Sam 0:18 Welcome to monkey off my backlog the podcast where we exercise our pop culture demons by tackling our media to do list one week at a time. I'm your host, Sam and with me is my co host Tessa as well as Nigel Annalise. Alright, so let's just get right back to the countdown. Right where we left off. Speaking of sad, talk about some more films, we have one more on our list of bad Bond movies before we transition to the movies that are more math for us. So the last aggressively bad movie on our list comes in at number 28 is 2008. Quantum of Solace. That's right, the one where the evil crime syndicate that meets during the opera, because that's a good idea. Nigel, you're so wrong. Well, Nigel said I was wrong first. So go on. Unknown Speaker 1:12 How does it feel to be so categorically wrong? Sam 1:17 I wrestle with that a lot, but not regarding this movie. Unknown Speaker 1:23 Yeah, I hope we I hope we can still be friends after this. Like I consider us friends. But I don't know now whether I don't know whether a friendship can withstand this slander. Sam 1:33 What it really depends on is, is if we can find that Quantum of Solace in our friendship that will allow it to continue despite the maelstrom of disagreement going around it which is by the way, the literal usage of Quantum of Solace. And Ian Fleming go on. Unknown Speaker 1:51 Okay, so I, I will admit that maybe I have a soft spot for this film based off of repeated viewings. Why are you doing jazz? Sam 2:00 Because I did the concert because I did a bit. Unknown Speaker 2:05 I was very proud of that bit. Sam 2:07 I did a text you all read egg? Unknown Speaker 2:15 Well, this is this has gotten derailed by half assing it and so with its tradition, Sam 2:20 how's everybody? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 2:24 it's tradition in my house, basically, every Christmas to watch quantum assaults on the TV, because RT used to always show it on Christmas Eve. And so it would be on when we're watching. Like we're watching TV. And so then when we were young, we'd always go to bed at around the same time. So when they're like we had seen the film before, but then it was like, became like a funny joke being like, oh, haha, you know, guess we'll never know what happens after this point in Quantum of Solace. But then now, they haven't shown they're showing later bonds or whatever, we just make a habit of watching it around Christmas time. Unknown Speaker 3:01 Do you still stop it? time? Like, Oh, no, Sam 3:05 no, Unknown Speaker 3:07 no, it'll get to that bit. And we'll get to that bit in the film. And then we're just like, it will all share, like a knowing look be like, Oh, yeah, we're going past this point now. But what I think that's nice. What I think is really good is because for like, obviously, this is a short story and stuff, but then it's like, what if, like, you know, they're kind of thrown it feels a first my reading was like, Oh, well, they're run out of ideas. And they're like, Well, fuck it. What if bond fights throws darts at a dartboard climate change? And they dare to say, Well, what if climate change is bad? But then what if? Yeah, crazy hypothetical. But like, what I think is really impressive about this film is, like, if I, I'm trying to get Twitter to load up because I want to, I made a little thread about this. But basically, if I were to sum up quantum muscles in one word, it would be unforgiving. You know, where it's not it's not the grittiest Bond film, but it's definitely like the most unforgiving because you have that line Inspector, which is where Ray finds is like, Well, you know, having a license to kill is also having a license not to kill, you know, you need a human agent in the field to make that you need to make that judgment call as to whether you should take someone's life or not. And then they just kind of do nothing with that because it's all under Scott wants drones. Whereas in Quantum of Solace, like bond, like the whole film, and this telling him you know, don't kill people, you know, bring him in and bond is like, well, oops, guess he walked in the way of a bullet. You know, these things happen but yeah, the whole thing is like bomb shut and kill unless he explicitly has to. Like, it forms I guess kind of a comment. If you want to call it that on like how wanton a killer bond is and like you know later on we have like the Bond girl is literally drowned in oil like until her lungs are full and she's just left there for bonds to find and he's off having another adventure so he hasn't come back for ages in like that's really bad like I know in gold finger which I guess this is a call back to you know yeah she's covered in gold and left but like she's direct like suffocated in oil you know and then at the end of the film he leaves Dominic Greene stranded in the desert with nothing to drink but motor oil like it's so unforgiving and harsh a film and like you know it takes place in the desert so I guess it kind of reflects that too but I feel like this does an awful lot more than people give it credit for I feel like people dismiss Quantum of Solace in the same way not for the same reasons before you say anything so but it's dismissed off the cuff in the same way as people dismiss On Her Majesty's Secret Service Unknown Speaker 6:05 Elise What do you think of this film? Unknown Speaker 6:07 I I very much and Sam mentioned this earlier the the Craig movies are more interconnected than the other Bond movies so it's really our first bond sequel because it takes place basically immediately after Casino Royale so for me and this is something I feel about all the Craig movies like I personally feel a little bit more invested in them because they're all related which is not to say that I don't love non interconnected Bond movies because obviously otherwise I wouldn't be here right now. But um in addition to what Nigel saying bond is like really depressed in this movie. He's trying to pretend he's fine as the movie goes on you just see him he's completely like unraveling and being brutal