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This week on Great Bond Movies:
Is Skyfall the best Bond movie? Joe calls a last-minute audible so we can find out. It’s time for us to write a love letter to another Great Bond Movie®. Wait…. Important question…. Did our Quantum of Solace episode deserve a sequel? 1000% yes.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week, James Bond has to have a performance review to see if he’s ready to go back in the field, and it seems like you should also have a performance review to see if you’re ready to get back on the podcast. Can I do that for you?
Joe: Yeah, let’s do it.
Greg: Okay, well, I am going to say something to you, and I want you to say back to me. The first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Okay.
Joe: Baskin Robbins first thing that comes to my mind is my favorite ice cream flavor that I can’t think of right now.
Greg: We famously met at Baskin Robbins when we were in high school. That’s why I bring this up.
Joe: Gold medal ribbon. That’s what it is. Gold medal ribbon. Yes.
Greg: My next phrase for you is gold medal ribbon.
Joe: Baskin Robbins nailed it.
Greg: 31 flavors.
Joe: One for every day of the month.
Greg: How many flavors were actually in the cases there at that restaurant in Holly Street, Bellingham, Washington?
Joe: 44.
Greg: Which was the most interesting fact to everyone that came in, and not to us. Like you get it gets old after a while. The 44 fact.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. And then the question that we just have a free sample of one of everything and they’re like, Yeah. Good.
Greg: Oh my gosh, I bet that was triggering. You just said that took me back to every day of that summer. Okay, next thing in your performance evaluation for ounces.
Joe: Isn’t not the perfect scoop that you’re supposed to do.
Greg: A perfect kind of scoop. What was that scoop?
Joe: A regular scoop.
Greg: That’s right. Next phrase, 2.5oz.
Joe: That’s a kid scoop.
Greg: Yeah. We had, like, a tape player of all things at that Baskin-Robbins that we would listen to. Only when it got busy. When it got really loud in there, it seemed appropriate for us to put on music. Yeah. What were some of the tapes that we listened to?
Joe: I feel like we listened to you too. We listen to the radio station, the college radio station that your deejay had a lot to CGS 89.3. I don’t remember the tapes. We listened to.
Greg: There was one night where it was just madness. It was like late June, and all of Bellingham decided it needed some ice cream. And honestly, why wouldn’t it? We were on the same page with them. Yeah. And somebody was putting like, 80s British music tapes in. So I want to say it was like modern English or the Pet Shop Boys music like that.
Greg: And there was a moment in one of those songs, I want to say it with a modern English song, where you actually hopped up on the counter and started dancing in the madness.
Joe: I have no recollection of this.
Greg: It was so nuts. There were so many people. There was just no way we were ever going to get through this. Just packed Baskin Robbins and I looked over and I swear you were standing on the freezer counter. And you were up there dancing, throwing your hands in the air like I’m just going with it here. And that was the moment where I think we became best friends and I.
Joe: Think so.
Greg: I also was like this is the greatest job in history. This is the best summer job a person could have.
Joe: One of my favorite things that I, that I did there. You know how the stores have. They don’t do this very often, but they had the first dollar that was ever spent there. Yeah. On the wall. I took it down and replaced it with four quarters.
Joe: And I thought it was the funniest thing.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is. You’re right again. Yeah. That’s the best bet possible. Yeah.
Joe: I put it back. I didn’t like, spend it, but that’s solid.
Greg: That’s amazing. Yeah.
Joe: Anyway, am I going back on the field or what?
Greg: Let me let me throw one more thing by you. I want to hear what your first response is to it. It’s not Baskin Robbins, but it is a what happened to the two of us pretty quickly after we met? Okay. 1010 North Garden.
Joe: So much good time happened there. That was amazing.
Greg: Yeah, that’s the place we lived in in Bellingham. Yeah. First roommates.
Joe: It was so fun.
Greg: What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say that address to you?
Joe: I think of listening to music. Yeah. And laughing because we had such a great time there. Totally. Totally. Except for cam and was a match. It was a mess. I just said it was a lovely, lovely person, and it’s probably the most stable of all of us. So true.
Greg: Let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do.
Joe: Three months ago, you lost the drive containing the identity of every agent embedded in terrorist organizations across the globe. W7 reporting for duty.
Clip: Where the hell have you been?
Joe: Enjoying death. I only have one question. Why not stay dead? There’s no shame in saying you’ve lost a stone. Q about seven. I want to meet your employer. How much do you know about fair. All right. I’m not like this. Just look at you. Chasing spies.
Joe: The two survivors. This is what you make us. Everybody needs a hobby. So what’s your resurrection?
Greg: The year is 2012, and Oscar award winning director Sam Mendez steps up to the plate to make a movie called Sky fall. We are talking about one of the biggest bond movies in history. This is an episode of great bond movies. This is in great bad movies tonight. We are talking about Daniel Craig, Judi Dench.
Joe: However, Bardem.
Greg: Ray.
Joe: Finds.
Greg: Naomi.
Joe: Harris, Ben Whishaw.
Greg: Albert Finney, Rory Kinnear. We’ll draw the line there, but this is a pretty incredible cast and crew. We need to give a special shout out to the cinematographer, Roger Deakins. Doing the lights and lenses and shooting this movie. Joe Skye. Tucker. What makes Skyfall a great bad movie?
Joe: I think it is the greatest James Bond movie ever made. Oh my gosh, I’m gonna just start out of the gate.
Greg: You’re packing double heat right now.
Joe: Just pew pew. And we talked about this on our Quantum of Solace episode, but we both grew up James Bond fans 100%. If you had asked me before Daniel Craig took over, I would have said there would have been no greater bond than Sean Connery. And my favorite bond movie has always been You Only Live Twice. I think that was your favorite as well.
Joe: Yeah, I remember the first movie I ever watched. It was The Living Daylights I think.
Greg: That was Timothy Dalton 1987 I think.
Joe: It was like nothing I had ever seen. And this was back in the day in the 80s when you had to rent not only the the VCR machine, but you also and then you had to rent the movie. Yeah. And I went through every single James Bond movie.
Greg: So it was like an original Joe Skye Tucker binge in the late 80s.
Joe: Yeah, mid to late 80s. So every time we go to the video store. Yeah. And there was beta and VHS.
Greg: Wow. You are going way back right now.
Joe: I know, way back.
Greg: This is incredible.
Joe: If they had a James Bond movie, I would get it. Yeah.
Greg: And so you’re looking you’re reading the back of the box, the back of the pack. Were you watching these in order? No. Were you looking at, like, the years that these came out?
Joe: No, no, it was very confusing. Quite frankly.
Joe: No internet to help me with the order of any of this. I watched the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and I had no idea who George Lazenby was in it. I was confused the entire time of who James Bond was because, yeah, it was not anyone that I knew. This was my thing. So love these movies. Yeah. Again, never thought anyone would live up to Sean Connery until Daniel Craig came along.
Joe: And we have Casino Royale, which I think is in the running. It’s in the top three for me.
Greg: Oh, top three of all of them.
Joe: Of all of them. Okay. But I think that this movie is better. It’s got more action. It’s got all of what I love about James Bond, which is kind of ridiculous plot. Yeah, just insane stunts that are happening and it pays off at the end. You have a really great bad guy. You have Judi Dench as M. Yep.
Joe: And Daniel Craig and and it’s so good. This movie is so good. It should also be said we were going to do a totally different movie.
Greg: Yes. I’m glad you brought this up. Up until about 46 hours ago, we were going to cover a different movie for this podcast.
Joe: Yeah. And we both watched it, and we’re kind of mare on the movie. As soon as I finished watching that other movie, I started Skyfall, just because I wanted to watch it.
Greg: Because we can have fun.
Joe: Yeah. Together we can have fun. We’re gentlemen and yes, as you like to say. Sure. And the first 13 minutes of Skyfall gave me so much more joy than the entire movie that we had just watched, that I was like, hey, you want to pull an audible and do Skyfall? I don’t know that that was a hard choice for you, regardless of what the other movie was going to be.
Joe: But then we were all in, so there may be some facts and figures and some other stuff that aren’t quite up to snuff. Right. But that’s that’s how we landed here. So I didn’t answer the question at all. But here we are.
Greg: You had seven minutes and we’re still waiting for an answer.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You just started a lot of sidebars, so let’s accomplish all of them really quick. We watched the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Written and directed by Shane Black. Yeah, with Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan. Three great performances. A very well-written script, a well directed movie. It was made for $3.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It was not necessarily welcome in 2005 to the planet and made like $14 million worldwide. I’ve got all kinds of facts and figures if you need to, because I had prepared for an episode.
Joe: Before we called this out of all.
Greg: But this podcast is a love letter to our audiences favorite movies. That’s what we’re trying to make here in our movies. As well. Yeah. So what was it about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang that made it so that you felt like you couldn’t write a love letter to it?
Joe: I think the if I’m comparing them together and our favorite great bad movies. And I think we’ll get into some of this later because I have another hot take around this. Okay. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an homage to classic noir and detective stories from, like, the 40s and 50s. Yeah, and it does a really good job of that.
Joe: And kind of the pulp novels of that time. Yeah. But there is kind of, snarkiness and a self-referential piece within it. They kind of know what kind of movie they’re making, and they and Shane Black wants you to know that he knows what kind of movie he’s making. And it’s kind of unlikable. None of the characters I liked or was rooting for or really cared about.
Joe: It was interesting and there were twists and turns and they kind of set them up and that’s clever and funny. And he’s a great writer. Like there’s no doubting his ability to write a script. Yeah, but there was kind of, a bitterness that underpinned it that just wasn’t, didn’t resonate with me. Yeah, yeah. So that’s how I felt.
Joe: How did you feel about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?
Greg: Well, it’s interesting you say that the characters weren’t likable because I felt like Val Kilmer was a very likable character. I felt like Robert Downey Jr. Was especially likable, written and performed. And Michelle Monaghan is still just one of our greatest, you know, actors in TV and movies. This is right before she made Mission Impossible three with Tom cruise.
Greg: J.J. Abrams first directed movie. That movie in particular was a really big turning point for both Shane Black, who had kind of been in screenwriter jail after The Long Kiss Goodnight and Robert Downey Jr, who had literally been in jail before that. And so that movie is the reason that Robert Downey Jr got Iron Man. That movie is the reason Shane Black was back in the graces of even like the Writers Guild.
Greg: I mean, like, he was like in rough shape before that movie came out. And he went on to make Iron Man three. He went on to make The Nice Guys a movie we both will absolutely get to.
Joe:
Greg: He made The Predator despite all of those things. Tough to write a love letter.
Joe: To Kiss.
Greg: Kiss Bang Bang in 2025.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Not impossible.
Joe: And I think we would have done a fine episode on it. Sure.
Greg: We’re doing it right now.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. And I think some of what holds back movies for what is great for this podcast is when they kind of know what kind of movie they’re making, and the best movies for me are the ones where everyone is committed to the moment. And my thesis kind of after watching this, is this is of the great bad movies.
Joe: Skyfall. We have Fast five and we have Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning movie that I watched last night.
Joe: Everyone knows. For me though, like triumvirate of great bad movies, they take themselves impossibly seriously. Yeah, everybody in the movie is completely committed to their character and to the movie, no matter how ridiculous the plot turns. Yeah, yeah, they are just all in and it’s the most logical thing to them. And that, to me, is what fills my heart with a joy that cannot be described totally.
