WCBE 90.5 FM: "Goldfinger," "Casino Royale-67," Man with the Golden Gun," "Die Another Day"

WCBE: James Bond EVERGREEN-Final
"It’s Movie Time: "Goldfinger," "Casino Royale 67," "Man with the Golden Gun," "Die Another Day"
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 8:01 pm, November 24, 2006
streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

John

Sean Connery in "Goldfinger" is the gold standard of the Bonds . . .

Clay

David Niven plays an aging James Bond in the first "Casino Royale" . . .

John

Roger Moore in "Man with the Golden Gun" is the fool’s gold of Bonds . . .

Clay

Pierce Brosnan snuggles up with Halle Berry in "Die Another Day" . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak McCuen

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe

Folks, what with the release of a highly rated collection of James Bond DVDs (20 in all), and the arrival on the scene of Daniel Craig as a new James Bond starring in a "Casino Royale" remake, it's time to take a quick look back at some of the former James Bond's and how they have fared on the screen.
John ("Goldfinger" 130 words)

My enduring affection for the Bond series was born in my fascination with the beautiful women, astonishing technology, and eccentric bad guys of Goldfinger from 1964. Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore is rude and independent, claiming she is immune to Bond’s charms while Shirley Eaton is a golden girl whose painted skin has limited breathing space.

Gert Frobe is an unforgettable villain, Goldfinger, whose modest plan is to take over Fort Knox.  Besides his solid gold auto, even his furniture moves with the push of a button.  His mute Korean manservant, Oddjob, sails a deadly derby as smoothly as a talented collegian’s frisbee on a summer’s day.

The Gold prize goes to the Astin Martin, which spits out oil, bullets, and
an occasional driver when the going gets rough

Clay ("Casino Royale" 126 words)

Well, folks, the first “Casino Royale” (1967) is still the wackiest Bond film yet.

Starring David Niven as the  most proper of the Bond Brits, the original also featured various Bond clones including Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, and a couple of now forgotten Jamie Bond girls.

Further complicating this psychedelic mess were five different directors who shot their own individual segments, and then, left it up to coordinating director, Val Guest, to let it all hang out in splashy, dashy, and hashy, sixties’ style.

If your idea of evil is a villain who sets out to create a world populated by beautiful women and men no taller than four foot six, then this version of “Casino Royale” is bound to be one of your favorites.

John ("Man With the Golden Gun" 127 words)

Arguably the worst Bond film, Man with the Golden Gun has more self-referential jokes than any other Bond film and some of the silliest villains, while Roger Moore shows signs of becoming droll enough to enjoy the jokes on the house.

Some of the usual Bond types appear, such as Herve Villechaize, the diminutive but lethal Nick Nack, and Britt Ekland as the helpful in many ways Mary Goodnight.

The only actor playing it straight is arch villain Christopher Lee as Scaramanga in the titular role.  He’s a world class assassin, paid $1 million per job, but his Achilles’ heel may be his respect for his prey, James Bond. Bond has to find him before he finds Bond and the Solex Agitator, which harnesses the sun’s radiation.

Clay ("Die Another Day" 128 words)

Well, folks, things were also heating up in "Die Another Day" which starred Peter Jennings-Brian Wilson look-alike Pierce Brosnan as the James Bond prototype alpha male, who was always willing to take risks, but never willing to offer regrets. 

Sounds downright presidential, eh?

He also takes as his villains the North Koreans (isn't this where we came in?), then fearlessly surfs mile high waves, skates down shattering cliffs of ice, and then risks  ultimate meltdown in the arms of an ultra sexy Jinx who is played to the hilt by the ever so sensuous actress Ms. Halle Berry.

Fast forward through the movies sagging middle but slow down when the movie finally starts exploding in a spectacular climax.
Brosnan was good, but Halle was even better.

John (Summary and "Outta here")

I watched the Bond franchise grab hold of the American imagination, helping transform an Eisenhower, post war conservatism into a Beetles loving, free loving open society.  Once you accept James Bond’s  amoral amour and lethal professionalism, the world seems both more romantic and more dangerous, a preparation for the duality of contemporary global equality and terrorist possibility.

Sean Connery’s Bond cannot be duplicated, but some form of Bond will always be with us to remind that the world is a fun place to visit if your real and figurative guns are loaded and charming.

I’m loaded and charming and outta here.

