Cocktail Nation

The Spy-Fi Channel may be on a bit of a hiatus, but it's not off the radar completely, apparently. On this week's Cocktail Nation podcast, host Koop Kooper gives the Channel a nice plug, along with his usual mix of swanky lounge music and features.

Thanks, Koop!

Signing Off....

The Spy-Fi Channel is going off the air for a while.

As much as I love spy movies, television shows and fiction - and brother, I love them a lot - I really haven't had much to say/write about the genre lately. And as for keeping up with the latest spy news or reviewing flicks and books, well, frankly, my fellow C.OB.RA.S. are much better at it and do a more in-depth job of it.

But mostly, it's because, for whatever reasons, my pop culture obsession of late has been more focused on the science fiction television shows and movies that I grew up with as a child in the 1970s, and less with the spy-fi I discovered in my teens. When I get the itch to blog, it's that science fiction stuff that seems to be on my mind lately, and I've been writing about it over on my Space: 1970 blog.

That site is devoted to my first pop culture love affair - shows and movies like Star Trek, Star Wars, Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, Space: 1999, etc. - and I guess as I hit my mid-Forties, my nostalgia for that "first love" has become pretty strong. My nostalgic time-traveling has also seemed to strike a chord with a larger number of people - the Space: 1970 blog has, by far, the largest following/readership of anything I write for the web.

Now, I never completely abandon a blog, and I will still post here occasionally, but I can't promise any sort of regular updates. For the foreseeable future, most of my blogging will be over at Space: 1970 and my personal blog, Atomic Pulp. Knowing me, though, sooner or later I'll get in my "spy mode" again, and this blog will come in from the cold with a vengeance.

Now, I don't know how many people even visit this site these days, nor how many of you guys have any interest in 1970's-era sci-fi, but if anyone wants to drop by over on my other site, I'd love to see you there.

Thanks to all my readers & followers for your support over the last year or so, and especially to my fellow C.OB.R.A.S. It's been great.

The Spy-Fi Channel will return....

Daniel Craig is James Bond in... GOLDENEYE?

Without question, RARE's Goldeneye 64 from the 90s is one of the great video games. A hugely popular title on the old Nintendo 64 platform, it is widely-regarded as the definitive first-person "shooter" of its era and not only sold millions of game cartridges, but Nintendo consoles as well. It also kicked off a series of 007 shooters from different developers, none of which matched its smooth gameplay, immersive environments and superb storytelling. And although the version of Bond in the game didn't possess the specific likeness of film star Pierce Brosnan, it was clear that it was based on him physically.

Well, the N64 system is long-gone (although I still play mine every once in a while), and apparently, someone feels that it's time to revisit the Goldeneye franchise and update it for the mega-popular Wii platform. From the trailer below, it appears to be the same basic game, with the same levels and story, just enhanced with more detailed graphics and some improved AI. Oh yeah, and the character of Bond is portrayed by Daniel Craig.

WTF?

Maybe it's my nostalgia for the original game, or maybe it's because I remember how Brosnan was so instrumental in the success of the 007 franchise back in the 90s, at a time when many people thought the character was irrelevant in a post-Cold War world, and many were speculating that the franchise itself had run its course... but I find it personally offensive that the powers-that-be seem to want to erase Pierce from the history books. (Of course, it may simply be that I prefer Brosnan over Craig as Bond anyway.)

Thanks to fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. HMSS for the head's up.

Video: Before He Was Bond Redux

Another Diet Coke commercial from 1988 pitting a very James Bondian Pierce Brosnan against some nasty ninjas in a scenario reminiscent of a major sequence in Octopussy.

Review: BURN NOTICE S3 DVD

The third season of the USA Network action series, Burn Notice is new on DVD, once again delivering for fans and collectors sixteen hours of some of the best escapism on television.

In this third season, "burned" ex-spy Michael Weston (Jefferey Donovan, Blair Witch 2) finds himself still stuck in Miami, but now completely unprotected. He and his "team" - gunrunning lover Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar, If Looks Could Kill), ex-SEAL Sam (Bruce Campbell, Evil Dead) and his mom, Madeline (Sharon Gless, Cagney & Lacey) - are soon under scrutiny by a tenacious Miami police detective and fending off attacks by a slew of Weston's old enemies, all while continuing to help the helpless and trying to get his old government job back.

As with the previous seasons, fine casting and engaging performances make a potentially routine premise into something highly entertaining. Bright South Florida locations, lots of Miami Beach glamour (including seemingly endless background beauties in bikinis), exciting car stunts, fiery explosions, convincing fights and intriguing scripts mix smoothly into a tasty action-adventure stew.

