Bond will be Bond
Dear all,
The release, a few months ago, of a new Bond film with a brand new James Bond has reignited interest in this very British character and what people now call the 'Bond franchise'. Since I haven't seen the new Bond I can't really comment on how successful Daniel Craig is in his role as the new (and blond) Bond, but certainly I have had a chance to see quite a bit of the other Bonds recently.

Majid Majidi was born in Tehran in 1959 to an Iranian middle class family. After the Islamic revolution in 1978, his interest in cinema brought him to act in various films, notably 'Boycott' (1985) from Mohsen Makhmalbaf. His debut as a director and screenwriter is marked by 'Baduk' (1992), his first feature film that was presented at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes. 'Children of Heaven' (1997) won the 'Best Picture' award at Montreal International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Film Academy Award. 'The Color of Paradise' (1999) has also won the 'Best Picture' award at Montreal International Film Festival. This film has been selected as one of the best 10 films of year 2000 by Time Magazine and the Critics Picks of the New-York Times. 'Baran' has won several major awards worldwide, notably the 'Best Picture' award at the 25th Montreal World Film Festival and nominated for the European Film Academy Award. In 2001, during the Afghanistan war, Majidi produced Barefoot to Herat, a documentary on Afghanistan's refugee camps, that won the Fipresci Award at Thessaloniki Festival. In 2005, he directed 'The Willow Tree' that won four awards at the 2005 Fajr Festival in Tehran.

Majidi has received the Douglas Sirk Award in 2001 and the Amici Vittorio de Sica Award in 2003.

At the darkly Suraya Shafi auditorium at Lahore's National College of Arts, the screen is all set to play a documentary 'Life in the Gutter Gate'. It takes some time to realise that the setting on the screen is not a Tehran slum, it's our very own, now slum-like, walled city. An impressive piece of work that celebrates the garbage collectors of the city, this First Year product of the Department of Film reminds too often of Majid Majidi's 'Buchaey Asman' (Children of Heaven) screened a day before at the festival. What could possibly be common between a documentary and a feature film, apart from depiction of poverty, children, their enthusiasm and resilience in the face of suffering?

Actually, Majidi's film and Iranian cinema in general have maintained a very delicate line between life and art, as opposed to the documentary which chooses to, and must, ignore this line. Iranian films have, in fact, used this line to their advantage rather intelligently as opposed to the mainstream commercial films of say Hollywood which have drawn a thick dividing line instead.

Film as an escape from reality or a useful instrument to address reality, albeit creatively? This is where Majidi and many others like him clash head on with those who believe in transient popularity. Indeed they have already made a mark internationally and won recognition for their creations.

The artistic worth of Iranian cinema has not generated an unquestioning acceptance though. People are keen to ask questions about the survival of art forms in what is known to the world as a country ruled by a repressive regime. The audience, a good mix of students, teachers, film practitioners and avid viewers of Iranian cinema, did not want to let go of this opportunity. The internationally acclaimed filmmaker, himself present in the city for the three day Majidi film festival, stood up to comment, to critique the films he'd just seen, and to take questions.

Majidi must have surprised, if not disappointed, many when he declared at the outset, in chaste Persian, that the East has a lot to say to the West through cinema about 'Islamic civilization'. "The face of Islam that they are showing to the world is false. Muslims have a great civilization, great literature and culture that they can project to the world."

To the predictable question of Iranian films being largely social comments and not political comments, he said various things but gave, by and large, a political reply. "We've deliberately touched social issues and not political propaganda because that makes cinema 'journalistic' since politics keeps changing." And then very rightly about the political impact that Iranian films are making in the world, he said: "After the revolution, cinema showed a culture which made people rethink their perception of Iranians as terrorists only. We as Muslims must show to the world that our Islam is not of the Taliban variety, we want to move with the world. Our religion allows us to grow culturally."

Poverty is a problem of the whole East, he agrees. But it is very important as to who is the audience. "It must address the issue of who is responsible for such poverty."

The actor turned director who started off as a theatre actor when he was only 12 also talked about cinema being an instrument of change. At the time of revolution in 1979, people burnt three things in particular -- bars and dance clubs, banks and cinemas. "The message was clear that people had no acceptance for the kind of films that were being made in Iran. After the revolution we made different films and had the freedom to do so. Today it's a matter of great pleasure for me that Iranian cinema is taught in European, American and Asian universities."

