Blonde Ambition

The Blonde author Duane Swierczynski is dropping by Black Orchid Bookshop this Saturday around noon, and I plan to be there.

Back on the Poetry Beat

Submitted three poems to Chantarelle's Notebook.

Schooling House Update

The battle of wills between Dr, Greg House and Princeton PD Det. Michael Tritter (David Morse) is almost too tense for me. In his effort to straighten out House, Tritter has forced Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to stop practicing medicine, he's frozen Foreman and Cameron's assets, and just about turned Chase against House.

In the next episode, Tritter and Wilson work out a deal to send House to drug rehab. Cuddy suspends House unless he agrees to the deal. Will he agree? That's something else entirely.

Since Tritter's first visit to the clinic I've been predicting he will come down with something only House can diagnose, and the tables will be turned. We'll see if it happens.

DEEP SIX by Thom E. Gemcity

NCIS fans will recognize the entry title as that of the thriller written (and self-published?) by Sean Murray's character Timothy McGee. Over the past two episodes, we've learned about the book's characters, based without permission on McGee's NCIS teammates: L.J. Tibbs, Special Agent Tommy, Mossad Officer Lisa, and of course French-Polynesian M.E.'s assistant Pimi J'Almer.

McGee insists his book is "pure fiction," but clearly he's arguing a lost cause, as is any author whose fiction borrows too much from life.

Early Christmas Presents

Bones Season One

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Superman Returns Special Edition

Tryptophan Blues

I didn't want Thanksgiving to slow my writing flow. I ate less, tried to keep my energy up, but for much of the weekend neither reading nor writing held my interest. I had finished S.J. Rozan's Winter and Night and could have gotten an early start on DetecToday's December read (All Shook Up by Mike Harrison), but more than anything I wanted to end November with a poem or two.

Nothing was coming, so I wrote a poem about Thanksgiving weekend lethargy.

"Sorry, Caitlin."

In its second season, NCIS refined its look and pacing, delved into its characters, and went beyond the military angle. I can't watch the DVDs, of course, without thinking of Sasha Alexander's end-of-season departure.


What if Sasha hadn't been overwhelmed by the hours? What if she could have seen herself playing Caitlin Todd for the long haul? Bottom line, she was overwhelmed; she wanted time to do other things. Both she and the show have moved on.

Thanksgiving

We're celebrating Thanksgiving with forty friends and extended family and three fried turkeys this year. It's rainy out, but I'm sure it will be a good time indoors. Whatever your plans, enjoy.

I've Finally Seen: CASINO ROYALE

On one of the busiest travel days of the year, I was able to meet with three college friends and fellow Bond fans at the Loews on 34th Street, and boy, was it worth it.

In contrast to the winking, smirking, quipping Bond we can thank Roger Moore for, Daniel Craig's Bond is a doer. He chases down baddies, charges into fights, shoots first, jokes almost never, and is completely convincing.

The breathless pace makes for some great jaw-dropping moments. My only complaint, in fact, is that the pace slows in the middle, with Bond considering leaving MI6 to "float around the world" with Vesper Lynd. You know that's not gonna happen. Get on with it.

I had been concerned about the presence of Judi Dench's M. In GoldenEye, she was the new boss, calling Bond "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War."

In Casino Royale Dench plays the old guard adapting to Bond as the newest Double-0. "God," she says, "I miss the Cold War."

And it works.

Bond villains, Bond girls, and Bond allies have all become clichés. Casino Royale is a chance to throw everything out and believe this is the first woman who got to Bond, this is his first meeting with CIA's Felix Leiter, this is the first megalomaniac he's ever faced.

And I have to mention a torture scene where Craig proves he's more man than any Bond since Connery. What do I mean? Go see.

I came away from the movie wanting to be James Bond.

Zap2it.com: Hathaway Gets 'Smart' Role

Anne Hathaway is in negotiations to take the female lead in the big screen version of "Get Smart."

Star Steve Carell has been attached to the Peter Segal-directed project for a long time and production is finally expected to begin in March.



According to Variety, Hathaway ("The Princess Diaries") is close to signing on to play Agent 99 opposite Carell's Maxwell Smart. The parts were played by Barbara Feldon and Don Adams in the original television series, which was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

Jump to article...

I Don't Want to Know

Why have I stopped watching Studio 60? Why does 30 Rock make me uneasy? The characters seem too much like their creators, doing too much of what their creators do.

We all start from our own experience; it's where we go that matters. Where's the challenge, the discovery, in writing or following characters very much like ourselves, whose experience rarely departs from our own?

Boreanaz Blogs

Just discovered David Boreanaz's blog from the set of Bones. I've added it in the righthand column of links.