and being more in his feelings even though his version of that is oh that guy's dead not like I'm gonna cry in the corner. I do think that it does suffer a little bit it's the shortest of all the Bond movies and that's because there was the writer strike the year that this was written so it could there are probably things that in another year we might have gotten a more complete movie but I do like that he's so upset and he doesn't end up with Camille or anything at the end like it's just like oh we hung out we helped each other and then we went our separate ways there wasn't the there wasn't romance in this one which is file I do enjoy that in bond but i i don't think it was it would have felt okay after what happened in Casino Royale I feel like if there was romance in this it would have felt like not inappropriate but it just would have felt like not I don't know I wouldn't go and Unknown Speaker 8:01 see like we're gonna talk about Diamonds Are Forever later but there's a real problem for me in the aftermath of On Her Majesty's Secret Service where the first part like the first five minutes of Diamonds Are Forever supposed to resolve like all of bonds feelings about Tracy dialing in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and then it's like oh well he's off he's off being bond we're never going to talk about his wife again. And this movie to me the really good redeeming factor of it is that they didn't do that that they actually spent like a whole movie yeah trying to like how would he actually react to like this person that he thought he was gonna spend the rest of his life with dying like in such a you know he has complex feelings about it. There's a lot of like revenge type of narratives to this which I think is really interesting. I do think there are parts of this that work really well but I do think that the movie is severely underwritten probably because of the writer strike which I'm sure Sam will tell us more about here in a moment. I I liked his relationship with the Bond girl I thought that she was a really interesting character and like the fact that they were both in the same emotional space at the same time I found to be fascinating, because that's not usually how we do bond girls we have bond girls that have motivations, but they're not these kinds of motivations. And so I thought that was really fascinating. I just, I don't know this movie to me, like they're just long sections of it that feel really underwritten. Sam 9:31 So I'll just do this now because it's convenient. I started watching Bond movies because I discovered them on TV during that period between Dalton and Brosnan. And so you know, I've been invested since then I think Tomorrow Never Dies was the first one I saw in the theater. I've seen them all in the theater since then with the except for this one. And the thing about that is is that from, from the time that I started watching bond, to the time that I read all the novels to when Craig got cast, which I was a really big fan of, to when they did, they got the guts to do Casino Royale. Finally, realizing this is a reboot of the franchise, they have an opportunity, they have an opportunity to do something they hadn't done since licensed to kill, which was actually do part of a Fleming story. And so when they did Casino Royale, they did a whole Fleming story. And I thought, if they do From Russia with love, I will just I will lose it, they will finally do the novels and do them right. They chose violence instead with this movie. And so I didn't see it in the theater. As the Bard says, long story short, it was a bad time. So this was a Netflix movie and Oh gee, Netflix disk and then male movie for me. Now, you may know this, you may not know this, but I have narcolepsy. This was a narcolepsy movie. Tessa has watched me struggle through a movie, while constantly falling asleep and waking back up. That was my first experience with Quantum of Solace. I didn't care about it, because it wasn't From Russia with love. What I remembered was bad. So that was strike two. And then I was finally ready to watch it again. Give it a fair shot a few weeks ago, and yeah, it's as bad as I thought it was. Unknown Speaker 11:25 One last thing that I'll say that really turned me off in this move to this movie is that the climax of the movie is just in a hotel. Like all of the Bond movies have these like fantastic, like set pieces as the climax, except for this one, because it's just like, Oh, yeah, this is just a hotel where like a couple of dudes were meeting in the middle of the desert. Sam 11:45 It's, it's, it's not even an Ice Hotel, which is such a great transition. Thank you, Tessa. Now we're gonna move on to the section of our list that we like to call the math. It's not good. It's not aggressively bad. It's just math, starting with number 19 2000 and two's Die Another Day, the one with cursher sudden, but inevitable betrayal, Madonna, and the dude with diamonds in his head. Unknown Speaker 12:12 So I had died. I had Diana, Die Another Day at number 20. So I'm gonna say that we're pretty much on par. Yeah, I do like the change in format of the opening scene where bond is captured and held for a long time rather than like fake dead or doing something that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. I really like Miranda frost and I didn't actually the first time I watched this, I think her twist kind of surprised me. So I didn't really expect that which was nice. I don't hate the invisible car situation as much as other people but there's just way too much CGI in this movie. It's not. It looks a little ridiculous. And I I love Halle Berry. But I didn't find her character that interesting. The plot is ridiculous. The face changing. And I know this isn't the first time that we've had plastic surgery as part of a bond. thing, but that was kind of unbelievable. And it was sad that Desmond luellen was not in this movie because he had died before it got started. So I you know, so it's definitely in the Marines for me as well. Unknown Speaker 