As the session drew to a close, the 47-year-old film-maker wanted to get out for a smoke. But the necessity of a one to one interview led us to Shireen Pasha's office instead. The smoke must wait. The interview, finally started with three people, with Dr Nasir chipping in as the forthcoming interpreter. The barrier of language, never really felt in the subtitled films, now seemed formidable. The questions were thrown at the interpreter and the eye contact, so essential for a journalist to judge the veracity of a response, was hardly made.

Advances in technology may have introduced the Iranian films to the world in the last two or three decades which may seem like a post-revolution phenomenon but there must be a foundation it was resting on, I asked. "It's a hundred year old story. Even before revolution we had many prominent writers and directors like Dariush Mehrjui, Behram Beizai, Masoode Keemiyae." But was cinema an extension of some form of art like theatre? "No, literature was the strongest influence, both prose and poetry. Firdausi's Shahnama, Maulana Rumi's Masnavi, Saadi's Hikayat, enough material to give us good scripts and strong characters."

Seeing his earlier posturing where he did not isolate himself from religion and seemed to be talking in the same idiom as the Iranian state, the next question came with a bit of reluctance. Cinema being a Western medium, why did the Islamists not reject it altogether, considering that the revolution was essentially anti-West? "Revolution was not only political, it was also cultural and hence aimed to promote cinema. Imam Khomeini, in one of his first speeches, at a graveyard Bahishte Zahra near Tehran, declared: 'We are not against cinema but against obscenity. We will promote it'." He is reported to have mentioned an important film of the 1960s 'The Cow' as an example.

An ordinary viewer may be reminded of European cinema in Majidi's films, particularly in terms of cinematography (It certainly has had other influences on Iranian films). But with the filmmakers in Iran aware of their global outreach, is it a deliberate effort to depict a beautiful Iran to the rest of the world? Majidi retorts: "I don't make films to promote tourism. The beautiful scenes only come if they are a need of the script and the film."

But does he and other filmmakers now make films for a global audience? Artistic thought, he said, has got to be global. An artist must deal with human nature, humanity and must inspire the world. "Otherwise he's no artist. Like Iqbal is not a Pakistani or Indian poet, he had a global approach."

Society and art are linked to politics and there are political solutions to social problems. Iran which is otherwise at the helm of world politics shuns politics of any kind in its films. Majidi once again, refuses to buy the criticism. "My film 'Baran' is about migration which is a political issue. In fact we go a step ahead and so I've tried to offer a solution by making it a love story, sending the message that love unites people and makes life better."

A film on the revolution is one of his greatest desires but the recreation he has in mind requires a huge budget. 'Millions of dollars.' Also because the whole world would be looking to see that film. Meanwhile he and others of his ilk know they have made a revolution in film-making.

Explosion (Enfejar) (1981) - documentary short

Hoodaj (1984) - short

Examination Day (Rooz Emtehan) (1988) - short

A Day With POWs (Yek Rooz Ba Asiran) (1989) - documentary short

Baduk (1992) - debut feature

The Last Village (Akhareen Abadi) (1993) - short

Father (Pedar) (1996) - feature

God Will Come (Khoda Miayad) (1996) - short

Children of Heaven (Bachehaye Aseman) (1997) - feature

The Color Of Paradise (Range Khoda) (1999) - feature

Baran (Rain) (2001) - feature

Barefoot to Herat (Pa berahneh ta Harat) (2002) - documentary

Olympics In the Camp (Olympik Tu Urdugah) (2003) - documentary short

The Willow Tree (Beed-e Majnoon; (2005) - feature

alternate English title

One Life More)

Paddy is the most common nickname in Ireland and hence the term Paddywood for its cinema, whose development has an instructive parallel with that of Lollywood. Remember that till well into the 1980s Ireland was known as a third world country with a stone-age culture. And yet till the end of last century, only about 200 of the world's roughly 2000 films with Irish themes were Irish productions -- the rest were made by American, British and Australian companies -- the three countries with the largest Irish immigrant populations.

