The Rewatchables - ‘Casino Royale’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Amanda Dobbins

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Do The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Amanda Dobbins look like they give a damn if their martini is shaken or stirred? They put on their tuxedos to revisit the first installment in the ���James Bond’–Daniel Craig franchise ‘Casino Royale,’ starring Daniel Craig, Mads Mikkelsen, and Eva Green. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly. The all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller.

And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at adobe.com slash Firefly. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny.

They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's laminated.

Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer, podcast network. where you can find the big picture with Sean Fennyson and Amanda Dobbins. They're both here.

Wow. My name is Simmons, Bill Simmons. Casino Royals next. This may be too much for a blunt instrument to understand. Any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation. So you want me to be half monk, half hitman? I knew it was too early to promote you.

Well, I understand double. those have a very short life expectancy. Casino Royale, Bitty, PG-13. All right, so I'm on an airplane coming back from Boston after a traumatic game seven. And my Delta screen's not working, and I can only get movies from A, start with A, B, or C. And Casino Royale is there, and I'm like, Casino Real, I love that movie. I get to escape traumatic Celtics loss. I get to go to Monaco, and I get to go to Venice, and I get to go to the Bahamas.

I'm in. And I watched it, and halfway through, I texted you. you guys and I was like, um, this movie's elite. Let's do this. It is time. Casino Royale. Amanda, one of your favorites. Favorite Bond movie? Second favorite. We've done my favorite, which is Skyfall. But Skyfall cannot exist without Casino Royale. And it's one, two, for me. And then a pretty deep chasm. Even though I, we were talking before, I am a bond person. And I really love the Conneries. I even like some of

the Roger Moore's. I have controversial opinions on Pierce Brosnan, which we can get to a at a later date. But we're getting into it in this pod. But this is, this to me is the best version of the form. I mean, it's the relaunch, right? I mean, it corrected what I think the franchise, and I'm not a Bond person, never did appropriately for me, which is explain who this person is. And I didn't grow up with Bond movies.

My parents were not fans of the Bond films. And so when I went back to try to go see them, and, you know, me, I'm a weird. completeist. I try to watch everything chronologically. You just get shot into the Sean Connery story and there's no backstory and this is this is how Bond becomes Bond. So they made him intentionally ambiguous in the old ones. He didn't know that much about him, but he was super cool. He could get any lady he wanted. He could solve any issue that existed and he could always win a fight. But that was really all we knew. I was never a huge Bond guy, but I grew up with the Roger Moore ones. Yeah. And what was the Outer Space one? That's moon raker.

Moonraker. I do like Moonraker. Moonwaker was good and Jaws was a great villain. And they were also always on when I was a kid because we just had less IP that felt modern, but it always felt like the Connery ones were on. So, you know, we watched them, but I never, like, loved them, but I was like them. And then it just felt like the franchise died in the 80s and 90s

in a lot of ways with, they had the Timothy Dalton one. Brosnan, who they couldn't get the job because they wouldn't let him leave Remington Steel. And then he found it. He did four, which I forgot. like he'd done like two or three. They were successful. They were very successful movies.

And I think that they had the same narrative. Like when Brosnan came in, it was exactly what you were saying. It was like, finally Pierce Brosnan can play the role he was born to play. But he arrived at a time when the movies needed to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and sillier. And so he actually didn't get a chance to fully, I don't know, kind of like redeem or rebuild the franchise. The first Brosnan movie I like a lot. And they kind of get progressively worse, in my opinion. TV actor.

The best Pierce Brosnan and James Bond movie is the Thomas Crown Affair, which is not a James Bond movie, but the 1999 remake, another of my all-time faves. And it gets him in fancy locations and being like suave, but the tone meets him in the right way. And he doesn't have to do as much action, you know? You want Pierce Broson as like a jewel thief or like a high class businessman. You don't want him as James Bond. I still need to feel like James Bond can kick somebody's ass. How did or you felt like could win a fight? Oh, for sure.

Yes. What was interesting about the Daniel Craig one is basically you have the Boren identity. I forget when the Born starts like 0-203 range. Ethan Hunt is now like 10 years in, basically. And this feels more like those kind of movies. And I actually think it's probably the higher end of those kind of movies because it felt like Bond just felt like more of a character to me. Ethan Hunt, you know, whatever.

He's like, you don't really know his background. They tried to do it, but it's still got the cruise fog over it the whole time. And then Boren is intentionally, like, he doesn't know who he is. I think this movie, Casino Royale, owes a huge debt to Born. A huge, I mean, you can see the fact that they realized that they needed to scale down and make the kind of like bare-knuckle Daniel Craig approach was going to make much more sense for this kind of contemporary movie moment. In part, I think because Ethan Hunt was doing Big Ten,

stunts better than Bond could in like a less cartoonish way in a more thrilling way. So it's logical that they arrived at this and then there's also like why they tell this story too. Right. I do think in Bond's defense like Bourne identity was a little bit

what if we had James Bond but without the silliness and with people just and that worked and you were like oh great okay locations and they're having like a genuine romance and then people are just punching each other and it's sick but it is very true that then the born franchise and informs this in a great way. I love it. During the dark times of the pandemic,

which I think we've talked about the rewatchables before, we used movies and escaped to go places because we weren't allowed to go anywhere. This is one of them in his favorite hobbies. This was like, oh, let's watch this because we got to go to these places. Like the Sandler Hawaii movie is like that. Which time was like, just go with it? Yeah, you get to go to Hawaii with Adam Sandler for an hour and a half. It's like, great, I can't leave my house. This sounds awesome. I'm tired of walking up and down my street with my daughter. So I get to go to Hawaii. This is a particularly good one.

Incredible. I would say like pound for pound location-wise. I don't know if you could do better than this. Monaco is top three, top two movie location. Absolutely beautiful. I've never been. I'd like to go. I would like to go to the Lake Como resort that is featured towards the end when he's recuperating.

That's a real place. And I think you actually can go. I have friends who sent me a picture from somewhere on Lake Como that was a location. I don't know if they got to stay in the home. hotel. The Ocean Club, another place. Same friends went there actually. Wonderful stuff. Yeah, beautiful. It's like White Lotus crossed with James Bond.

Exactly. You get to go to places. No, I would say, from a location standpoint, you can't do better. No. It's nice to go to. The firm has that moment where they're just in St. Barts and it's like, whoa, we're in St. Bartz. This is great. Gene Hackman is. But those guests, feeling sexy.

Right. He's getting a little Randy. We'll talk about Daniel Craig in a second. I'm going Mads Bickleson first. Wow. Unbelievable. It's like him and Hans Gruber in the fucking finals of whatever we want to do for movie villains. I don't know what else he could have brought to the table.

He had basically a Hitler haircut. He had a bleeding scar eye thing going. He had like one of the best like lower, like mouth-dropping evil smiles that you could possibly do. You just look at him and you want to punch him in the face. It looks like he could. You know, like get a whole army of terrible people behind him and just take over countries. I don't know what else you would get from a villain.

But also still playing it a little bit subtle. I mean, this thing with Bond villains over time, it's, you know, it's become basically like a shorthand for someone just like going too far, you know, and also not really having a plan. And it's always like someone who needs to, you know, defeat the world with a shark tank. I mean, it became Dr. Evil in the awesome powers movie very famously. So he's still just like kind of a guy who's like giving money to terrorists and is pretty quiet and is like maybe, you know, lucky at poker. And which I know you guys will talk about. It's going to be a Q&A session. If you want to leave when we do the poker stuff.

No, no, no, no. I have my own thoughts and observations. Thanks so much. I appreciate that offer. But he is He's never milking it He's like He is doing the archetypal bond villain

But in a way that isn't like parody But that's Hans Gruber Same thing Hans Gruber Was like played it pretty subtle For a while And then so when he got mad You're like oh Hans Gruber's mad Yeah I think scaling down

The character's intention And even job was really smart Because as you said like And this series again The Daniel Craig series again gets to a kind of like International Conspiracy They kind of sort of ruined these movies, which we can talk about a little bit. But Mads McEltsin is like a banker.

I mean, that's his role. And he's very good at torturing people with a rope. He's an evil banker. He's an evil banker. Like, it's just not that complicated trying to understand what he's trying to do, which is he's just filtering money from one awful, you know, insurrectionist group to another across the world while also gambling on the stock market. Like, it's kind of a hilariously odd character despite the fact that Mads Miklson seems like pure evil. Well, it's like four and a half years after 9-11. And this is like the first wave of films that are like acknowledging 9-11 and 9-11 is a little bit of a pot or in some cases like World Trade Center where it's the entire movie.

Yeah, I mean, they try to blow up a plane. But in this movie, you know, there have been, there's some good conspiracy stuff at this point about all the people who profited from 9-11 and what happened and what didn't happen all that. And this movie just goes for it. And they're like, oh, yeah, he made all his money from shorting it. And on 912, he cleaned up. And you hear that in 2006, like, oh, this guy's evil. Yes. Okay.

I don't need any more information than this. It's a great point. It's like the most evil thing you could have done. Yeah. Was profit off of that moment. Yeah. It's a smart way to frame and, like, lower the stakes while keeping them incredibly high emotionally, morally, while not being, you know, robotic piranas in a tank. And stroking a cat.

Yeah. Well, and that's the other key point with this is the Austin Powers thing kind of ruined James Bond a little bit because it was a parody movie of all the James Bond's, but in the process also pointed out some of the ridiculous self-parody stuff for the Bond movies. So they had that. They're trying to figure out. They're trying to figure out how do we keep up with Born and Mission Impossible. Can you give us the 35-second history of Mads-Mickleson?

Sure. A Danish actor is probably best known for roles around the world that are completely different from this Le Schiff. Like, he is actually one of the more empathic. and kind of like morally curious actors. He's in a famous Danish film called After the Wedding. He was recently in another round, which won Best International Feature at the Academy Awards.

He's worked at Thomas Winterberg a handful of times. He's worked with Nicholas Winning Refn, one of my favorite directors a handful of times. He's worked with Rihanna, famously. He's worked with Rihanna. I talked to him on a podcast once. I interviewed him once. He's incredibly smart guy.

He is a classic. He reminds me a lot of a lot of German actors from the 50, 60s, and 70s, in that when they did American movies, they were always the villain, but in their home country, they were always the hero. And he's a really talented leading man who, through our eyes, I think we see as like slightly demonic, which I think says more about American audiences and English audiences than it does about, say, Danish audiences or German audiences. I once saw Mads Mikkelson save a woman at an over-served woman at a party.

So here in the United States, just to, you know, defend him a little bit. He plays a villain beautifully, but this woman was having a hard time, too many drinks. And Mads Mikkelson just stepped in from the side to save the day and make sure everything was okay. Very lovely guy. So where would you put him in the villain pantheon? Well, in the Bond Pantheon, he's pretty high. I think Lechief is very memorable. And it's also he's not, this is it for him.

You know, spoiler alert, he dies in this movie. Yeah. And so, like, we get to hold on to his run in a very compact way. Like Christoph Waltz, I thought, was quite interesting in these Daniel Craig movies, too. They kind of over did it a little bit. Yeah. They overexposed him a little bit. So I think because we just have this one movie with this iconic performance, he's basically in four scenes.

