#52. 'No Time to Die'
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The main event is Daniel Craig's swan song No Time to Die, which Sonny reviews at length as essentially "The Dark Bond Rises" — a beat-for-beat riff on The Dark Knight Rises right down to the hero's apparent death and a wistful two-people-reunite coda — and singles out the Cuba sequence with Ana de Armas as the best twenty minutes of any Craig Bond film. Vic grades it a Quadrant B for plot, D for duration, A++ for action/violence, and a (PG-13-curved) A++ for sex/nudity, landing on an overall B+, while JVL enjoyed the ride in the theater but soured on it within a day, complaining that padded shootouts, an underused new 007 (Lashana Lynch), an inert M and Q, and a villain (Safin) whose airtight first-act motive dissolves into mush all reflect a movie stuffed with extraneous characters. That kicks off a broader Craig-era retrospective: Sonny champions Casino Royale as simply a good movie, JVL defends being the lone fan of Quantum of Solace, and Vic surprises the others by loving the widely-derided-by-them Skyfall. Before any of that, the episode opens with its usual long hangout stretch — JVL shows off a giant, meticulously (and then re-)built Lego Aston Martin DB5 with a working ejector seat, which spirals into old college grading-curve war stories (including the Gladiator extra-credit question and Sonny's advisor diagnosing his B-heavy transcript as evidence of "a drinking problem or a love problem"), Vic plugs his new cohosting gig on Mary Catherine Hamm's podcast Getting Hammered, and Sonny recounts an REI showdown over a deliberately cheap sleeping bag for a father-daughter camping trip. They also run the box office (No Time to Die's soft $55.2M opening ahead of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and The Addams Family 2) before closing with JVL's ranking of the top five actors who could have played Bond but never did, topped by Colin Farrell.
From the show notes
JVL buys a car. Vic starts a podcast. Sonny goes to REI. And the gang talks No Time to Die and Daniel Craig's run of films as Bond. Oddly, this is the first Bond movie to come out during the Substandard/Sub-Beacon's run, so there's lots to discuss. And remember: Bonus Squid Game episode coming Monday! It's literally the Rosetta Stone to understanding this show.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00♪♪ James, fate draws us back together. ♪♪ Now your enemy is my enemy. ♪♪
Vic00:00:14His name is Sephin.
Guest00:00:16And what does he want? ♪♪ Revenge. Me. When her secret finds its way out, there'll be the death of you. ♪♪ You can imagine why I've come back to play.
Vic00:00:29hello and welcome to another edition of the sub beacon i'm victor mattis along with jonathan velas and sunny bunch just a reminder the sub beacon is now available through patreon go to subbeacon.com you'll easily find us please subscribe tell your friends and don't forget about the sub beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com you never know with all these various shortages it's like never too early to order your christmas presents of mugs t-shirts headache shirts whatever those are now's the time gentlemen how are we jvl what's going on uh i had a moment
JVL00:01:14had a moment a little show and tell a little show and tell i uh i had the kids by myself this past weekend, which means, of course, a trip to the Lego store. I was going to say, there's all sorts of opportunities for fun things. And so, Daddy got something.
Vic00:01:33Oh! Sorry. Is that the Aston Martin? That is. Hold on, let me
JVL00:01:37pull back for the show and tell. I want to see the scale. I need scale. This is the gigantic James Bond Aston Martin and it is
Vic00:01:49awesome is it tricked out so it's like it's so tricked out it's not just like the exterior model but it's got okay let me let me show you the driver's side door you open the door i see and
JVL00:02:00then it has a secret compartment with the special red phone that goes right to m the uh the the there's a stick shift inside and if you pull the stick shift okay so right now you have headlights machine guns headlights oh machine guns oh yeah yeah is it i can't tell is it single
Vic00:02:22barrel or is it like a gatling thing what's going on really and then in the back there's there's an
JVL00:02:27ejector seat the license plates spinner multiple multiple license plates multiple license plates
Sonny00:02:35because you know use your fancy iphone to take some pictures that we put that was great on my
JVL00:02:40iphone sc and then there is an ejection seat for the passengers oh come on look at this so that pops holds back the the roof folds back and then yeah like and literally this if i were to actually
Vic00:02:56it's gonna fly everywhere so just get ready okay uh-huh are you ready all right this is like real
JVL00:03:01with pieces all stuck together so real with pieces hold on yeah this is really exciting for the show hold on uh-huh and the listeners are loving this you know what if we had facebook live with hannah this thing would kill okay ready uh-huh okay uh for our listeners uh the seat came out really like 12 inches in the air are there pigs
Vic00:03:25in the seat because who could you sit on there like the actual figures are too small now for
JVL00:03:30that yes this is larger than minifig scale uh larger than me it's fantastic it's somebody it is fantastic so i was very primed for james bond and it was awesome one problem one problem i discovered as i was on step 258 that i had made a slight mistake somewhere early in the build how early step 52 and this mistake was a misalignment of a technical piece way down to the guts of it, which allowed the ejector seat to fly up like this. Now I had two choices. I could say, how many times in my entire life am I going to make the ejector seat fly up? Let's just finish this build and move on with my life. But then I would always know that down to the guts, there was a thing which wasn't put into the technique piece the right way so what i could do is be an insane person and take it apart and go back to step 52
Vic00:04:34if if only the some listener who worked at bentley was listening to this episode they they'd invite you to become one of their workers i will let you decide by hand which which course of action i
Sonny00:04:47chose uh the latter well you obviously fixed it since the the ejector seat works i mean you spoiled this by showing us the ejector seat.
Vic00:04:55I think it's very cool. How long did it take?
Sonny00:05:00What's even the point of having the Lego James Bond car if the ejector seat doesn't work?
