The Unseen James Bond Auditions of 1968

The new LIFE magazine, which now exists mainly online, has a cool feature about the casting of James Bond after Sean Connery left the franchise. In 1968, the producers got together the five finalists for a Bond-Off studio session in London where they took stills and shot some test footage to see who looked best holding the martini and fondling the girl.  LIFE.com has some great highlights on their website.

A close runner up was John Richardson, a slim/sexy '60's star who appeared memorably in ONE MILLION BC (with Raquel Welch) and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (with Babs Streisand).  Too bad he didn't make the cut as he looks quite fine in this shot and others where he's wearing a revealing square cut suit.  However, the role eventually went to George Lazenby who had his one and only outing as 007 in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.

Toy Story As A Horror Movie

Ever since the "Scary Mary" re-cut of Mary Poppins was put up on YouTube, the trend of re-cutting and genre-swapping movie trailers has grown.  One of my favorites, which is perfect for Halloween, is a repurposing of TOY STORY as a scary horror movie.  Enjoy and have a Happy Halloween! :)

The Return Of My WTC View

I used to have a beautiful view of the World Trade Center from my apartment in the Village. In fact, I wrote a play about it which then became a film called WTC VIEW.  Looking down my street, the twin towers stood almost directly at the end of it roughly 20 blocks away...a landmark that I still miss. The original towers were slightly to the left in this picture, the north tower rising behind WTC 7 (the tallest building in the background) and the South tower rising over the building to the left of that with the water towers on top.

Yet recently, I noticed that looking down my street, the new One World Trade Center (formerly the Freedom Tower) is now visible.  You can see it in this photo, a small crane poking out the top of what is now roughly the 40th floor.  Eventually the building will have 105 floors with a building height matching the original WTC 1 and a massive 400-foot tower on top to reach it's symbolic height of 1,776 feet. Completion is scheduled in April '13.

Tron Sequel + Daft Punk = Hotness

This super cool mini-video was released this week to promote the Tron sequel, TRON: LEGACY.  Seminal French techno-geniuses Daft Punk have done the score for the reboot and, if this is any indication, it's gonna sound awesome.  It also looks totally hot too; the new light cycles are amazing, the glowing Frisbee things are bizarre and there's the neat trick of making Jeff Bridges look 20 years younger.  Not to mention the curious finger-light undressing of his son.  Hmmmm....

Of course, when a movie looks this cool the danger is that it might not make any sense.  We'll have to wait until December to find out for sure. But for now I am rating this TH for  "Total Hotness"!

Tracking Progress On The Second Avenue Subway

I was on the Upper East Side last week for a film shoot and got to see first hand all the construction happening on Second Ave for the new "T" line.  Its been in the news lately as merchants and residents have been complaining loudly about the noise and mess of construction and how it's been bad for business.  This weekend the MTA responded with an comprehensive new plan to address these concerns.  Over at the Launch Box blog, there is a summary of what's going on along with pictures of all the mess on the street.

Also on that blog, they've put together a great Google Map where you can follow the progress of the boring machine. The map also has pictures of the new station locations and some of the major construction sites, like the launch box itself where the tunnel boring machine took off from earlier this year. Currently, it's chewing its way through granite about 100 feet below 79th Street.  It has about 15 blocks to go before it will turn around and start boring it's way back up Second Ave next year.

Musical Mondays With President Barack Obama

I saw this posted up on FB yesterday...a clever Gilbert & Sullivan spoof song about President Obama.  The chorus bits are the best.  Maybe this sort of infotainment may help Barack and the Dems make their case for the midterms better than all those negative ads.

Do You Know What The Speed Limit Is In NYC?

That's okay...most people don't. I didn't know until yesterday that there was actually one speed limit for all of Manhattan and it's 30mph.  Of course, the majority of cars never get above 2mph, especially in midtown.  But after hours, I have been in cabs racing down deserted avenues at speeds closer to those found on I-95.

Last night, ABC-7 aired a story about a new police crackdown on speeding in the city.  Cops will be monitoring avenues throughout Manhattan with radar and slapping unsuspecting drivers with speeding tickets if they exceed the limit.

The impetus behind this is statistics that show a huge spike of pedestrian accidents in Manhattan as opposed to all the other boroughs.  But it seems to me like another semi-desperate way for the city government to raise money in tough economic times. I think there would be better ways to use the police than cracking down on late night cabbies. Besides, if they start obeying the speed limit, I might as well take the subway,which reaches a top speed of 65mph.

And The Emmy For Worst TV Re-Dubbing Goes To...

Ever wonder how some of the more, er, colorful language in movies translates to the more restrictive small screen? Well...sometimes it doesn't as this compilation shows to hilarious effect.  The best is last....a stranger in the Alps? Really!?

The Rent IS Too Damn High

A meme was born at Monday's wacky debate for New York Governor when Jimmy McMillan was introduced as the candidate from The Rent Is Too Damn High Party.  As Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue last night, someone else may have been too high, namely Mr. McMillan himself who came across as loonier than Republican candidate Carl Palladino (who at one point left to stage to go to the bathroom....seriously).

I thought the idea of Jimmy as a candidate was pretty funny at first, especially with his weird beard and opening lines such as "as a karate master....".   But what is more disturbing is that Jimmy blames the high rent on "the Jews" and is well-known for his anti-Semitic rhetoric over the past 15 years.  Also, he was once arrested for climbing the Brooklyn Bridge brandishing a knife.  Not the most mentally stable political candidate. But, in this election season of witches and Nazis, not too unbelievable either.

But beyond all that, the reality is that his party does not really exist, except in his own head.  It is basically a website that is hard to figure out, other than the fact that you can order t-shirts with the "party's" name.  And even though I agree with the sentiment (as do most New Yorkers), voting for him will lower the rent in the same way voting for anyone will increase jobs. 

30 Rock Goes Live

Last Thursday, the cast and crew of the NBC sitcom 30 ROCK left the safe confines of their soundstage in Long Island City and crossed the East River to brave the dangers of live television from their namesake's home, 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown.  For some cast members like Tina Fey and Tracey Morgan, it was a bit of a homecoming as they returned to Studio 8H where SNL is broadcast.  And for viewers like me, the show was a return to form and laugh-out-loud hilarity.

The premise of the show was pretty standard sitcom fare; everyone has forgotten Liz Lemon's birthday.  But doing it live made for a very meta experience, especially when they did Liz's flashbacks.  There are lots of jokes about live TV strewn throughout the episode and some great cameos from 30 ROCK semi-irregulars.  I won't name names as not to spoil the fun.

The show was actually done live twice, once for the East coast and once for the West. I caught the latter version so I'm not sure if it was better from having had a little live practice.  But it was truly funny and didn't seem to have any major gaffes, other than a couple lines that didn't trip off Alec Balwin's tounge. It made me sorta wish the show was live every week. It was the best 30 ROCK I'd seen in a while.