The Only Thing That Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun Is A Good Guy With A Gun

Reel To Reel: Gangster Squad

Going Rate: Worth matinee price or rental
Starring: Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Nick Nolte
Rated: R
Red Flags: Graphic intense machine-gun violence and mob executions, strong language, attempted rape

The mob has failed to do any decent business in Los Angeles since the 1940's, and based-on-true-events Gangster Squad argues it's largely because of a team of ruthless police officers working off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush -- except when they're blowing the heck out of everything. Indeed, Gangster Squad wants to be another L.A. Confidential or The Untouchables. Those two films had style, class, and characters we cared about. This one has a lot of style, a lot of firepower, and little else.

Mickey Cohen (Penn) is building a criminal empire in the post-war City of Angels. He's got the dope hustle and the girls for sale. Now he's looking to own bookmaking, and there's apparently nobody he can't bribe or kill. He's got a token girl, Grace (Stone), because every gangster needs a girl.

Along comes Sgt. John O'Mara (Brolin), the prototypical One Good Cop who can't be bought. Battle-hardened from World War II, he likes going to war against criminals because he does it well. It doesn't sit well with his wife, but just a few moments later in another scene, there she is helping him pick out members of a gangster wrecking crew. Sgt. O'Mara gets the go-ahead from L.A.P.D.'s police chief (Nolte) to bust up Cohen's operation by nearly any means necessary, which means burning, shooting and blowing up lots of things is okay, but simply taking Cohen out is not enough.

Sarge's wife tells him to think outside the elite cops on the force, so we get a cast of characters: the urban cop Coleman (Anthony Mackie), cowboy sharpshooter Max (Robert Patrick), sidekick Natividad (Michael Peña), and wire wizard Conway (Giovanni Riblisi) along with O'Mara's sergeant buddy Jerry (Gosling), who happens to be involved with Grace -- ta-DAH!

The film barely gives us time to get to know its characters. Penn can be menacing, but he can also jump off the cliff into "dese, dem, and dose" gangster parody. With six people on O'Mara's team, that's a lot of people to keep track of. The Untouchables realized a team of four was enough and gave each member a clearly defined purpose.

Even though it pauses to let us take in the flavor of 1940's L.A., the picture wanders from one shootout to the next. In what's becoming movie cliche, scenes of intense gunfire or burning are slowed down because it's somehow supposed to make them more stylish. Even a scene of the squad roughing up a mob goon is overchoreographed for art's sake. And once again, the Law of Movie Weapons is in force: that is, the bad guys with the automatic weapons who shoot the most bullets will have the lousiest aim compared to the good guys with the revolvers and shotguns who hit whatever they point at.

Gangster Squad is coming out barely a month after the Newtown school shootings, and I wonder if that's contributing to some of its negative reviews. The film is already dealing with lousy timing and art imitating life: its release date was pushed back from September to allow the cast and crew to replace a scene depicting a shooting inside a movie theater. In fact, the film's trailer with a clip of that scene hit the screen in the Aurora, Colorado theater shortly before the gunfire began. As I go to blog, pic is doing decent B.O., but we shall see if it has legs despite the crix nix.

The Queen Mother Reads Her Subjects' Epistles

As I have explained before, my Queen Mother teaches high-school Spanish to a motley crew at a Southern California Catholic institution with a reputatation for being a jock school. Many things that should not be tolerated are brushed aside for the sake of protecting the football/basketball/whatever team, or these days, the flow of tuition money. No body, no booty.

However, I can't honestly point the finger at one school or one class. The duel of wills encompasses every teacher in every classroom to some degree. One of Nature's Indisputable Facts reveals for every student commmitted to learning, at least one other is committed to simply occupying mass.

Nowhere was that more obvious than when Mom taught an high-school English class in Kansas City. She required the students to keep a writing journal, and a few of those entries are "freewrites." The rules are simple: write for one minute on any topic that's on your mind. It doesn't have to make sense. Just write.

I used to sneak a look at some of those journals when Mom brought them home to grade. I saw evidence of frustration...

Look at her, her hand is moving! What is she writing about?

Desperation...

I forgot my homework for next hour. Oh well, I'll just borrow (so-and-so's) paper and copy it.

Guns 'N' Roses...

Where do we go now? Where do we go now? Sweet child 'o mine.

...and the usual complaints about how boring the class was and how boring my Queen Mother was. She would shake her head, dole out the grades, keep calm and carry on.

One day though, she caught two girls in an unassigned freewrite: a note passed back and forth, the most advanced form of secret classroom communication known before the advent of text messaging. Mom glanced over it and found the boilerplate griping, but her eyes paused at one sentence: "Wouldn't a toke feel real good right about now?"

"A toke?" I asked in my teenage naiveity.

"You haven't heard of that?" she puzzled. "That's a marijuana cigarette." She told me about that old song by the Kansas City duo Brewer & Shipley, "One Toke Over The Line."

"I may be a square," she said. "But I know what a toke is."

"Did you read it out loud?" I queried.

"No, I showed it to her parents at conference time."

Not surprisingly, they denied their daughter inhaled anything but air.

Her Royal Majesty, fortuantely, has never had to deal with any class-A dope fiends. Cheaters and copycats, always, but she is blessed to enjoy enough appreciative students to make the job worthwhile, or at least get her through to the day where she will repair to the Crown's Estate and finish out her years without having to grade another notebook.

The Not-So-Great Debater

Some activities in my life are mere gateways to other ones. I like Revolutionary War re-enacting more than Civil War re-enacting, and historic dancing more than historic battles. But I do all of it to be a team player and round out my expertise.

And so it went when I joined the Raytown South High School debate team. I preferred the individual speech events: Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Original Oratory, Extemporaneous Speaking and so forth, but everybody who did "I.E.'s" had to do debate, and before I dipped my toe into oasis, I had to wander through the minefield.

High-school debate falls into "cross-ex" duo competition or Lincoln-Douglas style one-on-one matches. In my reclusive youth, I didn't have a partner, so I went solo. Lincoln-Douglas style is heady stuff for intellectually developing teenagers. Try coming up with an affirmative or negative case on the following topics:

RESOLVED: That the arts contribute more to humanity to the sciences

RESOLVED: That a parliamentary form of government better supports the values of the Constitution.

RESOLVED: That a candidate's public record is more important than his personal reputation.

It's the stuff of William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" -- and I didn't watch "Firing Line." The topics dealt with values and concepts and abstractions I couldn't wrap my brain around. I couldn't see the counter-arguments because I couldn't see the original arguments. I had to learn the format on my own; our class hadn't gotten around to studying Lincoln-Douglas before the first Novice L-D tournament.