13:28 Nigel, what do you think about Die Another Day? Unknown Speaker 13:32 Um, so I don't know. Like I'm conflicted as to how I feel about Pierce Brosnan as bond to begin with. Mainly because he's from the same country as I am, and from quite close geographically speaking to where I live. So it's a bit weird seeing him as James Bond it's been weird seeing him in a lot of things really like such as Mamma Mia. So like, that's my main problem with I think these films is just I have conflicting feelings as to how I feel about Pierce Brosnan where it's like yeah, he's cool. But then when I stop and think about it for like, more than three seconds, I'm like, wait, what is he doing as bond? So I like that I feel like john Cleese as well was a bit of a weird choice to play Q, especially following Llewellyn you know, I don't know this film is such a hodgepodge for me, where it's higher up in my list than here I think it's, it's sitting at about maybe 17 men because there's films that we haven't gotten to yet that I just really irked me the wrong way and so I took them way down the list. So I don't really have anything else to add Yeah. Invisible cargo. But Unknown Speaker 14:44 I agree with you Nigel. I think that this is not a cohesive story. I actually said I think about halfway through watching this because this was the first time I'd watched it was on this rewatch, I hadn't seen any Pierce Brosnan films before this last year. And I had I think my exact words were there's too much going on in this film like this this film didn't know what its story was it had too many it wanted to do the North Korean general and like his father and there's like the fake out but it also wanted to do plastic surgery but it also wanted to do like there's just too many pieces and they don't ever really mesh together the way you want to. I did think that the frost twist was interesting because usually it's the first Bond girl that you meet that turns evil like if you if you have an evil Bond girl, it's usually the first one not the second one. This one flipped it. It also tried to misdirect us by having us think that Halle Berry was going to turn evil but she didn't. So I found that to be interesting, but it was really the only interesting thing about this. Also, I missed about Desmond Llewellyn. He will always forever be Q. Unknown Speaker 15:52 Yeah, one of like, the most interesting things that I found are just trivia to do with casting. So you know, we like Halle Berry is Jinx. Right? But then it's like before berries casting Salma, hyack, Saffron Burrows and Sophie Ellis Beck's are also can Sophie Ellis backslider, man. Yeah. As in like the one who sings murder on the dance floor, Sam 16:13 which is a great song. Oh, it's Unknown Speaker 16:15 fantastic. Sam 16:16 Right shows up in the LEC array adaptation with Hiddleston. And Unknown Speaker 16:24 the Night Manager. Sam 16:25 Yes, she has. She shows up in that, I believe. Yeah, but Unknown Speaker 16:29 like, I just seen that. Yeah, I can't imagine her as Jinx. You know, Sam 16:35 I think it would have been great. Unknown Speaker 16:37 Yeah, but also like this is roughly around the time that murder on the dance floor came out if I remember correctly. Sam 16:44 I think you're right. I think they're both early 2000s. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 16:47 Yeah, I think like 2003 2004 was around when murder on the dance floor came out and this is 2002 and then just like about graves, how the alter ego Colonel moon. This I'm reading this now from the Wikipedia article. Graves is modeled after Hugo Drax and Ian Fleming's original Moonraker. That's an interesting thing because like the film of Moonraker is wildly different to the film. So it's interesting, went back to Moonraker for that a Nazi war criminal who switched places with a British soldier at the end of World War Two became a well respected and wealthy philanthropist and uses use this cover plot cover to plan a nuclear missile strike on London. Full stop. He was also modeled after Uday Hussein and Richard Branson. Sam 17:30 Yeah, yeah. Hey, hey, Nigel, would you say that? Sophie, Ella specter, when Sophie Ellis Baxter was unable to move this mountain and get cast? Andy's not here. I have to do it to somebody. Unknown Speaker 17:47 Yeah. I feel like I feel like I'm nearly the least qualified to be like the straight man in this dynamic. Like, when I do podcasts, it's like, Hannah is great for that. And there are five admirers because she just has the air of a long suffering. Comedian. Sam 18:11 By the end of this podcast, yeah. Unknown Speaker 18:12 I don't think I'm cut out for it now. Sam 18:15 You know, and I just have to say this real quick. It's important to go back to the idea of Pierce president being bond. There's a long running theme in these movies about actors who become bond years after they should have, you know, they hire them when they're too old, and they don't have the longevity we talked about for your eyes only earlier, as being a possible jumping on point for another bond. That's when Pierce Brosnan entered the picture. That's how long ago that was. Yep. So but there's also some good news and bad news about this movie. And I'll just end with that. The bad news is we could have had Michelle Yeoh back her character was going to show back up in Hong Kong Yes, they had written it there was a conflict it didn't work out. But but it could have been so could have been better because we could have had her but could have been worse. Tessa we could have had Brett Ratner but we didn't Oh, no dead. Yeah, instead we got lead time at Horry who made once were warriors, which is a great movie. Unknown Speaker 19:20 May I humbly submit to the court this piece of evidence as to a pre bond Pierce Brosnan in the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man which which I feel like this is Sam 19:33 this is one of the judges will exclude that testimony. Unknown Speaker 19:39 Well no. Here we go. He's wearing an earring in one year for no reason. Unknown Speaker 19:47 