Dublin's filmmaking started out in the silent era of the 1920s with the emphasis being on setting up a cinema independent of the British film industry. Obviously one of the main themes of these early films was nationalism as Ireland moaned under London's colonial mockery. A search for cultural specificity was another quest made explicit in this era. Some of the movies of this era were The lad from Ireland (1910), Ireland a nation (1914), Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn (1920), Man of Aran (1934), The dawn (1936), Odd man out (1947), and Shake hands with the devil (1959).

Many of these films were migration narratives which had the hero transform himself in America before returning to Ireland to save his sweetheart's impoverished family from eviction and marry her. Later such narratives came to include escaped IRA guerillas searching for peace and love in America. The most famous of these migration narratives was John Ford's immensely popular The quiet man (1952). The Irish destiny (1926) with its message of political unity and family harmony was the first movie to take Ireland's brief War of Independence as its subject matter. The continuing popularity of this theme for filmmakers is reflected in the box office success of Ken Loach's The wind that shakes the barley (2006) which also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Ireland's film history begins in 1896 when Lumiere Cinematographie was first presented to audiences in Dublin and Belfast. It was the same year that Lumiere Brothers had travelled from France to Bombay to project their invention, perfected in 1895, to an eager audience of Indian photographers, poets, writers, stage actors and theatre producers. Subsequently a Film Company of Ireland was set up in 1916.

Something similar was happening in Lahore around the same time. In the 1920s Messrs A.R. Kardar and M. Ismail were crafting films to establish Lahore's own identity, different from that of the Bombay-based film industry. It would need access to their diaries and notes, besides of course their films, to gauge how much were these pioneers influenced by the raging freedom movement and the scorching tide of cultural identification. (These were the two fires burning in the hearts of the early Irish filmmakers lit essentially by the poets of Irish renaissance). Here I am thinking particularly of Allama Iqbal's long Persian poem Bandagi Nama -- On Servitude.

Published in Zabur-e-Ajam (1927), the poem delineates the aesthetic of a free artist, someone whose hand both 'makes and breaks idols', and who is thus 'the very essence of Abraham and Azar'.The titles of their Urdu films give a clue -- Lala Rukh, Kafir, and Khwaja Sira. Interestingly, most of this era's Lollywood films, shot in their United People's Studios located on Ravi Road, were in English -- Sweetheart, The prisoner, Masked rider, The golden dagger, Passion flower, The sacred flame, Houseboat, Golden temple, The award, and Paradise. Kardar is said to be modelling his work on Hollywood, not just with respect to action and drama but also in the acting, makeup and the wardrobe selection.

After independence in 1921, the government of new Irish Free State (with a Dominion status) regarded cinema with suspicion and promulgated the Censorship of Films Act (1923). Governed by a strict Catholic morality, the purpose of the Act was to protect the nation from any negative foreign cultural influence. Till the mid 60s, the censorship had resulted in banning of over 2500 films and the cutting of 10,000 others. In Irish film literature, this was a reflection of Irish government's xenophobia and fear, as well as contempt for popular or modern culture.

It took many decades for Ireland to create an Irish Film Board to promote national cultural expression on celluloid. Established in 1981, the Board lasted just six years before falling victim to a searing cultural debate and the political wrangling that was tearing apart the poverty stricken country, and was wound up in 1987. Coming some years after NAFDEC was set up in Islamabad, this Board had a shorter life than our Corporation. Economic poverty, American film dominance, the small size of the country and its geographical marginality are listed as the other reasons for Ireland's failure to develop an indigenous film industry. Therefore, until relatively recently, filmmaking in Ireland has been sporadic and confined to low budget productions (mainly government information drama-documentaries) which rarely found distribution outside the country.

In 1958 the government set up Ardmore Studio in a picturesque Dublin suburb with the objective of attracting foreign filmmakers. Ardmore, which was already an anachronism given the general movement away from studio-based productions towards location shooting both in Europe and America, contributed little to the development of an Irish film industry and even less to an Irish film culture, was a failure, and was eventually closed down.

After quite some rethinking and a lot of homework, the Irish Film Board was recreated in 1992 under the leadership of Michael Higgins, the poet-Minister for Arts and Culture. With a much expanded budget (which, in 2006, had risen to Euros 15 million) the Board now annually supports ten features and a great many short fiction, documentary and animated films. Additional financial support for the industry comes from a number of sources including the Arts Council and the tax-based film investment, which has proved attractive for foreign producers to make films in Ireland. In 2006 this tax incentive resulted in investment of Euro 85 million. In the same year, Irish movies took only five million out of the Euro 105 million box office bonanza -- the rest having been netted by imported films.