JVL00:05:06Right. Well, there you go. Honestly, even if you told me I was never allowed to use it, if you told me, look, if you use it, the dude with the square face is going to come over and shoot you in the head. Then, the squid game, the square mask guy. uh then i would still say i'd say i have to fix it because i can't know that it's broken inside yeah you know what you know it in your heart yeah there you go that's a congratulations how long did it take i could say you know i mean when you're when you're alone with four children broken inside when you're alone with four children the hours just fly by just one day so it uh you know i
Vic00:05:44felt like it took 10 minutes uh and it's like wheels are they like that rubbery oh yeah and
JVL00:05:49they're huge huge big oh and the uh the the they've got the special you look at the way you see you know the little the the these things come out oh yes spikes on the hubcap hubcap spikes
Vic00:06:01because red tires yes spy hunter style i was i would say there's only a few cars that could do that the spy hunter car the aston martin and the one from greece yeah that uh it's got there's
JVL00:06:12there's i only showed you like half the stuff there's so much more what else chariot from
Vic00:06:16gladiator yeah which it split ironically split the woman who was actually driving it originally
Sonny00:06:21did you guys see that they uh that ridley scott said that a gladiator 2
Vic00:06:26yes in the works so the sequel to gladiator i saw briefly this sunny and i i thought well we did see the kid uh in uh the uh that's true in glass glass glass yes so he could be he could
Sonny00:06:43be back no i uh i would assume i mean look there's a lot of like roman history you can play with there's a lot of like roman empire stuff that you can you can do so i would assume it's not
Vic00:06:54strictly speaking a like the continued adventures of maximus i assume it's something else he's dead in joaquin phoenix so you know you'd have to replace it and it would be oh you know what it would be it would be an explanation of how come the republic did not last because as you know they rewrote history they they wrecked the roman empire i told you i told you i must have told you
Sonny00:07:18guys this story at some point in the 700 years we've been doing this show but the uh but the the uh when i was in when i was in college i had a uh my favorite professor uh professor john london ted london um john e london ted london uh he oh is that uh is that the occasional standard contributor jay very occasional very occasional standard uh contributor j.e london yes um and reader of the the free beacon i don't i don't think he listens to the sub beacon uh but he is a he is a reader of the free beacon he would send me complaints when the stories wouldn't load on his computer which is understandable understandable understandable uh but uh when when i was when i was in his in he had like a roman history class and there was a in one of the one of the uh exams There was like a half point extra credit question that was like, name five things that were wrong with Gladiator. And like and like and like I like I listed like 10, the last of them being they restored the Republic in like all caps.
JVL00:08:23Yes. You know, you were like, so you were sunny even then. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is a college course where there is extra credit.
Sonny00:08:33this is we've definitely told this story at the university of virginia jvl you've had this exact
JVL00:08:38reaction did you did you fill it out with crayons i don't remember this did you have to print just your first name on the top of the page when you again again it was it was it was like one half of
Sonny00:08:51one point it was not uh it was not like a bump your bump your grade up they didn't have that
JVL00:08:55at hopkins they didn't have like bonus questions what was that class curved to sunny uh nope there
Sonny00:09:02was no curve we didn't we don't curve things in the political sciences it's just you get the grade you get what how would you know how would you i don't even know how that would work on you just you're just writing essays it's very simple answering questions you grade every essay with
JVL00:09:17a numero a number and then you plot those numbers in a distribution and 70 of them are c's 5% of them are A's 10% are B's and then 30% fail that's how grades are given out in college at the university
Sonny00:09:35that is not how grades are given out in college at any university anymore there's no class there's no school in this nation where 70% of kids are getting C's in their classes
JVL00:09:46I can't believe that that's true
Sonny00:09:48I mean I assume there is probably a school somewhere but you do understand that like everybody graduates from harvard with like a 3.9 right well right yeah
JVL00:09:59as they should because they got into harvard except for harvey mansfield's class right that was the story but he went and gave two grades remember so he finally he finally curve a cave to the curve and gave people two grades so you give them the real grade and then you give them his like what i actually think about you grade and so like everybody get an a and then he'd tell you actually you suck you have you are c minus i remember you have an anger transcript but you're
Vic00:10:23c minus i remember uh taking a uh entry course uh at georgetown was western civilization with professor dunkley and it's the course where everybody showed i mean it's the course that everyone has to take and you fill up an auditorium and it's packed you know so everybody's there and there was a curve for that obviously because there's a million students there and the curve was you know i mean the the bulk of students are going to get i think a b in western civ and i remember not being familiar with this at the time and i poured almost all of my resources because i loved history in high school i did great in history and i poured all of my resources and energy and time which was not a lot considering you know my social schedule into western civ and at the end and and at the expense of a lot of other courses like in microeconomics which i did not do well in and at the shocked and shocked and at the end i still got a B. No matter how hard I worked, I remember still getting that B. And I remember years later talking to Kate about it because she was in the same class and I said, wasn't that ridiculous because of the huge curve? Yeah, because I got a B. What do you get? She goes, oh no, I got an A. Victorino? Yes, JVL.
JVL00:11:31The things I had to do to get to a B. To get to a B, yeah. I don't tell. I can't even.
Sonny00:11:42It was like Squid Game. Sacrifices.
JVL00:11:43I mean, it was, you know, like it was the tug of war. And the things I had to do just to get – and I didn't often get to the Bs. The Bs were my giant triumphs when I would get to the B minus.
Vic00:11:56You're like Sun Wu in the Marvels. You're just going to outsmart the poor Pakistani guy.
Sonny00:12:01I got a report card. I got a semester of scores that were almost entirely Bs and B pluses one year. And my advisor, one Professor Linden, looked at me and he said, You know, you're in history and poli-sci, those are your majors, and you've got some basic requirements here, but the only time somebody should have this many Bs on their report card, or whatever it was called, your fucking transcript, the only time somebody should have this many Bs on their transcript is if they have a drinking problem or a love problem. Which do you have? And I was like, well, both. You're two for two there, Professor Linden. So, no, it's mostly drinking, though. He's like, yeah, that makes sense.
JVL00:12:53Nick, tell us about your new podcast.
Vic00:12:55So, yes, our friend, our good friend Mary Catherine Hamm has a new podcast called Getting Hammered. And she was asked about if she wanted somebody to sort of be her, you know, sort of co-host. And she thought of me. Or at least she claims that I was the first one she turned to. So I was very honored to be asked for that. And we started it. It has very much of a morning vibe to it, I would say. Like if that's like a morning show.
Sonny00:13:32Morning zoo vibe.
Vic00:13:32Morning zoo, morning show. I mean, it's light news. versus like Cinemax After Dark, which is like this show. So, I mean, for me, if she's Howard Stern, then I'm Robin Quivers. That's the way I think about it. Or if she's, let's see here, if she's Rush Limbaugh, Bo Snirdley, you know. But no, the thing that I thought about most for me personally was, do you remember John Melendez? Do you remember John Melendez? Stuttering John. Yes, Stuttering John. And do you remember suddenly he appeared on The Tonight Show as Jay Leno as the announcer? and it was an entirely different person like personality he looked i remember forgetting that that was the same person at the time because he was so he's just a family friendly all smiles everything's great and then on howard sturt it's just as raw as you can imagine so that's how i
Sonny00:14:20feel was he banned from howard stern after that was he ever allowed back on the show you mean after he did jay leno after he did that because i remember there being some i remember there being some controversy there i remember there i couldn't i wasn't 100 sure if it was a bit at the time if if Howard Stern was, like, fake angry or if he was actually angry. But, like, I remember Howard Stern, like, being like, you can never return to my hallowed halls. Right, right.
