At Midnight All the Agents

Today, as many readers are likely aware, is the release date of one of this year's major action movies, the new James Bond film Skyfall.  This means that at midnight last night (because seriously, what movie doesn't get a midnight release anymore?) die hard Bond fans, Daniel Craig lovers, Dame (or Day-um) Judi Dench supporters, and Adele someones-like-you took to the theaters to see Bond take on a creepy blonde Javier Bardem (first Bond, then Bardem?), as well as, according to the trailer, a scorpion.  I was not among those in the theater, as I was getting ready for bed, but if early reviews and blogosphere buzz are to be believed, when I do get to see this movie, it will be quite impressive.  And as the tiny Daniel Craig in the gun-barrel "O" above indicates, we're taking on Bond in today's report.  As in talking about him.  Not fighting him.  He'd destroy us.

So with everyone saying Skyfall is so good, it's got to have a few key ingredients.  Beyond the basics of a good (if not incredibly far-fetched) story and a strong leading man to be Bond, a good James Bond film needs...

An Action-Packed Opening
Before the opening titles even roll, the film's got to establish itself as a bad-ass piece of Bond awesomeness.  The best way to do this is an action scene that grabs you right away.  The Daily Beast put together their favorite openings, and I think they capture things pretty well.  Goldeneye certainly takes the cake, and I always associate the secret duck with Goldfinger.  Not on the list, but one I have a secret love for, is The World Is Not Enough, just because I loved doing an impression of Sir Robert King saying "Take this pin. It was the detonator."  Overall favorite, though, has to be the gritty opening to Casino Royale that brought a fresh edge to the character, cutting back on late-Brosnan era corniness, and replacing it with a dark, character driven piece of work.  (And for those who want more traditional action, just wait til the Parkour scene after the song plays through.)

A Good Song
With the opening action wrapped, it's time for a song.  The James Bond opening songs (click musical note to play song) are always a product of the decade of the film.  Given that famous musicians are always brought on to provide them, this decade-relation should come as no surprise.  Consider 1965's Thunderball song "Thunderball" by Tom Jones, the obviously 80s "A View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" by Duran Duran and A-Ha respectively.  You'll also notice a trend of song being named after film, which has been carried through almost all of the Bond films after Dr. No.  There are some notable exceptions.  I can't believe they couldn't find someone to sing a song called "Octopussy."  Though I'm not surprised that nobody could work "Quantum of Solace" into a catchy little lyric, considering the incredibly effective way that it was worked into the film.  Oh wait...

A Cool Title 
Speaking of titles, they are almost invariably super cool.  (Note the Quantum of Solace exception given above.)  A View to a Kill, Live and Let Die... even Die Another Day, awful as the film was, is a pretty kick-ass title.  And just imagine the titles that could have come if the films had started production prior to 1962.  If you can't imagine any, Andrew Howley took care of some for you.  Two Lefts and a Reich would be incredible, and imagine the gadgets the Newton-esque Q counterpart would provide in Objects in Motion.  Then again, there are the forgotten Bond films of the Bush era.  (Actually, some of these might have been better than Die Another Day... )

A Hot Bond Girl 
Next ingredient to heat things up a bit: The playfully named Bond Girl.  Where, but in a James Bond film, could Denise Richards pass for a nuclear physicist?  And where, but in that same Bond film, would that physicists name be "Christmas Jones"?  And where, but in that same film, would Pierce Brosnan get to say "I always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey" and not be talking about December 25?  There's a whole vast history of beautiful women who have seduced, tricked, trapped, been trapped with, and, in the latest Bond story arc, even broken the heart of James Bond.  There are also some great Bond girls who never were, and hopefully never will be.

A Super Creepy, Crazy Villain
 Finally, let's wrap it all up with a villain who just wants to watch the world burn.  No, wait, that's the Joker.  But seriously, Bond villains aren't far from the supervillains of the comic book world, especially in terms of their plots for world domination or turning a quick (billion) buck(s).  Whether they cry blood, carry golden guns, throw deadly bowler hats, or love gold, these villains all have one thing in common:  They expect Bond to die.  Of course, they'll toy with him a bit first.  Or torture him mercilessly in one of the most painful sequences I've ever seen on film.  (Looking at you, Casino.)  The point is, it can't be simple.  It's all a game.  A most complicated game.


All told these ingredients combined (shaken, not stirred) work together to create a gem of a Bond movie.  And it sounds like Skyfall makes the grade.  Catch it in theaters this weekend.  (I get money from MGM now, right? That's how that works?)

For those who have Monday off, enjoy the long weekend.  I'll be back on Tuesday with what I anticipate will be some smaller scale reporting than this week's.

Til next week,

Mousseau. Evan Mousseau
(Please, like you didn't know I would sign off like that.)

Vote Your Heart Out

 
Good Morning and Happy Election Day!