So on a dim Saturday morning in October of 1986, I sat on a cold school bus on our way to my first tournament in St. Joseph, north of Kansas City, nervous and ill at ease in my stomach. A bumpy road and limited shock absorption does little to quell that. My anxieties poured from my mouth and onto the floor.

"Hey! Does somebody have a breath mint back there?" somebody yelled as people pulled their feet up into their seats.

Voided but still queasy, I made it to my first round, and inexplicably, I won it. It ended up being my only victory of the four-round day. I couldn't keep track of the arguments because I couldn't visualize them. I couldn't visualize them because I didn't understand them. I didn't understand them because I had not dealt with them in real life. Taking notes during the opponents arguments barely helped: I still dropped points because I couldn't see them. I wandered through a maze of rhetoric blindfolded, not even knowing if I was asking the right questions of my competition or getting the right answers.

"I didn't know what I was doing," said one novice debater to me after cleaning my clock. Oh, I think you did, I thought.

The refrain would play out at tournaments to come: anxiety, a win here and there, but mostly relief when it was all over and we headed to lunch. I would later find redemption in the individual events, where I had a script and a clear direction -- and I could win.

We grew into a family, with a tournament just about every weekend. It felt like being on tour in a rock-and-roll band, playing gig after gig, going a little bit wild on the side and then getting back home, exhausted but satisfied. The fellowship made it all work.

The Cream Puff Defense League

One of my middle-school gym teachers used to swat kids on the behind with a huge wooden paddle if they got out of line. To their relief, he didn't make them say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

This same teacher also displayed a unique talent for breaking up fights. When two semi-tough characters started roughhousing for fun, he stepped in and socked one of them dead in the face.

"Those who clown around get clowned with!" he bellowed.

Neither of these incidents made it into the files of child protective authorities. But I was blessed with foresight, and cursed with the temerity to exhibit it.

Two and a half decades ago, in another middle-school gym class, another teacher told us why he put us through multiple exercises to warm up.

"What does that protect us from?" he asked.

I raised my hand.

"Francis?"

"Lawsuits?" I replied, to the guffaws of my peers.

The teacher corrected, "It protects us from cream puffs." He mocked the voice of a helicopter parent: "Oh, I don't want Johnny to play so rough! That parent is raising a real cream puff."

Kindly forgive me, sir. I didn't know cream puffs were a plague upon the land, to be eliminated like the Hittites and Jebusites. For days, I endured the mocking of others who yelled to me: "Any lawsuits lately?"

They wouldn't laugh at my answer now, not with schools facing lawsuits over curriculum, prayers, and father-daughter dances. Gym class seems to escape the legal crosshairs, but gym students don't get a paddle or a punch anymore from the teacher. Those cream puffs? They could come with legal representation.

I personally believe every school in the country should keep a lawyer on retainer who does nothing but defend against and dispose of the nuisance suits. Preferably, each school will find the ugliest-looking litigator possible. Psychological warfare saves both fees and courtroom time, in addition to allowing the attorney to find a legal way to tell a over-litigious parent to go get bent.

I wish my school gym classes were more like workout classes, led by somebody like Billy Blanks or even Richard Simmons, helping kids slim down and burn fat. Don't tell me that's for girls. We've got too many chubby children. Forget dodgeball. Let's tailor a version of that "Insanity" workout for eighth-graders and get them buff in 30 days. Not only will we curb the unproven cream-puff dilemma, we'll help the young lads pick up girls.

Looking For Lightning

Upscale hotels offer baby-sitting services, and my parents used them three times when my brother and I were wee lads. Two of those times were during a stay at the old MGM Grand Hotel (the one that later burned) in 1977. During a two-night span, while Mom and Dad went off to pull slot machine handles or attend to ceremonies related to a pharmacists' convention, two different ladies attended to us.

The first was a standard-issue grandmotherly-type. For reasons I don't remember, she let us get away with marking up the bathroom mirror with a white crayon.

"You know, some maids don't like that," I remember her saying. Mom ended up cleaning it off.

Our second sitter hailed from India. We could barely understand her through her accent, but we knew enough to back off when we tried to play with the clock radio in the room.

A year later, convention business took us to Atlanta. We spent the first night at a deplorable Holiday Inn with stained carpet and questionable linens.

"This feels like chicken feathers," Dad said of the pillows.

The next evening took us to a high-rise Marriott. We ate room-service pancakes for breakfast, and after dinner, a lady kept her eyes on us for a few hours.

This time, we didn't mark up any furniture, but I was intrigued by her story of what was going on at another hotel not far away. She told us about this adventurous floor, full of strange and wonderful sights, most forgotten to my memory. But I do remember her talking about some kind of a fake-weather room, a "lightning room."

Naturally, I had to go there. I begged Mom and Dad to take me there, to the Hilton down the street. We looked all over. We asked the managers. My parents asked me what I heard. I told them what I heard. We made it to an upper-floor restaurant.

"Well, we have a fountain with lightning in it, but that's it."

That sitter was full of it, we concluded.

Now, I wonder if what she was talking about was really the now-defunct World Of Sid & Marty Krofft, an indoor amusement park housed inside Atlanta's Omni International complex. The park served as the backdrop for the first season of the Krofft Supershow from 1976 to 1977.



Among the attractions was an indoor circus and a life-sized pinball machine. I see no evidence of a lightning room, but my young ears could've easily heard it wrong. In any event, the Krofft's world ended due to a bad neighborhood and competition from Six Flags Over Georgia.

Today CNN occupies the space with newsrooms and sets, but they at least left the gigantic escalator that once led into the park. If I'm a good boy, maybe I'll ride it someday.

I Wish I Could Turn It Off

Shortly after 11am two years ago today, the following email went out to the entire staff of KOLD as a frantic few newsroom employees made phone calls:

Hi there-

This is an urgent message--- we need all hands on deck immediately!!!! Everyone needs to come in to work immediately. This is especially important for main line talent. Come dressed for work.

If you cannot make it, call Michelle.

Several people have been shot, including probably Gabby Giffords at a Congress on Your Corner event.

We need you now!!!!!

Thus began a 12-hour, non-stop, wall-to-wall day of coverage detailing the horrors of the mass shooting outside a Safeway which killed six people and injured 13 others.

I didn't learn about it from the e-mail. I had just come out of a creepy movie -- Black Swan -- and started the car, expecting to hear the Saturday morning computer talk-show on the radio. Instead, I heard what sounded like two of the local TV anchors talking about a shooting and the victims, including Giffords. I booked it for the station.

That day and the next week and a half played havoc with my pent-up emotions. Things like this don't happen in Tucson. During the height of the coverage, a friend called me on my cell phone to make sure I was all right. "This is just unreal," I told him.

People watching at home can turn off the set when the drama becomes too difficult. But news people -- just like the relatives of the victims and the first responders who cared for them -- have to keep dealing with a mass tragedy for days on end as we produce story after story in newscast after newscast, day after day. As much as I long to get away from the tragedy, I couldn't. None of us in the newsroom could.