Hey, looks well, he looks very pretty in that. Yeah. Like we know podcasting is a very visual media so everyone can see it but but Unknown Speaker 19:59 like the point is That's when that's when he should have been bond when he looked like that. Yes, I agree. That's the point but it's also like any excuse to remind people of the Lawnmower Man Sam 20:11 you guys are nailing it with transitions today by the way because because Nigel you mentioned that that the the main villain and Die Another Day is a is based off of Hugo Drax, so it's fitting that number 18 bring me Star Wars from 1979 is Moonraker the one where the bad guy does eugenics. Unknown Speaker 20:32 It's nice. My audio cut out there. all I could see was Sam's mouth open. Yeah. Sam 20:48 I got I got as far away from the mic as I could. I kind of Unknown Speaker 20:53 love this film. I kind of love this film for how bonkers it is, like I mentioned it before how like, you know how different This one is to the book where it's like this one, you know, actually makes sense. It's called Moonraker. I can't remember the encounter and reason for why the book is titled Moonraker sound can probably clue me in on that one. But it's like bomb goes to space where it's like, I think this is where the franchise was inevitably heading. Like, are you aware of the concept of asymptotes in mathematics? I am not you'll have to explain that. Okay, so this is on a graph. This is really boring, and I hate maths as well. So like, I'm sorry, I'm gay, I can't do maths. But it's basically you do it on a graph. And you've got this equation where you put it in. And so if you've got your graph, if you imagine an X Y axis, this one like curves between the two, and it gets closer and closer to an axis, but it will never touch it. And so you say like, these values are approaching whatever. So I feel like that's every franchise if it goes out long enough, works like an asymptote towards space. Like you're seeing the Fast and Furious now they're in space. Like, that's exactly where I think Bond was meant to go. At that time. Also, like jawless is there for some reason. Unknown Speaker 22:17 Like to get a girlfriend Yeah. Unknown Speaker 22:20 But like when you consider that scene, right? You know, where he like smiles at her and she smiles back like I I would like hadn't thought about that for ages. And then I heard someone bring it up in relation to the Mandela effect where it's like, in their head, she has braces. But like when you go, she doesn't? Like she should. You know, like it makes more sense if she had braces because then that's a thing that they can bond over, I guess because jaws has fucked up teeth. But it's like why like the scene doesn't really make any sense. So it's just like he shows off his teeth which can eat through metal and she just like spot Sam 23:00 them. The the in canon, the canonical version of why jaws comes back and that happens. Lewis Gilbert, the director, his grandson said, Why does jaws have to be a bad guy? Yeah, that's it I Unknown Speaker 23:20 love it. Like jaws is kind of the only other character at this stage other than surgeon JW pepper who's providing any kind of continuity buyer like the bond actor being the same. Like cuz he's This is his, like, third appearance in a Bond film, correct? Unknown Speaker 23:37 Well, it's a second appearance and let's not associate jaws with the racists Louisiana Sheriff jaws is like a much better person than Unknown Speaker 23:47 they were like the same level of person, but they it's really weird that they serve the same function. Unknown Speaker 23:54 Yeah, I mean, I I love jaws in Moonraker. I just love jaws like jaws is the henchman that causes plays as a shark and I just I love it like I think that he thinks that he is a shark. But this film I don't like the film as much but jaws the fact that he's so determined to kill blonde for no reason like he's not even like hired by anybody. He just really hates bond and like, came along so great gag, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But Elise, how do you feel about jaws and Moonraker? Unknown Speaker 24:27 So I had Moonraker at 17 which is around where you guys have it I but I also like this is this and higher like are lower on I don't know how that works. But this and this through number one are like movies I love so this is kind of where it starts for me. Um, so I love this movie, even though it's number 17. It has so much campiness as we said Bongo space, jaws gets a girlfriend. The eugenics master race. plot is kind of bananas. And I do love jaws figuring out that maybe he would be excluded from the master race if he went along with what's with this plan. So he's changed sides and that just makes me feel really happy. I just watched f nine the other this week for the first time so I obviously think that that movie is the Moonraker of the Fast and the Furious series I was hysterically laughing watching them go into space. A lot of what I had to say on this was has already been said it came out two years after Star Wars. The one thing I really hate about this movie is there's that like Ramsey Snow Dog scene at the beginning. where like, I think that's this movie right? Where the woman's being chased by the dog and you just assume that it eats her and I am not here for that. Unknown Speaker 25:58 I will also say just as a note that this is the film for those of you who are Black Widow fans and saw the Black Widow movie that came out this last summer. She's watching The Man with the Golden Gun at the beginning of the film and Moonraker is clearly the visual reference that we're supposed to get from the Red Room. Yeah, and so I just I thought I think the bond shout outs there are really fascinating. Unknown Speaker 26:21 Yeah, unlike the villain, the actual villain not taskmaster, and very much like a certain someone in Moonraker it's, you know, that's the vibes I got. I wonder who it could be? He's definitely based off of jobs. Right. Sam 26:37 So Nigel, the the Moonraker is Britain's first nuclear missile that Drax