This is Vintage Now, released a few weeks ago, is a retro music compilation that isn’t designed to cash in on nostalgia– rather, it’s a harbinger of a growing movement to revive not only the style but the values of classic culture. Featuring 10 songs from artists of all ages and nations, This is Vintage Now embodies the sound of classic jazz, rock, and pop music but doesn’t come off as pure nostalgia. Producer David Gasten, who appears on the record with his band The City Kids, explains the reason the disc doesn’t sound like a cynical ploy preying on older generations’ memories:

The Vintage Movement is a new social movement of people who are essentially trying to escape back to the 1940’s, 1950’s, and early-to mid-1960’s. Many times attempts at bringing a period back have been short-lived (e.g. the Nineties Swing Revival) because they were not rooted in a inside-out, values-based way of doing things. People come to these older styles because they want to escape. They want to visit an alternate world where class and quality are the rule, not the exception. They want to be excited about life and culture instead of slimed by the same old garbage over and over again. And they want to get along with others, have good conversations, flirt, dance, enjoy great music and movies, etc. The ladies want to be treated like ladies, and the gentlemen want to be able to be gentlemen.

Spanning a wide range of styles, from Beverley Kenney’s whimsical ’40s-era piano ballad to Big Jay McNeely’s raucous boogie-woogie to The Necro Tonz’s edgy jazz to Caro Emerald’s catchy neo-swing tune “Just One Dance” (see the YouTube Video below), This is Vintage Now is a well-paced, engaging listen, and its intent is exactly the type of culture-changing  media we need to combat the values-destroying narcissism and nihilism of the world’s currently dominant “artists.” TIVN is available from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and other online retailers, or you can order it directly from the compilation’s home website to get extra tracks from a special Release Party edition.

Lady Gaga’s relief efforts in the wake of Japan’s giant earthquake and tsunami have come under scrutiny from a Michigan legal network. The entity known as 1-800-LAW-FIRM has slapped Big Hollywood’s favorite singer with a lawsuit claiming that she has pocketed some of the proceeds from the sale of $5 wristbands bearing the words “We Pray for Japan,” though she claims all proceeds have gone to tsunami victims. A Gaga spokesperson claims the lawsuit is “without merit,” so we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, I think we can at least agree one must exercise caution buying charity products “designed” by celebrities. I mean, really– is Gaga really “designing” by choosing four words to stamp on a piece of rubber?

The Arcade Fire’s short film with Spike Jonze (poser indie director of the truly atrocious Where the Wild Things Are), “Scenes from the Suburbs,” has been released as a companion piece to the group’s Grammy-winning album.  The film follows the lazy summer days of a group of teenagers whose neighborhood– wait for it– is under martial law… because of Iraq… or something. The facepalm-inducing trailer gives us a good understanding of why the music community was so willing to give this middling record the Album of the Year award.

Weird Al Yankovic has finally released the music video for his Lady Gaga parody “Perform this Way” which almost didn’t see the light of day thanks to his deference to the egos of his parody target. Fortunately, after news of Gaga’s apparent snub went viral on Twitter, the alleged Lady changed her mind and allowed Al to sell the song on his upcoming LP Alpocalypse and produce said music video. It’s slightly NSFW, not so much for partial nudity as for how disturbing it is to watch Weird Al’s head digitally grafted onto the body of some lithe young woman.

Big Hollywood’s own Seth Swirsky has released a new album, As Far as Yesterday Goes, through his band The Red Button, a delightful pop collaboration with Mike Ruekberg. Though Ruekberg’s voice isn’t quite as distinctive or velvety as Seth’s, the pair share the mic quite liberally, and the same strong songwriting that defined Swirsky’s 2010 solo work is on full display here. It’s a brighter, bouncier, less melancholy record, and while it may not ultimately have the staying power of Watercolor Day, As Far as Yesterday Goes is definitely worthwhile summer entertainment. Pop it in your car and take a long, leisurely ride, and you’ll forget how much money you’re burning away with your gas.

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Album of the Month: Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Justin Vernon, a folk songwriter from Wisconsin, exploded into the indie music world with a self-produced album titled For Emma, Forever Ago in 2007. His music stood out for its stark, lonely atmosphere, stacking multiple tracks of acoustic guitar and soulful, falsetto vocals which Vernon would sometimes heavily auto-tune– overcoming the stereotypes of the digital tool by using it as an artistic statement rather than a crutch for lazy singing.

In 2008, he released an EP, Blood Bank, which caught the attention of pop superstar Kanye West, who collaborated with Vernon on his bestseller My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, pulling the singer-songwriter further into the national spotlight and increasing speculation about what direction his sophomore LP might take. Well, here it is: Bon Iver’s self-title new album, released June 21st, is not only the best album of June by far; it’s certainly jockeying for first place come 2011’s best-of lists.

