Jong-un Should Employ Dale Peck to Review Anti-DPRK Blockbuster

Kim Jong-un is apparently upset about an a forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster which attempts to make an assassination attempt on him the stuff of comedy. The Times recently reported on the uproar in Pyongyang surrounding the film, The Interview, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen (“North Korea Warns U.S. Over Film Mocking Its Leader,” 6/25/14). The Times reported on the fact that this isn’t the first time the North Korean royal family have been the subject of parody. Team America: World Police took a shot at Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s father. And if the North Koreans really want to stay at the top of their game of huffing and puffing they’d best be advised that the genesis of this kind of comedy actually emanates from two sources: There's The Great Dictator, with the famous scene where a Hitler look-a-like played by Charlie Chaplin bounces his globe around like a ball and the character of Oddjob (Harold Sakata) from Goldfinger, who actually bears a striking resemblance to Mr. Jong-un. But when talking about retaliation one wonders  if the North Koreans wouldn’t do well to drag some of America’s most acerbic critics out of the woodwork. Dale Peck, for instance, is more known for his literary than film criticism, but he's capable of eviscerating writers in the way that a good butcher can extract the innards from a cow or pig. Peck is like a pit bull.  He’d be a great attack dog to set on a pair of rowdy filmmakers. The North Koreans should start by setting him on Franco and Rogen, who also directed. When he is done with them he can go after Columbia Pictures which is releasing the film, Sony who own Columbia and American audiences who devour this kind of comedy.

Skyfall

Skyfall the new James Bond employs philosophy’s Trolley Problem as a a basic plot device. This use of a famous problem in logic to fuel the narrative, is in itself an innovation in the annals of chase movies. But there other innovations in Skyfall, not the least of which being the force of evil, Silva (Javier Bardem), whose ideology has taken on a decidedly personal tone. Gone are the cold war and even the villains representing rogue international consortiums. Bardem is literally the guy next door, a former agent whose has turned against his boss, M (Judi Dench) in a big way. Which brings us back to the Trolley problem. An out of control trolley can either kill one person or a multiple of people. Naturally, the decision is to turn it towards the one. M does it to Bond (Daniel Craig) early in the movie and she had done it to Bardem, years before and thus the grudge. Other leitmotifs include entrapment and escape and old versus new. M represents the old order of things which must be replaced, perhaps along with Bond who is urged to retire by Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the superior that both he and M report to. But there is some degree of ambiguity in the old versus new sweepstakes. The new is plainly inevitable, but is it always desirable or necessarily effective? Skyfall is the name of the ancient Scottish manner on which the James Bond character was born and it is in this setting that he is finally able to engineer the victory that brings about the film’s quasi-happy ending. Ironically, with all the examples of newness on display (for instance the video game graphics operated by a youthful Q, who is a computer geek), the latest addition to the Bond cycle lacks the kind of invention to be found in say a 60’s movie like From Russia With Love with its evil rivals, SPECTRE and SMERSH and its Colonel Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) who has a poison spike that pops out of her shoe. Then, of course, there’s the magnificent Oddjob (Harold Sakata) of Goldfinger. The modern and post-modernist touches and the creation of an action film that flirts with interiority might be explained by the fact that Skyfall was directed by Sam Mendes, best known to film goers for American Beauty.

Goldfinger Starring Kim Jong-un as Oddjob

Pedro Ugarte/Agence France Presse--Getty Images

“The White House has urged media organizations not to overdo their coverage, saying it would give Pyongyang, a propaganda victory. The satellite, one official said, was a ‘dishwasher wrapped in tinfoil.’ But that has not stopped news organizations from sending correspondents to Pyongyang, where they have filed frequent reports on preparations,” the Times’s Mark Landler and Jane Perlez wrote in a front page piece ("Few U.S. Options as North Korea Readies Missile Launching,"NYT, 4/11/12). Has anyone considered the idea that the purpose of the now ill-fated missile launching was in all likelihood micro-economic, ie to attract a flood of journalists who would prop up Pyongyang’s listless tourism and hotel industry?  Remember Oddjob from Goldfinger? Harold Sakata, the actor and wrestler, who played him was Japanese, but he was supposed to render the part of Goldfinger’s Korean jack of all trades, an Asian butler with a killer derby. Now 48 years later, it looks like North Korea has caught up to the third of the Bond movies. Kim Jong-un, the newly appointed “Supreme Leader” (“As Rocket Launching Nears, North Korea Continues Shift to New ‘Supreme Leader,’” NYT, 4/11/12) displays an uncanny likeness to Oddjob that would make him a candidate to take on Sakata’s part if a remake of the movie were ever envisioned. However, what was most astonishing about Landler and Perlez piece about the rocket launching was Pedro Ugarte’s accompanying photo, in the print edition of the paper. Ugarte’s shot of a bank of eight computer stations, each manned by two technicians facing a huge screen with accompanying data displays, showed that the rocket launch center would be the perfect set for any prospective Goldfinger remake. Remember too that Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s recently deceased father loved movies and you begin to see another rationale for both the launch and the eye-catching technology. It’s the old notion that any publicity, however bad, is good--a formula that’s been used and is continuing to be used by other bankrupt dictatorships all over the world.