Greg: So totally.
Joe: So I appreciate you taking the audible call when I said hey, because I was half joking when I said it to you, and you responded right away. I’m in. Yeah.
Greg: So what’s hilarious is I was in Austin, Texas ten days ago at an Airbnb, and this Airbnb had a theater. And we’ve talked about how I’ve kind of have like a makeshift theater at my house, but my house is being renovated right now, so I don’t have it. And I cannot tell you both you, Joe and our listener, how much my heart misses having this space to go to to watch great bad movies.
Greg: It’s a comically important part of my life. I’ve learned. And so this Airbnb we’re in with a bunch of friends in Austin had a theater. So I was like, I got to test out this theater. And all of my friends are out in 90 degree weather sitting by a pool. And I was like, I’m going to take ten minutes and test out this theater mid-afternoon here.
Greg: And I watched the first ten minutes of Skyfall because it’s perfect. It’s perfect. So when you said, what if we did Skyfall, I was like, I am so in because ten days ago, I watched ten minutes of that movie and was floored by how great and bad the intro to.
Joe: This movie is.
Greg: It’s mostly great, but also kind of funny.
Joe: Mostly great. But yes, dear listener, if you haven’t seen this movie or it’s been a minute, yeah, this might be a point deposit. Watch the first 12 minutes and 39 seconds. It is the best. One of the best action scenes you will ever see. That goes from car chase to trains to. Yeah. Someone shooting someone on the train.
Joe: I won’t spoil it too much, but I will later. No spoilers.
Greg: We should just say spoilers for Skyfall. It’s been long enough.
Joe: Yeah. There’s a motorcycle chase. There’s a scene on the train with a backhoe over. And as I’m watching it, I’m like, this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. And also, this is probably the greatest moment of my life, right? Right now. I didn’t regret any of my choices as I watched them.
Greg: This is, I think, maybe a weak point, though, in the Daniel Craig years, they’re really trying to sell that. He is just a blunt instrument, and occasionally he does super stupid stuff with big construction equipment or whatever, right? He takes like this caterpillar, like an earth mover, and it’s on the back of a train. And he just for no reason, he hops in it.
Greg: Well, at first it seems like a pretty good idea. Like it’s blocking him from being able to get shot by this guy who has a pistol. That sounds like this.
Greg: Like, four minutes of this intro is just a guy holding a pistol, and it’s just my. Wait, can we hear your best impression of that gun?
Joe: Yeah, it’s a yeah, pretty much that with a comically large. Yes. Someone in the prop department just going crazy with, like, a magazine on it.
Greg: So it’s like audibly laughing as they were building it. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe: It’s so good.
Greg: Yeah. Then he turns the thing towards the guy with the gun and just immediately starts getting shot. And it’s like, what? That was the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, James Bond.
Joe: But it all pays off because the bad guy disconnects the train car and he’s got to use by shooting it, and he’s got to use the fat filler to hold on to the car in front of it so he can run across. It’s perfect in every way.
Greg: No, it’s if I could just politely push back a little bit. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Joe: Wow. Okay. Hold on. The bad guy shoots.
Greg: The train connection. He’s standing on top of the train and somehow disconnects them. Yeah, I mean, it is like, I don’t even know how to talk about this. They are writing so hard when they’re writing this scene there. It stretches so thin it barely holds together. And honestly, should have been this whole idea of the caterpillar should have been cut.
Greg: It’s so dumb.
Joe: Wow, I hard disagree. I am all in on the caterpillar.
Greg: Oh, really?
Joe: Okay. Yeah, I loved it. My only thought was when did he get trained in how to use a caterpillar? Yes.
Greg: Totally. No.
Joe: But it’s awesome. And it ends to me perfectly to set up this movie with him being shot by his partner. And they have the comms in so he can hear everything that’s going on.
Greg: Take the bloody shot.
Joe: Take the bloody shot.
Greg: Moneypenny shoots him.
Joe: Yeah, Moneypenny shoots him. And then he falls into the water. With the beautiful trope of hitting the water and no sound. Are you sure?
Greg: I think there might have been some sound there.
Joe: There’s some sound. And then they go into the Skyfall theme.
Greg: Oh, and then it’s underwater, right. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So it is 12 glorious minutes of an action scene. Agree that you just do not get in kiss kiss bang bang. Quite frankly.
Greg: Well, that this movie costs $200 million to make.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: They’ve got Deakins behind the lens. They’ve got, Sam Mendez. So we have covered Quantum of Solace, which is one of the greatest great bad movies as far as I’m concerned. That is all action set piece and very little scripts. Yeah, because of the writers strike, it’s like a James Bond action movie where, I mean, Daniel Craig and Mark Forster are basically like writing the script in the evenings because the writers strike is going on.
Greg: So what’s your take on the beginning of Skyfall after Quantum of Solace? Put yourself back in your 2012 shoes. What are you hoping Skyfall will be, and what do the first 12 minutes tell you that it’s going to be?
Joe: Honestly, I feel like the first 12 minutes action scene is better than any action scene in Quantum of Solace. Wow. Yeah, I’m trying to see if I would want to walk that back. No, I think that that’s.
Greg: I think it’s equal. Equal or better than. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which is exactly what you’re hoping for at the beginning of the next bond movie. Like at least be as good as the last one. If not better. And Skyfall immediately says we’re basically doing it right. Again. Kind of the way Casino Royale did.
Joe: Yeah I mean this is on par. There are a couple scenes in Casino Royale that I still remember. Opening scene. There’s a really intense fight scene in in the shower.
Greg: For the bathroom.
Joe: In the bathroom. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, this opening scene is exactly what you want in an opening bond scene where you’re used to the classic bond trope is it opens with an action scene that is sometimes connected to the movie and sometimes isn’t is just kind of its own set piece. Yep, yep. That leads into the credits. And this one to me was kind of like a hold my beer.
Joe: Let’s show you what we can do. Yep.
Greg: Should we talk about Sam and these for a second?
Joe: Yeah, let’s do it.
Greg: Sam Mendez was a guy who directed theater on the West End in London. And so.
Joe: His main.
Greg: Skill set is directing performances with actors. And so he decides to make his first movie, and it is American Beauty which wins Best Picture.
Joe: I think everything. I think so.
Greg: Did he maybe win Best Director as well at the Oscars?
Joe: I don’t remember, but I think Kevin Spacey may have won Best Actor. And so like everybody, everything was up for that on that movie pretty much from what I remember.
Greg: After that, he makes Road to Partition with Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, a different kind of movie. After that, he makes Jarhead with Jake Gyllenhaal about Iraq.
Joe: Right?
Greg: Beautiful movie.
Joe: But,
Greg: Yeah, Road to perdition. Not incredible. Jarhead. Good. Not incredible. And then he kind of decides to get back down to just a performance lead, small, intimate movie. And he teams up Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet again, their first time since Titanic. And it makes Revolutionary Road.
Joe:
Greg: And it also doesn’t quite live up to what people wanted it to be. I haven’t seen it, but the response was it’s not. It’s not everything that it could have been. And so he’s in a weird spot in his career. And you know, he grew up watching bond movies. And so he said I wanted a wake up call, something that would really kind of like launch my career in a new direction.
Greg: But also, you know, he was a kid that grew up watching bond movies. He wanted to make a performance led bond movie, and I think he was a very logical choice. After Mark Forester, who was also very much like, you know, actors director, you know, getting dramatic performances in Quantum of Solace. Something really interesting about Skyfall is the woman.
Greg: I think it’s Naomi Harris. Is it Naomi? I don’t know how to pronounce Naomi Harris’s name.
Joe: I think so.
Greg: Who plays Moneypenny? She said Sam Mendes was making sure that the relationships were sound and everything else in the movie would fall into place if the relationships rung true. I think he absolutely succeeded in Skyfall doing that.
Joe: I agree.
Greg: Performances are incredible in this movie. Everybody is basically perfect.
Joe: I agree. One of my favorite scenes and I’m blanking on the actress’s name. I think it’s when they’re in Shanghai and she’s going to transport him to Alvaro Bardem, the Big bad and this. Right. And they have a scene at the bar. Yeah, that I mean, Daniel Craig knows James Bond by this year and this is his third bond movie.
Joe: Yeah, but this is probably the the scene that he’s given the most range in. And it’s basically they were trying to draw parallels of what her life was as she was conscripted into this criminal empire. Yeah, but what I appreciate that Sam and they did is they gave that scene room to breathe. In the middle of basically two action scenes that happen right on both sides of it.
Joe: Yeah, that are spectacular in their own right. But, I mean, this is a long movie. I usually complain about movies that are this long. And I honestly could have watched a longer version of this. Like where’s the director’s cut of Skyfall for me.
Greg: Well I think it’s called specter. And it was ten minutes longer and it was too long.
Joe: Yeah. Fair.
Joe: But to me that scene, you know, in the hands of a different director, they would have been cut, you know, and she’s just it would have been kind of put in the classical bond girl trope.
Greg: Right? She’s a human being.
Joe: Yeah. And they let that show. Because we know we’re going to get the good action. Hopefully we know we’re going to get the good action scenes. Sure. But giving it those moments where you can kind of breathe. And there’s some other scenes with Judi Dench and Daniel Craig that are amazing. Yeah, that just to me bring the weight of what’s happening around it, which is bonkers.
Joe: Like, you know, we’ll go through some of the plot points, but this movie is pretty nutty in terms of like, everything that’s happening and, you know, it kind of, you know, it spans the globe and there’s lots of Hobbs and Shaw travel logic and all of that, and you forgive it for that. But I knew I would need to see Specter and No Time to Die again.
Joe: To really have a full comparison. But I think Casino Royale does a good job of that as well. But again this is my favorite bond movie ever and I think the best.
Greg: I mean it’s just a massive statement. And when you said that to me a couple years ago I said I think it’s actually Casino Royale, which is also saying something because there’s a long history of movies. Before Daniel Craig. But then I watched I mean, obviously if if you’re going to say something like that to me, I’m going to watch all five Daniel Craig movies.
Greg: Obviously at that time it might have only been there might have only been four. But I agreed casino Royale was really good. It’s also a little bit slow, and this movie picks up the pace a little bit without losing the character moments. And so I do think that this is probably this is definitely the best Daniel Craig movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: That’s saying something. And it’s also I can’t even say it out loud. This might be the best bond movie.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard for me to say it, too. Yeah, but I think where I have now come to, like, was 20, 25 eyes looking back at you only Live twice, which was forever my favorite.
Greg: Yacht. Hashtag. Yacht.
Joe: The cultural appropriation of the Japanese culture that happened within an hour would be hard to justify with today’s lens. Yeah. It’s also a book that I read. I, you know, read all of the Ian Fleming works that I could find and that that one follows the plot pretty closely. And that became hard for me, as I had read the books and then watched the movies and, yeah, the plot and the and the books, like, totally don’t hold up together.
Greg: You should have waited for the movie.
Joe: Yeah, probably.
Greg: Yeah. Reading the book was a mistake.
Joe: Yeah. Always, always a was like, reading is bad children. But I would need to watch that again and see if it holds up under fresh eyes.
Greg: I should say that I. Well, I’ve seen you only live twice. Probably the most in my life. I think from Russia with love is probably the better movie with Sean Connery. That might be the best Sean Connery Bond movie. A lot of people will say Goldfinger. I, I feel like From Russia With Love has a little bit more juice to it.