For the past 19 months we've been dealing with this election.  Speeches, debates, ads, primary votes, more ads, more debates, more ads, more speeches, more ads, ads, ADS, ADS, ADS!  But now, today, it ends.  And how it will end is really anyone's guess, as every newspaper, blog, and television news source say.  But the important thing is it ends.  Tomorrow, politicking stops (for a little while), the signs will come down, offices and Facebook and Twitter will become a bit more bearable, Daily Show and Colbert Report viewership will drop ever so slightly, and the advertisers will Super Pack their bags and leave.  But I say, why wait?  Today's Report is going to celebrate the awesomeness of my top ten elections/campaigns to ever hit popular culture.

10.  Pedro Runs for Class President in Napoleon Dynamite.  I bought this movie for my sister for Christmas the year it came out under the stipulation that she could never force me to watch it.  To this day, I have not watched it, though I have seen many-a "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt.  That said, Wikipedia informs me that Pedro wins the election, apparently buoyed to success by this dance.

9.  The Blue M&M.  In 1995, candy company Mars, Incorporated ran a promotion in which M&M lovers (read: everyone) could vote to pick the M&M that would replace tan in the new bag.  (Did you even remember that there was a tan M&M? I didn't!)  The candidates were blue, pink, and purple.  Blue would win, and it was during the Blue M&M Campaign that Mars introduced the talking M&M personalities.

8.  Snoopy in the Song "Snoopy for President." Though it was Linus who ran in for school president in the comics, it was Snoopy who ran for President of the United States in a song by the Royal Guardsmen.  This wasn't the first song the Guardsmen had sung about the iconic beagle; we'll see another as Christmas approaches.  This one does feature a cameos from the Great Pumpkin and Snoopy's classic rival the Red Baron who somehow manages to vote in a U.S. election.  I sense voter fraud...

7.  Claire Dunphy Runs for City Council on Modern Family.  When Claire Dunphy gets fed-up with an absolutely awful city council member played perfectly by David Cross, she decides to run against him in the election.  The humor for this election comes first from Claire's preparations for the debate with her overly critical family.  The real gem of the campaign, though, comes when a town hall meeting falls apart, gets autotuned, and goes viral.  What's the plan, Phil? 

6.  Mike Morris' Primary Campaign in The Ides of March.  2011was Hollywood's year of the Gosling, as he starred in Crazy, Stupid, Love; Drive; and the political thriller, The Ides of March.  Ides was adapted from the Beau Willimon's stageplay Farragut West and features Gosling as an idealistic young campaign staffer for Democratic candidate hopeful Mike Morris, played by George Clooney, who also directed the film.  The film's got an all-star supporting cast that includes a ten second sequence toward the opening where you see both Philip Seymour-Hoffman and Paul Giamatti and get to go "They're in this?!"  And that's not even mentioning Marisa Tomei; girl-named-Evan, Evan Rachel Wood; and oft-recognized, not named often enough Jeffrey Wright.  A superb, albeit bleak portrait of gamesmanship versus ideals in American politics.

5.  Avenue Q's Rod Votes for Rotary Club President.  Every musical that gets nominated for Best Musical at Broadways Tony's gets to perform for the... I don't know... dozens? of viewers nationwide watching at home on TV.  Most of them choose to perform a number from the show, but the puppet-parody of Sesame Street, Avenue Q stood out in the 2004 Tony awards when it performed an original scene called "Rod's Dilemma," in which the show's Bert parallel Rod votes for the officer of his rotary club.  The dilemma segues into a brilliant musical number called "Vote Your Heart."  The subliminal messaging of the song seemed to pay off, too, since Avenue Q took home the trophy that year!

4.  The Election in Election.  Simply put, this is an amazing movie.  Reese Witherspoon stars as student Tracy Flick in her run for student body president.  While Flick is initially running unopposed, civics teacher Jim McAllister, played by Matthew Broderick, brings popular football player (is there any other type of cinematic high school football player?) Paul Metzler into the race, and Metzler's lesbian sister Tammy soon follows.  High school politics, extramarital affairs, cupcakes, swollen eyes, and civic duty all come together in this near perfect dark comedy, anchored by the best performance of Reese Witherspoon's career.

3.  George Michael Bluth, Steve Holt, and Rov Nadir Run for Student Body President in Arrested Development.  Arrested Development's student body president election episode, "Immaculate Election," holds up strong in the show's record of strong episodes.  It features fan-favorite minor characters Ann Veal (her?) and Steve Holt, along with appearances from Mrs. Featherbottom and George Michael's Star Wars kid freakout.  The campaign videos are great, though the color commentary provided by GOB in the episode itself is even better.  George Michael's video is a stark contrast to his original campaign slogan, Voting In Righteous George Michael Is Noble.  Good thing they sacrificed the whole V.I.R.G.I.N. thing.

2.  Turd Sandwich Vs Giant Douche on South Park.  When PETA protests South Park Elementary's cow mascot, the school lets the students nominate a new mascot and two candidates come out on top to take each other on.  The Turd Sandwich battles the Giant Douche for school mascot, leaving Stan disenfranchised by the political process.  In brilliantly vulgar satire (the episode was released just before the 2004 election), Stan is kicked out of town when he decides that given the choice between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich, he'd rather not vote at all.  Of course the real question is which one is funnier?