had worked on it was a it was project codenamed Moonraker in the novel, that's stupid. Yeah, well you know it wasn't the best novel either but it didn't involve actually going to space so and i mean if you're starting to think that maybe I don't like most of the Roger Moore movies, and that might influence my bond rankings later like actual people who played bond you might be right. But Unknown Speaker 27:09 but are getting a sneaking suspicion here. Sam 27:12 But But our next movie on the list number 17 is not a Roger Moore movie. It is 1970 one's Diamonds Are Forever the one where they don't do grief and instead go to Vegas. And by the way, Blofeld is Howard Hughes Yeah, waterfowl. Unknown Speaker 27:32 I disagree. Sam 27:36 I'm gonna I'm gonna edit that in order Nigel said what a film and then you disagreed. Unknown Speaker 27:45 This movie is number 23 on my list, because it is no I don't like it Unknown Speaker 27:53 either. That was sarcasm. Oh good. Unknown Speaker 27:59 I do like the I do like the underground layer scene at the beginning. And as I mentioned in the Die Another Day section like this is the other one that has a plastic surgery situation where Blofeld is trying to change how he looks. I do like how bomb like snuck into the layer also. So on the negatives I would say that this is like just a me thing. But Connery is so 1960s bond to me that as soon as it turns 1970 I'm like Okay, I'm done with him. I feel like the 70s in general, our I can't be your time than the 60s and I and I didn't like Roger Moore's movies at all the whole time. I was watching him the first time and the second time I liked him a lot more. I think Roger Moore does the 1970s camp better than Connery for me. So I feel like this should have been a Roger Moore movie. Sam 28:57 Actually, this would have been a much better laser beat movie. Yeah, like even if if he had been on there Unknown Speaker 29:02 that's that's every Yeah, that's completely fair. Unknown Speaker 29:06 Everything would have been a better movie like imagine Georgia lasers B's Quantum of Solace. Sam 29:15 Which is, which is what he had after he quit. Unknown Speaker 29:18 Yeah, Unknown Speaker 29:19 I have I have one more comment. And I didn't put this in my pros or cons section because I honestly don't know how I feel about the two gay henchmen in this movie. They're very much they're very much so they're very much portrayed as weirdos in the book Nobody does it better that I read alongside my rewatch by Mark altman and Edward gross. I don't remember who said it, but it was obviously someone involved with the movie was trying to say, well, they're not weirdos because they're gay. They're gay, and they happen to be weirdos, and I'm like, okay, that might be true, but the portrayal still feels like these two gay people are just weird. And I don't think that I like that Unknown Speaker 30:02 and it's super ablest to because they're clearly like kind of disfigured. Although not as disfigured as they are in the book, I think Sam 30:10 it's difficult to buy a story that anybody tells, like the one that you mentioned from the book because Fleming writes them that way. They are in his novels. They are disfigured, they are gay, and the two are connected. That is one of the worst things that Fleming does in his actual writing. So don't buy it if anybody tells you that's not what it was. Unknown Speaker 30:33 Now I'm wondering like did the person who say that even read the book so Unknown Speaker 30:37 maybe not? Nigel, you also disliked Diamonds Are Forever where was this one on your list? Unknown Speaker 30:44 I think this one was around number 19. I didn't I don't have like a hard and fast like written down. This is kind of like in my head. So like it could you know, things could go up or down a ranking, just based off of vibes, but you know, nothing too drastic. But yeah, I think like, Mr. Went, Mr. Kid, isn't that what their names are? Sam 31:07 Yes. Unknown Speaker 31:08 Yeah. I think that's really, really like, my least favorite part of the film. It kind of sinks. The whole film. Like, obviously, the whole thing is like, we're not doing grief. And I guess, I guess you could like view it in the sense where it's like, Okay, well, maybe you can, like if they had framed it as a commentary being like, Well, okay, we're going to do escapism instead of grieving. And then maybe go like, well, that's bad, or, you know, like, how bond at the end of the film be like, Well, fuck, you know, what am I doing? I need to process this grief and trauma. I think that would have been good. But for me, it's like, like, as a queer person. It's really disheartening, obviously, like, this is written in, you know, like, the 60s or whatever. And it's a film, pre 2000, which, like, I'm not saying that doesn't happen now. But like, kind of around the turn of the millennium, filmmakers started having a cop on and but it's really disheartening to see disability or sexuality paired with otherness, and, like monstering people. You know, like, it's really bad when you see it used as like scapegoating, for Orientalism, and stuff like that in books written in the 1800s, like Dracula, and the beetle, but when you see it in a film, and it's like, as well, because for ages, I thought that, um, one of them was played by Crispin Glover, but it turns out, it's played by his dad, and I was like, wow, Crispin Glover is just kind of a mortal. So that was also like a really weird thing for me. But yeah, like, I think this is the start of things where it's like, one certain aspect of it is going to sink the entire film for me. And it's winter and kid because you could have it where it's like, you know, because they take sadistic pleasure in killing people. Right? So there's like, you know, you could have them as this like, duo of ruthless assassins who are, you know, they're working on their own motives like slightly for Blofeld, and, you know, they kill anyone to cover up like anyone who knows about this thing. You know, you could do a really interesting dynamic, but the