Vic00:14:48We've got somebody who I can't imagine. I don't know. I mean, now Howard Stern is a different person also.
Sonny00:14:52It was not like if Vic did better and got a show with Mary Catherine Hamm, star of The View and other programs, that JBL and I would be like, good job, man. Congrats. We're very excited for you. So I hope you have a great career ahead of you. Paul Crookston will do a very good job filling in for you.
Vic00:15:10He would.
Sonny00:15:11After you're dead. You're dead to us. Right.
JVL00:15:14Hold on. So, Victor, can you fill in some of the blanks here for me? Sure. What is the show about? I thought it was a drinking show. Is it a news show? No, no, no.
Vic00:15:22It's just a play on we're getting hammered. She was actually concerned that people would have a different connotation of getting hammered. The way I always giggle at the phrase, you know, getting my cavity filled. You know, I mean, but I said, no, no, no. strictly people will think it's drinking, it's drinking themed, whatever, but, you know, I said
JVL00:15:38it's just a lightweight. It's a show called Getting Hammered with you on it. I know, so people
Vic00:15:42think that, so I may have to drink on the show
Sonny00:15:44just to live up to that. It's not like the show is called Hammering Away. See, now that I would be like, okay, I could see a double entendre there.
Vic00:15:52Oh yeah, Hammering Away. But Getting Hammered
Sonny00:15:54is very clearly a drinking reverence.
Vic00:15:56Yeah, so there's like a martini on the thing there, and it's sort of a way to either at the end of your day, you want to take the edge off listen to some of mary catherine's thoughts on the news and funny pop cultural stories and of course how we're doing etc no movies no tv nothing like that and uh also or you know a way to start your day with something light and easy again so i mean if you think of our is it an afternoon show or a morning show those are two different shows you can tune in anytime sonny
Sonny00:16:23it goes up no but i'm saying are you talking are you talking about so so you tape it at night and
Vic00:16:28it goes up in the morning no no no so we tape it on tuesdays and thursdays at 10 a.m and it goes up the next morning on wednesdays and fridays okay wednesday a wednesday and friday friday show
JVL00:16:40tape in the morning yeah but there's no drinking well you're taping it at night yes we could but
Vic00:16:47we're well it's 10 a.m no you're taping in the morning that's a bit much and for her she's on the verge of having a baby so this is this is what i was gonna say i mean victorino you've got to be drinking for two i i do i do she made a joke about like possibly like having the contractions and then giving birth in the office but that's fine we got paper towels and sunny remembers uh we got those those plastic knives from staples those are good and bottled water i think it's just in case you have to cut her open yeah you know i mean the umbilical cord i could do a c-section that's true
Sonny00:17:18just in case you gotta you gotta get in there she's very pregnant but you know what hands in
Vic00:17:22She feels like we've got at least six or eight episodes in before this happens. But she just wanted to get it out there because, as you know, that's how Mary Catherine is. And just see what happens and see what the reaction is like. So people like sort of, you know, feeling good, I think, assuming that, you know, sort of like share similar thoughts as she does and as I have, then, you know, that's the kind of thing. If you find it upsetting, don't listen to it. But, you know, I love her, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Is that code for something? No, just like we're talking about news, and I rarely talk about news. But, you know, it's one of those things. If you want to find out what I think. You don't want to know. The thing is, you really don't want to know what I think about these things. So that's that. Other than that, other than, oh, Sonny, did you have anything? I'm sorry. Other than.
Sonny00:18:15You skipped right over me. I know.
Vic00:18:17We totally, JVL got all upset.
Sonny00:18:18Nobody ever wants to talk to me.
Vic00:18:20got all upset about the grading system at uva yeah we've heard enough we've heard enough is there anything else you probably have something else i went i went to rei today oh yeah i knew that would i knew that would get jbl back a store that i drive by just went from six to midnight
Sonny00:18:34over there what'd you get there big guy so i uh so my lovely daughter uh is going on a she's going on a camping trip it's it's dads and daughters it's uh dads and daughters camping at the ymca campground in like uh it's like two hours north of here i have to camp this is so this is why i went to rei it's because i had to i had to buy a sleeping bag did you know i don't own a sleep well luckily it's it's like in cabins there's no there's no tents or anything like that but i did have to buy a sleeping bag because they have like they have like bunks but they're not really you know i can't believe you did this without calling me first so i went i went i looked at i pulled up the rei app and i was like sleeping bags okay i'm gonna look at the sleeping bags and i'm looking at these sleeping bags my eyes are getting bigger and bigger and i'm like i'm gonna use this once a year maybe in my life and i went to the tab and i said sort by lowest price that's all that's exact
Vic00:19:39so i i sorted by lowest price it's like thin as a sheet basically you're sleeping on a sheet
Sonny00:19:45sorted by lowest price in here let me uh let me just pull up what i um i uh i got here i'm trying
JVL00:19:53is it a coleman you got yourself a coleman didn't you why not at that point just go to costco no i got a costco and get whatever the 30 sleeping bag at costco i got i got a kelty
Sonny00:20:03a kelty katina what is the temperature rating on it 30 30 degrees 30 degrees or negative one celsius 30 degrees or negative one celsius so here's here's what i didn't want i didn't want one of those like ridiculous mummy ones that are like shaped to your body and you like your head like sticks up at the top i just wanted like a normal sleeping bag that's weird i wanted a rectangle sleeping bag so this one's rated for for 30 degrees i mean it's it's which means 40 degrees you know that's gonna be it's gonna be in the 50s i'm not too worried about it and again we're indoors we're indoors we're not intense it's like they're like put the sleeping bag on whatever bed structure they have inside a cabin exactly so anyway i get this i get this i go to the store i get the thing that i saw on my phone that they said they had and i take it to the the front and she's like are you an rei member and i'm like no i'm not an rei i mean well you should sign up it's only 20 hours i was like i'd rather die and she's like oh okay so she's she she scans my thing she scans it and she says okay that's going to be 126 dollars and i'm like what i want the 50 one of these and she's like no sir this is the 126 dollar one and i was like take it back and i walked away from the counter i walked away from the counter and i went back to i went back to the thing and i started looking at i looked at my phone again i was like oh wait that's the that's the kelty galaxy something rated for negative 5 000 degrees i don't want that one I want the cheap one. I want the Kelty Katina or whatever it is. And I just start throwing things out of the bin. I'm like, no, where's the correct one? And I found it. There was one left. And I took it back to the front. And I was like, here you go. And she said, oh, you found the cheap one. I said, yes. Yes, I did. And that was my adventure at REI today. That was my adventure at REI.
JVL00:21:51Did you get a sleeping pad?
Sonny00:21:54No, I don't need one of those.
