DVD Review: The Manhattan Project (1986)

Marshall Brickman’s The Manhattan Project isn’t a typical "teen spy" kind of movie. It’s not about a teenage James Bond kind of spy, like Alex Rider or the Richard Greico character in If Looks Could Kill. No, Paul Stephens (Christopher Collet), the hero of The Manhattan Project is a teenage atom spy. As in the Rosenberg sort. As in someone who steals nuclear secrets (or material) from the United States government. As in what we would probably call today a terrorist. Yes, it’s a very unique fantasy: the teen terrorist genre. It’s a weird movie. But it’s not bad!

Paul is a high school science wiz. And, like most teenage boys with scientific minds, his seems to turn frequently toward exploding stuff. When we first meet him, he’s just created an Ammonia Tri-Iodide explosive (a recipe right out of the Anarchist Cookbook), a substance that blows up on contact. And what does he use it for? To play a prank on the class prat, much to the delight of fellow students (and future TV stars) Cynthia Nixon and Robert Sean Leonard. Even the teacher seems to find it amusing, and nobody chastises him for dabbling in bomb-making. So he seems to have experienced a pretty permissive upbringing, which goes a long way in explaining his actions to follow.

Paul is a bright boy, and he spots plutonium right away when his mom’s new suitor, Dr. Mathewson (John Lithgow), gives him a tour of the (secret) lab where he works. Paul then proves his suspicions to himself and his girlfriend, Jenny (Nixon), when he discovers a plethora of five-leaf clovers growing outside the facility, a rare mutation. Paul is mad that there’s a secret nuclear facility in his town, and convinces aspiring journalist Jenny to help him break into the lab to expose it. In an elaborate (and mostly silent, Rififi-style) break-in sequence, Paul scrambles the closed-circuit cameras, tricks the motion detectors, uses a robot arm to steal a canister of translucent green plutonium and replace it with Prell, drills a hole in the wall with a powerful laser beam and guides the plutonium around the radiation detectors on the back of a remote-control truck while Jenny distracts the only two guards. It’s quite a scene, and it fulfills a number of teenage boy heist fantasies. (I know it wasn’t just me who dreamed of such hijinks!)

So he’s got the plutonium, he’s proved his point, Jenny can write her story and expose the whole thing, right? Wrong! Paul decides (and somehow convinces his generally more practical girlfriend) that it would be better for him to use the plutonium to build a nuclear bomb, and then expose the operation! Basically, he just wants to prove that he can do it. But by the time the big science fair rolls around, the government’s onto him and the army and the FBI are on his trail. Paul becomes a fugitive. A desperate fugitive with a working A-bomb, which he decides to arm in order to put himself in a better bargaining position during the final showdown in the lab. His very own "mutually-assured destruction" policy... and, frankly, an act of terrorism. In the end, you’re supposed to be rooting against the FBI snipers trying to prevent mass destruction and for the kid with his finger on the trigger. The Manhattan Project could never be made today! (Not only does the teen hero engage in terrorism; his [also teenage] girlfriend actually smokes in one scene! See what I mean? It could never be made today!)

But despite its extraordinary premise, its hero’s shaky motivation (he really built that bomb just because he could?) and its questionable moral, The Manhattan Project is a pretty awesome kid’s movie. I don’t know how I never saw it growing up in the 80s; I would have loved it as a kid. As I said before, it’s complete boy’s wish fulfillment, with a young hero who not only breaks into secure facilities and builds the ultimate bomb, but wields the mightiest power in the universe, a power that’s wholly the domain of grown-ups in real life.

It presents a very realistic (aside from the afore-mentioned permissive-ness) vision of 80s suburbia and of childhood, reminiscent of Spielberg’s. In fact, the story is really "E.T. with a bomb." And it also presents a fairly believable teenage relationship between Paul and Jenny, a rarity in this sort of 80s teen movie. Cynthia Nixon is fantastic, and very cute, too. Had I seen this as a kid, I’ve no doubt I would have developed a crush on her big enough to make me actually watch an episode of Sex In the City by choice when I grew up! The acting, in fact, is solid all around. Collet makes an appealing lead (wonder where he disappeared to), Jill Eikenberry is a good single mom in the Dee Wallace vein, and John Lithgow and a pre-Frasier John Mahoney (as the Army colonel leading the chase) both play up the fact that there are no real bad guys in the movie, just adults who make national security decisions that a kid can’t really understand. Like Spielberg’s 80s movies as opposed to John Hughes’s, it’s surprisingly undated with regards to hair and fashions, so that’s also a factor in how well it holds up.

Lionsgate’s new Special Edition DVD offers several bells and whistles. Brickman provides a commentary, but sadly it’s one of the worst I’ve ever heard. He spends a lot of time saying "I don’t know what to say," or, "You probably want me to say something here..." or saying nothing at all. A moderator occasionally prods him, but rarely with much success. At one point the affably self-conscious Brickman asks him, "Do [other] people freeze like I’m freezing?" Making matters worse, he doesn’t seem to remember a lot about the production. When the slightly embarrassed-sounding moderator helpfully asks him if being a father had any bearing on how he worked with or presented children in his film, the director says no, because he wasn’t a father yet at that point. But apparently he’s temporarily forgotten his daughter, who he later says visited the set! We do get occasional nuggets like the fact that they made the translucent green "plutonium" by emptying the glowing green liquid out of hundreds of glowsticks, and later by actually using the shampoo Paul switches it for. But it’s not really worth investing much time in this track just to hear that stuff. Still, Lionsgate deserves credit for including it, no matter how lousy it turned out. It's still an extra.

Fortunately, Brickman is much more eloquent in the making-of featurette, offering interesting insight into his writing process, which he says was most inspired by Bach. (He gives a very good explanation of that seemingly peculiar statement.) He also dishes a bit of behind-the-scenes studio gossip, and we’re treated to some nice on-set footage. Special effects supervisor Bran Ferren also contributes, and shares how he created the lab facility out of used parts sold off by Los Alamos! Ferren is also all over the other featurette, "Homemade Apocalypse," which focuses on creating a realistic nuke. Brickman is a lot more impassioned over how accurate their technology was than he is over his filmmaking, but Ferren sums it up nicely by saying that he didn’t feel the need to design a bomb that would actually work, just one close enough that the military in the movie would believe that it worked. That really highlights the MacGuffin nature of the bomb; it’s ultimately irrelevant to the plot whether or not it’s actually real! But if you can pull it off, why not make E.T. with a bomb?

The Lives Of Others On Disc

TheDigitalBits reports an August 21 DVD release date for Florian Henckel von Donnersmark's Oscar-winning The Lives of Others, one of the best movies of last year and one of the best spy movies of all time. The long-awaited disc will feature an audio commentary and interview with the director and a making-of featurette. DVDActive has the cover art here. Meanwhile, the excellent soundtrack by Gabriel Yared and Stephane Moucha has finally gotten a U.S. release as well, thanks to Varese Sarabande. It omits the classical pieces and has fewer score tracks than the import version, but I'm not sure if that means less music or just that some have been combined.

