No, it's an Omega.

On the day after Thanksgiving, my family does what I believe is the traditional activity of most American families. We shop, and/or we go to the movies. This year, after my father and grandmother defected to see Babel, which I felt would make me want to die (never good before finals week), I went to see the newest James Bond film, Casino Royale at Buffalo’s biggest cinema. I am consistently shallow.

Other than my immediate family, not many people are aware that I’ve seen almost every James Bond movie. In sixth or seventh grade I watched most of them with my little brother, who, predictably, likes James Bond more than I do. I like the slickness of Bond films, their predictable violence, their clothes and cars and horrible sex scenes. One year my friends and I watched James Bond on Valentine’s Day and made fondue. I forget what film it was, but I remember laughing hysterically at some overt racism, or at a flock of pigeons, or something. But when I was younger, I really loved the movies and their simple villains, and Cold War fears. However, I never got into the Pierce Brosnan Bond, who I felt was too slick, too charming, and fairly lame. Though watching huge explosions and elaborate chase scenes was all well and good, late nineties Bond dealt with the same issues as his predecessors even though times and wars and espionage were increasingly different. The new Bond, Daniel Craig (who was fantastic in Layer Cake) brings a completely new aesthetic with his assumption of the 007 moniker. Instead of spending money on designing pointless yet glitzy gadgets, the producers decided to spend their money on a scriptwriter, which helps to make Casino Royale a good film (though whether this makes it a good or bad Bond film is certainly debatable). The script conscientiously eschewed our perceptions of Bond (“Shaken or stirred?” “Do I look like I give a damn?”), and this Craig has piercing blue eyes and a sculpted, brutish physique, but his charm is much less sleazy than Brosnan’s. He is not obviously handsome, but I found his Bond much more attractive.

And unlike previous Bond movies, Casino Royale deals with our contemporary anxieties in a more meaningful way. Scenes take place in airports and crowded museums, not just exotic beach locations or perfect snowy mountains. Our own problems are also problems for Bond. Every time a cell phone rings or beeps, something bad is about to happen. He wrecks his brand new car, has crippling emotional issues, and is kind of an ass in the face of failure. He is needlessly reckless and hopelessly unpleasant. And the Bond girl, played by Eva Green, is marginally more equal to him than any Bond girl of the past—she is legitimately witty and can be horribly prickly, just like Bond himself (though she continues to look amazing in evening wear. My little brother said at one point, “See? She even looks good without make-up on!” I assured him that she was in fact wearing make-up, though the fact that Green at least briefly appeared vaguely natural is to the film’s credit). Though her character is brutalized and made tender by the violence of the film, so is Bond. Casino Royale has real characters, witty moments, and actual development. It was too long and I’m sure a lot of fans of the series will be disappointed, but this grittier Bond is better for our time and our (or maybe just my) insecurities, and for that I’m pretty thankful.

A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (Radio Playlist): 11.13.06

Jolie Holland/ Springtime Can Kill You: Beauty can be a little bit much.
Ryan Adams/ Cannonball Days: But that doesn’t mean we don’t love to miss it.
Blood Oranges/ Hell’s Half Acre: Sitting around doesn’t do very much for us, but we continue to do it anyway. We’ll adore guitars until the world burns.
World of Pooh/ Mr. Coffee-Nerves: Everything adorable is stressful.
Benoit Pioulard/ Palmiend: And fragile.
Tullycraft/ Secretly Minnesotan: We can take over the suburbs with a song.
Aberfeldy/ Love is an Arrow: And make bad metaphors so consciously.
Pipas/ A short film about sleeping: Cassavetes permeates our lives via pop songs.
Okkervil River/ The President’s Dead: And political fantasy puts us all in a good mood, even if we’re sorry about it.
Make Believe/ Political Mysticism: We make mistakes.
Wrens/ Ex-girl Collection: Then we write beautiful songs about these mistakes which don’t manage to be apologies.
Death of Samantha/ Rose’s Rejoice: Life is pretty fucking epic.
Memphis/ I’ll do whatever you want: But magnificence can leave us quivering, alone with our catchy melodies.
All Girl Summer Fun Band/ Brooklyn Phone Call : We like to think that our hearts don’t have to break easily, but they might anyway.
Rosebuds/ Back to Boston: And when we return to the scene of the disaster, it’ll probably be painful but lovely regardless.
Joanna Newsom/ The Book of Right-on: And we believe in ourselves.
Lilys/ Dandy: Mostly just to believe.
PJ Harvey/ Highway 61 Revisited: Everything starts out quiet and distorted but becomes clearer with time. We find ourselves longing for the past anyway.
Morningsides/ Summer Song: And we can be happy for no reason at all.
Blow/ Fists up!: We do not have to explain ourselves.
Lesser Birds of Paradise/ I envy the photons: We do not have to be content with ourselves.
Magnetic Fields/ Born on a train: Everyone fantasizes about being an asshole (though maybe mostly Stephin Meritt).
Grizzly Bear/ On a neck, on a spit: We can be expansive and still be right.
Voxtrot/ Your Biggest Fan: Sometimes things don’t work out.
Diane Cluck/ Half a million Miles from Home: But momentary ecstasy can be pretty great.
Tom Waits/ Lie to Me: Or maybe we just think it’s great.
Old 97’s/ Lonely Holiday: We get sad because you’re not around. Slide guitars may or may not help with this problem.
Handsome Family/ Lake Geneva: In fact, they probably just make it worse.
Slumber Party/ 10-9-8-7-6-5-4: Twee pop just might make it better.
Ramona Cordova/ Take Flight: In the end, all that is certain is that we are delicate creatures, but also exceedingly tough.