JVL00:21:56Are you sure?
Vic00:21:57i mean it's just it's just like is a sleeping pad like underneath you or is it like a pillow thing
Sonny00:22:02what are we talking about they have they they have they have mattresses at this thing but they're supposedly not super comfortable so it's like whatever it's fine it's gonna be it's gonna be i'm gonna bring like six body pillows so i can just roll around on top of them and like whichever way i need to be to be more comfortable that's how i'm gonna do it just go get uh just go get a sleeping pad absolutely i'm never setting foot back in that fucking rei i'm never gonna do it They tried to screw me. They tried to screw... They put the $120 sleeping bag in the $50 cubicle and they just assumed I would go with it and usually they would be right because I am a lazy man. I'm a lazy, lazy man. But this time I said no. I said no, REI. I am not falling for your games. I'm going to get the cheap one. Getting the cheap one and I got the cheap one and I left. I'll let you guys know how comfortable it is.
JVL00:22:55If you freeze to death, You will deserve it.
Sonny00:22:58Well, I'm not going to freeze to death because, again, it's going to be like 50 degrees this whole weekend. Like, it's not going to be cold. You know what?
JVL00:23:05Maybe you'll get one of those Houston weather snaps where it's like, whoa!
Sonny00:23:11If I freeze to death, if I get the sweet oblivion of death on this trip, it'll be worth it. It'll have been worth my $50 to have received the sweet, merciful release into the cold, gray ether.
Vic00:23:26Sonny, I can't wait for you camping. It's going to be amazing. Sonny, just remember, it's no time to die. But right now, sorry, speaking of which, over the weekend, I had a different one, but we're now at 23 minutes, so forget about my transition. Don't eat any of the plants. Some of them are poisonous. Speaking of which, over the weekend, No Time to Die shot its way to the top of the box office with $55.2 million. Soft. Followed by Venom, Let There Be Carnage, with $31.8 million. And in third place, The Addams Family 2, again, with $10.1 million. $10.1 million. Seriously. Box office thoughts?
Sonny00:24:10No Time to Die is, look, there are a couple different ways to spin that number. Yeah. And the way that all of the industry trade magazines are spinning it is, look, James Bond movies, the audience skews older, older audiences don't come to the opening weekend. This is the fourth best Bond opening of all time. How can you say that's a bad number? 55.2 million, if it does a multiple of four, that gets it to 220, and that's fine for the pandemic. All of those things are true-ish, and, like, the multiple, if the multiple is a four, if it does four times the opening weekend, that is not a huge downturn. The other big thing is that the international box office on this is very good. It's already over 300 million worldwide, which is a strong number for this movie. It doesn't open in China until not this weekend, but next weekend.
Vic00:25:05Well, that's a strong number not counting China, you're sure.
Sonny00:25:07So, I mean, look, there are like positives to this, but $55.2 million is a very soft opening. Yes, it's the fourth highest opening for a Bond movie ever, but it is out of the last four Bond movies that have opened, this is the worst. Of Daniel Craig's. That's interesting. Of the Daniel Craig's. So, I mean, it did better than Casino Royale, but Casino Royale had been hampered by the last couple of... peers Brosnan ones that were not very good um so you know people were kind of like uh do we want to do you know I don't know if we want to do more bonds um but the yeah this is just just a soft number and like the one one again one way to you can just look at the softness by how the number tracked down over the weekend you know the initial the initial estimates the the projections and predictions were like between 60 and 60, 65. The initial number comes in on Friday. It's about 60. And then by Sunday evening, the actual is 55.2. I mean, it just tracked down all weekend. And this is unlike Venom, which tracked up all weekend, which tracked from a $60 million opening to an $80 million opening to a $90 million opening. This is the inverse. That went up. This was the inverse. And people weren't super excited about it. Again, lots of different ways you could spin this. It's a movie that's almost three hours long. with more than three hours long with previews and stuff, right? So there are fewer showtimes. It's a series that skews older. Older audiences don't show up opening weekend. It's like I can spin this several different ways, but the bottom line is 55.2 is soft. It's soft. Now, we'll see how it holds. We'll see how it holds. It's the only movie of this sort that is exclusive to theaters for the next month till Eternals drops. So maybe it'll hold pretty well. Till the what drops? The Eternals! The MCUs! The MCUs Eternals!
Vic00:27:04I thought you said the Turtles.
Sonny00:27:06The MCUs Eternals featuring characters like Kingo. Kumail Nanjiani, his character's name is Kingo.
Vic00:27:17I will say, you know, whereas there are a number of these other, like Shang-Chi and the DC Marvel, The DC Comics movies that I'd seen recently, like Suicide Squad, that I'm not familiar with any of them. I vaguely recall an Eternals comic book. Like when you go through comic books at a store, you would come across them. Am I right or no?
Sonny00:27:41Yeah, there was a big Jack Kirby. This is a Jack Kirby title. It was a thing about the eyes being white.
Vic00:27:47I remember the eyes being white.
Sonny00:27:50I was not an Eternals reader, JBL. Were you?
JVL00:27:53No. Everything Jack Kirby did without Stan Lee was trash.
Sonny00:27:58And everything Stan Lee did without Jack Kirby was trash. That's true. It's pretty impressive.
JVL00:28:01Spider-Man was without Jack Kirby.
Sonny00:28:03Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Everything that Stan Lee did after, like, 1968 was trash.
JVL00:28:10Yeah, probably. That's closer to the truth. Although he's still riding her. This is, whatever. We don't need to get into Jack Kirby stuff. We're going along. We have a lot of Bond talk to do.
Vic00:28:18Okay. So, yes, that's right. This week we are talking about the number one movie, No Time to Die, starring Daniel Craig. Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:28:28No Time to Die, the fifth and final adventure in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies, could have been retitled The James Bond Rises.
JVL00:28:41Oh, my God. I have that written in my notes. But I have it written as The Dark Bond Rises.
Sonny00:28:49The Dark Bond Rises, yeah.
JVL00:28:50Because he is the Dark Bond.
Sonny00:28:52It is. The Dark Bond Rises. That's better. That's better. So this picks up right where Spectre left off. James Bond is off on What Amounts to a Honeymoon with Madeline, played by the lovely Lea Seydoux.
JVL00:29:07Yeah, Victorino, are you familiar with her work?
Sonny00:29:10Parts of it.
Vic00:29:12She was in a French movie. She was in a French movie. A French comic book movie. Yeah, a French comic book movie. Based on a graphic novel. Something about warm colors. I forget.