Movie Review: The Champagne Spy

Nadav Schirman’s excellent documentary The Champagne Spy tells the story of Israeli spy Ze'ev Gur Arie, aka Wolfgang "Wolf" Lotz. Lotz posed as a German ex-Nazi living the playboy lifestyle in ‘60s Cairo while his wife and young son waited patiently in Paris. (Owing to the great difficulty in running spies directly from Israel to Egypt, Paris served as the European headquarters of the Mossad at the time.) It’s not so much the story of his actual spying, but the story of his descent into his double identity, and the havoc that wreaked on him and anyone close to him.

The central interviewee in the documentary is Oded, Lotz’s son. Young Oded took Super-8 home movies of his father’s visits (Lotz would return to Paris every five or six months to report to his handlers and see his family) and allowed the filmmakers full access to this footage. As an adult, Oded revisits some of the sites of his childhood, and you can see the memories flooding into his eyes–the ones he shares, and the ones he doesn’t.

Schirman also had unprecedented access to former Mossad agents, Lotz’s colleagues and handlers. Despite one handler’s assertion that it was always best for an agent to keep his family in the dark about the true nature of his frequent business abroad, Lotz ignored that advice and told his young son exactly what he did on one return visit. "You can’t tell anyone," he cautioned him. "My life depends on it." And so Oded was burdened with the huge secret–and responsibility–he would carry throughout his youth. Still, at that point it felt good for him being let in; it made him feel closer to his father. When they went to see From Russia With Love together on one visit home, his dad told him the real life stuff was much more interesting.

In Cairo, Lotz lived as a German horse breeder in a community of German scientists who were helping Egypt develop weapons of mass destruction to use against Israel. He enjoyed the high life–the gambling, the clubs, the women. His handlers worried that he was enjoying it too much, but he was far too ensconced in the community to remove such a valuable asset. Eventually, against his handlers’ wishes, Lotz went so far as to marry a young German woman, Waldrud, in his cover identity. The Mossad did not tell his actual wife.

When Lotz and his new wife were arrested as spies, it was reported in world newspapers. Oded saw the headline first, and it fell on him to break the news to his mother that her husband had another wife. She refused to believe that Waldrud was anything more than a fellow agent the Mossad had assigned that cover to. She and Oded kept vigil for years, praying that Lotz would one day be released, but unable to speak of him to their friends. The only reason he avoided the death sentence in Egypt was because his cover was so good. They believed that he was actually German, not Israeli. If Oded spoke to anyone about his father and revealed the truth, he risked dooming him.

When Lotz was finally released, his Israeli family was relieved, but forced to face the truth; he had slipped further than they could imagine into his fictional identity, and he loved another woman, another wife. Schirman’s film only becomes more fascinating once Lotz is released. Obviously useless as an agent after being so publicly exposed, he had a difficult time adjusting back to his real life. He was used to the high life and tried to continue to live it, but with the Mossad no longer picking up the tab for such lavish expenses, he went heavily into debt, and actually ended up working in a department store at one point.

It’s an angle I’ve never seen a spy film take before. What happens to an agent accustomed to the James Bond lifestyle when they can no longer afford it? (Well, to those few agents ever lucky enough to live it at all, I suppose!) What happens to a man who is more used to a blown undercover identity than to his own? What does that do to his relationships with superiors, friends, wives and son? The Champagne Spy is a fascinating examination of such a man told by those who knew him best–or perhaps not at all. It’s the story of a son coming to grips decades later with his complex feelings about his father, a man he revered as a hero, but couldn’t forgive for what he did to his family. For anyone with interest in real life espionage and the toll it takes on its practitioners, this documentary is worth seeking out. It’s playing the festival circuit right now, but it’s such a good movie that it’s bound to get a release deal of some sort, possibly limited theatrical, definitely on DVD.

And for those who prefer narrative features to documentaries, Schirman has already signed a deal to turn The Champagne Spy into a fictionalized English language feature. During a Q&A at the Los Angeles Film Festival this past weekend, he told the crowd that the feature version would have a different hook. Instead of taking the son’s point of view, it will be told from the point of view of the young German wife, Waldrud. She meets a charming stranger on a train, and he whisks her away into the seductive scene of the Cairo jet-set. Then she slowly learns his true identity, and gets caught up in a world she never imagined... Sounds like the makings of another good movie!

Schirman had other interesting things to share as well. The making of the movie, if he’s to be believed, is almost as incredible as the story it tells. The director found a book Lotz had written, also called The Champagne Spy, in a used bookstore and couldn’t believe the tale it told. The book had been out of print since the early seventies, but he tried to track down the film rights by contacting publishers on three continents. In all cases, the rights had reverted to the author. Tracking down the author himself proved even more difficult. Some people told him Lotz was running guns in Australia; others said he was training mercenaries in South Africa. When Schirman discovered Lotz was actually dead, he was about to give up but for a chance meeting at the swimming pool.

Schirman was sitting poolside while his son took swimming lessons when a stranger sat down beside him. The stranger asked him what he was working on, and he told him. The man was interested. A few days later, Schirman received an anonymous phone call telling him how to get in touch with Lotz’s son and executor of his estate. By pure coincidence, the stranger at the pool had been a former Mossad agent himself! That man was later instrumental in lining up interviews with other intelligence officers. Apparently the Mossad, an organization more secretive than the CIA, gave Schirman fuller cooperation than they’ve ever given any filmmaker before. When a viewer asked Schirman how he managed to track down so many spooks, he answered, "Networking." Apparently Hollywood isn’t so different from the shadowy world it so often portrays!

DVD Review: Fantastic Voyage (1966)

DVD Review: Fantastic Voyage (1966)

A jetliner lands at night, and is met by a convoy of federal agents. The agents take charge of a high level defector and whisk him away as quickly as possible. But not fast enough. The opposition ambushes the convoy, resulting in an intense shootout. The injured defector is taken to a secret base. Moments later, an American agent is summoned to the same base. His limousine sinks into the ground on a hidden hydraulic lift, taking him into a sprawling underground headquarters to rival some of Ken Adam’s similar sets. There, he meets his superior, who gives him an impossible mission...

Fantastic Voyage is so well known for being an effects-driven sci-fi spectacle that it’s easy to forget that it’s also a spy movie! But the fact that it is really emphasizes the ubiquity of the genre in the 1960s. You want to make a movie about a journey inside the human body; what framework do you use? In the original Bond Age, at the height of the Cold War, the answer was obvious: a spy movie. (According to commentator and film/music historian Jeff Bond, the original plan was to make it a Victorian-set Jules Verne type adventure. But by the time cameras were ready to roll, that wasn’t nearly as hot a genre as spies.)

Assignment K’s Stephen Boyd plays secret agent, com-munications expert and former Navy frogman Grant. He’s the one who got the defector, Benes, out (presumably from behind the Iron Curtain, though specific countries aren’t mentioned), and now his boss, General Carter (Edmond O'Brien), wants him to go along as security on a fantastic scientific expedition to save the man’s life. You see, Benes has vital scientific knowledge about miniaturization that he wants to share with America. The opposition would rather see him die than allow that to happen.

