Tessa  0:00  
I have a serious question. How many serial killers are there in the US? Because TV has taught me that there's a new one every week.

Andy  0:09  
There's two on this podcast.

Tessa  0:12  
But which two? [musical intro]

Andy  0:35  
Welcome to Monkey off my Backlog, the podcast where we exorcise our pop culture demons by tackling our media to-do lists one week at a time. I'm your host, "human recommendation algorithm" Andy Bowman, and with me are my co-hosts: Tessa Swehla. 

Tessa  0:50  
Hello!

Andy  0:52  
and Dr. Sam Morris.

Sam  0:55  
Bond, James Bond.

Tessa  0:58  
Morris, Sam Morris. This week, Tessa "makes your heart go pitter-patter/she wants your liver on a platter." Sam flies off the Golden Gate Bridge on a dirigible. Okay, I think that's the word, dirigible. And I see animal-human hybrids that might not be there. All right, Tessa, you have covered the big one this week. The one that at least one listener is excited about. What is it?

Our one devoted fan

Andy  1:39  
Our most devoted fan...second most devoted fan.

Tessa  1:42  
Yeah, really our second most devoted fan. I think that our most devoted fan title might be taken already. So I'm going to talk about Hannibal; I don't really have a fancy lead in for it because I talked about the Silence of the Lambs last week. And of course, according to Ginger's request--because she poked Andy on social media about watching Thunder Road--she wanted me to watch Hannibal. Here I am. Here is Hannibal. So more Hannibal Lecter; Hannibal Lecter all the time.

Question. Oh, so it's Lecter? It's not the the war general from ancient history?

You know what you would think that *that* Hannibal was the only one across the Alps on on elephants. But actually turns out Mads Mikkelson has done the same thing.

Sam  2:26  
Would we say that on this podcast that we are "Mad" about Hannibal? [Laughter]

Andy  2:32  
I'm not going to respect that with an answer. All right, so you're doing more Hannibal Lecter? Dr. Hannibal? 

Tessa  2:42  
Yes. Dr. Yes, he did earn that degree. And I was very curious about this show. It's been on my list for a while. Again, I always wanted to watch The Silence of the Lambs before I watch this since it is...I mean, Silence of the Lambs is based on the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. However, I believe that the that the film is the one that has really brought this character and this idea into the popular consciousness like I talked about last week. So I really wanted to watch that before I dove into the show, which has so many memes on the Internet. If you've never heard of this show, I want to ask you. Have you ever been on Reddit? Have you ever been on Twitter? Because I don't think you know what the internet is if you have not heard of this show. So many white girls, so many memes.

Sam  3:32  
And I want to point out to just really quickly; like you mentioned the fact that Silence of the Lambs the film is based on the book. And that is ultimately where we get interest in the property. Silence of the Lambs is the one book of the trilogy that has not been adapted as part of the Hannibal TV show.

Tessa  3:54  
Yes, so this fits into...this television show fits into the Thomas Harrisverse, as it were, because it's adapting characters from the first book which I believe is called The Red Dragon. Is that correct? Yes, it so it has adapted characters from that first book, some plotlines from that first book, but it is different in terms of, I believe...so I have not read the books so this is all conjecture on my part. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, I'm sorry, Sam. Correct me if I'm wrong. These are characters from the books, but it's not a one-to-one adaptation. It's not complete plotlines.

Sam  4:37  
So the deal with Hannibal the TV show, is until we get to season three when the essential plot of Red Dragon is adapted, at least in part. What the show does is relies on characters from Red Dragon. However, the book Hannibal, the third book in the series, came out after the Silence of the Lambs film and then was also adapted into a film with Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore replacing Jodie Foster. Because Clarice is not a character in Hannibal; it's about the earlier character. They've stitched together things that happen in Hannibal [the book] to Clarice to the main character in Hannibal [the TV show]. So it's an odd mixture of those things with new stories and ideas as well.

Andy  5:37  
Sam, have you watched Hannibal? 

Sam  5:40  
Four episodes,.

Andy  5:42  
Just because I'm the one who is watched all of Hannibal here, I'll just go ahead and tell you really quickly. Some of the characters jump in and  jump out. There are adaptations and moments from both books Red Dragon and Hannibal. Of course, that's what the other ones called. But also they throw in there Hannibal Rising. That's right. So there are elements from all three books dispersed throughout really what I call the good seasons. That is seasons two and season three. Season one is more about the little things that were kind of mentioned casually throughout the books with little one liners about how Hannibal, the serial killer functions when he was out and free, little details about his relationships with his clients, etc. But, for the most part, the direct adaptations of the book are only about half of one season each. There you go, we are hoping or a season for that adapts Silence of The Lambs, but we'll find out. Tessa, what did you think about it?

Tessa  6:55  
So, Andy, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. Andy keeps referring to the first season as the bad season. And granted I haven't seen much of season two yet. But I actually don't think of it as that bad. Like you're making it sound like it's the first season of Buffy, that you should just skip that season and go on to like season two, but I quite liked the first season of Hannibal. The Hannibal ran from 2013 to 2015. So like Andy said, three seasons. It is an NBC show, although Netflix claims it to be a Netflix Original. Not sure what international copyright foolery Netflix is pulling here. But it's something like that.

Sam  7:32  
And remember, this is also of course not to be confused with the current CBS procedural that looks like it's a Silence of the Lambs adaptation, but it's apparently just a branded CBS procedural, Clarice.