The highest compliment I can think of is that Bon Iver sounds like Sufjan Stevens’ The Age of Adz semi-unplugged. That magnificent record (the best of 2010, if I may say so) fully blended aggressive synthesizers, rock instrumentation, and a full orchestra. On the much more muted Bon Iver, we hear more acoustic instruments ringing over a far emptier space. There’s a thread of hushed synth saws weaving in and out of the songs, electric guitars swooping from lonely, single-note noodling to even sadder, full-chord strumming, and a revolving cast of characters including low-register woodwinds, pianos, banjos, string quartets, and the most magnificent use of electric piano ever. Ever. Equipped with better recording equipment, we don’t hear his signature auto-tune as often; Vernon sings louder, more confidently, even dipping into his lower register a few times.

All these elements are arranged and recorded perfectly; whereas Age of Adz pulls its listener into an intimate, emotionally wrenching personal drama, Bon Iver sweeps one away to a waking dream, surveying the beauty of the world through wide-scoped views of its landscapes (all the song titles are or are related to the names of various North American towns). Though they differ in their particulars, both albums are significant in that their respective artists attain complete control of the orchestration and engineering of their music, fully utilizing the potential of the recording studio to create transcendent works which stand wholly apart from the comparatively banal conventions of their contemporaries. Lightning has struck once again, folks; this one is not to be missed.

Shaw:

[I]n today’s politically charged climate, [dark humor during a tragedy is] darned near a capital offense. We saw this in action this week when Gilbert Gottfried lost his job as the voice of the Aflac duck after tweeting some ill timed jokes relating to the tsunami in Japan. Shortly thereafter, Haley Barbour’s press secretary had to resign after e-mailing the following comment:

“Otis Redding posthumously received a gold record for his single, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay. (Not a big hit in Japan right now.) “

Even rapper 50 Cent – not exactly known as a paragon of good taste and demure social commentary – found himself having to offer a half-hearted apology on Twitter after rattling off a couple of tsunami jokes.

What’s happening to us? Are we really that easily put off our feed? When faced with unspeakable tragedy such as we’ve witnessed recently, do we really prefer to gnash our teeth, rend our clothes and wander around in a daze? There are some people – including yours truly – who find relief from such horrors in dark humor and a “what the heck are ya gonna do?” sort of attitude.

The first “tsunami tweet” I came across was from “Family Guy” writer Alec Sulkin, who wrote (he later apologized):

“If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google ‘Pearl Harbor death toll’,” he tweeted over the weekend.

I didn’t find it particularly funny, but it didn’t even strike me as a big enough deal for a Big Hollywood story, and the thought of him losing his job never even crossed my mind. If Gottfried hadn’t become news, I likely would’ve forgotten the whole thing. But then Gottfried tweeted stuff like….

“I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, ‘They’ll be another one floating by any minute now’.”

…Aflac canned him and the rest is history. 

So beyond the “free country” issue, should Gottfried have lost his job over this? After all, Aflac knew what they were getting with Gottfried. This is his style. But if Aflac was worried about a PR backlash after the tweets, it makes sense for them to move quickly. But that brings us back to Jazz Shaw’s overall point. Should Americans be so outraged by gallows humor that a company finds it necessary to fire the offender?

Being outraged to the point where someone loses their job is going way, way too far in this case. But at the same time posting a joke on Twitter is something entirely different than trading gallows humor with a friend over the phone (an example Shaw uses) or over a beer. This isn’t a perfect comparison to Twitter, but how would we feel if Leno or Letterman told these jokes during one of their monologues? Twitter’s a megaphone.

Few people walk this comedic line as well as Greg Gutfeld, who I thought summed it up well in Monday’s Gregalogue:

At this point, a Mothra joke seems inevitable – but also lame.

Lame. Good word. But being lame isn’t a crime and the use of the word “lame” can also be considered offensive, so before I get myself in trouble…

At this point, a Mothra joke seems inevitable – but also lame. Frankly, I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that adds incite or comfort to anyone after such a horrendous event.

Living in Manhattan, I’m always reminded of man’s ugliness. But I’ve forgotten about the arbitrary viciousness of Mother Nature. Looking at the devastation, from my cozy apartment, I can only think that there was someone in Japan doing that exact same thing when the quake hit. Sitting at home, drinking tea, in boxers.

Then it’s over.

Disaster rarely calls ahead.

We are all vulnerable to the whims of catastrophe, and as far as I can tell, there’s little wisdom to be gained from it.

Well, other than info for future planning.

Yep – we all know life is precious. But it’s also a sentence featuring ever-more-brutal methods of mayhem, and the hell in Japan just added another exclamation point.

