Here are some dumb ways to die:

This should be subtitled “Why I should not be allowed to use Excel when I should be doing something else,” by the way.

But because no one stops me, I can tell you that the average age of a man playing James Bond, as defined as the actor’s age (well, year of release – year of birth, which is close enough) on the day of the film’s release, is about 43.3.

This makes a bit of sense. Bond’s clearly had career before becoming 007, so he can’t be too young. He also carries the equivalent of an O-5 rank (he’s a Naval Reserve Commander, equivalent to an American Lieutenant Colonel). That alone establishes a lower bound of the late 30s, more or less. And if we look to the books and other Bond scholarship (yes, such a thing exists), we see folks have placed his birthdate in 1920 or 1921. Fleming’s first novel was published in 1953, which would’ve made Bond only about 32, but we can make allowances for the circumstances of WWII, in which the literary Bond certainly served. His last Bond book, a set of short stories, came out in 1966, suggesting at 45-ish Bond.

The films are a different matter. People my age have an image of an ever-older Bond, because for the first 23 or so years of the series he aged in real time thanks to the fact that, when Connery was done, they hired a guy who was actually 3 years older. (I’m skipping Lazenby for a moment). Bond was 32 and in his prime in Dr. No, but a geriatric 58 in 1985’s A View to a Kill. In all, 13 of the 23 films include a Bond aged 32 to 45; nearly all the outliers are because Bond was too old, generally because he was Roger Moore. Moore never made a movie at the “right” age; he was already 46 for Live and Let Die in 1973. (Only one outlier is for youth; George Lazenby was 30 for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969.)

In all, only Connery, Dalton, Lazenby, and Craig are in the literary age range for all their fllms, and the fact that Craig’s been contracted for two more will spoil that meaningless stat for him — he’s 44 in Skyfall.

The gentlemen and their average ages as Bond, along with their average variance from the “cinematic mean”:

After Craig’s other two projected films, set for 2014 and 2016, his average will creep up to 43.2, or almost precisely the cinematic mean mentioned above.

The cinematic mean is sort of a weird stat, skewed as it is by how young Connery was, and how old Moore was, but it still ends up being a solid Bond age — plausible, experienced, neither too green nor too grey, and within the implied literary range. Craig’s in the right zone, but, looking back, so was Dalton.

I’d have said, before Craig, that nobody would stick around for as many films are as many years as Moore or Connery, but he’s on a track for 5 films in 10 years. Connery did 6 in 9 years; Moore did 7 in 12. If he does those films, he’ll be second in terms of duration in role, and third in film count.

“These are some racist motherfuckin’ zombies.”

But, as it turns out, I am a terrible, terrible person.

Yes, that was Rip Taylor. And just when you think they were done being awful, well, . . . just stay through 4:00 and see.

(Via Mefi. There is, of course, lots more where this came from.)

(PS: Best comment at YouTube: “What if, due to some horrible accident, this video were the only surviving record of our time for future historians to study.” Indeed.)

Apparently, whenever Road House is on television, Bill or one of his brothers calls Kelly Lynch’s husband to make sure he knows she’s getting schtupped by Swayze.

(Lynch, by the way, is now fifty fucking three. You’re welcome.)

The Greatest Event In Television History is now available: a shot-for-shot remake of the credits for Simon & Simon, starring Jon Hamm and Adam Scott.

Via MeFi.

This is awesome.

This one:

from here.

For the record, ages then and now, from left to right:

• Cary Elwes: 49 now, 24 then
• Robin Wright: 46 now, 21 then
• Mandy Patinkin: 59 now, 35 then
• Chris Sarandon: 70 now, 45 then
• Wallace Shawn: 68 now, 43 then
• Carol Kane: 60 now, 35 then
• Billy Crystal: 64 now, 39 then

Not pictured:

• Chris Guest: 64 now, 39 then. Now’s as good a time as any to remind you that Guest is a hereditary peer known more completely as Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden Guest.
• Fred Savage: 36 now, 11 then.

Two others are, of course, dead. Peter Falk died last June at 83. He was 59 when the film was made. Andre Roussimoff died 19 years ago at 46, only a few years after the film was made.

In the “somewhat distressing” category: of the main cast, only Sarandon and Shawn were older than I am now.

Related: I wondered if Chris Sarandon and Eric Roberts should team up in some kind of “creepy (ex)relative of awesome leading lady” project, but it turns out they did do a movie together in 2000. It appears, however, to have garnered only mixed reviews despite the presence of Cary Elwes.

No, this could not get more awesome.

This is so full of win.

Do not watch if you’re not done with seasons 1 and 2. Contains spoilers. Tight tight tight!

If you remember him for nothing else — which is patently absurd, given his resume, which includes The Hunger, Top Gun, Man on Fire, and others — remember him for directing Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken in this scene from 1993’s True Romance (written, famously, by Tarantino).

I remember watching this in a theater with Chris Mohney and the rest of our pals, all of us absolutely on the edge of our seats as the tension built to impossible, unimaginable levels. (Watch closely, and see if you can spot Tony Soprano.)

