Kill James Bond! - S4E46.5: True Romance

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

This is a preview of a bonus episode! You can find the rest, along with our extensive backlog, on our reasonably-priced patreon! This week we're joined by comedian, entertainer, and magician Carisa Hendrix to discuss a movie packed to the gills with guys I love to see (one notable exception). Written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, True Romance is a movie about two freaks finding each other and locking tf in. Check out Carisa anywhere on the internet. Watch the clips and buy tickets to her tour here! ---- HANDS OFF LEBANON Here are some fundraisers to support collective rebuilding and survival efforts on the ground in Lebanon. -Beit El-Baraka started out as a food bank, but has grown to help people afford rent, cover their essentials, and live with dignity.  https://beitelbaraka.org/donate-directly/ or donate in general https://beitelbaraka.org/donate-now/ -LiveLove was a charity for a number of other matters, but since 2024 has been solely comitted to helping people displaced by Israeli attacks. https://livelove.org/donate -Lebanese Food Bank supports displaced and impoverished people https://lebanesefoodbank.org/take-action/donate/ Solar Powered Lebanon is an initiative to restore people's power using solar panels, since larger infrastructure is at constant risk of attack. https://fundahope.com/en/campaigns/solar-powered-lebanon ----- FREE PALESTINE My friend Ahmed still needs to feed his family and afford medicine. Anything you can kick in would be hugely appreciated. https://chuffed.org/project/150817-please-help-ahmed-and-his-family-get-food-drink-and-medicine And these are some more general links you can support collective efforts with! -The Palestinian Communist Youth Union 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 ----- 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  

Hello and welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I am joined as always by my friend Abigail Thorn and Devon. Hello, Calabunga. And we are joined by a guest. We have Carissa Hendricks, actor, magician, guest of Kill James Bond now. How's it going, Carissa? I am so excited.

I've been looking forward to this for two whole weeks now. Yes. Because this is Abby's choice of heist movie. And you, in vaguel, Carissa on, you brought a friend to talk about true romance. Oh, true romance. And good timing too, because Tony Scott directed it and Tony Scott did Pelham 123, which we just did and liked on the last mainline episode.

I think I knew that in my soul. Part of the kind of unacknowledged Kill James Bond 100% Tony Scott filmography speed run, yeah. Yeah. But I think true romance, it is a heist film. It's also, well, like a crime film, a weirdly ensemblely casted one as well. Yes, guys I love to see just kept showing up and a guy I don't like to see also shows up. The guy we hate to see. Yeah.

Enemy of the show. Well, we can talk about who that guy might be because this is also interesting to me because this is a piece of Quentin Tarantino Juvenalia, basically. It is. He wrote this and then sold the script in order to make reservoir. dogs. A worse film. Yeah, I kind of agree. Should have sold reservoir dogs to make this, man.

I haven't seen it long enough. Well, my understanding is that Tony Scott could pick between the two movies because he wanted both scripts. And so Tony Scott was given reservoir dogs and true romance and picked true romance. So I think this might be a product of like Tony Scott was like, no, no, no, I can tell which one is better because I'm the person here with a little bit more experience. He's right. We live in ending.

of Tony Scott's Quentin Tarantino arc is interesting to me. Alt history and the only difference is just the Tony Scott directed reservoir dogs. Everything is completely different. It's just that was the point of divergence. The other one beat its wings. Yeah. Al Gore is president and Tony Scott directed reservoiring. But there's no global warming.

Donald Trump, the game show hosts. Crazy. Yeah, I was very, very excited. to see that this was a Tony Scott film because, you know, I always, I like Tony Scott. I hope he gets to do his special camera thing. And as well as that, I like Quentin Tarantino as a writer a lot better than I do as a director. And I'm going to have some thoughts about that, really. But so we begin in Detroit, Michigan, where the American economic collapse, brackets, the 90s one, is in full swing.

Things are very, very bad. and in a bar we have Christian Slater getting auto-androphilia for Elvis Presley. He's in a bar and he's talking about Elvis to a beautiful blonde lady who seems somewhat bored. And he's like, well, Elvis is his autistic special interest. And he's also saying like, he says, I ain't no fag but Elvis was good looking. And if I had to fuck a guy, I'd fuck Elvis. It's like, okay. Interesting way to try to pick someone.

If I had to. If I was held at gunpoint, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they said, have sex with a man, Elvis, apparently. And he invites her out to see a Sunny Cheba triple feature, which she is repulsed by. Yeah. Because, you know, women maybe we don't like the movies is the thing. And this is a guy who likes the movies. I will say it is a strong opening gambit to be like,

would you like to see not one, not two, but three sequential Kung Fu movies with me as a first date? It would work on me. Yeah, it would work on me too. But that's not saying, but it would work in general. It's a sort of devonian bit. It's very devonian. I think it's just such a huge time commitment. Like, hey, do you have nine hours you don't need?

