2014 Annual D-Bag Awards Part 1 - What Am I Doing?

Should I just give it up?  Should I quit this?

What the hell, Internet?  Did I become lazy?  Did I get a life?  Did I actually do work? 

20 blog posts last year.  TWENTY!

That’s abysmal.  I did 123 in 2008 and averaged close to 95-100 a year, until I hit a creative or ambitious wall with 2014.  Granted, 2013 and 2014 were pretty much bad years as my content will attest to.

In any case, I couldn’t close the book on 2014 without doing my annual D-Bag of the Year Award.  And if you’ve been keeping score, I kind of mailed it in the last two years as it is.

In years past, I would go through this tournament consisting of several rounds matching like nominees such as The Grim Reaper vs. Mother Nature.  

2014 has had its fair share of celebrity deaths like Mike Nichols, Richard Attenborough, Joan Rivers, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Mickey Rooney, James Garner, Ruby Dee, Bob Hoskins, Sid Caesar, Casey Kasem, Shirley Temple, and Eli Wallach.  That was some of the Hollywood Old Guard.  The notable names connected to a younger generation of entertainment consumers included David Brenner, Bob Hoskins, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meshach Taylor, Harold Ramis, Jan Hooks, Maya Angelou, Christine Cavanaugh, Edward Herrmann, and Robin Williams.  That’s nothing compared to the lives lost through tragedies like what happened with airplanes overseas disappearing or crashing, deaths in Ukraine and the Middle East from war and strife, and deaths of police officers and/or alleged criminals like Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, or even my own backyard Pennsylvania with Eric Frein going all Rambo in the backwoods of PA after killing police officers.

But Mother Nature gave as good as she got plunging us into stretches of subzero temperatures with Polar Vortices, a late fall snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest and New England, cyclones, earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, and eruptions as well. 

I’ve also recounted in past years how various businesses promoted themselves with such great audaciousness, like Apple infuriating some of its consumer base with an automatic download and install of U2’s new album via iTunes, whether they wanted it or not.  There was also Hobby Lobby and the controversial Christian values trumps the ACA for contraception case before the Supreme Court.  Probably the biggest and most forgotten story was the NFL’s domestic abuse problem and how it quickly faded once the season got into full swing.

Then the business of politics always took a lot of the focus as nominees in the category would include people like Congress for constantly being a blight on the Democratic process.  Republicans for the ridiculous amount of time and energy wasted on trying to overturn the ACA, and immigration, and women’s rights.  The Democrats could not escape themselves as they completely dismantled themselves from doing anything during the midterm elections because they just didn’t care and it showed at the polls when they got walloped by the GOP.

But, I always found it easy to pick apart the individuals in my round up.  Chris Brown was an easy target as he was constantly finding himself being a royal d-bag, but this year he seemed to take a backseat to others.  2014 probably would have had me compare nominees like James Franco for being a creepy bastard with that underage girl over texting.   Shia LeBeouf would have been up there with his Joaquin Phoenix level meltdown, had that been real, declaring he was not famous, became the unknown comic, cut his own face for Fury, claimed he was raped during the filming of a movie, plagiarized a graphic novelist, and tried to mug a homeless man of Mickey D’s.  It could all be a stunt or he’s just drunk and off the reservation. 

NFL and the NBA all have players, owners, and commissioners who love to be douches.  The NBA had LeBron James, who went back to Cleveland, which made Cleveland look like such a whipped city because they welcomed him back with open arms.   Donald Sterling made the list this year after his much publicized remarks caught on tape by his “female friend” V Stiviano.  The NBA gave him a lifetime ban and forced him to sell the team which he fought.  In the end, justice kind of prevailed but the means to the end involved Ms. Stiviano being pretty much a d-bag in her own right.  