Anyway, you’d think there are no winners in this tragedy, but you’re wrong.

If there’s one man who’s smiling broadly throughout, it has to be Kaddafi, who’s own cruel behavior has been lost in all the grim tsunami coverage – his viciousness buried under so many other stories of suffering.

If there’s anything to be gained from this terrible weekend, it’s that maybe someone might send a drone to Tripoli, and we can blame it on the weather.

Tonight: Mike Baker and S.E. Cupp.

Plus other stuff.

Gilbert Gottfried isn’t the only celeb “joking” about Japan’s unthinkable tragedy.  Rapper 50 Cent:

“Wave will hit 8am them crazy white boys gonna try to go surfing,” the rapper wrote Friday morning, as the West Coast braced for a potential tsunami.

He followed it up with, “Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoess from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol.”

“Family Guy” writer/Producer Alec Sulkin (who later apologized):

“If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google ‘Pearl Harbor death toll’,” he tweeted over the weekend.

From The Street we learn comedian Gilbert Gottfried has been fired by Aflac for his “jokes”:

Gilbert Gottfried was fired by Aflac on Monday after the comedian made a number of distasteful jokes about the devastation in Japan.

“Japan is really advanced,” Gottfried tweeted on Monday afternoon, “They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.”

Aflac quickly cut ties with the comedian following a string of similar comments. 

Hollywood Reporter has more:

Aflac, which does 75 percent of its business in Japan, also plans to donate $100 million to disaster relief.

Gottfried has yet to apologize for the jokes, which included: “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, ‘They’ll be another one floating by any minute now.’”

Free country. Free to mock. Free to terminate employment. Free to wonder how anyone could see or look for or attempt to mine humor and attention from the relentlessly heartbreaking images broadcast over the weekend.

Hope and Roosevelt 

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was the first of eleven presidents Republican Bob Hope entertained. The commander-in-chief loved the comedian on the big screen and appreciated Hope’s efforts entertaining the troops during World War II. Their paths crossed when Bob emceed a dinner in the president’s honor, a few months before Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. In front of a crowd of luminaries, Hope told a story about a Marine in the South Pacific who was disappointed that he had not encountered an enemy combatant.

At the edge of a jungle, with his gun at the ready, he shouted out, “To hell with Hirohito!”

A Japanese soldier emerged from behind the trees. “To hell with Roosevelt!”

But the Marine lowered his weapon. “Darn it, I can’t shoot a fellow Republican. ”The president threw back his head and laughed so hard Bob later said he almost considered voting for him. 

Red Skelton the Loner 

Comedian Red Skelton felt very little need to socialize during the twenty-one seasons his TV show ran on the air. Like his famed clown character, Freddy the Freeloader, the Indiana-born Skelton was a natural loner. Why should he spend time with fellow comedians, who were more interested in topping his performances rather than being his friend? Let others hang around Hollywood nightclubs, and give the impression to their fans that they were out-of-control drunks. In the turbulent 1960s, the very conservative Red felt even more isolated from younger comics whose humor seemed raunchy and inappropriate. His most important relationship was with his audience. One rare night when he ate out, Red observed a comedy writer entertaining his dinner mates. Appreciative of the man’s talents, Skelton walked up to his table and stated, “I wish you worked on my show.”

The scribe was startled. “But I do.” 

The Unusual Speaking Engagement 

One day in the 1950s, George Jessel was having lunch with some fellow comedians when he was approached by a stranger who asked him to speak at his dog’s funeral. The famous toastmaster, who often got into trouble professionally because of his outspoken conservative politics and his fierce support of Israel, was insulted. Jessel’s speechmaking was reserved for political and entertainment gatherings. This fellow was humiliating him; George’s friends would probably rib him about pet eulogies for the next five years. The cash-starved womanizer began to reconsider when the man quietly promised to pay him a great deal of money. Still, George hesitated. Could he really agree to this indignity in front of his pals? His would-be benefactor then stated that he would also donate heavily to George’s pet cause, the Jewish Relief Fund. Slowly, Jessel broke into a smile and then said, “Why didn’t you tell me your dog was Jewish?” 

Dinner at the Hepburns’

Katherine Hepburn always laughed whenever Spencer Tracy told the story of his visit to her family home in Connecticut. One night at dinner, the outspoken actress got into a lively argument with her father Doc Hepburn about how to best help the less fortunate. Tired of their moralizing, Tracy went out to the porch for a smoke. After a couple of puffs, he looked up to see a very lost, very timid-looking Mexican fisherman who had somehow stumbled onto the property. Tracy yelled inside, “Hey, better get another plate ready in there, the poor are here to collect.”

