Monday, July 27, 2009

James Bond can be a real dick sometimes

Basketball has too many points, and hockey has too few, but football is just right. Soccer, on the other hand, is in a class of its own, a very annoying class. Maybe it's because I live in a neighborhood that is predominantly Latino (hell, the fuckin' region is predominantly Latino), and while I love mi gente, I can't fuckin' stand their love for this sport. They get so goddamn loud with the howling and the yelling and the yowling and the helling and the overall caterwauling when one of these fuckin' Third World countries finally makes a score, and for some reason (probably because I'm a fucking asshole), their joy makes me miserable.

Perhaps I'd feel the same way about baseball if I lived in Boston, and instead of raza, I'd have to put up with loud-ass fuckin' Pahk-da-cah Chowdaheads who don't act much differently from those characters played by Jimmy Fallon and that odd-looking chick with big tits on SNL. Perhaps I'd feel the same way about NASCAR if I lived in Alabama and had to put up with all those shitkickers getting all excited as if someone had brought in a rare extended print of Birth of a Nation. Perhaps I'd feel that way about basketball if I lived in, uh *leans in and whispers* the hood *clears throat* and had to put up with, uh...the fine individuals who are fans of that fine sport. It's the same everywhere, I guess, and I think what I'm trying to say here is that I should be living in a secluded island, somewhere far away from these jokers known as my Fellow Human Beings.

I was thinking about that while watching The Man with the Golden Gun, the James Bond movie starring Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, and a couple of hot chicks. Lee plays the villain in this piece, Francisco Scaramanga, a man who makes an honest living by shooting motherfuckers with a golden bullet. He's the best at the assassination game, making one million dollars a kill. Business is so good, he's able to afford his own private island to live in. Man, I want a place like that. It's off of southeast China, and his pad is built into the caves. He's got his own energy source, all done with solar power, and he's got a dwarf for an assistant. This dwarf Nick Nack is awesome; he handles all of Scaramanga's business deals (that way he doesn't have to see any of these asshole clients), he takes care of the house, and he's also trained at Le Cordon Bleu, so you know he can make some mean grub. Unfortunately, Scaramanga made the dumbass mistake of making Nick Nack the sole heir to all of this. That means the little bastard is always setting up other hitmen to show up and try to kill homeboy, as both a means for Scaramanga to get some practice, but also in hopes that he gets killed, so Nack could get everything.

But whatever, that's fine. There's always something. If it's not that, he'd probably get mixed up with some broad who'd want him dead. Oh wait! He DOES make that stupid choice in life as well -- mixing it up with this chick named Anders, and what a fucking C, man. She can't just live it up with this dude, no, she's gotta set him up and send MI6 a golden bullet with "007" etched into it to get them involved. What the fuck, lady? No wonder Scaramanga's leaving all his shit to Nick Nack; at least the little dude stays professional, even when trying to get his boss dead. This chick can't even pretend to dig having sex with him, probably because he's got a third nipple like Mark Wahlberg or Krusty the Clown. Sure, he's got his little kinks, like rubbing his custom-made golden gun all over her face and around her mouth, but I was once with a girl who wanted me to choke her, and did I complain? No! Besides, she was out of my league, I was in no position to complain.

I can see why British dudes like Tony Blair backed up Dubya, that motherfucker's probably cut from the same cloth as the MI6 guys who wanted my man Scaramanga stopped. Here you have a guy who has all that solar power, he doesn't need to deal with Edison or the gas company or any of that shit, his money is his money and he probably doesn't have to pay taxes and that pisses these assholes off. That's why they send Bond to kill him, not that bullshit they're trying to sell you about him trying to take over the world or whatever the fuck they say he's guilty of.

So we follow Bond on his job, which consists of acting like a real asshole. That's what Roger Moore brings to this portrayal; Connery had a way of never completely breaking that smoothness, he could make even the most threatening shit sound like pillow talk. Moore, on the other hand, seems quicker to smack a lady around if he doesn't get his way -- and it's always a lady. With guys, he's getting his ass handed to him and unless he cheats, he hasn't got a chance. There's one part where a couple of sumos are fucking him up, one guy's got him over his shoulder, crushing against him, so what's the first thing Bond does? He grabs at the sumo's buttcheeks. For real. Right after that, Bond realizes how fuckin' gay that looks, and instead gives the sumo some kind of wedgie. You know both Bond and the sumo are going to have the cheek-grabbing incident in the back of their minds for a while.

Later on, Bond's got to fight against a couple of martial arts experts, and he takes out the first one by kicking him in the face while he's bowing. There's no honor in this motherfucker. The second martial artist doesn't play that shit, and the moment Bond has a chance to get the fuck out of there, he does, jumping out the window just so some young schoolgirls can save his lame ass. He should be kissing these girls asses, but he doesn't even acknowledge them, instead he just goes back to treating other women like shit. Bond rules!

