Kill James Bond! - S4E21.5 Hail, Caesar!

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

This is a preview of a bonus episode! Check it out in full on our reasonably-priced patreon! This week November brings us a little Podcast Dessert. Hail, Caesar! is a Coen Brothers movie about a day in the life of a fixer for a booming film studio in the 1950s that all three of us enjoyed watching, but understood on vastly different levels. TSHIRT ALERT: ADVERSE CONDITIONS MOVIE CLUB PREORDERS NOW OPEN Thats right, the long-awaited Adverse Conditions Movie Club shirt is finally available for preorder on our website. Featuring art from the incredibly talented Mika Kurzmann-Abrams! Preorders close MIDNIGHT AUGUST 31ST ----- We've been nominated for Podcast of the Year at the ITV bCreator Awards! It’s public vote, so vote for us here under “creator shortlist”. should take about a minute, you don’t have to live in Britain to vote! www.bcreator.co.uk/awards/ ----- Friend of the show Bella, a refugee evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021, is raising money for her gender confirmation surgery! Anything you can give would be hugely appreciated! https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/team-bella ----- Check out friend of the show Mattie's new book Simplicity here, or wherever fine graphic novels are sold! ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. In our home, we talk a lot about how insane everything feels, and agonise constantly over what can be done to best help the Palestinians trapped in Gaza facing the full brunt of genocidal violence. My partner Rebecca has put together a list of four fundraisers you can contribute to- all of them are at work on the ground doing what they can. -Palestinian Communist Youth Union, which is doing a food and water effort, and is part of the official communist party of Palestine https://www.gofundme.com/f/to-preserve-whats-left-of-humanity-global-solidarity -Water is Life, a water distribution project in North Gaza affiliated with an Indigenous American organization and the Freedom Flotilla https://www.waterislifegaza.org/ -Vegetable Distribution Fund, which secured and delivers fresh veg, affiliated with Freedom Flotilla also https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiser_id=1102739514947848 -Thamra, which distributes herb and veg seedlings, repairs and maintains water infrastructure, and distributes food made with replanted veg patches https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-thamra-cultivating-resilience-in-gaza ----- WEB DESIGN ALERT Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com , as well as on our Bluesky and X.com the every app account

This is the essence of the dialectic. Hello and welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. Another bonus episode, in fact. I am November Kelly. I am joined, as always, by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon. Salwayte listeners. What's up? No Kymok's podcast, Fakimus, Te Salio Thomas.

Yep. We're still doing religion season, and I, originally, after we did end of days, I was like, I'm going to do something really, really, really, like, hard, something really, like, difficult going, like winter light or, like, first reformed or something. And then, due to possibly divine intercession, I got COVID for a week, and I took that as a sign that I didn't actually want to watch a really kind of. searing kind of examination of faith. What I wanted to watch was one of my favorite films

as kind of like podcast dessert. Fair enough. And I thought, hey, what fulfills both of those categories? And the answer is, Hail Caesar. Yeah. Is it a movie with some Romans in it listeners, which is why I opened in Latin.

If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I don't just habitually do that, like some sort of prick. Well, I mean, not that all the time. It's not the first time I've opened in Latin on the podcast, but yeah. No. No, not the first time this year. But yeah, this is one of my favorite films. It's one of my favorite Cohen Brothers films.

And I think really at this point, like enough of the like trivial shit, like a serious man, it's time for something, you know, really, you know, really getting to grips with the difficult questions. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to hear a take on this November because I saw this in cinemas. I really like it. It's a funny film. I really enjoy it. It's really charming. I know that the movie is trying to say something about religion, but I have no idea what it's trying to say.

I'm just like, I love the movies. I love the movies. I'm eating popcorn. I'm clapping. I don't know what it's trying to tell me about God. It's trying to tell me something. They got some takes, I think. To be clear, this thing about like, oh, well, you know, a serious man is the kind of joke one and this one's the serious one.