All of those scenes are thrilling. And then we're done with him. So I think he's really high in the bond rankings. Same for me. I mean, once you have, like, Blofeld and they got to just like come up with another plan, you know, involving like more missiles from space or whatever. You're like, okay, relax. He's way ahead of the guy from Toy Soldiers. 2006, we mentioned, was the big reboot

where Pierce Brosden wanted $30 million to be in Bond and they were like, cool, you're 53, we're going to move on now. They hired Daniel Craig, who, you know, he was a guy, but not really a guy. 2001 and 2005, who was in the Lara Croft movie, was in Road to Perdition, 2003, Sylvia and the mother. These are all movies Sean probably saw in the theater. You saw it?

Sylvia is Gwyneth Paltrow? I might have. He plays Ted Hughes. Her husband. Yeah, her husband. Sylvia Plath husband. It was a one-timer. I can't remember like when I wanted to spend time with the Sylvia Plath movie, but it definitely happened.

That's a really valid point. Yeah. It's like I actually like that movie. Sure, but it's also not like Daniel Craig is playing a sympathetic and exciting role in that one. He's in Laircake and 04. Layer cake. Ding, ding, ding. That's the one.

This was the live audition for James Bond, this movie. And also the live audition for a more scaled down James Bond. That was also the, I'm going to talk to my broker about buying some more Daniel Craigstock. Totally. Absolutely. He's like Laircake. Who's this guy? Then he's in the jacket.

He's in Munich. Important for this, I think, as well. Yeah. Could I argue if you switch roles and he's the lead in Munich? Is it a better movie? I think so. Oh, intriguing. You're not a Banna fan?

We've never done my Munich thoughts and I don't know whether we need to turn this into a Munich podcast. I think if you switch the roles, it's a better movie. I agree with Bill. You were on the other side. You thought they shouldn't have told this story from that. that perspective. Exactly. It should have been from the terrorist

perspective. Yeah, exactly. So the Daniel Craig, so they hire him and people know who he is, but they don't, it's not Pierce Brosden. They wasn't like a super famous man. But he was in the foreign circles. Yeah.

He was like, this guy's on the come up for sure. He was already like in his 30s. You know, he wasn't a kid at this point. And I think there was like a maturity to him too that might have disqualified him. Like, as we're thinking about who the next bond is going to be now, and I don't know if you want to wait to have that conversation. But a lot of the people that they're talking about,

talking about her like 27, and that just feels too young. I agree. So, well, I want to ask Amanda, because I think she likes the series the most out of the three of us. What do you want from James Bond? Do you want to mean a mystery? Do you want suave? Do you want a combo?

Like, what are you looking for? I'm man of mystery. The thing is, is that if you're trying too hard to be cool, especially in the Bond role, then you're just a little cheesy. And I think the Pierce Brosons one get a little cheesy. Yeah. And maybe this. This is my programming and the movies that I grew up watching.

But for a man to be truly compelling, talk less, you know. It's sort of the De Niro school. So Craig is bringing that. I mean, Daniel Craig. He's a little mystery. Also maybe, you know, producer Craig if you want. Craig's more talkative. Has that feeling only deepened as you've spent more time talking to men on podcasts,

that you want men to talk less to seem attractive? Well, the thing is that you guys all vent. all the guys who just like show up and don't say anything. That's the cool custom. Yeah. Like the fewer words in a movie, the better for you and also for my father. So it's just all the influences coming together. Does Bond have to be non-American for you?

I... Like could Adam Driver be James Bond? No. I guess it does have to be non-American. Does it happen? Like could Ryan Gosling have been James Bond? Oh, I love Ryan Gosling. Before he got that weird GQ cover haircut.

Whatever the hell is going on there with that... He still has the hair. Is that astro-turfle? He's proud of it. You know, he's just letting it shine. All right. So no on Ryan Gosling? No, because Ryan Gosling's appeal, and Ryan Gosling is very appealing to me as well,

but is in like the charm and the talkiness. And you just, you need some sort of distance from James Bond to believe that he can, you know, because he's not going to stick around. He's going to go. I kind of need him to be foreign, I think. Yeah. Well, it would throw me out, like if Jake Gyllenhaal had been James Bond. No.

This is weird. There's been a lot of discussion over the years about this, though, right? Because we've had a Scottish bond. We've had an Australian bond. Like, we've had figures. So we just need an accent. An Irish bond? We've had an Irish bond.

Like, we haven't... Could Colin Farrell have been James Bond? No, but that's just because Colin Farrell seems like a great hang. I love James Bond. I don't know if he's a great hang. What about Miami Vice, Colin Farrell? I wouldn't say that guy is a great hang. I would put that guy in any movie.

I love that guy. You want Bonn... You like Bojitos? You want Bond to be like a Cuban boat riding dirtbag? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, I don't... Is Daniel Craig a dirtbag in this movie?

Like, he's kind of borderline, right? I think this is... This shows how he officially becomes a dirtbag in a way. Like, it's the turn of the screw for him becoming the ultimate cynical spy. He is also, before he meets Vesperlin, you know, seducing married women and then ordering champagne and caviar for one and bouncing to go meet someone at the bodies exhibit in Miami. Where are you at on seducing married women?

Like, is that immoral? The 2000s, I think it was more of a thing. For you or just for everybody? Just to everyone, yeah. 2006. I like how you just say it was different back then for seducing married women. Can't judge. Can't judge mid-2000s.

2006, really splashy movie year. I think I forgot. In the moment, I remember being disappointed, like, oh, man, movies are going the wrong way. But now I look back. Give us a list. This is just the box office for that year. You're going to have your pirates, the Caribbean, dead man's chest and cars and X-Man and Da Vinci Code and Superman's returns, all those. But you also have Casino Royale.

You have Talladega Nights. You have Mission Impossible 3, Borat, Devil Wears Prada, The Departed. inside man April O, which is just an elite family movie. Apolo? April is amazing. Wow, a huge show.

I'm ready for the April O rewatchables. You have Brokeback Mountain that year. Yeah. You're the Miami Vice movie. You have Fast and Furious 2. You've Little Miss Sunshine. Oh, yeah. It just keeps going and going.

Have you guys done Little Miss Sunshine and rewatchables yet? Or was that just threatened? I've always wanted to and I never feel like I, you know what it is. I remember you talking about it. I think CR just needs to be out. I just don't feel like he likes the movie. Okay.

Who do you want to be on? I don't know. I need to find people who like Little Miss Sunshine. I love that movie. Publicano doesn't speak for an hour and 40 minutes of that movie. He's very good. Anyway, 06. Like, you hear those, you're like, wow, I would take that again, right?

Yeah. It was a slightly better time, though. It is at the beginning of when things are starting to turn. I mean, you just mentioned the top 10 movies that year are all IP movies. Yeah. Also, we have a little too much CGI in our live stage of movies, and this movie made a specific decision. Let's go back to our roots.

God bless. More stunts. It's a great point. Like, this movie in general is a great example of how you can still operate in a world where there's like a franchise that people know and understand, but make a quality version of it. You know, not just, you know, have a vision, have an idea, have a sense of what the audience is ready for

and how to redefine what the franchise is. Phenomenal plot, as we mentioned. Basically, evil financial guy makes money on 9-11, wants to run it back with another tragedy. Bond foils it. Now we're playing poker. And it teases at who's behind all this, but it doesn't spend too much time focusing on that.

Because there is greater power in the mix, but you don't really know what it is. There's some history. There was a TV episode called Casino Real that had Bond and the Schiff. there was this 1967 movie that was a parody

with sellers and Woody Allen and all that but for the most part do you want to get into any of that like why this is the way that it is

you want to do it yeah I mean it's interesting because it's the first Fleming book this is the first James Bond story I think it's

1953 and the rights to this story have been not in the hands of the folks the broccoli and saltsman

company that has you know dictated what the Bond franchise is going to be in the movies for a long long time and there have been many people who've been wanting to make Casino Royale,

the 1967 version does technically feature David Niven as James Bond, but it's more of a parody of a James Bond movie. It has like five directors. It's a very odd film. But for whatever reason, they just could never get Casino Royale off the ground. And this movie, I feel like, is a critical movie in 21st century films because MGM gets the rights to this movie from Sony

by trading the rights to Spider-Man. And so all of the Spider-Man movies that we've gotten, and there was a Spider-Man... No draft picks, Amanda. I know. Just a straight-up deal. They didn't throw any first round. I was going to ask you about that. Like, was that a good trade for these two movies studios?

We were like 10 minutes in, and you've already turned my James Bond podcast into another superhero podcast. Like, what's wrong with you? But it matters. I mean, James Bond is the original superhero in the movie. So, what do you think won the trade? I think Sony won because we only have five Bond movies. And Spider-Man has become arguably the most important. important character in movies in the 21st century in terms of just the pure box office.

I mean, we just talked on the big picture about a Spider-Man movie that's coming out this weekend. So I think that Sony won the trade, but that's brave of you to not see it. It was very beautiful images. Here's the thing. Here's how I feel about Bond. Actually, the rare underutilized franchise. Agree. I think for what the IP is and what it meant, now I'm old now.

I'm almost out of the 18 to 54 demo. But I still feel like it had outsize impact and importance. And when you think like, so Bond would be a one for me. Star Wars is like a 10 for they're just, they're just milking way too much Star Wars content now. They're kind of ruining it. But they're not milking Bond enough. Like, for instance, Amazon spent $300 million on this Citadel show that nobody liked

and seemed like they just set the money on fire. But like, why not spend, $700 million on a James Bond series and just do like eight episodes. I'm so glad you asked. I have an answer for that. Or do like James Bond's son. Or isn't there different ways to grab the IP or no? There definitely is, and it's a really good question.

If you compare James Bond to Spider-Man, there have been 10 Spider-Man movies made in the last... In the 21st century. In the 21st century. In addition to that, Spider-Man has also appeared in a number of MCU movies. In addition to that, Spider-Man is also an animated movies,

and, like, Spidey and Friends is the number one show, according to all my five-year-old nephews and nieces. They have taken advantage of that. MGM doesn't own James Bond. The broccoli family owns James Bond. And they're just super precious about it. And they are protective. Well, I think sometimes with good reason, you, Spider-Man is the obvious comp just because of that trade and because it's everywhere. But you guys have spent the last, what, 18 months just crying on podcasts about Star Wars and and NCU movies and all of the shows and how it's diluted the property and blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's great for the Ringiverse. It's great for the Ringiverse, but they do spend a lot of time being like, we need less. You know, they've spread this too thin. They don't have control over the storytelling. It's, like, not as good. Basically what the MLS is doing right now, where they're just adding teams every year. And it's like, we can't have 50 teams in the MLS. Yeah.

So there is, at least a Bond movie is still an event, you know, and it comes out every two years. I agree with Sean that as the stakes got more international conspiracy. Do you think it's still an event in 2013? in the same way. In 06, it felt like an event. It was like, holy shit, they're rebooting Bond. But now if a Bond movie came out this year, I wouldn't feel like, oh, my God, can't wait to. I don't even remember what the last Bond movie was.

It's no time to die. It was two years ago. I think if they basically wait two plus years and we get into late 2025, late 2026, it will be an event again. Because it'll be a new bond. What are they going to do differently? You know. The mistake they made in trying to, or not trying to expand the library is the whole world, like Dame Judy Gent, who Denshu kills it in this movie.

