Prose and Retcons, or Don't Fear the Rewind, or Mulligans' Wake

"Well, everyone knows Ripley died on Fiornia-161. What this ALIEN movie presupposes is... maybe she didn't?"

I have a long, long "Exposition" essay up at The Dissolve today inspired by (uncertain) reports that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp's upcoming Alien movie may be a ret-con scenario that undoes the events of 1992's Alien-little-three, or Alien Cubed – anyway, the one where Ripley died. The piece is about retconning in fiction in general, and why it doesn't much impair my ability or inclination to suspend my disbelief at all.

If you're quite comfortable in your chair, and you're stout of heart and nerdy of temperament... Onward!

WaPo Book Review: One Lucky Bastard: Tales from Tinseltown

"Passion without pressure" is how Roger Moore describes the kissing technique he says in his (second) memoir that Lana Turner taught him in 1956, a century or so before he replaced Sean Connery as 007. Gross. This poor girl. Gross.

Roger Moore was 45 when he made his first debut as James Bond ­ -- older than Sean Connery, who’d played the role in five films before he got fed up and abdicated, then was coaxed back and quit a second time – and approximately 110 by the last the last of his seven appearances as 007 12 years later. On the DVD extras for Live and Let Die, his 1973 debut as the superspy he and no one else refers to as “Jimmy” Bond, Moore tellingly bemoans the “30 minutes of daily swimming” he endured to develop the not-particularly-athletic physique he displays in the movie. In the three Bonds he made in the 80s, he rarely looked hale enough to survive a tryst with one of his decades-younger leading ladies, much less a dustup with punch-pulling henchpersons like Tee Hee or Jaws or May Day.

Such was the strength of the Bond brand: Audiences would buy that this guy, who looked and acted like the world’s most condescending game show host, was an elite assassin, as long as he looked good in a tuxedo. Which just happened to be Moore’s primary, not to say only, skill.

To his credit, Moore was aware of his limitations in the part, and in general. This ingrained self-deprecation is present even in the title of his new, low-impact memoir, One Lucky Bastard (which I review in Sunday's Washington Post), wherein Mr. I Hate Swimming, sorry, that’s Sir I Hate Swimming, now, allows that current Bond Daniel Craig -- the most chiseled man to play the part, in concordance with our unforgiving expectations of 21st-century action heroes, but also the best actor, too -- “ looks as though he could actually kill, whereas I just hugged or bored them to death.”

One thing I loved about writing this review is that it meant my best gal Rachel Manteuffel and I were both trying to get references to cunnilingus through the Post's Standards & Practices Dept. at the same time. You'll have to wait another week to read her story, but see to it that you do. It's funny and insightful and honest, like everything she writes, and very, very sexy.

Musical Advent Calendar: On Her Majesty's Secret Service Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1969

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The soundtrack album for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the once-reviled 1969 James Bond film that's enjoyed a critical reappraisal among fans in recent decades, isn't a Christmas record, true. But the film, which starred George Lazenby -- a handsome and hardy but unengaging Australian model with no prior acting experience -- in his single appearance as 007, is set at Christmas. 

Its soundtrack features some of the best music in the entire 50-year franchise. You've got John Barry's kinetic opening title theme (reprised in Brad Bird's The Incredibles, among other places). You've got its elegiac love theme, "We Have All the Time in the World," with lyrics by Hal David, beautifully sung by Louis Armstrong.

And until a couple of weeks ago, I didn't realize that you've also got Nina's (whose?) "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?"

With its crisply annunciated Julie Andrews-style lead vocal and creepy childrens' choir, it would seem more at home in, say, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (written by Bond creator Ian Fleming) than in a Bond joint. It's lack of suitability for its original context makes it a perfect fit my annual yulemix, which I have this year decided to call Children Go Where I Send Thee! Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable Hard Eight: The Desolation of Nog. I have my reasons.

Matt Mira and Matt Gorley just posted the OHMSS episode of their terrific James Bonding podcast last week. Highly recommended.

Skyfall-In: The Education of Sam Mendes

Thunderball (1965)

I wrote about Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, over at NPR Monkey See. The piece is basically my apology to director Sam Mendes for having expected him to screw this thing up. Gently Mendes-dissing line I wish I'd written: In his Skyfall review at Grantland, Zach Baron described Mendes as "taking a break from plastic-bagging the American Dream in Revolutionary Road and American Beauty to shred the enduring illusions of his native country instead."

Skyfall was partially shot in Istanbul, as was my favorite entry in the half-century-old 007 film series, 1963's From Russia with Love. I contributed some thoughts on why 007 No. 002 is still No. 001 in my book to critics' polls at Criticwire and DCist last week.