way they're written and the way they're presented and played, just know, I feel like that's my only note on the film. Sam 33:31 Yeah. And I the the one piece of trivia I'll add before we move on, is that one of the things that keeps showing up in early drafts, but never makes it into the final draft, is they kept trying to make gold fingers brother happen. Gold fingers, brother was originally the villain instead of Blofeld himself. But Okay, enough about that, we're gonna move on to number 16, which is the last in this this group of this group of five movies, and I'm gonna need you to hold your ire until the end. Okay, just just hold on a second. Take a deep breath. Grab a pillow get ready to scream into it. Because number 16 on our list is 1990 fives GoldenEye, the one where the movie is not the video game you remember. The second scene is in fact longer than a minute and 50 some seconds. And there is no slappers only level you guys. So Unknown Speaker 34:33 I have to say before we discuss this one that this was one of two movies that Sam and I really disagree on. The reason it's so low on this list is actually because of me. Because I disliked this film so much. Like I said, previously, I have never I had never seen a Pierce Brosnan film before this last year. And everybody kept telling me that GoldenEye was like one of the best Bond films so I was really excited about it. And I was really really let down by it. And I think it's because I don't have nostalgia for it. So that that is why it is so low on our list specifically, but Sam actually thinks it's a better movie than I do. So this was one of our points of disagreement. So, Nigel, where do you Where does this film fall for you? Unknown Speaker 35:18 I think it falls towards the better end of the spectrum of Bond films like this would be around number 12, or 11. For me, depending on the day, and I think I don't think it's anything really to do with the video game, which we had, we had a lot of games which are adapted from Bond films, like we had From Russia with love. We had GoldenEye. And we have this weird one, which I think was called, like, nightfire or something, which is like, Yeah, not really adapted from anything in particular. And Sam 35:54 yeah, they did it From Russia with love. Game not too long after that. Unknown Speaker 35:58 Yeah, like we have those who have PlayStation two. So I have memories of those, but they're not really associated with the film. So like, I think this was maybe the first Bond film I ever saw. Like, you know, I caught on TV or whatever. I was like, Oh, this looks really really interesting. So like, I don't know, it's another film or Sean Bean dies. Unknown Speaker 36:21 Or I had that in my notes. Unknown Speaker 36:25 Where it's like I want now when I watched this film as a grown up, I'm expecting Sean Bean to die which I didn't really remember between my original viewing and my reviewing as someone with like, discerning tastes, where I can pick things good from bad instead of just like oh wow, this looks fun on a screen when you're like, eight or wherever. But it's like I'm expecting him to die and then when he does it, it kind of takes a lot of the tension out of the lot like the final confrontations where it's just like at any minute now, any minute, but I think the whole setup with like the GoldenEye satellite is pretty fun. Unknown Speaker 37:03 I have this as number seven on my list. I also did not play the video. I did not play the video game. I'm not really a gamer. You're not a gamer, so I don't have that nostalgia. But I do think this was my first bond that I remember so there is a little bit of nostalgia there. I do think that this film brought Bob and back into fashion I do I I was really young when the Dalton movies came out so I don't really remember if those like had done well or whatever so but I do think that casting Judi Dench as M was like really amazing. I really like her in that role. It was nice to have a woman be in you know as the boss I guess and I do like the like meta commentary of her calling him a sexist misogynistic sagittis dinosaur in the movie. Because I think that's part of why Bond was going out of fashion before this because I mean, I can understand like people not wanting to watch bond because of those things. I really liked Sean beans performance in the movie, I felt that the friendship between his character and James was very believable. Xena on a top is completely ridiculous. And I find that Frankie Jensen's performances, a little over the top for my taste, and I really enjoy things that are over the top usually, but she kills people with her thighs. And that is pretty amazing. It almost wants me to do makes me want to do leg exercises. So I can also kill people with my thighs. Yeah, like Unknown Speaker 38:51 that one scene in the Suicide Squad where Harley Quinn escapes. And it's just like, Oh, Unknown Speaker 38:55 yes, exactly. I do also like to tell you some ANOVA she is a good bond. I also find her very nice to look at. But yeah, um, but I talked with Tessa about this. And so she might mention, this is part of her reason for not liking it. But this movie feels a little bit like sexless compared to some of the other Bond movies and that's in my cons list. Unknown Speaker 39:25 Yeah, so I have a few reasons why I don't like this one. And the biggest one and this is gonna sound very strange. And Sam laughed at me when I mentioned this at first because I don't not pay attention to sound and films as much. But the sound mixing in this film was so annoying to me because they like remixed parts of the sound for comedic effect, which they do in bond occasionally but they don't do it quite like this. But in the in the scenes with fomka Johnson's character and Alan Cummings character, especially they Kept like remixing these really loud gasps for like over the top like humor hubris like camp and annoyed the crap out of me like I was just like no. Like them gasping really loudly at these scenes does it is actually not funny to me it is taking me out