But just this whole world of like, how do you become a double-O? Right. Amazon really wants this. When they bought MGM, they basically said getting the opportunity to exploit the James Bond world is part of why they want it. But they don't control it. They just don't control it. Crazy. Directed by Martin Johnston, screenplayed by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and then Paul Haggis came in at a really hot time of his career.

Not as hot these days. But he wrote the last post-crash, right? Yeah, he wrote the last 30 minutes or so. Our guy, Raj, oh, $150 million budget made $650 million. So it did okay. Okay. Yeah. Kind of revitalized the franchise.

Yeah. Our guy, Raj, four stars for Raj. He's been on fire in 2023. Congrats, Raj, belatedly. He's the goat. He said, Craig makes a superb bond who gives the sense of a hard man, wounded by life and his job, who nevertheless cares about people and right and wrong. That's a really good description to me too.

And he says, a hard man, wounded by life and his job. All the answers to all my complaints about the 45-year James Bond series, specifically why nobody in a Bond movie ever seems to have any real emotions. Yeah. See, in 2006, this was perfect and still a reinvention. It comes a year after Batman begins, is that right? It's before Iron Man, which you and Van did recently,

and we're talking about it as like an origin story. that, you know, that necessarily has stakes and emotion. And now we sit through an origin story like every five minutes and there are like four in every episode of something. And you got it, somebody has a trauma and somebody else has a trauma and why do we all feel this way? And it feels stale. But in 2006, it was like, yes, thank you.

This feels new and amazing. And it's also not too much emotion. That's the other thing. There's just enough emotion and then also witty banter and Daniel Craig kind of putting up his shield. I can't, I can't stand when people do the origin trauma stories. Except for when we did it on Kramer versus Kramer on the rewatchables for two hours. I know, I'm sad.

I missed that one. That was legitimate. We'll do the re-Kramer versus Kramer. We'll bring you on. The re-Kramer will just do bang up numbers on the rewatchables. That will be one of our biggest episodes ever. We're going to take a break and do most rewatchable seeds. There's a lot of them.

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It's just harring. My wife watched most of this movie with me. She fell asleep a couple times. But in the first scene, she just a bunch of, oh, how do they do this? Whoa. It is an A-plus action set piece. Oh, my God. Martin Campbell, the director of the movie,

who did direct Golden Eye, and so he knew the Bond franchise. But, you know, Golden Eye is a bigger movie. Yeah. But he himself, who made the two Zorro movies with Antonio Banderas,

and he's made a bunch of really good kind of mid-tier action movies. My favorite is The Foreigner with Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan. Is awesome at practical action. He is, like, one of the best living directors at these kinds of set pieces,

and they nail this. It's when the, the free runner, the parkour, you know, the terrorist throws the gun at Bond and then he catches it and throws it right back. I just start cheering every time. I know what's coming. I like when people fight on perilous things where it's like there's no way you just fall left or right to your death, but you also have to plant and throw punches. It only works in movies. But it's really convincing. And the guy who he's chasing might be the greatest athlete of all time. I don't know who it was, but I don't know why the Giants did in science. him right after the movie. It's kind of like if Wembeyanama and Scoot Henderson were the same guy. It's kind of amazing. Cross with Sequin Markley. He's just diving through stuff. He's jumping 20 feet.

Amazing. And it seems and you know in research it backed it up. It seems like real stunts. Like the jumps. Now there's some bad blonde wig. The wig is really, really tough. I don't think they're anticipating yeah. Yeah, maybe the

HDTV is getting better and being more wearing. Well, there's also just a length issue. It's, you know, Daniel Craig has a pretty close cross. It's cropped throughout the movie. And that it's like Trumpian. The guy's name is Sebastian Fouken, the terrorist. The greatest athlete of all time. Yeah, and I think he's like one of the founders of Parkour.

I was going to save Parkour for what age the best. But like what a moment for Parkour. Wow. I thought it's him and Alton from the real world are the two greatest athletes I've ever seen. I also like where they have when they set the fight scene up with somebody going, I need him alive. Yeah. It's always like, oh, boom.

This will be good. This guy's dying. Yeah. This guy's definitely going to die, but it'll be an extra. This guy's, not only is this guy dying, but oh, my God, our hero is going to be in so much trouble when he kills this guy. I'm putting this in as a rewatchable scene, not for me, but for the sound my wife made when Daniel Craig came out of the water and she goes, oh, my God, Daniel Craig. That's my one shot, Gordo. And I think about it all the time.

I think about it every time. Like, I see anyone coming out of the water. the blue Speedos really made an impression on me. It's powerful. It made an impression on the lady with the white horse on the beach, inexplicably riding a horse around. I have that in a different category. Is that something you can do in the Bahamas,

just rent a white horse, a white stallion? I assume she's very wealthy, so I think she's not renting. I do. They live down the beach. They have a house. I think that her terrorist husband is funding the upkeep of that horse. What's a white stallion go for? Horses will poop anywhere. I mean, just like, not a great.

animal for the beach. And it's a lot of poop. It is. That is true. That was your first thought, huh? It was one of my first thoughts. Otherwise, it's a pristine beach, the white sands of the Bahamas? Yeah. It's true. It's true. So, him stepping out of the water. Is he

too yoked to be James Bond? No, I think it's good. No, I think it's good. It's set on stage for this guy's ready to fight. No, he is perfect. I'm not criticizing Daniel Craig. He's actually also like the only, he's like the perfect yoked. Everyone who is trying to like bulk and cut and do all these things.

Like this is the movie. That scene, like producer Craig, when he's coming out of the water, it's perfect. That's the human form. It's like a Greek statue, but IRL. Well, it became a big thing with the movie when it came out. Oh, you sure did. Jesus, Bond. We're going here now.

Yeah, I feel like we never saw Pierce Brosnan's lower torso. It was always like he would have his shirt open in bed and you'd see the chest hair. but you never saw. I mean, it's basically a Maxim magazine cover shoot, his reveal coming out of the ocean. Yeah, and it's awesome. I know you're loving it. There's also a little tied up.

Horned up Amanda, this is a huge moment. Oh, sorry. It's great. I'd be time for horned up Bill and Sean. Don't worry. We'll have our moment. We'll have our moment. It was a little nod for the Bond fans to Ursula Andrus and Dr. Nal. Ursula Andrews is one of the 12 best looking women of all time.

Wow. She's unbelievable. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, people like that. And then, and then Daniel Craig says now, he would be haunted by it. He didn't realize at the time he would be haunted by it for the rest of my life. Okay. I don't think he loved it. He's doing okay. He married Rachel Vice. Yeah. He's doing fine. But I don't think he wanted to be a sex. I can relate to that kind of anxiety. Okay. You can relate to looking like Daniel Craig in this movie and the, and the bird. No, being haunted by something that people really like about you. Sure. Yeah. It's really hard to be that attractive. First poker scene we get

To the valet where he wins the car Oh, yeah All right, show me, gentlemen. Three Kings. Tripases. Aces win. Oh, and the valet ticket. And then picks up the lady

It does the circle and is like, okay, we're here. It's really good. The dumb-ass guy, we're going to get to later, who's a weak link in the movie. What's his name? Oh, Alex Demetrios.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Greek guy. Not great. Yeah. Greek guy, my bed. Not great, but he goes all in with kings, with an ace on the table, Sean? Yeah, I mean, it's one of the dumbest poker moments in movie history.

It's completely illogical. He's like, all in. Guy hits his king on the river. I'm not scared of that ace and the thing at all. Yeah, guy hits his king on the river and thinks he nailed it with an ace on the board. While Bond is checking him all. the way down. I mean, this is like, this is 101 poker. This is like dumb shit. I can assure you it's not because I don't know what you're talking about, but I was going to ask,

I'll ask it now because it's germane to this scene. Seems like there are just a lot of high cards in these hands. Is that always, yeah, it's unusual. But you got to think they're doing the greatest hits of the best hands, right? Because they're there for four hours. Everyone has aces and kings, and you're just like, wow. It's a good point. The first time I saw the movie, I really didn't like this part of the movie because this is coming on the heels of not just rounders but like the poker boom right this is post chris money maker it's when everybody's watching the world series of poker on ESPN it's a huge moment for poker this exact year i went on a poker cruise to report a story about the boom in poker where did the cruise go was that for paste magazine it was no no it was

for complex i actually never wrote the story but that's a whole other story um it went to mexico uh wow porto viarta okay uh it was nice that sounds like this seventh circle of hell of poker cruise in Mexico. If there's anything where there's like a sewage league halfway through the cruise, that would be my bet. That didn't happen. It was actually not bad, but I didn't get to play a lot of poker because I was covering the tournament that was happening on the cruise. Anyhow, I think that as I look back, what you just said resonates with me, which is it's just the highlights of the best hands. That's what they're doing. It's almost like a recap. If I'm ever on a cruise at any point in my life, even much later, where it's like, oh yeah,

Bill was apparently on a cruise. Just assume there's like some Sumner Redstone shit going on. There's two women in my life who were like manipulating me and drugging me and I don't know what's going on. Okay, all decisions from that point on or void. If I'm on a cruise, something terrible is happening. Okay. Because I'll never go on a cruise. So somebody is up to something bad

with the worst intentions for me. Next scene. Oh, by the way, forgot when he goes, oh, in the valet ticket. After he beats the guy, such a fucking that's like a Phil Helmuth kind of move. He grabs the keys, yeah. The body worlds. Who knew this place existed? I did because I went

to the exhibit at the South Street Seaport because it was a traveling exhibit throughout the 2000s. All right. So what's it like? It's really weird. It's just like a museum about human anatomy. And so they just have different bodies with like tissues and you go look at them. And you're just like, wow, that's a look at that nerve. That's really cool. It's a very strange thing. I don't think, I didn't think, I didn't realize until I saw the rehearsal that this was, those were actually real. dead bodies, which I don't think it ever happened before in a movie. Is that true? Yeah.

Those were real, that's the whole body world's thing. Those were all real dead bodies. That's gross. Will you dedicate your corpse to a museum exhibit? Just my head. Okay. Yeah. Just because of all the brain power that I want to show the world. Sean just entering in a letterbox movie.

But it's just him with like two organs. Log. Log. The airport fight, it's like a plus compared to the other stuff in here, but it's still fun, and we get to see Bond fighting a guy in a car. I always love when people fighting cars, it's so stupid. You just wouldn't be able to get any sort of leverage for any punch. You would just end up like strangling each other.

But in the movies, it's like, punch. I get punch. Punch. And it's like, no, you're right next to each other. But him vaulting himself into the car is an awesome scene. There's good action stuff. Then him swerving the car at the last minute and him pulling up the guy. It's solid.

Bond meets Vesper on a train played by Eva Green Our Queen What else can you surmise Mr. Bond? About you, Miss Lynn? Well, your beauty's a problem

You worry you won't be taken seriously Which one can say of any attractive woman With half a brain True, but this one overcompensates By wearing slightly masculine clothing Being more aggressive than her female colleagues Which gives her a somewhat prickly demeanor And ironically enough,

makes it less likely for her to be accepted and promoted by her male superiors. We must take her insecurities for arrogance. Now, I'd have normally gone with only child, but... You see, by the way you ignored the quip about your parents, I'm going to have to get with orphan. All right. By the cut of his suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. And actually think human beings dressed like that.