There's a chick named Mary Goodnight that Bond particularly likes to be a dick to, at one point getting her all hot and bothered, ready to bed her down. But then that ungrateful Anders shows up, so he shoves Goodnight into the closet and makes her wait there for the rest of the night while he bangs the other broad. That would be pretty awesome if it was someone else pulling that shit, but it's Roger Moore's asshole version of Bond, so fuck him and his proto-Patrick Bateman ways. By the way, even though she was just treated like a blow-up fuckdoll being hidden before the parents show up to visit, Goodnight is still into Bond, even more so, proving once again what Albert Einstein always said: Chicks Dig Jerks. (Incidentally, this is what led to Einstein helping in the creation of the atomic bomb -- you can't get more jerky than making a weapon that kills millions -- and sure enough, homeboy started smelling like ass 'cause he was getting so much of it afterward.)

The best moment is when Scaramanga treats Bond and Goodnight to lunch; he tells Bond that they are both very much alike, they both get pleasure from killing people. Bond tries to justify his ways by saying that he doesn't like killing, and he only kills because he has to and because he's licensed by the government to do so. Whatever, Bond. If you hated killing so much, you wouldn't be so quick to have a fuckin' witty line to quip with afterwards. At least Scaramanga's true to himself about being a sociopath. Then Bond kills him and blows up the island and we're supposed to cheer that shit.

Of all the deaths in the movie, it was the island's demise that really got to me. I want to live in a place like that, hell, I'd like to have Scaramanga's life -- third nipple and all. The two main differences would be that I'd try to have a screening room attached to my cave dwelling and instead of a dwarf for my assistant, I'd hire some cute girl, maybe an actress who hasn't been in the spotlight for a while and could probably use the money, like Rachael Leigh Cook or someone. Then while she's filing papers or making me a grilled cheese sandwich, I can annoy her by asking her a bunch of questions like "What was it like working with Freddie Prinze Jr.?" and "Is it true that Freddie Prinze Jr. is really into comic books?". She'd give me the grilled cheese, and I'd take a bite and say "The cheese isn't melted enough. By the way, did you know that Freddie Prinze Jr. is supposed to be a very good cook?" and she'd finally get fed up and scream "WHY DON'T YOU FUCKING HIRE FREDDIE PRINZE JR., THEN?!" and storm out. Then I'd take another bite of my grilled cheese and start to laugh while my mouth was still full, saying "Where are you going, Rachael Leigh Cook? This is an island and you don't know how to work the boat" and she'd stop and mutter "Dammit!" before going back to her assistant duties. To think that this could have all been avoided had Josie and the Pussycats done well at the box office.

Since last December, I've been watching all the Bond movies in a row, checking one out whenever I was in the mood, and this is the most recent viewing, the second of the Roger Moore series of Bond flicks. The Man with the Golden Gun is considered one of the worst (if not THE worst) Bond movie ever made, but I thought it was okay. Diamonds Are Forever is easily the worst Bond movie so far, tarnishing what was a damn near spotless run for Sean Connery. The fact that the Moore flicks haven't been that great to begin with is probably why I'm pretty easy on this one. The theme song, on the other hand, is fuckin' HIDEOUS.

Holy shit, was that tune hard to sit through. You can only be a champion for so long before you start to lose a bout or two, and I guess it was time for composer John Barry to eat shit in a big fuckin' way. I tried to let it slide, but then there's a pretty decent chase scene late in the flick that ends with a really cool stunt. Bond drives his car off a broken bridge and it does a 360 degree spiral onto the other end of the bridge. No CGI, just the real deal -- the kind of shit only pulled in the "all or nothing days", to quote Stuntman Mike. When it happens, everything goes silent for a second -- and then this motherfucker Barry adds a goddamn slide whistle to accompany a perfect moment.

This man composed many beautiful epic scores; along with a bunch of Bond flicks, he also did the music to Zulu, Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa, and Dances with Wolves. Hell, I just about cry every time I hear his score to Somewhere in Time (being half-a-fag might have something to do with that), and yet if I was to meet the man himself one day in person, I just might have to kick him in his wrinkly English ballsack for adding a slide whistle to that scene. Even if he tries to backtrack and say that it was the director's idea, I'd tell him it doesn't excuse the theme song for The Man with the Golden Gun. Then he'd nod in agreement while nursing his sore testicles. And if I ever run into the chick who sang the theme song, Lulu, I'll just give her a stern talking to, because I don't beat women, I'm not Chris Brown.

If I was, I'd be rich and happy.