Is a joke that Cohen brothers have themselves done about this movie? Because a serious man is like, it's a downer, right? We've spoken about it. It's got funny bits in it. But like, this one is a much funnier movie. Yes. And it's a much lighter movie as well. Another thing I like about it is it is by some margin the most Catholic Jewish movie

and the most Jewish Catholic movie I've seen. Yeah. That too is the Coen Brothers Promise. We're just going to like synthesize those things. And yeah, it's a movie that I didn't get the first time I saw it. So you're in good company. At least I think so because... I mean, this is the third time I've seen it.

I still don't get it. I still haven't fun though. What's going on? with this thing? I saw it the first time and I was like, I don't get this one and I don't know if I like it. Second watch loved it instantly. And this is now my like, I don't know, 5th, 6th, 7th or something. This is my second watch of this because earlier in the year I realized I hadn't seen a single Cohen Brothers movie and so watched all of them kind of like pretty much back to back. Oh, the full like, fucking love this. I loved this. Yeah. Yeah. Really enjoyed it. Liked a lot

more the second time. I enjoyed it the first time. I even feel like I got what it was doing on a slightly deeper level the second time. I think that was my experience as well. And I would highly recommend this as something to watch and then get, like, put away for a bit and like let percolate and then come back and watch again. It's like pouring a pint of Guinness, you know? They need to pause in the middle.

The opening shot did tip me off that we were going to be saying something about religion here. It's very subtle listeners, but if you see in the movie, you'll know, the opening shot is just a giant crucifix with Jesus on it. Yeah, I wrote, that's religion. We take those. I'm like, okay.

Min a note, Jesus. That's season. Writing it down. That's going on the podcast. We are in church. We are in a Catholic church where in the middle of the night, a man is in the confessional. Josh Brolin. Guy we love to see.

Guy we love to see Josh Brolin. We do. Then Eddie Manix in this. Yeah. This is a good movie confession, not least because he says it's been Checks watch 24 hours since my last confession. Yeah, right away. You're not supposed to do him that often. man like maybe if you're like a like a serious like maybe if you've got some like like maybe if you're

a priest but like just a guy to be confessing every 24 hours you got to either be packing in a lot of sinning or you're kind of doing this compulsively right sort of religious hypochondriac yeah how often are you supposed to do it i mean i think it depends on the sin more than anything but like yeah that makes sense yeah regular is good but not this regular like it's a little bit like I'm checking in with my doctor every hour to make sure that I'm all, I'm still good. Yeah, I am a constant fixture in my priest's life. I confess to my priest 133 times. Yeah, because I was trying to talk to his boss and he said I had to go through him,

which I thought was bullshit. Why can't I have a personal relationship with the head of commissioning for NHS England? I have and it sucks. That guy's an asshole. he's not always listen you don't have to like it of course but he's always the boss he's a tight ass

he's a sadist he's always the boss but like what he's confessing is so minor he lied he struggles to open up like a little bit and he goes

forgive me father I lied to my wife I said that I would quit smoke and I had like three today and he starts crying and he's just like, I'm trying, I'm really trying, I'm sorry. It's like, I wonder whether you're stressed about something else, man. Yeah, real, like, dark night of the soul about this.

Yeah. But he gets absolved, right, and goes out into the, back into the sinful world. Beautifully shot this whole thing, by the way, because he's in the confession booth, so all the light is coming in through for, like, a little window there. Yeah. But so we get some film noir-style narration from, we're not just film noir style. some narration from Michael Gambon as well. Guy we love to hear. The screenplay at this point says that the narrator should be like kind of authoritatively British, which he is. And this

introduces us to Josh Brolin as Eddie Manix, who is a studio fixer. He works for capital pictures. He works for a movie studio in Los Angeles. At all hours, day or night, he is the person who is responsible for like maintaining the studio on its course, right? He doesn't own it. He's just, he's the fixer, he's the guy. And the year is

1951. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Late dinner. You know, the kids have gone to bed. It's been called out in the middle of the night in the pissing rain to go into this house, which he more or less kicks the door in. Yeah.

