Sean Connery

LONDON -- Was James Bond a double agent working against the British government, a mole operating within the very heart of Her Majesty's Secret Service?RTC If so, who was his paymaster?The KGB? The CIA? The SNP?SNP?Well, maybe "paymaster" is a bit strong."We could never afford to pay Sean Connery," said Alex Salmond, head of the SNP, the Scottish National Party."He did it because he has been a long-term sympathizer over many years. Now he's turned that sympathy into active support," he said.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the NFL draft wasn't on Corey Fuller's radar. Without a football scholarship offer during his senior year at Woodlawn, Fuller went to Kansas to run track and compete in the triple jump. After two years there, he abandoned his scholarship, transferred to Virginia Tech and paid his tuition out-of-pocket for one year - all for the opportunity to walk onto the football team as a wide receiver. In his first season of eligibility, Fuller played just 57 offensive snaps and had two catches for 19 yards.

HOLLYWOOD -- If it's true, as director Steven Spielberg once said, that there are only seven genuine movie stars in the world and that Sean Connery is one of them, one could go on to make the case for Mr. Connery -- who receives the Seventh American Cinematheque Award tonight -- as first among equals.His James Bond series was one of the most hugely successful in movie history (in its time, 1964's "Goldfinger" was the fastest money-maker ever, grossing $10 million in just a few months). Yet he dropped it after six films (excepting his tongue-in-cheek return in 1983's "Never Say Never Again")

If director Gus Van Sant isn't careful, audiences might start thinking he has permanently crossed over into the cushy mainstream of commercial success. Van Sant made his name with such edgy, indie gems as "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho." But in "Finding Forrester," he has produced a compelling film that probably will be as popular with audiences, critics and those folks who hand out statuettes as his Academy-Award winning "Good Will Hunting." In fact, there's already early Oscar buzz for Van Sant and "Forrester" co-stars Sean Connery and Rob Brown.

Los AngelesIt's a classy way to end an era.Sean Connery, the screen's embodiment of ultimate Cold Warrior James Bond, stars in what may be the last Cold War espionage movie, "The Russia House."Based on John le Carre's best-selling novel, this cerebral,post-glasnost spy story dispenses with most of the devices that earmarked the Bond films Mr. Connery initiated: excessive action, titillating eroticism, high-tech heroics.Instead, it's a very adult kind of story, more concerned with mature emotions and conflicting motives than with superspy shenanigans.

I think that I shall never see a movie lovely as a tree, and "Medicine Man," set among the trees of the Amazon rain forest, confirms that suspicion.A medical whatdunit with overtones of ecological orthodoxy and metaphorical fancy, the movie isn't bad so much as unfinished. It's as if John McTiernan, the action director now trying a grown-up project, is working from notes rather than a script. This is his "Apocalypse Now," and he still hasn't found an ending.Like "Apocalypse," this one is about an arduous upriver journey through a merciless jungle; the difference is in the destination, which is a heart of lightness.

The first thing to love or hate about "First Knight" is its audacity. In retelling the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, it takes the sacred canon of Arthurian legend and says cheekily, "No thank you." In this Camelot, they make up a lot and they forget a lot.Among the forgotten: England, Mordred, the Lady in the Lake, Merlin (Merlin!), Lancelot's knighthood, the Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, and any awareness that the story owes an allegiance to tradition. Instead, with the blase insouciance that Hollywood used to treat the classics (famous Hollywood credit line: "A Midsummer's Night Dream," by William Shakespeare; additional dialogue by Sam Katz)

A few things you might consider doing instead of seeing "The Avengers": Walking the dog.Turning the compost.Re-grouting the bathtub.Starting your 1999 taxes.Buying a dog.Starting a compost heap.By now, the pop-culture literati (meaning people with nothing of substance or meaning to worry about) know that the entertainment media is in high feather over Warner Brothers' decision not to screen "The Avengers" for critics before it opened Friday.The studio gives us far too much credit. The American movie-going public is famously immune to the rants and raves of reviewers, making up their own minds by sallying forth intrepidly regardless of critical opprobrium.

There are two TV treats tonight, but both of the goodies are also oldies: a double feature of early James Bond movies on TBS and, on ABC, a prime-time showing of Pee-wee Herman's delightful first film. Other than that, and a fresh episode of "The Marshal," tonight's TV is as dull as Whitewater.* "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., Channel 2) -- CBS was already through with its Saturday-morning cycle of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" shows, and into reruns, when the Paul Reubens indecent-exposure scandal hit the news.

Movie villains are coming on cute these days. The sheriff in ''Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves'' sounds as though he has worked at the Improv, and the bad guy in ''Highlander 2: The Quickening,'' acts as though he is hoping for a special on HBO.As played by Michael Ironside, Katana, evil ruler of the planet Zeist, fights cute and kills cute. It is as though the producers, realizing they had a bomb at their disposal, tried to save the film by having the principals crack wise.It doesn't work, but then nothing really works in this film, not even the special effects, which, after a time, become tiresome.