Yes, pastels are pretty. The band, too.

Not like it’s actually a surprise to anyone, but I really love The Virgin Suicides. At least, I really love the book. I also liked the movie, which captured the strange, eerie nostalgia and adolescent awkwardness that Eugenides writes so well. I thought Sofia Coppola did a fantastic job of transferring the book from page to screen. However, in seeing Marie Antoinette last night, I was fairly disappointed. In Virgin Suicides, part of the problem that the collective narrators are looking to solve is the actual character and personality of the Lisbon sisters. They are purposefully blank, charming, romantic, strange. They are enigmas. But when the same techniques are used for Marie Antoinette’s character in the film, we are left without any substance. There are gorgeous gowns and lovely moments, fantastically shot scenes dripping with sugar and sunlight. But the character herself is a terrified and coy, virginal but in a horrible Hollywood way. She is two dimensional, uninteresting but beautiful. The best moments of the movie are the awkward and angsty ones between Louis and Marie Antoinette, as they exchange badly scripted, double-entendre ridden dialogue in the midst of the pomp of Versailles (seriously, how could they be expected to consummate when the entire palace watches them enter their marriage bed?). As they sit in their beautiful clothes in their gorgeous palace, as they eat food that matches the decorations in both hue and overindulgence, the characters fail to overcome the fussiness of their circumstances in anyway. I found myself happy that all of the nobles would lose their prissy, petty heads. I completely understand why French people hated them movie. All the French in the film are either prudes or sluts, gossips or clueless, incredibly staunch or frustratingly fickle. There is no definition in the movie. It is terribly, terribly beautiful, but collapses itself in its self-consciousness and lack of actual character. Where Virgin Suicides acknowledged its romanticizing and failure to grasp the characters (that was sort of the point), here Coppola indulges everything. She spent so much money on fabric and food that she couldn’t buy a script?

Also, there were a pair of pastel Converses for a split second in one of the montages of Marie Antoinette’s excesses (set to “I want candy”). I think I’m not alone in really really hating that moment.

Hold up the neon sign that says we're over here.

Saturday night was Almost Famous: Bootleg Edition. I don't know how to describe my love for this movie- Cameron Crowe poured something intense and meaningful into it. The commentary (which involves various crew member as well as his own mother) is touching and insightful. But the weirdest part is my familiarity with it. There are only a few movies where I know virtually every line (also some episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that comes naturally). The extended version of Almost Famous seems like being on tour with the band, languid and pleasant. Of course, the beautiful moments are still there, but they last longer, and are more careful. Crowe spent a lot of his own money and a lot of his time on making this movie perfect, and it might not be perfect, but it's quite lovely.

Sunday was Voxtrot, and dancing awkwardly and smiling and an absurd lack of eye contact. Voxtrot is wonderful, and they will get better as they become more comfortable. The Empty Bottle is an absurd venue, almost completely unmarked and with a weird air of aging hipster that I found weird but welcoming. I'm sure I will be there again soon.

Elections are turning out well. Pennsylvania will no longer be represented by excessive evil, for which I'm always thankful.

A question.

How come, whenever I decide to read something that is classified as a landmark of both literary and cultural experience-- Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, Nick McDonnell's Twelve (debateable in both regards, actually), any Marquis de Sade, and currently Erica Jong's Fear of Flying-- I am struck by how sloppily it is written, from a literary perspective?

I mean, there are reasons for this. McDonnell was eighteen and related to an editor at Sports Illustrated (or something), and this was pretty much the reason his book was published in the first place. It wasn't entirely stupid, but it certainly was hyped. My experience of Marquis de Sade was that of a bad translation coupled with that fact that I didn't really understand how I was supposed to be reading it. McInerney is legitimately awful-- the book is written in second person, which is always, always a mistake. The exception to this rule is Bret Easton Ellis, whose books I always enjoy, despite his tedious Victorian morality (similar to Wes Craven movies).

But I think I expected more from Erica Jong. I'm not sure why. Probably because she is a woman, and I've read some of her poetry. I guess the inane catchphrase 'zipless fuck' should have tipped me off-- the voice in Fear of Flying is vaguely endearing, but the writing itself lacks most substance. There are points where it really improves. But in general, the text does not engage on a deeper literary level, which is completely frustrating and sort of baffling, considering Jong as a parallel figure to Isadora Wing.

Oh well.