Tessa  7:47  
Right. This one, Hannibal, is adapted by Bryan Fuller who those of you might know from Dead like Me and Pushing Daisies. He produced Voyager and Deep Space Nine for you Star Trek fans; he did the first season of American Gods. I could talk on and on about the prestige of this particular television show. In fact, I probably will a little bit later when I start talking about some of the talent that's involved in the acting category. But like Andy said, this is a pretty simple setup based on characters we already know from Silence of the Lambs. So the basic premise of this first season is FBI criminal behavior...blah. Please start over. FBI criminal behavioral analyst Jack Crawford, who is played by Laurence Fishburne in this particular adaptation, asks Profiler Will graham played by Hugh Dancy to join his team to help stop serial killers. However, Will Graham has an empathy disorder which means that he can empathize so well with serial killers that sometimes he actually might think that he is them. He loses his identity a little bit, and so, concerned about Will's mental health due to this empathy disorder, Jack enlists the aid of psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, the name of the person who is the name of the series, who's played by Mads Mikkelson. This season follows Will's descent into instability and Hannibal's fascination with him. And I feel like that's just the premise of the whole show: those two ideas. But it is a lot of struggle between Hannibal Lecter and Will either knowingly or unknowingly for this first season. Obviously, Hannibal Lecter is a very respected psychiatrist; he is not the same Hannibal Lecter that we saw in Silence of the Lambs. This is a much younger, a much more carefree...he has not been even suspected of any wrongdoing yet; he is very well known and well renowned. And so we get to see--not an origin story because he's already a serial killer--but we get to see how he functions along with these other characters who are trying to catch other serial killers while he is under their nose. Basically.

Andy  10:01  
This season on the show, and why I will always call it the bad season, is it feels the most network television of all these seasons. It is a very procedural episode/monster of the week/serial killer of the week type show.

Tessa  10:16  
I disagree.

Andy  10:17  
Compared to the other seasons, it is.

Tessa  10:20  
I mean, compared to the other seasons, maybe, but I was gonna say this actually is a turn away from procedurals. Like, some of the serial killers...there is this idea that, okay, there's this serial killer this week. But usually, the serial killer arcs are solved over two episodes instead of one episode. And it's not actually interested in the crime, the serial killers that they track are just...they're just plot points for for Hannibal and Will to sort of act out their fascination with each other. So for me, there's just not that same, like who-dun-it feeling of a lot of procedurals. And it is way more interested in creating a gothic atmosphere. It's interested in challenging what you know about these characters and what you know about reality way more than it is about actually catching [criminals] or solving crime or forensics or anything like that. So for me, I have to disagree. I think maybe it is more procedural compared to later. But it's still very much a step away from a show like Criminal Minds that's interested in, like, behavioral analytics and solving serial killer killings. So that's what I would think about it.

Andy  11:31  
So if you decide to go and watch the future seasons, you will like see that the studio has relinquished control to Bryan Fuller over the time, and you will, it's an amazing difference. The jump in quality, which yes, this series, this season, is very good. But it is still very bad compared to where the show goes.

Sam  11:52  
It's always dangerous when people cede control to Bryan Fuller. So, I was thinking about this, because I've watched the first three or four episodes of this back when it was first released. And at that time, having an untreated sleeping disorder, I couldn't stay awake to watch the show. And one of the things that comes out of this discussion that you two are having that makes me think about is the fact that I was most able to easily watch television shows that followed a formula back then. And I'm starting to think maybe that's why I had such trouble with Hannibal because something else was going on. Other than that procedural...I don't know. I obviously haven't seen the entirety of season one, or seasons two or three. But it does remind me of another show I haven't watched, that has a very, very rabid fan base, that started off as a procedural but then became something else. Lucifer, which I know Tessa has seen and loved.

Tessa  12:53  
Yeah, Lucifer has a very similar directory. Lucifer has a very similar trajectory. Have fun editing this, Andy.

Andy  13:00  
I will.

Tessa  13:00  
Because it [Lucifer] starts off as it starts out very much as a procedural, which is very against the comics, but that was the only way they could get it made. But then as soon as they started on Netflix, they were like, "yeah, we're doing supernatural stuff. Now, we don't have to be a procedural anymore." So I think that that's interesting. I will say, talking about genre, this is a very different genre than Silence of the Lambs. I mentioned last week, Silence of the Lambs has the real feeling of a true crime genre. Even though it's not true crime, it feels like almost like a exploration into the psyche of a serial killer. This is much more gothic. This is interested in creating an atmosphere for you, a dark atmosphere, and it actively tries to pull you into Will's instability as he goes along. Will often sees hallucinations or visions of different things because he's so wrapped in his own thinking, trying to figure out who these serial killers are so he can catch them. And so he sees these different gothic images of murders. He sees images of stags especially; that's a big thing in the first season. But what ends up happening is that sometimes he'll be in the middle of this sort of process that he goes through, and something will happen. And you will think, "Oh, this is just part of the hallucination." And then you'll realize that it's not. And it's really fascinating, the way that Bryan Fuller actively makes you question what's happening. But not in the same way that someone like Steven Moffat, who just tries to be like, "I'm smarter than you and you don't know what's happening." It's more of just a like, "you don't know what's happening because these main characters don't know what's happening." And so I thought that that was really, really interesting. I also think that Bryan Fuller or whoever else came up with the idea for the show, literally watched The Silence of the Lambs and heard the line, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti" and went, "Oh, what if we made a whole show that was just about food?" Because Hannibal is a cannibal, obviously. But he has this fascination in this show with making like gourmet food out of his victims and then feeding it to other people.

