Jonathan Bernstein's Blog: jonathanbernsteinwrites.com, page 10

BRIDGET'S NETFLIX QUEUE OF SPY MOVIES AND TV SHOWS

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT

I'm going to drop a name here. Ready? CLANG, here it comes. I was talking to Samuel L. Jackson the other day and I advanced my half-baked theory that many of his previous movies could not be made in today's super-safe environment. My prime example was 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight which did not originate as a comic book, a video game or a toy, and would therefore be seen as too great a risk. Jackson dismissed my notion. "It's already been remade," he barked. "That show Blindspot? Same idea. She's got amnesia but she's got all thse skills."

That's a fair comparison but, in every other aspect, TV's Blindspot falls far short of The Long Kiss Goodnight which seems to have got a bit lost in the mists of time

Geena Davis starred as toothsome suburban wife and mother Samantha Caine who has another identity buried deep inside her. Once upon a time she was deadly government assassin Charly Baltimore and as the action in the movie rapidly escalates, the ice cold, wisecracking, neck-snapping Charly reasserts herself. Jackson gleefully sidekicks as a down at heel private detective who helps Charly piece together her hidden life.

As expected from the guy who wrote Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, Long Kiss Goodnight is a mixture of explosions, broken bones and endless punchlines.

I stand by my assertation that it couldn't be made today. But I wish it would. Blindspot is a poor substitute.

 

BRIDGET'S SPY SONG PLAYLIST

 PETULA CLARK- L'AGENT SECRET

Back in the prehistoric days of pop music, hits were up for grabs. Big labels and established artists furiously snatched up songs by artists without the benefit of national distribution(or, in many cases, white faces). The situation was even more chaotic across the globe with European singers routinely belting out their own versions of British and American hits.

Record companies realized they were leaving money on the table and, for a brief period in the 1960s, singers were required to put out versions of their hits rendered phonetically in French, German and Spanish specifically to prevent local acts profiting from cover versions.

This practice was not popular with artists who got into music specifically because they had no interest in studying French, German or Spanish at school. But it was a bit of a goldmine for bilingual singers like Sandie Shaw and, specifically Petula Clark. Clark, of Downtown fame, had a quintessentially English voice, but she embraced the French market with such enthusiasm and success that she ended up with a Gallic career completely separate from her British one.

This song isn't one of her classics, but it's the only thing she recorded that's interspersed with sound effects of gunfire, punches being thrown and the recipients of those punches groaning in pain.

BRIDGET'S NETFLIX QUEUE OF SPY MOVIES AND TV SHOWS

THE AMERICANS

What if our friends aren't really our friends? What if our neighbors aren't really our neighbors? FX's The Americans has been answering that question over the first two seasons of it's dark, paranoid show about KGB agents nestling in the heart of 1980s Washington, passing themselves off as the average family next door. Season Three ratcheted up the tension as it expanded it's theme to ask, What if your parents aren't really your parents. 

Married KGB agents Philip(Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Kerri Rusell, a revelation, and a scary one) spent the first two years of the show bugging, slaughtering, blackmailing and turning US citizens over to their side, all the while living out a perfectly executed masquerade as the loving parents to a pair of unsuspecting kids. Season 2 ended with their handler informing them that their Russian overlords demanded the recruitment of earnest, churchgoing daughter, Paige, to the spy community.

Season Three saw true believer Elizabeth--Philip would defect to the US given half a chance--taking the  first steps to win Paige over to the Communist cause, even taking her to Mother Russia to visit her own expiring mother. Far from opening her daughter's eyes, Paige freaked out to the extent that she  spilled her parents' big secret to her religious mentor, Father Tim, whose days on earth must be numbered.

The Americans doesn't get a lot of ratings love and it's not known to win armfuls of awards. It's also not the easiest show to watch: one of last season's most indelible episodes had Elizabeth sympathetically but remorselessly kill an old woman by making her swallow heart medication until she died. FX has all but guaranteed The Americans will be around for two more seasons. Now that it's about launch into mother vs daughter territory, its time to get on board the show that has been too well-kept a secret.

 

BRIDGET'S SPY SONG PLAYLIST

 GUIDED BY VOICES- TEENAGE FBI

I have a friend who was in one of the many, many line-ups of this ancient and venerable indie band hailing from Dayton, Ohio. He would go on at great length about how influential and prolific they were. However my parameters of what I would and would not listen to were, at that time, both narrow and rigid. I remained committed to my notion that the only music that registered with me was manufactured pop. Songs by a band of grizzled old woodsmen with names like Ant Spoor Defibrillator were not for me.

That's a hard stance to maintain and I'm not sure why I was so gung-ho about it. Which is all to day that this is a decent song and, had I been less of a petty pop-centric dictator, I'm sure there are one or two other tunes of this ilk I could have enjoyed. Probably not more than two, though.

BRIDGET'S NETFLIX QUEUE OF SPY MOVIES AND TV SHOWS

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION

Can you remember the name of the character Paula Patton played in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol? Or anything about her? How about Maggie Q in Mission Impossible: The Third One? Or any of the female characters in the two preceding MishImps? I'm guessing not.