After a week of the aftermath's toll on the newsroom staff, our general manager figured we could use some therapy. She brought in a forensic psychologist for group session with him on dealing with traumatic events.

"A lot of people come home to their wives or their husbands or their children or their dogs," I told him. "But me, I come home to four walls and darkness."

As I revealed it to him, my eyes began to leak the agony of six repressed days of grieving. I pulled a tissue from a box next to me and patted my eyes constantly. My voice hardly cracked, but mourning bled across my face and down my cheeks.

"Chris, we all love you and we're here for you," said one of my anchors.

The general manager sat across from me. She could see the quiet agony. I had hinted it to her earlier this week when I told her I might need to see somebody.

The doctor encouraged me to think forward beyond the deadlines to time away from the newsroom. I told him I'd been thinking about this trip to California I was going to do next week, "to pursue my dearest diversion."

That diversion was the Jane Austen Evening, which I attended with a yellow ribbon in my tricorn hat in honor of the shooting victims. Even in the midst of joy, I still had a pit in my stomach, thinking about the still-unfolding aftermath back home and Gabrielle Giffords transfer to a medical facility in Houston.

I was glad when the gunman took a plea deal and a life sentence a few months ago. I wanted this case closed, closed so we and everybody connected to the tragedy wouldn't have to circle back to the day -- thinking forward, just like that psychologist told us. I also talked to one of the Biblical counselors at church, who reminded me GOD gives us abilities for use in crises to help others through it. Even news people have a role to play. As Queen Esther found out, we are called "for such a time as this."

That Sink Sleeps With The Fishes

My father got his start in the pharmacy business through a drug store owned by my great-uncle Luther, and it's a miracle he didn't get clipped by a mob lackey working next door.

Main Street Pharmacy occupied what is now a health-food store at 4301 Main near downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

Site of the original "Main Street Pharmacy" (Source: Google/Picasa)

Luther ran the place with help from my dad, who was still in pharmacy school. Luther also ran up a considerable amount of debt, an albatross left for us to contend with when Luther suddenly died in December of 1971.

One of his creditors included Kansas City mob godfather Nick Civella. One of Nick's guys owned a pizza joint right across the street. Nick's guy was not exactly an armbreaker, but Civilla used him to launder money.

Not long after Luther passed away, Nick's boy walked into Main Street Pharmacy to settle up. He came alone, not packing heat or henchmen.

"Your Uncle Luther borrowed money from time to time," he informed Dad.

Dad told him the money was tied up in probate, meaning he'd have to wait on the lawyers, but if he brought in "a note," he could help. A note? For a mob money man? Paul's guy walked out without the money, and my Dad remarkably remained alive. I figure Luther's debt was pretty low on the list.

Civella had bigger issues. He was hooked up with the Teamsters to fund Vegas casinos, conveniently skimmed by the goodfellas. As Nicholas Pileggi documents in the book and movie Casino, Civella's organization gave away the skim through FBI wiretaps in another case. Civella, his brother Carl, and six others went to the slammer in 1983.

A few years after Luther's death, Dad got a call from ADT in the wee hours of the morning about a possible break-in. The pharmacy was okay; the pizza joint was in slices, blown apart by an explosion.

Again, Nick's guy came around. "Did you smell any gas?" he asked.

Crews poked through the ashes looking for trouble. Out of the rubble emerged a curious survivor: a stainless steel sink perfect for a large kitchen -- or Dad's darkroom.

The sink easily slid into a corner of the darkroom, right next to a longer grey plastic sink that accommodated four trays for black and white prints: developer, stop bath, fixer and wash. Unlike some of Luther's old possessions, some of which we found stuffed with hidden cash, the sink gave up no secrets.

"You wonder what they washed in there," Mom said.

Note: A previous version of this story unintentionally identified the wrong sink. You're now reading the correct version!

Treezilla Attacks

Now that the holidays are officially over, here's some advice to heed for next Christmas. When you're in Cosco and see one of those 9-foot pre-lit artificial trees, remember this: what you put up in December must come down in January.

I speak from several experiences of helping my parents take down a 9-foot pre-lit tree, something that should be easy once the ornaments are off. The tree is designed to disassemble into four parts. But when my parents tried taking it apart the first year after they bought it, it nearly ended their marriage. That tree just didn't want to come undone, and it still doesn't.

Because using WD-40 to lubricate the trunk is out of the question, "Treezilla" is tied up in a huge blanket every year and crammed into an alcove in our garage. The process is laborious and frustrating as we navigate it around the walls, out the front door, and into the garage, and it makes everybody crabby. It's tolerated because we only have to go through it once a year. But we've gone through it at least three times now, and the math is starting to catch up with us.

"No more 9-foot trees," I said to Mom after we finished stashing it away.

For years we had a Christmas tree that came together and apart branch by branch. Everything plugged into a central wooden post. It wore out after a couple of decades, and then Mom decided the fake tree wasn't full enough. We got a live tree one year, and even though it shed needles all over the place, when we were done with it, it went right out the back to await recycling: no dissembling, no blankets, no fuss.

Now we're stuck with an artificial tree that takes up more garage space than it should in the off-season. Mom and Dad insist they got a good deal on it, paying only about $200, but somebody forgot to tell them about the psychological cost of dealing with a Christmas albatross. When you're decorating for the holidays, your spirit, strength and endurance must find a happy median. It goes for all your other decs: house lights, wicker reindeer, full Nativity, plastic sleigh, lighted inflatable Santa on the roof. Eventually a time will come when you realize you can't do Christmas like you used to, and you really don't want to. You've gone from Cratchit to Scrooge.

Buy a tree, but for all that's holly, buy the right kind of tree. Santa doesn't care how full it is, but you will care when it swallows you whole.

Hey Osama, We Know You're In There...

Reel To Reel: Zero Dark Thirty

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Jessica Chastain, James Gandolfini
Rated: R
Red Flags: Graphic depiction of "enhanced interrogation," war violence, language, a terror suspect's bare bottom

I didn't know the U.S. military had killed Terror Enemy #1 until I got a call from my parents that Sunday night in May of 2011.

"I know you're probably watching the news right now," Dad said.

"Oh? What?"

"They got Osama Bin Laden."

Only then did I turn on the TV and see it all over the place: the celebrations, the pundits, the president making the late-night announcement on the East Coast. We know how the story ended. Zero Dark Thirty is the dramatized story of how it began, starting with a chilling audio montage of phone calls and flight radio transmissions from 9/11 and winding through nearly a decade of searching, interrogation and frustration.