Film Ireland was started as a journal of Irish filmmaking and Irish Film Centre and National Film Archive was set up. At the same time The Arts Council started funding fictional cinema. Flourishing around the Irish Film Centre, film festivals proliferated in cities throughout the country: Belfast, Cork, Derry, Dublin, Galway and Limerick. Since the mid-1990s, more films have been produced in Ireland than in the previous 100 years.

Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan are the most famous current film directors and screen writers. Sheridan's My left foot (1990) became the first Irish film to win Academy Awards (for best director, best actor and best supporting actress) and thus gave momentum to Irish government's support to the country's film industry. The movie was based on the autobiography of Irish novelist and poet Christy Brown (1932-81) who was almost completely paralysed from birth by cerebral palsy. Christy, played by Cecil Day Lewis, is taught to read by his mother. He went on to learn how to type using his left foot and wrote his memoir and several novels and collections of poetry. Sheridan's later films deal with rural decline (The field, 1990: nominated for Oscar for Best Actor) and the sectarian strife attendant upon Ireland's partition (Some mother's son, 1996) and Irish migrant's life in the US (In America, 2002).

Neil Jordan started off as a novelist but with the release of his first film, Angel (1982) he has been known as a filmmaker who has earned an international reputation and a number of prestigious awards. Jordan's two best known films are The crying game (1992) and the bio-epic Michael Collins (1996). In both, his fascination with the fabrication of personality and identity is set in the context of Irish historical violence. His screenplay for The crying game won an Academy Award. Jordan has also directed a number of Hollywood films like High spirits (1988), We're no angels (1990), Interview with the vampire (1994) and In dreams (1999). Through his mixing of small-scale Irish projects with big international productions and Hollywood blockbusters, Neil Jordan has shown that it remains possible to work both at the local and global level as well as in-between.

Ireland's first terrestrial TV broadcast was made in 1961 (just three years before the founding of PTV). The state owned Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE) has played a significant role in promoting Irish film culture, not least by its massive project of conservation and digitization of its heritage. Irish Film & TV Research Online is a website that brings together the wide diversity of research material relating to Irish made cinema and television and Irish-themed audiovisual representations produced outside of Ireland. The impetus for this Index was the publication of Irish Filmography: Fiction Films 1896-1996 -- the first detailed study of cinema in Ireland (which came ten years after Yasin Gurija's Film Directory of Pakistan was first published in Lahore in 1986).

Above we have noted that over 2000 films on Irish themes have been produced worldwide. The current Irish film criticism holds that American cinema has largely failed in representing the political narrative and Irish history largely because such narratives involve a complex set of relations far beyond the control of a single individual. Given that the dominant form of American film is that of a forward linear narrative propelled by a psychologically rounded hero who can achieve his goal, this should be hardly surprising. The British cinema has tended to reproduce the traditional colonial stereotype of the Irish having an insatiable appetite for irrational violence, in which the struggling Irish are innately flawed to the point of pathology. In British comedy especially, the Irish is depicted as a kind of pre-modern buffoon in need of civilization and education by the British.

The Irish are avid moviegoers. A recent survey shows that Ireland was second in Europe (after France) in terms of cinema tickets sold per capita. Yet the Irish academia, much like in Pakistan, saw popular culture as unworthy of serious exploration, and therefore, film scholarship did not develop in Ireland till very recently. While a Masters degree in film and television had emerged in the mid-1990s, it was only in 2003 that Ireland's first specialist undergraduate film studies degree was established by Trinity College, Dublin. Given the essentially postcolonial nature of Irish cinema, a common Empire heritage and their long standing nationalist and cultural argument with a bigger eastern neighbour, it would be profitable for our emerging film academia to connect with Ireland for a mutually enriching relationship.