of the moment. And it really really bothered me in a very strange like auditory way. The fomka Janssen thing also really bothered me because I love fomka Janssen I think she's you'll know her as Jean Grey from the original x men films and from hemlock Grove as well as a bunch of other TV credits. She's a great actress, but I really felt like the reason she was a villain was because of her aggressive sexuality, which bond has never really been afraid of. As you mentioned, at least this film feels really sexless because bond usually has a lot more like bond just really likes women. And I don't actually think of him as a massage inist I think of him as more of a sex positive person. And that doesn't mean that there isn't misogyny in a lot of the earlier films there is but to me, it seemed really weird that fomka Janssen was like the sexualized, like villain and Bond was not into her because she was sexualized, which is weird, because bond is literally into every woman. And so it just to me, it just didn't make sense. And then especially because the other Bond girl was like this really like pure, innocent like, person to me, it just it really read as a horror Madonna situation, which just does not feel bond to me, like bond is not interested in those types of discussions or those types of stereotyping. And so that really distracted me from the rest of the film. I do love Sean Bean, I thought the plot was fine. It just wasn't as good as it had been made out. For me to be. Sam 41:47 Timothy Dalton is hashtag my James Bond. And it's not so much about the actor. It's about the gritty nature of those two Bond movies, which is what I knew first, even before Connery or more. So, you know, for me, the problem is that this movie is a reboot of sorts. And I don't, I don't like the direction, you know, at least I don't like it for the exact reason that you mentioned. I think one of the other problems with that is there was a good way to do it. And then there was the way that they did it. Because they had they grabbed Michael France who had written the Stallone movie cliffhanger diehard on a mountain, and then go they got they got another guy to take a pass at Jeffrey Kane, who was like, well, that person didn't have any structure. So I'm going to give it structure. And then they hired Bruce Burstein, a playwright. And then they got who comes in? No, no. Before Fierstein comes Kevin Wade, and then they get Feuerstein, there are too many writers. And the result is, this is a movie that doesn't have a lot of good continuity. It's a bunch of bits strung together, which by the way, is why it makes such a great video game. Allen coming. Nobody has mentioned if you want to talk about camp, nobody's mentioned dalen coming. I already mentioned once again, nobody has Unknown Speaker 43:19 invincible or whatever. So God. Anyway, it's not his best proof Robbie Sam 43:27 Coltrane also does does some good work off of this performance and cracker, which is a very interesting show. By the way. Before we move on to any more of the films, we need to talk about the fact that bonds got jokes. And I'm going to do y'all a favor. And I'm going to go first, because I'm going to take the obvious one, and then I'll just open up the field for everybody else. So first of all, let's just do our favorite q jokes. Okay, so I've got three for you. Right now pay attention double oh seven. I want you to take great care of this equipment. There are one or two rather special accessories cue. Have I ever let you down? frequently. So there's that there is also don't touch my lunch. There is also you have a license to kill, not to break traffic laws. Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don't really go in for that anymore. Here's a watch. What does it do? It tells the time it might help with your punctuality issues. queues got jokes. You guys like to add any I missed. Unknown Speaker 44:36 I do want to point out that it's Don't touch that pause, and he pulls up the sandwich. It's my lunch. Desmond Llewellyn has the best jokes in any Bond film. I'm just going to put that out there. But Elise, what are your top three blonde jokes. Unknown Speaker 44:54 So actually, I didn't have any q jokes on my list. Not because I don't find goal but there are some others I really yes no um my third my third top was inspector with James I don't think I don't know James pointed the gun at a rat and was like fucking funny the second joke is from Goldfinger so after Mr. Solo gets crushed in the Lincoln Continental gold finger says Forgive me Mr. Bond but I but I must arrange to separate my gold from the late Mr. Solo and James said as you said he had a pressing engagement and my number one top joke is from Nigel's Fave The Man with the Golden Gun is Roger Moore is having drinks and clinks I don't remember who he was having drinks with but he said bottoms up and then then because their bottoms up club is where they're going next and the transition is a woman's behind doing like a sexy dance at the bottoms up club and it's just the grossest funniest I am like a crude person and that joke is my favorite bond joke in all of them it's just I I actually like recorded it on my phone when I was watching it because it was so funny and when this comes out I will retweet it for Unknown Speaker 46:28 because it's so good Nigel What are your favorite bond jokes? Unknown Speaker 46:33 Okay so I feel like like I feel like old bond kind of has most of them like there's the one in doctor know where bond knocks a bunch of people off of a cliff in their car and the construction workers as it were they're going on the ball just as I think they were on their way to a funeral Unknown Speaker 46:57 yeah I'm Oh god. Unknown Speaker 46:59 I can't remember what I forgot about Yeah, like there's a whole bunch in gold finger like specifically with how he kills the antagonists you know where it's like shocking, positively shocking. And like he asks, like when he's asked where all job is where's your Butler? He says something like Oh, he blew a fuse. And you know