In Short

This past week on Nasty. Brutish. Short. I reviewed "Six Love" by James W. Hall, "The Living End" by Tod Goldberg, and "Surrogate" by Robert B. Parker.

Favorite Bond Books

I've long railed against the Bond movies for getting away from Ian Fleming's books. Shame on me not blogging my favorite books sooner:

4. Goldfinger
3. Diamonds are Forever
2. Casino Royale
1. From Russia, with Love

Try Another Day

Looks like I'll have to wait until next Wednesday to see Casino Royale with some college friends, two of whom are expectant fathers. Such is life.

And so, having listed my favorite Bond songs and favorite Bond girls, I give you:

Favorite Bond Movies

4. The Spy Who Loved Me
3. Licence to Kill
2. Tomorrow Never Dies
1. Goldfinger

Where will Casino Royale rank, I wonder.

"Full power!"

This exhortation from the ultimate grandstander announces my latest software upgrade, taking full advantage of my PC's Intel Core2 duo processor.

Don't hate the player

From WENN:

Biel Dating Baseball Star?

Blade: Trinity actress Jessica Biel is reportedly dating baseball star Derek Jeter after the pair were spotted in a Los Angeles club. The 24-year-old beauty spent the evening with Jeter at Hyde, a favorite haunt of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and they were seen leaving together, according to the New York Post. Halfway through the night, Biel visited the restroom and a gaggle of girls approached the New York Yankees shortstop, but he immediately dismissed them, suggesting he only has eyes for Biel. Jeter is no stranger to famous females - he has previously been romantically linked to Mariah Carey, Scarlett Johansson and MTV presenter Vanessa Minnillo.

Regis Philbin introduces Daniel Craig

"And here he is, the new man with the golden gun..."

No! The man with the golden gun was Scaramanga. To be fair, Gelman probably wrote the intro.

Solve for M

On the eve of Casino Royale's U.S. premiere, I renew my only question since watching the teaser: If this is a return to Bond's beginnings, why is Judi Dench playing M?

Most likely it's not a return but a "re-imagining." Still, consider the following theories:

1. This is not the M who took office in GoldenEye, but a female predecessor.

2. This is the M from GoldenEye, and "James Bond" is an alias just passed from an agent resembling Pierce Brosnan to one resembling Daniel Craig.

Girls, Bond Girls.

MSNBC.com lists its 5 Top Bond Girls and EW,com counts down its ten worst, but I don't care what they say:

Four Worst

4. Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts, A View to a Kill). All steam, no substance.

3. Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher, Tomorrow Never Dies). Secondary good girl to Chinese operative Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), she met a quick end.

2. Jinx (Halle Berry, Die Another Day). New Oscar winner Berry takes a paid break from acting.

1. Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards, The World is Not Enough).


Four Best

4. Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen, GoldenEye). A vintage, quirky killer vixen.

3. Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell, Licence to Kill). An American intelligence operative and former Army pilot. Feisty, independent. Pretty good with a shotgun, too.

2. Tracy Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg, On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Bond married her. 'Nuff said.

1. Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi, Thunderball). The inspiration for Austin Powers' Alotta Fagina.



BOND
Wild. You should be locked up in a cage.

FIONA VOLPE
This bed feels like a cage. All these bars. Do you think I'll be...safe?

NCIS: "Once a Hero"

The tension was high on last night's episode as the investigation into a Bronze star recipient found dead in a hotel room led to an Asian prostitution/slavery ring, and NCIS probie agent Michelle Lee (Liza Lapira) went undercover, with the rest of the team backing her up from a distance Mission: Impossible-style.

Lee's first fieldwork brought to mind Star Trek's redshirts. Anything can happen to a rookie, but nervous as she was, she stepped up big time. Like McGee, Ziva, and Shepard before her, Special Agent Lee has officially joined the NCIS "family."

"Seven dollars for a Coke?!"

I've been known to scour the Web for days pricing books, DVDs, and other shiny happy things. In possibly my shortest bargain hunt, aided by a PriceGrabber coupon, I picked up NCIS Season Two for $33.27 from DeepDiscountDVD.com.

"Here comes the Ax..."

This WWF flashback brought on by a new issue of Bryon Quertermous's e-zine, Demolition.

WENN: Bond to Leave Britain?

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have threatened to stop filming the superspy franchise in Britain - because it's too expensive. Wilson has blamed rising costs in the British capital for his stance and blasts the British Government for failing to help. He says, "London is the most expensive city in the world right now. To bring talent here and put them up for long periods of time and the cost of doing business here is a factor." The move means Casino Royale could be the last Bond movie filmed at Pinewood Studios - but the UK Film council insists it will find a way to ensure the British secret agent stays at his natural home. A spokesperson for the Council says, "We will be doing all we can to ensure that every film that can shoot in the UK, including Bond, does."