American scientists have come far enough on their own in the field that they can reduce people and objects to an infinitesimal size for a period of one hour. The only way to save Benes’s life is to shrink a submarine and crew and inject them into his bloodstream, enabling them to use a laser to clear a critical clot in the brain. But the General fears there may be a saboteur amidst the crew, and he wants Grant to go along to ensure that nothing goes wrong with the operation. The rest of the crew includes Arthur Kennedy as brain surgeon Dr. Duval and spy veterans Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasance as Duval’s technician and a circulatory specialist-cum-navigator, respectively. The movie plays miniaturization completely straight, and except for Grant whining "But I don’t wanna be miniaturized!" right at first, everyone seems pretty nonplussed about the whole situation.

After all the spy movie set-up, they don’t actually get inside the human body until forty minutes into the movie. Then it becomes more of a straightforward science fiction film, wherein the steadfast crew evade antibodies, take an unplanned detour through a fistula, and find their way back through the dangerous rapids of the heart. At one point they run out of oxygen, and need to harvest some from the lungs. This requires Grant’s frogman skills, and it requires Raquel to finally strip down to a more body-hugging jumpsuit. But all the while the "who’s the saboteur?" spy plot remains, a situation similar to Ice Station Zebra. (It’s really not very hard to guess.)

The special effects are actually very impressive for their era, some even by today’s standards. The movie looks great, with fantastic art direction by Dale Hennesy and Jack Martin Smith. All the sets (full-size and miniature) are terrific, from the cavernous subterranean base with little golf carts zipping around it to the surface of the lung. Richard Kuhn’s opening titles are also quite impressive and very modern, and probably inspired Maurice Binder’s Billion Dollar Brain credits to some extent. None of the performances really stand out, but it’s not a movie about performances. (Stephen Boyd gets points for being tolerable, though, something he couldn’t manage in The Oscar with Elke Sommer.)

Fox’s new DVD of Fantastic Voyage boasts a really amazing transfer. This movie looks great, as if it were just made this year! Fox usually has good transfers, but this one really stands out. There are some nice extras, too. The behind-the-scenes featurette is more of an appreciation than a making-of, with modern-day special effects artists praising the film’s visual trickery and pointing out what works and what doesn’t. Film Score Monthly’s Jeff Bond contributes an informative commentary track full of interesting trivia. He tells us that according to the movie’s press materials, it was supposed to take place in 1997, but there would be no way to know that from what’s on screen, as the cars and plane at the beginning are all very mid-Sixties. Best of all is an isolated score track featuring Leonard Rosenman’s excellent music and commentary on it (during the silent parts) with Bond, John Burlingame and Nick Redman.

Fantastic Voyage certainly isn’t a traditional spy movie, but it serves as a reminder of how popular the genre was in the Sixties and how varied it could be. It will probably be of more interest to sci-fi fans than spy fans, but this new release (in Fox’s typically excellent packaging featuring original poster art) is good enough that it’s certainly worth a rent for any aficionado of Sixties cinema.

Tradecraft: Crowe, Caterina, Smart

The trades are just overflowing with spy news today!

As The Crowe Spies

It should really go without saying by now that if it's a Ridley Scott film, Russell Crowe will probably be in it. But I guess it does need saying, so Variety says it today. Crowe has joined his old Quick and the Dead co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Scott's Body of Lies (formerly known by the much better title Penetration), based on David Ignatius's novel. The trade says: "Crowe will play Ed Hoffman, the manipulative CIA boss who teams with operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) to trap a dangerous Al Qaeda leader by planting a false rumor that the bomber is in cahoots with the Americans." We've been hearing about this movie forever now, since long before the book was published. The Hollywood Reporter adds that shooting is finally (tentatively) scheduled for late August. Oscar-winner William Monahan wrote the script.

What Have They Done To Solange?

Variety says Casino Royale Bond Girl Caterina Murino (Solange, she of the lime green bikini on horseback) has chosen her next project. She'll co-star with Richard E. Grant and Mena Suvari in an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's unfinished novel, The Garden of Eden. It's a Jazz Age tale about a pilot-turned-writer and his flapper wife (you know, the standard Hemingway stuff) who "bring a sultry Italian girl (Murino) into their bedroom." They could do a lot worse!

The Hickenlooper Project

Wouldn't that have been a great Ludlum title? Pity he never thought of it. Anyway, director George Hickenlooper (The Man From Elysian Fields, The Mayor of Sunset Strip), whose last movie was the Edie Sedgewick biopic Factory Girl, will next turn his attention to a spy movie. Variety reports that Morning Spy, Evening Spy, based on a novel by Colin MacKinnon, "revolves around an aging CIA officer who is assigned to the Middle East in the days preceding the 9/11 terrorist attacks." The operative becomes obsessed with the capture of Osama bin Laden. "His hunt brings him within meters of Al Qaeda operative and lead 9/11 terrorist Mohammad Atta just days before the attack."

Cuban Intrigue

New Line has optioned the book The Americano: Fighting for Freedom in Castro's Cuba, an Untold Story by Aran Shetterly. It's about William Morgan, a guy who apparently led a life of intrigue so complicated that I won't even attempt to paraphrase. Here's the direct quote from the trade: "Morgan, a high school dropout who was rumored to have been a gangster and a CIA operative, headed to Cuba in the 1950s, and rose to command the legendary Cuban fighting column known as the Tigers of the Jungle. Blond, and wielding a gold-plated pistol, he stood out among rebels. Morgan eventually became caught up among the conflicting agendas of guerrilla leader Castro, U.S. mobsters and the FBI; when he turned against Castro after the Cuban leader embraced communism, Morgan was executed in 1961."

International Audiences Won't Get Get Smart As Soon

Variety also has an interesting online story about how studios are dealing with the 2008 Summer Olympics and other distractions for the public's attention in planning their release strategies for next year. The relevant tidbit for spy fans? "Speaking to Daily Variety Wednesday at exhib confab Cinema Expo here, Warner Bros. international distribution prexy Veronika Kwan-Rubinek said, 'Get Smart is interesting because the domestic release date is June 20 and that falls right in the middle of the (European soccer championship), so we wouldn't want to go day and date on that movie.'" So, unlike most of this summer's blockbusters, which are opening on the same date in most territories around the world, Get Smart will follow the old model and likely roll out a few months later in Europe. Sorry, Europeans...

Burn Notice Reviews

Finally, both trades review Burn Notice, debuting tonight at 10PM (9 Central) on USA, commercial-free. Variety is pretty enthusiastic. Their reviewer, Brian Lowry, finds it a "pleasant surprise, if only because so little about the concept indicates how much fun the 90-minute premiere is." The Hollywood Reporter is cooler, but ultimately deems it "perfect summer viewing--fun and filled with action and bikinis." Both lavish praises on star Jeffrey Donovan.

Next Bond To Be Funnier?

Daniel Craig tells his friend and interviewer Sam Taylor Wood in the July issue of Interview that "[the Bond producers] just want more gags. The next one's going to be a lot funnier."

"Octopussy kind of gags?" she inquires.