Andy  15:15  
Maybe feeding it to other people; you don't know.

Tessa  15:17  
I know he is. I think by the mid-season, you know what's happening because you see him like, preparing human lungs in the kitchen. It's so fascinating. But like the food...I was worried because there is a scene in The Silence of the Lambs that's very violent when it comes to Hannibal, and it's very grotesque. And this show doesn't shy away from that at all. But when it comes to the cannibalism that Hannibal is participating in, it sort of makes you uncomfortable, because it's like, this looks really good. Like he's making this gourmet food. Which brings me to my other question, how in the world does Hannibal have enough time hours in the day to make this gourmet food from scratch, including like his own beer? Like, he just makes all of this stuff. He's like making his own butter and like sourcing his own, like, raw ingredients. And I'm just like, do you see two patients a day and then spend the rest of your time making food? Like, it's a legit question. 

He doesn't watch prestige TV, Tessa.

Sam  16:21  
It's like, it's like Frasier, who has a four hour radio show. And that's it. 

Andy  16:25  
And I do want to say that almost every episode is named after some kind of food.

Tessa  16:30  
Yeah, which is very funny. And this show also has a sense of humor. It's not quite the same as Silence of the Lambs. But like, one of my favorite scenes in the first season is where he has the dinner party. And like for the whole first part of the episode, you just see him killing person after person. And like harvesting organs and packing them away in the refrigerator. And then at the end, he has this big dinner party where there's like a dozen people sitting at this table. And they're all applauding him because the food looks so good. And he raises his wineglass, and he says, "I assure you, nothing at this table is vegetarian." And there's just like this great like sense of dark humor that sort of underpins Hannibal as a character, because he's very smart. He's very psychopathic; he is obsessed with Will because Will is the opposite of him. Will has so much empathy that he loses his identity; he's in danger of losing his identity. But at the same time, Hannibal can't help but sort of make these cracks, right. He sort of does that thing where he kind of wants people to know, but he's saying it in such a way that they can't possibly know. And so it's a very interesting look at this character. It's a slightly different look than the Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal, who comes across as a little bit more, I don't know, maybe deranged, maybe a little bit more uncouth, but in a desperate sort of way. Like because he's been in prison for so long. I mean, it makes sense as a character. Speaking of the prestige of this television, though, Gillian Anderson is a guest star on this show. She plays Hannibal's therapist, so there's a little bit of an X-Files call out there. Eddie Izzard has a guest spot on this. She plays Dr. Abel Gideon, who is another serial killer. Gina Torres is in a couple of episodes of the show. She plays Mrs. Jack Crawford. Raul Esparza plays Frederick Chilton, who those of you who have watched The Silence of the Lambs will know his character as the head of the Baltimore Home for the Criminally Insane. For those of you who don't know, Raul Esparza, he is obviously a big Broadway star, but he also played Raphael Barba for several seasons on Law and Order: SVU. So he is somebody who is part of this sort of criminal TV show legacy. So yeah, there's a lot going for this show. I recommend it highly. If you like gothic atmospheres. If you don't like the idea of Silence of the Lambs, you actually might like Hannibal, because it is a very different tone from the movie, even though it has some of the same characters. The only complaint that I have is that sometimes there were storylines that didn't need to exist. And that's my complaint for most of those, you know...that's any show that's 45 minutes to an hour long runtimes for their episodes. They often have characters that don't make sense. And I get it. If you need something to happen later in the season, and you need a character, and you want to develop them. I get that. But you have to make that character as fascinating as your other characters, otherwise, I don't care. So that would be my one complaint about this season. I'm curious to see if they'll fix it in the next season. Also queer gaze, the queer gaze. That's all I'll say.

Andy  19:48  
Overall, do you like it? Did you or do you recommend it like, let's just go ahead and do it?

Tessa  19:54  
Yeah, I recommend it. For anybody who likes gothic stuff. Anyone who likes serial killers, I think you'll really appreciate that. All the acting is just spot on fantastic. If you like procedurals, you probably won't like this. If you're looking for something that's formulaic, this is not for you. But if you're interested in character studies and anything that I've said so far, this is pretty fantastic television.

Andy  20:17  
Okay, well, due to time constraints, I think that we should just kind of skip over this week's discussion question, because we are being fanservice-y towards Ginger in relating the wonderful, wonderful series Hannibal, which I believe I forced Ginger to watch. So it's always great when someone responded so positively to a recommendation of mine. Just want to say real quickly: hey, there's been a lot of stuff coming out about Joss Whedon. That sucks because we were fans of Buffy or are fans of Buffy. I don't, I don't know what to say. How do you guys feel about this?

Tessa  20:56  
I'm still a fan of Buffy because more than one person made Buffy. That's how I'm choosing to sort of look at it. But I am not a fan obviously of what Joss Whedon did; I find it incredibly problematic. And I feel like we're gonna be sorting out our feelings about his legacy for years to come.