Clay

John, you ARE charming when you're loaded, but you're also way outta here, to which most of our imbibing female companions will most readily agree.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe iswritten and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright by John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Casino Royale," "Fast Food Nation," "Happy Feet"

WCBE#293-FINAL
It’s Movie Time: "Casino Royale," "Fast Food Nation," "Happy Feet"
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, November 17, 2006
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

"Casino Royale" unveils Daniel Craig as the blonde bomb James Bond . . .

John

“Fast Food Nation" is not fast enough to derail the fattening of America . . .

Clay

"Happy Feet" will have you tapping your feet to the penguins' cool tunes . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak McCuen

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John: I'm John DeSando

Clay: And I'm Clay Lowe

John ("Casino Royale" 129 words)

what was James Bond like at the beginning of his career?

The new Casino Royale depicts a younger, tensile 007 (Daniel Craig) with darting intelligence and hard body, doing what the mature Bond does mostly but with less success: He awkwardly pursues an arch villain who bleeds in one eye, and he dangerously falls in love with a complicated babe, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).

The cell phones and lap tops update Bond while Craig makes him a believable candidate for the 00 license to kill because he’s very bright and physically agile. Yet Craig shows corners of emotion and vulnerability foreign to the more elegant and remote Sean Connery.

The casinos of Montenegro and the canals of Venice are inviting, but at 144 minutes Casino Royale is too long.

Clay ("Casino Royale" 125 words)

Folks, all of the scenery in this "Casino Royale" is beautiful, including the hard loving, hard charging bodies.

Taking his cues from his last Zorro pic (that began with Zorro leaping from roof top to roof top), director
Martin Campbell carries on his good guy-bad guy high flying tradition with Bond duking it on the i-beams high above a waterfront construction site.

As cool and cold blooded as his crystal blue eyes, Craig's James Bond is as tough-guy flashy as the handfuls of diamonds he keeps finding in his pockets.

Featuring an international cast more diverse than Bush's Iraqi coalition, you know things are going to turn out well for this new Bond, but be forewarned, and some of the violence against Bond is painfully tortuous.

John ("Fast Food Nation" 127 words)

Fast Food Nation is a languorous, episodic fiction about the horrors of abominable abattoirs and mistreated Mexicans. It is too underplayed for America’s deathly dance with contaminated fast food; the money shot at the film’s end is too late showing suffering animals and their arterial cascades in the slaughterhouse.

Richard Linklater, who directed the romantic Sunrise/Sunset duo, just doesn’t take his subject here seriously enough. Bruce Willis’s cattle supplier gives the laissez-faire attitude of the whole film when he claims about the feces-tainted burgers, "We all have to eat a little '____' from time to time."

Read Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking novel, “The Jungle” if you want to see how fiction changes things.

Clay

Good choice!

John

Eat a Slider if you want to know why it's so difficult to say "No" in a fat food nation.

Clay ("Happy Feet" 132 words)

Well, John, there's not much fat in the new animated feature "Happy Feet."

That's because (O Dear) the penguins gathered together under those icy cold cliffs of Antarctica have had to finally conclude that they're facing a famine.  You know, like, someone’s been eating their fish.

Drawing upon the Biblical imagery of the Israelites in search of their Promised Land, with a heavy dose of gospel-like music thrown in on the side, the Patriarchal penguin fathers admonish their flock to watch and wait and sing and pray.

Well, maybe it's not quite that heavy handed, because things do lighten up when the young penguin called "Mumble" (he can’t sing) IS able to DANCE his way into their hearts because he discovers what it is that’s happened to all of their little fishies.

But enough of hard bodies, bloody burgers, and deep sea fish fries, John, because it's grading time.

HIT DRUMS

John

Holy Happy Hoofers, Hooray!

"Casino Royale" earns a “B” for BOOSTING BOND once more with love . . .

Clay

"Casino Royale" gets a "B" because all Bond's look the same under the sheets . . .

John

"Fast Food Nation" earns a “C” because a little CACA in your burger just CAN’T hurt enough  . . .

Clay

"Happy Feet" gets a "B" because when you've seen one animated penguin, you've seen them all . . .

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay, when we saw penguins from our ditch in New Zealand, they weren’t dancing---or maybe they were, and maybe Ivan’s martinis kept us from seeing them clearly.
I'm outta here.