Goldfinger yes so out of the window it's um Oh, he's off playing his golden harp like you know where's gold finger playing is golden her but I think for my number two is I can't remember what film it is but bond walks into the office. I think it's Connery's bond. But he walks into the office and he spends ages trying to line up the perfect shot to throw his hat on to onto i hat stand and it's just like that piece of physical comedy you know is really good. And so then for my number one it's my number one not necessarily because it's good but because I wasn't expecting it. And I I'll talk about it more I guess in the film that it's from it's from Spectre where he's driving the he's driving the repurposed Aston Martin where he hits the button for atmosphere and Sinatra just starts playing I was because that's such a quintessential like old bonds joke I was not expecting it in Spectre. I wasn't expecting it to just like come out like that. Unknown Speaker 48:26 And it was it was double o nines playlist like it the whole point is that like this car was for somebody else and it was like their music not bonds. Unknown Speaker 48:35 Yeah, but just hitting the thing for atmosphere where he's expecting like an ejector seat or something I just Unknown Speaker 48:45 I love that don't touch that that's my lunch line. But since that's already been taken, I will also say that money Penny and I don't remember which one it is it's Samantha bonds money Penny where she says you always were a cunning linguist is one of the best Oh yeah, like that one of the best money Penny jokes. Also, even though Diamonds Are Forever is not a good movie. It has one of the best cats cat Blofeld moments and one of the best jokes in my opinion, which is when there are two Blofeld is the real Blofeld and the decoy Blofeld and James throws the cat at one of the blow felts to see how the cat will react and the cat like hisses at him and so that's how he knows like which one to kill and like which one not to, and just like that's the I had to pause it because I was laughing so hard like because the Blofeld cat thing is one of my favorite like bought under tropes. I love cats and I love Blofeld, petting the cat and the cat with the diamond color is so fancy and just like bond being like no but cat will only react kindly to Blofeld is just like it's a level of knowledge about Blofeld but only James Bond has and it makes me laugh every single time and then Finally, I just want to shout out to jaws as a character not for any specific moment but just the fact that he like he sent to kill bond and he thinks it's gonna be an easy job and the fact that it just goes on for two movies and he keeps almost dying from the traps that he sets himself. It's a very wily coyote type humor, but it makes me laugh a lot and it's one of the reasons is that jaws is my favorite headspin Unknown Speaker 50:25 Tessa May I just say quickly, I feel like one of the reasons maybe you like I'm I guess I'm psychoanalyzing this one of the reasons maybe you like the fake Blofeld cat with the whole Oh, Blofeld is the only person that cat will react positively to is because it's just rebo from the Discworld books. Sam 50:43 Yeah. Well, well, actually. I can tell you why. Because as somebody who had a familiar who was a white fluffy cat, who loved me and terrorized everybody else, Tessa has lived with a real life version of Blofeld and that cat up to and including several times, where we have been sitting in a chair and I have spun around and said, No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die. So I mean, yeah, well, yeah, you know, it is what it is. Unknown Speaker 51:28 I just want to say before we move on, very quickly, rip Satie that that is the cat that Sam was discussing who if there was a cat who was suited to being a Bond villain, not just Blofeld cat, but an actual Bond villain it would have been Satie. And also I think I really liked the cats from Diamonds Are Forever because they're fancy, like I said, and it reminds me of my favorite gift of all time, which is from the aristocats where Marie is like patting her cheeks like cuz she's so fancy. And it just, it makes me happy. Sam 52:02 I'll just end on because I began with Q, I'll just end with Q. I believe it's licensed to kill where he was out in the field with bond. And after all the jokes for years and years and years. Do be careful. bring that back. I said, bring that back. There's a scene where he just casually tosses one of his gadgets into the bushes and it's like, it doesn't matter. It's such a good payoff. All right. Unknown Speaker 52:28 I love q in that movie to be discussed later. Sam 52:32 So this was the end of part two of our, as Nigel calls it, James Bond, Infinity War. Come back for part three. And that's it for part two. Come back next Monday for part three, and then later next week, parts four and five before the release have no time to die. On Friday, October 8. In the meantime, you can find Nigel on Twitter and links to her cavalcade of podcasts at spicy Nigel. You can find Elise on Twitter at elease underscore attendee in her Deep Space Nine podcast on twitter at pod race. Tessa is on Twitter at suela Tessa, be sure to listen to Tessa and Nigel's brand new podcast nanny augs book club. Find out more about that on twitter at ninnies book club. Finally, you can find me on Twitter at Sam underscore Morris nine. Send us your thoughts about the rankings we talked about today. What pop culture you've crossed off your list lately, what you'd like for us to talk about on future episodes or anything else that comes to mind. Find us on Twitter and Instagram at monkey backlog. Check out our brand new website monkey off my backlog.com email us at monkey off my backlog@gmail.com our theme song is hot shot by Scott Holmes and can be found on Scott Holmes music.com please rate review and subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon podcasts, Google podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Get that monkey off your back Transcribed by https://otter.ai