Old man Hepburn came out on the porch. “Hey you, get the hell out of here! I’ll sic the dogs on you.”

After the frightened trespasser ran away, Thomas Hepburn told the startled Tracy, “Got to get the alarms fixed.” 

Then the men went back inside, and the family resumed their discussion on aiding society’s downtrodden.

It started with the fan letters — fifteen hundred per week. Then came the mobs rushing gates at movie premieres and personal appearances — screaming, fainting, tearing at his clothes, all demanding time, autographs, kisses, and more. Soon, even walking down the street incognito or taking his family out to dinner became perilous endeavors.

“The whole damn thing took over,” said his then-wife, the Academy-Award nominated actress Diane Cilento. “He really didn’t know who he was. People would call over to him things like, ‘Hey, Bondy, where’re you off to next?’ or ‘See any Soviet agents lately?’ It became impossible to have any sort of life. . . .It got madder and madder with each film.”

Every time it looked as if matters couldn’t get any worse, they did. In Tokyo (where they greeted him with screams of  “Bondo!”) Connery was using a bathroom urinal when he heard a quiet click. Startled, he glanced up to see a Japanese photographer peeking around his shoulder with a Nikon. On another occasion, after graciously signing his name for an elderly lady at the airport, she reacted with a look of horror. “No, no!” she said, “I wanted James Bond.” Director Terence Young, who was with Connery, remembers that “Sean sort of crumpled. It suddenly occurred to him that he was no longer a human being, he was a symbol.”

For a painfully private and unassuming family man like Connery, this insane superstardom — Bond-age, you might call it — was intolerable. And so even as Goldfinger was smashing box-office records across the world, the actor responsible for playing the hero was counting down the days until his contract expired.

Tommy Connery was born in 1930 on the wrong side of the tracks of Edinburgh, Scotland, arriving just in time to grow up amidst the poverty of the Great Depression (his crib was a dresser drawer). At age eight he was already finding whatever odd jobs he could to help support Mom, Dad, and a younger brother: delivering milk and newspapers, working for the local butcher. By fourteen he was working three different jobs.

What little spare time he had was spent bodybuilding, and he soon transformed himself into a formidable, well-muscled bruiser. “There was nothing of the long-haired poet about schoolboy Connery,” recalls one of his classmates. “He was big, and he was as hard as nails in an easygoing way, and anyone at school who messed him about got a thick ear and a black eye.” After opening up a can of whoop-ass on a gang of local bullies one day, kids on the street started respectfully calling him “Big Tam.” Later “Shane” became an alternate moniker, inspired by the 1953 film. According to one version of the story, years of neighborhood use eventually corrupted Shane into Sean, and thus Tommy Connery’s reputation for toughness earned him the name that would one day adorn theater marquees around the world.

From early on, Sean found himself looking for some way to escape the claustrophobic slums of postwar Edinburgh, where generations of lower-class workers slaved away in quiet toil only to have sons and grandsons repeat the whole business ad infinitum. At sixteen he abandoned school and joined the Merchant Navy (a pair of tattoos stenciled on his right forearm — “Mum and Dad” and “Scotland Forever” — gave him the requisite Popeye look), but a year later he was mustered out on medical grounds from an ulcer. He spent the rest of his teens bumming around town as an “odd-job man”: steelworker, road worker, coal delivery man, cement-mixer, lifeguard, artist’s model, newspaper press-room worker, and bouncer at the local Big Band dance hall.

It was while serving as a polisher of tables and coffins that a co-worker introduced him to stagehand work at King’s Theater, and the exposure gave Connery the acting bug. When he and a friend later went to London to compete in the Mr. Universe contest on a lark (Connery says he placed third in the tall men’s class, others insist he didn’t make the cut), his ears perked up when someone mentioned that the touring show for South Pacific was on the lookout for burly actors who could sing. Connery crashed the audition, won a job, and was soon traveling all around the British Isles performing six evenings a week as a grunt in the chorus.

Mingling with professional actors for the first time prompted the high-school dropout to begin educating himself with Ibsen, Proust, Tolstoy, Stanislavski, and Thomas Wolfe. At a party he met another young actor named Maurice Micklewhite, and soon the two blue-collar thespians were commiserating about their troublesome accents (a Scottish brogue in Connery’s case, a Cockney twang for Micklewhite). This new pal would eventually change his name too, inspired by a 1954 Bogart movie poster, and thereafter Sean Connery and Michael Caine would remain lifelong friends.

Connery’s athletic prowess was such that, after a soccer match between the cast of South Pacific and a local team, he was offered a professional contract with Manchester United. After thinking over his options, however, he turned it down, choosing instead to keep hammering away at the frustrating but ultimately fulfilling acting game. “One of my more intelligent moves,” Connery later quipped.

