I wish I could go back to that time sometimes, when people smoked and drank constantly, over dressed, and were blatantly mysoginist racists. The closest thing I've experienced is the Kentucky Derby.

That about sums it up - and it's a bigger audience than the lying-in-a-hotel-with-warm-beer-and-junk-food audience, although there is certainly some crossover.

Think about the best Bond film ever. That would be You Only Live Twice and I'll tell you why.

First, the best theme song - there can be no debate about this, so don't bother.

Second, the standard porcine attitude towards women is given a cultural basis. Everybody knows that all Japanese women exist solely to live in harem-like conditions, spending their days binding their feet and perfecting tea ceremonies. Thus, in this environment, Bondian misogyny is less offensive. No matter how repulsive a behavior may be, if it's culturally based, it must be respected. So when Tiger, Bond's main contact in Japan, offers Bond a choice of women for the evening's entertainment, and then responds to the selection with a "Good choice, Bond-san - she is very sexiful," it's OK, because it's cultural. Just like the word 'sexiful.' Japanese men actually talk like that when they are not preparing sushi or taking photographs. It's not racism, it's just their culture.

Lastly, the most important reason: Chopsocky. (Let me just say that I think all movies should have chopsocky in them. The Hours would have benefited tremendously from a few well placed ninja stars.) Released in 1967, I'd be willing to bet that You Only Live Twice was the first little taste of chopsocky available to the mainstream Western audience. This was a stroke of brilliance. The intersection of chopsockian and Bondian campiness elevates this film to the next level. Fight scenes in Bond films are ludicrous, but rather than try to make them more realistic, the producers decide to go in the opposite direction and introduce the traditional bad-guys-attack-one-at-a-time and laughable-voice-over paradigms. Awesome.

Now imagine a similar movie. You hand the general production over to someone who truly understands the concepts of espionage and women, like Andrew Sidaris (chortle). You bring in John Woo to direct and choreograph the fight scenes and stunts telling him you want a retro, Enter the Dragon feel out of it. You commission a faux-classical lounge-ish theme song. Wrap it in mid-sixties era production values and you own the box office for at least a week.

Enter the Dragon. Now there's a cheesy flick I never tire of watching. The fight scenes are amazing - proving that you don't need Matrix-esque slow motion or Crouching Tiger tree-walking for a quality fight scene. It's all done with camera angels, editing, and Bruce Lee. The lack of technical enhancement as a crutch means they remain the best fight scenes in cinematic history - again, no debate is possible. More importantly, it has no peer when it comes to pegging the unintentional comedy meter.