Sonny00:29:22that's anyway yes movies about 15 minutes long go ahead so he it was a short it was a short feature short for it yeah dominated the foreign short category at the oscars on daily motion uh so uh picks up picks up right where specter left off i can't do on the other show by the way but go ahead stuff this yeah you probably probably well i don't know i bet mary catherine would be would
Vic00:29:46be we actually did a couple of like where we had to stop the tape because i would say you know something about like like let's take it from the from the back end or something like that and i
Sonny00:29:55couldn't resist you know stuff like that okay please continue sorry uh to to cement his relationship with madeline he has to go and say goodbye to uh eva green's character uh what's her name vesper vesper lind um uh and as he's doing this he gets blown up who was only 26 in casino royale evidently yeah that's actually it's not far or maybe 25 and casino royale yeah she's she's she's like 40 what she's like 42 now something like that that seems about right um uh and gets blown up by specter they leave a calling card and did did madeline set him up who knows but he says goodbye to her he kicks her to the curb uh after after fleeing from the the bad guys inspector and then disappears for five years to a tropical island, which is kind of a motif with these James Bond movies. He does this a lot, where Daniel Craig will just disappear to an island for five years and then show up again. He's like, hey, all right, I'm back. I'm back in the game. But when he comes back this time, there's a new Bond, or a new 007. Lashana Lynch has taken over his number at MI6 and is trying to track down a terrible poison that has been stolen uh by by some russian scientists and uh a voice uh we learn is saffin we'll talk about him in a minute marat saffin what i kept i kept no i kept i kept i kept like thinking this in my head oh it's marat saffin i like totally not people who don't watch tennis don't don't but he is uh he's a famous tennis player and the only with the very only person in the entire very bad temper could
JVL00:31:32actually become a Bond villain.
Sonny00:31:34He could very easily. So anyway, the action moves to Cuba, and there's a delightful set piece with
JVL00:31:42Anna de Armas. The highlight
Sonny00:31:44of the entire movie is the 20 minutes that this movie spends in Cuba with Anna de Armas and Daniel Craig.
Vic00:31:52They're pitched close. What is going on over there?
Sonny00:31:54It is just, she brings an exuberance to the role. She brings a wide-eyed innocence to the role. She brings a fantastic
JVL00:32:02cocktail
Sonny00:32:05dress, and she can shoot a machine gun with the best of them. I love it. Anna D'Armas is the number, the peak of the mountain right now. Just the absolute number one. I just
JVL00:32:20want to say that that dress is the best costume choice I have seen in a movie. Yes. Since the end, period. Cinderella remake where they put the girl from the girl from Downton Abbey who you love Lily James in this blue dress that was almost like a the dress itself was almost like a special effect the Anadarmus cocktail dress was a special effect special effect on me
Sonny00:32:50so after that after that we learn in the midst of all this that Safin and his Russian scientist friend have essentially created a disease with nanobots that will only attack people if they have the right DNA coded into the disease. So blah, blah, blah. Long story short, Safin wipes out Spectre and for the rest of the movie, James Bond is trying to track down Safin and this spy to reclaim this terrible disease. In the midst of all this, He reunites with Madeline. They go off. We find out that James Bond has had a kid, and he has to go to a poison island.
JVL00:33:40Do we find out that he has had a kid?
Sonny00:33:43Yeah, that's definitely his kid. So we then go to a poison island. It's just a poison island. It's an island of poisons. And James Bond gets blown up by missiles to save the world.
Vic00:33:55But also, save his daughter. Spoiler alert.
Sonny00:33:59Save his daughter. Save his daughter's life because he's been infected by the disease. So I've told you the whole movie. And as I said, this is almost beat for beat, The Dark Knight Rises. I mean, it is almost the exact same movie.
Vic00:34:15The only thing different would be if Q were at a cafe sometime later and then he sees them there.
Sonny00:34:22So this is the big difference, is that whereas The Dark Knight Rises cops out at the end by having that shot of Alfred at the cafe, and he sees, there's an argument to be made that this is just Alfred seeing what he wants to see, except that doesn't track, because in a previous scene, you see Lucius Fox talking about how somebody has fixed the autopilot.
JVL00:34:52it but that that scene itself doesn't track because earlier when batman is flying out to the
Sonny00:34:58bay you see batman in the cockpit the the cockpit as it's going out to the bay so there's like a whole series of like bullshit cop-outs that like one on top of the like there are things that you could take out of this to make it all make sense but with all of it in there it doesn't make sense this leaves no doubt there is no doubt about what happens right to james bond in this movie incinerated by Merv missiles just raining down on him. He was vaporized like the end of Rogue One. Vaporized.
JVL00:35:27And then
Sonny00:35:28M and Moneypenny get together
JVL00:35:31and they read a passage from the Tale of Two Cities. It's not
Sonny00:35:37from the Tale of Two Cities, but yes.
JVL00:35:39Honestly, I literally I sat there in the theater, literally, and at that moment when they started talking, I thought to myself, is he going to say it's a far, far better thing? is that are they really gonna rip it off that hard it uh but here's the thing it worked all
Sonny00:35:57of this worked for me at the end of so yeah and you're not a bond guy the first the first time the first time i watched the dark knight rises when when it like looks like uh when it looks like bruce wayne has died i tear i teared up a little bit in the theaters i was like this is a
JVL00:36:13heroic sacrifice this is like this is the thing that all men should aspire to makes me i was like i was and same thing here same thing here when when james bond is destroyed while while he's
Sonny00:36:27got the little he's got his daughter's little bunny looped through his belt oh niagara falls
Vic00:36:35frankie angel it dark night rises was it when uh michael caine uh alfred breaks down this is i'm I failed you. Is that what it got to you?
Sonny00:36:48That is one of the moments that got to me. At the end of that movie.
Vic00:36:54So many revelations on this episode.
Sonny00:36:56Yeah.
Vic00:36:57Wow.
Sonny00:36:58So anyway, that's No Time to Die and also The Dark Knight Rises.
Vic00:37:03We got a little bonus review there of that movie.