A lucky break came when Jack Palance suddenly pulled out of a BBC production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, causing the director to take a wild chance on a physically imposing but still largely untested Scotsman. Connery put in countless hours of practice learning his lines and molding a serviceable American accent, and when the play appeared on TV reviews were good. In the wake of this success, Twentieth-Century Fox’s British office signed the twenty-seven-year-old to a studio contract. which Connery would later say was akin to “walking through a swamp in a bad dream.” Over a period of years Fox didn’t use him in a single project, choosing instead to occasionally loan him out to other studios for a quick buck.

Terence Young, who would direct three early Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball), remembers working with the young Connery on an early movie shoot. “He came to me and said in that very Scots accent of his, ‘Sir, am I going to be a success in this?’” Touched by this display of hopeful innocence, and impressed by his raw if unfinished talent, the director leveled with the struggling actor: “No — but keep on swimming. Just keep at it, and I’ll make it up to you.”

And that’s exactly what Connery did, acting in whatever films Fox loaned him out for. One day, on the set of Another Time, Another Place (1958) co-starring Lana Turner, her notorious hoodlum boyfriend Johnny Stompanato stormed the set and began waving a gun at the Scotsman, threatening to pump Connery full of holes if he should touch the legendary beauty. In an instant the Big Tam of old roared to life, leaping out of his chair like a panther, twisting the gun away, and sending the gangster flying with a wallop to his nose. Still later Connery would star in the one high-point of his Fox contract: Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959), a performance made possible by a timely loan-out of the actor to Disney. The film was the usual Magic Kingdom success (Connery’s rendition of “Pretty Irish Girl” was even released on the radio as a single), and ultimately it would become an instrumental stepping stone to Bond.

Throughout the Fifties various parties had optioned the rights to James Bond, but all of those efforts resulted in nothing more than a single, mediocre 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale. It wasn’t until the early Sixties that a pair of aging, on-the-rocks movie producers named Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made the whole thing work. Crucially, after negotiating the rights, they hired Terence Young as their director. Soon after getting the gig, Young attended a play in England and noticed that one of the muscular figures up on stage looked familiar. It was that kid — Sean what’s-his-name — who had so impressed him years earlier. Remembering his old promise to give him a boost someday, the wheels started turning: could this fellow possibly handle the Bond assignment?

He mentioned Connery to Broccoli, who did his own research by taking his wife to see a reissue screening of Darby O’Gill. When she began panting over the actor’s raw sex appeal, the producer’s interest was piqued. One meeting later and Connery had the job. “He bounced across the street like he was Superman,” marveled Broccoli about their first encounter. “He moved like a cat. That did it for us. Harry and I both said, ‘This is the guy.’”

“We’d never seen a surer guy,” Saltzman added. “Or a more arrogant sonofabitch!” Connery later explained that he deliberately gave off that impression during their initial confrontation. “My strength as an actor, I think, is that I’ve stayed close to the core of myself, which has something to do with a voice, a music, a tune that’s very much tied up with my background experience.” That voice, that music, harkens back to the mean streets of the Edinburgh slums, when a muscled kid named Big Tam once faced down gangsters and gained the respect of the neighborhood.

The execs at United Artists weren’t convinced by Broccoli and Saltzman’s enthusiasm, cabling them back from America with a curt request to “See if you can do better.” But the minds of the two producing partners were all made up. “Put a bit of veneer on that tough Scottish hide,” Broccoli promised, “and you’ve got Fleming’s Bond instead of all the mincing poofs we had apply for the job.”

The “bit of veneer” was provided by director Young, a man of fine tastes and manners who took Big Tam under his wing and taught him how to act sophisticated. Young decked Connery out in the finest clothes from Savile Row using his own tailor, and continually coached the actor in the nuances of creating a polished performance (“Sean, do keep your mouth shut while chewing your food!” “Tone down that bloody Scottish brogue!”). Soon Connery was looking and acting the part, to the point where movie critic Pauline Kael would gush that, “Connery looks absolutely confident in himself as a man. Women want to meet him and men want to be him. I don’t know any man since Cary Grant that men have wanted to be so much.”

Although the transformation sent the movie’s producers over the moon, the character’s creator took a bit more convincing. “I don’t think [Ian Fleming] approved of me terribly,” Connery later said. “But he did have casting rights over the film, so I guess he must have come round to the idea.” Fleming initially dismissed Connery as “that laborer playing Bond,” but once the first few films were successful he changed his tune, going so far as to adopt Connery’s Scottish background for the Bond of the books.