Just My "Luck"

Sunday afternoon, Stephen Blackmoore of L.A. Noir came up with a flash fiction contest: Write a story (500 words or less) using up to six mugshots for inspiration. My entry is "The Luck of the Irish".

Thanks for the opportunity, Stephen.

All Bond, All the Time

Actually not, but my post on Bond title songs prompted me to pull out a two-disc 30th Anniversary set of all the Bond songs through Licence to Kill. This was a Christmas gift from my friend and fellow Bond fan Matt Tedesco, now a Beloit College philosophy prof and author of a paper on the ethical considerations of an actual "license to kill."

With the songs fresh in memory, I stand by my top four picks. Considering most of the songs' disjointed lyrics, "You Know My Name" moves up the chart.

Make Your Own Bond Movie

Miffed and baffled by James Bond movie titles? Comment with your own titles using any word from the 24 existing titles:

Dr. No
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man with the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
Never Say Never Again
A View to a Kill
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
GoldenEye
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World is Not Enough
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
Spectre


Some of mine:

Die Again Tomorrow
Kill, Kill Twice
Licence to Say Octopussy
The Living Kill

"I ain't got time to scroll."

A paraphrase of Jesse Ventura signals my switch to a three-column layout: bio and links to my work on the left, blog posts in the middle, comments, archives, and blogroll on the right. Let me know what you think.

Thanks to Pam Blackstone for posting her modified Minima template.

TV's Timecop

Yesterday the SCI-FI Channel cycled around to a marathon of ABC's 1997 Timecop series, based on the 1994 movie. Starring Charmed/General Hospital's Ted King and That 70s Show's Don Stark, the show was set in 2007. Time-travel technology next year? It could happen...

Favorite Bond Title Songs

Lee Goldberg weighed in on Chris Cornell's theme from Casino Royale, "You Know My Name." I commented that it reminds me of the theme from Snakes on a Plane. Not a compliment.

This got me thinking of my favorite Bond title songs:

4. "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey
3. "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings
2. "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton
1. "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon

Interestingly, three of my favorites are from the Roger Moore era, my least favorite Bond.

Between the guidelines

Spotted the following in an alleged poetry-only e-zine:

"We are not excepting fiction submissions."

Studio Briefing: No Redemption for 'Indy 4' Writer

The latest effort to bring back Indiana Jones appears doomed, according to writer-director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption). Darabont told a movie website that focuses on films in development that although Steven Spielberg had praised his script for Indiana Jones 4 as "the best draft of anything since Raiders of the Lost Ark, " his excitement was not shared by fellow producer George Lucas. In the interview with Devin Faraci of CHUD.com, Darabont said Spielberg's praise "gave me a real sense of accomplishment, especially when you love the material you're working on as much as I love the Indiana Jones films. And then you have George Lucas read it and say, 'Yeah, I don't think so, I don't like it.' And then he resets it to zero." Asked whether he believes Indy 4 will ever be filmed, Darabont replied, "I don't think so. ... I just think it's fantastically bizarre that for a project that people have been trying to crack for ten years and have a writer come in and finally crack it and then ... [for Lucas to] say, 'No, I don't think so...' It's just bizarre to me. I can't get into George's head."

I don't care whether Indy 4 is made, but from a creative standpoint, it's unfortunate Lucas is the stumbling block. For my money, he lost touch with the fanbase a long, long time ago.

An oldie but a goodie

My poem of wacky fun with duct tape, "Let me do all the work," has been reprinted in Clean Sheets, an online erotic magazine. Thanks again to poetry editor Devan Macduff.

Language Lovers, Unite.

I'm a fan of communication and, by extension, languages. I don't know how long Chad Johnson (prima dona Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver) has been calling himself "Ocho Cinco," but he's just proving he can't count past ten in Spanish.



If Johnson is referring to his jersey number, he should be saying, "Ochenta y cinco."

Studio Briefing: Kidder Praises Donner's 'Superman II' Cut

Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in Superman II, has given a thumbs up to the Richard Donner cut of the film, which is being released on DVD on Nov. 28. Following a screening of the film on Thursday night, Kidder told Home Media Retailing Magazine,"I think this is such a better version of Superman II. ... It's night and day." Kidder told a panel discussion at the Directors Guild that after Donner was fired by the film's producers and replaced by Richard Lester, most of the script was rewritten and reshot. She said that she and co-star Christopher Reeve "were really pissed off [over the changes]. He was a little more political about it." On the other hand, she said, she gave a magazine interview in which she remarked that "the producers were beneath contempt." As a result of her comments, she said, "I ended up having 12 lines in Superman III."