The characters are the key, though, and the third season does a great job of keeping them fresh and the viewer genuinely interested in what happens to them. In this third year, Weston really pushes his friends to the limits of their loyalty, and has to involve his mother in his schemes to a much greater extent than before. There are a number of great guest stars this year, as well, including Tim Matheson (Animal House) making a return appearance as one of Weston's old adversaries, and Tyne Daly (The Enforcer), who shows up for a cute Cagney & Lacey reunion with Gless.

The four-disc set from Fox Home Entertainment includes all 16 Season Three episodes in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers and Dolby 5.1 Digital audio. Image quality is bright and sharp, and the audio is robust. This set is slim on bonus features - unlike the previous seasons - containing only a short documentary on the series' stunts and video of the cast & crew's appearance at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con.

I follow this show on DVD (Season 4 is just starting on USA now, but I don't have cable and hate watching shows on my desktop), and I always burn through the seasons in a couple of days. The year-long waits between sets can be rough, but by the time the new season hits DVD, I'm really missing the characters and am eager to jump back into their world. Burn Notice is smart, fast-paced television and is highly recommended.

May Debrief

Cripes. It's been a long time since I posted anything here at the Channel except for those DVD reviews that I actually wrote for my DVD Late Show site. Sad (and rather obvious), isn't it?

Anyway, lots of the things have happened lately that I should write about here, like the passing of Peter O' Donnell, creator of the legendary comic strip Modesty Blaise, who died on May 3rd, just a week after his 90th birthday.

He’s best known for creating the classic newspaper strip Modesty Blaise with artist Jim Holdaway. The strip appeared in the London newspaper, The Evening Standard, beginning in 1963 and chronicled daily the adventures of the seductive adventuress for nearly forty years. In 1966, O'Donnell sold the rights to a feature film and wrote the screenplay. The producers changed the script much though, that, in frustration, O'Donnell turned his script into a novel. It was a huge success and led to a dozen or so Blaise novels and a couple of short story collections. The movie, starring Monica Vitti and Terrence Stamp is something of a mess (though still kinda fun to watch), but the novel is a great adventure story. I only have about half of the books, and I'm always on the lookout for more.

R.I.P. Mister O'Donnell. You had a great run.

Over at Tanner's Double-O Section, he's a several days into a OSS 117 Week, looking at the cinematic legacy of author Jean Bruce's incredibly long-running spy hero, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, from the original films from the 50s and 60s to the modern spoofs starring Jean Dujardin. The second of these, OSS 117: Lost In Rio is getting some theatrical play in limited markets, and Tanner's got the scoop. You really have to check it out.

I've actually got part of a review written for the OSS 117 film, Murder For Sale, starring John Gavin. I really need to finish that soon.

Over at Mister 8, Armstrong Sabian's got a fun "tournament of secret agenting" going on, pitting the most legendary fictional spies of literature and cinema against each other. Drop by and cast your votes!

More soon....

Review: FROM THE ORIENT WITH FURY DVD

The second film in the "Dick Malloy, Agent 077" trilogy starring Ken Clark (ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, SPECIAL MISSON LADY CHAPLIN) is a fun, fast-paced slice of Eurospy adventure, with the requisite amount of beautiful women, furious fistfights, and a familiar but fun sci-fi McGuffin.

FROM THE ORIENT WITH FURY (1965, a/k/a FURY ON THE BOSPHOROUS), opens with the abduction of scientist Professor Kurtz (Ennio Balbo), inventor of a powerful new disintegrator ray (an Eurospy staple), by a villainous crimelord named Goldwyn (Franco Ressel, SABATA). Of course, the CIA assigns their top op, Agent 077 (Clark), to find the missing prof, and his investigation first leads him to Kurtz' errant daughter Romy (Fabienne Dali) in Paris. Soon, he's following a trail of tenuous leads that take him to Madrid and then Instanbul, and encounters with Goldwyn's sexy henchwoman (Evi Marandi) and fellow agent Evelyn Stone (popular Eurospy vixen Margaret Lee, SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON). Eventually, it all leads to Goldwyn's cliffside hideout and a lethal demonstration of the Professor's death ray gun....

