Good to see you, Mr. Bond.

Things have been awfully dull around here.

Bureaucrats run in the old place, everything done by the book.

Can't make a decision unless the computer gives you the go ahead.

Now you're on this.

I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence.

I certainly hope so, too.

Now, here's my...

I hope so, too.

I hope so, too, Paul. But here's my question. Was there not enough gratuitous sex and violence in the Roger Moore Bond movies that they had to... Anyway, you know, it's funny to me how much of the Q branch scene in this movie is about budget cuts and how they don't have all the fun gadgets. It reminds me of there was when Steve Martin hosted SNL, one of his five billion times, they did a James Bond spoof sketch where the premise of it was that MI5 was broke and the title of the Bond movie was Bullets Ain't Cheap and this kind of what this movie reminded me of a little bit. I don't know. What did you think?

Yeah, this is such a bizarro world Bond movie that is just existing in its own alternate pocket universe of wonder. I had not seen this in literally decades and I had a different memory of it than it actually was.

Yes, me too.

This was such a fascinating journey that felt like I was on some sort of chemical assistance even though I was not.

You know what? I think that on this note, especially when you talk about chemical assistance, I think I should say, even before saying what this movie is, because I'll say it after the music, haha, I'm Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

And I'm Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And this is...

Multiplex Overthruster Summer of 83. And Javi, let me just say, as we are closing out 1983, dear listeners, if you want to help fuel our propulsion into 1984, please help us by reviewing, rating, if you're gonna give us five stars. Can you give us five stars?

Give us five stars, give us five stars, give us five.

Yeah, it doesn't cost you anything. And share your favorite episode with a friend, help spread the word, and yeah, but we would love some reviews and ratings and we may feature your review on an upcoming episode should you so desire.

Yes, and you could also send us viewer mail because we do have an email. It's not viewer, it's listener mail, right?

I suppose so, yes, yes. It is multiplexoverthruster at gmail.com.

We are looking today at one of the most interesting curios in franchise cinema history for my money.

Absolutely.

I mean, for me, this ranks right up there with the Star Wars holiday special. In terms of weirdness and parallel universe-ness and just bizarre world-ness, we are talking about the apostate James Bond film, Never Say Never Again, which a technicality in a contract between Ian Fleming and Jack McClory, right?

Kevin McClory.

Kevin McClory. Basically, gave Kevin McClory the rights to remake Thunderball over and over again if he wanted to, right? Because you only had Thunderball, right?

You know what? And that could have been a title. Instead of Never Say Never Again, could have been Over and Over Again. Honestly, if only after A View to a Kill, Kevin McClory had teamed up with Roger Moore and made this movie again.

Oh my God.

Then it could have been called Over and Over Again.

What if literally they could use that legal loophole to remake Thunderball every time a Bond retires?

Yes. Do one with Timothy Dalton.

Timothy Dalton?

Well, no, no, no, because they got the rights back.

MGM bought it back. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. But they could have done one with our friend from Honor of Majesty Secret Service.

You know, Paul, what's really interesting about what you said is that this movie exists in a world in which things like this were possible. And now you've got these giant corporations buying franchises, buying IP, leaving nothing unpurchased just to make sure that this doesn't happen to them, you know, because I'm sure that like, like if Philip Kaufman sued George Lucas and said, I created a third of Raiders, I can make Indiana Jones movies, right? And then people are making it's kind of the same thing, you know, and it's probably why Disney buys everything, you know, why they buy, they look at everything and they just buy anything there's out there, you know?

Yeah, it is a just spectacular example of separation of rights issues gone on vacation. It's so, to the Bahamas, it's so wild and crazy. And there was a time in the 90s in the heyday of In it Cool or whatever, where there was an attempt by McClory and other folks approaching Sony to try to leverage this into their own alternate franchise.

I remember that, yes, in the 90s, like, yes.

Yeah, and they wanted to court Connery to kind of be M or they're gonna be like a retired and like make Bond a code name and have like different. There are all sorts of crazy things that came close to happening. And the seed of which was this, which was this just strange, bizarre quirk.

Ian Fleming asked his buddy Kevin to help him with the treatment for the film.

And some court, for better or worse, in a spasm of lucidity or just a stroke of insanity.

Or just a stroke.

Yes. Card out the rights to Kevin to get to remake Thunderball. And of all movies.

But don't forget, this work that they did was before Dr. No, the movie came out. So it was before any other Bond film.

Oh no, it totally, no.

It was from the novel.

But that's the thing that makes it all so strange is that it's literally this, like it's almost like Ian Fleming planted a landmine for the broccolis back in 1957.

Yes.

You know?

Yes.

So.

It's crazy. But you know, they pulled it off, kind of, mostly.