And you get the first, the first the first visual joke, which is a guy, clearly a photographer telling a woman, like, oh, yeah, churn that butter. And then we get the reverse shot, which is her inner durnal churning butter, like being photographed. As a butter made, yeah, butter made, is that a thing? Yeah. I guess so.

Like a milk made, sure. Dairy made, whatever. Yeah. Not a hundred percent clear what she's doing here. She's looking, she's looking like the Ellen von Unverth photo book, Haimut. Yeah, she's wearing like pig tails, you know. Yeah, she's doing horny Bavarian shit, horny Alpine shit. And the point of this is that, like, her image is owned by the company.

And so this illicit magazine shoot that she's doing, this illicit, I don't know, calendar, but she's taking photos for her. Yeah, this only fans shoot, Eddie's like, you can't be doing that. He's like, give me these fucking negatives. It is, it is only fans-ish. It's like soft, soft porn. Like, it's, as one of the other characters later describes it, a possible French postcard. situation, right?

Yeah. It's to say, boredy. It's getting... It's getting saucy at most. You're not hitting anything bigger than that. Only fans before the internet was a nightmare. You had to like do it through the mail. It was so...

You have to do it to post. God, we need to watch the notorious Betty Page at some point. Anyway, so Manix, like, he tells the photographer to like scram, right? Yeah. And then grabs the actress and as she's trying to like explain, just hits her instantly, like, slaps her twice across the face. a face. Very, very, very, like, film noir style. I should say again, he is wearing the fedora and the trench coat at this place as well. Right? It's, it's gum shoe shit, what he's

doing, right? Brutalizing this woman. It's very, it's, it's, it's, it's Bogart style. Yeah. It puts you in the mindset of me because he's confessing to having some cigarettes and immediately goes and beats a woman. It's like, you've got your priorities a little fucked here brother. And he tells her, he gives her a fake name for starters. You know, your name's not glory or whatever. It's like Jane, whoever the fuck. Mary Jane Strimple or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Now listen, here's your story. You were at a party.

You had a bit too much drink. Someone brought you here. You don't know what you're doing. You're on your way home right now. Okay. Got it? Cool. And at that moment, the cops arrive. Why are the cops? Is it illegal to do only fans in 1951? Almost everything was illegal to do in 1951. Yeah, I think everything that's cool or fun was illegal.

Yeah. It definitely shows us that later. They are the ones who say that they got a call about a possible French postcard situation, which is the joke in itself. Because like, again, this movie is a comedy. A lot of the stuff that happens in it is for comic effects, right? And you have to put the joke together, but that's what it is. And he bribes them. One of them recognizes the actor. And he's like, hey, on you, Gloria, or whatever? She said, no, I'm someone else. Yeah, she doesn't remember her own fake name. Yeah, she forgets the surname as well. He bribes them and then bums a cigarette from one of them

as well. Bam, tight character introduction. I know what this guy's about 100% now from these first two scenes and the interplay between them. He's the fixer. We love it. We see him go into work in the morning and watch the rushes from Hail Caesar,

a tale of the Christ, which we get the opening credits for. This is a, I think you would call it like a second wave Jesus movie, right? And that is the term of art for this. specifically it's biting like um ben her but also the greatest story ever told the one that ends with john wayne as a centurian doing his like accent truly this was the son of god uh that's not what john wayne sounds like these days they'd have to call it ben she her because of woke all right

you know the drill if you want to hear the rest of this bonus episode of kill james bond you're going to have to go to our patreon patreon patreon dot com slash kill james bond and sign up stay for as little is five pounds a month. There's nothing. That's nothing, baby. Check out our collections for a route into our huge backlog of hundreds, conservatively, at this point, of bonus episodes. A lot of people, we're getting to the point where people are suggesting movies we've already done, which I never thought we'd ever get to. But there's, go back, there's like five years of episodes.

Have a good time. It's all good. Literally, it's all fucking heaters as well. all fucking bangers.