film that ignores the reboot and picks up where "Die Another Day" left off. I may not like it, but I will watch and accept it for what it is. What's the point of having these long running characters if they can't be reinterpreted for a new audience? Must we always accept tradition for its own sake?

You are absolutely correct, and that's why I must emphasize for those who still seem unclear on the concept: "Casino Royale" was NOT a prequel to "Dr. No." This is not a pre-62 Bond. The past, all those films from '62 to '02, never happened and (more imporantly) never will. That's what a "reboot" is. It's not going back and showing the beginning of a saga; it's starting the saga over from scratch, with no preconceptions. For those not familiar with the concept in comics, it has happened several times in both the Marvel and DC universes. In the mid-1980s it was decided (in the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" mini-series) to end the DC universe that had existed since Superman's debut in 1938 and to start over fresh. The Superman introduced post-Crisis is significantly different from the pre-Crisis Superman: There is no red kryptonite, no other surviors of Krypton (Supergirl, the bottled city of Kandor, General Zod). Clark Kent has just moved to Metropolis and just met Lex Luthor for the first time (he is now a business man, not a world-beating villian). Many Superman fans disliked the changes, but as with the new Bond films, you don't have to like it, but you have to ACCEPT it.

Allow me to preface this post with two points: First, this is a direct response to Roger Ebert's review of the new Bond flick, "The Quantum of Solace" which opened today in the U.S. and which I have just returned from seeing. If you have not read Ebert's review, you may do so here. Second, I am writing this review as a long time Bond fan. My parents started taking me to see Bond movies (always at the drive-in in the early years. They expected me to go to sleep in the back seat) beginning with "The Spy Who Loved Me" (I do remember being taken to "Live and Let Die", but that must have been a rerelease since I would have been three when that movie first came out). I have since seen every single Bond film in the theater, save one: For some reason I do not remember, I did not see "Die Another Day" (the last Brosnan) until its release on DVD. I also have seen all of the Connery films from an early age (they showed them on channel 29 in Buffalo, NY on Saturday afternoons. My dad watched them with me since Connery was, to him, the "real" Bond. To me, he was the Bond on TV). So I am no fly by night Bond viewer who came to the series during the Brosnan years. I know whereof I speak when I speak of Bond. This review may contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie and you don't want anything spoiled, do not read on. Ebert's review, which I assume you have read by now, was extremely negative. He begged the producers to "never do this to Bond again" and urged them to completely reconstruct the character. His review was not meant as a criticism of Daniel Craig, however, who Ebert praises as a "great Bond, perhaps the best Bond." His complaint is about the way the character is handled and how the film is structured. He states, incredibly, that Bond is "not an action hero." (He's right in a way. Bond is not an action hero. Bond is the action hero.) Where to begin? Ebert complains that Bond is not the suave martini-sipper of old, that the "Bond Girl" Camille is not given a racy name like "Pussy Galore," that Bond's attitude is less dispassionate than previous incarnations. This Bond is not witty. He is brutal. He doesn't sleep with all of his female co-stars. In fact, he barely shows any interest in Camille. In short, the film departs completely from at least twenty out of twenty-one previous Bond films. I do not disagree with Ebert's assessment of the character. This is a different Bond. The question is whether this is a bad thing. Ebert believes that it is. This is where we differ. Part of the problem lies in Ebert's admitted blind-spot when it comes to comic books and comic book related movies. Ebert is the first to admit that he doesn't know from comic books. He's never read them. Bond isn't a comic book character, of course, but Bond has been subjected in the last two films to something very familiar to comic book fans, but clearly alien to Ebert: A reboot. Obviously, Ebert doesn't know what a "reboot" is. If he did, I can't imagine that he would have written the review he did. What Ebert clearly does not understand is that there are now two completely different "epochs" in the Bond continuity: The twenty films made between 1962 and 2002 and the two films made since 2006. There are, therefore, two different Bonds: The Bond played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan and the Bond played by Daniel Craig. I have just completed watching the first films by each Bond as a build up to the release of "QOS," so I have the various interpretations of the character very fresh in my mind as a write this, so let us be completely clear on this: However each actor may have differed in his reading of James Bond, there can be no doubt that Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan were all playing the same character existing in a continuity that existed (however tenously, at times) between the twenty films they made. There were consistant characters (M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, Felix Leiter, Blofeld) even if the characters (like Bond himself) were played by different actors. If something happened to Felix, for example (as happened in "License to Kill"), that took him out of action, then Felix could not appear in the subsequent films (he did not