An interesting historical sidebar: sources vary about whether it was avowed zoophage William Buckland who ate that king's heart, or his zoophagenous son, Frank. After a lot of research, I'm fairly certain it was, indeed, William who popped that heart into his mouth. You heard it here first.

Two jackasses failed IKEA 101. Also, that's my scary tapeworm. No touchy.

Fair enough.

I absolutely agree with you, Jared; Block has much more in common with Jim Thompson than JDM. Unrelatedly, I'm shocked you didn't post the '80s cover! Y'know, the awful wheelchair one? I can't find a picture of it online, alas.

it is nice to know that we've somehow hit achieved the level of book clutter wherein we can be surprised by copies of our own books. Yes. Nice.

Moore gave a really, really interesting interview about playing Bond a few years ago. The line that's often quoted out of context is 'my Bond was a lover and a giggler,' which makes it sound like he didn't have a lot of respect (or time) for the really very brutal source material. But the article, at least, seems to make it clear that it was the violence he objected to, and he found support for that objection in the books themselves. There's a part of me that'd like to sit down and write something very serious and scholarly about the tonal shit of the franchise following OHMSS. But the easier and much more facile approach is to smile and say that every generation gets the Bond it deserves, and leave it at that. Anyway, article below. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/my-bond-was-a-lover-and-a-giggler/story-fnb64oi6-1226486068211

Every time I cut my hair short it's with the optimistic feeling that this time - this time - it will be as perfect as blonde cellist lady's.

That was certainly the critical concensus, but I think License to Kill has aged better.

Which is a pity, because he was a stone-cold fox. http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/holy-crap-timothy-dalton-is-hot

There are ways in which I'd like to agree with your Dalton statement. But there are really lackluster elements to the Dalton films. That said, I'm really glad that Dalton got to play Bond; they wanted him to replace Connery in 1968, but he was 22 years old and thought he was too young.

@Will: I was such epic shit at Goldeneye that we changed the settings so that it took the maximum number of hits possible to kill me, and lowered everyone else down to minimum immunity (maximum vulnerability?) and yet I always died horribly. I also insisted on always playing Bond. Why did anyone ever play with me? @Jared: Yup. SMELL THAT NEUROTOXIN.

I totally agree with this ranking. First, because I fucking love Tremors. It is a brilliant film and I'm going to Monsters & Mullets it... eventually. When I find the time to ever write anything again. Sigh. Second, because I hate teen movies, but I don't hate Footloose. I really wanted to, when I was forced to watch it the first time, but I couldn't - for all the reasons above. It's a refreshing change to have the female lead in a teen film be the self-destructive, selfish pain in the ass, and the male lead to be the balancing character, but more than that - Ren and Ariel and reasonable approximations of actual teenagers, with their stomping around and fits of temper and stupid decisions. Sure, no one has ever stood around a drive-through bopping along to lame contraband music... but I'll go to my grave claiming Footloose as the more realistic and thoughtful teen film than, say, The Breakfast Club. Spit spit. Skyfall. Christ. It's awfully hard to swallow 'technology is the villain' from the tail-end of AD 20-bloody-12. FFS. Modesty Blaise. I'm going to try to write this film up someday, because its balls-to-the-wall WTFery cannot go unshared. And, unpopularly, I'm in agreement with Jared about First Class, which among its many other sins, made Charles Xavier a mind-rapist. Spoiler ahead, but OH MY GOD DID MAGNETO JUST TIE UP THE WHITE QUEEN AND BEGIN TO STRANGLE HER TO ALLOW CHARLES TO ACCESS HER MIND? Because that is BEYOND FUCKED UP.

It's a pretty glowing recommendation, even if he is also responsible for Sith. Stoppard's a hell of a writer!

Exactly.

I'm in total agreement about Pygar. And Barbarella.

CUT NOTHING FROM POMPIDOU. Sheesh.

As a fan of Lego Indiana Jones, I wholeheartedly agree with Jared. Also, Iron Kingdoms was the first RPG where I really got the whole tabletop game thang. Mostly thanks to a good DM (hi Den!) but in part because the world itself was so well-built and intuitive.