For those of us who wish Connery could have played Bond all the way up to the present day, the way his participation in the series ended was unfortunate. Compared to what Broccoli and Saltzman were making, Connery’s share of the burgeoning 007 pie was small, with only a fixed salary and a bit of profit participation to offset all the hell that Bond’s fame was playing with his life. Meanwhile, his image was being used on all manner of merchandise (toys, cars, aftershave — hundreds of products in all) without him getting so much as a cent for it:

I was paying 98% tax. I was making all this money and making movies and I had nothing. . . . Basically I’m a private person, and the Bond producers wouldn’t let me be that. I’d work six days a week, all day, with much of the work physical, then have to spend every free moment answering stupid questions like, “Do you like to beat people up? Slap women around?”

As the character’s popularity reached insane levels with the release of Goldfinger, Terence Young (slated to direct Bond’s next adventure, Thunderball) sensed Connery’s dismay with his stardom, and advised the producers that they would be wise to take the actor on as a full partner. “He’s a Scotsman,” Young argued. “He likes the sound of gold coins clinking together. He likes that lovely soft rustle of paper. He’ll stay with you if he’s a partner, but not if you use him as a hired employee.” Broccoli and Saltzman rejected the idea out of hand. In their opinion, Connery was getting more than enough for his trouble, and could be replaced fairly easily if needed. “All I ever did to Sean Connery,” Broccoli later said, “was make him an international star and a very, very wealthy man.”

Insulted by their stinginess and tired of the demands put on his time and life, Connery would grudgingly finish out his contract with Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967), then after a one-film hiatus commit to a final movie, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), so that he could donate his million-dollar paycheck to charity. But even as he appreciated what 007 did for his career, he left the fold with bitter feelings towards the two producers who, in his judgment, got filthy rich while he did most of the heavy lifting. “I’ve been screwed by more people than a hooker,” he said in disgust at the end of his run with the Broccoli outfit. “Bond’s been good to me, but I’ve done my bit. I’m out.”

And except for thumbing his nose at his erstwhile employers with the non-Broccoli-produced Never Say Never Again (1982), he’s stayed out. Like another veteran actor, Gene Hackman, Connery retired almost a decade ago and hasn’t looked back. He now spends his days enjoying “golf, food and drink,” that first item being a passion developed in 1964 while training for Bond’s epic match against The Man With The Midas Touch in Goldfinger.

Decades after his own stint, Connery was asked whether he had any advice to offer the then-new Bond, Timothy Dalton. His answer was only half-joking: “I hope he has a good lawyer.”

Next week in For Conservative Movie Lovers, a look at (and a listen to) the iconic music of Goldfinger.

Previous posts in the series “Ian Fleming, Sean Connery, and Goldfinger”

Part 1 | Part 2

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Sean Connery: Neither Shaken nor Stirred by Andrew Yule. (Also published as Sean Connery: From 007 to Hollywood Icon.) The world is chock-full of Sean Connery biographies, even though he’s kept pretty mum about his personal life in the decades since he gave up being Bond. I found this one to stand out above the rest by virtue of its anecdotes fueled by superior research and original interviews.

Sean Connery singing “Pretty Irish Girl” in Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). This great live-action movie is of a kind that Disney gave up making long ago. Judge for yourself whether Cubby Broccoli’s wife was right when she thought that ol’ Big Tam displayed here the requisite sex appeal for his future role as James Bond.

Barbara Walters vs. Sean Connery! Watch Walters ambush Connery in typical leftist sneak-attack fashion, pitting her practiced feminist high dudgeon against his relaxed masculinity. Will he crack under the withering disapproval of this liberal-news-network Lady Macbeth? Or will he end up, in typical Bond fashion, “Neither Shaken Nor Stirred”?

Sean Connery — AFI Award Tribute. A nice 2006 career-capping speech from a class act.

Much has been written of the recent Tom Hanks remarks to Douglas Brinkley in a Time Magazine interview about his upcoming HBO series on World War II in the Pacific. Here is the explosive excerpt that is making the rounds today.

“Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”

Hanks may not have been quoted correctly; and his remarks may have been impromptu and poorly expressed; and we should give due consideration to the tremendous support Hanks has given in the past both to veterans and to commemoration of World War II; and his new HBO series could well be a fine bookend to Band of Brothers.  All that said, Hanks’ comments were sadly infantile pop philosophizing offered by, well,  an ignoramus.

Hanks thinks he is trying to explain the multifaceted Pacific theater in terms of a war brought on by and fought through racial animosity. That is ludicrous. Consider:

1) In earlier times, we had good relations with Japan (an ally during World War I, that played an important naval role in defeating imperial Germany at sea) and had stayed neutral in its disputes with Russia (Teddy Roosevelt won a 1906 Nobel peace Prize for his intermediary role). The crisis that led to Pearl Harbor was not innately with the Japanese people per se (tens of thousands of whom had emigrated to the United States on word of mouth reports of opportunity for Japanese immigrants), but with Japanese militarism and its creed of Bushido that had hijacked, violently so in many cases, the government and put an entire society on a fascistic footing. We no more wished to annihilate Japanese because of racial hatred than we wished to ally with their Chinese enemies because of racial affinity. In terms of geo-strategy, race was not the real catalyst for war other than its role among Japanese militarists in energizing expansive Japanese militarism.