The movie is not a conventional spy thriller but a story of a beleaguered CIA operative, Maya (Chastain), trying to extract information from terrorist suspects and convince her higher-ups she's onto something. Her analysis of several interrogations reveals the key to finding "UBL" is a courier who relays his messages to Al-Qaida operatives. Now if this were a fictional Hollywood espionage flick, the courier would be located within a day by a room full of people banging away at computer keyboards with giant screens that can show us high-resolution photos of just about anything, anywhere.

If only the CIA had it so easy. Maya must contend with an agency skittish about being burned by the WMD debacle in Iraq and the Abu Gharib prisoner scandal. She has guts and a gut feeling she's on the right path, even though the hunt for Bin Laden is becoming more like an episode of The First 48 as the case goes cold. Maya leans on her superiors to do something, even marking on a supervisor's window the number of days that have gone by at the suspected Bin Laden compound without somebody doing something. James Gandofini has a memorable cameo as CIA Director Leon Panetta who still sounds more like Tony Soprano than Panetta.

The movie picks up considerable zip as it follows the mission to kill UBL. We go along for the hunt as Seal Team Six raids Bin Laden's three-story compound. I already knew many of the mission's details as revealed in the book No Easy Day, but seeing them play out on screen is riveting.

I admire director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) for keeping this film from picking up a battle-of-the-sexes theme, in which Maya would be pitted against some CIA boys' club. In fact, everyone is strictly business. We do not get any extended moralizing or patriotic milking. The film doesn't even cover the national jubilation in the aftermath of the kill. Let's just say it has a clearly defined mission, and it executes it well.

One final note: I know about the congressional claims that this picture misrepresents torture "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by CIA operatives on terror suspects. Specifically, some of your lawmakers aren't happy with the film's implication that we learned crucial information through waterboarding and other ways of making people talk. Frankly, I really don't care about the kinds of interrogation techniques the CIA used on terrorist scum, and I think millions of Americans don't either -- even if they don't want to publicly admit it.

May I Hold The Door For You, My Lady?

More than four decades after the beginning of Women's Lib, I'm amazed at how many ladies appreciate it when I open a door for them, often with a touch of a bow. Perhaps it helps to live in relatively-conservative Arizona. Back in college in Missouri, I had reasonable doubts.

"In my Women's Studies course, they call that repressive," said a friend of mine to another friend.

"Well, I just do it because it's a part of my Southern culture," replied the other friend in his Arkansas drawl. He was a soft-spoken computer-science major who had one of those Rare Cool Jobs: during the summer, he built pipe organs with his father. Repressive wasn't in his lexicon, and I couldn't picture a woman scorned at an act of kindness.

George Washington's Rules Of Civility -- my Colonial inspiration and primer on how to behave -- say nothing about holding open a door, although they do say at the top: "Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present." Down the list, in the context of greetings, they says: "Superfluous Complements and all Affectation of Ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be Neglected."

So is holding the door open for a lady a gesture of respect, or an Affectation of Ceremony? Well, it depends. I hate to use that answer, but it fits.

It depends on your upbringing. I know families who school their children well in the social graces. I've known people who wouldn't know social grace from Social Security. The people who mind their manners certainly don't see it as an affectation, just like the people who taught them. If you are taught we are capable of going about our own business, thank you very much, in the hard reality that is our world with two working hands and no expectations of courtesy, then I gather you really don't care.

It depends on your perspective. An act of kindness can easily be misinterpreted into an act of patronizing, whereas an innocent mention of "Good morning" is met with the response, "What's good about it?" Some people have a high threat matrix, one which swallows their functions of appreciation and fellowship. If you're offended or repressed by someone holding a door open for you, random acts of kindness are the least of your problems.

Then there's your humble servant, the one who still bows to ladies -- and gents -- in 21st Century America, and who still opens doors for both genders. I don't consider it an affectation because shows respect and kindness to others in a world lacking so much of it. Nobody has ever scolded me for what people could easily label as an archaic Ceremony of Affectation, because ultimately, it's not about what your hand is holding, but where your heart is leading.

I Am Sid

Source: Epic Productions LLC/Tanque Verde Swap Meet

Yes, that's your humble servant on the new billboards and television commercials for Tucson's Tanque Verde Swap Meet. No, those aren't my own nerd glasses, suspenders, wild shirt or hat.

"You look like Steve Urkel," my Queen Mother observed.

So how did I end up 20 feet wide, 100 feet off the ground, and running on Tucson television? Let's rewind back to 2008.

Two friends and former KOLD colleagues of mine, Alex Johnston and Sam Blonder, now run their own business, Epic Productions. After they learned of my adventure on The Price Is Right and my historical pursuits, they floated the idea of putting me into a commercial campaign. We played around with a concept and even shot some test footage, but it wound up on the shelf when the economy tanked.

A couple of months ago, the Swap Meet was looking for some new ideas. Alex and Sam asked if I was still interested -- and I was -- but I had to clear it with my bosses. The opportunity came with several ethical trapdoors: I'm working in the station's newsroom, honor-bound to avoid payola or plugola situations, and the client is a potential advertiser. Even though I'm not an on-air personality, rumors can get around about extracurricular activities. I volunteered to waive off any pay for the project and reassured the powers that be that I wouldn't be making any connections between the client and the station or my newsroom role. To everybody's relief, we got the greenlight.

So early on a beautiful December Saturday morning, the guys and a make-up artist dressed me up and styled my hair into "Swap Sid" before we headed out to the Swap Meet. We spent about four hours shooting dozens of vignettes, riffing and rapping with the assorted vendors and their wares and goofing around in the food court and the childrens' play area. One sequence featured me running through the kiddie obstacle course. It took four times to get what we needed, but it ultimately landed on the cutting room floor.

Alex directed me, feeding a cheesy line or an idea: "How about rolling one of those tires down the aisle?" If we got an idea for a scene in front of a booth, we'd shoot it and keep on moving. The vendors -- bless them -- played along with us all the way, letting us sample the merch. I put on sunglasses, boots, hats and an electric guitar. I slipped into a Marine uniform and marched myself out of frame. I rode the merry-go-round with cotton candy in one hand and popcorn in the other. My jaw dropped at a gigantic burger.

Two weeks later, Alex sent me an email: "The clients absolutely loved it! You're gonna be a star!"

I'm not sure about that, but I'm sure going to get a lot of looks. I'm not sure if I have a future in promotion, but I'm hoping whatever I do next will grant me the opportunity to wear... wait for it... a tricorn hat.

"Sid" Billboard near Grant and Stone, Tucson / Source: Paul Durrant

News Holes Of The World

If the world ends, you don't want it to happen in Eagle Pass, Texas. Or Ulysses, Kansas. Or Valentine, Nebraska. Or western Wyoming.