appear in any of the Brosnan films, being replaced by a new CIA agent (Jack Wade, who appeared in "GoldenEye" and "Tomorrow Never Dies," played both times by Joe Don Baker). With "Casino Royale," however, both Bond and his universe were completely rebooted. Now Bond is a novice agent who has just earned his "00" status. Felix Leiter is back in the CIA (played by Jeffery Wright in both "CR" and "QOS," making him the second actor to play Felix more than once and the first actor to play him in consecutive films), a more ambiguous ally of 007's than Felix was in the first continuity. Judi Dench is no longer the "new" M (as introduced in "GoldenEye"). She is Bond's first superior officer (there may have been male 'M's in the past, but none of them supervised this James Bond). There is no evidence of a Q (or even a Q Division) or a Miss Moneypenny (a fact that Ebert laments in his review). This James Bond never encountered Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger, Odd Jobs, Pussy Galore, or any of the villians of the original continuity. Hell, this James Bond only JUST started drinking his martinis "shaken, not stirred." All of this is simply to say that we CANNOT compare "QOS" to any previous Bond film (save "CR") or Craig's Bond to any previous incarnation. It isn't the same character or the same MI6. So what do we know about THIS 007 and THIS world? Well, THIS world isn't populated with world-beating villians who hide out in active volcanos or women with ridiculous names. The bad guys in this world are after money, not world conquest. There are, in fact, no "Bond Girls," just female allies and enemies. THIS Bond has yet to develop into the character introduced at the beginning of "Dr. No." Maybe he never will. He doesn't regard violence as an inconvience but rather has a way of life. This Bond's overriding characteristic is not his charm or his unflappable cool but rather his complete and utter recklessness. You get the impression that this Bond doesn't survive because he's somehow superior to his enemies, but rather because he is actually willing to die in order to get the job done. You see it several times in "QOS": Bond essentially plays chicken with his opponents, and they lose because they aren't willing to just put the petal to the floor and let nature take its course. They always flinch, and because they flinch, they die. "QOS" picks up immediately after the end of "CR" (something very few of the previous Bond films ever did: The only thing even remotely resembling continuing storylines I can think of are the Blofeld triology ("You Only Live Twice", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Diamonds Are Forever") and the two Moore films that had a recurring villian (Jaws, who appeared in "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker")), which means that the two films are actually one continuing story. Bond is after the Organization (revealed in this film as Quantum) that was responsible for Vesper's betrayal and death in the previous film. It is implied that Quantum will play a role in subsequent Bond films and a lot of this film is spent trying to learn about them and what they are after. Dominic Greene (this film's villian) is (like Le Chiffre in the last film) not an Ultimate Villian but just another functionary. We don't know who runs Quantum (but we know that its members are highly placed: at least one is an advisor to Britain's PM). Again, this is something that Ebert disliked. Where are the comic opera villians with their jumpsuited henchmen and sharks with frickin' lasers on their frickin' heads? No one ever captures Bond. No one ever details his fiendish plot for world domination (or at least blackmail) and then leaves Bond in the hands of flunkies who will be quickly dispatched. It's completely unlike twenty out of twenty-two films in the series. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE the Bond series. I love the gadgets and the silly bad guys and the babes. But I also love the fact that the producers have taken Bond in a completely new direction. I love both the old Bond and the new. But I must emphasize the fact that there ARE two Bonds. You can have both, of course. You can enjoy the New Bond in the two recent films and then go home and enjoy Bond Classic on DVD. But don't think that the producers have somehow betrayed Bond because they haven't. James Bond is dead. Long live James Bond.

My wife and I have seen JT in concert a couple of times. I don't consider myself a fan, but the man knows how to put on a satisfying show. He gives the people what they came to hear, that's for damn sure. I grew up listening to his music and my wife has a "Greatest Hits" collection that she plays in the car from time to time. I don't object to it. I quite like some of his earlier work. However... My wife asked me to buy her a copy of "Covers" the day it came out (she knew I would be buying the latest volume of Dylan's "The Bootleg Series" on the same day) and I've heard it a couple of times. For the most part, I think it's dreadful. Easily the worst thing I've heard from JT. Dull as dishwater. All I can think when I hear a track from this album is that I have a recording (usually by the original artist) that's WAY better. And that I'd rather be listening to it. His version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" is awful (and he makes bizarre changes to the lyrics).

This song, "Cheese and Onions," sounds so much like the real thing that it apparently even fooled some Beatles fans and wound up on bootlegs. Cheese and Onions

LOVE the Rutles. Neil Innes really got the sound of the Beatles in his music for the film. In the clip you posted, during the line "Anytime of the day I can see..." he really sounds like John Lennon!