Gorgeous Lady of the Week — Naomie Harris

After a long period of establishing herself as a versatile and talented actress in big movies, Naomie Harris rocketed to worldwide fame with a bullet. Literally. As James Bond’s support agent in the field, she is responsible for taking the shot on M’s orders to stop a terrorist entangled with Bond on a speeding train. Instead she hits Bond and derails his life sending the world’s favorite secret agent into injury-induced existential crisis. Such is the beginning of 2012’s dark and biographical 007 blockbuster Skyfall. And only at the end of the film do we discover that Ms. Harris’ sexy and capable character is, in fact, Eve Moneypenny, now quitting the field and destined for a lifetime of desk work and double entendres. Now that is how you become a big time movie star.

naomie harris-5

The daughter of Caribbean immigrants in London, Naomie’s mother was a scriptwriter for the long-running BBC soap EastEnders and she caught the acting bug quite young, where she had success as a child actress. Her big break came in Danny Boyle’s excellent 2002 post-apocalyptic thriller 28 Days Later as Selena, one of the harried survivors of a horrible pandemic. After good roles alongside Colin Firth in Trauma and former Bond Pierce Brosnan in After the Sunset, Ms. Harris was tapped to play the mysterious and supernatural Tia Dalma for the 2nd and 3rd movies of the mega-budget Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.

naomie-harris-8

Then came her revelatory work in Skyfall, memorably making amends with Daniel Craig’s Bond in Macao but never succumbing to his legendary charms. And then, as if to prove that she was more than just a lithe and beautiful starlet, Ms. Harris did awards-worthy work as Winnie Mandela alongside Idris Elba in the respectful biopic, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Naomie-Harris-6

It’s readily apparent from her now-long and accomplished resume that the 37-year-old beauty can not only act alongside today’s hottest leading men — from Depp to Craig —  but can also deftly hold her own with them under any circumstances. In a movie world often dominated by blond bombshells, the dark and lovely Naomi Harris stands out with playful sex appeal, acting chops and a sharp-edged sense of humor. She’s an unconventional original and a major talent and that’s something we absolutely can’t resist. In short, she’s an MFL kind of gal and she’s one of the many reasons we’re keenly anticipating Bond #24 and all her other future work still to come.

Naomie_Harris3


Watch Collector’s Notebook — For most new watches, there’s no need to pay retail

With the massive 2014 Swiss watch fair “Baselworld” just completed and all those hot new models being released, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and yield to temptation by forking over your hard-earned dough as soon as those beauties become available later this year. And if there’s another watch out there that you’ve been jonesing to own for a while now, you might also be considering going to the brand’s boutique store or authorized dealer and ponying up for it there. But the truth is that for most models (unless money is no object), there’s no real reason to pay full retail for the watch of your dreams. For example, you might consider buying from so-called “gray market” sellers who will offer small discounts over MSRP. But very often they will deliberately leave out such desirable pieces of the new watch package as certain authenticating paperwork and, worse yet, some will even file off serial numbers because these watches have literally gone out the back door of an authorized dealer. Far better in my opinion to do your hunting among like-minded enthusiasts through one of the very high quality and high volume Sales Corners hosted by the major watch forums on the Net. With a little due diligence and patience, you can usually save a significant percentage by buying a pre-owned example from another collector rather than paying dealer prices. Just as with a newish but pre-owned automobile, the prior owner will have taken some of the depreciation out of the price equation, leaving you with a lot more bang for your buck.

One of the largest watch discussion sites in the world, Timezone.com also has an excellent Sales Corner

One of the largest watch discussion sites in the world, Timezone.com also has an excellent Sales Corner

Continue reading →

What we’re listening to today — ‘Round About Midnight by Miles Davis

And I mean the whole album, Miles’ first for Columbia in 1955, and not just the admittedly fantastic Thelonius Monk track “‘Round Midnight” that opens up this seminal work.

With Davis on trumpet, Coltrane on tenor sax, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones on drums, this was the archetypal 1950s quintet’s maiden voyage and set the tone for a massive outpouring of now-classic music that filled four more smokin’ albums in quick succession (Cookin’, Workin’, Relaxin’ and Steamin’).