"What is there that you are working on? Old buildings and empty spaces are not beautiful enough for making a good picture." Comments like these, directed towards Adeela and Maryam during their work at the Lahore Fort, are not uncommon, since everyone possesses a peculiar concept of what is picturesque to make a work of art. Several of our artists abide by these notions and create whatever is appreciated by the general public. However some seek to move away from the norm and try to discover a hidden element of beauty in familiar sites, simple ideas and ordinary images. This tendency was evident in the work of Adeela Mushtaq and Maryam Fayyaz, who produced digital prints and video installation based upon a section of the Lahore Fort. The works of these two architects/visual artists were exhibited from 29th December 2006 to 5th January 2007 at the Nairang Galleries, Lahore.

This exhibition, titled Parallax Space comprised a video installation, a couple of text pieces and a large number of photographs dealing with parallax -- which according to the exhibition's brochure is 'a natural phenomenon of perception where shifting viewpoints create overlapping perspectives which let the viewer see around translucent planes and surfaces that define spaces.'

The two artists translated the process of parallax through multiple exposures on a single surface as well as by joining various pictures to complete/create one image. Thus in their works, either constructed with dark contrasts or showing a range of colours, a viewer glimpsed the shifting space inside a built environment. Both artists, trained as architects from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, explored this aspect of visual perception after their interest in the writings of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

As stated on the invitation card, the work of Adeela and Maryam, 'provides an opportunity to study parallax space and its perceptions in architecture'. Yet their work led to a number of other interpretations. To start with, the pictures at Nairang indicated a distinct approach towards the documentation of old buildings. Usually in our surroundings, the photography of historic monuments affirms the glory of the past and demonstrates a sense of pride in heritage. Thus the majority of our photographers focus on the motifs, patterns, textures or details of architecture. Or they capture the greatness of scale in the old structures. All of this reveals a desire to portray the grandeur of the past as well as to treat it as a sacred examples of aesthetics.

The position of Adeela and Maryam is starkly different in this regard. Both of them believe that the 'heritage site should not be just conserved or documented only, but the experience of space must be felt in these places'. In order to attain that experience in a visual form they relied on a basic format: of parallax vision. A method that can help in recording/recreating the experiences of space felt at a specific site, and extending the possibility of photography as a medium.

The medium of photography is considered a tool to render reality in an objective/scientific manner. But actually the photograph -- the single view of a place seen from a fixed point -- does not replicate the experience of viewing an area. In fact our eyes (instead of being glued to one point -- and remaining oblivious to the whole surrounding, like the frame of a viewfinder in camera) roam over a vast field of vision. What we gather in our mind is the blend of many views as one image: Something different from a camera picture. Hence, no matter how sophisticated the apparatus, we feel a sense of awkwardness towards believing in the naturalness or truth of a photographic image.

The great painter of last century, Paul Cezanne recognized this aspect and he tried to construct a reality that -- like our visual experience -- had multiple views within one picture frame (so various objects seen from different angles were painted on one canvas). This element was further explored by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in their Cubist paintings. Similarly David Hockney, the English artist, combined multiple views of reality in his paintings and photographs.

It seemed that Adeela and Maryam were also dealing with the experience of seeing a place rather than photographing it. In their works, various views, assembled in one picture frame -- either joined or superimposed -- conveyed the sensation of looking at an actual place. This element added another dimension to their digital print, which instead of being a stereotypical picture of a historic building was transformed into a poetic vision. This contributed in converting the structure of bricks, stones and other hard materials into a lighter substance. Hence the superimposed visuals served to reduce the solidity of the site and turned it into a continuous interplay of light and dark (something which can be experienced on the spot). The poetic element in these images was enhanced with the introduction of sky in almost every picture -- often with one or more birds flying against the light blue or grey background. Interestingly, in the photograph, the moving bird emerged only once, while the static building had many repeated views. Thus the flying body appeared fixed, while the solid mass of building seemed to be moving, perpetually.

The experiments with parallax did not remain just a technical device for the two artists, since they treated the city (or at least one part of it) as the metaphor for the changing (notions of) past. However, they consciously and carefully decided to concentrate on only one area from Lahore Fort, because what they sought to represent was not a pictorial survey of the fort but the act of seeing simultaneous reality -- in its totality.

In addition to that, the works of these two architects/artists was an indication of many ways to approach history and its manifestations in art and architecture. Instead of repeating past aesthetics, they dealt with the historic work of architecture in a new way and created a completely different vision from it. This can be comprehended in relation to the current practice of miniature painting, which takes pride in appropriating past art. But one comes across historic imagery and old techniques revived with superficial changes in the works of several modern miniaturists. Probably the recently held exhibition at Nairang suggested exciting ways to resurrect older forms with new sensibilities. The work of Adeela Mushtaq and Maryam Fayyaz demonstrated that the past is still a country that holds many possibilities which can be explored.