Roger Ebert has more about Tony Scott.

Cloud Atlas, because the text is rich and rewarding, and the movie is coming in October.

You really need to watch the trailer for Cockneys vs. Zombies.

The Business of Bond explores the budget, domestic and overseas box office, and profitability of the (real) Bond films. Seriously neat. Check it out.

(via Fireball.)

Look at this. Just look at it.

The bad news is that, apparently, they’re rebooting The Munsters in 2013.

The good news, and the bit that may make it watchable, is that they’ve tapped the Pushing Daisies guy to do it.

YES!

I saw Prometheus and enjoyed it as a great spectacle, but left feeling like I’d eaten junk food. Film Crit Hulk explains why perhaps better than I can. The central issue? A Lost alum as the primary screenwriter.

David Simon has seen the Wire musical thing, and loves it.

The Wire: The Musical!, with Michael K. Williams, Andre Royo, Sonja Sohn, Felicia Pearson, and Faizon Love as Stringer Bell.

Stay with it through the chess scene, at least.

Mrs. Landingham — known outside the West Wing as Kathryn Joosten — has [passed on](http://www.metafilter.com/116582/You-know-I-could-beat-you-up-anytime-I-want-sir]. She was 72.

Nicolas Cage performs John Cage’s 4’33”.

(Widely linked.)

The excellent Mad Men Unbuttoned blog points out two bits you may have missed:

• Joan wears the fur Roger gave her on her “date”; and
• It turns out Lane’s commentary on Pete — a “grimy little pimp” — was a bit of foreshadowing.

A Fan Asked Bill Murray for an autograph. Instead, Bill gave him this..

MeFi thread.

“Wait, you mean there’s a blog entry somewhere detailing the watches worn on Mad Men? SIGN ME UP!”

It should surprise precisely nobody that Matthew Weiner is very, very careful about the correct current events in Mad Men, even including what play Don and Megan went to see.

(Also cute: the modern Hare Krishna movement — more formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON — was founded in New York in 1966, just months before the last night’s Christmastime episode.)

Update: It gets deeper. I’m informed via the Well that:

• The diner Crane and Kinsey meet in at the end of the episode is identifiably Ratner’s, which happens to be just down the street from an actual ISKCON storefront on 2nd Avenue.

• Mohawk was hit by a strike in December of 1966, which lasted until the end of January.

A disused “ghost” station on the Paris Metro has been set up as a really lovely ad for the upcoming Ridley Scott film Prometheus.

This is all over the net now, but if you haven’t read Film Crit Hulk’s long discussion of his latest cinematic adaptation over at the NewYorker, well, get to it. It’s brilliant.

I’m very happy that PBS is running the second series BBC’s Sherlock on TV; that’s completely awesome.

What makes zero freaking sense, though, is that they’re running it opposite HBO’s Game of Thrones. Really? You don’t think there’s some overlap there? You couldn’t pick another night?

Sunday’s already chockablock with actual quality TV, as Mad Men follows GOT. Why not stake out another night, for God’s sake?

Whatever. It matters a little less because all three shows are post-network, and run several times per week, making conflicts much less annoying — especially if you’re a Tivo user. We’ll pick up Sherlock on the 1AM showing. But it still seems like a stupid decision by PBS.

Skate.

Yesterday, Molly Ringwald did a Reddit AMA, and totally killed. How much do I love her for razzing Woody?

Ze Frank’s A Show is now 8 or so episodes in. Don’t miss it.

Episode 7 is, I think, particularly good.

If Heathen Nation were given a 2400-frames-per-second camera, we’d do lots of stupid things just like these people. Enjoy.

Salon’s Nelle Engoron breaks down last night’s Mad Men. I think it’s pretty spot on. Pete is probably doomed. Or, rather, more doomed than even the rest of them.

David Letterman is 65, and has now had a longer career as “late night talk show host” than anyone else, ever. Yes, even him.

I remember, as a lonely fifth grader, faking illness so I could stay home and watch his short-lived morning show. His comedic sensibility always made sense to me, so I’ve been a fan ever since.

Last night’s Mad Men included references to the Richard Speck murders in Chicago, which places the episode just after July 13, 1966. (The last ep was clearly dated by the reference to the death of Pete Fox on July 5.)

The excellent Mad Men Unbuttoned blog notes that Life Magazins’s archives are online, and that you can read their account of the Speck murders from scans (which, appropriately enough, preserve the period advertising).

Today’s fun fact: the author of the Life piece was Loudon Wainwright — father of the folk singer and grandfather to Rufus — who wrote and edited for the magazine for many years.

I’m not sure if it counts as spoilers, but this page might give us hints about upcoming background events. Of particular interest in the summer of 1966, we have:

• Charles Whitman did his Longhorn Sniping on August 1.
• On August 8, Star Trek premiers.
• In October, Toyota releases the Corolla.
• LSD was legal in the US until October 6 of this year.
• The AFL-NFL merger gains Congressional approval on October 21.
• In November, John Lennon meets Yoko Ono.
• Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball happens on November 28.
• Lenny Bruce dies on August 3.