But you were it with such disdain. My guess is you didn't come from money. and your school friends never let you forget it which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity hence the chip on your shoulder and since your first thought about me ran to orphan that's what I'd say you are

this is an all-timer I'm gonna have to go with orphan is how their little courting dialogue ends but this is a really well-written scene I don't know if this is one of the Paul Haggis scenes but the little sparring with both of them for four minutes is just really elite every penny of it yeah yeah it's just really elite writing

And really well acted. They have great chemistry. Incredible. And on the airplane, she set the seat with the TV on fire. And they had to escort the guy to another seat because the seat came who caught fire. Because that's how great she looked. Eva Green, give us the history of her, Sean. She's a French actor raised in an American school.

And so she speaks many languages. And she's just like a world-class smoke show. I don't know what else you want me to say. But she's also a good actress. She's a great actress. Her first film is a Michael Hanukin movie. Her second film is a Bernardo Berder Lucci movie. I mean, she got her start in these very, like, interesting kind of international cinema.

She's very, very gifted, but she has spent the last 20 years making a lot of franchise movies. This is her first foray into those kinds of movies. She did White Lotus, like, season four. I would welcome that wholeheartedly. I would just like the dramatization of her recent legal battle, which involved her trying to get out of a contract for one of the bad movies that she's been. chain to. And then inevitably, the text messages were distributed as discovery. And it's just even green being like, this is bullshit. I hate all of this. I don't. They're so bad. No, but in a way that makes you like her. And she, you know, she's got the edge and she has the edge

in this movie. And it seems like that's true in real life. That'd be a good big picture segment called Better Agent, where you just go through and like, what are you doing? Get a better agent. Look at your last five years. You need new representation. It really doesn't matter who her agent is. She's doing everything right. She's really. I mean, they're so dynamite together that you could make the case that this kind of screws up this franchise a little bit because

it makes this like the mortal wound for Bond, which is logical because she's so appealing and they're so great together. But I just want her back. Like, I want her back in these movies. She could have come back. Could have said she got resuscitated later. We just didn't see it. I love when I got resuscitated

two hours after I drowned to death. Yeah. I like train scenes too, just in general. Spent a lot of time on a train as a kid as a child of divorce. Did you? That's how you got back and forth on the train? That's nice. Stanford to Boston.

Wow. Second big poker scene. Wait, did you ever meet an Eva Green on the train when you were a kid? Never. That's too bad. Every time. Yeah. By the way, these have got to be the two hottest like money managers in movie history, right?

Mads Miklson and Eva Green. Like that's basically their jobs. Right. She works for the treasury. I mean, sure. He trades stocks, stocks every day? I mean, she's spoilers. She's an accountant.

but a setup. A bit of a double-eat-eat. Yeah. Second big poker scene, which really just is Bond gets beat. Oh, no, Bonn doesn't get beat, but realizes he gets the guy's tell.

But he orders a martini. Dry martini. Wait, monsieur. Wait. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Keenna-lily, shake it over rice,

and then add a thin slice of lemon feel. Yes, sir. You know, I'll have one of those. So will I. It's not that man. She just fucking rattles it off. That's like, this is the James Bond I want right here. Like a five-part martini order.

I'm pleased to make a personal announcement. Yeah. I have made a pivot in my life. You're a martini guy there? Away from brown liquor to martinis. Wow. When did that happen? Amanda and I wore it in England together a week and a half ago.

When you saw Karen Coker and sadly draught. Maybe it's a tribute to Jerry. We thought, I know. It was Jerry's drink. Yeah. We missed it. No, it's okay. You did it after.

I didn't know until the internet We thought it was a Logan Royal Mod. We did a great job. We did not. Thank you. In retrospect, makes a lot of sense, obviously. And frankly, having had a few martinis in England,

they make a lot of sense too. You just had one. I had two, actually. I remember Joe House made the move about, I would say, 10 years ago and just started going dirty martini. And it really fit them. And it was great.

And I was really happy for him. I think there should be an announcement, almost like a wedding announcement or a birth announcement. Yeah. I am now a martini guy. June 16th This is my thing now Always gin, not vodka, gin.

I don't have a preference I think shaken probably Okay Shaken? What do you go If you ever have a martini? Shaken or stirred? Bond said shake it over ice.

He does but then later on Well that's a nice nod to Shaken, not stirred which is historical and then in this one he's like do I look like I give a damn Much better drink than a jack and coke Yeah for Bond It's true

It's a growing up moment I'm a jack and coke, no straw. The stairway fight is really good. Really good. Yeah. I have some questions about those guys' strategy, those two terrorists. Cutting somebody's arm off, basically, as a threat. Obano?

Yeah, but not really. And in general, just almost killing someone as a means to get money back. I mean, I guess it was scary, but I don't know what they're doing. It should have been a little more heroin. I agree with you. I think it is something, though, that like these movies, especially the Craig movies have done really well, which is like Isaac de Bancolle plays Obano, the Ugandan terrorist. And he's another like world class actor who's in Claire Dene movies. And they just cast him for two scenes in which he's going to chop somebody's arm off.

But he's great. He's very effective. Third poker scene has the misread of the tell. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's four checks. Miser Le Schiff wins. If I thought I was bluffing, Mr. Bond.

Please. We will now break for one hour. So the cards we see are Jack King, Ace, Jack King. So there's two Jacks and two kings on the table and an ace. Bond has Ace King. So he's got a full house King High. Pretty good hand. The only thing that's going to beat him is if the other guy's holding two aces.

Okay. What he doesn't realize is the shift's holding two jacks. gives him four jacks, which is basically impossible. Like you met your fucking unicorn at that point. I've been at the tables and seen a few four of a kinds,

but very few. It's very rare. It's four of a kind as like, holy shit, I can't believe I just lost them. Especially four of a kind played down to the river.

And that's like the thing, the river is the fifth card. Mads-Mickleson's character has a tendency to play to the fifth card. So he gets the, he has four jacks before we see the last card. Oh, I see. And if you have four jacks

before we see the last card. last card, you're probably starting to get a little aggressive. It's hard to, we don't, we can't get a real feel for his game. I wouldn't say I was impressed by his style of play. You want to at least get a little out there because you want to try to get some money before the seventh card. Exactly. Anyway, uh, four jacks.

I didn't mind it. It's okay. I think it's still, it's interesting that it's still unclear who gave the tell to Bond. I had that as a flaw in the movie. I think it was the bearded guy. You think it was Mathis and not Vesper. Because it could be Vesper or could be Mathus. We don't know.

And Bond kind of leaves it open. Who gives him the wrong? Who tells Leshiff that Bond has identified as TEL? Which then leads to Lishif. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't he say later that it was Mathis? But maybe it actually was Vesper.

It might have been Vesper. We don't know. Which makes her even a worse person. It's tough. Or she tells someone else who tells Les Schiff, we don't know. My next scene is Bond gets poisoned. That's, it's really good. That's just an awesome four-minute scene.

Little reminisce in a Pulp Fiction, like just a whiff. Oh, interesting. A whiff of the, I gotta get this thing in time. Well, it's also the kind of thing that you don't see in any other Bond movie. There's no comparison to be made. Like, obviously Bond is in peril in many movies, but not like this. This, like, kind of chaotic, shaky hand cam where he's stumbling out of the hotel. And the filmmaking is very different from Bond movies.

The climactic poker scene will come back to. And then the water fight in Venice. Sure. That's what I have for the rewatchables. Did I miss anything? Well, it's more of a long shot, but the shower scene. Shower's good. I had that in one stage the best.

It's a good scene. You need scenes like that movies. Yeah. So not the torture scene. I don't love, I mean, I don't love torture scenes, but that one, I can't tell is he hitting Bond and the ball? Of course he is. He is.

Yeah. That's why they cut the bond. of the chair out. It's messed up. I think it's the worst torture in movie history. I completely agree. It's absolutely messed up. So I thought that's what was happening.

It was a little unclear, but regardless, like, I just feel like you would pass out. You guys would know better than I. Well, I watched, rewatch this with my wife last night, and she turned to me during the scene. She was like, is this the most, the worst imaginable torture for you? And I said yes. Like, the pain. Okay. But I think, I think you'll pass out.

nut tap is more profound than breaking an arm. Carlton Fisk. I mean, imagine. Sure, yeah. Goble haunting. I got it. Yeah, I know. Fow ball right into the crotch.

Ruppured his testically passed out on the field. Okay. So that's my bar for, I just feel like you pass out. But here's too much pain. We learned here that Carlton Fisk is a weak baby and that James Bond is a man. Fair. I don't love the torture scene. The water fight's fine, but for me it's the climactic poker scene.

What do you have? Train scene. Train scene. Okay. I love the opening action set piece, the chase through. You know what? You're probably right. It's really good.

The construction scene is amazing. It's so cool. All right, let's talk about the poker scene. First of all, Bond's Jordan Flew game here. Yeah. Coming back off of getting poisoned and immediately just orchestrating like the hand of all time. We see Ace of Hearts and we see A6, 4 and Asa Spades. A's of Spades is the last card.

So we know somebody. he's going to have a flush at the very least. We know flush is in play, but we also have two aces on the table. So there's some good poker thing. We have four people stay in the hand. Pretty unusual. Well, the flush possibility makes it clear that there's a lot of action on the table. The flaw in the scene, or not a flaw necessarily, but what I struggle with in the scene

is Le Schiff is playing to the river. He doesn't have a flush. He's got two pair, and he's playing down the board when he knows that two other guys at least are pushing towards the flush. So the last card is ace of spades. We already have three spades on the table. He's basically got an ace and a six, so he's got two pair. Yeah. And he knows at this point somebody's...

So what's Le Schiff doing? He's got $40 million in front of him, and he's playing down to the end of this hand with action with three other players? It was a heat check shot. It was a he check. Yeah, he's fucked up. Le Schiff fucked up. So the Asian guy has king-queen spades. So that gives him basically a high straight.

So he's got... No, he's got a high flush. He's got the ace high flush. Yeah, he's got ace high flush. 99 out of 100 times, you'd be like, I'm dominating this hand. That's why he's so happy. The big guy has two eights out of nowhere. Now he's got a full house because he's got full hats,

eights high with two aces. Eights full of aces. So the Asian guy's like, what the fuck? Like I thought I had this. Mads is sitting there with his dumb A6 that he never should have stayed in the hand, who now he has a full house. House ace high, which wins every time. Yep. Except Bond

as the straight flush. Does straight flush beat four of a kind? I can't remember. No. Four of a kind beats everything. I think a royal flush is the strongest hand. Royal flush is the strongest. Straight flush is like third best hand you could have. So Bond's sitting on five, seven. So he has it before we see the last card. Wait, we should go back. I don't even know. Does the straight flush beat four of a kind? I thought royal flush beats everything. Royal flush beats everything. Royal flush might beat four of a kind too. God, I don't even know.

