Goldfinger "The City on the Hill" for all Bond films.

In anticipation of the new Bond film "Quantum of Solace" (which looks excellent by the way), I feel that it would be a good time to reflect on what I consider the best 007 film ever, Goldfinger". I recently watched it again for probably the ten hundredth time. And I have concluded that it is THE classic Bond film. It has everything from the undoubtabley best villain (Auric Goldfinger, I mean c'mon how clever is Auric as a first name), to an ingenious plan, to a classic henchmen (Oddjob, only Jaws comes closer to being the most dominant), and of course Pussy Galore. It may not be the most flashy bond film (the overly dramatic and futurized "Die Another Day") and it may not have the best opening scene which has become a staple of these films ("The World is Not Enough"). But Sean Connery, being the bar for James Bond, has his best performance and one of the best performances by a Bond ever (Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale"). Goldfinger is the most spoofed of all the Bond films and hence deserves my vote for best Bond film ever.

The Western

The Western is the true American genre. It is the rugged aspect of American life that the rest of the world has fantasized about and read about. America was not aided by some fancy pansy European country. In fact we defeated them to get to the point where we are today. John Wayne is America in a nut shell. He is a badass who is never looking for a fight but doesnt shy away from one either. In the end America will always ride off into the sunset after we save everyone. The rest of the world will be cheering as we ride into the distance, only to return again once the rest of the world has done something stupid. There is nothing more American than Clint Eastwood smoking five guys in a matter of one and a half seconds. That's pretty much how long the Iraq War lasted. O wait...

Entourage

Ok so it isn't a movie, but it is about tv show about the movies. Ipso facto it is worthy of a post in what has been described as"Blog of the Century" by David Brooks of the New York Times (fallacy) . This season can only be described as the retro-season. That is to say that the first season got the ball rolling. Eventually, Entourage became a fad, and everyone was watching it during the second and third season. Season four was not very good let's be honest. But now the show is making its comeback. Superagent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) has never been better than he has been this season ("A bitch slap for a bitch" is a classic line. It's a quote Mr. K. Don't report me). Piven has won something like three or four straight best supporting actor Emmys. Obviously something is going right about the show. Last week's episode was fairly ho-hum after three straight weeks of brilliance. I do get the feeling that Vincent Chase will not make it to the end of production of Smoke Jumpers. Entourage gives the audience an inside look at the Hollywood world we don't see on screen.