Big Boom Bond

Went out to Bastone and The Magic Bag last night with Matt for eat, drink, and Casino Royale. (a bite, a beer, and a Bond). Was hoping to meet the Mysterious Megan, but was late to Matt's and missed her by about 5 minutes.

Bastone was tasty - I got their sampler to start with, and settled on the Dubbel afterwards - Dubbel was sweeter than other Dubbels, thicker on the tongue, and very dark. Belgian purists might take issue with it's Dubbel-ness, but it was tasty regardless. Their Pilsner was nice because it had some hoppiness to it (remarkable that I liked it, I generally HATE pilsners). The Wit was fairly standard - decent, but unremarkable (where's that killer Wit that I'm constantly searching for?), the Brown was drinkable but boring, and the IPA tasted like so many IPAs that are on the market now. Heavy hop, dry, tangy, blah blah blah. You know the drill. Food was pretty good, but in my hunger I gorged myself by having the truffled mac-n-cheese "entree" as an appetizer (on what fucking planet is mac-n-cheese legitimately an entree?), and then the pork mediallions. The actual cut of pork was ridiculous. Thin, tasteless, pasty colored with thin beige pseudo-gravy. The only thin that saved it was everything else on the plate - this au gratin potato lasagna thing, the apple/nut stuff over the pork, and the pea pod/leafy greens on the side.

(hey Bastone! why the hell don't you have a website that's easy to find? And since you apparently own Grizzly Peak too, what's the deal with there not being a GP site either? Is it some sort of protest thing?)

Heading over to Magic Bag for their Brew-n-View night - was only $2.00 to get in, so that's a good movie deal, but the $6 for the 11 oz. bottle of Guiness was ridiculous. Did I tip the bartenders? You bet your ass I didn't. $6 bottle? Kiss my ass. I'll buy your rip-off because I want it, but don't think I care what you think about me personally because I didn't tip you. Next time I'm bringing my own drink in with me.

Reflections on The New Bond:
- Definitely a change from previous Bonds, and the discontinuity in the storyline from previous 007 movies apparently even has a name... they call it a reboot.
- I miss the more refined intellectual and suave Bonds of Connery, Brosnan, and Dalton. Craig is more of a brute - the shaved bulging pecs and knobby nose, jumping from one construction crane to the next, I was half-expecting John Woo to have directed it.
- The gunbarrel sequence at the opening was a bummer. Usually there's more sex and less violence. I guess it goes with the new BoomLand Bond. Blow things up instead of seducing them.
- The 20 minute Texas-holdem sequence I could have done without. What happened to Baccarat? We've all seen the "I can see his tell now, he's bluffing, I'm all-in" stare-down on TV. Don't need to see it in a movie, and it was a waste of screen time. Easy to write dialog for though...
- Some good sexual one-liners along the way that I'm sure will work their way into day-to-day life, including: "Don't worry, you're not my type." "What type is that?" "Single."
- It was disappointing that they really neglected the "ooh, James..." breathy declaration by the love-interest (as they fade off the screen into some sexual escapade) that is so iconic of Bond flicks. The interaction/role of the women in this one is definitely a shift as well. At least they didn't show any female nipple - as fond of on-screen fem-nipple as I am, it wouldn't have been out of character for a Bond movie.

And lastly, not exactly movie-related, but... as Bond is seducing/rolling around on the floor with the mega-millionaire evil villain's wife in order to get info out of her, it occurs to me: No matter how rich and exotic someone is, the sex they have doesn't scale with the "size" of their life. Bill Gates doesn't have $10 billion sex, and neither does Paris Hilton or Nicolas Cage or the late Anna Nicole Smith. They might squeak out 4-5 orgasms a night, but they're orgasms just like the ones you and I have. Grim-faced silence, soft fluffy clouds, or sweaty thrashing screamers, the accessibility of the spectrum of orgasmic capacity is, in our celebrity-worshipping society, a fairly humanizing and leveling notion.