Not quite as polished as the first and last 077 adventures, ORIENT is, nonetheless, an enjoyable international romp with a slew of sexy women (I'm a big fan of the curvaceous Ms. Lee), plenty of rough and tumble two-fisted action for the athletic Clark, and professional direction by Sergio Grieco. Agent 077 is equipped with a few nifty gadgets, and his globetrotting provides the viewer with some nice travelogue footage. Although the death ray is a common McGuffin in these flicks, I thought that in this case, at least, the ray gun prop was pretty cool, and the simple special effects nicely executed.

Dorado Films' DVD features a solid 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer from a reasonably decent source print. There's a little bit of dirt and print damage evident, and some very minor color shifting issues, but otherwise, it's quite stable, with solid contrasts, good detail, and no obvious cuts or missing frames. Audio is English 2.0.

Dorado has include text bio/filmographies for Clark and Ms. Lee and trailers for the other 077 films, as well as another Ken Clark Eurothriller, THE TIFFANY MEMORANDUM.

For fans of the genre, FROM THE ORIENT WITH FURY is a fine, if low-budget espionage adventure, not quite as odd as some of its contemporaries, but with a full complement of glamorous women and fisticuffs. Recommended.

Review: OSS 117; CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES DVD

In 1949, French author Jean Bruce penned the first of what would become a long-running series of spy novels starring American secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, code named OSS 117. The book series, which predated Ian Fleming's first James Bond novels by a couple years, eventually ran to a staggering ninety-one titles(!) and a slew of film adaptations that were extremely popular in Europe during the 007-fueled spy craze of the Sixties.

In 2006, French director Michel Hazanavicius and writer Jean-François Halin collaborated on a revival of the character, OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES - a brilliantly funny parody of 60s Eurospy films and one of the smartest comedies of the decade. It took two more years for that movie to make it to the United States, where it - unjustly - went mostly unnoticed, despite being a huge hit in Europe.

Jean Dujardin plays French secret agent OSS 117, who's sort of a cross between Maxwell Smart, Inspector Clouseau and a Gallic Sean Connery. He's sent to Cairo – a "nest of spies" – to investigate the death of another agent, his "close friend," Jack. His ham-fisted and fumbling investigation brings him into conflict with the British, the Russians, Arab revolutionaries and holdout Nazis, but he ultimately manages to get the job done. Set in 1955 (with a hilarious WW2-set prologue), CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES is a dead-on parody of the Eurospy genre.

The jokes and sight gags are hysterical and clever, the characters are great (I especially enjoy how the filmmakers were willing to let their hero be a complete and utter ass sometimes), the girls are gorgeous, and the production and costume designs are incredible, flawlessly recreating the film's 1950's milieu. I especially dug the swinging, loungy musical score by Ludovic Bource. Most importantly, Dujardin is perfect as the arrogant, self-absorbed de la Bath, masterfully handling the script's many comic challenges while still being utterly convincing in action.

A second OSS 117 film starring Dujardin has been made, OSS 117: RIO DOES NOT RESPOND (2009), this time set in the swinging Sixties, but unfortunately, it has not received a stateside release in any format. And a third film, as yet untitled, is apparently being prepared.

The Region 1 DVD of CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES from Music Box Films sports a gorgeous 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. The dialogue is in French, and optional English subtitles are provided. Supplemental features include a "Making Of" documentary, some deleted scenes, and a blooper reel.

Fans of Sixties spies like James Bond, the men from U.N.C.L.E. or our man Derek Flint, will definitely want to add this movie to their collections – it is vastly funnier than the recent GET SMART remake and smarter by far than the Austin Powers films.

OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES gets my highest recommendation. Rent it today, or better yet, buy a copy for your collection.

Obit: Robert Culp, R.I.P

Well, shit. Just ten days after the passing of Mission: Impossible's Peter Graves, we have the loss of another great Sixties spy-fi star, Robert Culp, who played American agent Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965-68). Not only did he co-star with Bill Cosby on the show, but he was instrumental in its creation, and wrote seven of its finest episodes. He also directed one. Perhaps most memorably, in the episode "The War Lord," which he wrote, he played dual roles: Robinson and a ruthless but philosophical Asian criminal. It's a fantastic performance, and the script is phenomenal.

I first actually encountered Mr. Culp when I was a teenager watching the Stephen Cannell series, The Greatest American Hero (1981-86). Culp played FBI agent Bill Maxwell, a gloriously gung-ho Conservative forced to work with a goofball, Liberal schoolteacher with a super-suit. Not only was he incredibly funny, he gave the potentially cartoonish character great dignity and strength of character. I was a fan from the first episode. Later, I discovered reruns of I Spy on cable, and was immediately enamored of the superior writing, chemistry between the leads, and global scope of the series.