That's how rarely this comes up in poker. Craig's right on the Google. This is also a testimony to the fact that I haven't been to Vegas in four years. It's not so testimony to how rare those hands are. It's ridiculous. Yeah, watching the movie the first time I was like, oh, this is like the Cincinnati kid where like it's like I have a full house and I have, you know, five eighths and, you know, it just seems ridiculous.

I mean, it is helpful to someone like me who is familiar with the poker terms. Well, we have Mathis a couple times leans there. Yeah, great exposition. Well, I mean, when they explain like that's what his. tell is, it means how you can, and I'm just like, all right. It's tough. But like for my wife, that was super helpful. Yes.

I mean, it, maybe. What do you want to know again? What's the hierarchy of best cards? It goes royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind. Oh, so straight flush, does be four of a kind. Royal flush, four of a kind. Okay, yes. That makes sense.

So what he had would have beaten anything except a royal flush. So Bond has, he has the straight flush before we get to the last card. Yes. And he's downplaying it and just like, oh, yeah. yeah, I think I'm in, whatever. But I feel like he should have maybe got a little bit more aggressive, too. I disagree. I think he played it perfectly.

He's like... Well, obviously, he won $150,000. Right. Did he get the little money on the table? Did he get the fifth spade on the turn? I think he got it on the turn. On the flop? He got it on the second or last card.

That's what I mean. Yeah. So he gets it on the turn, which then once you get it, you're like, you can't, you can't bet into that. Like, you have to just see what the table is doing. And he's also in position. He's on the button. Like, he's in the best.

spot because he's going last. The buttons. I've thought about this a lot. Yeah. No, that's great. I'm going to say it's a good hand. I don't, my biggest complaint is they don't linger on all the cards on the table long enough.

Like you really need, and maybe they. But it's perfect for a podcast like this to break it down. Right. In the theater, really hard to keep track of it. I think on the board on the turn, on the, on the flop, he's holding 5, 7 and 6, 8 of spades is on the board. And so you have an open-ended straight, flush draw. is that is sex.

Like that is pure magic. Because you get four or nine, you win. And you're also still just flush drawing. So regardless, like, you're probably going to get a flush. It is magic. Like, I... Sean's tell us if he has that situation. Yeah, he starts going.

No, I'm like... Actually, my body just shuts down, and I'm just trying not to cry. Have you guys played poker together very often? I don't think we have. You never have? No, we've never... Okay, so you can assess each other. Honestly.

We've played in the same casino at the same time, but never at the same table. It would be hilarious. if we played poker together. You could sell tickets to it. Even I would buy one. We do know each other really well. Yeah, yeah. I know, but you don't know what each other's poker.

Wouldn't there be second guessing of like, is he doing this? Is he doing that? Yeah, but I'm just like... Or am I doing that for a reason. Right, exactly. That's true. But I might be too interested in just playing against Bill instead of playing against the table, which is a mistake.

That would be a mistake. But you know me. I'm like, I like put on my AirPods and don't make... I don't even move. Like, I don't even do anything. That's really psychotic. I have mad's as a weak tell. This guy's like a multimillionaire.

Well, he's got a bloody eye. Every time he does this, no one he told him that. Very bad. What a weak tell. They should have written something more intricate. That's the problem with the movies. Like, because Rounders, Teddy KGB had the weakest tell of all time.

It's like, oh, he didn't eat the Oreo that time. Oh, man. How did you figure that one out? It should have been like a subtle, like he bites his lip a little bit or something. Like, him just doing this is so basic. Anybody who knows anything about poker watches that and is like that's so stupid. But if you don't know anything about, I'm not saying you don't. But if you don't know anything, you need to have your handheld a little bit.

It's accessible. Yeah. I will say. I think he makes the second best I can't believe I'm lost I'm so fucked poker movie face I've ever seen Mads

The best is still Damon when he loses in the beginning of rounders And like you can see his soul leave his body But this is probably second for me Yeah It's a good scene though I have more poker thoughts later Can I ask you one quick question about this

How do you guys feel about Felix Leiter staking him As a storytelling moment? I didn't love it you mean within the like realm of poker I don't know poker etiquette is that bad is that rude it's a little weird it's just it kind of comes out of nowhere

and doesn't really pay off maybe I'll save it for picking nets okay okay um all right we're gonna do what stage the best let's take another break this episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from wells fargo that's a mouthful but that's because it packs a lot in earn unlimited two percent cash rewards on purchases with it big or small So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

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But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. All right, what's age the best? We'll go quickly. We mentioned Eva Green.

We mentioned the plot. the dame herself Judy Dench She's throwing heat She's great She's great Who would be a better Like maybe Helen Mirren

I don't know They're always No But I think Helen Mirren Like brings like a sexy element to it And she's doing that sort of In the fast franchise To be sort of diminishing returns

I love Helen Marin But this is Dame Judy all the way One thing I love is that they replace her effectively Later in these films After she dies with Ray Fine and he also is phenomenal in the Bond films. The locations we mentioned. 1964, Aston Martin, good to see that one.

Mostional shower scene. The concept of a British Am I officer being assigned double zero status, which gives you a license to kill, just good premise. Incredible stuff. It's great. It's like you're now at double zero.

You have a license to kill. Ian Fleming was a naval service officer who had actually. access to naval intelligence. And, you know, everyone says that this is, this character is just him kind of like dream casting his own life, you know, that like this is who he always wanted to be. Villains with asthma. Is it the best for me?

The inhaler is a nice touch. They do this and kiss the death with Nick Cage, too. He's like this evil mob boss, but has the inhaler. LeSheaf has like a platinum inhaler, too. It's like he had, you know. He had, like, Jacob the jeweler, like his inhaler. You know, he had like Jacob the jeweler, like his inhaler. It was pretty incredible.

Mention Mads, Dushy, Lower Lip Curl Face. The 9-12 shortstock profiteer gimmick, just really good for a movie. I like, this is from Escape from New York, when you put a chip in your hero so you can track them. Yeah. It's like, what's going on here? Oh, that hurt. Oh, now we can track you. I always, always is a good gimmick.

I would have liked to put like a time sensitive chip where it's like he's got a week. Yeah. Right. Well, we all had to get that when we joined Spotify, right? We all got a chip, and they've been tracking us ever since. Quotes like, I need them alive. Take your ego out of the equation. Quite the body count you're stacking up.

It just like checks. It just makes me think AI will probably write some of these movies. Yeah. AI will just grab like 600 of these quotes and just throw them into a souffle. It still is a Bond movie. It still has the locations and, over the top villain and the cliche phrases and sometimes they just like yada yada

whole like geopolitical situations and it's like it's fine we'll work it out but because of the filmmaking and the tone and I really think the practical effects it just under it lets them get away with the other silliness you know so it feels familiar but it works

I like in action movies when a bad guy goes to shoot someone it doesn't realize the good guy switched his gun out. Yeah. When has that not worked? Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about that opening.

Yeah. The black and white, like getting him double O status. It's good. The first 20 minutes of this movie are really good. Like, you can come in at the start and be like, oh, yeah. It's a, it's a pretty, is it a flawless movie? It's pretty close. Well, I have some flaws.

It's pretty high level. Bond's tux is fantastic. I don't know who made the tux, but that thing was just elite. Ava Green had it tailored for him. Yeah. Yeah, that is a nitpick. Yeah, I sized you up. Sure.

I have your exact measurements. She's allowed to say there are dinner jackets and dinner jackets, which is my favorite quote of the whole film. Yeah. I like having a guy on hand who can dispose of bodies is always good. Yeah. Yeah, you have one of those. I do.

Yeah. It's Joe House. Amazing car accident? Like, amazing? Oh, with the car spinning. They asked the Martin rolling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and Ava Green like coiling up. Yeah, really, really. They must have CGIed her in there, but it really seems like it's real and the car swerves at the last second. I can't not nitpick that scene, though. I don't understand that because why are they trying to kill her there when they need to get the money? Have they gotten the money at that point? They're using hers bait.

She could have been killed. Right, he could drive over. And she has the account and he has the password. There's a better way to just get Bond. So I don't understand that scene. She can't die there. They need her. It's good nitpick.

to keep up the pretense of, I don't know. Okay, fair enough. If he doesn't help if she just gets run over. Well, it's a Bond movie and she's okay, you know, because he can move the car. But, I mean, that's a huge illogical moment to me. I have the bond music for what's aged the best because it always aged the best. It's so good. It's really just great theme music.

What do you think of the Cornell song? I kind of had, I didn't have the song as much as this weird era of, I called it, slow metal rock music in movies because Miami Vice, Michael Mann, was just, just like, boom. Yep. He's got audio slave and all those. Huge Cornell fan too, Michael, man. Yeah, so this is, this is kind of the era of 0506

where they really did lean into these songs for two years. Then it went away. I feel like it's a natural, it was a, and rest in peace, Chris Cornell, just an amazing singer. A natural kind of conclusion for him as an artist too, because obviously he's like a grunge, kind of grunge metal singer over time. But all throughout the grunge era,

people were like, this guy sings like an angel. You know, like he had such a, beautiful voice and such a high register. He's like a balladier in a lot of ways. The Miami Vice has a couple of the best ones ever of whatever this weird genre was. It's like not quite enough for a Spotify playlist, but some of them... Yeah, it's like Evanescence core, you know, where there's like orchestral sounds and metal songs. I was going to play one of the Miami Vice songs, but I think it would get us removed on YouTube and we're going to run this on YouTube. You're going to play it on your iPad?

I was going to play one of the Miami Vice, so I'll play for you later. Okay. Oh, thank you. What else do you all have for? what stage is the best. I mean, we mostly, we talked about the location. And Sean over here sometimes gets a little skeptical of people going to Europe and filming things. And I just, this is the like classic example of when you go to Europe and film something, it works.

It's a two-track thing for me. One, I don't really care as much about going to a place as you guys do. You know, you guys are like, wow, I went to Italy. It's like, all right. We're human being. That's fine. Okay. I'm sorry.

We can't feel. The second thing is I really hate when movies do this, but then it's only, and this is much more common in the last 10 years, aerial shots, drone shots. You never see the people's feet on the ground in the city. They just like they place you in the city, but then, I mean, Fast X is so bad about this where they show you all these images of a city, but you never see the characters in the city. Because I don't think that they were there, but. Right. But this movie obviously. I'll never see Fast 10, so.

Okay. You'll never see it. Never. That's fascinating. I mean. That's just an evolved status. and I'm proud of you. That's good.

I'm out. I wish it ended after Fast 7. It would have been. That would have been a better way. I can't blame them because they made three extra billion dollars. Sure. You know why they did it. Shit happens.

But the ending of Fast 7 is so perfect. I agree with you. It's just would have been such a cool way to end it. And then maybe wait six years and make another one. I think they've gotten increasingly worse too as they've gone. But anyway, it doesn't. You think they've gotten increasingly worse? 8, 9.10.

Yeah. Well, I've seen 10. 10 was appalling. It's bad. And Sean really like fell apart. I still don't know. I still don't understand what happened in a name. Anyway, do you have any of what stage the best?

I mean, I thought the Spider-Man trade was fascinating and perfect. Yeah, that's a good one. And I also think... That's like Stefan Marbury for Jason Kidd. Just a whoa. I think, to your point... I stole the words right out of a band-a-south.