But you remember Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in this summer's MI:RN. You remember her asking Tom Cruise to help her off with her shoes. You remember her fast and fluid fighting style. You remember her getting ready to shoot a foreign dignitary as part of her cover(sorry, SPOILER!) You remember her saving Cruise from drowning and you remember her climaxing the motorycyle chase by standing in the middle of the road directly in Cruise's path, knowing he won't hit her.

I don't believe Tom Cruise's ego is the reason female agents were so minimized in previous MI movies. He was quite happy to let Emily Blunt push him around in Edge Of Tomorrow Live Die Repeat Choose Your Own Title. Cameron Diaz got equal screen time in the rarely-referred-to Knight And Day. But Ilsa Faust is the most memorable non-Cruise character to ever appear in a Mission Impossible movie. She's every bit as resourceful, as enigmatic and iconic as he is, and she's a big part of this fifth movie being the most successful of the franchise.

I'm as weary of sequels, spin-offs and reboots as everyone else. but I would very much hope the people behind the Mission Impossible series(ie:Tom Cruise) are already planning on either bringing back Rebecca Ferguson for the next episode, or giving Ilsa Faust her own vehicle.

 

BRIDGET'S SPY SONG PLAYLIST

 RONI GRIFFITH-SPYS

Prolific Eighties bubblegum-electro producer Bobby Orlando aka Bobby O had a catalog filled with non-existant groups and artists. But Roni Griffith appears to have been an actual person and not a fictional character created  by O to put a face to a record he'd already made. Spys comes from the only, and highly unnecessary, Griffiths album. In her brief career before she departed the sleazy world of Eighties trash-disco to become a regular on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, she had a hit with The Best Part Of Breakin' Up which sounds  like this:

 

BRIDGET'S GALLERY OF GIRL SPIES THROUGH THE AGES

CHRISTINE GRANVILLE

Who, you ask? The actual true-to-life female James Bond. Born into wealth and privilege, Christine granville as a former beauty queen and wife of a Polish diplomat. Then the Russians invaded Poland in 1939 and Christine Granville became a spy. Not just any spy. Her limitess bravery and resileince-- at all times she carried a commando knife and a cyanide tablet sewn into the hem of her skirt-- made her Winston Churchill's favorite spy, so much so that he recruited her for his  Special Operations Executive Unit.

Her biography, "The Spy Who Loved" by Clare Mulley is a must-read. A movie adatation is in the works.

 

BRIDGET'S NETFLIX QUEUE OF SPY MOVIES AND TV SHOWS

AGENT CODY BANKS

When Frankie Muniz tweeted that Bryan Cranston had pronounced himself amenable to the idea of a Malcolm In The Middle reunion should such a scenario ever become a reality--and Fox is bringing back Prison BreaK, so who knows-- your reaction was probably similar to mine: Oh yeah-Frankie Muniz, whatever happened to him?

As it turns out, he's spent the last decade or so driving cars, playing drums and, currently playing golf. Nice life. But sitcom stardom afforded him a brief movie career, the highlight of which was obviously the underrated Big Fat Liar(pour a little liquor out for Amanda Bynes' comic timing).

His biggest hit was Agent Cody Banks. Muniz' character was a junior James Bond who kept his action-packed spy life a secret from his parents. Mom and Dad simply saw him as an affable, skateboard riding underachiever who clammed up around girls. That last part was Cody's major flaw both in his awkward teen and spy identities. Agent Cody Banks had zero chill. This was tricky when he needed to get close to the adolescent daughter of a kidnapped scientist.

That daughter was played by Hilary Duff. If Muniz was basking in the glow of Malcolm-mania, Duff was smack dab in the middle of Lizzie Maguire-madness, so this movie was a real meeting of the early 2000 teen titans. Muniz was a demonstrably better actor than Duff--she's improved, though, that show Younger is definitely more enjoyable for her presence-- and Ian MacShane, as the bad guy, is so much more talented than anyone else in the film, the juvenile actors all look sheepish when they have to share the screen with him.

ACB was popular and successful enough to inspire a dud London-based sequel that Hilary Duff was smart enough to steer clear of.

 

BRIDGET'S SPY SONG PLAYLIST

LORI & THE CHAMELEONS- THE LONELY SPY

There was no Lori and there were no Chameleons. This is one of two singles to appear in or around 1980 by a Liverpool art student discovered on her way to school and persuaded to sing on a couple of songs by the guys who went on to form The KLF.

The other Lori & The Chameleons single had nothing to do with spies but was also great. Here it is:

 

BRIDGET'S GALLERY OF GIRL SPIES THROUGH THE AGES

BLACK WIDOW

Natasha Romanoff. Deadly Soviet spy. Impervious to the aging process. Trained since infanthood in weaponry, martial arts, subterfuge and survival. Iron Man was an early enemy. Defected to the U.S to be with Hawkeye, ultimately joined the Avengers.

Needs her own movie.