Sam  21:13  
Tessa and I have talked about this a lot over the last couple of weeks. And one of the things that comes out of this is...there may be more options. But there are three main options here. One, you can stop watching, listening to, being a part of works that have been created by a creator. You can just go, "that's it, it's over. The problem with that is what Tessa just said. The second option is to excuse a creator based on historicism. It's harder to do with Joss Whedon. But we look at people throughout history. And you can say, well, it was a different time. That's also problematic because, you know, take for instance slavery. Slavery is always bad. I don't care if people were doing it back then, if it was just the way of life; it's bad, you should not do it now. Or ever, or especially in the past. Or three. You can try your best to separate art from artists. Really quickly, the one that Tessa and I have talked about a lot, and many, many, many, many people have talked about is Alfred Hitchcock. And over the next few weeks, Tessa and I are going to be watching two older Hitchcock films Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt. I love Hitchcock's films, partially because of his obsession with "the wrong man," with being accused of something that you didn't do and having to face punishment for something that you are not responsible for. But the other thing that Hitchcock is perhaps most famous for, that is the most problematic, is his obsession with blondes. And it is well known that he terrorized Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, Grace Kelly, and Tippi Hedren specifically, who fought back and was subject to the most abhorrent behavior by him. Alfred Hitchcock is absolutely somebody who as a person should be canceled. Man, if you give up all of those films, you're giving up an entire film school education. And so how do you separate those two? I don't know. It's hard. I don't have the answer for that. But I think you have to be able to find a way to hold creators responsible for what they did, regardless of when they did it, and what the cultural sensibility of the time was, but also be able to appreciate art. There's a limit. But there is some negotiation there. And I think that's important that we're gonna have to start doing that with Joss Whedon. 

Tessa  23:59  
Well, I think too, it is going to have to depend on a creator by creator basis, because there are situations, like I said, with Buffy, where it's like "this was not made just by Joss Whedon, there were a lot of people who wrote for Buffy, there were a lot of people who've worked on Buffy." And you know, you don't want to discount the legacy of those people, either. But there are also creators...I always think of Woody Allen, who I have never liked, who their sins are sort of publicly played out in their art. And so it's very hard for me to watch any Woody Allen because all I can see is his obsession with like young women, and all of those other things in his art, especially. And I think that depends person by person, you know; there are some people who probably have different associations with Annie Hall than I do. So I think that it's tricky. I'd love to hear from our listeners on this, actually, because I think there are a lot of answers to this question that you've posed us, Andy.

Andy  25:00  
Yeah, it's always something like, for me, one of the big things is someone like Roman Polanski. Where enjoying his art or purchasing his art is actually actively making it so he's still evading justice for what he did. And that's another interesting part of it. But yeah, this is a bit depressing. And it's a very complex discussion, and I'd rather have a kind of a more nuanced version of this. I just wanted to comment on. And Joss? Yep, screw you, buddy.

Tessa  25:42  
And now for a lighter note. Sam, when you watched the film that you watched this week, I feel like there was like one of those sounds that you get on the Xbox when you get an achievement. Like the "bloooom" sound, over your head. Sam, what achievement did you unlock this week?

Sam  26:03  
So this week, I unlocked the achievement: GoldenEye. Watch all 24 Bond films. So, first, there are completed films. But thanks to the globe's number one serial killer at the moment, COVID-19, we have yet to see the ironically--more so everyday--titled film, No Time to Die.

Andy  26:31  
Now, I've heard this is the best Bond.

Sam  26:33  
That is incorrect. Roger Moore, without a shadow of a doubt is the worst Bond ever. Without a doubt.

Tessa  26:45  
We're gonna get hate mail from the Roger Moore fan club.

Sam  26:48  
I think Roger Moore is a wonderful person and a wonderful actor and, from all accounts, a terribly good sport. That does not change. So I...the only two Bond films I had not seen are 1983's Octopussy and 1985's A View to a Kill. I was so enraged by For Your Eyes Only, which I had not seen in its entirety, that I rage quit. And they just hung out. They are the only two I'd never seen for years. Tessa and I rewatched...well, I rewatched. Tessa watched for the first time the Sean Connery films last year. We wrote about them on the Popculturist. This year, we did the Roger Moore era, which contains seven movies. At the end of Roger Moore's tenure, there have been 14 Bond films. Seven were made by Roger Moore; six were made by Sean Connery; and one was made by, or made with, George Lazenby. So Roger Moore is the reigning champion with the most Bond films. Now it's interesting. In the first twenty-two years of Bond as a film character, there were 14 films. Since 1985--so we're talking 36 years at this point--there have been 11. So the output really started to slow down.

Tessa  28:15  
Could you remind us of the Roger Moore era real quick--this is the last one of the Roger Moore era. Remind us of "the road so far."

Sam  28:26  
Okay, Andy, this is why Moore is the worst Bond. This is reason number 1: 1973 is Live and Let Die, which is remembered very fondly, especially fondly for the Paul McCartney song Live and Let Die. However, this is a film that is based on American and Caribbean racism. It also fetishize is voodoo. It is a terrible, reprehensible idea of a thing, and it is Roger Moore's introduction to the series. 1974 gets worse somehow, with The Man with the Golden Gun, which is extremely orientalist. And moreover, it's just plain stupid. Both of these films have a Louisiana parish sheriff, who is the most offensive person and a terrible stereotype. They just do all the awful things in these first two movies.

Tessa Swehla  29:24  
I was literally buried under a blanket while watching this saying "please make it stop" over and over again.

Sam  29:30  
So we follow those two up with 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which does have a fair bit of Middle Eastern Orientalism, and that's bad. However, as the series finally leans into the Cold War, which is when it's at its strongest, we get James Bond's Russian counterpart. Agent XXX [Agent Triple X].

Tessa  29:53  
Even Ringo Starr married a Bond girl.