You're more of a kid fan or a Starberry fan? What is the right answer to that? I'm sorry? It was just the two best point cards in the league. just got traded for each other in 2000. Yeah, but what would my answer to that be? I think you're probably more of a Steph person. Okay. It would be my guess.

What do you think? I was trying to think if 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow just got traded for somebody who was exactly equal. Like Kate Blanchett, they just got traded for each other in 98. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's kind of powerful. How do actresses get traded?

I don't know. I don't even know how that would work. Just their careers get traded. I mean, I love the Spider-Man, James Bond thing. It is great. The other thing that was smart was, I think, bringing, Purvis and Wade, the screenwriters, along as they are ultimately kind of the authors of the James Bond movie in the last 30 years. And obviously Paul Haggis wrote, I think, a lot of the emotional stakes in the movie, but they know how to make a Bond movie go.

And they're a part of all of these movies because they know the characters so well. Kid Cuddy Pursuit a Happiness where Best Needle Drop. We really kick in the theme music when we get to the Bahamas. Yeah. It's just effective. Everything works. You know what's so great, though? like in every single one of these movies

and these are not my favorite movies, but in every single one of these movies when Bond fires and the movie starts and you hear the dun-da-dun-dun-dun-d-d-d. Like every time that drops in the first 10 minutes of the movie. You're right. And then they bring it back at the end

for like the Coda when he, which sets up the next movie which is like a little annoying but the music just swells. And it's like, oh, Bond is back. We did it. The name's Bond. James Bond.

Big Kahuna Burger Where Best Use of Food and Drake The Dry Martini Of course Gotta be Denithee's Benihana Award Scene stealing location Wow

We'd choose between Monaco, the Bahamas or Venice I'm gonna Uganda did make the finals And Lake Como Where he's doing the rehab Like those are some And Mr. White's villa at the end

I've never been to Lake Como Some pretty spectacular But then you got like the Grand Canal In Venice For me it's Italy But I don't know if I can choose between the two. So Uganda and Madagascar just off the table here.

Off table. Okay. I think they use Venice the best. Yeah. It's so beautiful. I have bad news for you. It's not Monaco. It's Montenegro.

It's Montenegro, but they filmed it in the Czech public. But they made it seem like it was Monaco? It's kind of a Monaco stand in. I think in Casino Royale it takes place in Monaco in the novel. Yeah. Oh, I thought we're in Monaco. But we're in a Balkan country. Yeah. Montenegro, yeah.

So then the answer has to be the Venice then. Yeah, I guess so. Montenegro looks great. The Ocean Club is a real hotel that you can go to in the Bahamas. I have been. Was it lovely? 20 years ago. Yeah, it was great.

Okay, yeah. See, there you go. It seems like a nice center of up. Venice was kind of like San Antonio with better food. Okay. I still would like to go. Is that because of like, is that like a, what's it called the river walk? Yeah, the riverwalk.

Okay. Yeah, the riverwalk. That's a great take. Thank you. I've never been. to Venice. I can't sleep. What did you have for Great Shot Gordo?

Well, the bathing suit, obviously. But then there's another one where after the poker game, Bond and Vesper are having dinner. And they're like in the corner of that like very, of the hotel splendid. Yeah. Splendie. Okay, sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Monsieur Bond. And it just looks. It's very beautiful. And they're sitting in the corner and I would like to be them. I think the first time we see. Eva Green in the plunging neckline dress. I was like, this is a great film. This is great filmmaking.

The Vincent Chase Award for, are we sure this character was actually good at his job? Le Schiff? Like, what's going on? You lost all your money, and then it's like your move is like, hopefully I can win this high-stakes poker game. I'm like a B-minus poker player. And then after that, it's, I'm just going to try to erupt James Bond's nuts, and then I'll find a way to get the money back.

Like, I haven't, he's completely lost it at that point when he's in the torture scene too. Like, what is, he has no plan. That's why he gets shot, obviously. Yeah. The Butch's girlfriend Award for Weeklink of the film. My wife demanded, we put this in. Okay.

Her quote. James Bond doesn't fall in love in a week. I completely agree. Okay. They fell in love in like two seconds. He's like, I love you. It's like, what? I have some.

You hung out in a wet shower and, you had a dinner together. You're in love? James Bond? Coolest guy in the world? I have some more... I was going to file this under-unanswerable questions. I would agree. After he is rehabilitated,

but before they get to Venice, there is one scene that's usually cut from cable, interestingly, where I've seen this many times. The little finger scene? No, that one's still in. That's really nice. Good for him. Where they're just like romping around.

like on a medical bed. Like they've been out in, so there's clearly some time where he's like mobile and walking around, but still under medical supervision in his opulent Lake Como area. And also, Ava Green is there and they are exploring their feelings for one another, if you will. So it could be like two to three weeks. I'm just saying they yada yada at the time a little bit. My question was going to be how many times do we think. think they had sex total.

Well, the medical staff had to come in and drain all the blood from his scrotum like four times a day. That crossed my mind was how much action was he really getting in the aftermath of the torture sequence? He's two in love. Come on, James Bond. Act like you've been there before. Further more. But that's one, he isn't.

Part of the thing with this movie is this is this is the first story. This is the first 007 story. So you cut him a little bit of slack. And I think also him getting betrayed by Vesper shows why he becomes the cat of all cats. throughout these movies, although they kind of reject that at the end, which we talked about when we talked about no time to die. Anyhow, he says to her, you don't have a tell, which is why I love you, which is the dumbest thing ever, because she's literally making a face like, you should not trust me. When he's talking to her about that, again, I'm sitting with my wife and she was just like,

this is not going to go well. She is betraying him. He enters the V-E-S-P-E-R as the password, and she starts weeping because she knows she has to betray him. And he's just like, what's wrong? there. You can't read it at all. Seems sad. Easy, weak link.

What's age the worst? What kind of name is Vesper? He makes a joke about it when, you know, I don't know. I think it's kind of cool. Couldn't we call her like Angelina? Vesper is Latin for evening. Right, Vesper's is like a evening. I need a hotter name for even.

I can't believe you don't think Vesper is hot. I don't. It sounds like a car. I think it's really cool. Okay. Where's C.R. He's going by a car. He's getting a Vesper.

I think it almost literally translates to getting late at night. So, you know, pretty good for me. Bond's stunt double we mentioned. His stunt double is great. It's just the hair. Bond will have to go all in to call his bluff. That's what's the worst. No disrespect to Giancarlo Giannini.

Another great international actor, Lena Vertmuller films. Come on, he's great, but he's saddled with a lot of exposition. This is the easiest what's age the worst ever. the Sony products we have Sony Erickson cell phones and the Sony Vio has like three moments in the movie it's so crazy the phones are so weird

Craig did you know what either of those products were I knew the computer the Vio you didn't know the Sony Erickson stretch yeah that was like a whole year of so James Bond in six hours poisoned nearly to death knocked out in a horrible horrible car accident

where the car rolled over 10 times and he got literally knocked out tortured while naked and the guy hits some hard bamboo thing gets his nuts. It's a six-hour stretch for James. Yeah. The nut tap to end all nut taps.

I'm going to say I need more time in Lake Como. Maybe maybe about a year. They don't specify. Like, how's James? James, are you okay yet? It's like, I actually not. I'm watching season two White Lotus. I should take as much time as they want to give me in that Lake Como Villa.

Like Como Villa. James, ready to come back to work yet? Actually, no. Yeah. I'm not. I'm with you. I mean, if he's getting time with Vesper, stick around.

Wood's age the worst. In the shower scene, Vesper was originally scripted to be wearing nothing but her underwear. Daniel Craig stepped in and said, Vesper would not have stopped to take her clothes off and the scene was changed. Just giving him a what's age to wear.

Come on, Daniel Craig. A huge missed opportunity for all of us. You jerk. It's good in the shower scene, by the way. Let's not like the top of that dress is covering very much. And I, there's another category about,

other places. It's kind of funny because Eva Green is in the like, I'm happy to take my clothes off All-Stars. Like she takes her clothes off in a lot of movies. No, no, no.

Ron Burgundy Flutter Ward, best time for a pee break. Probably when he's rehabbing. Probably skip the rolling around on the bed. Like that you like that two minutes every can get out of there. Listen,

does this movie need more sex? I'm standing in for Mallory Rubin right now to say yes. There's plenty of it implied. I wouldn't say they're like, I wouldn't say the actual physical stuff with them is, like body heat.

Okay. Well, nothing is quite like body heat. Right. True. True. I think that they have palpable chemistry that is very memorable to me. So where would you go for? When would you go run to the bathroom for three minutes? I think either at the body's exhibit. That's what I was going to say.

Because it's just... Too creepy for you? It's kind of boring. No, it's just kind of boring. It's also the bodies exhibit to me because I went to see it is like a very dated 2000, mid-2000s reference. So that might have aged the worst. Yeah.

But it's kind of quick And then what does he learn? Like, oh, the bag's gone, you know? Like, you know, it's fine. Is this the greatest collection of hot people, though, in one of these movies? Because we didn't even talk about Ivana Milosevic, who's in this. And we didn't talk about Katerina Marino, too. Like, is this the most...

We've done better. Interesting. That's three. I mean, we've had... But also Craig. Like, Craig is... I think, is he considered the hottest bond now, even though people at the time thought he was sort of plain looking.

People were insane. I did not think he was plain. In Bonds, let's see, what do you have in the most recent ones? You've got Leis Sedu and Monica Boulucci and Daniel Craig, right, whoa. Monica Boulucci. So that's... Half a Italian. Good Lord.

Yeah, that's powerful. And I'm trying to think. No, I know. You're just, you're focused on that. Go got distracted. All right, that's it for the podcast. So Spector is giving it a run for the money. Layasadu versus Eva Green is like the all-time cage match in my mind.

That's an insane battle. Was there a better title for this movie? No, this is great. It's good title. It's the book. Best quote, you lost because of your ego and your ego can't take it. Or I'm sorry that last hand nearly killed me right after you got poisoned. Or the whole, I need you looking fabulous, which is like seven one-liners being ripped off there.

Exactly. What was the dinner jacket one? There are dinner jackets and dinner jackets. That's a good one. It's my favorite, yeah. Stephen A. Smith-Hittus take a word. You got one? Yes.

What is it? I don't think M. keeps her job. I just, first of all, international incident at an embassy that winds up on the front page of every UK newspaper. Then they... Oh, there's a fall guy. There has to be a fall guy for what happened. Well, sure. But then after that, she...

She lets an MI, she lets like a mole into MI6 accounting department who steals all the money. So that's $150 million, walking out the door. Trails gone cold. Bonds out there just killing people. Yeah. Maybe check on the money two days earlier. Yeah. I mean, we need some accountability for the vetting process in the accounting department.

That's for sure. $150 million, not a small number. But it's like how many different fall guys can she find at this point? I love M. I love Judy Dent, but I'm like, this is a major cock up. there's a way to I have just a great joke for how many times

can you lose 150 million but I'm going to hold off Is this like a David Khan situation? I'll tell you later I'll laugh I think I know what you mean I furthermore I think MI6 is bad

That's like What these films reveal Is how bad MI6 is I mean just consistently Like the terror comes to England At some point in these movies And the Craig movies and this is a very poorly run organization.