A few things you might consider doing instead of seeing "The Avengers": Walking the dog.Turning the compost.Re-grouting the bathtub.Starting your 1999 taxes.Buying a dog.Starting a compost heap.By now, the pop-culture literati (meaning people with nothing of substance or meaning to worry about) know that the entertainment media is in high feather over Warner Brothers' decision not to screen "The Avengers" for critics before it opened Friday.The studio gives us far too much credit. The American movie-going public is famously immune to the rants and raves of reviewers, making up their own minds by sallying forth intrepidly regardless of critical opprobrium.

Brave Scotland and doughty Wales, having voted to establish their own legislatures after centuries of dependence on the Parliament in Westminster, have taken baby steps toward independence. They are tiptoeing away from the mother country.The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh boldly declared the aftermath of the vote, Sept. 11., "the first day of the rest of Scotland's life."It then added, more timorously, "We will make of it what we can."William Hague, the spokesman for the losers in the referendum, who want to keep Scotland firmly under English control, said the voters "had the wool pulled over their eyes."

"Ovitz," by Robert Slater. McGraw Hill. 360 pages. $22.95"Ovitz" begins like one of the action thrillers that roll off Hollywood's assembly lines for the summer. You know: the set piece before the movie titles: little girl wanders off from picnic and provides lunch for prehistoric creatures ("The Lost World"); or the earthquakes, or the volcano rumbles. In this case, the erupting disaster is Michael Ovitz the man, billed as "Hollywood's most controversial power broker." When the first scene is over, we know all we need to know about him, Hollywood, and power.

And so it came to pass, with the holidays approaching, and with nothing better to do to get myself into trouble, that I decided to telephone some extremely close personal friends of mine yesterday morning.Starting with the president of the United States."Who?" said the long distance operator in Washington.Now, I know what you're thinking.You're thinking: Mike, Mike, we live in modern times. Why telephone the president when you can reach him on the Internet?But I'm not that kind of a guy. I'm the kind of guy who goes back to the old days, the Golden Age of Telephone Calling, when you were maybe 8 years old and you and several of your pals would call, for example, Read's Drug Store to inquire about pipe tobacco, to wit: "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

If watching burly men die really horrible deaths for two hours is your idea of fun, boy, are you going to love "The Rock." This is one testosterone-fueled movie.It's also overly long and relentless in its noise and carnage, and as a result, its interesting characters are too-often eclipsed.The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson, whose action-heavy credits include a couple of "Beverly Hills Cop" movies, "Top Gun," "Days of Thunder" and "Crimson Tide."Nicolas Cage stars as a chemical-weapons expert for the FBI, the elaborately named Stanley Goodspeed.

The first thing to love or hate about "First Knight" is its audacity. In retelling the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, it takes the sacred canon of Arthurian legend and says cheekily, "No thank you." In this Camelot, they make up a lot and they forget a lot.Among the forgotten: England, Mordred, the Lady in the Lake, Merlin (Merlin!), Lancelot's knighthood, the Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, and any awareness that the story owes an allegiance to tradition. Instead, with the blase insouciance that Hollywood used to treat the classics (famous Hollywood credit line: "A Midsummer's Night Dream," by William Shakespeare; additional dialogue by Sam Katz)

Toupee or not toupee!That is the question these days for 007."I threw the blasted thing in the waste can," Sean Connery was saying, the burr of his Scottish accent warming the conversation into a cozy fireside chat. "There I was in the Florida Everglades, running around alligators in temperatures up to 100 degrees, and I was supposed to worry about a hairpiece, too? Not bloody likely."Mr. Connery, the once and -- for most fans -- forever James Bond, was talking about the filming of "Just Cause," the thriller currently in theaters.

If watching burly men die really horrible deaths for two hours is your idea of fun, boy, are you going to love "The Rock." This is one testosterone-fueled movie.It's also overly long and relentless in its noise and carnage, and as a result, its interesting characters are too-often eclipsed.The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson, whose action-heavy credits include a couple of "Beverly Hills Cop" movies, "Top Gun," "Days of Thunder" and "Crimson Tide."Nicolas Cage stars as a chemical-weapons expert for the FBI, the elaborately named Stanley Goodspeed.

There are two TV treats tonight, but both of the goodies are also oldies: a double feature of early James Bond movies on TBS and, on ABC, a prime-time showing of Pee-wee Herman's delightful first film. Other than that, and a fresh episode of "The Marshal," tonight's TV is as dull as Whitewater.* "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., Channel 2) -- CBS was already through with its Saturday-morning cycle of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" shows, and into reruns, when the Paul Reubens indecent-exposure scandal hit the news.

Toupee or not toupee!That is the question these days for 007."I threw the blasted thing in the waste can," Sean Connery was saying, the burr of his Scottish accent warming the conversation into a cozy fireside chat. "There I was in the Florida Everglades, running around alligators in temperatures up to 100 degrees, and I was supposed to worry about a hairpiece, too? Not bloody likely."Mr. Connery, the once and -- for most fans -- forever James Bond, was talking about the filming of "Just Cause," the thriller currently in theaters.