As the session that started it all, the newly patented mix of Cool and Hard Bop sounds magically intimate, warm and almost casually virtuosic and ‘Round Midnight still has that “breaking of a new dawn” kind of effect even today. From the not-quite-eponymous opener to the gorgeously aired out “Dear Old Stockholm” to the telepathic “Bye-Bye Blackbird”, this 10-track masterpiece is an album that belongs in any serious music collection, Jazz-focused or otherwise. It creates an inspired mood all its own, whether you’re on your own, entertaining friends or wooing that special someone. It never disappoints and always sounds fresh. How many things can you say that about?

A little Monday comedy — Bowfinger (1999)

It’s hard to believe that the sly and uproarious Hollywood satire Bowfinger is 15 years old. The Frank Oz directed film from a Steve Martin-penned script tells the tale of a band of show biz hangers-on struggling to make a grade Z sci-fi flick via a highly dubious workaround to the whole lead actors-knowing-they’re-shooting-a-movie thing. It still slays with its dead-on take of what makes LA the company town it is: unkillable dreams of fame, beautiful starlets with “felxible” morals and weirdo movie stars in need of cult control. Best of all, the unlikely comedy dream team of Martin as the titular never-was “producer/director” Bobby Bowfinger and Eddie Murphy, in priceless dual roles as paranoid exhibitionist action star Kit Ramsey and his mega-dorky brother Jiff Jiffrenson (a Steve Martin character name if ever there was one), create gold when they share the screen together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZUU563eAaM

And for laugh-out-loud, funny-as-hell scenes there really aren’t that many as good this one short of primo Mel Brooks:

Oh, for that complex Starbucks order! Definitely worth renting again or even buying the DVD if you haven’t seen it in a while. It’s that good and after all these years, it holds up hysterically well. Welcome to Mindhead and Keep It Together!

Rolex collector’s site of the day — 5513mattedial.com

Vintage Rolex collecting, perhaps more so than any other brand of vintage watch and especially with regards to the Sports models, is very much about the minute variations in the details of a given model line over time. Very often these changes in fonts, for example, occurred in rapid succession as Rolex ramped up production of, say, their Submariner line in response to increased demand for their iconic watches. Therefore, one sees not only relatively big changes in dial printing, such as the switch from red SUBMARINER to white in the 1680 date model or the move away from gilt/gloss dials to matte/white writing in the later 1960s, but also extremely subtle shifts in the basic fonts and printing of otherwise very similar dials that are much harder to keep track of and difficult for the unitiated to see. In the end, a lot of the main factors of a Vintage Rolex Sports watch’s appeal and value come down to hard-to-spot minutiae.

And that’s where a new site like 5513mattedial.com becomes so valuable. Taking a magnifier to the Matte dial non-date Submariners that were produced from the late 1960s until the early 80s, the site’s author, longtime collector Beaumont Miller II, has catalogued the key evolutionary differences in that ultimate Rolex tool watch, the reference 5513 Submariner, during its long years of matte dial production. Now in one place we have a handy collector’s resource that makes clear the key characteristics of Maxi dials, Pre-Comex, and the early Meters-First variations, among others. And as a result of these comprehensive efforts you will see more variety in this “common” model than you previously thought possible.

If collecting Vintage Rolex is all about the details (and it is!), then 5513mattedial.com is an exceptionally handy resource to consult when hunting a white-writing 5513 and determining where its dial falls in the production sequence and if in fact the printing is actually legitimate. Written in an entertaining and self-depricating style, the site is as thorough and specific as they come and shows that by looking closely and analyzing seemingly random minutiae at length, a much greater mosaic comes into view when all the puzzle pieces are finally laid into place. It’s a job well done all around and I strongly recommend it to anyone interesting in collecting these iconic Submariners.

What we’re listening to today — Monkey Gone to Heaven by The Pixies

Just a quick and dirty blast of punk rock today as life intrudes but it is often posited that without the Pixies, there would be no Nirvana. Discuss.

And remember, kids: If man is 5, then the Devil is 6 and if the Devil is 6 then GOD IS 7!!! Bless Black Francis for that bit of theology and I promise we’ll get into the Pixie ouvre in greater length — or at least crank out some more of their tunes — at a later date. In the meantime, enjoy it again live and watch out for that NY/NJ sludge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJwnpi_iM6A