Andy  29:55  
Wait, is that Oddjob? Because everyone who picked Oddjob in GoldenEye for The Nintendo 64 was a cheater.

Sam  30:03  
Okay, you're off on the wrong track already. We haven't even gotten to that yet. Agent XXX. Barbara Bach, Super Soldier Spy, Romancer. I would say womanizer but she's a man-izer, I guess. But she is in every way James Bond's opposite. We also get the embarrassment of riches. We also get the uber henchmen Jaws.

Tessa  30:31  
Jaws. What would happen if someone decided to cosplay as the shark from jaws.

Sam  30:36  
I contend, by the way, that Idris Elba's character in Hobbes versus Shaw is actually a throwback to Jaws. And if you don't believe me, where do we get to see the electronic implant? That's right in his grill. 1979 brings us Moonraker, also known as "Bring me Star Wars!" You remember Jeff Bezos screaming "Bring me Game of Thrones!" This is what every studio was like after 1977. Moonraker is James Bond goes to space. But seriously, WTF eugenics? This is such a stupid movie, but it does have Jaws. So that's cool.

Tessa  31:12  
Jaws is the best part of any James Bond movie that he that that he's in. I stand by it. He's hilarious. The joke where he just like, is in these situations where he should die but keeps trying to kill Bond anyway is just priceless.

Andy  31:26  
I do want to point out that I've just been trying to make up the lyrics for the song Man-Izer for Weird Al, as a parody of Womanizer by Britney Spears

Tessa  31:36  
Let's hear it

Andy  31:37  
I don't have it. I'm working on it. Weird Al, call me. We're gonna make some money.

Sam  31:44  
Okay, so we turn hard into the 80s with For Your Eyes Only. By the way, people apparently didn't like Moonraker because it was stupid. So they decided to go back to formula. And by formula...it's a little of this. And it's a little of that. Everything you have seen in a previous James Bond movie exists in For Your Eyes Only. Except this one takes in takes place in Greece. And the cold open of the movie sacrifices the main antagonist of the franchise as a visual gag/middle finger to the person who actually owns the rights to that character. The people who make James Bond are petty AF, you guys.

Tessa  32:27  
And Topol doesn't even sing.

Sam  32:29  
That's right. 1983 brings us Octopussy, the first film I had not seen. It's the second best of the Roger Moore era, if I hadn't made that clear. The Spy Who Loved Me is the best one. But Octopussy is the second best. It involves smuggling and nukes. And frankly, the plot's a little incomprehensible, but it doesn't matter. We're dealing with Russia, we're dealing with the KGB, and characters are used pretty well in it. And that brings us to the film of today, which is 1985's A View to a Kill, where Christopher Walken tries to destroy Silicon Valley to drive up profits of his own microchips. And if I've made that movie sound like a coherent plot, it isn't. But that's actually what it's supposed to be about.

Andy  33:18  
Now, is this also a prequel to the Matthew McConaughey film A Time to Kill?

Sam  33:23  
It is in fact not. Samuel L. Jackson is also definitely not in this film.

Tessa  33:30  
So you just listed off the entirety of the Roger Moore era. How do you feel about Roger Moore's Bond? I guess you've already told us that. But WHY do you feel that way about Roger Moore?

Sam  33:41  
Exhibit B. So Roger Moore was always under consideration to play Bond from the very beginning. The reason that he didn't was that he was a prolific TV actor in shows such as The Alaskans, Maverick, and The Persuaders, but he's best known for The Saint which ran from 1962 to 1969, which you will note are the Sean Connery years. That show ran for 118 episodes. It was, you guessed it, a spy thriller. Moore played a character named Simon Templar, you guys. This will repeat itself when Timothy Dalton is picked to play Bond over Pierce Brosnan, who was involved with the TV show Remington Steele. So Roger Moore's a great guy, class act. He is old, by the time we get to A View to a Kill. On the day of release for A View to a Kill in 1985, Roger Moore is 57 years old. Now, that's fine. You know, I don't want Hollywood to start discriminating against old men. We'd have no more movies. But let's talk about the other stars of this movie. Grace Jones, 80's it girl, who plays Mayday? A great villain. She is only 37, so 20 years younger [than Roger Moore]. Okay, Tanya Roberts, who plays Stacy Sutton the main Bond girl of the movie, is 29. For reference, Tanya Roberts is Donna's mom from That 70's Show. So That 70's Show is made in the late 90s. And at that time, Tanya Roberts plays a believable middle aged mom to a teenage girl from the 70s. But I'm not done blowing your mind yet. Alison Doody who plays another character in this movie called Jenny Flex is 19 at the time of release. She is Elsa from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, by the way, which I'll come back to in just a second. Lois Maxwell, Miss Moneypenny, who has been there from the very very, very, very, very, very, very, very beginning--and it's clear she is too old for Bond because they have introduced a younger secretary for him to flirt with now--she is the same age as Roger Moore. And I don't want to just pick on the women here. Christopher Walken. 15 years younger than Roger Moore. He's only 42 at the time of this film, but I'm going to take it one level further. We're gonna go full rant on this. Let's talk about Indiana Jones for a minute. Sean Connery. The original James Bond plays Indiana Jones' father in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sean Connery is three years younger than Roger Moore. That's right. The person who replaced Sean Connery is older than Sean Connery. In 1989, Sean Connery is 59 years old. That's that's about what we would expect of Indiana Jones' dad at that point. Harrison Ford is only 12 years younger than Indiana Jones. So...I'm sorry, Harrison Ford is only 12 years younger than Sean Connery. So that's actually not gonna work age-wise. But Harrison Ford is 47. Alison Doody, who I mentioned is the love interest from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was 19 in 1985. So she's just a little bit older by the time we get to 1989. She is playing the love interest of Harrison Ford, whose father is Sean Connery, who's three years younger than the person she is supposed to be attracted to, Roger Moore. This is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Tessa  37:44  
You can almost hear Roger Moore like panting and talking about his joints as he runs upstairs in this movie. Putting aside Roger Moore's age, how was he?

