Two for Today: Bond and Fast Food Nation

I’m doing double duty (article-wise) again. In NRO, I’ve got a review of the much-anticipated new Bond film, Casino Royale. What did I think? Not too shabby, for a Brit:

Craig’s casting irked some Bond diehards, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s glorious news—especially for men with receding hairlines. Of course, Craig’s Bond is no average Joe couch potato. He’s as trim and cut as they come, and he takes every opportunity to brandish his sculpted physique. Concerned female readers should fear not: Craig struts shirtless on multiple occasions, usually just for the sake of showing off. The physical presence he brings to the role differs from previous Bonds; instead of the slender, refined elegance we’re used to, he compresses his compact, bulldog’s build inward, giving Bond a boxer’s hunch and a squinty glower, as if balled up and ready to strike. He’s a bad boy, and his every pose shows he knows it.

And in The American Spectator I’ve got a piece on Richard Linklater’s rambling anti-corporate yakfest, Fast Food Nation.

Fast Food Nation kicks off with a suit-clad fast food chain boss telling one of his executives to investigate a meat packing plant rumored to be allowing fecal matter to infect the beef. But the only thing that's contaminated here is director Richard Linklater's meandering, unfocused movie, which has an unmistakable whiff of Causeitis—a compulsive inability to avoid taking up any of the many issues in the lefty activist canon.

In other words, read both essays (if you can handle that much Suderman-blather), but when you’re deciding what to do this weekend, stick with Bond.