"Yeah. Octopussy. Pussy Galore. They're all great names. But that's the thing; all the Bond jokes have been flipped on their heads, they've all gone beyond..." And then he trails off and talks about food as they're interrupted by a waiter. Was he being serious? Or just kidding around with a pal? The interview is very chummy and presents a much different Craig than the one we saw doing press for Casino Royale. Unfortunately it's impossible to tell his tone here. They've all gone beyond what, Daniel? Was he going to say that they were setting out to reclaim such name gags from Austin Powers-land, or that they were going to abandon them because of that? Only time will tell, I suppose. I think he's being honest, though. And I don't think it's a bad thing.

Casino Royale was great, and had the right tone to counteract Die Another Day, to reinvent Bond when he needed reinventing, as OHMSS and For Your Eyes Only had both done before at crucial moments. But now that he's "begun," Bond must grow into the character we know and love. And that means a little more humor than Royale offered up. I'm not advocating Octopussy levels myself (no Tarzan yells, please!), but a little bit more. After all, Fleming's Bond did have a sense of humor himself.

It's a good interview with some other choice Bond nuggets. Worth reading, for sure!

Say "U.N.C.L.E."!

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is finally, officially headed to DVD, according to the ever-reliable TVShowsOnDVD.com. It will be released by TimeLife, the same people who put out last year's highly regarded Get Smart set. Unfortunately, that means it will also be distributed like that set, exclusively from the company online and over the phone ("as advertised on TV!"). That means that it will probably be costly, and consumers will have no discount alternatives like Amazon price reductions or DeepDiscount.com, for the first year. It will supposedly be released to retailers in late 2008, just as Get Smart will supposedly be released commercially this fall, after TimeLife's year of exclusivity is up. Still, I suppose it's worth whatever cost they charge to finally have this highly anticipated DVD set! More good news: TimeLife's release strategy means that all four seasons will be released at once, with plenty of bonus material! Stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are both involved.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. originally ran from 1964-1968, and spawned a series of theatrical movies that were made by cobbling two episodes together. (These have been available in Region 2 for some time.) It's had a long and troubled road to American DVD, first being announced by Anchor Bay a few years ago and then cancelled at the last minute when the company found out the party they'd secured the rights from didn't really control them! It was next rumored to be coming from Warner Bros., who will now release it through their TimeLife partner. While there are still some cultier gems out there awaiting release (like It Takes A Thief), in my opinion U.N.C.L.E. is the last absolutely essential Sixties spy series we've been waiting for, now that Paramount has started releasing Mission: Impossible. So this is great news.

DVD Review: Fay Grim (2007)

DVD Review: Fay Grim

Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is an ordinary single mother from Brooklyn who is unexpectedly thrust into the middle of a crazy Robert Ludlum sort of international double- and triple-cross espionage plot. She’s a character from a darkish family comedy lost in a genre she doesn’t belong in, which is an excellent recipe for comedy. And for it’s first half, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim is a terrific black comedy.

Fay goes from a meeting with the principal to discuss her troubled son, Ned (who has brought a pornographic Viewmaster into school) to a surprise meeting with two CIA agents in her apartment. She goes from a boring, depressing situation she’s all too familiar with to an extraordinary one in which she has no idea what to do.

We gather from the meeting with the principal that Ned’s estranged father, Henry was a bit of a wayward soul–an inveterate bullshitter at best, and possibly a murderer at worst. Fay is worried that Ned will turn out like his father, especially without a positive male influence in his life. Her brother, Simon Grim (a best-selling poet), is currently incarcerated for aiding and abetting Henry in his escape, much to Fay’s dismay. Fay claims to be over Henry and happy he’s gone, yet she can’t bring herself to say she’s single without adding a bewildered "sort of" to the end. And she finds herself explaining exactly that to Agents Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) and Fogg ("you can call him Carl," Fulbright condescendingly adds) in her apartment.

Apparently Henry penned a lengthy manifesto, filling seven notebooks, which may have exposed government secrets–and incriminated Agent Fulbright. At the time, Fay and everyone else dismissed it as incomprehensible, made-up ramblings, but suddenly there’s a lot of interest in these ramblings. Simon’s publisher, Angus, wants to print them because he feels Simon’s readers would be interested in the writings of the person their idol was willing to go to jail for. And now the CIA wants them, too.

Fulbright and the younger Fogg have fantastic interplay between them, and Goldblum excels at this sort of comedy. Fay’s astounded to hear that her former husband may not have been lying when he described wild adventures with mullahs and contras ("the Pope threw a chair at him," Ned chimes in), and crushed to hear that he is dead. The CIA needs Fay to go to Paris and retrieve the notebooks from the French government, because only a widow can claim such property. Fay strikes a deal to get Simon out of jail if she cooperates, and then she’s off to Paris.

In Paris, it becomes clear that there are other parties interested in the manuscripts as well. Fay encounters a strange woman named Bebe (Nadja’s Ellena Lowenstein) in the bathroom where she is to meet her contact, but Bebe is scared off by Fay’s ringing phone. The man she met on the plane isn’t who he seems. Neither are the hotel employees. And neither is her contact.

Meanwhile, back in New York, someone shoots at Angus hoping to get one of the notebooks. Fay finds herself tangled up with British, French, Russian and Israeli agents, as well as international terrorists and the mysterious Bebe, all vying for the notebooks. Confusing matters, the French have created fake notebooks, so there are two sets floating around.

Hartley shoots almost every corner of Paris that Fay traverses at a canted angle, as if he thinks that’s what makes a spy movie. The surprise is: it works, so maybe he’s onto something! The camera angles and gray color scheme, combined with an effective (but in some places strangely inappropriate and intrusive) score really play up the mysterious, Ludlumesque feel to the world. Fay’s wardrobe also adds to the spy mystique; her sexy black coat (a gift from Angus) looks like it could have come from Emma Peel’s closet. But Hartley chokes when it comes to shooting action. In fact, he doesn’t shoot it. Instead, he creates a digital strobe effect, presenting the various shootouts Fay finds herself in the middle of as a series of rapidly changing still images. I suppose this is meant to represent how Fay sees the action herself, unable to fully process it, unable to believe that she’s actually experiencing it. But unfortunately it has the opposite effect, and instead of putting the audience in Fay’s place, it momentarily takes us out of the movie, calling attention to the fact that it is a movie and to the digital video it’s shot on.

Still, when the gunfire dies down and the strobing stops, Hartley continues to effectively build suspense while maintaining the intrinsic humor of the incredible situation this woman finds herself in. Both are aided immensely by the fact that Posey crafts such a believable, realistic and likable main character, so despite the occasional showstopping camera effect, we do relate to her and empathize with her. The director also pulls off one very Hitchcockian setpiece in which Fay, in her iconic black coat, scrambles across the rooftops of Paris to evade the various secret services that are chasing her. As soon as any shooting starts, of course, we go to still frames.

Her Parisian adventure not only terrifies Fay; it also invigorates her. A character who started out so passive that she locked herself in the bathroom for a long, hot bath rather than dealing with her troubles (an expelled child, would-be suitors) finds the passion required to elude all the world’s spy agencies and slip away to Istanbul on a fake passport with Bebe in tow. Fay’s discovered that they’re in love with the same man (even if Fay herself won’t admit she still loves Henry), and she seems as much driven to protect Bebe as to find Henry, who Fay’s come to believe is still alive, no matter what Fulbright told her. Unfortunately, Fay’s little sojourn to the Bosporus gets her labeled a traitor by the CIA, and soon Fulbright himself is on her trail as well as everyone else.