1.  Leslie Knope Runs for City Council on Parks and Rec.  The major plot arc of the show's excellent fourth season features Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope running for the city council of Pawnee, Indiana.  The campaign is full of bumps along the road, including a scene in which the show's main cast, including a three-legged dog named Champion, slide across an ice rink to the tune of Gloria Estefan's "Get On Your Feet"... or at least the first fifteen seconds of the song.  Oh, and did I mention Paul Rudd plays her lovable idiot of an opponent, Bobby Newport.

There, that should be enough to take your mind off the election at hand, or at the very least distract you as you watch the votes and guesses trickle in as the day goes by.

Remember to vote your heart!

Remember, Remember

I hope you all had enjoyable and restful weekends full of friends, family, and perhaps even a little treating yo self.  Though none of you owned up to it, some of you may even have been kicking off beards and novels!  One reader submitted some particularly impressive beards to strive for.  Interestingly, this list of 10 epic beards also brings to light the important connection between hat and facial hair.  The proper pairing is crucial, it would appear.

And speaking of hat-hair combinations, let us discuss the famous combination of the day.  The black hat, creepy mask that is the face of today, November 5, or Guy Fawkes Day.  Guy Fawkes Day (or Night) has been celebrated in Britain for years, as a celebration of the arrest of Guy Fawkes on November 5, 1605, as he guarded explosives intended to destroy the House of Lords.  Now the holiday is commemorated with fireworks and bonfires, often including the burning of an effigy (usually of Guy Fawkes, though some towns make controversial picks...)  The holiday is also celebrated by comic book nerds, action movie fans, and Natalie Portman lovers worldwide, as they use it as an excuse to watch the Fawkes-themed V for Vendetta.  (Not to be confused with the equally harrowing C for Cookie.)

But when we "Remember remember the 5th of November" for Guy Fawkes alone, what are we "Forgetting, forgetting?"  I've picked two things that we should remember not to forget in all of our remembering.

Remember 1:  Bryan and Ryan Adams' Birthday.  Okay, so this is technically two things.  But seriously, how weird is it that two similarly named but unrelated musicians have the SAME birthday?!  Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't know too much about Ryan Adams, though a quick YouTube search led me to this beautiful song.  He's also got a damn good cover of Wonderwall that totally changes the song.  Seriously, I am probably saying stuff that everybody who knows about music already knows.  I'm just discovering this stuff for the first time.  I'm much more well-versed in the music of Canada's second-greatest export, Bryan Adams.  (Sorry, Celine, Martin Short is first greatest.)  The Bryan Adams compilation album "So Far So Good," with that iconic muddy tire cover was a regular rider on the three-disc carousel of my family's stereo, and I was the one who kept granting it admission.  And my knowledge of "Summer of '69" once earned me bonus points on a high school English exam, as I finished the sentence "I got my first real six-string, bought it at the  five and dime."  I could sing-along to pretty much the whole album, from the best thing about Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves*, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,"  to "Can't Stop This Thing We Started."  So, at the very least, if you don't want to Remember, Remember Bryan and Ryan today, Imagine Imagine me at age seven dancing around my living room singing this. 

Remember 2:  Of much greater historical significance than Messrs. Ryan and Ryan, 150 years ago today, on November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony cast her vote in the 1872 presidential election.  Though she backed the winning candidate, Ulysses S Grant, when she "positively voted the Republican ticket," she ended up with a $100 fine for her action.  She never paid this fine, but her arrest, her sham of a trial under justice Ward Hunt, and her fine, all served to further the women's suffrage movement, as Anthony addressed the question, "Is it a crime for a citizen of the United States to vote?"  

Even more than Guy Fawkes day; even more than Bryan and Ryan Adams; and even more than adorable, pajama-clad, seven-year-old Evan looking back now at a summer that seemed to last forever, Readers, remember, remember the vote of Susan B Anthony today.  Specifically, remember it in preparation to commemorate it tomorrow.  When asked the question that Susan B. Anthony posed following her vote 150 years ago, "Is it a crime for a citizen of the United States to vote?," I encourage the readership of the Morning Report to answer not with words, but with actions, by voting in tomorrow's election.

*How about that for a negatively positive review of a song?

***   FOLLOW-UP  ***

Following on the Guy Fawkes description, one reader asked: "Were the explosively [sic] to be placed just beneath the chamber of the House of Lords? Would the explosion not have destroyed the Palace of Westminster in its entirety, and therefore the Commons as well?"

I did a bit of history digging and found out more:

I did some digging and found this map of Westminster from the mid 18th century. A bit later than we are discussing, but let us assume the layout was the same. 

H of L indicates the House of Lords, while H of Commons indicates the House of Commons. 

While V was able to take down the whole building, the explosives available to Mr Fawkes and the rest of the Gunpowder Plotters were far more rudimentary than those of the dystopic future. 

Fawkes was found guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. Enough to obliterate the House of Lords and kill the not-Catholic King James I, but not enough to reduce the Palace to rubble. The goal was ultimately to eliminate James and replace him with his Catholic daughter. James' supporters would no doubt also be taken out in this assassination attempt, but the symbolic destruction of the establishment ended there, not with the total destruction of the building/government as it did for the masked and revenge-driven anarchist of Alan Moore's creation.