Dear all,

The release, a few months ago, of a new Bond film with a brand new James Bond has reignited interest in this very British character and what people now call the 'Bond franchise'. Since I haven't seen the new Bond I can't really comment on how successful Daniel Craig is in his role as the new (and blond) Bond, but certainly I have had a chance to see quite a bit of the other Bonds recently.

The reason for this is that thanks to the post Christmas sales here, we decided to gift ourselves a spectacular DVD set of all the James Bond films. Because of this our household is now gripped by James Bond fever, and we are having a fine time sitting through all the exciting films with their predictable plots and implausible twists and incredible fights and chases.

Ian Flaming's character is set to a perfect formula now -- the suave ruthless secret service agent, brave, womanising and always one step ahead of the enemy. Watching the films one after another, one is struck by how well the filmmakers have managed to maintain the style of the product. The films have such slick openings and graphics and the title song is usually excellent and sung by the likes of Shirley Bassey, Nancy Sinatra, Madonna, Carly Simon etc. Of course Bond fights his way out of any situation with an array of swift reaction, cunning gadgets, clever use of magnets, and lightening speed judo moves. He also flirts outrageously with all the gorgeous women in the films and usually beds as many as possible.

The films aren't really very kind to the women. Right from the early Sean Connery movies many of the women are killed off in quite violent ways. They are all implausibly gorgeous and always wear frightfully seductive clothes. They have soft porn type names and they either seduce or betray but usually both. When Pierce Brosnan began to play Bond the filmmakers decided to make the character of his boss 'M' into a woman. She is played by the excellent actress Judy Dench, but still she is not written as a very smart character. In some films she looks positively ineffectual.

The recent Bond films have seen the female villains become more and more evil. The one in 'Golden Eye' is scarily cruel and quite terrifying. And even though some other films have interesting strong characters in them, they always, always succumb to Bond's seductions.

What is quite interesting about the recent Bond films -- the ones from the Brosnan era especially -- is that they link Bond's enormous sexual appetites to his life of extreme danger in which the shadow of death is nearly always over him. The taking of pleasure becomes a reaffirmation of life and an oblivion that is opposite to that of death.

The gadgets are so much fun as well. The ejecting passenger seat, the speed boat with torpedos, the invisible car, the wristwatch that can do practically anything, the sunglasses that explode... all the equipment supplied to Bond by the eccentric 'Q'.

Over the years we have exclaimed at how farfetched Indian movies are, but just watch any Bond movie and you'll see what farfetched really means! The scrapes from which Bond emerges unscathed! Completely incredible stuff.

Yes these films are sexist, formulaic and quite silly but they are just so much fun! From the first Bond, Sean Connery, through to Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and now Daniel Craig, Bond remains an icon, the epitome of absolute style and fitness and cunning and charm, and of course bravery and commitment (to his country). The Bonds I did not mention here are George Lazenby, who made one film and was a dreadful, unimpressive Bond and Timothy Dalton who made two films but who was similarly awful in the role.

Many years ago we did see the actor who made the most Bond films (Roger Moore) in London. There was straggly group of us (about ten people) assembled outside the Pakistan High Commission in Lowndes Square on the first anniversary of the Musharraf coup. It was supposed to be a larger group, but of course most of the people who promised to show up, did not. So there we were doing our bit and shouting slogans, in stereo, against military rule ('Go Musharraf Go!' and 'Military rule -- No! No!') when from the building behind us emerged Roger Moore with a lady on his arm. Great excitement! We quickly conferred and a new slogan was raised: 'Who's the Best Bond? -- Roger Moore!, 'Who's the Best Bond? -- Roger Moore!'. And our blatant little flattery was rewarded by a smile and a wave from Roger Moore and provided a bit of excitement to us as well as to the police staff on extra security duty outside the High Commission.

But I can admit it now: I lied. Roger Moore is NOT the best Bond. That can only be truly said of Pierce Brosnan.

Must dash, I have another Bond film to see.

Happy new year to all of you!

Umber Khairi