JVL00:37:07Victorino, how many times did you get up to go to the restroom
Vic00:37:11during this usually that that that you know that affects the grading you know it's like a huge uh demerit if i have to go use the bathroom my over under was going to be one and a half oh that's that's good that's good it it almost was two but it was one it was one and it was so i i held out until he finally reunites with madeline at the at the house and meets the daughter uh yes and me sorry so i figured while he's you know on his way there i can quickly head out but it happened to be a long um stream if you will i mean i could have timed that one it was like a minute and a half i'm like all right already what did i drink you know so i mean this thing's going on it feels forever and then you know and and then you rush back and then i just sat in the back in one of the back seats i didn't want to have to interrupt all the people in the middle aisle as it were so i just sat in the back and watched the rest of the movie there um so uh yes so the answer was one could have been two but it was one uh so at the end of the movie did you stop at the restroom on
JVL00:38:13the way out that doesn't count but no no no i did it i did it i waited so that's the one and a half
Vic00:38:17yeah oh yeah that would have been the one and a half but no no no no i i held it was just a good old-fashioned one literally until i got i got i got home so um i i gave the plot a uh a b you know it's a little hard to follow but you know it's not the worst plot i want to hear this from vick
Sonny00:38:36i want to hear this from vick i was going to ask jbl this but i actually want to hear this from vick vick explain to me why marat saffin wants i don't know that's the people sunny i literally
Vic00:38:46have it in the world i literally have it under questions okay the question was why were all those specter agents killed okay that was my question and then the next one is what is that
Sonny00:38:56makes sense that makes that makes sense the spec killing the specter agents marat marat saffin And coming off the floor of Wimbledon and being like, all right, I want to kill all these dickheads who have messed up my life. I get that. But then he's like, I want to kill another billion people who didn't cheer for me hard enough in the majors. Oh, there's that. I'm like, all right, well, I don't know.
Vic00:39:14Okay, there's that. But anyway, we'll get to that in a second. So that was my plot. I'll tell you, the F plot for a James Bond movie was The Living Daylights. That got a big fat F. Do you remember that one? There was a scene where they were in Afghanistan for some reason.
JVL00:39:29Snowboarded on a cello.
Vic00:39:30Yes. oh no that uh that is yes it's the same way see it's the same one and then there was also morocco and then there was uh joe don baker at the end it was it was so insane okay so uh duration unfortunately gets a d because of the you know again that's a long one i came back i'm like what is freddie mercury doing here you know um i'm just kidding uh action violence though i give it a special a plus plus i thought it was a lot of fun action but it's not a lot of blood and i think that's a pg-13 i mean it was not after watching squid game i'm you know when there's like the mom gets machine gunned i'm like i didn't see any blood um sex nudity graded speaking of a curve i graded it on the pg-13 curve because it's pg-13 i gets an a plus plus i am in love i am in love thank you jvl a plus plus for sex nudity for pg-13 i am in 2021 that anna de armas by that scale the
JVL00:40:26little mermaid as a g movie is an a plus plus plus because of those shells we're not we're not am i right victorino with the placement of the shells we're not talking about that movie today
Vic00:40:37jvl um but the uh the other hot thing there were so many hot things but yeah that's right bonus uh the the other hot things about the anna de armas fight sequence with james bond in um tuba is first of all the eagerness she's so bubbly right because she's like you know she's
JVL00:40:56fresh she's not jaded yet by i've killed so many people three weeks of training weeks of training
Vic00:41:01right so she's she's so by and and and there's no catch to it it's not like oh and secretly ah not like the guy not like um the billy magnuson's character who is the the state department guy mormon book of mormon yes so uh no not at all so you what you see is what you get with her and the other great thing is there what i loved what turned me on the most was they shoot shoot shoot they meet up they take a drink shoot shoot shoot take a shot ah i loved it you know they were drinking there it was like this is who you want to hang out with that whole sequence is dynamite
Sonny00:41:35and i'm like it is it's the thing that is the closest in the whole five like daniel craig movie set it's the thing that is closest to like old bond i think the thing that just and i i am not i'm not a huge fan of old bond i like this modern i like dark knight bond yeah uh myself but like i i that whole sequence was just really well it was just it was just fabulous great so beginning
Vic00:42:00to end so overall i i give it a b plus uh i have other thoughts but jvl what do you think you know
JVL00:42:07i did you like it as much as sunny and i did i like it for bond movie you know it's by the standards of bond movies it's good uh it's probably my second or third favorite of the daniel craig bonds um obviously casino royale like casino royale definitely casino royale is far you know i mean casino royale is good as a movie not just good for a bond movie uh and i like i'm the weirdo who likes quantum of solace i love sorry i just do skyfall is like the problem the problem with
Sonny00:42:38Quantum of Solace is that it's like a 100-minute epilogue to Casino Royale. But Casino Royale already had like a 20-minute epilogue at the end of it. It's, it's, it just feels totally extraneous.
JVL00:42:50But here's the thing. So I liked this in the theater and I was there for the ride in the theater. But the minute I got out, not really the minute, the day after seeing it, I'd say 24 hours later, there were just things about it that weren't as good as they should have been. And And the length, it isn't just that it's a long movie, it's a padded movie. We get probably 25 minutes of Daniel Craig running around on the Poison Islands just shooting faceless henchmen in which no plot points are being achieved. The story is not being moved forward. And because he's just shooting nameless, I mean, he might as well be Duke shooting different cobra soldiers because for all the the peril that he is in and so there are just no stakes to it and it so it's just wasted time and it goes on for forever forever and ever and ever and ever and he goes around this corner and shoots five guys then he goes around that corner and shoots somebody throws a grenade he throws a grenade back it just that bugged me a little bit i was really bothered by the new 007 because they bring the shauna lynch so i i liked her i like the idea of a new 007 except that the story treats her as a second class agent in that she can't do anything right on her own so the thing so she goes to uh to cuba competing with bond to get the russian scientist bond finds the scientist first she gets the she snatches the russian scientist from bond but then bond snatches him back they get once they get together uh and our teammates back working for mi6 again she is tasked with finding the the rogue fake cia agent and she can't do that without his help he's the one who has to tell her to do it uh then in the showdown to get the guy she's not even there he kills the rogue ash you know the book of mormon guy he has to kill him because she fails at her mission to find him and kill him and then when they get to the island together they're together for about 45 seconds and then she is like shunted off to the side and so there is no point does she feel like the character just feels at that point don't have the character right i mean if and this happens again and again in the movie with everybody else around bond and it's the first bond movie i can think of where his supporting cast no has no answers and nothing to give m has nothing uh m does nothing but make mistakes and not know what to do q doesn't really do anything you know q doesn't find anything he he unlocks a hard drive in five seconds and then he can't get through on the radio for the last 45 minutes he just sits there i can't i can't reach him i can't reach him and so it's it's weird in the movie that nobody has any answers except for bond himself and that's i i don't know i found it almost distracting after the fact because it means that none of the other characters are being paid off and so why have them does that make sense i didn't notice it at all okay i'm not not shocked i mean i enjoyed the
Sonny00:46:22action so i would i there are two different there are two different interpretations here one could say that of course they i mean it's not like they can do it for him james bond has to do it it is a james bond movie after all right like q does the things he is supposed to do he provides little technological tricks and that sort of thing um m sets him on the mission but cannot do the mission for him um and indeed this leads me to like the second interpretation here which is that like james bond and my my my co-host alissa on across the movie aisle made this argument i think relatively persuasively but like this this represents the kind of end of empire james bond that mi6 is exhausted and fairly useless at this point and that james bond ends up paying the ultimate price for all of their failures i mean what is what is the actual plot of this movie the actual plot of this movie is that the brits created a horrible disease that if it were to get into the wrong hands or out into the real world would kill billions and in order to solve the problem that mi6 has itself created and that m specifically has created james bond has to die james bond the ultimate super soldier the ultimate uh you know apparatchik the ultimate weapon of of her majesty's secret service is the one who at the end of the day ends up paying the price for all of the institutional failures that have that have preceded him yeah i could buy that uh that said
JVL00:47:58i am bothered by what turned out to be extraneous characters again all in service of length right this is the that if you don't need characters then don't have them in it and so we we don't need all these characters except uh as like name checks and for the new the new 007 character movie would have been better off without that character if the character isn't provided interesting interesting things to do that advance the story in some way and i don't think new 007 does that and the other thing you know the marat saffin uh thing i the motives of bond villains are almost always obscure and stupid what bothered me so much about his second half motives is that his first half motives are so clearly defined and understandable yeah from the very beginning of movie perfect yes and and so the again the jarring of you know that first half they were like hey i get this i understand why he wants to kill there has gone on this elaborate thing to kill these
Sonny00:49:04people that's pretty great he's the flip side of the bond coin he is doing everything that bond would do if he had the you know if he was off the leash and so the this again that that second half
JVL00:49:18then just sort of falls apart for me story-wise because there's no explanation there's no x
Sonny00:49:25there's no explanation and like a part of me there's there's a very vain part of me uh do you remember when the the stories about the when people first started talking about no time to die and the villain they said he was he was an insane environmentalist that he wanted to depopulate the earth there's no original yeah there's a very vain part of me that thinks that at some point Someone in the production was like, oh, shit, somebody has highlighted that all of these villains are environmentalists and keep talking about how they make great villains and, like, we can't have that here, so we're just going to take it away. We're just going to eliminate his entire reason for doing what he's doing.