Yeah. You have a hottest take? Not really other... I have a lot of picking nits, which don't take away from the movie for me, but... And I know this is true for a lot of James Bond stuff. My hardest take is short and sweet.

This movie's better if it's rated R. Stiled up a notch. You're not making $650 million, but I think it's actually a better movie. What do you get with R? There's a sleasiness and... I don't know. I actually think this is a really...

really, really, really terrific movie. But I think it could have even been like a little bit darker and a little sleazier and sexier. At the time, though, it was a strong shift away from what the movies had been. Yeah, yeah. You know, like the scene when he's like battered and bloody and has all the cuts on his face, like we really have never seen Bond look like that, like look that unvarnished. The torture scene is wild and violent and upsetting. And I kind of, what would it take for this movie to be rated art?

Like, what's missing? Is it just F words? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, the, you know, I'm like. Who's the actress that he's about to hook up with? Caterina Marino. Yeah, maybe. Okay.

Sure. Let's throw some real sex in here. Okay. I guess you can't do it with fun. That's why it was a hot take. Casting what ifs? Quintan Tarantino wanted direct Casino Royale and Eon was not interested. And he claims that he worked behind the scenes with the Fleming family.

He, because of what he knew about the ownership, that the rights to the first book were in different hands. And then I think when he got down the line with the Fleming family, that's when he learned that they had secretly acquired the rights to Casino Royale. He would have said in the 1960s with Pierce Brosden. The torture scene would have been worse. This is in the 90s when he wanted to do this, right? This is well before this movie.

He's like, I have some thoughts on the torture scene. Not scary and violent enough. Yeah, I mean, imagine what the gimp could have done in Casino Royale. If you thought about a gimp. The only other actor in serious contention was Henry Cavill, who was only 22 years old and they said, no way. But they apparently screen tested really well and they got excited about it and then just decided he was too young. Like, 22 is crazy.

I kind of wish that he wasn't Superman so that he could be Bond, though. Because he is, he would be to me, the perfect bond to follow up, Craig. Because he's more in the classic mold. You're stuck with Superman now. Well, he got fired from that, but then he did the whole Mission Impossible run. He did Man from Uncle. That was his Bond movie. He was very good in.

He was persuasive. I'm a huge fan of his. I think he's really underrated, and the Superman thing kind of messed up his trajectory. I really liked him in Mission Impossible. He's too yoked. Yeah. So that would be alarming. That beach scene.

He's tall. He's tall bond. But he, if he can scale it back. Our two finalists for the Eva Green role were Eva Green. Mm-hmm. And Olivia Wilde coming off the OC. It's an amazing sliding doors. This one really has to be European to me.

Agree. I don't see the Olivia Wild thing at all. I agree. Well, she's in rush, but basically playing this character eight years later and didn't totally work in that role. And she is very beautiful and is still very beautiful. But like, I think there's a, she doesn't have the mystique. And I think a lot of that is her Americanness. You know, like, she was great on the OC, but I'm like, I don't want, you know, the high.

Isn't she descended from British royalty, though, or some sort of like manor house? She could be and she was definitely married to an Italian prince at some point. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Maybe that's what it was. There's other stuff. I'm going to rip through this because we're running late. The Madame Wu, the lady who played her, was also in Yolena twice. Overacting Award, I'm going with Alex Demetrius.

He's very TV actress. I was also going to say Catarina Marino, aka Mrs. Demetrius. It wasn't her choice probably. Let's go with both. We'll do the couple. The horse, but the horse is a lot. Yeah. Best that guy?

Jean-Carnolo Janini is not of that guy? I don't think he qualifies. I kind of know who he is. He's in swept away. Yeah. He's in Seven Beauties. Jeffrey Wright, definitely not of that guy, although I think he would be just some people. I love him in these movies, though.

I mean, I love Jeffrey Wright and everything, but... He always does well. Yeah, he's awesome. I always like having him. Me too. He's even good in Ali. Like, he's... I just saw the new Wes Anderson movie, and he has a small part in it, and he just nails it.

I'm going to go with Ivana, whatever her name is. Milosevic? She's like a that guy to me. She was on... Banshee? Did you ever watch Banshee? Yeah. She's...

I don't know if everyone knows. who she is. Why do you have somebody else? I have her in a different category. Okay. I also want to let you know that you and Carla Giannih was in book club too. I saw that last night. And that was like a real, he was a that guy to me in book club too. I was like, hey.

I think Tobias Menzies at this time was a that guy. Sure, but no longer. But he has been elevated. Deanne Waiter's Award for Best He Check. It's got to be the goat athlete in the beginning that Bond is chasing and all the shit that that guy does. Yeah, Sebastian. Judy is eligible.

Okay, I had Judy. But I almost feel like she's like the fourth most important actor in the movie, and I don't know if she's necessarily Deanne Waiter's-ish. When she confronts him after he kills the bomb maker, and she says, you're not seeing the big picture? I was like, wow, we need to cut that out and put that on the podcast. That's an incredible line, yeah. She's great.

This is where I had Ivana Milosevich. She's really good as the villain's girlfriend. She's got kind of a villain girlfriend's face. She does. Exactly. I also like the big guy at the poker table was great. I like when he throws in the 5 billion and he holds up the 5.

Recasting couch. Here's what I have for you. More fun poker table. More cameos. Okay. I'll give you three. Pat Riley, Jack White, and Lauren Hill.

Or just three of the people at the poker table. We got 10 seats. Let's put some recognizable weird weight. Is that? Are they playing themselves? Are they playing characters? No, they're just playing characters. What does Pat Riley?

character's name? I don't know. Is it like, is it like? We don't know. We don't know the characters. Is it like Sebastian Culture? You know,

like something cool. Can we move to the poker game to the States? Are they all American? It's a very American content. You want a Lauren Hill cameo or she plays a woman who probably doesn't speak sitting at a poker table.

Okay. Nobody's with me in this. I think, I think you. How about Jacqueline Bessette? Okay, great. This is one of our 10. Sure.

She's there. It would have been fun if it was all former bond girls. That would have been amusing. Or all people who were in a bond movie. Yeah. I just thought the poker table could have been more fun. Or why not all the former bonds, you know? Half-Isternered research, the graphic design in the beginning was inspired by the cover

of the book you mentioned. 1953. 70 years. The original design of a playing card bordered by Red Hearts, eight Red Hearts tripping and blood. The Asthmart rotated seven times while being filmed and became a Guinness Book of World Records for most spins. on a car crash. Another example, the

Martin Campbell thing, where it's just like, he's the best of this. The Venetian house that falls apart was the largest rig ever built for a bond film huge tank, 90 tons. Daniel Craig gained 20 pounds of muscle for the role by adhering to Sean's

diet, mostly proteins, minimizing his carbs, training five days a week and only doing cardio in the weekends. That's what you do, right? Yeah, that's why we look exactly the same. Vesper's official job, international liaison officer for the Financial Action Task Force of HM Treasury.

Same. Don't know what that means. So they did a big deal with Ford for the Mondayao, 14 million pounds. Yeah, you can see the who he's driving the Ford in the Bahamas. That's his rental car until he

trades up for the Austin Martin. They have Sony and Sony Erickson, who Sony has a Blu-ray player, Cybershot camera, all the Sony stuff from the 2000. Oh, I forgot he watches the DVD of the security footage. Yeah. Why are they filing the DVDs of the security footage?

You get all this stuff at any pawn shop near your house. But not enough product placement compared to 2002, which die another day had the nickname, buy another day. The product placement was so bad that it actually was a huge backlash. Amazing. And people are like, you guys have sold out this series. This is an omega. I haven't seen that movie in a while, so I don't remember the products.

Omega product placement, right? The watch. Yeah, on the train. Not a Rolex and Omega. Yeah. First movie ever dubbed in Chinese for Chinese cinemas. Oh. And they added extra dialogue to explain Texas Hold'em.

Okay. Because it was not a familiar game in China. Now they can just add this podcast to all the English language. What do you think that dialogue was like? Yeah. This man has three aces and two eights. And in the game of poker, we call that a full house. I don't know. I would love to hear it.

So they destroyed three Aston Martin cars, which were $300,000 each. That's cool. That's upsetting. That just hurts my heart. The bleeding of the eye is a real medical condition. It's known as Hamolacria. Yep. That's why CR went to Europe, just to get that taken care of.

It can actually be an indicator of some sort of tumor or terrible things. Okay. There you go. Jesus Christ. I didn't follow your comment up, but that well enough. But, yeah, it's usually a sign. something that great is going on. Well, then maybe that explains LeShift's

reckless nature. Yeah, yeah. Apex Mountain. Daniel Craig, I'm going to say yes. I think so, too. He became like an A-plus Lister after this. Definitively, I think it's pretty interesting that he's been able to hold onto it with knives out. Knives out help. That is unusual because most bonds go into a state of,

you know, they reduce their their like public awareness, you know? Like Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, even Pierce Brosnan, who still works, but they're just not the same in our culture. I feel like Daniel Craig is still an A-plus movie star. Knivesout really rejuvenated that, I feel like. But it was, I mean, it was concurrent, you know?

Like, Nines out came up before... No Time to Die. No Time to Die. Yeah, first. The only thing is that he married Rachel Weiss in 2011, and then Skyfall was released in 2012. So I would probably locate that as the Apex Mountain, just in movies and in life.

That's really powerful. Pretty solid. Eva Green. I'm gonna say yeah it's the biggest movie she's ever been and felt like she was headed for giant things after

probably yeah than her age and fucked it up the ass of Martin DB9 I'm gonna say yes James Bond I don't

I'm gonna say no I felt like he meant more in the 60s yeah yeah and the doctor no Thunderball Goldfinger

yeah gold finger that that period that's the most important high stakes poker no tuxitos Apex Mountain for tuxedos. Yeah.

Has ever been a better tuxedo moment in a movie? Oh my goodness. In a movie. Oh, gosh. I mean, there have been up there. Modern movie, maybe not. All of like the old, you know, I thought you were going to say, like the rat pack. Yeah, that you're doing some important things.

Tuxedo. Yeah. I'm with you. Classy dead bodies, yes. Yes. Definitely. Classy. How are we defining?

I don't know. Emotional shower scenes. Okay. Is the classy dead body. catarina marino being tangled up in a hammock? No, it's like that in the dead body exhibit. Okay. Oh, sorry.

I honestly thought you were talking about the guys in the trunk, you know? And I was like, well, what makes them classy? Montenegro? Best racehorse name, Le Schiff? Lesheef. Yeah. It's a great name until you know the backstory, but good name. Yeah.

I also think James Bond is a great racehorse name. I mean, Vesper wins. Probably not legal. Vesper's good. Yeah. Vesper's dead. That works for a horse, but not for... That's a great one. What about Ace's full?

of eights. What about Hotel Splendid? Four Jax? Four Jax? Yeah. Oh yeah, four dachs is good. Picking Nits. We talked about most of these.

Is it this easy to fight off being poisoned? Where it's just like, oh, thank God I had that thing in my car and I'm good and ready to play poker a minute later. I'd like to, I'd like to think that our intelligence organizations have at least figured out the, you know, the anti-poison treatments. Okay. I anticipated this, so I've brought some poison here today. So let's do a live experiment.