Sam  37:57  
He's fun. He's fine. He's game. He does all the things he does the stuff to the best of his ability, which doesn't change the fact that this movie is stupid.

Tessa  38:08  
Why is it stupid?

Sam  38:09  
Well, I'll tell you. Eon Productions helmed by Albert Broccoli and nepotism embodied Michael G. Wilson, who also has a writing credit for this film, are idiots. Idiots never should be in charge of this franchise. It's terrible. It's bad, and I hate it. Is this movie about horses? Is this movie about faultlines and earthquake science? Is it about microchips?

Andy  38:36  
Is it about microchipped horses causing the fault lines to break? 

Sam  38:41  
That's actually what it's about.

Andy  38:43  
Wait, what? [Laughter]

Sam  38:44  
Sort of. And also, this movie features two dirigible, and I know what you're thinking, What's a dirigible? Well, I'll tell you, a dirigible can be an airship or a zeppelin.

So dirigibles were big deals back in the 1930s. Of course, the Hindenburg really kind of finished that off for everybody. Also prominently featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "no ticket." Now, here's the thing about dirigibles. The final set piece of this movie involves on., I need you to know that dirigibles are usually powered by hydrogen or helium. If you ever watched this movie, I want you to think where did the gas come from? Where's the gas? And when it explodes, it should really explode. It shouldn't do what that just did. It should definitely take out the whole darn Golden Gate Bridge, and everybody around it, including Bond, would be dead. That's how gas works. Now also Christopher Watkins character who's super fun: Max Zorin. Black Widow. This dude is Black Widow. He is a genetically engineered Russian super spy sent over to the west to ruin the west. We know this, not because the film explains it particularly well, but because at the beginning of the film, James Bond escapes from Siberia on a broken broken ski equipment, again, because that's somehow a part of the James Bond universe. But California Girls is playing while he does it. This is so stupid.

Tessa  40:24  
So was it bad?

Sam  40:27  
Actually, like I said before, it's a pretty good movie. [Laughter]. Christopher Walken and Grace Jones do really good work in this movie. Like it's, it's actually kind of fun. As bad as this movie is. I think we enjoyed it more than most of the Roger Moore era. And by the way, Paul McCartney is known for writing an absolute banger of a Bond song. But Simon Le Bon and the boys from Duran Duran knocked it out of the park with A View to a Kill. So this movie's got some things going for it. Even though it's terrible.

Tessa  41:02  
Really, really quickly. We're gonna play a mini game of Rank That List. How would you rank the the Bond films again? Go through your ranking order.

Sam  41:10  
Of the Roger Moore era? 

Tessa  41:12  
I'm sorry, the Roger Moore era.

Sam  41:13  
All right. And I think Tessa and I have consensus on this. We've discussed it. So number seven: The Man with the Golden Gun, the one with the slide whistle corkscrew jump but also has Christopher Lee. Number six: the horribly, horribly racist, Live and Let Die. Number five, the pastiche-rehash For Your Eyes Only. Number four: "Bring me Star Wars!" Moonraker. Number three: A View to a Kill. Number two: Octopussy. And number one,:The Spy Who Loved Me.

Tessa  41:44  
So A View to a Kill is your third on that list. So you did enjoy it.

Sam  41:48  
I did enjoy it.

Tessa  41:50  
So you obviously have a very complicated relationship with Bond. Why do you keep watching these movies? What is your relationship with Bond? Do you think that they're bad, but you enjoy them?

Sam  42:00  
I've been thinking a lot about this. And I think it's ironic that Billy Eilish has written the theme song for the latest Bond. I really think this may come down to a generational thing in some aspects. So, spy thrillers are my jam. I do not like serial killers. I do not like true crime. I like spy thrillers. One of the reasons for this is I am a child of the Cold War. I am a child of the Cold War in the fact that most of when I was a child was detente between US and Russia. And I remember when the Soviet Union fell, so I was not a "hiding under the desk" child of the Cold War. I was not Vietnam Cold War, but I was that last part of it. So the Cold War is something that very much resonates with me that it doesn't with people much younger than me, and that's fine. That's good. You'd like to see it. I have studied the Cold War. I think it's really interesting. I'm interested in the James Bond novels as problematic as they are; they're a very interesting swath of history. And it's worth noting, by the way, that Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, are spies in arms togethe, and are good pals. They're part of the Baker Street Irregulars. It's just a fascinating part of history. But franchises like this one that have existed so long, I don't think they work anymore. There's a difference between this and trying to constantly reboot a property like The Silence of the Lambs. Back before the internet, back before even before cable TV was so many channels, back before all these things, it was just seeing that "James Bond will return in two years" gives me some sense of continuity in my pop culture. Things moved more slowly. And so like seeing "James Bond will return in" is really, really cool. And so you build these things. And it's like Lucy with the football. So there's this thing called Charlie Brown, Andy, that you don't watch. But every so often, Lucy holds a football for him, and he thinks he's gonna kick the football, but she always takes it away at the last minute. It's a really existential comment on society, but you don't read Charlie Brown. Now Bond. The next Bond movie might be a good movie. That's how I always always feel. And very often, I am not rewarded for this. There is so much potential for this character. This character is awesome, can stand the test of time, gadgets, you know, fighting crime, whatever is happening. It's really, really cool. But it needs constant revision. That's what happens when you try to build a character around an archetype. You have to change with the times, and every time they try to do it, they screw up. Except the few times that Charlie Brown gets to kick the football: GoldenEye, Casino Royale. But every time they do that, immediately, the next movie is a giant piece of flaming trash. It happens so often. I really hope No Time to Die is a good one. And frankly, if they stopped the series at 25, it might be for the best. But I'll tell you if we can get Idris Elba or Charlize Theron to play the next Bond, I'd be psyched. So it's so fun to get into franchises that span 50 plus years. Even though it's mostly full of faults, there's always that hope that something will be good. So if you're a lovable loser, like me, and you like to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, have I got a pop culture franchise for you. 