Vic00:50:04He does give a different explanation in the second half, which is, what does he say about people wanting to be controlled, right? He talks about that. Yeah, it's all a mishmash, which is new, which is new because it has nothing to do with avenging his family.
JVL00:50:16yeah it's all it's all a mishmash and anyway so that stuff bothered me after the fact i was i was there for the ride it's first bond i can really remember being struck by the principal photography oh it was it was actually shot like a nice movie what about skyfall yeah i like that too skyfall left me cold everything about skyfall left me cold and i love i mean just just the look
Sonny00:50:39of it though i mean i watched i watched all of these movies again i got i bought the 4k set i just watch them one after the other uh ahead of no time to die and i will say that like casino royale looks good in a in a sort of like post-born action movie sort of way there's some shaky cam but it's like it's not it's not overdone it's it's just like it's like very well done very well it's very competent the opening black and white sequence looks really good everything else is just like okay um but skyfall was shot by roger deakins and like is just like it's it is a it is a beautifully photographed film just i have to look at again i only saw it once it was in the theaters
Vic00:51:20and i i hated everything about it so i loved it i loved his quote of what's interesting that you hate skyfall alf when judy dench is there before the panel the the commission and she's quoting for her husband uh the the court i think from tennyson and then he's running to save the day and then ray fines finally gets in on the action as well i i liked all that and i love it's interesting i loved uh i love the villain in that particularly when he faces off with judy
Sonny00:51:46dench and he takes off his prosthetic i love that it's interesting that you hate skyfall aka the
JVL00:51:52dark knight of the the bond this bond sequence skyfall was the the moment when all of a sudden we were back to the old preposterous bond well this is so this is it's so self-consciously a
Sonny00:52:04heritage movie well but but i wanted to ask you about so here's so here's the the big problem with these five movies as i see it is that they are 100 at war with each other the first two films are very consciously a deconstruction of the bond thing right bond gets hurt by where to the point where you have you have james bond making james bond and vesper lynn making a money penny joke remember uh he says he says you're the money and she says every penny of it we're like oh money penny oh it's very funny it's very it's very clever and uh a bartender asks him do you want that martini shaken or stirred and he's like do i look like i give a damn like it's it's very explicitly trying to break down all of these bond ticks and quantum of solace continues that a little bit and then skyfall and uh and specter and no time to die very self-consciously put you back in that bond verse with q with with you know all of the with an out with money penny money penny is back and like i i just like i didn't quite understand what they were going for frankly i again it just felt like the movies were in real tension with one another i think quantum of soul
JVL00:53:14is vastly underperformed right they were they so yes the uh casino royale was a people i think it's people don't appreciate how out of left field it was and people were shocked that a bond movie could be like that right i mean it just rejuvenated the entire series and it was incredibly excited and quantum of souls comes out just fell totally flat and i think the broccoli decided we gotta get back and the other thing is i don't think i mean after quantum of solace craig was sort of not into it right i mean this he sort of mails the performance in and this i mean you could tell this is a guy who was dying to get off the production he's so done with bond throughout there's very little charm in him and i don't mean bond charm i just mean screen actor charm where you know he's making you want to look at him on screen yeah i disagree with that slightly
Sonny00:54:08but i i do want to just jump right back to the point about this being the dark it is literally again it's the dark night of these movies you have the villain like purposefully getting captured so he can wreak havoc and take out the uh you know the the head of the organization um you have like the big fight at the end where they're running around and you know kind of improvising the explosives and all that uh in the the abandoned mansion yeah um i mean it is structurally structurally it is like a very very similar fair enough but it was yeah for me that whole movie
JVL00:54:41is exemplified by the little walk through the james bond museum that they do you know it's like oh look at that remember when i used the crocodile submarine like do you remember this and he he he i don't remember that is that in cues yeah there's like through the little layer and I love that stuff
Sonny00:55:04Are you sure you're not thinking of the last Pierce Brosnan one with John John Cleese
JVL00:55:11It's possible I am It's possible I am
Vic00:55:15I forgot that he was Q
JVL00:55:16Yeah The whole thing It's fine Again I liked it I enjoyed the ride I was annoyed that it could have been a really good movie And I don't think it was
Vic00:55:30I enjoyed it a lot i don't think during that fight scene at the end in the fortress uh in the disputed islands which is you know another great idea because that's a hot topic these days but there's actual scene where he does the gun you know where he's shooting and it looks like he's in the barrel like the very opening i don't know if you noticed that and then the other thing is when he's uh uh the the m portraits did you notice the m portraits i did but not just not just judy dench m uh but uh the uh The Robert Brown M from the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton years.