Unlikely to be referenced: On October 29, One regenerates into Two.

It’s possible I posted these great candid shots before, but even if I did they’re worth checking out again.

I think my favorite is Don Draper behind his desk, checking his iPhone.

There is apparently now talk of theaters addressing the lack of demand for (and therefore lack of revenue from) more expensive 3D tickets by raising 2D ticket prices and then charging the same amount for both.

The official Heathen position is simple: Fuck 3D, and fuck absolutely everything about this idea. Hello, home rental! I mean, seriously: we barely go to the movies as it is because on nearly every metric important to us, the home experience is superior. There’s no chattering. There’s no texting. There’s no $17 “small” soda. There’s no parking. We can sit in the center of the room and control the volume. We can back it up if we need a line repeated, or pause it if we need to take a leak.

What, exactly, does Regal offer me besides overpriced snacks, extortionate ticket prices, and the “opportunity” to share the movie experience with a few hundred mouth-breathing jackasses.?

In 1998, Texas Monthly‘s Skip Hollandsworth wrote a long piece called “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas” about Bernie Tiede, a somewhat effeminate undertaker in rural Carthage, TX, who befriended a nasty but wealthy local widow named Marjorie Nugent. He left the funeral business and took a job basically looking after her; they’d travel together — first class all the way — and he would tend to her affairs.

Until, they say, he killed her. Which was unfortunately about 9 months before anybody actually noticed she was gone; he’d stored her body in a deep freeze at her home, which he continued to tend. The residents of Carthage were, somewhat amusingly, untroubled:

Sitting at his regular table at Daddy Sam’s BBQ and Catfish (“You Kill It, I’ll Cook It”) in the East Texas town of Carthage, district attorney Danny Buck Davidson began to realize that he might have some problems prosecuting Bernie Tiede for murder.

“Bernie’s a sweet man, Danny Buck,” a waitress said. “He’s done a lot of good things for this town. He’s given poor kids money to go to college and everything.”

“You got to admit nobody could sing “Amazing Grace’ like Bernie could,” someone else said.

The bulldog-faced Danny Buck took a bite of slaw and sipped his iced tea. “Now y’all know that Bernie confessed, don’t you?” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “He came right out and told a Texas Ranger that he shot Mrs. Nugent four times in the back and then stuffed her in her own deep freeze in her kitchen.”

There was a long silence. “Danny Buck,” one man finally said, “it’s just hard for me to believe that old Bernie could fire a gun straight. He acts…well, you know…effeminate! You can tell he’s never been deer hunting in his entire life.”

“And you know what?” a woman told Danny Buck later at a convenience store. “I don’t care if Mrs. Nugent was the richest lady in town. She was so mean that even if Bernie did kill her, you won’t be able to find anyone in town who’s going to convict him for murder.”

Yeah, I know. It’s total Southern Gothic territory. I only read this story because it showed up in inbox thanks to the excellent SendMeAStory people (whom you should check out, if you like that sort of thing). It’s a bizarre but compelling account.

It turns out that Richard Linklater thought so, too. Jack Black is Bernie. Matthew McConaughey is local DA Danny Buck Davidson. And Shirley MacLaine is the widow. In theaters next month. Here’s the trailer.

The debut of Buffy was fifteen years ago. In the comment thread under the linked MeFi post, someone pointed this out:

If Buffy were real, she’d be 30 years old.

Yikes.

For example.

Grantland has the only bracket worth playing this year. My money’s on Omar, and Barry agrees.

There is not the tiniest hint in the text that Space Stallions wasn’t an actual Saturday morning cartoon ca. 1982, but it’s actually an art project by an animation student.

I mean, at least until Hollywood gets ahold of it.

(h/t Rob)

Penny Arcade nails it.

The delightfully named Absolutely No Machete Juggling has a plan for properly enjoying the Star Wars films in the proper order. Hint: It’s neither release order (IV, V, VI, I, II, III) nor chronological order (I, II, III, IV, V, VI). His case is strong.

Check it out. Via Twitter.

Kirby Ferguson’s conclusion to his discussion of remix culture, intellectual property, copyright, and related issues is (like the prior portions) worth your immediate attention.

(If you’re just finding out about this 4-part film, go to EverythingIsARemix.info.)

YES.

Astonishingly, this high concept world-ending rom-com looks like it might actually be worthwhile.

Also, Keira Knightly.

An Open Letter To The Worst Human Being To Ever Sit In A Theater pretty much sums it up in a worst-case scenario kind of way.

I know there exist some theaters (God bless, you Tim) who take this stuff seriously, but the overwhelming majority simply do not. If the options are “wait for video,” “theater full of yahoos,” or “drive half an hour to the closest Alamo,” I’m going with home video every damn time. It’s no contest. I have a great wine list, a comfy couch, two great cats to hang out with Mrs Heathen and I, and the ability to pause it when we need to take a leak. And, most importantly, Heathen World HQ is a yahoo-free zone.