A View to A Kill

If the world is remotely like " Quantum of Solace", then Ford would not be reporting a loss in their latest quarterly report. In such a world, every secret agent drives an Aston Martin, every police force employs a Land Rover and every sinister character prefers the rugged Range Rover as the Bad Mobile.

Such is the power of product placement these days that your correspondent fails to find the Bond-ness of "Quantum". Afterall, none of the old formula remains. Gone are Q, Moneypenny and even the trusted "Bond, James Bond" routine. The ol' boy is no longer the last bastion of the upper class. He goes mass market by driving the - no surprise - Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta.

If this were not a 007 movie , would your correspondent even bothered? The sad answer is : probably not. Take out the franchise and what we have is pure and simple an action movie. And not a good one at that. The story are nowhere as good as Bourne trilogy for example (come to think of it, does the scene of our MI6 man chasing agent Mitchell over rooftops remind you of a similar scene in the last Bourne movie?).

If the direction continues like this, it is likely the License to Thrill need to be revoked. The franchise need to say No but with sufficient verbal dexterity to learn Never Say Never in coping with commercial pressures. After all, The World is Not Enough for too many changes On Her Majesty's Secret Service. One view of this movie is enough to kill the franchise.

Perhaps to make the point, the original 007 , Sean Connery makes an appearance as the Louis Vitton advert in the same week that "Quantum" makes its debut. Coincidence? I expect you to think, 007.

Yes, He Did

In the annals of The Economist, "The World in 2008" would not feature high in the powers of prediction. In the publication - published towards the end of last year- it strongly predicted that next president of the United States would be .. Senator Hillary Clinton.
President-elect Obama's victory has been received - rightly - with plenty of good will. Kenya declared a day of national holiday. Your correspondent just happens to believe the RI government can now feel proud to have one of its former students become "the leader of the free world" (and Hardiknas now have a living mascot).
It will really be interesting to observe the next days ahead. Some will know that one of the names being considered for the White House Chief of Staff is Rep. Rahm Emmanuel. Incidentally - for some of us who are political hacks, and we do exist- he is the model for the character of "Josh Lyman" in the NBC series "The West Wing". It is widely believed that the White House chief of staff is the 2nd most powerful job. It is tasked with giving recommendations for the President and in charge to ensure the cabinet toes the party line.
Other key appointments will be Treasury. Arguably this is one of the rarer moments of history whereby the post is probably more important than State.
As Indonesians, we should observe the extremly gracious concession speech as a model for our own 2009 election.

And the Winner is ...