Certain areas of the United States mostly uncovered by people are also uncovered by news organizations, and particularly, television news organizations. That means getting video out of there will require a road trip, and the story better be big. Thanks to the Internet, cell phone cameras, and video compression techniques that allow us to move pictures faster than ever, the problem isn't what it used to be. But I remember when it was.

In my days producing for KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, we spent several days covering a corruption trial involving a county judge and five others in Laredo. This was their second run after the first ended in a hung jury, and the case moved out of its home territory of Hidalgo County.

Laredo is no backwater border town, but when we trucked a crew up there, it lacked the basics. We didn't have a sister ABC affiliate in town, meaning we couldn't borrow newsroom facilities. Worse, Laredo was out of our microwave range, and the station we could've worked with lacked the technology to relay a shot back to our studios in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. We didn't have a satellite truck; nobody in the market did. What would we use it for? North of Raymondville, we would be interviewing cattle, and beyond that, the story got into Corpus Christi or San Antonio's territory. Mexico lay immediately south, and we were sure as shooting not taking an expensive piece of equipment across the border. Ocean flanked us to the east, and to our west, mostly dust and colonias.

But now we had to go to Laredo, and we had to get video back in time for the 5pm news. We worked out a system where the crew would grab what they could and make a run for the Starr-Hidalgo County border. There, on the western fringe of our microwave range, we strategically planted a live truck in a fast-food parking lot. The crew still had to do a absurd amount of driving, but they could cut tape and soundbites and pump it back to us without having to break any land speed records to make deadline.

When I changed gigs to KOLD, we had to cover a triple-murder trial relocated to Prescott from Tucson. Again, we didn't have a satellite truck, but we did have options and some resourceful engineers. They rigged up a system involving multiple microwave links: one from our camera position on the courthouse lawn to a receiver on our microwave truck across the street, which was then relayed to a receiver the engineers tapped into the Arizona State University microwave system. From there it fed downstate to the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, which relayed it to us via another microwave link. This Rube Goldberg setup was the TV equivalent of a four-cushion trick shot in pool, and wonder of wonders, it worked.

Fortunately, technology keeps advancing. Now we can use Skype to get out of areas with a decent cell-phone signal. If you've got the cash, you can also invest in a backpack live unit that bonds several wireless signals together to transmit broadcast-quality video. It's definitely on my want list.

Before The Throne

In my historical-flavored pursuits, people sometimes ask if I'm in the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. Many people get the flawed impression it's an extension of their local Renaissance Festival, but a more accurate description is an organization of people who love the dress, demeanor, arts and combat of the Middle Ages without the unpleasantries -- like the Plague.

I first heard about SCA in college, when somebody asked about "those Medieval guys" in Columbia, Missouri's Peace Park. "Some of those guys," he continued, "they're kinda fruity."

Many months ago, some friends of mine who play in a medieval musical troupe invited me to an SCA Arts & Sciences fair sponsored by the local "barony." I wander into a hotel near downtown Tucson teeming with lords and ladies.

They occupy much of the ground floor in their tunics, tights and gowns. In the lobby. In the bar. By the pool. In the courtyard. In the meeting rooms. On the balconies. At the front desk. Woe upon the uninitiated modern-day guest left to scratch his head and whisper: "I see dark-age people!"

Source: SCA

I come in my green Henderson kilt, red weskit and Jacobite bonnet. It's a few hundred years beyond the SCA timeline, but nobody minds.

“We use coolers for our beer,” one nobleman named Christobal tells me. “We don't want to go into the mountains for snow.” Nobody stitch-counts in the SCA because the rules of authenticity can be flexible according to circumstance.

Not five minutes after I enter the lobby looking for my friends does a person from a We Make History ball recognize me. She played the Cavaliers' Ball a few years back, and amazingly, she knows me even though I'm not wearing my Puritan attire.

“I didn't know you were in the SCA,” she smiles.

“I'm not,” I explained. “I'm a visitor.”

She explains some SCA nuances, such as “court” – a gathering of the royals and the princes – and her roles as assistant to royalty, making a lady-in-waiting comfortable and getting everything that she needs.

It's nice to be nobility. It's nice to be honored, too, before the nobility. And that's the draw of Court, where the SCA's most enthusiastic, industrious, and skilled participants are praised before the King and Queen, given beautiful certificates and cheered with shouts of “HUZZAH!” One court opens the festivities and another session closes it.

In that final ceremony, I see the king rise from his throne, explaining how he has the discretion and honor to confer a “laurel” upon those whom deems deserving of special accolades.

He walks about before he mentions the name of a lady, well-versed in years as she is in her artistic talents. She bursts into tears as the other stand and cheer and huzzah to her. She kneels before His Majesty and swears on a sword to uphold the honor and dignity of the rank. Afterwards, a line of people keep hugging her.

“I don't know what that was,” I tell the musical friend who invited me, “but it must have been huge.”

It was wonderful for her, and may GOD forgive me for being slightly jealous. Everybody should get to have an experience like that at least once in their lives, being told by somebody of rank how valuable they are, in public, before their friends, in a bright and colorful ceremony. It's like the Boy Scouts, but with a historic theme and certificates instead of merit badges.

We'll get our chance. One day, all of us will stand before the throne of OUR KING. I don't know what HE'll say to me. I know in CHRIST I'm saved, but there's always the uncertainty, the worry. For now though, I wonder about the others here on Earth, and what we're doing to tell them how valuable they are. What laurels are we giving them, while we're living?

A Small Town In Black And White

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Today I begin a new project on FrancisPage.com: The 30/30 Challenge. The goal is 30 original stories in 30 days. Most will be personal, many will be humorous, but all of them will be episodes I have never talked about before online. I kick things off with a story of a story from my cub reporting days.

Huntsville, Missouri, about five miles west of Moberly and 50 miles north of Columbia, is no hotbed of racial tension, or any tension -- even if Confederate guerrilla leader "Bloody Bill" Anderson did spend a few boyhood days there. But on February 8, 1993, the KBIA newsroom at the University of Missouri got a tip about a suspected verbal and physical assault involving a black high school student and a white teacher. The issue was to come up at the Westran School District meeting.

Fellow college cub reporter Jeanette and I travel up there in her car, gabbing about ourselves and our journalism classes while our station plays in the background, interrupted only by a U2 tape. The countryside has nothing to offer in the darkness, save for an occasional radio tower. Fog forms on the ground, and we hope it wouldn't build.

Rolling into Huntsville, I see a typical, classic Missouri small town. The local supermarket is closed and dark at only 6pm. So is nearly every business on the main drag. Jeanette pulls into a Casey's General Store -- that gas-and-grocery chain wedded to rural locations -- and asks directions to the school where the meeting is taking place. It doesn't take us long to find it.