Andy  45:44  
Now, I want to bring up Sam that there's another very famous franchise. It's, you know, over 50 years old, and you can use as a way to gauge general pop culture. I'd really recommend it. It's called Godzilla.

Sam  45:59  
Yeah, and I'm really glad that you guys are gonna be talking about the Godzilla franchise--kaiju in general--in the next few weeks here, I'm excited for that. And it's fun to hear what other people are interested in terms of these long running franchises, even if it doesn't hook me in the same way. It's fun to talk about. It's fun to watch and hear you guys talk about. You know, these these franchises bring a lot of people a lot of joy. And you know, it's good times. By the way, speaking of old things that old people like. Did you guys know that Taylor Swift is older than all of the Beatles when the Beatles broke up?

Andy  46:40  
[Sarcastically] Who are the Beatles? 

Sam  46:44  
Yeah, so Andy, what did you watch? And what the heck is with the name of this thing?

Andy  46:51  
I know that this is gonna be a shocker to people but I watched another anime, like I've been doing for the past few weeks. This one is called the Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.

Tessa  47:03  
Look at you, Andy, doing an unintentional theme month.

Andy  47:06  
That's right. It's a theme month; it's a random theme month of weirdly named things. Last week I did My Next life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom. Which by the way, I was correct. Ginger did indeed enjoy it. But we're talking about Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, which, yes, is a weird name. Now, what do you think of when you think of the title Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai?

Tessa  47:36  
I mean, all I can think of is...I've probably taken this way too literally. But all I can think of is like a girl in a bunny suit like a Playboy Bunny. Yeah.

Sam  47:46  
Okay, so I'm gonna go out on a limb. Judging from the word Senpai, I am guessing this is like a master. This is a story about a master and apprentice training. Could be martial arts, could not be, but I imagine the title is a pullquote where the person,the apprentice is yelled at, "rascal does not dream of bunny girl!"

Andy  48:11  
This was probably the wittiest, funniest, most heartwarming, and heartfelt anime series I have watched. And this is based on a series of light novels. And if you didn't listen to me last week talking about light novels, light novels are basically just very short, easy to read Japanese books. But, Tessa, you're surprisingly correct. So the main character of this, who's a high school student, wakes up and sees that he wrote in his journal that yesterday he met a bunny girl, and the bunny girl's name was blank. The bunny girl's name just has been erased from his journal entry. And that's how he goes about his day. You find out that Sakuta has some weird rumblings about him at school. People don't like him. His best friend's girlfriend keeps mentioning that by being friends with him, it's bringing down her boyfriend's reputation. The school has a former child star named Mai, who's you know, just kind of a very famous person. And the main character Sakuta goes to the public library where he sees Mai walking around the public library and as Tessa described it, wearing a Playboy bunny girl costume.

Tessa  49:42  
Nailed it.

Sam  49:43  
So all right, well, genre analysis time. Is this a singular story or like smaller stories? 

Andy  49:52  
We'll get to that. But this is a kind of a mix of both. He sees her walking around in this, you know, the scandalous outfit, like this, holy crap, the tabloids would be destroying her, but nobody's paying attention to her. Nobody sees her. And he talks to her. And she's actually surprised that Sakuta can, in fact, see her. And this is where the show takes a very different kind of turn. It introduces the concept of adolescence syndrome, which is essentially a, you know, plot device where teenagers...all the anxiety, fear, everything that they put out into the world has some kind of weird sci-fi effect. It manifests itself in some way where just certain things happen. And the way that the child star, Mai, her adolescent syndrome manifests itself is the further away she gets from school, people don't see her. They look right through her; they forget about her, you know. As pointed out, in the journal entry earlier, it's just blank. This is basically broken up into four different stories that are three episodes long. Each involve a specific instance of this adolescence syndrome and kind of how it affects a singular person. And how that kind of plays out. You know, as it gets more and more severe, the small arc goes on, the people really start to forget her. Even at school, she disappears. And it becomes this thing where Sakuta is the only one who can see her; he's the only one who's thinking of her. And they do give a kind of just silly quantum explanation of how she's not being seen. And when she's not being seen, she doesn't exist. But it comes to this point where she's very clearly starting to get disturbed by the fact that she's going to disappear, people are going to forget her, and she's going to be gone. And you can definitely see the line where this is the adolescenct desire to be left alone but also fear that you're going to be left alone. It's this beautiful, heart wrenching story where you feel for her, and it even culminates in them kind of starting to date. And let me tell you, the dialogue that Sakuta spits out, and the dialogue that Maya spits out in return, is probably the tightest, wittiest, best dialogue I've seen from an anime. This makes me...just think of an indie movie. This is on a level of The Before trilogy. This is incredibly funny, going back and forth. I could never do any of these lines justice by trying to justify them. And then the story is resolved. And another moment of adolescent syndrome happens, and you find out that Sakuta knows about adolescent syndrome, because his little sister was bullied at school. And eventually, that bullying manifested itself in such a way where Sakuta was put in the hospital. And this is such a wonderful look at the problems that teenagers face and the fears that they have, and how it can just be manifested in different ways. It's  a wonderful, wonderful watch, and it covers the first five books in the series. There's a movie that covers the next one. I'm going to be watching the movie as soon as possible. This is fantastic.