What do you have for picking nits? You said, yeah, a couple. The plot is incoherent. I don't understand. So Felix Leiter is going to help him buy back in, but why doesn't Vesper want him to buy back in? Is it so that she can save him? Because then she can't execute the plot that she needs to.

She's bluffing in her own way. She's bluffing that she's not going to give him the $5 million? Yeah. Also, does it matter because then... Okay, well, she could be bluffing and or she's working for them. So if Bond doesn't buy back in, then the guy wins. Not necessarily, though. What if the Japanese guy wins?

What if the black guy wins? Like, I don't understand. Like, I mean, I would agree with you that let's win all our money back at a high-stakes poker tournament in Montenegro is not a foolproof plan. Faulty strategy. For anyone, you know, it's not great for the CIA, not great for MI6. Well, that might be the ultimate picking knit. Yeah.

And I think, obviously, I pointed out just that, like, I don't think that Eva Green's character, I don't think Vesper can die there in the road when they haven't yet secured the money. They haven't yet spoken to the Swiss banker. It's very shady. It's a story moment that doesn't make sense to me. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast

are untouchable. I'm going untouchable. I would like to see the all black cast of a James Bond movie. Yeah. The Daniel Kaluya as Bond thing is really interesting to me. I think that that would be fascinating. I completely agree. It doesn't seem like they're going to do it.

No. The broclies do not seem open to that or really any sort of reinvention, but it would be great. We talked about that before in this pod, right? Caldia. On some pod, about him as Bond. Yeah, it was a couple years ago, it was very hotly debated. Of all the under 40 guys, he's got to be the best candidate. I mean, he's the best actor.

There are a lot of interesting candidates. It sounds like we were talking about how Aaron Taylor Johnson seems to be the favorite in the clubhouse right now. But. Because, yeah. The other person that it should be. this is a Chris Ryan declaration, but since he's not here, this guy, Conor Swendell's, who is, he's a British actor. He's a little young, but he was on this show S.AS Rogue Heroes, which is playing, like,

basically a proto bond in this movie about the Northern Africa campaign in World War II. And he's just like, he's got it. And if they wait five years, like it could just be him. But better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trao, Catherine Hans, Steve Buscemi, Sam, Sam, Jackson, J.T. Walsh, Philip Baker. We don't have Chris to fear what Wayne would have been like at the poker table. God damn, poor James. Didn't know I was dealing with Super Spy.

I think Steve Buscemi or Sam Jackson at the poker table would have been fun. Okay. Sure. I think you could talk me into Bashemi as in the Giancarlo Janini role. Oh. Okay. Well, I would have enjoyed that. Just go, I don't know. I'm just not getting enough Bushemi in my life these days, if I'm being honest.

Remember when Bushemi was everywhere? That's why he's in that category, which just feels like he's going to make every move better. Special guy. Just one Oscar. gets and Amanda. Ava Green. Best supporting? Yeah. Don't you think she can, you run her and she wins?

I was going to go MADS for a supporting actor. Daniel Craig. Okay. Okay. I feel like these bond films are very, very, they're up and down, I should say, because I think Quantum of Solis and Spector are actually quite bad. Correct. And this and Spector's bad.

Spector's bad. This and Skyfall are pretty much as good as franchise movie making gets, in my opinion. Skyfall is a masterpiece. So, but I, I, I, I, I always feel like movies like this should be kind of literally recognized more aggressively by the Oscars. I feel like the acting should be recognized. The filmmaking should be recognized. It was a good movie year, but still, it should have.

I agree with you. Probably in answerable questions. Shouldn't Bond get a cut of the $150 million pot? Like 5%. For Queen and Country, that's who he works for. Yeah. A little tip. It's wrong.

Like a $5 million, whatever? Thanks, James. Thanks for all the money. He'll have to renegotiate a CBA, I think. you know, the MI6 CBA. How did they determine Bond was the agency's best poker player, Sean? Was there a satellite tournament

in like Newcastle? Honestly, when you're talking about spinning off the series, like the MI6 double-O poker tournament is a show I would watch. Guys, don't ask any questions, but we're going to have a little poker tournament on Saturday.

So good, Bill. Thank you. This is even better. Better runner, Tom Cruise or Daniel Craig. I'm so glad you brought this up. The sprinting. It's so on Cruz's this corner. ergonomic tucked in

all efficiency but I think that there is something Cruz is the best of my opinion I mean he really is I think he's the go to running but like Craig is using his bulk like to make it look slightly more like proportional

I think in a way that works for me How tall is Daniel Craig I'm gonna say like 5-8 I don't think he's tall I think he's probably in that 510 511 he's listed at 510 Oh there's 58 So I would say five eight.

Yeah. Okay. Do you think Cruz's next Mission Impossible movie, he saw the Bond movie and he's like, can I got to do more running in this next movie? Honestly, yes. I think that these movies being good is partly responsible for why 4, 5, and 6 of the Bond film, of the Mission Impossible films are so good. I think that he sees that they're not fucking around anymore with the Bond movies and they're

not going to be silly anymore. So he has to take it to the next level. And in my opinion, that's when the franchise actually gets great. Should there be a classy World Series of poker where everyone's in tuxedos and there's just hot women with evening gowns just walking around in martinis? I think that misunderstands

the participants of the World Series of poker. Could we try it? What channel would run that? The classy World Series of poker? All the people are basically, all the people who play poker for a living, they're basically all out except for like three of that. I was just going to say,

they have to look in a tuxedo. There's people that. So maybe, like, we do the Met Gala. We do the red carpet. We take all the photos, but then once you get inside the Mechal, it's just a poker tournament. Okay. You win? Yeah, but do I get to watch it?

So then you can cover it? I like watching classy dressed up people play poker and like crazy, rich atmospheres like that. Sure. It always works in a movie. It's never not going to work. I would need them to borrow this pacing where there are lots of breaks for people to order drinks, have fights and stairwells, have sex in a shower implied, you know, etc. You want that to be covered in the coverage.

Like you want to go. Let's now cut away to our shower sex scene during the tuxedo poker tournament. I mean, I just want like an inner mission. And then you know how when you watch the Oscars or the Golden Gloves and like all the mingling and people like taking selfies together before and after commercial breaks is the most exciting part? I need the mingling. I don't want just poker. Imagine the like miced up plus NFL films possibilities though if we just like put a little pocket camera on people and mic them up through the playing of a tournament. This is a great idea. Cocktails. Love it. Great. Cool bartender. Thanks.

Any unanswerable questions for either of you? We already did it with the timeline of their relationship. What is your best double-feature choice for this movie, Sean? I think you could probably go right from this to Dr. No and say, like, this is actually how the James Bond franchise starts, you know, that like sets you off. And Connery, I think Connery or Craig is the, is now the... a debate for most people who is the best bond. I don't know what you'd be where you stay on that at this point. It's Connery.

I mean, it is. It's Connery. He was the original bond, but I kind of put it as like an emeritus or like, you know, icon status and then the right and then Craig and then everyone else. I had a similar idea, but I would pick Old Finger just because that's my favorite of, of the Connerys. I had rounders. That's great.

I mean, also, Skyfall. All poker. We're born. Like the first born is an interesting comparison, time wise and, you know, what they're doing and not doing. The Indian Red Zawantanae Award for what happened the next day. Probably a testicular implant, transplant. I was just going to say this guy's got to ice his nuts.

Yeah. It's really funny. Six more months of blood trading. You really can't overstate the amount of work that would need to be done to repair that situation. This man is impotent. There's no way. He's having it.

That was why I wasn't sure he was actually hitting him in the balls because I was like, how can we have an impotent James Bunn? and it defeats the purpose of the movie franchise. They, he, and Mads Mikkelson's character even, like, has some line to that effect of, like, I'm hitting you, like, we're the future. Something. You're right. I guess I just didn't 100% want it to be true. I thought he was just hitting him near.

Also, one of the better lines, everyone's going to know you died scratching my balls. Yeah, that's a great one. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? The, I, the car is the obvious. choice, but I'm going with the boat. No, the boat that they're taking through Venice. Not a boat guy. Yeah.

I mean, the car always wins this category, but I like the poker chips with the million-dollar block cards. Oh, yeah, those are nice. I think it would be really five. I've ever seen those? I've never seen those. I've never even seen those. Have you? No.

I've seen them in casinos, but they're always at the whale tables. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. Mm-hmm. What is it? I have two. What do you got? One, memorize your own bank account number. just you know

you do your own finances and there are dinner jackets and dinner jackets I have one wear a cup just in case mine is I just made this up of the fly my genitals are worth more than $150 million for some country that I just belong to

that's just a fact that's just a fact here's the password yeah okay that's good who won the movie I think James Bond won the movie. Oh, the James Bond franchise. I was going to say Barbara Broccoli or the Brockley family. The stewards of James Bond franchise. I think that's right, but I think Mads

kind of secretly wins the movie. He stealth wins it. He, the villain performance. Every time I see him in a movie, I get excited. Like, oh, Mads. Do people know his name? Like, does the general movie going audience? I think we do, but I don't think normal people do. Yeah. Not quite. I mean, he really was, he had a run with Rihanna. Bitch Better Have My Money. He's like the villain in that. video. And so I think that exposed him to like a newer audience. I mean, he was Hannibal. He was Hannibal lectering on TV, obviously. But if you pay attention to these things, you know who he is.

And if not, he's just that guy from Casino Royale. What do you got, Craig? I don't have a ton on this. This movie's very good. I'd like, I'm a huge fan of Bond. I think, I think Daniel Craig as James Bond is the coolest person I've ever seen in a movie. I think. And I just like that these movies, these movies feel like a genre to me. I think Mission Impossible and Borns are just more boring because they take themselves so seriously. There's like a subtle tongue-in-cheekness with Bond that I just really like.

I think John Wick's the same way. It's why I like John Wick. Because it doesn't take itself too seriously. It knows what it is. It's like a little tongue-in-cheek. And Mission Impossible and Boren are just like so self-serious. John Wick is a good shout though. Also very clearly inspired by this era of Bond

and like almost parodying the idea of trauma, like, you know, killing my dog and everything. It's the Indiana Jones blueprint of, it's a seemingly relatively normal person who has to be a hero versus the born Nathan Hunt which is like these are just heroes that don't seem like normal people. Yeah, right. I would still take Mission Impossible over any of these movies personally,

but I think that's because my cruise fandom. I would say three Mission Impossible movies I'd probably have over this. But I think this is like the best bond effort that I can remember. Yeah. Well, there's no, we didn't talk about Quantum of Salas, which is the next movie after this, which has been in the news lately because it was a movie that was made during the writer strike back in 2008.

and stinks because they weren't able to rewrite the movie on set. And, like, it's a little bit incoherent and kind of boring and doesn't really work that well. And then the franchise has really revived as Skyfall. But also, Quantum Solis brings in Spector and Mr. White. And then it, but is also trying to hang on to some of the Vesper character because they feel, as you feel, Bill, that you just want her back. And Skyfall goes back to just like Bond, the Javier Burden character, who is a former, my six guy. It's more grounded. So it really, it does work when it's less ridiculous international conspiracy. Agree. All right. This podcast was produced by our guy Craig Horlebeck, Casino Royale. Glad

we did it. Great one. Thanks, Bill.