Greg: It’s not just stupid. There’s a lot of stupid stuff. And that might just be my mom’s voice. My mom and dad’s first date was going to see Goldfinger. The first. The first movie they saw was to go see Goldfinger, and my dad loved it and my mom hated it. And so I feel like I’ve heard my mom tell the first day story a lot, like it was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen.
Greg: But the guys seem pretty nice.
Joe: Yeah. So, it has been so long that I’ve seen From Russia with love. Yeah. And when I was watching them again in the 80s, when I was renting, when we were renting everything to watch the movie, for me it was about the action scenes and less about the plot. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And so I feel like I missed out and there are some that are I do feel like the Roger Moore one sometimes veered into just farcical camp.
Joe: They just. Yeah, camp is probably the best way to put it. Sure.
Greg: A pigeon doing a double take I think, happens in one of those movies.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which I bet when you rent these as a kid, you’re like, that is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 100% in. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back. Yeah. Well, you know, there are some of those movies where they feel pretty, pretty dated now.
Greg: Daniel Craig talked about that. He was like, people just need to understand that James Bond is kind of a monster.
Joe:
Greg: And I’m playing him like a monster. And there’s probably some people who are watching these who like what a chauvinist he is, like how abusive he is. I’m playing him like he’s a monster. I don’t know if that’s the word he used, but it’s kind of it’s what I remember him saying. And so I don’t know if Sean Connery would have said that about James Bond back then.
Joe: Yeah, for sure not. Yeah. And I think you get his conflicted nature, like, I’m playing this this way on purpose. And yeah, I kind of hate him too. But also this is what it is. You know, it kind of reminds me of Jon Hamm and he famously hates Don Draper, that character. Yeah. Coming back to bond again.
Joe: Who’s your favorite bond now.
Greg: I can’t not say Sean Connery but it’s probably Daniel Craig. So it’s a conversation between Daniel Craig and Sean Connery. And Timothy Dalton. Was Daniel Craig before his time agreed the planet could not handle a real actor actually playing bond with, you know.
Joe: Maturity, right? Yeah. After the war camp. Yeah.
Greg: The planet just could not handle it. So in the end, you’ll. Craig arrived. I was kind of like, oh, great. He’s doing with Timothy Dalton dead and the world was ready for it. So I think that Timothy Dalton was Daniel Craig before his time, but he just had to be kind of stupid as well. He had to be Roger Moore.
Greg: And those movies fall apart pretty quickly, despite having a lot of talented people, especially License to Kill has basically a bunch of people from Die Hard working on it, because that’s what these movies do. They respond to the most recent amazing action movie, you know. So Casino Royale was a reaction to The Bourne Identity. My theory on this movie is it’s a reaction to the dark night.
Joe: Oh, interesting.
Greg: You get a lot of dark night vibes from this movie.
Joe: I can see that.
Greg: And so I think that Sam Mendez and crew are in conversation with Christopher Nolan, recognizing that you can have super action heat, you know, which is what in my mind, The Dark Knight was. Yeah. What if this happened in the real world? So I get a lot of a lot of dark night vibes from this.
Joe: And this is kind of follows a trend of, you know, an up and coming. And Christopher Nolan falls into this as well as, you know, up and coming director is given a big film or a film genre or intellectual property to take. So, you know, Christopher Nolan has done memento and then he takes on Batman. So it’s independent director, give him a big budget and see what he can do for them.
Joe: And they kind of falls over. He’s a little bit further into his career than is kind of normal, but it’s pretty common for them to take, you know, the the next big director that did something that everyone kind of loves. And then the studios come calling and say, hey, how would you like to be the next. Yeah. X, Y and Z.
Joe: You know, here, take take a marvel movie. Take, this movie, you know, and to varying degrees of success. I think Christopher Nolan does a great job with Batman. And Mendez does a great job with James Bond. But I think that there are some failures, too. Within that.
Greg: The James Bond universe is so established at this point, it seems a little bit like a precursor to what the Marvel Universe kind of became, where they would get directors who could handle the performances, and then the special effects crew was already on point. The second unit, you know, stunt people were already on.
Joe: Point, right?
Greg: And so they just really needed someone to keep an eye on the the tone in the, in the heart of the thing. I feel like the James Bond world had kind of been doing that for a while, where they just needed a director who could actually kind of, you know, work on performances. But the stunts were already going to be, you know, incredible.
Joe: Right?
Greg: So like the broccoli family, Barbara Broccoli, you know, had already kind of she was already making an incredible bond movie no matter who the director was going to be. And Sam Mendes, who I think, Daniel Craig approached it a at a party like a house party and said, would you be at all interested in talking about a bond movie after Quantum of Solace?
Greg: So I wonder how much Daniel Craig had to do with bringing him in. So I think you’re right. But unlike a Christopher Nolan, unlike, you know, a lot of like Jurassic Park or whatever, you know, they get like, you know, just anyone to direct one of those movies. Yeah. This was, you know, a franchise that was already going to have amazing action.
Greg: Quantum of solace kind of showed that. But if you have the right script and you have the right director, kind of with the performances, someone will ensure that the right thing is crossing the finish line. You know, a lot of times the actors don’t get to see that through.
Joe: They really do let the plot go. And there are scenes in this movie, but you don’t get in a lot of action movies. Where they are kind of quiet. Sometimes there will be movies where it’s just like, get to the next scene, get to the next scene where it feels like everything is setting it up.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: And this felt cohesive. And to me, it’s to this movie’s credit that it allows those scenes to happen.
Greg: Yeah, I think that was something that had been on their minds in both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, but this movie really kind of perfected it. If those movies invented it, this movie perfected it for sure.
Joe: Yeah. It’s one of those why do they say, you know, Casino Royale was so Skyfall could run type of thing? Yeah.
Greg: And Casino Royale was a real feat. I mean, we’ll get to Casino Royale for sure. Maybe it’ll be on the Patreon for the great bond movies for a year. But, this movie is incredible. Except when it isn’t. That’s how I would describe Skyfall. It’s maybe. I mean, in the conversation for best bond movie. Having said that, there are some moments in this movie where I’m like, what on earth are we doing here?
Greg: This movie could have been probably 5 to 10 minutes shorter, I think.
Joe: Oh yeah, easily.
Greg: So it starts out strong, then has some good moments after the credits and kind of sets the scene for what’s going on with MI6 blowing up and needing to go underground, which is a real physical manifestation of the story they’re trying to tell with bond. We’re trying to go a little bit deeper with bond. We have to really go on the interior and, you know, under the surface, below the surface with bond as well.
Greg: Go back to his childhood. But then there’s this whole scene of the train, which is pretty good. It’s pretty good Bourne scene, I would say, of, bond chasing the bad guy by walking on trains and blah, blah, blah.
Joe: Right.
Greg: But it really drags on and becomes quite dumb.
Joe: Which is why we’re talking about it.
Greg: As we’re writing this love letter to potentially the best James Bond movie.
Joe:
Greg: It also gets a little bit boring and ridiculous in the middle.
Greg: There are so many things about this movie we have to talk about. Yeah, we’ve talked about the opening. And so I feel like the logical next thing that we need to address is the Adele song Where Do You Land on the song Skyfall by Adele. In Adele’s career, if you’re in a dolphin or in the canon of James Bond movie soundtracks.
Joe: I like it. It’s really good. Yep. This is where I think Shirley Bassey from the 60s.
Greg: What song was that?
Joe: She did a few, but Goldfinger is probably the one that she’s most famous for.
Greg: Does she do Diamonds are Forever.
Joe: Yeah. So she has an amazing voice. Yeah. She is the singer of like my childhood of bond songs.
Greg: Oh interesting. In that VHS era those were the ones that really stuck with you. Okay.
Joe: Yeah. So she is my favorite singer of these. All of that to say, I love Adele. Her second album especially is amazing. Yeah. And Adele is amazing. It’s kind of got that brassy big voice that dude want for this, but.
Greg: She doesn’t really built it either in this song. Yeah, she’s more restrained.
Joe: Kind of just at the end. Yeah. Listen to Shirley Bassey if you want. Like Diamonds Are Forever or, you know, those ones. She goes for it from the very beginning. Yeah. And that’s what you expect from a James Bond song while they’re doing the credits. And yeah, having the misogynistic silhouettes of naked women in it, which, yeah, I can’t justify and you will not hear us try to justify it.
Joe: We’ll just kind of say that we acknowledge that that’s not awesome and move on.
Greg: This one has some more creativity to it. As far as, what it’s doing with the imagery. I agree.
Joe: With that.
Greg: Then like the 80s and the 70s, but still, I mean, it’s just insane that we’re talking about a movie from 2012, a James Bond movie, and it is potentially the best movie, and it has one of the very best songs sung by one of the very best singers on planet Earth.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Just incredible that that kind of prestige is still associated. Just incredible that in 2012, all of these high watermarks are happening.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Around a James Bond movie just seems almost comical that a series this many years in, it was also the 50th anniversary. Yeah, of the series. I think Doctor Nil came out in 62.
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: Oh, I want to point out, I realized the other day that I think I said die Another Day was like the the 25th anniversary. I think I was wrong about that. And I apologize to everybody. I apologize to basically everybody with my last name. That’s very embarrassing that I would get that kind of fact wrong. So if I did say that, I think I did.
Greg: I apologize that I said diet out. The day came out for the 25th anniversary. So, Adele, I think it’s I think it’s the top five. I think I could probably narrow it down to the top five of greatest songs. It might be the the one Adele song I can sing to you.
Joe: All right, there we go. Greg Reinhart is going to sing this song for everyone. So you heard it here first.
Greg: What if just, you know, hello. Started right here.
Joe: Yeah, and I started singing.
Greg: I obviously don’t know any other words. Hello?
Joe: Yeah, that’s. That’s all you need.
Greg: What if our podcast was a musical and just occasionally we broke out into song? That’s a missed element of our podcast. We should have done that.
Joe: I think it is said no one ever, when they listen to this type.
Joe: I say this as a fan of cop Rock from the early 90s, which was saying, oh, it’s okay, hold on.
Greg: Are you really a fan of cop Rock?
Joe: I watched every episode that was on and they did not last very long. It was like 2 or 3 episodes and it was gone.
Greg: They were solving crimes with song. Is that what they were doing with their dancing?
Joe: Oh, yeah. It was basically like, what if Hill Street Blues or NYPD blue happened? And then also, you know, cabaret or whatever you want to throw in there, but not as good as either one of those. So it was something.
Greg: What else did Steven Bochco make? You’re throwing that name around like anyone is going to know what you’re talking about.
Joe: Yeah, sorry. That he did Hill Street Blues and then white PD blue. So that’s why I used him. Okay.
Greg: Anything else?
Joe: I’m sure there’s lots of other stuff that he did.
Greg: Did he do Doogie Howser?
Joe: He may have with.
Greg: Neil Patrick Harris.
Joe: As possible. He was kind of like TV executive producer. Okay, there’s a big way back when.
Greg: He’s like, cops can sing and.
Joe: Dance. You know.
Greg: Doctors can be 16 years old. Anything is possible.
Joe: Anything is possible in the Steven Bochco of our so.