Read the full article here.

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What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain.

Gojira is pretty cool on its own and is available in an awesome DVD collector’s edition (which also includes Godzilla, King of the Monsters).  Gojira is very dark, both literally and figuratively.  Black and white is really the only way to see Godzilla in action, and most of the monster attacks conveniently take place at night.  In the shadows and the flickering flames of the shattered city, you almost forget that it’s a dude in a dinosaur suit.

Under the capable, steady direction of Ishirô Honda, Gojira forgoes subtlety and is a pretty straightforward nuclear weapons allegory.  Godzilla represents the Japanese perception of what they saw as an uncaring, unstoppable and undeserved alien force of remorseless destruction wreaking havoc on their homeland, sort of like the rain of fire that descended upon Japan from American B-29s less than a decade before.

Accordingly, the central visual theme of the film is flame.  It surrounds Godzilla as he smashes through the city, it frames him on the horizon and it literally comes from within him, evoking both the pika don of the A-bomb detonations but also the even more destructive night fire bombing campaign of General Curtis LeMay.  There’s more going on here than just a monster movie – and post-WW2 Americans could not have cared less.

Of course, you don’t need to let this self-pitying revisionism get in the way of your enjoyment of the film.  I had two grandfathers bobbing out in the Pacific waiting to go in with the invasion the A-bombs ensured never happened.  I also served for nearly two decades in the 40^th Infantry Division, which was scheduled to be the first to hit the beaches and probably would have been wiped out on the sand.  Accordingly, my sympathy for the just consequences the Japanese suffered as a result of treacherously starting their brutal, savage war of conquest is distinctly limited.

But the film does provide an interesting insight into the attitude of willful indifference to the facts regarding the war that persists in Japan to this day.  For example, visiting the A-bomb museum in Nagasaki, one must search through the myriad, elaborate displays of destruction and suffering to find the most important thing any such museum might provide to its visitors – context.

Literally squirreled away near the back of the museum, I stumbled upon a small display of pictures.  They were not clearly labeled but it seemed that some were of Japanese-occupied China and one was particularly recognizable to an American – the burning hulk of the USS Arizona.  That was 2002; perhaps things have changed.  But walking out of that museum – or out of Gojira – one might be forgiven for thinking that the Japanese were just sitting around, minding their own business, enjoying some teriyaki and bottles of Asahi Super Dry, when all of a sudden these terrible things happened to them for no conceivable reason.

Sorry, Ishirô – you can try peddling that to somebody else cuz I’m not buying.

And the American producers were wise to cut that silliness out and American-ize Godzilla into something an audience that consisted of many people who had literally been shot at by the Japanese just a few years prior might want to watch.  They removed most of the allegory and, as the trailer shows, they gave Godzilla the full P.T. Barnum treatment, promising – and delivering – “dynamic violence” and “savage action.”

But they left the essential story elements in – Raymond Burr’s crudely inserted scenes simply frame the action and clarify the story so the movie can get right to the landscape-wrecking fun.  The movie starts off with some mysterious events going on out in the Pacific.  You don’t see the big guy at first – you just see shadows, bubbles, flashes, and huge footprints and you hear his legendary roar.  When Godzilla finally shows up in all his glory – the special effects here really are terrific – it’s just awesome.

There are still no laughs – well, no intentional ones – in Godzilla.  The people of Tokyo look and act terrified, and the movie plays the threat of the creature straight.  You see the injured and the dying – it’s not graphic, but the movie does show the figurative fallout of the monster’s rampage.  In the end, one character makes a noble sacrifice that will put a lump in your throat.  And, as with all the best monsters, you sympathize with Godzilla as he meets his fate.  It’s actually quite moving.

Sadly, after Gojira, the Godzilla series followed a regrettable pattern common to great genre flicks.  The first movie is a serious, uncompromising film made by serious people for serious people (but sometimes, as with Godzilla, fully appropriate for and beloved by kids too).  Then the series starts heading south.  Pretty soon your terrifying, mysterious, darkness-swathed wraith becomes a fat guy in a lizard suit wrestling King Kong for laughs in broad daylight.