You know what? What's interesting, I have so much to say about this movie, because I got to say, though, what I will say, I can't say that I liked it. I have to say I enjoyed watching it enormously, and I got to say, like, it is such a much more enjoyable watch than Octopussy, which we talked about at the beginning of the summer, you know, even though it's not a great movie.

I wholeheartedly agree.

The watch, because of all the quirkinesses of it and all that, is so much more interesting, right?

It is so wonderfully weird.

Yes.

Because on the one hand, it's like, oh, it's so cool to have Connery back.

But is it?

And have him as, well, but to have him as this older, creaky Bond, who's kind of retired?

Who looks kind of like someone's dad, you know?

Yeah.

He looks kind of like someone's granddad, actually.

Well, he looks at least 10 years older than Connery is. He looks like he's in his 60s. He's apparently been teaching because the 00 program has been shelved. Yeah. But then you're like, wait a minute, that's not M, that's not Moneypenny, that's not Q. Who the hell are these people?

Exactly.

But I will trade all of those for the Felix Leiter we get.

Oh my God, Becky.

I'll wait till we get to that.

We're going to get into that because I had the same, no, I totally had the same thing that I know you're going to. I haven't been to discuss this with you yet and I know we're going to go with this, and I'm going to go to the same place and we're going to have lunch there. We're going to have a nice lunch with jumbo shrimp. Paul, do you remember when you saw this movie, were you expecting it, what was your experience of, because producer Brad and I, I mean, I know you, but I'm curious about your experience and producer Brad and I will get into it.

So this was a big deal in 1983, that we got two Bond movies with two different Bonds. It never happened, it will never happen again, and I was like a little kid, I was too young for much of what was rated PG in this movie, but that's like not PG anymore. And I remember going to see this movie and let me just say, Barbara Carrera, formative influence in my psyche.

Yes.

We'll get to her shortly.

We had seen her just two years prior in Condorman and Fallen in Love.

Yes, and here she's unleashed in full chaos mode.

Oh my God, yes. She is honestly the character that everybody thought Famke Janssen was in GoldenEye. Yes.

She is deliriously, deliciously psychotic and kind of horny.

Yes. Producer Brad, what was it like for, do you remember when, because you and I saw this movie, did we see this movie together? No, this was before our great reunion. What was your experience of watching this? This movie played at the Ann Arbor Theaters, right? Not the Briarwood Mall Theaters. It was like one of the small...

I don't remember which one. What I do remember is Octopus. It was the first film I was old enough to see in the theater. So then getting to see two in one year is fantastic. And then I'm sure like you guys, my dad always said, Sean Connery is the best Bond. And so for years of only seeing reruns of Connery, suddenly we get to see him in the flesh in a brand new film. That was exciting.

Did he meet your expectations that had been incepted in you by your father?

He looked younger than Roger Moore, yes.

By the way, that man is our age. And it just goes to show you when you don't grow up during World War II, like, you know, you just age better. Now, I'm not saying I'm as good looking as Sean Connery. I'm just saying at 56, I'm pretty sure I don't look as a fool. On the other hand, he had a threesome in that ship with those people, so he's fine, right?

Yes, yes. And as we all know, I'm like 97. But still, I did not live my life with a diet, steady diet of hard liquor and smoking.

That's true, yeah.

And it clearly had an impact on Mr. Connery, who is a sprightly 52, but looks at least 10 years older. And it's weird because there's part of me that wonders, would this film have even been more appropriate with Roger Moore in it?

Actually, you know, because Roger Moore did look older.

Yeah, it kind of feels more like a Roger Moore.

We got to go to the... We got to go, we got to go to the bell. I can see producer Brad having an aneurysm, you know.

Ding, ding.

Paul.

Javi. I'm deliriously happy to discuss it. You know, look, James Bond, I don't particularly care for Bond movies at this point in my life. I've seen so many of them and I have great memories of them. And it's not a franchise I need to revisit, partially because he's an alcoholic, psychotic, misogynist, serial murderer. But he was such a...

Yes, but...

But he's so good looking and he's so suave. But it was such a big part of me and producer's breath, Brad's childhood. And I just... I can't... Should we just get started? Should we just begin?

Please. So we open with, again, this is not an official Bond movie. So we are never going to hear the Bond theme. And that is destabilizing.

Although they did figure out how to put Sean Connery in an iris at one point in this movie. I don't know if you noticed that. There is one moment in this movie that is such a fuck you to cubby broccoli, because it's... And we'll talk about it later. The whole movie is a fuck you to cubby broccoli, yeah. But there's one moment specifically...

The only thing that would have been a bigger fuck you to cubby broccoli...

An actual you to cubby broccoli.

As if he had set a bowl of broccoli on fire. There's nothing more explicit he could have done than that. I would have loved to have just gotten a glimpse of the seething anger, just kind of oozing out of every pore of cubby broccoli's body.