The NFL produced great d-bags this year like Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, who were suspended for domestic violence, and supposedly Roger Goodell has “top” men investigating it.  Saying Roger Goodell is handling the situation when it comes to bad behavior in the NFL is like saying Wyle E Coyote is this close to catching the Roadrunner with whatever ACME gadget Amazon Prime just delivered him.   Also with bad behavior, Pittsburgh’s LaGarrette Blount and Le'veon Bell kicked off the season with a rollicking ride in Pittsburgh, while high, missing the team flight and getting pulled over by the police.  It seems a moot point when Bell has been one of the biggest play makers for the Black and Gold, and Blount, after getting less than an acceptable amount of touches, walked off the field and into the locker room, finally being cut by the team and resigned with his former employer, The New England Patriots.  He was happy to be home and Pittsburgh was happy he was, too, I guess.  Still, it’s a move that could be interesting IF and ONLY IF the Steelers are forced to face down their only playoff demon left in the Patriots.   Still, Blount was a d-bag for being a whiny bitch and pretty much a problem child that needed spanked.  If Blount rolls over Pittsburgh in a playoff rout, it isn’t enough to call for the heads of Haley and Tomlin in Pittsburgh.   Christ, people have been calling for them in week 1 and now the own the AFC North.  By the end of the season, another famous d-bag, Ndamukong Suh, finished out his year by stomping on Aaron Rodgers, leading to a suspension, which was appealed and turned over in another great moment by Roger Goodell’s mantra of cleaning up the league.   But then again, I have watched all of five minutes of NFL football this year, taking a much needed breather from all the hypocrisy and thuggish behavior that product has included.   So, it’s really a tossup in sports, but there are no losers in that division. 

Much has been made about women’s rights and the treatment of women this year.  The constant politicizing of women’s right to use contraception took center stage with the Hobby Lobby debate and springing off the Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice stories was the catcalling video “10 Hours of Walking In NYC as a Woman”.  It showed the “reality” of what a woman goes through walking around and being accosted by men of color in “various” NYC neighborhoods.  I use quotes because the 10 hours of footage was not presented in full for viewing.  When taken to task by Slate, the producer said (paraphrased), “White Men catcalled her too, but they were too far off camera or the sound was ruined by a siren.”    That footage was somehow not included.   So, I include the producer of this, not for pointing out the reality of what women go through, but because he did it piecemeal, contextualizing it.  And speaking of being a d-bag towards women, how about Artie Lange and his tweets about Cari Champion?  Or, better yet, the allegations and retraction (apology) by Rolling Stone over the story about campus rape at UVA.  And how about this, as innocuous as this is against women, Justin Bieber managed to piss all over women and the holocaust by writing “Anne Frank Was A Great Girl, Hopefully She Would Have Been A Belieber” in the guest book at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  That is far worse than those two cancer kids snogging and GETTING APPLAUSE for it in the same house from The Fault In Our Stars.  I jest because I loved the book and the film and thought it was a bit of a WTF moment which made me laugh.  Finally, the invasion of privacy, and sexual crimes against female celebrities due to iCloud hacks calls out a more philosophical question of what constitutes a sex crime?

But no individual’s d-bag story could have topped the one that pretty much crushed a lot of us 70s and 80s kids’ childhood memories when it was reported… A LOT, that Bill Cosby has had a long history of drugging and sexually assaulting women.  Since there have only been allegations and no actual charges filed (I Think) against Cosby and I wish it not true because I have adored the career of Cosby from his stand up to Fat Albert, from Picture Pages to the Cosby Show.   But, there is a hell of a lot of smoke to not think that maybe we should call the fire department. 