Clay

John, after you and Ivan had finished your martinis and went roamin' off, I stayed behind and was able to soberly see those yellow-eyed penguins quite clearly.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING THEME THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with
90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright by John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

WCBE 90.5 FM: "A Good Year," "Flushed Away," "Stranger Than Fiction," "Babel"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It’s Movie Time:
"A Good Year," "Flushed Away," "Stranger Than Fiction," "Babel"
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Aired: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, November 10, 2006
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

John

"A Good Year" is good to go en Provence . . .

Clay

"Flushed Away" demonstrates that girl sewer rats are more assertive than house mouse males . . .

John

“Stranger Than Fiction" is no stranger to the danger of fiction . . .

Clay

"Babel" is a four-part parable about the fragility of our interconnections . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak McCuen

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John: I'm John DeSando

Clay: And I'm Clay Lowe

John ("A Good Year" 129 words)

Clay: I have excessively drunk the house table wine at lunches in Provence, and I won’t forget them for their savory simplicity and seductive subtext. A Good Year is about Max Skinner (Russell Crowe), a Brit en Provence who loves wine and women although he could skin you alive as a world-class stock trader.

As the new owner of an aging estate in Provence, however, he is as likely to be fleeced by local vintners and irritable restaurant owners.

A Good Year is an endearing fluff piece about the intrigues of wine making, estate ownership, and that French staple, love. The film has a hearty, occasional slapstick I don’t remember in the romantic novel.
No matter, the beauty of Provence and its ladies are fully exploited in this midlin’ comedy.

Clay ("Flushed Away" 128 words)

Well, John, no midlin’ comedy is “Flushed Away.” Rather, it is a rip roaring animated feature created by the artist who delighted us with his very clever “Wallace & Gromit.” Featuring Hugh Jackman, as the voice of Roddy the shy Kesington mouse, and the voice of Kate Winslet, as the movie’s more aggressive sewer-rat heroine, Rita; “Flushed Away” WILL hold its young audience’s attentions, that is until it finally manages to deaden them.

Seven year old Jacob, who watched it with us during the preview, gave it four stars, and called it one of the best movies he’s ever seen. But his six year old sister, Maddie, said she could only give it three stars because she hasn’t seen enough movies, yet, to give it that high of a high rating.

John ("Stranger than Fiction" 130 words)

Here’s one of the worst movies Maddie will see this year.

Death and Taxes is the telling name of the novel Stranger than Fiction’s writer (Emma Thompson) is trying to finish. She needs to figure out how her protagonist, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) will die.  The only problem is he lives and carries out daily the life she is writing for him.

The film has Twilight-Zone quirkiness.

Stranger than Fiction is a slow starter partly because Ferrell slowly underplays his I.R.S. agent as an introverted nerd obsessed by his job, numbers, and rigid daily routine.  Ferrell doesn’t crack a smile and makes me long for his Talladega Nights redneck race driver.

The film deals superficially with the limitations of authorship, the frustration of writer’s block, and the urge to break through the barriers writers build for themselves in their own narratives.

Clay ("Babel" 127 words)

Well, folks, there’s nothing superficial about Alejandro González Iñárritu’s newest film called “Babel.” 

A spin off on the Old Testament story of the builders of the tower that reached too far into the heaven’s, “Babel,” the movie, further illustrates the consequences of our hubris that drives us to create worlds we are unable to control.

Set, respectively, in Morocco, San Diego, Mexico, and Tokyo, the players in this drama eventually, as in all of Iñárritu’s movies, find they have been bound together in worlds that, like it or not, interrelate.
Most dramatic is the movie’s implied message: Those from the world’s center of powers become equally vulnerable when they have to play by the same rules that govern those who weren’t born into power.

Confusing?  You bet.

But enough of romantic sunsets, flushing toilets, anal tax men, and desperate lives, John, because it's grading time.

HIT DRUMS

John

Holy TAXABLE TRUFFLES, Hooray!

"A Good Year" earns a “B” for BEING just BON . . .

Clay

"Flushed Away" gets a "B" because you should never throw out rats with the BATHWATER . . .

John

"Stranger Than Fiction" earns a “C” for a CLUELESS CHARACTER . . .

Clay

"Babel" gets an "A" because ALL nuclear families are under ARDUOUS stress.

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay, the electorate this week overcame its writers’ block by preparing political demise for its taxing twit of a protagonist president.

Viva la revolution.