Culp made many other excursions into the spy-fi genre. Aside from reprising the Robinson role in a 1994 TV reunion movie, he played a great (and surprisingly sympathetic) villain in a first season Man from U.N.C.LE. episode, had a hilarious cameo in the Get Smart parody of I Spy, appeared on A Man Called Sloane and the short-lived 90s series Spy Game, and hosted the Comedy Central special Spyography (parodying Peter Graves!) to promote the second Austin Powers film.

The IMDb lists over 160 acting credits for the man, who was a prolific guest star on series television from the 50s through the 90s, as well as an in-demand character actor in features. He was justly praised for his starring role in the classic Outer Limits episode, "Demon With A Glass Hand," written by Harlan Ellison. One of my favorite, virtually forgotten, Culp roles was as the lead in Gene Roddenberry's unsold TV pilot, Spectre (1977), where he played a Holmesian occult investigator. I also loved him in Hickey & Boggs (1972), the feature film he wrote and directed for himself and Cosby. It's another nearly-forgotten film, and that's a shame, because it's a great crime flick.

Rest well, Mister Culp. And thanks.

Review: SCARECROW & MRS. KING S1 DVD

Back in the Eighties, I never watched Scarecrow And Mrs. King (1983-1987). Even though I dug spies and adventure stories, and had enjoyed star Bruce Boxleitner in TRON and his short-lived Bring 'Em Back Alive series (which aired the season before Scarecrow premiered), as a teenager/young adult, I simply had no interest in watching some "old" housewife with kids as the female lead in such a show. In fact, I'd always thought of actress Kate Jackson as the somewhat plain Charlie's Angel that was just on the show to emphasize how beautiful Jacquelyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd were in contrast.

But you know, I wasn't really the audience for this series.

For nearly half the decade, Scarecrow And Mrs. King chronicled the adventures of American secret agent Lee Stetson (great 80s name!), codename "Scarecrow," ('natch) and his untrained - but gutsy and spunky - divorcee partner, Amanda King, as they worked to preserve national security from KGB Commies and other nefarious organizations and individuals.

Back in the Sixties, the early episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. almost always had a pretty civilian woman - usually a housewife - caught up in the espionage caper of the week, and she had to help the heroic secret agent heroes complete that particular mission. The idea behind this was that the women watching at home would identify with these "innocent" characters, and enjoy fantasizing about what they'd do if they were swept off their feet by a handsome stranger and into a glamorous world of danger and adventure for a while. What the producers of Scarecrow did was simply take that formula and build the entire show on it, and instead of bringing in a new woman every week, they'd actually make that "identification character" the star.

And it must have worked, because the show ran four seasons, and was extremely popular among female viewers. Understandable, I guess, because, at least in the first season episodes just released by Warner Brothers on DVD, suburban single mom Mrs. King seems to be a lot smarter and more capable than Boxlietner's so-called professional spy. Scarecrow has a suspicious tendency to keep getting captured by bad guys and thus need rescuing by his civilian partner. He also seems to keep missing huge, sometimes obvious clues that Mrs. King always catches pretty easily.

The show itself is pretty standard Eighties escapist fare, with non-taxing plots, likable leads, familiar guest stars, lots of amusing fashion and hairstyling disasters, and a light, amiable tone. I do find the theme music to be insidiously annoying, though. Boxleitner is solid in his role, and Jackson is both more attractive and less irritating than I remembered. TV and B-movie veteran Beverly Garland (It Conquered The World, Not Of This Earth), co-stars as Mrs. King's mom, Dotty.

Warner Brothers has brought the first season of Scarecrow And Mrs. King to DVD in a perfectly satisfactory, if bare-bones, 5-disc, 21 episode set. The full-frame, 1.33:1 transfers are rock solid and in good shape for a nearly 30 year-old show. Audio is a clear, crisp Dolby Digital mono. There are no extra features.

If you are - or someone you know is - a fan of the show, Warners' DVD set is fine, reasonably-priced, and would make a worthy addition to your spy-fi video library.

Japanese Spy-Fi Poster Week, Day Five

The Japanese one-sheet for 1965's Thunderball. Again, I find the composition of the montage and the graphic design very appealing.

Japanese Spy-Fi Poster Week, Day Four

The Japanese one-sheet for the second James Coburn Derek Flint film, In Like Flint, uses a variation on the original U.S. art (although apparently re-painted) , but adds into the montage some new artwork for a nicely appealing design. These posters are so cool.