Istanbul is another great, exotic spy location that evokes plenty of Cold War thrillers, but it’s also where the movie starts to go downhill. Because in Istanbul, we meet Henry. Henry as we see him here is a pretty unlikable, off-putting character, not the charismatic enigma we think we know from the way people talk about him in the first half of the movie. He’s also aiding a Bin Ladin-like terrorist named Said Khan, which doesn’t make him any more sympathetic. Overall, Fay Grim works without having seen Henry Fool (to which it is a nominal sequel), but not at this point, because we can’t know why this intelligent character (Fay) would be in love with such a man. Presumably the first film makes that clear.

Without understanding Fay’s love for Henry, it’s impossible to fully comprehend why she makes the choices she makes in the third act, or even, necessarily, what those choices are. Everything becomes murky at the end. This may be a commentary on the espionage genre as a whole, and on the real-life business of spying, but it doesn’t make for a satisfying conclusion, to my mind anyway. Fay has a satisfying arc as a character, but I would have really liked to know more about her motivations at the end, and have a better understanding of what actually happens in the plot.

Luckily, Hal Hartley sums that up for us in one of the disc’s special features, Making Fay Grim. He says Fay is a "representative American who’s a well-intentioned, decent person who’s a bit naive about how the world is." Well, that part I see. "Not given the opportunity not to confront the violence in the world, she must acknowledge it... and she beats [the spooks] at their own game." This is the part I’m less clear on. It sounds great, but I didn’t really get that from the movie. I won’t go into details because I want to avoid potential spoilers, but I wasn’t sure that Fay had even won in the end, let alone beaten anyone at their own game!

Apparently no one involved in the first film expected the sequel to be a spy movie, judging by their comments in the "making of" featurette. Posey was surprised, and Thomas Jay Ryan, who plays Henry, says that he would have played the part completely differently in the first movie if he’d had even an inkling that any of Henry’s yarns were the truth! The featurette is well-done, and complements the movie nicely, filling in some holes on screen. But it focuses much more on interviews with the cast and director than on the actual filmmaking process. Another feature is an episode of IFC’s Higher Definition focusing on the movie, in which a pompous hipster-type who has no business hosting a TV show (even on IFC!) interviews most of the same participants and gushes over the film. The host is so annoying I stopped watching halfway through, but it was definitely good of Lionsgate to include this feature anyway. There’s also an intriguing trailer for the film that would have gotten me to see it in the theater had I ever actually seen the trailer.

Despite my misgivings about the end, I still recommend Fay Grim. There’s enough espionage going on to hold any spy fan’s interest, and the performances are all first-rate, especially Posey and Goldblum. It’s a shame that the final product is flawed, but not a detriment. The disc also boasts a nice array of bonus material for an indie film, which are often movie-only affairs.

James Bond Screenings In LA This Weekend

The New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles is showing a double feature of rarely screened Bond movies this weekend, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Man With the Golden Gun. $7 gets you into both movies, at 7:30 and 10:10 respectively, this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, June 24-26. OHMSS is my personal favorite (and readers' favorite, judging from the recent contest poll), and it's always even better on the big screen. Which used to be a pretty unusual occurrence, but seems (happily) to be becoming more frequent these days, with recent play dates in L.A. and New York. I'd love to see it become a yearly tradition, so I hope this screening does well. Any Roger Moore Bond film, on the other hand, is still pretty rare. For some reason whenever revival houses show 007, they figure people want to see Sean Connery. And of course they do, but this Bond fan also wants to see Moore and Dalton! So even if TMWTGG is one of Sir Roger's weaker entries (despite the awesome presence of Christopher Lee), it's also well worth attending.

Classic Eurospy Screenings In Los Angeles

As part of "Mods and Rockers," their awesome annual festival of Sixties movies, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA will screen the greatest Bond knock-off of all time, Deadlier Than the Male on Thursday, July 26. It will be a double bill with the ultra-rare 1966 Eurospy flick Lightning Bolt. Deadlier Than the Male (1966) stars the luscious Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina as a pair of bikini-clad assassins and Richard Johnson as a Sixtified (or Bondified) Bulldog Drummond. Nigel Green (of Ipcress File fame) plays the villain. Lightning Bolt (like Thunderball... get it?) stars Anthony Iseley and is directed by Antonio Margheriti. I've never seen it, so I can't comment on it, but I'm eagerly looking forward to the opportunity!

Tradecraft: Champagne and Infiltrator

There are a couple of spy items in the trades today. The Hollywood Reporter, er, reports that Israeli writer-director Nadav Schirman has signed a deal to turn his documentary The Champagne Spy into a fictionalized English language feature. The Champage Spy "is a portrait of Wolfgang Lotz, an Israeli spy who became addicted to his covert identity as ex-Nazi playboy and millionaire horse breeder in 1960s Cairo."

Variety, meanwhile, profiles writer Joshua Zetumer as one of its "10 Writers To Watch." Zetumer is currently writing The Infiltrator, "a story about British soldiers going undercover in the IRA, based on an article in Atlantic Monthly. [The movie] is set up at Warner Bros with David Benioff producing and Leonardo DiCaprio [you know, that famous British actor?] attached to star." The project sounds somewhat similar to DeCaprio's other gestating spy flick, Penetration. Zetumer name-checks all the big espionage touchstones for Variety: "The Infiltrator is a thinking-man's action movie. It's got these big set-pieces, but at the same time it's kind of an anti-James Bond film. It's inspired mainly by John le Carre, but with a good dose of The Bourne Identity thrown in."

Bruce Campbell On Burn Notice

The official website for USA's upcoming spy show Burn Notice has been updated with character information and interviews with co-star Bruce Campbell and series creator Matt Nix. Nix says that his espionage inspiration comes more from non-fiction books than fiction, and Bruce says... a lot of stuff, as only Bruce can say it. His character, Sam Axe, is a retired spy himself, an outmoded Cold Warrior now living off rich widows in Miami. When the main character, Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan), is "burned" by the CIA and trapped in Miami, his old colleague Sam is the only guy he can rely on. Burn Notice premieres next Thursday, June 28 on USA.

DVD Review: Breach (2007)

DVD Review: Breach

Whereas re-watching The Good Shepherd on DVD did more to reaffirm my misgivings about the somewhat uneven film than validate my initial praise, re-watching Breach fully solidified my first reaction. This is a tight, taut, top-notch spy drama anchored by fine performances all around, particularly by Chris Cooper in the showcase role. While there are no major stars in the movie, every part is played by a fantastic character actor like Dennis Haysbert, Laura Linney, Gary Cole and Caroline Dhavernas. I may not have lauded lead actor Ryan Phillippe enough in my first review; while I never would have considered him in the same league as his co-stars, he more than holds his own amidst this intimidating crowd, especially in difficult scenes with Cooper, which can’t have been an easy task. Overall, though, I fully stand by what I wrote when this was in theaters, so rather than revisiting the movie, I’ll focus on the impressive special features the DVD boasts.