Sam  54:16  
Okay, so I want to ask you a little bit about anime in general in just a second. But before we did that, last week, we had a list of yours. Some of your favorite anime was this on that list....

Andy  54:30  
This was not on the list because I had not finished this anime, and I'm going to tell you this. This is both the feel good but it is also it has that indie vibe to it. There are emotional stakes. And those emotional stakes are very serious.

Sam  54:47  
So it stacks up with the others that you listed.

Andy  54:50  
I think I liked it more than the ones I listed for the most part. However, it's also not the same thing, right? The list that I gave you...I put out there was for feel good anime and this is a very feel good. But, again, there are real emotional stakes here.

Sam  55:08  
So clearly anime is a very large...I mean, it's not even really a genre. It's an entire art form. I feel I have a huge imposter syndrome talking to you about this because I did live in Japan for a year quite a while back, and I am just fundamentally not interested at all in anime. And it disappoints Tessa a lot. If anybody out there wants to talk about 1995 J-pop, like Sharan Q and TRF and, you know, Mister Children, just, you know, call me or tweet at me. But you've watched a lot of this. And and I know Tessa's watched a bit too. Tell me what draws you to this content? What draws you to this? Again, it's not a genre, it's an art form.

Andy  55:50  
Okay, I think people, listeners, will pick up on this, that I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of things that are different, the hidden gems, and there's this concept of like a cultural filter, right? Where you only really hear about the good output, right? Or the further away you get from a culture, the quality of work has to be better and better to get picked up by other cultures. Right? You can kind of see this also with the British TV. Everyone's like, "oh, British TV is so much better." Well, that's because we know about The Office. We don't know about, you know, the 20 British shows that blow, and also I don't really think the British Office is that great. But that's a completely different thing.

Tessa  56:38  
Now I'm just thinking of the show before The Office, like [sarcastically] The Pool Cleaners, or you know, some terrible show.

Sam  56:44  
It's actually the show that Martin Freeman did after The Office before he went to movies. It is terrible. It's like a Z-rate Home Improvement. It's bad.

Andy  56:57  
Right? So when like anime pops up, one, it's probably going to be a little bit better than then the standard stuff that comes out in Japan, especially when it hits my ears. I do go seeking this out. But at the same time, most of the time, when I gamble on an anime, it's probably going to be pretty good. And also because this is a different culture, you're getting different things. You're getting weirder premises. I mean, the titles themselves are weirder. And you're finding out more about how this is growing as a genre. And yeah, just lately, it's been really appealing to me and I've been catching up on some of the better stuff from last years that I've just missed out on.

Sam  57:48  
And, and I will say as an aside, it's always better to experience shows in their native art form, habitat, country of origin, instead of waiting for, you know, Hollywood to remake it. Train to Busan. So who do you recommend the show to?

Andy  58:07  
Really, I think anyone who enjoys the kind of indie romance movies. Now there is a heavy romance, and this is probably one of the most realistic feeling relationships as it develops and grows that I've seen in an anime. In most cases in anime, the relationship is very superficial, and the characters like don't even flirt. Sakuta and Mai flirt all the time. And it is just witty and incredibly funny. I mean, I recommend this to people like good things. I think that you should give this a shot. It is on Hulu: Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, which, by the way, just the translation and the quality of translation of that title is is great. Because the actual literal title is something like Teenage Pig Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai. And like going from a teenage pig to rascal, like, the quality of translation and dialogue is just so high. And it's so ridiculously funny. And of course, being Japanese, being a season long, that is 13 episodes. Also, the opening music just puts you in the right mode. And if I'm feeling daring, you might hear a three second clip of the music just to give you a feel. It is fascinating. I just truly loved this, and I'm like going to watch the movie the second I get two hours free. All right. Next week we are joined by Tasia of Act YA Age podcast.

Tessa  59:45  
Yay. We're excited.

Andy  59:48  
Where can you find us? Sam, you go first, since you're not near the mic.

Sam  59:55  
You can find me on Twitter @sam_morris9 and on Letterboxd @archieleach9.

Andy  1:00:02  
Tessa?

Tessa  1:00:03  
You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd @SwehlaTessa.

Andy  1:00:10  
All right you can find me on Twitter @andynoted. Find us on Twitter @monkeybacklog. Email us at monkeyoffmybacklog@gmail.com. Let us know your thoughts about what we talked about today, anything you'd like to see us talk about on future episodes, and anything else pop culture related. Our theme song is Hot Shot by Scott Holmes; it can be found on scottholmesmusic.com. Please rate, review, subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, go get that monkey off your backlog!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai