Prior to last night, if anyone asked me to name my favorite James Bond actor, I would have said "Timothy Dalton".

Now, I haven't exactly been a student of Bond -- I tend to find films in which the protagonist does not change to be uninspiring -- but I did legitimately enjoy The Living Daylights (co-starring Dalton and Olivia d'Abo's mother) more than any other Bond film. Plus, I once heard Dalton described as the thinking-man's Bond because he "always looks like he's trying to figure out a math problem."

As of today, however, I would say "Daniel Craig". As you might have already guessed, last night I finally watched Casino Royale and, as you might have also guessed, I loved it.

Here we are presented with a young Bond unlike any we've seen before. I wouldn't go so far as to call him unsure but I would call him unformed. And during the course of the picture, we see him carved out of rock until he emerges in the film's final shot fully formed as "Bond, James Bond".

Early on Bond is struggling with his fiery emotions and the demands from his employer, M, that he operate with a cooler head.

Bond
You want me to be half monk, half hitman.

M
Any thug can kill. I need you to take your ego out of the equation and judge the situation dispassionately.

Later, after he has been put through the ringer:

M
You don't trust anyone, do you?

Bond
(tersely)
No.

M
Then you've learned your lesson.

And what exactly is it that puts our hero through the proverbial ringer? Apart from a savage round of testicular torture, he falls in love. So much in love, I literally rolled my eyes when he's confessing the poetic depth of his feelings.

And yet the connection he felt with "Vesper Lynd" (I prefer to think of her as Monneypenny) is wholly believable; the incredible moment of stillness they share in the shower as she desperately tries to wash the blood from her first kill off her hands has all the hallmarks of a genuine connection: the proper, poised woman is utterly decimated and finds in Bond that which she sees herself as lacking.

Later, when she seemingly betrays him to the bad guys -- and he must subsequently watch her drown in a metal cage from which he cannot free her despite intense effort -- Bond's feelings for her turn to rage and we think that Bond's "trust no one" arc is going to end on this note.

But just before he emerges fully-formed in the film's last shot, M reminds Bond that dispassion includes accepting that life cannot be packaged into tidy, digestible, understandable bits. She tells him what Bond cannot see through his flared emotions: that Vesper did not betray Bond, that her 'betrayal' was the price Vesper chose to pay so that Bond could live. Far from betraying him, she sacrificed herself for him.

In the end, Bond must make peace with his mixed emotions -- love, gratitue, devotion, rage -- and carry on as though he has none.

In the pantheon of horrible movie directors, Brett Ratner is up there. I'm not sure you could call him everyone's least favorite -- depending on my mood, I personally cycle between Joel Schumacher, George Lucas and this guy -- but he definitely belongs on the list.

Ergo, imagine my joy to be on the receiving end of the following email missive from my expatriate (and possibly drunk) ex-roomate:

Dear Brett,

Happy Birthday dude! Thanks for fucking up X-Men. I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! You're the bitch! BITCH! Also, thanks for the Rush Hour movies. "Which one of you kicked me?" Classic.

Don't direct any more movies,

Mike

Amazingly, it wasn't until getting this email that I realized Kitty Pride -- one of only two things that I liked about Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand -- was played by none other than Juno herself, Ellen Page.

Small world, I guess.

The Maxim magazines that are piling up in the men's room at work have become real sources of joy for me. For example, today I am leafing through one with Eva Mendes on the cover and I come across a wonderful little piece entitled "Cocktail Decoder" which purports that one can understand -- or least size up -- women by their choice of alcoholic beverage.

As I'm reading this thing, I realize I'm familiar with many members of the various cocktail types. Observe:

Martini
"She's likely to be high-maintenance, but a serious drinker. Martini women are typically stressed out, depressed, and looking to shift their mood."

At first, I didn't think I knew anyone who fit this category. On later reflection, I realized that martinis are pretty much straight vodka (at least, they are the way my dad makes them). And when I think straight vodka, I think of my dear friend Laura Callender.

Beer
"Downing brews means she's trying to be one of the guys. She can be spontaneous and fun, but she doesn't feel comfortable with her femininity."

This would be Kate ... Kate B, I mean; Kate F. doesn't drink. (I'm not sure what that means.)

Lemon Drops
"This person would be really fun to go out with. She's fashionable, trendy, and fun-loving. She may have street smarts, but she isn't a Rhodes Scholar."

Lauren.

Red Wine
"Wine lovers are health conscious and conservative, but also sensual, warm, and nurturing. She likes the warmth wine gives when it hits her throat."