No. Right? I'm a woman. I'm busy. The mistake he's making here is that that is a lesbian amount of time to go on a first day. But it's not a straight amount of time to go on a first date. Precisely. Meeting the lesbian couple, let's be real, Pollocky, whose first date was the Sunny Cheba triple feature and just falling to my knees in admiration.

They listen to the podcast, I know it. It's true. He strikes out with this woman who looks a little bit like Marilyn Monroe as well. One of the other things he was saying about Elvis is that Elvis is the essence of rockabilly. And he explains rockabilly for us, which is being mean, surly, nasty, rude. living fast and dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse. And these are all things that our young man wants to embody here. And meanwhile, we get some narration from a lady's voice.

This is Alabama is her name. She's going to be up to. She's Alabama from Florida, like Johnny Utah from Texas. And she says she came from Florida to Detroit and she found true romance. And then we cut to the movie theater where Clarence is watching the Kung Fu movies and this 10 out of 10 blonde smoke show comes in. and then accidentally chucked popcorn over him. Yeah.

I do want to say we get there after, you know, through a montage of Detroit, which has a cast list over it, which I'm not going to spoil, but which felt like being punched in the head and neck 50,000 times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is exactly right. A tough breed. There's some big swings in here that go some places that you won't expect. It does not disappoint on any of these, I will say.

No, it does not. Yeah, so as you say, I do note that it flashes up written by Quentin Tarantino, and then the first thing it gives us after this is, or the first thing it gave us before this was, Beautiful Woman is interested in me, but is put off by my incredible taste in and knowledge of Kung Fu movies. He has always been like this. It's an autobiography. That is the first thing he says.

He's like, this is meant to be me. And as you watch it, you're like, yeah, that's right. Obviously, man. The thing about Quentin Tarantino is he will pose the question, you ever heard a song? You ever seen a movie? I have. Don't ask parents about his opinions on Israel. Don't ask his friend.

But so, yeah, she spills her popcorn on him and sort of contrives this as a way to get talking. She starts smoking immediately. She like gets, you know, she's not really invested in the sunny Cheba triple feature, but But she's interested in him and, you know, sort of steps over the seats and watches with him. She's quite glam as well. She's wearing this red dress and heels in the movie theater with a leopard skin coat over it. And yet she's also alone. It's like, oh, what's she doing?

She's doing the kind of annoying like, hey, what's that guy? Who's he? What's that about? Why's this happening thing in the theater? It's almost empty and he is kind of awestruck by her woman. He's ready to do it. Yeah. I think there's a line here

when he's like, because she says like, what's going on and who is that guy, that I just dig. I totally dig because I feel like it's just him being like, well, this is me. It's like the autobiographical line where he goes, well, he's not said to him much a good guy. He's just a bad motherfucker. Which like, you're like, yeah, yeah, the thing you want to be. Exactly.

Like even the way he says that, it's like, that's your goal in life. Yeah. It's like, who's that guy? It's like, oh, he's me. Number one. Number one, he's me. Yeah, he's the guy I want to be. He's the guy I also like, you know, never want to meet in real life because he hurts people for money.

And we get a couple of like shots of the Sunny Cheever movie of him like kicking a guy in the face. Cool. I really, really like this cut here because we go from her being kind of skeptical about this. And, you know, asking the sort of catch me up questions to smash cut. They're outside the theater having watched all three of these. and she is doing like mock kung fu at him. Yeah, really good. Yeah, it's cute.

I like it when directors and writers, I guess, you know, do love letters to film. I am that kind of person. I should be a member of the Academy because it does work on me. And this is a quiet little love letter to film. It's like, oh, yeah, you can just get really into it and then, you know, be outside doing sort of like high kicks and stuff. We see they go on a little date as well. Like, they go and get like a slice of pie. He's info dumping about Elvis again.

She's got lines that he reuses. Yeah. She's a little bit kind of coin mysteries. She's like, what about you? Where you from? Like, you got a fellow? And she's like, ask me later. They go to his workplace.

He works in a comic book and record store. Wow. This nerd loser with a slacker job he's using to develop a really deep knowledge of pop culture is like secretly cool. And you're written by Quentin Terrance. Did Kevin Smith do a pass on this? Incidentally, in this Q&A, she does say that one of her turn-offs is Persians, which... I wrote that down, yeah.

Her turn on was Mickey Rourke and her turn off was Persians. Okay. The cat? Yeah, I thought the cat too. I also thought the cat. I was hoping it was the cats. Yeah. I'm hoping the cat.

Weird, inscrutable kind of nationalist beef otherwise, you know? Like, turn on Mickey Rourke and the Islamic Republic. She also answered a bunch of the questions like Stama style as well. Like he fires a few at her and she just goes, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have a dream. Yeah.

Yeah, I am exactly enough of a character to be likable, but not so much to be a fully fledged woman. Please call back to giving me questions. Written and directed, well, not directed even. But, yeah. There is a reason for this that we will find out shortly. But, yeah, he explains Spider-Man number one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he's explaining his special interests. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He is just input-dumping, yeah. Yeah, and as in real life, you know, if you fasc-you can fascinate a woman by explaining a special interest to her, and she's insanely turned on. Exactly. If you're on a date with a beautiful woman, just tell her all of your interests. Yeah. Don't stop for breath. If she starts to ask another question, head her off, bring it directly back to a special interest. Kill Chase's one, romance tips, though.