Greg: I feel like there’s so many aspects of this movie that we need to get to, because so much of it is really incredible. The next thing I want to ask you about is the introduction of the new Quartermaster and the James Bond series. Q.
Joe:
Greg: Played by Ben Whishaw. Where do you stand on Ben Whishaw as the new Q in this movie?
Joe: I wanted to hate him.
Greg: Why?
Joe: I think because he was new and okay, young and all of what they were trying to set up. And I love him. I think he’s awesome. And I like his character. I like the actor’s take on the character. Yeah. And shout out to the hair and makeup team, because his hair looks like it could be straight out of, anime.
Joe: Yeah. Bad guy. Yeah, it is, like, perfect. Every scene he was in, I spent it staring at his hair. That does not move and is interesting. Perfect. So where do you stand on the new Q?
Greg: Well, it’s interesting that I had that with Adam Goldberg in Deja Vu. I had that with Nicolas Cage in next, but I did not have that with Ben Whishaw in this movie. So you took over the hair duties?
Joe: Apparently, I took over. I got the hair duties for you.
Greg: I freaking love Ben Whishaw. First of all, the fact that I can close my eyes and pretend like Paddington is in this movie is the greatest thing that’s ever happened in film history. I love the Paddington movies more than almost anything else on this planet. Anything that he is in, I will seriously consider watching. Ben Whishaw is one of our best and will be for the next 300 years.
Greg: I just assume he’s living very healthfully and will live for a long time. Black doves last year, my favorite show. Did you watch Black.
Joe: Doves on Netflix? Have not watched that.
Greg: Oh my gosh, Joe Skywalker.
Joe: I’ve got to watch it.
Greg: It’s like 6 or 8 episodes. It’s exactly what you’re looking for in every way. If what you’re looking for is here in Knightley and Ben Whishaw just acting the pants off of a great spy espionage movie or show on Netflix. So Ben Whishaw perfect in every way. I love him so much as an actor. And just the fact that we get to spend some time with him in this movie.
Greg: Love it. Young Q the best.
Joe: Yeah, I obviously, you know, you grow up with the old James Bond movies, and there was basically one queue for.
Greg: 107 I think was 107.
Joe: Movies. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I appreciated their take on the character as well. There are themes in this movie of kind of the old way and the new way of doing things, and should you go out to pasture and, you know, James Bond have, you know, has your time come and gone and shouldn’t you retire? Type of, you know.
Joe: Yeah. Comments. And his character in a lot of ways represents the new way. And they have fun banter back and forth. He doesn’t he’s not a shrinking violet where he kind of powers to James Bond. He he gives it right back to James Bond. Just as much as James Bond kind of gives it to him. And there’s some good conversations back and forth between them.
Joe: There’s a really fun scene in the in the museum with them when they first meet. Yeah. Although I do have to just say one of the most ridiculous thing that that happens in this is and that’s a big statement, knowing how many ridiculous things happen to this movie. But there are hackers that are trying to get in, and this is what you’re gonna say.
Joe: And suddenly James Bond standing in the room. Yes. On the big screen is just able to, like, push in on that. And that’s the code that cracks the whatever they’re trying to get into. And it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
Greg: It’s a push in and enhance, except in hacking code.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: And what James Bond says, I think makes no sense.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: No matter how you look at it. But we go with it. Should we listen to it?
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Still.
Joe: Going on that.
Greg: Go in on. That’s amazing. And right before that, Ben Whishaw says it’s like I’m doing a Rubik’s cube and the Rubik’s Cube is is fighting back.
Joe: Yeah. This has, probably blackhat level of ridiculousness when you’re talking about hacking and yeah, what they say. So spoiler alert for one of my drinking games is anytime you’re watching this movie and there is technical conversations that are happening that you just know have absolutely no make no sense. I mean, they could just be saying anything in the world there.
Joe: And any of it is completely made up and it’s perfect. It’s exactly what you want.
Greg: I mean, nothing could sum that up better than go in on that.
Joe: Yeah. Means nothing. Yeah. And then it’s amazing a word that ends up cracking the whatever. It’s like, okay, I’m.
Greg: Not hilarious, I.
Joe: Can’t. Yeah, I can’t even with you, I can’t even.
Greg: Yeah. Another main theme of this movie is Judi Dench as M. Yeah, I feel like Judi Dench as M in GoldenEye set up a lot of promise that did not really pay off.
Joe: Until.
Greg: Basically they attempted to GoldenEye again with Martin Campbell in Casino Royale, and at that moment, Judi Dench finally got to be what we thought the promise of Judi Dench as M was going to be. And, you know, Royal, we talked about this in our Quantum of Solace episode, just Incredible with Daniel Craig. And they do that again here, where they go even deeper of here’s this orphan basically kind of has this mother figure and she should not stand by him, except, you know, she is a bit of a matriarch in his life and is rooting for him unconditionally, even when he doesn’t pass his performance.
Joe: Review. Yeah, she is one spectacular. She’s one of those people that has been the same age in my mind forever. Yes, totally. It kind of got the Morgan Freeman gene.
Greg: Like Helen Mirren.
Joe: Yeah. So she is spectacular in this movie. And their relationship is interesting because in the first scene, then the first action scene, she makes Moneypenny shoot him to get the bad guy because the bad guy has basically the NOC list. If you’re going back to Mission Impossible fame and you.
Greg: Have to, it’s so mission impossible.
Joe: So Mission impossible, but also is his quasi mother. And spoiler alert for Javier Bardem, who is the bad guy in this, which again, kudos to this movie for holding him till like halfway through. Basically. Yeah, we don’t even know who is kind of pulling the strings, right?
Greg: Can I say, though, that Judi Dench, before we even meet him, she just says he’s so inside our code. He must be one of us. Yeah, he’s basically the same as Bond’s, like, just totally.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Projects. What the what the movie is going to be before it even happens. Yeah. Kind of hilarious.
Joe: Yeah. It’s awesome. I feel like in a lot of their scenes together, Daniel Craig is kind of given more of the, like, pithy lines and one liners. And she carries the weight in a lot of the scenes between them to me. Yeah. But there’s a good banter back and forth.
Greg: I mean this was the promise that was given to us, especially in quantum of Solace, a movie that people really don’t appreciate as much as I think you and I do.
Joe: Yes. Agreed.
Greg: I mean, just the two of them carrying that movie, dragging that movie over the finish line with their performances and the relationship that they create in their scenes. Sometimes those scenes add up something great, and sometimes they add up to, I think I need to Google what they were just talking about. I don’t understand what this scene was about.
Joe:
Greg: But they are just absolutely incredible in this movie. And I really enjoyed Daniel Craig’s performance in this movie where he gets shot and disappears for like three months at the beginning of this movie, and then when he comes back, he is really worn down out of breath. And the way that Roger Deakins shoots him when they’re talking in Emma’s condo and the light is clearly above him in an unflattering way.
Greg: On and Daniel Craig’s face, it’s really showing a lot of the lines. His eyes are very red, like, not in a way that makeup could do in a way that like he was rubbing his eyes or not sleeping or I feel like during the first half of this movie, Daniel Craig was like eating a piece of bread before he went to bed at night.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: He has like, gluten face, you know.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Or maybe he was having a beer at a pub, I don’t know, but the way that they were filming him, this probably was also some make up also his performance, but especially I feel like I need to point at Roger Deakins and say he was shooting Daniel Craig in a way that made him look very worn down. And it’s incredible that in his third James Bond movie, he is willing to be worn down and aged.
Greg: Pretty incredible.
Joe: And how we’ve never really seen James Bond before. Tired old. Yep. Out of breath. Yep. Not hitting everything perfectly. Making, you know, saving the day. Because basically until the final action scene. He’s really trying to find his feet again.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: As James Bond it felt.
Greg: Soon to me as a third movie.
Joe: Right. But perfect. Yeah it’s perfect. And yeah I agree. Like he he looks old. He’s not perfect. He’s not. It’s just not what you expect. So I always appreciate that when they take a character that obviously we’ve seen 21 other movies with this character who is the smoothest, coolest person in every room and knows how to get out of any situation.
Joe: Yeah. Not necessarily know how to do that or not do it as well as he has in the past. And so, yeah, I appreciated that. As someone who grew up loving this franchise to see. Oh, okay. Maybe there is some character development that is still within this universe. You know, because I think what can happen when you’re hitting this many movies as you kind of fall into kind of cliche of what you expect of this character.
Joe: Yeah. And that is not to say that this movie doesn’t have a thousand tropes, as we’ll get to when we get to the trope lightning Round, because it’s spectacular in that way. But I think what makes this so much fun is there are real serious moments and great acting that happened in between. Just the typical stuff that you expect.
Joe: And that juxtaposition, I think just works for me. I guess what I’m saying 100%.
Greg: And I said this before, and I will say this over and over again when we do our great bond movies Patreon, which I’m just assuming we’re going to do now that I’ve said it out loud.
Joe: Yeah, like and subscribe. And it’s, it’s $20 a month and.
Greg: And we release episodes every other month.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Pierce Brosnan was able and willing to do this and was not giving the people around him, the scripts, the directors to have it add up to what this movie adds up to. And I’m so disappointed for Pierce Brosnan, because I think he had this in him and showed that he had this in him. But never in a way that had an arc over the course of a whole movie.
Greg: It just didn’t all add up. And so I’m bummed for that because I feel like he could have and was willing and showing up every day to do this kind of stuff. And maybe they learned from that lesson. And that’s why Skyfall was, you know, they made the room for Skyfall to be as good as it is.
Joe: Yeah. I think we need to talk about Javier Bardem. Yes. As our bad guy.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: He is one of those actors that every time I see him on the screen I am one. So happy to see him. And he brings almost like an unpredictability to his performances. I’m thinking of especially like no Country for old men.
Greg: I mean that’s the one right.
Joe: Yeah. And then this one is maybe a similar character to that. But there is this sinister violence behind his character and how he portrays him. That just jumps off the screen. Yeah. Like I wanted more but I appreciated that they saved it until halfway through the kind of reveal who the big Bad was. Yeah. And then we basically get a whole other movie like an hour and a half from there of, okay, here’s kind of, you know, here’s the bad guy and here’s, you know, what we’re going to go through.
Joe: Yep. But he just radiates and every scene he is in and a credit to the other actors because they could have been easily consumed by his performance that I think Daniel Craig and Judi Dench both have some scenes with him, or they’re able to be a counterpoint to him because he is the best actor in this movie and he’s given the most to work with as a character to bad guys in these movies are typically given a little bit more, you know, James Bond that’s got a pretty narrow arc in terms of what his range is needs to be.
Joe: Judi Dench is given more. And Javier Bardem is kind of given a larger range, just because he gets to be a little bit more cavalier with his performance. But he is so good in this.
Greg: I really loved that he got to be another kind of meta perspective of how ridiculous is all of this? I feel like Ben Whishaw kind of does that a little bit with, like, what? Who are you? You know, it’s 2012. We can be different people now. Yeah. And I feel like that is something that Javier Bardem character has learned as well.
Greg: And so as he’s hearing James Bond be a little bit James Bond, he he does. There’s so many times where he’s just like nonplused to like in a ridiculous degree, just like, oh, I can’t believe you just said that out loud. Yeah, I’m embarrassed for you in this entire franchise. And I loved that so much throughout the movie.