In the last segment I usually throw a giant generalization towards something like Me or the Media or Humanity to truly level the playing field in who I think is the biggest d-bag of the year. But one d-bag seems to challenge the faceless nameless category and this year it’s Hackers.   Hackers have been all over the place this year.  First off we need to realize that none of our information is safe.  Hackers hit every category this year.  We have business with all of our credit card and banking information hacked from Home Depot and Target, and NYC Taxi and Limo company.   The cloud was hacked and tons of pictures and videos were stolen from famous and non-famous account holders in what was called The Fappening and The Snappening.  Sony was hacked and emails detailing everything from pay inequality to what people really think of Angelina Jolie was shared.  Online gaming sites like XBOX Live and SONY’s PSN were hacked and kiddies opening up their new PS4s and XBOX Ones on Christmas morning couldn’t go online and shoot each other in the face, leaving them to face the brave new world of actually interacting with people face to face.  And then there is the supposed Sony hack by Kim Jong Un and his legion of TRS-80 hackers a la WarGames who threatened terrorism if The Interview was released.  Frankly, that movie should get its own award this year because I think this was an inside job by somebody looking to boost the hype over watching this film, not actually North Korea.

So, where does that leave us?  We’ve talked about sports and politics and business and celebs and technology in regards to who is the biggest d-bag of the year.  But what could possibly trump all those nominees? 

See Part 2

Final Thoughts on Skyfall

Purists cling to the roots of what they know.  They are specific and unwavering in their devotion to an established format.

Bond purists have 50 years of material to either embrace or rage against.   They want their Bond films to follow the formula, never deviating from the point.  If at all possible, they want the films to circle back to Ian Fleming’s canonical center.

I am a Bond purist in flux because I also have a theatre background.    That background takes into account the source material and looks for ways to interpret it in a manner that suits a time and place more closely associated with what’s going on in the world.   I look at Shakespeare and see the ways it can be done in an Elizabethan setting as well as a strip mall outside of Red Bank, New Jersey.

The Craig era of Bond films have deviated from the original formula much like the 1985 timeline in Back to the Future Part II, where Biff is corrupt, powerful, and married to Marty’s mother.  But this deviation isn’t a bad thing.  It’s similar to what J.J. Abrams did with Star Trek and I’m sure Star Trek purists rage quit the Internet after that movie came out.   But Bond’s deviation with Daniel Craig in the role has made Bond less gimmicky and silly.  There are no slide whistles going off when Bond performs a slow motion jump over something like in The Man With the Golden Gun.

But, as Skyfall course corrects into future Bond films, the danger is that the films will stagger down the same path as its predecessors.    The hokey gags, chases, and fourth wall obliteration need to be stricken from the writers’ minds and focus on the material and how they can interpret it in our current world.    Bond has a tendency to become content in his skin and the movies serve to be an indication as to when the series needs a fresh start.   At the time, watching A View To a Kill was nothing short of childlike giddiness, but as an adult, watching it on my Blu-Ray collection, it became painful.  At 57, Roger Moore’s age makes it harder to suspend disbelief that he could fashion a snowboard from the runner of a snow mobile, cruising down the slopes with the Beach Boys playing in the background.

Craig has one thing going for him with Bond that the other actors didn’t.  His Bond seemed older from the start.  Even though the series was given a pseudo reboot with him earning his double O status in Casino Royale, Craig was cranky as Bond in the first scene.  Now, Connery had gruff early on as did Moore, but there were plenty of lighter moments peppered throughout the films.  And that’s not to say that Craig hasn’t had fun moments in the three films. He has.  The continual breaking into M’s home shows he’s still impish, but his initial exchange with Q shows his disdain for those “Damn kids and their video games”.

This being Judi Dench’s final go at M gives her all the time in the world to chew up scenery and leave her mark on the role and she delivers in spades.    The film is more of a character study at the fallibility of people and their attempts to put things right.  Redemption for betrayal as it were.   The redemption of a son who couldn't save his parents from their death by saving a surrogate from a madman.  The redemption of a "mother" who put her "sons" in harm's way.  The redemption of a woman who had some trouble in the field and is now the closest thing Bond has to a real relationship with a woman.

I give Skyfall 3 out of 4 stars.

Blinging Bond: Part Four of the Skyfall Review

Now, pay attention everyone.

We’ve got Bonds, Baddies, and Babes covered….  It’s time to take a look at the Bling of Bond in our Skyfall review.

From word No, Bond has been outfitted with some of the coolest cars and gadgets this side of a Brookstone store.  There were exploding pens, jet packs, and a Lotus that drove underwater, to name a few.   Bond has also sported the latest in Rolex Submariner’s though I doubt any of them actually told the time.  

Sometimes, they became a trope when it was pretty apparent that the ridiculous specificity of the object directly related to a life or death situation Bond was put in later on in the film.  Q must have had a machine that could see the future, much like another film that used random objects for specific tasks, Paycheck.

And how about Q?  Over the years, the Quartermaster has been played by roughly six actors, both EON and non-EON films, however, none was more well known that Desmond Llewelyn who played Q from 1963 until his death in 1999. 

While other actors may have portrayed the armourer with a more straight forward approach, Llewelyn played it with a certain amount of annoyance at Bond’s attention deficit disorder and lack of care in returning Q’s toys.   Just like, “Bond, James Bond” is a staple quote from 007 in nearly every film, Q is often quoted with “Now, pay attention 007” and “Do be careful with these”  though, he never does.

With The World is Not Enough, Q’s eventual successor, R, is introduced in John Cleese.  He then took over the role after Llewelyn’s death in 1999.  

Somewhat of a foreboding feeling seeing Q lowering himself into the ground soon after introducing his successor.

There was no new ground tread in the portrayal of Q by Cleese.  He returned to the format Llewelyn followed closely for over three decades.   Perhaps it was meant more as a tribute, rather than making the character his own.  You can see it in his delivery of the line, “As I learned from my predecessor, Bond, I never joke about my work.”  Though, you can see he was heading in a comedic direction in The World Is Not Enough.  Or, perhaps it was a directorial decision as the scene showcases a few Easter Eggs for the 40th anniversary of Bond.  You can see the show knife and jet pack prominently in the scene, above.

This was the last we would see of Q for 10 years.  It’s a shame that Cleese did not follow Bond into the Craig years.  However, in a way, it was probably for the best.  Apart from keeping M for continuity, having someone else from the old regime could have dragged the rebirth of Bond down into the mess that was Die Another Day. 

With Skyfall, we have the return of Q Branch.  Ben Wishaw, who looked more like Cillian Murphy in this film, plays Q more as a computer geek than gadget master.    He calls out Bond for being more of a blunt instrument than an efficient and highly specialized tool.   Making Q younger than Bond shows more about Craig’s seasoned and weary status as Bond than it does about Wishaw’s rookie turn as the armourer, but there is a recollection to the earlier years with Bond’s “You must be joking” line.  Though, the filmmakers don’t fall into the trap of retreading the line “I never joke about my work.”  You can see, though, that Q and Bond will be off on a good foot in this scene, no hidden knife required.

I do like a younger Q, though I’m not sure we really need a hipster Quartermaster.    The gadgets are simple and well placed with a radio tracker and Bond’s palm-print reader enabled Walther PPK.  However, the filmmakers make the same stupid mistake as nearly every other film in the history of films involving computer interfaces.  I call it the Weird Science effect.   

If you were born in the mid to late 90s and don't know this film, shame on you, for starters. Weird Science was a John Hughes film from 1985, where two geeks build a woman with their computer.   What follows is a highly stylized yet totally unrealistic portrayal of what a hacker would see in their attempts to break into various systems.  The same ridiculous type of computer hacking scenes also take place in Jurassic Park, Hackers, Sneakers, The Net, Independence Day, Disclosure, Swordfish, Wargames 2, Live Free or Die Hard, and now Skyfall. 

My biggest problem with the entire movie is that they go to great pains to show Q as a computer security geek, able to decipher anything, and not only do they show a totally stupid computer setup during Silva’s escape, they actually make Q a victim of his own hubris.  Why can’t Hollywood get computer hacking right? 

Qualms aside, it's nice to have Q back in the business of outfitting Bond with the latest in high tech office supplies.  Let's just hope there are no invisible cars in Craig's future.  I'd like him to be around for awhile.