She is kind of hitting the, like, what, now? Now, I can't not fuck him thing. She really is. You know, for like, annoyance. That's how it is. You're just like, oh, man, I got to have sex with you now because you seem like you care about stuff. What if you cared about me like that?

I'd feel great. And so we smash cut from this to the sex scene. I do just want to note, this is perhaps a sort of lower level of engagement with the movie than it deserves, but I've written down, licking the chest hair was considered a freak move in 1990 whatever, you know, technology is a lot of considerably since then. I don't remember that scene. I've watched this, I swear, every two years since I was like, like 25. And when I saw that, I went, oh, God, has this been here the whole time?

I think it's quite a sweet sex scene. You know, they're making sweet love under colored lights and silhouette. There's some, like, some good music going. Yeah, it is very romantic. It's true romance, baby. Yeah. I have been slightly ruined by the internet in the sense that I can't look at a man and a woman kissing in profile anymore without thinking about the art for the essay

cat person. So that kind of troubles me a little bit. Heterosexuality has ruined for me forever. They are also making love in front of a sort of cardboard cut out of Elvis that has two candles in front of it. I don't know if you noted that. I didn't notice that. There's kind of like there's an Elvis shrine. The Elvish shrine is important, like spiritually important. Well, it's giving him his power.

I love this about you, Dev, because every movie we watch, you always know it's some, like, some little deal in the background, like the little gold robot in Titan or something. You've got your eyes on the fucking set, Deb. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. The Misan Sen.

But so afterwards, she goes out onto his brooding billboard rooftop, the billboard they use for brooding. And she's crying because I guess she has dysphoria or something. And so he, you know, comes out. It's freezing cold. It's Detroit in winter. right, you get the sort of wind off the Great Lakes. They're both wrapped up in huge blankets. And he's like, what's wrong?

And she's like, well, you know, I have a kind of dissociative relationship with my body sometimes. But the actual reason is because she, she, she, she, she, quirkily and charmingly comes clean with him, which involves telling him, I am coming clean with you. Stop talking so I can come clean with you. Yeah. Stop trying to riff on what I'm saying and just let me talk to you about this. This is a real problem with podcasters as well

His boss at the comic book store Lance has arranged a birthday gift for him She is a call girl She's been a call girl for four days And he's only her third client So she's been a cool girl But not for so long that you know It might put him off

Which I guess Yeah Yeah yeah yeah But this was this was arranged She wasn't in the movie theater organically Like she was hired to pick him up Basically and make him feel good Right

And to his credit Because his boss Lance has been doing like diabolical chess master shit to get his employees laid, which is sure, okay. I'm always terrified that anyone I mean, it's just you doing that November. Just like, hang on a second. That was one time. It was one time. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. I just didn't know I was working for Dosexual Puppet Master. That's on me.

It was two times. No, no, it was two times. Listen, okay. Well, you always have to be aware that this can happen to you, That's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that's correct. The lesson here is never trust your friend's intentions. They might be hiring a call girl. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't, I wasn't like hiring call girls. I was just throwing different tentacles of the polycule at you, you know? I was very grateful to a bit of interaction with those tentacles. But anyway, Karin's text is quite well, actually. He's like, well, I mean, yeah. Yeah. I kind of suspected something.

was up, but he says, I honestly, I was just relieved that I took your dress off and you didn't have a dick. And I'm like, relieved or disappointed, my friend. This movie was made in the 1990s or whatever, the before times. And so we have your shipment of court-ordered mandatory transmisogony. You have to have it in there. It's got to get it over with quickly, you know? Yeah, because they don't go back to it. They just shoot it out across to, like, to tick it on and then move on.

I have to be honest here, right? Because I like this movie, right? I mean, admittedly, I like it like a mob guy, sort of clapping it over the back of the head and being like, I like you. But I like it and I'm giving, I'm going to, you know, just like do it more of a favor than it deserves. I like Alabama's sort of big coming clean sort of, you know, word salad almost here because she says, I've been a call girl for exactly four days and you're my third customer and I'm not damaged goods and it all rolls into one thing that is very believably kind of insecure young woman. that I think is actually well observed, you know? Admittedly, it is doing the misogynist thing of telling the audience, okay, but she's not been like ruined by this,

so it's okay for you to find her attractive, right? Which is disgusting. But I believe it as a piece of characterisation as the thing. I'm afraid that's all you've got time for, motherfucker. If you want to hear the rest of this beautiful episode of Kill James Bond, you are going to have to head on over to our Patreon. and that is patreon.com slash kill James Bond, all one word, and sign up today for as little as five pounds a month to get access to this episode,

as well as every bonus episode we've ever put out. That's a lot of content. For just five pounds, it's crazy. Tap in. I'll see you there.