Greg: At the end, when, James Bond is on the, frozen over lake, there’s like, a henchman there. He grabs the henchman machine gun and shoots in a circle so the two of them fall through the ice. Yeah. And this is like the eighth time that Harvey or Brendan was like, oh.
Joe: My gosh.
Greg: What on earth is this.
Joe: Guy? He’s so.
Greg: Ridiculous. And I really like for a completely bombastic, ridiculous bad guy in bond fashion. He also brings some sort of like, isn’t this all just comically hilarious, that this is really a thing that a person is doing in this movie? This might be a stretch, but go with me on this.
Joe: Okay, I feel like Jennifer Aniston.
Greg: 98% of Jennifer Aniston’s performances are non-verbal, where she’s just like, poof!
Joe: Yeah, move.
Greg: She’s just making noises all the time.
Joe:
Greg: If you watch the show, The Morning Show on Apple TV+, it’s mostly just her exasperated and making noises all the time. Would be a fantastic drinking game for that show. By the.
Joe: Way.
Greg: Every time Jennifer Aniston just makes a noise.
Joe: Right. Oh.
Greg: Oh that’s what he’s doing throughout this movie. And it cracked me up honestly. So I agree with you. He is one of the best actors on the planet. But alongside Judi Dench.
Joe: Daniel Craig yeah.
Greg: Ben Whishaw redefines.
Joe: Who we.
Greg: Should talk about next. The back of the bench on this thing. Rory Kinnear, who plays Tanner in this movie. They’re all just really, really incredible. Naomi Harris as Moneypenny. Just batting 1,000%. I think he is the best amongst the best. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. There’s something he he’s able to stick the landing being a bond villain. As you say that self-referential to the ridiculousness of James Bond because he’s kind of his character’s kind of James Bond before James Bond.
Greg: Right. He has a history with them.
Joe: Right. And making it all work so that you are riveted by him like the best bad guys. You kind of root for them and root against them simultaneously. Yeah. Understand them. And it’s like. Like them and revile them like that is a really difficult yeah thing to pull off. I feel like we need the Isaac Blade to come back on here with the bad guy dials, but.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Where is he with the bad guy dials.
Joe: He’s high up there for me.
Greg: Yeah. Would you turn it up or down?
Joe: I think he hits it perfect. I wouldn’t give it’s like no notes.
Greg: Right, for a bond movie?
Joe: Yeah, for a bond movie? Yeah. He is perfect. He’s exactly what this movie needs. There’s no. Yes. You’re not like, oh, this is a little much. Or, you know, Quantum of Solace. You’re like, really? Who is the bad guy? And there’s a couple bad guys and you know, you get to the end and it’s. Yeah. Where are they and why are they there?
Joe: And that sort of those sorts of questions. Yeah. Everything makes sense in his motivations, except for the fact that he is caught by three silent helicopters simultaneously.
Joe: Which this might be the penultimate until we have the next Tony Scott that can bring the four silent helicopters into a scene. Wow. This is the classic silent helicopters out of nowhere moment.
Greg: Incredible. We have two movies in a row now that have just. Absolutely. It’s downhill from here. Should we hear the helicopter out of nowhere.
Joe: Seen? Yes. And, dear listener, you need to understand two things. One, James Bond has been captured by Javier Bardem. Yeah. And they are on an island that is abandoned only for Harvey. Bardem and his hacker crew to be on. So there are so far from civilization. You would hear a helicopter coming a million miles away. That’s all I’m saying.
Joe: It wouldn’t be like, oh, that’s a police helicopter. And they’re just, oh, there’s something else going on. Yeah, they are so far away from everyone. It is perfect.
Greg: So James Bond has just pulled some moves and has shot everyone around how they are brought him. And now it’s just the two of them. Here’s one possible.
Joe: What are you going to do now? Take me back to her. All in your own. This is a moment.
Joe: They look up.
Greg: Triple helicopter. I don’t know where a Joe triple helicopter.
Joe: Perfect.
Greg: In more ways than we even needed.
Joe: I’m going to find the text because you sent me one that was triple helicopter out of nowhere. Yes. All caps. All caps. Oh, yeah. Then I sent the silent helicopter. And this movie is so good. And then we have a fire extinguisher explosion. And I sent you that. This movie is perfect. Yeah. And then I sent you. Honestly, we could just use Skyfall as our trope list because it is so many tropes.
Greg: I mean, if you’re going to have a baseline of tropes, this is. Yeah, probably the best movie we could do it to. Yeah.
Joe: And I know how much you love a silent helicopter.
Greg: All I need is one.
Joe: Yeah. When this happened in this movie, the joy that I felt, I cannot. I cannot explain because I had completely forgotten about it.
Greg: Yeah, me too.
Joe: And then there are three helicopters.
Greg: Out of nowhere, and there is no industrial city noise that would cover it up. It is the kind of place where you would hear that for 20 minutes. Before that you could actually see them.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: The only thing it’s missing is a guy with a gun in them immediately shooting.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This movie’s too classy for that, apparently. They’re like, well, we’re not gonna have a guy shooting, so let’s just give them three helicopters to make up for it.
Joe: But don’t worry, dear listener. There is another helicopter at the end of this that is shooting. Oh, yeah. And it’s not silent, but it comes in hot and it does not let up until it blows up. So it is again, this movie is perfect is what we’re saying.
Greg: Well, let’s get to it. He decides to drive em to a place where they can lead a Javier Bardem to. And so they drive to Scotland. And Javier Bardem follows them.
Joe: So they capture Javier Bardem, which becomes part of Javier Bardem plan. We find out later. And then he attacks em as she is testifying in front of some parliamentary.
Greg: Very Mission Impossible five. You guys are a relic of the past. What are you even doing?
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: Can we mention that M in the kind of like, government proceedings basically just says a whole Tennyson poem?
Joe: Yeah. Which could be a trope in and of itself.
Greg: It could be. That’s true. It feels like a stretch, but I’m here for it. You know what I mean? Like, it’s kind of like, oh, I think we’re punching above our weight right now. This is a stretch. We’re doing a Tennyson poem. I don’t quite understand how that poem relates to the moment that’s happening on screen.
Joe: But you know what?
Greg: A Tennyson poem is a Tennyson poem.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Should we listen to em quoting Tennyson in this movie?
Joe: Yes. And what you should imagine is someone going and, like, putting their finger on your lips as you try to speak while this is happening? Like that is what this movie is doing. You’re like, yeah. And that’s what it’s doing. Okay, here we go.
Clip: Just one more thing to say. My late husband was a great lover of poetry, and I suppose some of it sunk in despite my best intentions. And here today, I remember this, I think, from Tennyson.
Clip: We all know that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven. That which we are, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.
Greg: And then we don’t realize it. But the bad guy has been headed towards this hearing and starts shooting. And this is where bond shows up and shoots the fire extinguishers.
Joe: It is all I can do not to stop recording right now and go to that moment in Skyfall and watch the rest of the movie as what I was saying.
Greg: Hey, you know what I love about the gunplay in this.
Joe: Movie is.
Greg: No one just shoot the gun. They shoot a gun as absolutely fast as they can. Even Moneypenny isn’t like. It’s like, yeah, unbelievable. They’re like, you know what? We’re just gonna have to go for it on this one. Everyone shoots as much as they possibly can.
Joe: What do you need to do? You know, fate of the world and all. Absolutely.
Greg: Okay, so they go to Skyfall, and we meet Albert Finney, who is playing Kincaid, and he is basically playing, like, what if Sean Connery had still been in Scotland and was still bond?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Bond’s father is who? Albert Finney is basically in this movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: What was your take on Kincaid and Albert Finney in this movie.
Joe: As a Albert Finney fan? I was in I love to see him. One of his last roles, I think, too. Did we need him? No, not even a little bit in this movie.
Greg: He’s someone who knew bond as a boy.
Joe: Knows Vic, he’s the games keeper or something like that of Skyfall, which is his old family.
Greg: He’s the one who told bond that his parents had died when he was 11.
Joe: I think. Yeah. So to me, it just proves the point of in the quiet moments of this movie, we can actually, like, show off how good our actors are.
Greg: Totally. I thought it was pretty emotional to meet someone who knew bond when he was a boy.
Joe: Right.
Greg: I mean, you could talk about what life was like for bond when he was 11, but then they actually have a character, you know, talk to him and say, here was Bond’s reaction when I told him his parents were dead. He hid in this staircase for two days, and when he came out, he was no longer a boy.
Greg: You know, stuff like that is really impactful. And as far as, like, trying to emote something in a script, Kincaid was a really good character to do that. That’s a hard thing to do. Yeah. Great bad movies are constantly trying to do that, and we laugh at their failure. This movie succeeds in that way, in my mind.
Joe: Absolutely. And if Christopher Nolan directs this, that is played by Michael Caine instead of Albert Finney, obviously.
Greg: And he’s also explaining some science.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: All right. So let me play for you. Kincaid in two different spots. One is there in this castle that bond grew up in, and, they’ve kind of locked it down. And they’re getting ready for the final confrontation with Javier Bardem, and he’s kind of asking if he’s ready. Are you ready?
Joe: I was ready before you were born, son of amazing.
Greg: Okay, so there’s that. And then once they get there, he has, like, a super gun. Listening. You need to go back to our playing episode and listen to that. If you want to hear what true joy sounds like for Joe and I, there was like, this Superman gun that could just, like, you know, do crazy things like knock over cars and stuff.
Greg: He basically has that and, shoots a couple bad guys. They’re just, like, thrown across the room. After he shoots, he says.
Joe: Welcome to Scotland.
Greg: Welcome to Scotland. And he’s doing it with his best, Sean Connery. And I was just absolutely here for it. It was amazing.
Joe: Absolutely. Yeah. Did they ask Sean Connery to play this role? I feel like that. I have this vague memory of that.
Greg: I mean, they’d be crazy not to ask, but also, I don’t think Sean Connery has the greatest, relationship with the broccoli family.
Joe: Yeah, that’s also true.
Greg: But also, you know, he’s saying no to everything. They asked him to be in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, and he was kind of like, if there was one movie I was going to do, it would be this one. But I’m not going to, because every time.
Joe: According to I, Sean Connery was considered for, a cameo.
Greg: Considered.
Joe: That was not cast because director Sam Mendes felt his appearance would be a distraction.
Greg: I think Albert Finney did everything he needed to do.
Joe: Yeah, it would have pulled everyone out of the movie at that moment to have Sean Connery walk into the scene.
Greg: What do you think of them going back to Bond’s childhood home and doing the final set piece battle? They’re very much like The Equalizer, very much like any Jason Statham movie where they’re preparing for the final battle. Yeah, Stallone, Expendables. I mean, they’re all there, you know?
Joe: Everything.
Greg: Yeah, everything except this one that some of our best actors in the history and cinematographer and directors.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Beautiful. The way Deakins shoots this.
Joe: Yeah, it’s trope filled, for sure. Yeah, definitely the trope of getting the final battle site ready together. So you see ever them setting up the traps and all of that. So there’s totally that it’s one of those in lesser hands. I find it ridiculous. And the way they pay it off, it works for me. What I appreciate is I feel like they what they do is they kind of take you through the normal what you expect to happen.
Joe: There’s like, the people are coming, they fight them all off and then there’s still a whole other scene or rest of it to go, yeah, where are they? Yeah. They pull it together. You know, it’s like they have the fight scene. They kill all the bad guys. You think, okay, this is kind of the end. Then we have the helicopter come in.