It happens all the time.  The 1931 classic Frankenstein was a disturbing meditation on man and the limits of science.  By 1948, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was chasing Abbott & Costello around while Dracula and the Wolf Man looked on.  The original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is a very tough, very creepy little horror flick.  I think Freddy Krueger fights Jason in the last sequel.  Or maybe Chucky.  Or Optimus Primus the Transformerzoid.  Who knows?  Who cares?

I haven’t seen any other Godzilla films in years, and it appears I have not missed much.  The movies reached their nadir after 1969’s Godzilla’s Revenge, where the big guy stopped stomping cities and started helping out lonely latch-key children.  Yawn.  From its very loud, very explodey trailer, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars looks more like Godzilla v. The Matrix.

And don’t even mention the awful 1998 re-boot.  The new Godzilla featured a redesigned, doofy-looking monster plus some transplanted pseudo-raptors ripped-off from Jurassic Park chasing Matthew Broderick all over Manhattan.  This only reinforced one of the five key principles that guide my life – never see a movie starring Matthew Broderick that does not also feature Ben Stein.  Well, to be fair, Glory is pretty badass too – and itself no doubt a future “Movie We Like.”

Now, that is not to say that the later Godzilla films do not provide their guilty pleasures.  Godzilla v. The Thing (1964) is a lot of fun.  For some reason, a few years ago they insisted on re-titling it Godzilla v. Mothra, but to those of us who, in the 70’s, waited up late for Creature Features to see it, it will always be known by its original TV moniker.  And, as a bonus, it features the miniature Mothra twins’ ear-melting Mothra song.  And some of Godzilla’s later antics have a kind of goofy charm:

Another delightful Godzilla-related musical interlude is provided by the mind-boggling tune Save the Earth from 1971’s terrible, terrible Godzilla v. The Smog Monster. This is the one where Godzilla battles what appears to be a sentient, flying cow pie.  The song is the true lowlight.  It’s this combination of over-earnest 70’s enviro-nonsense and 60’s Japanopop that is mistranslated into English and served up for your listening pleasure.  You can almost see Al Gore sitting alone in his mansion, nodding his head, grinning, and snapping his fingers to its big beat as he gazes upon his Oscar and Nobel Prize.

Forget the rest of the series.  Stick with the original – okay, the second original.  Godzilla, King of the Monsters is a terrific 80-minute thrill ride mercifully free of the kind of clichéd movie industry nonsense that ruins so many movies today.  There’s no nauseating shaky-cam, the shots last longer than 0.35 seconds, and the whole thing is just plain cool.  The kids dug it big time.  Plus there’s a guy in a rubber dinosaur costume smashing up Tokyo who represents the awesome, righteous wrath of the American people – what’s not to like?

Thank you for being so unselfish to fight for freedom for me.

I admire your devotion and bravery.

I think of you often and every time I see a flag

I ask God to protect you and then I brag,

“THE U.S.A. HAS THE BEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD!”

Thank you.

Dad on his car (1950).

My Dad was in the army at the end of WWII.  He didn’t have to fight.  He was lucky, the war was just ending.  He was stationed in Japan.  He worked on his handstands.  He could hand-walk up and down stairs!  He must have had a lot of Japanese girlfriends because the only words he remembers are “Watta-kushi-wa Ana-tyo Aishimasu.” (spelled phonetically). It means, “I love you!”

I feel less of a man because I did not lead my platoon through a leech infested swamp in the Pacific as my Uncle Lawrence did.  I feel like a wuss because I did not, as my Uncle Zig did, capture an entire division of German soldiers.

My father was an Army sniper, his father was a member of the last active Cavalry unit, my other grandfather developed missile guidance systems.  Cousins, uncles, great uncles, great-great uncles all served our country or currently serve.

Yet, despite this amazing bravery, this amazing willingness to self-sacrifice, the men in my family rarely talk about it.  No bragging.  No boasting.  No condescension to the other “dandy lads” in the family like myself who have never had the honor of wearing our nation’s uniform.

We didn’t even know the accomplishments of my Uncle Zig until his funeral.  Men we had never met, never heard of showed up to pay their respects.  They were men in his platoon who’s lives he had saved.  They shared stories of his bravery with us and Zig’s partner of 40 years, Ed.  But Zig never shared these stories.  I suspect it wasn’t because they were too painful or dramatic, but because he didn’t think much of it.  It was “the right thing to do” the only thing to do when freedom and liberty are on the line.

The concept of the Troopathon is amazing.  It’s so obviously a worthwhile cause one wonders why there aren’t events like this once a month.  Heck, why not once a week?

It’s probably because the brave men and women in the military don’t ask for it.  In fact, they don’t ask for anything.  You know the old adage:  “The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”  Well, what if the wheel doesn’t make a peep?  What if the wheel selflessly risks its life on a daily basis for your freedom, my freedom, and the freedom of people around the world?