Another contrast to The Good Shepherd (also a Universal release, from a few weeks ago), is how many extras they include here. While that was a pretty bare-bones affair, Breach is about as packed as a single disc release can be. And all of the bonus content is good!

If the movie piques your interest in the actual spy played by Cooper, Robert Hanssen (estimated to have caused, as the movie’s tagline puts it, "the greatest security breach in U.S. history"), then the original Dateline story that aired soon after his capture is the first place to go. It seems amazingly informed for being put together just two weeks after Hanssen’s arrest; the FBI must have made public a surprising amount of their case very quickly. In spite of the smug Dateline delivery and random insert shots of roulette wheels to illustrate the high risk of spying, this is a well-constructed bit of TV journalism that offers candid insights into Hanssen’s character. While the movie itself leaves you guessing as to the true motivations of this highly complex man, the agents interviewed reach a consensus. He was "in it for the game, not the gain," one speculates, and another concludes that Hanssen was "trying to commit the intelligence equivalent of the perfect crime." This is an excellent supplement to the main attraction.

"Anatomy of a Character brought to you by Volks-wagen" (yes, DVD features now have sponsors, apparently) offers more speculation on Hanssen’s motives, this time from the actors. It’s strange to see Cooper speaking so openly about the role right after watching the film, since in the movie he’s so reticent! Director Billy Ray says he cast the part by thinking, "Who would I not want to have thinking of me as an idiot?" and came up with Chris Cooper. And it was a great choice. Eric O’Neill, the real life agent Phillippe plays in the film, offers his insights on Hanssen as well, and we see footage of him briefing Cooper on set. (Cooper reveals that he asked O’Neill to do his best Hanssen impression when they first met.)

The same interviewees turn up in "Breaching the Truth," a solid, 10-minute making-of featurette. Some of it is fluff, with the actors singing each others’ praises, but there’s good information here too. Best of all is the opportunity to see how exacting the crew was in recreating the specific locations where the actual events took place.

There’s a very good commentary with Billy Ray and Eric O’Neill. Ray is a good speaker who provides lots of relevant information, but he does have a tendency to cut O’Neill off when he’s about to tell what sounds like an interesting anecdote. On several occasions, O’Neill is about to talk about Hanssen’s religious beliefs, which I would have liked to hear more about. I assume it’s just a coincidence that he never gets to share this. I guess O’Neill is used to being cut off anyway, since he does manage to reveal that Hanssen actually did walk at an angle to drive him and others into walls in the FBI hallway! (I had wondered if this was a touch Cooper added to the character himself.)

O’Neill’s presence on the track is a welcome one, because he fills us in on what’s true and what isn’t. He confirms some of Hanssen’s traits that seem like they could have been made up by screenwriters, like the walking, the constant, bitter complaining about not getting a window office, the hatred of Hillary Clinton and lust for Catherine Zeta Jones, the annoying clicking of his pen, and ordering O’Neill to steal a painting for his office! He sets the record straight on one big issue, though: in real life, O’Neill knew from the start that he was investigating a spy. Ray explains that it was important that he be lied to in the movie by the Laura Linney chracter (who first tells him he’s investigating Hanssen for sexual deviancy) because the whole theme of the film is deception.

Finally, there is a whole slew of deleted and alternate scenes, each with commentary explaining why they were cut or changed. A lot of these are very good scenes, some of which would have added to the film, but overall their reasons for cutting are sound. The best one has Hanssen calling O’Neill while O’Neill is searching his office and berating him for not answering the phone correctly. It generates suspense and comedy (of the boss-from-Hell variety), but Ray felt it was hitting redundant beats. Some of the cut material involving Cooper and Cole would have emphasized that Hanssen was actually good at his job, even if he was condescending and, um, a traitor. One scene goes into more detail about Hanssen’s membership in Opus Dei, and several focus on O’Neill’s wife, Julianna. It’s too bad these were cut because Caroline Dhavernas is wonderful and could have used more screentime. Dhavernas also features prominently in the longest alternate scene, which was completely rewritten in the course of filming and re-shot during pick-ups months later. Usually I find alternate takes a waste of time, but this particular one is a very interesting inclusion as Ray explains why he changed it, and the (sometimes subtle) changes bear him out.

Breach is a terrific spy movie that will undoubtedly come to be regarded as a classic of the genre, and Universal’s special edition DVD does it justice. Highly recommended.

Dalton's Hot Fuzz On DVD Next Month

Universal has announced a July 31 release date for Hot Fuzz, this spring's action movie spoof from the creators of Shaun of the Dead which co-starred Timothy Dalton. A mustachioed Dalton has a great time making the audience believe he's a villain, whether he is or isn't in actuality. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost lead a truly fantastic cast including Jim Broadbent, Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman and Callan himself, Edward Woodward. Special features are a little bit different from the Region 2 disc, and they sound great. There's a commentary with director Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, twenty minutes of deleted scenes (hopefully with more Dalton!), a documentary on the stars' U.S. promotional tour and, strangest of all, a feature called "The Man Who Would Be Fuzz." Let's go to the press release for details on that one: "Simon Pegg and Nick Frost hit their marks as Sean Connery and Michael Caine playing out a scene from the movie." Wow! Odd, but... I can't wait to see it!

Sam Jackson Is Nick Fury

Yes, I was just the other day complaining about how I'm not a fan of Marvel's "Ultimate Universe" version of eye-patched comic book spy Nick Fury, whose likeness is based on Samuel L. Jackson. Well, now Jackson will forever be identified with the character in the public eye, as AintItCool reports he'll be playing him in next summer's Iron Man. Since he is, undeniably, one of the coolest actors on the planet, he's sure to become the Sean Connery of Nick Fury, and will prove a very tough act to follow. Marvel had been developing a Nick Fury movie on its own, and presumably Jackson's Iron Man cameo is laying the groundwork for him to reprise the role in that movie as well. I question the logic of casting an actor who's pushing sixty in terms of potential franchise longevity. I guess it means that the Fury of the movies will play more the M role that he does in the Ultimate Universe than the Bond role he did in Steranko's classic Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Will Smith, who was previously rumored for the role, probably would have been more of the latter.

Still, Ultimate Fury is pretty cool, even if he's not the real Nick Fury. And everything else about the Iron Man movie (including the casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role) sounds awesome, and the mere idea of Fury popping up in the movie is neat. And I'd hate to sound like one of those "CraigNotBond" whiners, so I'll shut up for now and give Jackson the benefit of the doubt until the movie comes out.

Random Intelligence Dispatches For June 19, 2007

On DVD Today: 009-1
The apparently Ian Fleming-inspired anime series about a futuristic female cyborg agent, 009-1, Vol. 1 is in stores today... Since I've never seen the show, I'm going to quote the intriguing product description for Vol. 2 from Amazon: "In a world where the Cold War never ended, East and West continue to battle for technological and political supremacy. Mylene Hoffman, field commander of the elite Double Zero intelligence division, exists in this world with her eyes open and her body always ready to do battle. There’s no problem Mylene can’t solve that doesn’t use the proper application of high explosives, fast-talk, deceptive jewelry, make-up and the right moves behind closed doors!" Definitely sounds worth checking out!