JVL00:56:03I have a couple notes before we go. The first of which is, I don't know why this jumped out at me, but during the opening credits, I was shocked at how early in the opening credits Mr. Craig's personal hairstylist was. Mr. Craig's personal hairstylist is before the casting director.
Vic00:56:26You're watching the credits, really? In the closing credits?
JVL00:56:29No, no, no, no, no. The opening credits.
Vic00:56:32I didn't notice.
JVL00:56:34Really? And I just, when I saw that, I just thought to myself, he must be as much of a jackass to work with as everybody says.
Vic00:56:41That he's insisting that his hairdresser get billed this high. It requires a lot of work on that hair.
JVL00:56:48But I, you know, I have a quick question. Is it problematic that so many Bond villains are gay?
Vic00:56:56We don't know that Blofeld or Safin is gay. The only one we know is gay is from Skyfall.
Sonny00:57:05Yeah, Javier Bardem was gay.
JVL00:57:07He's gay.
Sonny00:57:07Or at least by.
JVL00:57:08The man, Mr. Scaramanga, gay. Blofeld, gay. Oh, we don't know that. Max Zorin, gay. Oh, no, no. Max Zorin. Prince Kamal Khan, gay, gay, gay. Dominic Green and Quantum, gay, gay, gay.
Vic00:57:19i'm just saying why why is the broccoli family so homophobic zoran is with grace jones in a
JVL00:57:26yes yes remember that he's so into chicks that he liked he liked getting pegged by grace jones
Vic00:57:32wow that's that's that's how straight that guy was you you know you might even think i didn't think about that at all um i do have questions uh who is madeline's father
Sonny00:57:45blowfeld no mr white mr white yeah mr white from the remember in the the the first two movies mr white oh who he kills at the end remember mr white kills the la chif la chifra
Vic00:58:01oh yes and then he's in quantum of solace uh-huh yeah i this is i thought he was killed by the
JVL00:58:10africans he gets shot in the leg at the end of the end of casino royale yeah the mr the mr white
Vic00:58:17oh at the end and he kills so he kills her father at the end of casino right no her father eventually
JVL00:58:23kills himself because he wounds him and takes him president and takes him prisoner and then
Sonny00:58:28he escapes in the end of quantum of solace and his his father kills himself i'm sorry her father kills himself in specter and then remember blowfield shows him the uh the security camera
Vic00:58:41footage wow of him shooting i don't remember that okay and i didn't frankly i forgot who madeline was because it's been so long since i'd seen specter and yeah i watched all the like i said i watched all these movies last week i was like i'm like wait a minute who is she and what is the story so that that had me confused what and and why is she the therapist to blowfeld Reasons. Okay, thank you. And what is Blofeld's connection to Safin? Does he know Safin? He knows Safin.
Sonny00:59:12Spectre killed Safin's family. To get the Poison Island or something. To get the Poison Island. So now he is trying to take revenge against all of Spectre.
JVL00:59:19But I missed that when I was in the bathroom. Yes. The reason Safin is disfigured is because there was poison gas on the Poison Island when Spectre attacked it and he was the only survivor, but he looked like that. All right, all right. And that's why he came to kill Mr. White in the very beginning and meets little baby Madeline.
Vic00:59:38Oh, really? Okay.
Sonny00:59:42You didn't realize that the guy at the beginning in the weird mask, that's Sackler.
Vic00:59:46Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I knew that. Sorry. I thought you were talking about James. I got confused there for a second. I'm just looking at my notes. By the way, really quickly, it's two movies back to back with Billy Magnuson in it. Did you know that?
Sonny00:59:58I did. I did notice that. He is also in The Many Saints of Newark. He plays young Polly Walnuts.
Vic01:00:03Okay. That's it. I think we got to move on.
JVL01:00:06Can I give a –
Vic01:00:08You know what? No. I have a ranking, but I will save it for outtakes. Okay, good, good, good, because I don't have any outtakes. That is all the time we're giving to the – Oh, corrections, shout-outs, anything? We're good? Good.
Guest01:00:20Yeah.
Vic01:00:20That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch, at Victory in the Mattis. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
JVL01:00:41Yes, JVL. So I put together a little ranking of the top five Bonds who weren't.
Vic01:00:50So guys who could have been James Bond.
JVL01:00:53Because so being James Bond is like being a Supreme Court justice. You can want to be a justice on the Supreme Court, but you can't ever plan for it as a career. Because it could be that just, you know, your age does not line up with when there's an opening to the court, right? If, you know, if you're too young or too old, you're not going to get it.
Vic01:01:13It's cosmic in some way.
JVL01:01:15Right. And so there are people who, some of these people are people who were considered for bond roles. Some of them were people who did not get bond roles because they were born in the wrong cycle. Okay, so these are not your list, but actual. No, this is my list. Oh, you're going to list. My list, my list. Number five, Rupert Everett.
Vic01:01:34Oh, no, there was talk about that.
JVL01:01:36Who was considered for a bond back in the day, and I think he wanted to do it as a gay bond. You know what? If you were going to do a gay bond, Rupert Everett is the guy for it. Number four, Michael Gambon.
Vic01:01:50What? As a villain.
JVL01:01:52Who, no, was asked by Cubby Broccoli to audition to replace George Lazenby. Oh, back in the day. After Broccoli saw Gambon in his film debut, because he was just a stage guy, his film debut was in Laurence Olivier's Othello, a movie much in the news. It is much in the news. Michael Gambon as Bond when he was like 30 years old would have been pretty amazing.
Vic01:02:17I need to see, I'll have to go into Google Images to see what he looked like, because all I can think of is either Dumbledore or Laird. You just think Dumbledore. And that's really not going to... Okay.
Sonny01:02:27Number... I think the voiceover from Hail Caesar. It's a great voiceover.
JVL01:02:30Number three, Tom Hardy, who, let's all be honest, should be in the next Bond, but won't be. Number two, Cheetahway Ejeofor, who I think would have been a fantastic, fantastic Bond.
Sonny01:02:43Did he die?
JVL01:02:44No, but he's too old. We had this discussion a few weeks ago when we did some terrible movie that he was in, and I made the case that he should be Bond, and Sonny argued he was too old for it, and upon further reflection, Sonny is always right. But number one, the guy who, again, just wrong age for it, but I think would have been a dynamite Bond, and I'm going to say this, and you're going to say yes, Colin Farrell. Oh, sure, sure. Would he be an interesting Bond or what?
Vic01:03:15Yeah, I mean, if you want to have an Irishman. If you want to have a Mick. He wouldn't be drinking a martini. He'd just be drinking a Guinness.
Sonny01:03:26Yeah, he's got some, you know, some Irish whiskey there. And a shepherd's pie. And his coffee. That's what he'd do.
JVL01:03:35I'm sure it's fine.
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