This is a big meeting. The Westran School Board is set up in the library, and people outnumber seats, crowding between shelves and leaning against the wall. Jeanette and I find chairs in the front row next to a newspaper scribe from Kirksville. One of the TV stations in Columbia has deployed a one-man band who sets up his camera right next to the board's roundtable. He places his lone microphone next to the superintendent... who also happens to be the husband of the accused teacher.

The meeting starts and the board jumps right to the public discussion period. Tape recorders click on, including mine, and the clerk reads the rules. A member of the state NAACP sitting beside me pipes up. She's concerned about the 15-minute per topic time limit, with a 3-minute limit per speaker.

"Is this the official policy?" she asks.

The clerk replied, it is.

"Do you have it in writing?"

The supervisor and the clerk exchange glances, and the clerk goes up to fetch it. A few minutes later, he returns with a pink sheet of paper. He hands it to the NAACP lady, and she peruses it silently as I sneak a glance over her shoulder. She insists the clerk read it again and he does.

A lady named Dimple, mother of the girl involved in this suspected racial rhubarb, gets up and lays out the story. She says the whole incident came about because of a cheerleading rivalry between her daughter and the teacher's daughter. Dimple's daughter made the team; the teacher's kid didn't. As the story goes, Dimple's daughter had been rubbing this in the other girl's face through gossip, and the teacher knew it.

Dimple says it all came to a head during a basketball game, where the teacher spotted Dimple's daughter, then shoved and cursed at her: "I'm tired of this bull---- you're spreading about my daughter." Dimple confronted the teacher later on, and the educator told her she was tired of the gossip. Things went downhill. Dimple says the teacher told her, "Well, I know where your daughter gets her fat mouth!"

Dimple tells the board she wants the teacher fired, but not just to cause trouble. She says the incident, "is not a racial thing." Even so, she still notified the NAACP about it. The NAACP representative who inquired about the time limit gets back up and tells the board this is no game. The organization is filing complaints with law enforcement and civil rights groups as well as the U.S. Department of Education. It sounds like overkill, but she says this wasn't the only time a black student has been assaulted. She claims in each instance, the board "swept it under the rug."

The general public gets its turn. "This is not a racist town," says one woman.

Another woman, black and running for school board, says the whole thing is getting out of hand and the board ought to let everybody work things out.

"You'll get elected," snorts the NAACP representative.

An argument breaks out between the basketball coach and the NAACP rep, but what scotches the public comment period is when another woman uses two disparaging words brought back into the limelight by then-presidential-candidate Ross Perot: "you people." The NAACP rep and her entourage walk out along with Dimple, but not before another woman grabs the frustrated mother's hand and begs her to stay.

"We went to school together!" she pleads.

Dimple wasn't having it. As far as I could tell, the public had already made up its mind against her. Why should she expect anything different from the board? I slip out to try to get a soundbite with one of the aggrieved, but they vanish before I can get to them in the maze of the school hallway. I spot the TV guy talking with the local cops, one of whom is going off about how "the blacks" are dragging the media into the whole mess. He spots me with a mic in my hand.

"Don't you tape me!" he half-shouts.

"I'm not recording," I reply in a nervous appeal. He's got a gun on him, after all. The other cop smiles at me like it's an inside joke.

After the meeting, I walk up to the superintendent for his reactions. His wife isn't at the meeting to defend herself, and neither is the other woman's daughter. He has little to say in his defense: "There's two sides to every story."

As I recorded him, my cheap mic from Radio Shack started to come apart at the head. Either the glue wasn't strong enough, or something about the super's words gave it a conniption fit.

Jeanette and I book it back to the station to put our stories together. I write in the dark, but in my youth and inexperience, a story I could crank out in about 10 minutes today is giving me trouble. I want to be fair. I want to be honest. But I'm grabbing at allegations after allegations, and the key players are missing in action. I can barely write the first sentence.

This is where a good editor comes in. He asks for a wrap -- my voice on tape with a soundbite -- and another story with a bite before midnight. I make the deadline, but I end up staying until 2am while he adds some behind-covering verbiage and other words to keep us out of trouble on a hot story.

I would never venture to Huntsville again, for a follow-up story or anything else. I don't remember what happened to the teacher or Dimple's daughter or to anybody else, if something did happen after I left. I just remember the tension of a small town being ripped apart before my eyes over a cheerleading rivalry that devolved into a racial incident. That's a big story for an amateur with a messed-up microphone.

Yes, I Cried My Eyes Out -- Here, You Can Have My Man Card

Reel To Reel: Les Misérables

Going Rate: Worth full price admission... and then some
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Emotional and graphic depiction of poverty and prostitution, Ye olde musket violence, a few curse words

I remember somebody criticizing the Broadway production of Les Misérables for "making the poor look cute." Maybe this film version is what he had in mind: a gritty yet soaring, emotionally draining contemporary opera set in 19th-century France that reaches deep into the soul and does not let go. Bring Kleenex -- a lot of it.

Director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) turns the wildly successful stage production into a musical drama, where dialogue is sung in the manner it would be spoken. Eschewing the traditional movie-musical convention of recording the songs in a studio and lip-synching them in front of the camera, Hooper's cast sings in real time. This technique required each cast member to listen to a piano played off-camera through a hidden earpiece to keep them in key. However, instead of looking at a conductor to guide their pace, the actors set their own time, and the orchestra recorded the backing instrumentation later, matching the actors' rhythms. The product is highly passionate and yet nuanced as the actors are required to act as they sing and play to the camera instead of the back of the house.

You already know Victor Hugo's story: paroled prisoner Jean Valjean (Jackman) is transformed by a priest's act of mercy, driven to break parole and inspired to become a new person. He reinvents himself as a successful businessman and agrees to care for the daughter of Fantine (Hathaway), one of his factory workers forced into a life of prostitution after losing her job. The daughter, Cosette (Seyfried), lives as a neglected errand girl to a corrupt innkeeper (Cohen) and his wife, who provide the musical's sparse lighter moments. Getting the girl away from her deplorable life at the inn is easy compared to getting away from policeman Javert (Crowe) who is engaged in a duel of wills with his former prisoner. The story takes us through a doomed uprising among Paris' poor in which Valjean and Cosette will come to terms with life, love and purpose.

Another benefit of watching the cast sing in real time is that you know their voices are their own, eschewing another Hollywood musical tradition of replacing some singing voices. I saw this film with my Queen Mother and Royal Father, and we all kept a scorecard. Hathaway's Fantine stands out, notably her heartbreaking version of "I Dreamed A Dream." Seyfried also turns in a powerful performance. Crowe's singing works, but he seems a little flatter than the rest -- or maybe that's by design. The big surprise is Jackman's Valjean: he definitely can sing his way through a demanding role. I kept saying to myself, "This is Wolverine?"