Joe: They basically just blow up everything. Yeah, yeah. And then the final confrontation is not what I expected. And I really appreciated a left turn right at the end with how Harvey Bardem’s character is killed, because you kind of expect, typical James Bond hand-to-hand combat type of thing. They don’t give us that.
Greg: Just a knife thrown into his back by bond. We don’t see him throw it.
Joe: Basically, what happened is Javier Bardem gets to Judi Dench and gives her a gun and says, kill us both. Take us out of our misery. Yeah. And she pulls the trigger. But there are no bullets in the gun. She does. Oh, I missed that. I think she does. That’s my question. I guess that’s my open question. Does she pull the trigger when I watch it?
Joe: I thought she pulls the trigger. It’s empty. And then as soon as she throws, it pulls the trigger. James Bond throws the knife that kills him.
Greg: And I don’t know if she pulls the trigger.
Joe: Okay, I’m not sure. Okay. I’m gonna watch this movie again right now.
Greg: He’s there basically to kill her. And yet she has been hurt. And he’s upset by that.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And he’s like, oh no, you’re hurt. It’s such an interesting dynamic going on there.
Joe: Yeah. And again, in the hands of a lesser actor, it doesn’t land. Yeah.
Greg: And she’s incredible too.
Joe: It’s like both of them there’s care. You can see that she has you know, still has care for him and vice versa. And he’s there to kill her. It’s like you don’t get that in James Bond movies or in any movie that’s like this very often.
Greg: And the shot is over her shoulder and we’re seeing him. It’s basically his take, but she’s in the shot because she’s in the scene. Yeah, sometimes actors aren’t there. They have their stand in there. Yeah, she is just going 1,000% when it isn’t even her shot. She does some things in that scene where it’s, you know, her back is to the camera and it, but it is like she is entirely in it.
Greg: You never see that. You never see that person who has their back to the camera giving their A-game and almost stealing the scene.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: She’s acting so well. You can see it from the back of her head.
Joe: Yeah, it’s incredible. It is. And it’s hard to steal a scene from Javier Bardem and this character. I mean, he is so good, I just cannot underscore enough. Yeah, yeah, how amazing he is on screen. Yeah, I might even after we’re done, I’m going to have to go back and watch that scene, because I want to make sure I feel like she’s he pulls the trigger.
Joe: Yeah. Like as a test. That was what I took from it. Like when I watched it, he gave her an empty gun to see if she would do it. She does it. And then he was going to kill her. But then James Bond kills him. That was what I took from it. But I could be totally wrong.
Greg: Yeah, and then he’s really dead. Any other great bad movie would be like, well, that obviously wasn’t enough fight with the bad guy. He’s going.
Joe: To. Yeah.
Greg: Lunge up and, you know, like try and shoot him or something. No, he’s really dead.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: We’re really done with the bad guys movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Basically nothing. It’s incredible.
Joe: He gets a great death and that’s it. Yep.
Greg: All right. Well Joe it occurs to me that there’s a chance some people have listened to this episode and they don’t know what we’re talking about. They haven’t seen this movie.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Let’s pretend like you’re walking through the halls of your VHS video store back when you were renting all the binging, all the James Bond movies, one of the original Bingeable series.
Joe: Back in Sebastopol, California, where I first watched the James Bond movie.
Greg: Named after the submarine from Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. I mean, exactly.
Joe: Obviously, because our lives are really one big joke that’s being played, I guess.
Greg: Yeah, totally. So let’s pretend you’re walking down that store. You’re picking up different boxes on the shelves. You’re reading the back of those boxes to see if it’s the movie that you want to rent that night and take home. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box with all the identities of the NATO agents now in the hands of hackers and MI6 under attack and James Bond, Daniel Craig missing in action, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. This action thriller spans the globe and cranks up the intensity with each turn. From Shanghai to London to the moors of Scotland, Skyfall will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last explosive moment.
Greg: I rented ten times out of ten.
Joe: Every time. Yeah, but this is our podcast. Yeah, and.
Greg: I guess my next question will be, what’s the honest, real Joe Skye Tucker, back of the box.
Joe: Easily the best Daniel Craig Bond movie. And in the running for the best bond movie ever. It’s a fun ride, start to finish. There are great action scenes, massive jumps and logic and pithy one liners. And as all great bad movies do, it takes itself so seriously and everyone is committed to this with a ferocity we only get in the best of movies.
Joe: I put this movie in the top three of great bad movies alongside Fast Five and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. Come for me in the comments if you dare.
Greg: Amazing. It’s all downhill from here. For us it.
Joe: Is. It sounds.
Greg: Like.
Joe: I seriously believe of the movies we have done. Yeah, this is in the top three of the greatest great bad movies. Top three. And just for our listeners, remember our Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning hits every single one of our start drinking games within the first hour, and Fast Five is our favorite Fast and Furious movie ever.
Greg: So some people might not know what you’re talking about when you say drinking games. Joe, should we talk about the box office of this movie and the critical reception?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: This movie came out in the fall of 2012, and they spent $200 million to film it.
Joe: All right.
Greg: The most expensive James Bond movie made up until that point. And I wish I could say that it broke even, but it did not. It made $1.1 billion worldwide, like it is the highest grossing James Bond movie. That rare time when the best, potentially the best, and the most profitable. Yeah. Lined up. There’s probably a chance that some of those earlier movies that cost almost nothing and made a gazillion dollars worldwide, adjusted for inflation, you know.
Joe: Right.
Greg: They did better. But in modern times, this was the most successful one $300 million in America, which is incredible, and $800 million internationally for a $1.1 billion haul. Let’s talk about Rotten Tomatoes. Let’s talk about the critical reception of this movie. What do you think the Tomatometer is on this movie? What do you think critics thought of this movie?
Joe: Feels like a 78. So it’s one of our movie.
Greg: So it does, because like a lot of it is great. It’s mostly.
Joe: Great, mostly great.
Greg: But there’s also some bad. There is a caterpillar on a train.
Joe: Yes, I’m going to go with an 85 tomato rating on this.
Greg: 92%.
Joe: 92 wow. Okay. Low on that.
Greg: I don’t know if it’s the highest in history. Tomato rating. It is the highest Metacritic, which is another scale that we don’t ever talk about on the show. But it’s, exit reviews from people who have just seen the movie. Let’s talk about the audience score of this movie. The popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes. What do you think the audience score on this movie is?
Joe: I feel like it’s gonna be higher. I feel like this is like a 96.
Greg: This gets an.
Joe: 8680. So really, that is why I think you.
Greg: Rotten Tomatoes got was a little off. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Interesting.
Greg: And we have more reviews from critics than usual. 387 reviews on this and it, maxes out, I think, at 250,000 ratings in the popcorn meter, we’re at 250,000 plus rating. So pretty good sample size on this one.
Joe: Yeah, I’ll allow it. But they’re wrong.
Greg: They are incorrect. Yeah. Just to be fair. All right. Let’s talk about what the critics have said about this movie. We always start with our local hometown paper. Seattle Times. Soren Andersen says, I’m happy to report that bond is back and he’s bad. And that’s good.
Joe: Fair. Yeah, I mean, that could be, like slightly less pithy name for this show. So we’ll take it.
Greg: Bad and that’s good. Yeah. He is, 3.5 out of four on his scale, so that’s pretty good. Manohla Dargis in The New York Times says whether Mr. Mendis is deploying an explosion or a delectable detail, he retains a crucial human scale and intimacy, largely by foregrounding the performers.
Joe: I agree with that. I think it’s just.
Greg: Spot on for this movie. All right. The Toronto Star says the 23rd official bond seems as fresh as the first, incorporating tradition with innovation in gratifying ways. Four out of four stars.
Joe: Oh I agree with that.
Greg: 23rd official bond. I thought it was the 22nd.
Joe: I wonder if they’re throwing the crazy Woody Allen. Yeah, farcical movie in there. Yeah. Which actually follows the plot of the book Casino Royale. Better than better. But.
Greg: That’s funny. I think I said the 22nd, I apologize to everybody. This is the 23rd bond movie. Okay. The San Francisco Chronicle says Skyfall is a different kind of bond movie, one that works just fine on its own terms. But a steady diet of this might kill the franchise. One Skyfall is enough.
Joe: I think that that’s a positive review.
Greg: Yeah, but also like the novelty of its greatness is something you wouldn’t want to return to too many times, or it might get a little old. I think there’s really something to Mike Lasalle’s review here.
Joe: Yeah, but.
Greg: Honestly, I mean, you can’t do a unique bond movie every time.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So I would take 100.
Joe: More Skyfall, Skyfall. Seriously? Yeah.
Greg: But I do think he’s right.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Chris Varner of The Dallas Morning News says the movie makes.
Joe: A.
Greg: Claim that can’t be matched by many bond films. It’s actually about something.
Joe: Yeah I agree. Yep.
Greg: Times UK Kate Muir says Skyfall is a resurrection and will go down as one of Seven’s best five out of five.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed.
Greg: And finally, my favorite review from The Guardian says works terrifically well up to a point. Three out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah. Also could be a name for our show. Our podcast. Yes, totally.
Greg: All right, Joe, is it time for some drinking games for the movie Skyfall?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Let’s do it.
Joe: We’ll start with our stop drinking games again. You don’t have to be drinking alcohol. Could be. Oh, duels. Could be water, soda, coffee, whatever you want.
Greg: You could be watching this on your own. But we designed these drinking games so that you’re sitting with a bunch of your friends and assigned a different drinking game to different people in the room.
Joe: Exactly. So we start with a silent helicopter. You’re drinking on this one? It is classic. It is in the running for the best silent helicopter in any movie. I will leave that to you, Greg, to be the arbiter of the best silent helicopter in any movie that we have watched. But I just would say that if we’re doing, like, the Academy Awards, this is definitely in that five movies or ten movies that are selected for Best Picture for a silent helicopter.
Greg: I’m kind of wondering if when a silent helicopter happens, you have to take a drink for each helicopter that has silently shown up. So in this case, you would have to take three drinks when this happens.
Joe: Yeah. Okay. Or as long as. Good night. You’re taking two. Just one for next. And there’s a low flying helicopter in in this as well.
Greg: So it’s true. I mean, anytime a helicopter shows up, you should probably at least refresh your drink. If not, drink it.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Is there, push pushing and enhance? Oh, yes, very much so. In the code. Yeah. When two people share a slow motion look in the middle of chaos. Yes. That happened in this movie when this is in the opening action scene is on top of the train.
Greg: Yes. Okay.
Joe: And then somehow he is able to have a slow motion look at Moneypenny, who is like half a mile away with a gun. And they share a moment together. Okay. Okay. We do not have silent suffering, an explosion with silent suffering ringing in the ears.
Greg: Oh missed opportunity.
Joe: Easily. Could have been. Yeah. Yeah. What are.
Greg: They thinking.
Joe: Opening credits scene where the title locks in place with the sound. This is the classic. The James Bond credits and the credits scene we all know is coming. So just drink.
Greg: Okay. Take a drink. It’s not a die hard where they, like, clank together.
Joe: No, I think there are some gunshots that happen. But anyway. Oh, no. That was for kiss kiss bang bang. Oh, wow. You are getting confused. Yeah. Sorry.
