I’ve nothing against directors. The men and women who make magic with movie cameras have much to offer the civilized world. Skill, talent, vision. Some have an uncanny knack with those sometimes prickly artists we like to call actors. Others are technical wizards who find their primal purpose standing at the center of production chaos. I appreciate and applaud them.

But are they authors? Or auteurs as the French so impolitely…

So it was upon catching Skyfall that I thought it the appropriate time to share this true Hollywood tale of lust. My best pal Robert and I treated some of our still-growing children to an opening day showing what MGM originally titled Bond #23. On the way home afterwards, we fell into the usual post-Bond movie stars discussion of rating the men who’d inhabited the role of 007.



Now as a Bond fan since…

How can you turn an audience from observers into participants?

According to the Academy’s voters, Argo (directed by Ben Affleck and written by Chris Terrio) was not only the best written film of 2012 but also the best film altogether. It was certainly a satisfying experience for a large audience.

How could anyone improve on that?

The…