Hooper moves the story along at lightning speed. Some songs have been shortened considerably or reworked. One new number appears, written by the show's original composers. I don't think you will have any problem with the changes, and if you do, the stage production is still out there. Making a movie musical is not as simple as filming a theatrical performance, although Hooper conceivably could've gone that route and people would've understood. This version pushes realism while preserving the power and spirituality of a work that has been astounding audiences for more than 25 years.

It is not hard to understand why this story speaks to so many of us. It deals with redemption, love and loss. In Jean Valjean's journey, we remember our GOD is a GOD of second, third, and fourth chances. We remember how GOD uses imperfect people to do HIS work in this world. We remember the servants we are called to be, giving of ourselves and forgiving as GOD forgives us. How can GOD love us so much when we continue to show such lack of love to others? Why does HE trust us with HIS creation when we abuse the gifts we are given?

For the benefit of your fellow moviegoers, please refrain from singing at the end. But don't refrain from the tears. GOD gave them to you for a reason, including films like this.

What A Long Strange Trip This Is Going To Be

Reel To Reel: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Going Rate: Worth full price admission for LOTR fans, matinee for everybody else
Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis
Rated: PG-13 (but could pass for a straight PG)
Red Flags: Some scenes of intense fantasy battle violence, some of it gross, but nothing off the charts

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is epic fiction filmed epicly. At times, the prequel to the Lord Of The Rings saga plods, but it doesn't want to leave anything out. Peter Jackson is back at the helm as director, and he's found a way to split one book into three films. This first one clocks in at nearly three hours. I will confess I've never read The Hobbit, but at this pace, Jackson is not just filming every page; he's filming the margins.

Many of you reading this already know the plot: hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) is recruited to join the wizard Gandalf (McKellen), warrior Thorin (Armitage) and a band of dwarves to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor from a gold-hungry dragon that's seized upon the royal stockpile and run everyone out. Bilbo is living a middle-class life in the Shire: roomy hole in the ground with a nice library and lace handkerchiefs. After a wild party and a bit of self-reflection, Baggins decides it's time for an adventure with a group that could use someone small in stature to be their "burglar."

The film plays like a gigantic game of Dungeons and Dragons, full of episodes and battles and atmosphere to convince us the quest is no walk in the woods. We meet all sorts of monsters, creatures and characters, some of whom we know will be important later on, like the goblin Gollum (Serkis -- say it with me: "Dee Pwechiousss!"). The rest we might not have to remember, because they're not going to be around after this gargantuan first act.

I saw The Hobbit in much-debated high-frame-rate 3D, double the speed of standard motion pictures. Home theater geeks sometimes complain about the "soap-opera effect" caused by advanced-technology TV's that add in extra frames to smooth out motion but make Pirates Of The Caribbean look like an episode of The Young And The Restless. I found 48fps avoided that live-video look while still providing amazing clarity of J.R.R. Tolkien's universe perfected by Jackson and his digital wizards. They show much more wizardry than Gandalf, who uses his powers sparingly either because he prefers it that way or because he needs remedial education from Hogwarts -- or because we need to stretch the conflicts over three pictures.

Don't misunderstand: I liked the first Hobbit film. But you need to know it's not for the casual movie fan who may get sucked into it because of the hype. This is a film made for fanboys, and with millions of them around the world, Jackson has to deliver.

So What Did I Learn In The Past Year?

That's the question on my mind as I celebrate 41 years of growth. Here are the answers:

• Don't get hung up in situations where you think you should be patching things up among other people because you think that's what GOD wants you to do. Move on with your life and let GOD work on it.
• It's sad to see so many people look at high unemployment, low wages and crummy jobs and think to themselves, "Well, this is the new normal."  It's only normal if you allow it to be normal.  Otherwise, you need to make sure you're standing up for something better.
• It doesn't matter who you voted for in the last election; Washington's biggest problem is egos.
• You can never have enough kilts.
• Those Coleman gas lamps are hot on top!
• Marriage is still not in my future.
• I don't know what's more annoying: candidate campaign robo-calls or debt collectors calling me looking for somebody else.
• Thrift stores are my new favorites.  I used to think I was robbing from the poor by shopping at these places, but that's just not true.  You're finding a new home for goods people don't want anymore and cutting down on waste.  My favorite patriot, Ben Franklin, believed in frugality.  Why not me?  Why not all of us?

It's On Like Donkey Kong

Reel To Reel: Wreck-It Ralph

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk
Rated: PG
Red Flags: Video game violence (but nothing worse than what your kids are already playing) and mild potty-mouth jokes

Wreck-It Ralph is a loving tribute to classic video games, the kind I grew up with in the 1980's. Twice a year, Mom and Dad would take my brother and I and our friends to Showbiz Pizza Place for our birthdays, and we would feed the arcade machines as many quarters as my folks could afford. That was when coin-op gaming only cost a quarter, and the animated violence maxed out at Mario getting hit in the head with a barrel.

The movie's title character (Reilly) is the star villain of a video game modeled after Donkey Kong. Miffed that somebody moved his stump for an apartment building, he proceeds to wreck the place on every quarter. Players control the hero, Fix-It Felix Jr. (McBrayer) who climbs the floors and undoes the damage. Felix gets a medal at the end of each level while Ralph gets tossed to the ground by the grateful tenants and exiled to a nearby dump.

This has been going on for years and years, and the Fix-It Felix Jr. game is still taking quarters at the neighborhood arcade even as other games come and go. Such staying power would inspire pride in a lot of people, but not Ralph. The act's getting stale, and we see it in the beautifully executed opening minutes of the movie as he shares with a 12-step group for anonymous video game villains. Such a gathering happens in the style of Night At The Museum; when the arcade closes, the video game characters are free to leave their consoles and travel along the electrical wires to other games. They mingle inside a surge protector dubbed Game Central Station, a place where you'll see Sonic the Hedgehog reminding the characters that they can't regenerate if they die outside their game and Q*Bert begging for handouts after his machine was unplugged.

When the other characters of Ralph's game celebrate an anniversary without him, he understandably feels undervalued. Felix wouldn't have anything to fix in a game devoid of his presence. Ralph vows to win a medal, but knowing he can't do it in his game, he learns he can earn one down the wires in Hero's Mission, a first-person shooter commanded by Sergeant Calhoun (Lynch). Ralph sneaks in and grabs his medal, but his brief moment of triumph goes haywire when he accidentally launches himself and one of the game's virus-like baddies into a girly-girl racing game called Sugar Rush.

Inside a world that morphs Candy Land with Mario Kart, he meets aspiring Vanellope von Schweetz (Silverman). She sees Ralph's medal as her ticket out of a hopeless, glitchy life in a domain ruled by King Candy (Tudyk, with a voice that reminded me of the forgotten jack-in-the-box from "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer"). Meanwhile, Ralph's game is going haywire, and the entire arcade could go with it if Felix and Calhoun don't stop the creature that's multiplying under the streets of sweets.