Greg: Blame the.
Joe: Audible. Yeah. No flashback to dialog two minutes ago. I did give us bad CGI. There are a couple of moments where it’s a little obvious that there’s some CGI. Great bad shots are everywhere. Wait.
Greg: So great bad shots are where they’re clearly shooting at people and somehow they don’t get hit.
Joe:
Greg: There were so many times in this movie where James Bond could have just shot the bad guy. Yeah, but they’re having a conversation instead.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This movie could have been 45 minutes long. He could have shot him in the train station.
Joe: But then we don’t get the amazing Skyfall blow up everything.
Greg: I mean, it’s true.
Joe: It’s true. Yeah. Inexplicably wide streets. Absolutely. Yeah. No. Give us the room. And no Interpol. So those are our stock drinking game. So toss it to you, Greg. Not. What is your first drinking game that you noticed while watching this movie?
Greg: Every time someone in this movie sips a drink, take a drink.
Joe: Okay. Wow. I have every time there’s a fight scene and Daniel Craig fixes his cuffs. Yeah. Take a drink.
Greg: Solid.
Joe: Like on his perfectly tailored suit. Yeah.
Greg: My next one is any time bond is out of breath. Oh, I bet he’s kind of showing how vocal. Empty as a lot in this movie.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. So this movie I appreciated doesn’t fall into a lot of the classic kind of misogynistic tropes of past James Bond movies. There’s a couple scenes, but every time Daniel Craig is needlessly topless in this, for anyone who wants to see that, take a drink and I appreciate it. I also have like tip of the cap for the director, for having Daniel Craig needlessly topless, walking around with his perfect chest and everything like that.
Greg: Skyfall. More like shirt fall.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: That’s solid. Any time Javier Bardem is out of breath.
Joe: Oh, I like that one. I have every time you’re just mesmerized by Javier Bardem on screen. Take a drink.
Greg: Okay. There might be some crossover with that. And this one. Any time Javier Bardem is nonplused or, like, visually not overwhelmed, but whelmed about the James Bond movie, he seems to have found himself in.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Take a drink. Perfect.
Joe: Awesome. Every time someone gets a plot point from news on TV that they’re just happened to be watching at a bar or around, take a drink. Love it. Love it. Take a drink.
Greg: Any time James Bond walks by a guy who is dead on the floor, and there’s a pool of blood around them.
Joe: Take a drink. So much to this movie. It’s crazy. Yeah. Any time there are this nonsense tech terms thrown around like you’re supposed to know what that means. Take a drink.
Greg: Any time a screen says think on your sins. Or in this movie, take a drink.
Joe: Awesome. Every time you are mesmerized by Q’s hair, take a drink.
Greg: That’s very subjective, but I like it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Any time James Bond shaves, take a drink.
Joe: Oh. Spoiler alert for our trope that comes up big in this one. All right. Every time James Bond touches somebody on the subway, take a drink. So there’s a scene where he is chasing someone. Yeah. Through, like, the underground. And he’s just passing the extras that are in the scene and, like, touching them needlessly. And it really bothered me.
Joe: I want that scene.
Greg: Bro. Personal space.
Joe: Come on. Seriously.
Greg: We’re in the tube here. There’s adding tube etiquette. Yeah. All right, Ray phones. We did not give him enough credit in this movie. He’s incredible. Yeah. In this movie, his character’s name is Mallory. Every time someone says the name Mallory. Oh, take a drink.
Joe: I love that. That’s so awesome. Every time James Bond is on the train, take a drink.
Greg: Solid, solid. Any time. Bond could shoot the bad guy.
Joe: But doesn’t.
Greg: Take a drink.
Joe: Awesome. Every time you question why James Bond is in a perfectly tailored suit. Take a drink. Because when he drives him and M to Skyfall, he’s, like, in a perfect suit. It’s ridiculous. Yeah.
Greg: All right. In the opening scene he is walking into like an apartment. We don’t know where he is. He’s walking by bodies that have a pool of blood around them. And then he stumbles upon an agent named Ronson. Yeah. And Ronson doesn’t have a speaking role. He’s just sitting there. He’s bleeding. Bond is trying to help him. Trying to stop the bleeding.
Greg: Side note I feel like I could play the Ronson role in every movie. Like, he doesn’t have to say any lines. You just blankly stares at people. That’s all the acting that he has to do. I can be Ronson in every movie. But also, they reference this dude quite a bit throughout the movie. So every time somebody says the name Ronson, take a drink.
Joe: Oh true.
Joe: I’ve never seen a character with so little screen time be referenced so much in the movie.
Greg: I said, that’s my last one. Do you any more?
Joe: Okay. I have, I have at least one more. I have every time bond is in silhouette. Take a drink. What’s happened? There’s an amazing that fight scene when he fights the bad guy who is shot. Yeah. It’s a, like, a long single shot. Yeah. And then there’s a lot of him in silhouette. Especially in Skyfall. Yeah. I just want to.
Joe: This is more just a note that I made in that scene, when Judi Dench is quoting Tennyson and people behind her in that scene are so frozen. That was all I could pay attention to, was they were not moving. I was trying to see if they were blinking or anything, and they just are just like statues. While she is in front of whatever committee she’s testifying in front of.
Greg: And so the only thing that would have made that better is if all of them were wording the poem with them, because we all know Tennyson.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Oh, that old Tennyson.
Greg: All right, Joe, I think it’s time for Joe’s trope Lightning round, aka signs. You might be watching a great bad movie. Hit us up. You say you have a lot of them.
Joe: I have a lot of them. And I have some new ones that I’ve added. I’m. So I’m going to talk about the new ones. So any time the name of the movie is said by a character, that’s a trope. That was kind of from last week’s. Anytime there’s a car chase in another country and they drive through a street market, that’s a trope story.
Joe: So it’s like in another country there’s a street market in the United States. It’s basically them like driving down alleys and hitting like boxes. Okay. And then watching Mission Impossible and Reckoning. They’re in Italy. They’re driving through like, coffee.
Greg: Stands.
Joe: And coffees, you know? So, yeah, anytime someone closes the eyes of a dead comrade, you know, where they put their hand. That’s the new trope. Okay, okay. Any, anytime they are getting the final battle place ready in a montage. Yeah. For, like, the final attack. So they were getting Skyfall ready? Sure. Or if we go back to nobody when they’re getting the garage ready hundred percent.
Joe: Yeah. Anytime someone shaves with a straight razor. That’s a new trope. You have your gun range trope. Yes. In this one. Multiple times. Any time there’s a drinking contest in a movie that’s a trope or take a drink I don’t know what this could be drinking game on.
Greg: These all sound like drinking games.
Joe: I know this is like.
Greg: The blurry line between drinking games and tropes.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Have you ever done that where you have to take a shot or a drink and there’s a scorpion on your hand?
Joe: Not yet. I hope to someday.
Greg: Opportunity. That’s a missed opportunity in your life.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Anytime someone is there is someone who has unconvincingly knocked out. So there’s a scene where, like, James Bond just, like, hits somebody and they just kind of fall down and they just like 100%.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So those are kind of our newer tropes. We have an exploding fire extinguisher. We have the hero is kind of knocked down and must work to get back and master and get stronger. We have a trope where he jumps into water and the sound disappears. We have the finding. The key is under the visor where suddenly he’s in the caterpillar or the whatever, and he’s just like driving.
Joe: This happens a couple times in this movie. The person who’s about to kill the good guy is then shot, and you don’t know what’s what’s happening exactly. Happens with Albert Finney. Happens with them color filters when they’re in Shanghai. He’s the best at something. So he’s our hero. He’s the best spy in the world. His revenge is the driver.
Joe: The protagonist is kind of coming out of retirement. We have an amazingly charismatic antagonist, and then we have the henchmen who are allowed kind of that game theory of who’s allowed to hurt James Bond and who isn’t. We have conversations in the middle of a car chase. Opening scene is in basically a long conversation that’s happening between M and Moneypenny and James Bond.
Joe: Really? No women except for the love interest or the mother. M we have a, you know, a love scene with really terrible music. So drink or not finding out a critical piece of information right at the end. So they do this thing where they’re dropping breadcrumbs for Javier Bardem through.
Greg: Hackery, whatever it.
Joe: Is. Yeah. We have a duffle bag full of money. You have amazing recovery time. We have medical care given to me, like, cut the bullet fragment out of his chest. We have downloading a file under pressure where they’re hacking the system. Yeah, we have checking if the gun is loaded. We have a call trace timer. We have him disappearing.
Joe: Kind of like behind the bus and we have the protagonist being captured but not killed right away. And he is saved by his wiles. He is captured by Javier Bardem, and then he saves. So we have 30 tropes in this movie.
Greg: The golden standard it is.
Joe: This movie made me so happy when I was going through our trope list and then just adding tropes that just popped up every two seconds, I felt like, so that’s our trope. It’s not a lightning round. That is a.
Greg: No. We need a new name for that.
Joe: That was not lightning at all.
Greg: We’re going to speed that up so that it’s like the end of a drug ad or like campaign ad. It’s just super fast. All right, Joe, that was incredible. Thank you for doing all that work as.
Joe: A labor of love, but worth it.
Greg: Also, all of those should be drinking games as well.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: All right, man. You know, we’ve been talking for a while, and I feel like we’ve been avoiding the elephant in the room. Is it time to get to important questions about this movie?
Joe: I think so. Okay.
Greg: Joe, in 2012, did Skyfall hold up then?
Joe: I think it did.
Greg: I think it did too. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. Follow up question. Does it hold up now?
Joe: I think it holds up just as well, if not better now. Honestly? Yeah. It doesn’t has not fallen off for me at all in the times I’ve seen it.
Greg: Does it hold up better because the other movies weren’t as good? It’s like in retrospect it was like, well, it was the best one.
Joe: Maybe a little bit. Yeah. But okay. Casino Royale, Skyfall and No Time to Die are far and away the best of the Daniel Craig. Quantum of Solace and Specter are still really good. No I think it holds up. I don’t think it needs the other movies. I think it does hold up. Okay. Yeah.
Greg: How hard do they sell the good guy.
Joe: It’s got its moments.
Greg: I kind of feel like they’re actually like actively trying to de sell the good guy.
Joe:
Greg: Yeah. Three movies and they’re like we got to bring this guy down a notch. He’s not a superhero.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But how hard they sell the bad.
Joe: Guy in this movie at different points. They do some classic moments within it more than they sell the good guy. And it’s awesome. Yeah.
Greg: It’s perfect, you know?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right. Next important question. Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: It’s a James Bond movie. There’s got to be a little bit of romance, but there’s not a lot. No. Like one scene.
Greg: It’s not Vesper.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right. Joe, I mean, is this a safe place where I could just ask you.
Joe: Any important questions? Yeah, absolutely. Let’s be vulnerable here.
Greg: Joe. Are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: Probably. I think. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s. Yes.
Greg: Does Skyfall deserve a sequel?
Joe: Yeah, I’ll give it to. At least that’s what I got. Yeah, but our James Bond movies sequels are do they are they supposed to stand on their own? That’s the question.
Greg: You know, it’s interesting. This movie is the third movie in the Daniel Craig years, and it’s still adding prequel stuff to it. Like we finally get Moneypenny, we finally get him in the office with like, the sofa chair door.