I'm outta here.

Clay

John, all of us are revolting at some time or other, it’s just that some of us are more revolting than others.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING THEME THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe iswritten and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright by John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Queen," "Running with Scissors," "Borat," "Renaissance"

WCBE 90.5 FM
"It’s Movie Time: "The Queen," "Running with Scissors," "Borat,""Renaissance"
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, November 3, 2006
streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

“The Queen" is regal but frigidly rigid . . .

John

“Running with Scissors" cuts and runs . . .

Clay

"Borat" is as politically incorrect as Rush Limbaugh’s riff on Michael J. Fox . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak McCuen

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe

Clay ("The Queen" 128 words)

Folks, if there’s a theme to be found in Stephen Frears’s “The Queen,” it could be simply stated: let the Queen be the Queen, let Tony Blair be Tony Blair, and let the Princess Diana rest in peace.

Set in London in the summer of 1997, “The Queen” begins just after Tony Blair has become England’s Prime Minister, and just before the cheeky Princess Di comes face to face with her untimely fate.

An engaging exploration of how the powers of tradition, political ambition, and the resistance to power interact, “The Queen” is a brilliantly written and marvelously acted morality play that reveals that Queens, Prime Ministers, and even Princesses can get themselves in trouble by remaining true to who they are.

Could Shakespeare have been wrong, John?

John (“Running with Scissors” 127 words)

No, only Blair is wrong, very wrong.

"Where do I begin to tell the story of how my mother left me, and then I left her?"

After this promising opening in Running with Scissors, narrated by Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross), director Ryan Murphy, adapting the 2002 successful novel of the same name, piles on sometimes funny scenes in the spirit but not the success of Royal Tenenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine.

Augusten samples a fringe life of Freudian scatology and shock treatments for fun. There is no character, not even the narrator (played too remotely) who commands sympathy or with whom an audience can identify. The Tenenbaum love/hate glue is absent.

What does happen, though, is your desire to go to the book to enjoy the faultless deadpan narration that endears readers to Augusten.

Clay (“Borat” 129 words)

Well, John, “Borat” is outrageously funny because he does not go by the book, nor does he play by the rules.

Brit comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s "Borat" also proves that even the smartest among us can be fooled by a pro. It wasn’t till half-way through the movie that I finally figured out that Borat was NOT really a funny filmmaker from Kazakstani TV. Oh, shame.

It remains to be seen whether or not Cohen’s Borat will remain as funny when everyone else discovers his character is only a sham.

But what with recent appearances on David Letterman and an upcoming appearance with Jon Stewart in Columbus, the whole world will soon find out that neither Borat, nor Letterman, nor even Jon Stewart is really that real.

Go figure.

John ("Renaissance" 126 words)

How about ANIMATION figure?

Rotoscoped animation renders actors into comic-book characters in stark black and white, recently exemplified in A Scanner Darkly. The best combination of style, characterization, and imagination was Sin City. Renaissance, with the voice of Daniel Craig as a futuristic cop, does not measure up.

The plot, with Craig’s police captain Karas searching for a missing prominent researcher, has the usual violence and sex and not much more worth mentioning as it follows the formula for animation thrillers and James Bond fantasies. The brilliant black and white often looks like an Edward Munch Scream in motion and the women are, well, predictably babes.

Those seeking a serviceable product of the genre will not be disappointed. Those searching for Japanese anime-like complexity may not find their target.

Clay

But enough of queenly queens, schizoid cut-ups, whacked out comedians, and screaming Munchkins, John, because it's grading time.

HIT DRUMS

John

Holy Royal Highnesses, Hooray!

Clay

"The Queen" gets an "A" because it is deserving of numerous ACADEMY AWARDS . . .

John

"Running with Scissors" earns a “C” because even an Annette Bening Oscar COULDN’T save IT. . .

Clay

"Borat" gets an "A" because AUDACIOUS is as AUDACIOUS does . . .

John

"Renaissance" earns a “C” because “CARTOON CHARACTERS” need originality, too

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay: Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana remind me of Condi and Hillary. I guess you can’t MAKE women love each other-- except for a fiction like Running with Scissors, where in its masturbatiorium they can at least love themselves. I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, John, the love of self is the beginning of wisdom, and the strongest man (or woman) is still he/she who stands most alone. Thank you, Mr. Ibsen.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING THEME THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright by John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006