Wreck-It Ralph is a family movie you're not shy about taking the kids to see. In fact, you secretly want to see it more than the kids. Or you'll just go yourself (like I did). It masterfully blends different games from different eras with plenty of in-jokes for the retro gamer while keeping the children interested. It also keeps its manic sequences -- those compulsory elements of CGI kid-flicks -- restrained and reasonable.

As I mentioned, different games' characters mingle throughout the film, which I'm sure kept Disney's legal department busy all through the development cycle. Retro-gaming has gotten a nice slice of shelf space over the past few years, and Ralph will surely help it. I'd like to see the original Pac-Man and Donkey Kong back in arcades. I can only fathom so many flavors of Mortal Kombat or Doom.

What's more, I find Wreck-It Ralph has more of a heart than previous Disney CGI animation titles, and it's no surprise why: Pixar alum John Lasseter is executive producer, someone who knows how to make these films work on multiple levels with honest emotions and characters we care about.

Reel To Reel: Skyfall

License to kill renewed.

Going Rate: Worth full price
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Intense action scenes, explosions, mild language, some brief mild sex

The newest James Bond movie isn't so much another sequel as it is a reboot of the world's most famous spy series, but it doesn't become obvious until the film's closing minutes, when we realize what appeared to be a new chapter is actually a revision. In the process, it makes Bond a lot more human. To my relief, 007 also finds his wit again. He also gets the girls, although Daniel Craig's version is noticeably less obsessed with sex.

Skyfall opens with Bond in a monster of an action sequence to recover a stolen hard drive containing the true identities of several undercover agents. He's battling a baddie atop a moving train when M (Dench) orders Bond's fellow agent (Harris) to "take the bloody shot" from a long-range rifle and end it. She misses.

Bond vanishes, wounded but not dead, reminiscent of You Only Live Twice. While he's out boozing and healing and cavorting with the natives of some ocean paradise, MI6 is in upheaval. M is facing early retirement because of the hard drive theft. What's worse, the movie's proverbial Bond villain hacks into the service's computers and engineers a previously unthinkable act of terrorism.

M needs 007, but he's not quite back in the game. His aim is shaky and he's still carrying around shards of shrapnel in his chest from his last day on the job -- not quite the neatly invincible Bond we all know. With help from the colleague who nearly killed him, he tracks down master cyberterrorist Silva (Bardem), a former agent gone rogue with a face that's supposed to remind us of Julian Assange. Silva is no caricature heavy. Within him is a twisted genius that's more Hannibal Lecter than Dr. Evil, although I always wonder who bankrolls these Bond villains, and how they always manage to get so many toys.

About the toys: Q is back, in the form of a mildly annoying nerd (Ben Whishaw), but don't expect any massively innovative new gadgets. As Q points out, they don't make exploding pens. Bond's Aston Martin from Goldfinger also makes a guest appearance.

We also get a deeper glimpse into Bond's past as he returns to his boyhood home, Skyfall. Not surprisingly, it's a moldy, broken-down estate, much like Bond himself at this point, in need of remodeling. Nothing we can't solve with explosives.

I like how Skyfall embraces Bond's legacy while plugging into the world as we know it. Bond doesn't take on Russians or megalomaniac super-criminals anymore, nor should he, and this film makes it clear that those days are over. I also am relieved this film is not trying to remake 007 as a Jason Bourne clone, as was hinted in Casino Royale. (I skipped Quantum Of Solace, and I gather I won't regret it.)

Admittedly, Sean Connery's Bond remains my favorite. But I can learn to like Daniel Craig's version. Really, I can.

Reel To Reel: Argo

The real "Mission: Impossible."

Going Rate: Worth full price
Starring: Ben Affleck, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Rated: R (but really could pass for PG-13)
Red Flags: Protest violence, language

At 8 years old, I was too young to fully understand the magnitude of the 1979-1980 Iran hostage crisis. I don't remember the iconic images of the captured Americans paraded around with blindfolds on. I barely remember my elementary school peers talking about it.

"What if the shah comes back?"

"Oh, they'll kill him if he comes back."

But I do remember the Ayatollah Khomeni. And I remember the yellow ribbons on the trees, on billboards, on windows, everywhere. The hostage crisis doomed President Carter's chances of re-election and gave President Reagan political capital to re-arm America. I have no doubt he would've bombed Iran if the standoff continued into his presidency. Tehran would have looked more like the Willcox Playa.

Nearly lost in the upheaval was a miracle: six American diplomats rescued from Tehran through an ingenious plan that required the cooperation of the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and the Canadian government. Argo is the story of how it came together, and although the movie takes copious dramatic liberties with the story, it plays like a caper film crossed with a spy thriller.

Affleck plays Tony Mendez, a CIA "exfiltration" specialist who is brought in to advise on the increasingly hopeless mission of getting the six escapees from the American Embassy to the airport and out of Iran. They're hiding at the Canadian Ambassador's residence, and the clock is running. The revolutionaries are slowly deducing a few embassy employees are unaccounted for, ones they need for leverage, torture, or whatever.

Mendez is a quiet, analytical spook with a sense of responsibility and connections. The State Department kicks around several implausible cover stories for getting the six out -- like posing them as teachers or agricultural workers -- but he doesn't have any better ideas until he catches Planet Of The Apes on TV. Why not have the six pose as a film crew?

Mendez hooks up with an old Hollywood pal, monster makeup artist John Chambers (Goodman, perfectly cast), who's designed CIA disguises before. But this time, the government needs an entire film. Chambers leads him to director Lester Siegel (Arkin), who declares that even if he's making a fake film, he's gonna make a good one. The team settles on "Argo," a script for a Star Wars fantasy knock-off that has a middle-eastern vibe.

Watching Mendez and company set the film up is nearly as interesting as watching them pull off the ruse. We get a taste of Hollywood-insider dealing and press baiting. We also get to watch Mendez drop a cover on six government employees who have never done intelligence work and see if they can avoid blowing their cover, especially when they go out into a crowded bazaar for a location scout. We don't see a lot of shoot-em-up action. The film is content to work on us psychologically.

Argo, which Affleck also directed, doesn't throw a lot of personal sidebars at us. We know Mendez is living apart from his wife and son, and we learn a little about the six escapees, but nothing more. The film isn't interested in their lives as much as their anxiety over possibly losing them. It's simply too much information in the way of the mission, and the movie smartly avoids it.

As I mentioned, the real story of the so-called "Canadian Caper" is less dramatic than Argo portrays it, according to the Wired magazine article that inspired the script. The real story is of governments and agents making numerous secret moves to pave the way for the escape, which happens a lot easier than it should. The film adds a lot more tension and narrow escapes. But hey, if you're gonna make a movie about faking a movie, might as well go all the way.