Joe:
Greg: We finally get Q you know, it’s literally like a trilogy of prequel is what? Those first three movies are kind of crazy.
Joe: Yeah. All right.
Greg: Does this movie deserve a prequel?
Joe: No. Get out of here with that.
Greg: That has 22. But you know what? He doesn’t even deserve one.
Joe: Now.
Greg: Having said that, I think I’m going to go rewatch Quantum of Solace right now.
Joe: Okay, fair.
Greg: All right. Very important question here, Joe. Should Skyfall have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in 2013?
Joe: And what was nominated against that and then. But the answer is probably yes.
Greg: All right. The winner that year was Argo.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Is this movie better than Argo?
Joe: I haven’t seen Argo. Oh. So I’m going to say yes.
Greg: Okay. Argo is, like, one of the most enjoyable movies in history. A movie called No More. I haven’t seen them.
Joe: Or haven’t you there.
Greg: Beasts of the Southern Wild. Did you see that?
Joe: I haven’t. I’m. I’m going to be terrible at this game. Other than if it’s Maverick. Top Gun Maverick.
Greg: Django unchained.
Joe: That’s a great movie. I can’t I. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: Probably deserves the. It should be on this list.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Should this movie. They measure up?
Joe: Maybe. But I know how much care and feeding went into making that movie. But I’m on the fence.
Greg: Yeah, I don’t know. Life of pi ang Lee.
Joe: Yeah. Get that out of here. I saw that the, Broadway show of that. And I was, like, kind of met on it.
Greg: Okay, Lincoln.
Joe: Man, I would take this over Lincoln. Every single time. Like if you said you want to watch Lincoln or you want to watch Skyfall, my Skyfall every single time. Okay, so it sounds.
Greg: Like Skyfall has a few opportunities to join this list here.
Joe: I think it does. Yeah.
Greg: Silver linings playbook.
Joe: Get the David O. Russell out of here.
Greg: Yeah, I think it’s better than that. He’s a jerk. All right. The last movie on this list. Zero dark 30. Kathryn Bigelow, director of House of dynamite.
Joe: Woof. That’s a great movie. I know that this isn’t, like Academy Award winning, but what do I want to watch? Zero dark 30 or Skyfall? I’m picking Skyfall over every single one of these movies. Ten out of ten times you offer me that choice. Yep. And I think it’s better than some of them that are nominated. So I think, yeah, I think it should be nominated.
Joe: That’s what I’m saying.
Greg: Our answer is absolutely 1,000%. Yes. Skyfall should have been nominated for Best Picture. I agree.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: All right. How can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: Okay, so I obviously I kind of do this a little different, but I said let’s make Skyfall fast. Dead reckoning five and death live the dream. So we’re just going to combine Skyfall, Fast Five and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning into one movie. Wow. Like, I don’t even know how it works, but it’s the greatest action movie that’s ever been made.
Joe: Ever.
Greg: The submarine and in The Fate of the furious was actually this festival.
Joe: Exactly. Okay, so you’re on board. I think it’s.
Greg: Being driven by the.
Joe: Entity. Yeah.
Greg: In Brazil and in Brazil.
Joe: And Skyfall is an island off the coast of Brazil. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: Follow up. Important question. What album is this movie, Joe?
Joe: This was actually came to me really quickly. Really? I wanted a band that was big. You know, at one point in the world, at least, was the biggest band in the world. Yeah. And this is their best album. This is U2’s Achtung Baby. To me. What? That’s what I think this album is. I think this is the best of bond.
Joe: And that’s the best of U2.
Greg: Yeah. I mean, just to show how much I like this movie, I thought about that as well.
Joe: Nice.
Greg: And I’m sure that someday there will be enough bond movies where we’ll be able to track that trajectory. Yeah, perfectly that this was the acting, baby, but I felt like the U2 has had enough albums since then that it didn’t fit perfectly for me. But you’re right. I mean, it is the peak acting maybe is the last best record U2 made.
Greg: Yeah. You know, it’s funny. Having said that, I did land on an album that is less meaningful to me than acting. Maybe, but I still feel like is late in a career. Finding a new peak. And that is Beck’s sea change.
Joe: Oh, okay.
Greg: Which is my favorite Beck album, and I have a lot of favorite Beck albums, but it is my peak and it. I think part of it is that it was, produced by Nigel Godrich, who just had a special touch when it came to Beck albums and Radiohead albums and Travis albums, Paul McCartney albums, lots of albums he mixed up by R.E.M. and that’s why that album, you know, just sounds incredible.
Greg: But, yeah, SeaChange is, I think, Beck’s best album amongst a lot of greatness for a lot of reasons. But despite having really, really good albums since then, that still is the high watermark.
Joe: I think that’s a great album.
Greg: Man. Art to maybe an sea change.
Joe:
Greg: Yeah, that is about as good as it gets from the two of.
Joe: Us I think so, yeah. My, my request is can we have Acrobat as the song from Achtung Baby. Of course because that’s maybe my favorite song on that, although it’s hard to say because it’s really something about that song. Yeah. Just every time I hear it, I could just run through a wall like, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like one of those songs.
Joe: When I hear it.
Greg: You become the Kool-Aid man.
Joe: Yeah. And it’s not one of the, like, the hits off of that album, right? Right. Just an amazing song. Yep.
Greg: Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: You know, a lot of times on an album, I’ll listen to it enough. Where my least favorite song at the beginning is my last favorite song.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And it becomes the song that is my longest running favorite song, because it was the last song that I kind of fell in love with. Acrobat was the last song I fell in love with on a lark to maybe.
Joe:
Greg: And I agree, because of that. It is my longest running favorite song on that album.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Well, I mean actually maybe it’s one of my favorite albums of all time. Anyways, so we will talk about actually maybe again someday when a very special movie happens and I don’t know what it will be for me, but, that’s incredible. And Acrobat on our playlist. Incredible. I love it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Up at the first song. Whatever the first song was on SeaChange, I’m forgetting the name of it. Anyways. All right, Joe, it has all come down to this. It’s time. I don’t even think we need to do this, but.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s time for us to rate the movie. Skyfall is an a great bad movie. Good bad movie, bad, bad movie, awful bad movie. I’m not even looking at the scale right now.
Joe: Yeah, it’s a great bad movie.
Greg: It’s a great Bambi.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Anybody that wants to try to say that it’s anything other than that, just stop. This movie is near perfect.
Greg: We’d love to hear all about it on our Instagram. Get Ahold of us. Great bad movies show. Comment on our YouTube version of this episode. Reach out to us. Go to Great Bad movies.com and find our email address there.
Joe: We’re around. We want to hear from you and if you love these movies, like and subscribe and, you know, comment on whatever Apple or Spotify or whatever you’re listening to your podcast on. That’s the best way to make us famous and make more great bad movie podcast shows. Come on. Please, for the love of.
Greg: God, because we’re not going to record these if that doesn’t happen.
Joe: Well, I mean, Greg and I will fight.
Joe: As a as an amalgam of our entire relationship is talking about great bad movies.
Greg: Yeah, 100%. We’re going to do this no matter what.
Joe: Yeah. You know.
Greg: I was just thinking, just to be sensitive to the people listening to this, we should probably say spoilers for the movie Skyfall.
Joe: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Spoilers. Yeah. For sure.
Greg: If you haven’t seen Skyfall, pause the episode here. Go watch it and come back and pick up where you left off.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Yeah. We don’t want to ruin it.
Joe: No, not at all. We’re sorry if we did hundred percent.
Greg: All right, well, Joe.
Joe: We did it. We did it. We nailed it. We had the conversation that needed to happen about Skyfall. I don’t know if anyone should talk about this movie ever again. Quite frankly.
Greg: We have gone to great.
Joe: Lengths.
Greg: To write a love letter to one of the greatest bad movies in history.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: The greatest James Bond movie. Skyfall.
Joe: Yeah. And if you disagree with us, let us know lightly in the comments. Absolutely.
Greg: Oh my gosh. Can I interrupt you?
Joe: Please, please. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Listen, Joe, this has been great. I don’t want to take away from what we’ve been doing, but I just missed the time. And, I think that I might be getting hacked because my screen now has Dame Judi Dench laughing, and it says, think of your sins. I think I better go.
Joe: Oh, yeah? Yeah, you better think of your sins anyway. I’m late for my haircut. I’m getting my hair styled like you. So hopefully I don’t look like, a weird anime character, but I look cool and young. Is my hope. So?
Greg: Sure. Okay, that makes sense. That works for me. Because, as you know, I’m at the casino where I record every episode.
Joe: Obviously in.
Greg: Shanghai. And I don’t know how to say this, but another dude just got eaten by the big dangerous Star Wars lizard that apparently is digital and is right underneath this bridge that I’m standing on. So I think I need to go fill out a comic card. That’s what I’m gonna go.
Joe: Yeah, that that that tracks. Anyway, I’ve got to go have a fight scene where I’m fully in silhouette, so, you know, that makes sense.
Greg: That makes sense. I just plugged in this laptop to the Ethernet, and then I’m recording this episode on and, oh my gosh, now he’s hacking me. I better go.
Joe: Oh, yeah, you better go. Anyway, I have no idea how to hack anything, but if you put whatever you’re working on up on a big screen, I’m sure I can pinpoint the exact moment and place the crack the code on the bad guys. So. Okay, I got you. Yeah. Okay.
Greg: Okay. Well, sounds like you need to go. That works for me, because I don’t know how to say this, but the adorable bear of Paddington just walked in and is handing me a gun that only fits my handprint. And a small little mini radio that looks like Zealander’s phone. So I better go.
Joe: That’s good, that’s good. I’ve got to go and see if my perfectly tailored suits are comfortable for a car chases, long drives, fistfights, long sprints, and falling off bridges. So it’s okay, it’s okay okay.
Greg: Okay, that works for me. This is a little bit weird, but I was just talking to a woman in the casino here, and she said, when I leave, they’re going to kill you. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I feel like I should find out.
Joe: Yeah, that seems that seems dangerous. Anyway, I’ve got to go have a drinking contest, so I’m going to go win that and I’ll be back. Maybe. Okay, okay.
Greg: That works for me. You know, I’m standing in this, high rise where there are a bunch of video projections happening on the sides of these buildings, and I swear, right over in the next glass room, there’s a dude with a huge sniper rifle about to shoot somebody in the next building over. So I should probably get in a fight with him in silhouette and head out.
Joe: Yeah, that’s probably for the best. Be careful. And also, I’ve got to go check on my abandoned island and see if, bad guys haven’t infested it and taken over and started some sort of hacking enterprise. So it’s okay. It’s okay.
Greg: And I just in case people didn’t hear this through the audio recording, you have had a shot glass of scotch on your head. This entire recording.
Joe: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Be careful.
Greg: Okay. Well, I’m in jury duty right now, and somebody just walked in here and shot two fire extinguishers, and now I can’t see anything.
Joe: I better go, yeah, yeah. Be careful. That’s dangerous. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m late for my bacco training. It’s being delivered by a train right now, so I hope everything’s okay with that.
Greg: Is that why you’re here? I’m waiting for my VW beetle to be delivered.
Joe: Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, that’s why I’m here. Okay.
Greg: Well, that works for me. Jealous guy. Tucker, this has been super fun. Thanks for calling it audible to watch Skyfall.
Joe: Absolutely. And I will see you soon. See you soon.