Danger Mouse Megaset

Another animated spy show is due for the complete series treatment from A&E this August. TVShowsOnDVD reports that the classic British kids' show about an eyepatched agent who happens to be a mouse will be released as a megaset (containing all ten seasons, which were previously released individually) on August 28. Billed as "the world's smallest secret agent," Danger Mouse promises to "send up everyone from 007 to Sherlock Holmes," according to A&E's press release. Let's hope it's as good as the last "Danger" megaset the company put out...

The Unit

Fox will release the second season of The Unit on September 25. The series, produced by David Mamet and The Shield's Shawn Ryan and starring 24's Dennis Haysbert, follows the exploits of a US military covert ops team. TVShowsOnDVD reports that unlike the rather bare-bones first season, Season Two will be loaded with featurettes and commentaries.

Hurricane Gold Final Cover

The Young Bond Dossier revealed the slightly different final cover art for Charlie Higson's next Young Bond adventure, Hurricane Gold, last week. It's now up on Amazon.co.uk.

New James Bond Encyclopedia

The next officially-licensed, large format book on Bond films (following The James Bond Legacy, Bond Girls Are Forever and last fall's Art of James Bond) will be The James Bond Encyclopedia by John Cork and Collin Stutz. All of these books have been beautifully produced, but they seem to be coming a bit quick now... My bookshelf's starting to sag, and I still have yet to crack open The Art of James Bond, which got buried at the bottom of a pile of new Bond books that came out around the time of Casino Royale! I never though I'd complain about too much James Bond product, but I'm starting to look back fondly my childhood days when the only readily available books on 007 were Stephen Jay Rubin's The James Bond Films and Raymond Benson's The James Bond Bedside Companion! I kind of wonder what this new book will have to add since Rubin's Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia is pretty thorough (if occacionally erronious) and even covers Never Say Never Again and the '67 Royale, which this one may not, since it's licensed by EON. There can't be that many new photographs left unseen in the archives at this point, can there? Still, Cork always does a great job with any Bond project he contributes to, be it book, Special Edition DVD or the now defunct, sorely missed Goldeneye Magazine.

Fuller Report Soundtrack Ready To Order
Following last month's teriffic release of the Special Mission Lady Chaplin soundtrack, another classic Eurospy score has been unearthed! Screen Archives is now taking preorders for Rapporto Fuller Base Stoccolma (The Fuller Report) for $17.99. The score, by Armando Trovaioli, is coming out on Beat Records. The 1967 movie, starring Ken Clark, is currently being restored by Dorado Films for a DVD release in the (hopefully) near future.

Actor News: Ian Ogilvy Records New Commentary

DVDDrive-In reports that Return of the Saint star Ian Ogilvy will participate the in the commentary track on MGM's long-awaited Region 1 DVD of Witchfinder General, starring Vincent Price. The classic horror film will be presented as a Director's Cut, and be loaded with special features including the commentary with Ogilvy and producer Philip Waddilove. Anyone who's heard Ogilvy's commentaries on Umbrella's Australian Return of the Saint DVDs knows that he's a very entertaining commentator, so this should be a treat. The disc comes out September 11 and marks the welcome return of MGM's long dormant Midnight Movies line.

UPDATED: Marc Forster To Direct Bond 22

Variety reports that a director has been signed for the next Bond movie--Marc Forster. Forster was widely rumored to be in the running, and now he is signed. Forster previously directed Bond Girl Halle Berry in her Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball. Personally, I hated Monster's Ball, and wrote Forster off at the time. Since then he's thankfully improved considerably. Finding Neverland was better, although he still relied on the same tricks of shooting people reflected in mirrors and through doorways, and sometimes through doorways reflected in mirrors. Stranger Than Fiction was his best movie yet, and he expanded his playbook considerably. Still, I'd hazard a guess that we'll see Daniel Craig's reflection quite a lot in the next movie. (Possibly through a doorway.) As long as he doesn't bring Halle Berry back!

What's most interesting about this move is that Forster is a Name Director, even Oscar-nominated. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have traditionally steered away from big directors, fearing that they would demand too much control in a franchise notoriously, tightly controlled by the producers. For this reason, they've reportedly turned down offers from Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino in the past. Sure, Michael Apted was famous, but for a different kind of movie. When he does big studio movies, it's generally as a gun for hire. Forster has been treading in as many genres as possible, so it's not too surprising that he would want to do a Bond. But he seems more powerful than any previous Bond director. I think it's a good sign that the producers are finally willing to trust a director with a strong personal vision, even if that vision is usually... you guessed it, through a doorway. I have faith that Marc Forster will do a good job. I just hope he can do action scenes! (Apted couldn't.)

Forster himself is looking forward to the assignment, naturally. He tells Variety: "I have always been drawn to different kinds of stories, and I have also always been a Bond fan, so it is very exciting to take on this challenge," and adds that the latest direction of the Bond character opens up "a host of new possibilities" for him as director. Well, I'm glad to hear him describe himself as a fan! That's promising.

*Whoops--my mistake. Forster was nominated for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a DGA Award for Finding Neverland, but not an Oscar. Maybe for Bond 22, eh?

G-Man Jerry Cotton Recalled To Active Duty

Following the success of France's OSS 117 revival, another classic Eurospy hero is getting reactivated. "G-Man Jerry Cotton," who appeared in a string of German Bond knock-offs in the Sixties, will return to German screens next year. Variety is unclear on the matter, but it seems likely that, like 0ss 117: Cairo Nest of Spies, this will be a parody revival and not a serious franchise reboot. Rat Pack Filmproduktion is producing, and they gave a similar treatment to Edgar Wallace Krimi mysteries last year in The Wixxer. Wixxer was shot in black and white, and--I believe--set in the Fifties or early Sixties. But it was a send-up of the endless German Krimi movies (basically their version of the Italian giallo) based on Wallace's pulp novels made from the late Fifties to the mid-Seventies, and mostly starring Joachim Fuchberger. Presumably the new Jerry Cotton movie will follow the same pattern, although apparently serious Jerry Cotton adventures are still published in Germany, so perhaps not.

The original Jerry Cotton cycle began as a Krimi series itself, and then morphed into a spy series as the Bond movies took off. American beefcake actor George Nader (banished to Europe when a tabloid threatened to out him in America) starred as Cotton. I haven't seen any of them yet, though I did find Nader rather off-putting as a secret agent in the atrocious Million Eyes of Sumuru. DVD collections are available in Germany, but without English subtitles.

Bendis To Tell Ultimate Nick Fury's Secret Origin

Writer Brian Michael Bendis revealed this weekend at the Philadelphia Comic Con that he will write a mini-series revealing the secret origins of Marvel's "Ultimate" Universe, focusing heavily on that universe's version of Nick Fury.

To comic book neophytes, that sentence probably made no sense. About seven years ago, Marvel decided to create an alternate universe to that in which their primary comics take place so that they could tell stories about Spider-man when he was still a teenager and the X-Men before they got bogged down in decades' worth of impenetrable continuity. In other words, comics that someone who had just walked out of one of those movies could pick up and make sense out of. It was a good idea. Some characters were similar to their regular Marvel Universe versions; some were wildly different. Nick Fury was the only one I know of to change race. Marvel's famous eye-patched superspy (pictured below as drawn by spy artist extraordinaire Paul Gulacy) is white in the classic titles, and black in the Ultimate Universe. Furthermore, he's modelled on Samuel L. Jackson. (Personally, I've never approved of the Jackson "casting.") The character has played an even bigger role in the Ultimate Universe than he does in the regular Marvel titles, and Bendis' origin tale will focus largely on him.

"It will definitely show how Nick Fury got to his place in the Ultimate Universe, which has not been revealed," Bendis tells Newsarama. "It’s been hinted and tickled at through little vignettes here and there, but he’s got quite a whopper of a story." Sounds intriguing! Newsarama goes on to ask Bendis to clear up one of the Ultimate Universe's longest-standing mysteries: why Fury was apparently white in his first Ultimate appearance, Ultimate Team-Up #3, drawn by the great Mike Allred. "He was never white," Bendis declares. "He was black in Ultimate Team-Up. It was colored so blueish, there may have been question, but in the script, he was African American with a half-fro, and then [artist] Bryan Hitch gave him the shave off. So, if anything, he was balding versus Sam Jackson cool."

Ultimate Origin is due later this year.

It's not the first time Ultimate Spider-man writer Bendis' name has been connected with a Nick Fury project. Bendis himself got fans' hopes up a few years ago by hinting that Fury's artistic father, comics legend Jim Steranko, would be joining him on a Fury book. Sadly, Steranko himself told me that wasn't true. Bendis was also scheduled to write an ongoing Spider-Woman series featuring the eponymous heroine as an agent of SHIELD in which Fury would play a large role. That too has yet to materialize, perhaps pushed aside by the events of last year's Civil War storyline. Although Bendis has proven himself an excellent writer again and again over 100+ issues of Ultimate Spider-man, one should remember that he also penned the hands-down worst Fury story of recent memory, Secret War, which started out very promising but then fizzled out after interminable delays, and resulted in Fury's prolonged (and ongoing) exile from the regular Marvel Universe.

DVD Review: Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets

DVD Review: Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets

Made for television as an hour-long segment of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels series, James Bond Gadgets was recently released by A&E on Region 1 DVD to cash in on the home video debut of Casino Royale. But whatever the motivations for the release, this documentary should not be dismissed by spy fans as just another knock-off. It’s actually very well done: an informative program with lots of visual treats for Bond fans and technology enthusiasts alike.

The first segment covers flying machines, and focuses on two of my very favorite 007 gadgets, the Thunderball rocket belt and "Little Nellie" from You Only Live Twice. The producers have dug up some really good footage of early tests of the actual, working Bell rocket belt, and interview several aerospace engineers and test pilots who worked on its development. One of those pilots also doubled for Sean Connery and flew the device in the movie. All the b-roll here is really amazing, including shots of a test pilot soaring over trees and shots from the pilot’s point of view.

We then move on to Ken Wallis, an energetic octogenarian familiar to Bond fans as the inventor and pilot (also doubling for Connery) of Little Nellie, 007's heavily-armed autogyro. Wallis shows off a hanger full of nineteen of autogyros he’s built over the years, including the one from the movie (whose prop machine guns still "fire") and more practical models made for the military and police (including a sleek looking machine with a covered cockpit). Wallis is erudite and interesting, and gives a concise explanation of how autogyros work, comparing them to sycamore seeds. He estimates that his autogyro is one of the safest aircraft there is to fly, which came as a surprise to me. It doesn’t look safe, but it sure looks fun, and there’s plenty of film of Wallis flying his various models. This footage rekindled my childhood desire for a Little Nellie of my own! (For now, though, I’ll have to make do with my Corgis...)

The focus then shifts from aircraft to boats, and we visit renowned Bond collector Doug Redenius in Illinois. Redenius owns the Q-boat from The World Is Not Enough, which he proves actually works by taking it for a spin on the river! (He says it’s only the second time the tiny craft has been in the water since filming on the Thames.)

At his home, we briefly see a few other Bond boats, like the speedboat from Moonraker and mini-sub from For Your Eyes Only, and get a tantalizing glimpse at his vast collection of 007 memorabilia. Doug has my dream basement, filled floor-to-ceiling with pristine props and toys, many in their original packaging. I paused the DVD and zoomed in several times, identifying the many items and sighing more than once with jealousy. He shows off a few prop replicas, which segues nicely into interviews with the special effects men who created the originals. (We get the oft-told but always amusing story of how a government engineer called up a prop designer and inquired as to how Connery’s Thunderball rebreather actually worked, only to be humiliated when told it was movie magic!)

The program next turns to cars, and footage taken at a 2001 exhibition in England offers a look at many of Bond’s best, including Goldfinger’s Rolls, a submarine version of the Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, the Aston Martins from Goldfinger and The Living Daylights (a personal favorite), and some relics of 007's ill-advised flirtation with BMW. We’re treated to shots of the then-new Vanquish out for a road test, and a gorgeous red DB5 owned by a West Coast collector who sought the car out because of its indelible Bond connection. The ubiquitous Dave Worrall pops up briefly, and it’s a pity there isn’t more of him since he’s probably the expert on all of James Bond’s wheels.

James Bond Gadgets stumbles a little when it segues into "real life" gadgets near its conclusion, as such devices tend to pale in comparison with the ones dreamed up for the movies. The owner of the Counterspy Store in Beverly Hills shows off a briefcase he says is like the one in From Russia With Love, but it fails to live up to 007's version. All it really seems to offer is the ability to remotely shock anyone who’s stolen it! Neat, I guess, but where are the knives, the hidden gold coins, the stun gas? We also get a peek at a thermal imaging scope on a rifle at the Special Tactical Services training facility in Virginia (a school for body guards and private security), but this too fails to generate much excitement. I know from experience in television documentaries that cable networks often want a "real life" component to movie-based shows, and it can be difficult to work in. Maybe I wouldn’t have even noticed the drop in quality in this section if I didn’t empathize with the writers and segment producers desperately trying to shoehorn it in as best they could to please faraway bosses. Luckily, James Bond Gadgets is more successful than most programs of this nature at integrating this aspect, and the show rallies with a good recap.

Overall, James Bond Gadgets should prove highly satisfying viewing for Bond fans and particularly fans of Q’s inventions. The rare footage of the rocket belt in action and brief archival video of Redenius’s impressive collection alone make it a necessary purchase for completists, and the additional footage of Little Nellie and her sisters in action will certainly please viewers like me who play that chase in You Only Live Twice again and again, and can’t get enough of the tiny autogyro. The SRP of $24.99 seems a bit steep for a 42 minute (not 50, as the box indicates) documentary, but it’s well worth the lower prices at online retailers like DeepDiscount. For more casual spy fans, I definitely recommend at least a rental.

Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets is a well-crafted program that makes a solid companion piece to the excellent documentaries included in MGM’s 007 DVD sets. I hope it portends the release of other cable shows about Bond that always air around the time a new movie comes out; every channel from MTV to TLC has done one, and it would be nice to have a whole collection.