Tori.

Scotch
"This drink says intelligence. A Scotch-drinking woman is grounded, knows who she is, and doesn't care what anybody thinks."

Liz.

Rum and Coke
"This girl likes to have fun and is really laid-back. If that glass of rum and Coke could speak, it would say, 'I'm going nuts tonight!'"

Alysia. (With two stirring straws, right?)

Champagne
"This girl is elitist, pretentious, wants people to think she's an intellectual, and she wishes she were French. She has a little bit of a fantasy going on."

Uh... I don't know. But she sounds hot.

Cosmo
"She's another high-maintenance chick. She typically doesn't go with the flow and tries a bit too hard to look sophisticated to the people around her."

Hmmm ... well, Cosmos are pretty much glorified vodka-cranberries, right? So this would be ... me?

Looks like Wendy's, which has struggled in the marketing department since Dave Thomas died, is launching a campaign in bars on digital jukeboxes.

Which is a flat-out, common-sense, good idea. After all, who doesn't want to jam their gullet after getting sauced? Even though our industry seems to be stuck in a "data-good!" mindless drone, one of the veeps of the jukebox company is quoted as saying:

We have research that shows nearly half of our users will stop on the way home to get something to eat ... But do you really need science to tell you that people go to bars, have a few drinks and get hungry? It's kind of a no-brainer of the category.

This is the kind of thinking we need more of in advertising and marketing! But a quick note to Ad Age — if the hunger comes from being drunk, technically it's not the munchies.

Just great! The very week that I am putting the finishing touches on a freakin' awesome presentation to give to my fellow Indianapolis media peeps on why they should be psyched about digital billboards, it turns out some 18-year-old in California figured out a way to get his digital graffiti on them.

Personally, I suspect an inside job. You know, like the time I spliced those single frames of hardcore pornography into local cable television advertisements. (Which, strictly speaking, isn't true ... but I like to pretend it is.)

UPDATE

Ha! Just as I suspected — this was not a hack. I have it on very good authority that this is a paid ad from a paid client. Just goes to show that outdoor is a great staging ground for a viral campaign.

Today on my lunch break I wasn't hungry so I decided to aimlessly roam the aisles of Target. On a whim, I ended up buying two things: a plastic replica of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and a copy of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama.

I just finished reading the introduction to the Obama book. I have to say, that kinship I suspected I'd feel with Obama becomes plainly clear here. He parses his own story not so much in terms of what happens but in terms of how what happens affects his inner world. This is truly remarkable to see in a man who could be president. And yet, I get a feeling that this is too good to be true ... in the same way that when I talk about my own ideals and hopes, I write myself off.

Meanwhile, the plastic facsimile of Iron Man is guarding my desk at work. It's worth noting that the very instant I freed him from from his packaging, I lost one of his accessories.

I am happy to report that since beginning to cover the somewhat feminine collection of reading material in the men's restroom at my office, a virtual cornucopia of quasi-fresh Maxim magazines have appeared as if from heaven. (Or as the address labels indicate, from our division president's personal stash.)

As I pointed out when the first Maxim materialized, I have unfortunately already leafed though these issues on the can at Jake's house, forcing me to actually read the articles simply for the sake of novelty.

Well, as luck would have it, I came across an absolutely brilliant piece by a writer named Nick Tosches. So brilliant, in fact, I tore it out for safe-keeping since this particular copy (featuring the most famous former reader of this blog on the cover) had become water damaged in a process I can only imagine involved falling into the toilet bowl.

Anyway, this article is about the state of manhood in modern America. It's actually pretty long and if you ever get the chance to check it out in full, I recommend it. But to give you a glimpse of its genius, know that it starts like this:

To look at the current state of manhood, we must first find the rock under which it is hidden ... our rock is to be found somewhere between courage and cock, valor and virility. More confoundingly, it is to be found somewhere among these and many other things: braggadocio and bullshit, fraud and folly, gullibility and self-absorption, strength and weakness, honesty and lies, posturing and pussy-whippings, truth and delusion, pseudo-cool and pseudo-hip, bench-pressing and panty-sniffing, malice and innocence, tough talk and toiletries, nobility and nothingness, reality and make-believe.

... and ends like this:

When I turned 50, I saw that there were three things left that I wanted to do in life. One was to master the tango. Another was to kill a leopard. I forget the third.

Does my failure to have yet accomplished these things mean that I am a failure as a man? Probably. Then again, maybe I unknowingly accomplished the third one before or after forgetting what it was.

That said, fuck it.