WENN: Craig: "New Bond Is Bloodiest Yet"

New James Bond star Daniel Craig has branded upcoming 007 effort Casino Royale the most violent yet. Craig plays the superspy for the first time and was amazed at the excruciating pain he had to endure for some of the stunts. He says, "You're not doing it right if you're not getting hurt. The stunt boys were going through pain levels that I couldn't even imagine and carrying on. Compressed spines, all sorts of things. I was in pain throughout the whole movie." He recalls one particularly harrowing scene in which Bond kills a man in the bathroom: "I watch that sequence and I wince. All my knuckles split, my hands were in bandages after it. And I had a fight double - Ben. I did the bits that hurt. And he did the bits that really f**king hurt. But that's the thing with this Bond. He bleeds. It's more about the fact that he bleeds, goes down and gets up again."

WENN: Neil Patrick Harris: "I'm Gay"

Actor Neil Patrick Harris has ended mounting speculation about his sexuality, by revealing he is gay. The How I Met Your Mother star was recently outed by a website, which claimed he helped his alleged boyfriend land a role in the sitcom. His publicist Craig Snyder played down the reports, insisting "he's not of that persuasion." But Harris has revealed all to People magazine's website because of "speculation and interest in my private life and relationships." He says, "(I) am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest." Harris found fame as a young actor playing a teenage doctor in Doogie Howser, MD.

I've been thinking about the fishbowl actors live in. They certainly can't stay as private as lesser-known people. With fame comes a fanship wanting to know as much as they can about the people behind the roles. Harris says he's proud to make this announcement, but I don't know that he would've made it had the website not outed him. I regret the pressure fan curiosity puts on actors.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

My brother's external hard drive is on its last legs, and he's trying to offload as much as he can to my computer until a replacement drive arrives next week. Friday night into early evening Saturday, my CPU was running at full capacity, and I didn't want to push it with the usual checks of e-mail, IMing, and blogging.

Luckily my Charmed first season DVDs arrived Thursday, and I did review John Harvey's hit man story, "Snow, Snow, Snow", for Nasty. Brutish. Short. yesterday.

ORF (Obsessive Rule-Follower)

On Monday, I entered a contest to name Duane Swierczynski's upcoming tour for his book, The Blonde. The winner would receive the first-ever signed copy.

Duane stipulated:

To enter, send me an email with the subject line, "I'll Name Your Friggin' Tour" and then give me a suggestion or two. Also, include your mailing address. You don't have to play on the word "blonde," but it might help.

So, I emailed Duane two suggestions: The Natural Blonde Killer Tour and Duane Swierczynski's Tour to Dye For.

I didn't win, but neither did anyone else, really. Duane's picky, and he should be. The tour name should really come from him. In the meantime, he awarded the book to Christopher Swan, who submitted the most (13) suggestions.

Some people say creativity shouldn't depend on rules, but the imagination can be unfocused without them. I enjoy the challenge of expressing myself within the rules:

I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when the day is through.
Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you.
Because you're mine, I walk the line

WENN: Affleck Swears Off Superheroes

Ben Affleck will never play a superhero again, after being "humiliated" wearing a costume in Daredevil three years ago. Speaking at the London premiere of Hollywoodland, which sees Affleck playing TV Superman actor George Reeves, the actor admits he hates wearing tight lycra. He says, "By playing a superhero in Daredevil, I have inoculated myself from ever playing another superhero. Wearing a costume was a source of humiliation for me and something I wouldn't want to do again soon." Starring in Daredevil wasn't all bad for Affleck - he met his now-wife Jennifer Garner on the set of the action movie.

As a Daredevil fan I liked Affleck in the role, but he had to know he'd be wearing one of the more ostentatious costumes: red leather armor and a mask without eyeholes—DD doesn't need to see, after all—decorated with devil's horns. If you really love the character, there's no humiliation. It's the costume from the comics as opposed to the black spandex ninja outfit Rex Smith wore in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. (I liked Smith's performance, too.)

Schooling House

House returned to FOX's schedule last night, introducing David Morse (late of Hack) as a cop who, after a visit to the clinic, takes it upon himself to humble House.

Morse can play warmth as well as menace. His performance cast Greg House in a different light. I considered that maybe he does push people too far, not just to give them reality checks. A humble House is a less functional House, though. He needs to stay on the highwire. Plus, I object to any one person trying to "straighten out" another.

Morse would play Spenser well if Spenser were still menacing. He's reportedly signed for a six-episode arc on House. I wonder how it will play out.