For those of you who are under 40, cubby broccoli is the legendary producer who had the rights to James Bond from Ian Fleming, started Everything or Nothing Productions, and his company since 1962 has produced every Bond movie, every one of the official Bond movies, other than Casino Royale, which also got out through some, not the recent one, the good one.

The original.

Yeah, the comedy one and then this one.

The spoof.

Do you think broccoli ever saw this movie? Producer Brad, you might know, you're kind of our Bond historian.

I do not know.

I don't know. I know someone who did and I'm dying to give, first of all, a shout out to my dear friend and Bond aficionado, connoisseur, supreme, Phil Nobeal Jr. Oh, yes. Editor in chief of Fangoria magazine.

Yes.

Who's wisdom on Bond. I have availed myself through many podcasts, including his guest spots on James Bonding, which is a great Bond podcast that has gone through all the Bond movies. But, yeah, I can't imagine Cubby making it through this movie. I don't know. I'm more curious in a way of-

I can't imagine Cubby making it through Octopussy though.

Fair enough. Fair enough. But it's funny. I went down, as you guys know, a rabbit hole on YouTube of contemporaneous press interviews that Connery did during the making of and release of Never Say Never Again. Because again, this was a big deal. So there was a Today Show segment that was interviewing him on the set during production that's wild. And then there is his appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

In which he was asked who's the villain in James Bond, and he said Cubby Broccoli.

Cubby Broccoli.

Like in national television. Like, yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah. No love lost there. No love lost. There's some great stuff. But we opened this film with, and again, in context and contrast with Octopussy, I did not hate the opening song as much as I thought I did.

Oh, I loathe it. I loathe it.

But it's really bad. But it's really bad. And the score, Michelle LeGrand, is a mixed bag. I did not hate it as much as the score for Octopussy, which I really despise. But I will say, the fact that the song is in part the responsibility of Herb Alpert, I'm just like, he should be nowhere near a Bond movie. That's just wrong. No disrespect to all his many contributions to culture.

Which should have been proven by the theme from Casino Royale, which was Herb Alpert, since he won a brass, right?

Exactly. And that brings me right out of the gate. This film feels like it's walking on the knife's edge, teetering into being either a real Bond movie and a full-on spoof of Bond movies. And in part because we have the director, Irvin Kershner, who did freaking Empire Strikes Back.

Well, that's-

But we have Lorenzo Semple Jr. The writer of Flash Gordon. And Batman, and the 60s Batman.

But also The Parallax View. And the thing about Lorenzo Semple Jr. is he writes these big camp fests, and then he also has Parallax View in him. And this movie feels like it's somewhere in the middle in a really uncomfortable place. And the other thing about this movie that I would point out, Paul, is that for me, this movie is almost like a movie that can only exist in the context of being an apostate Bond movie. Like so much of this film feels like a reaction to other Bond movies and like a contextual sort of a takeoff on Bond movies. And so much of it is commenting and riffing on things that are in the regular Bond movies. It's mind-blowing. I mean, it's like when you start, it's so meta, you know?

Because, yeah, that is, again, a word used probably too much, but very applicable in this case. It feels like it has one foot firmly anchored in the continuity and canon of the franchise and one foot way outside of it.

Yes.

And looking in.

Yes.

And it's kind of this weird meta conversation it's having with itself and the franchise.

And with Octopussy, frankly, or whatever, because they were both in production at the same time. I mean, it's...

Yeah, and with where the franchise had gone after Connery had left, where Connery found himself now and kind of leaning into the fact that he is older and not shying away from that or pretending it's not a thing, which, frankly...

They could have done with Roger Moore and made it a little more palatable, you know, yeah?

Yes, yes, and they did not do with Roger Moore, even into the next movie.

And weirdly, they did it with Daniel Craig, who physically and aesthetically is an order of magnitude in better shape than either of these men and was much younger when he made those movies. But by Skyfall, they were already going, you're too old. And I'm like, have you guys seen Octopussy?

Yeah. So I want to get past the song and into the movie. We haven't even gotten the movie yet. As every Bond fan knows, every Bond movie starts with its own little opening adventure gambit kind of Bond action short film to kind of get you in gear.

And to prepare you for the scads of exposition that will follow.

Yes. This follows the same format in an almost dialogue-free Bond mini-Bond adventure in a jungle in Latin America where he's infiltrating some compound to rescue a bound woman who then proceeds to stab him.

You know, the best thing about this movie is that there's a lot of stuff from the original movies they weren't able to keep. But the racism, they kept all of it.

Yeah, so we, pretty much the totality of Latina representation in this film is in the opening scene.

Yeah.

And they're all bad hombres doing bad things.

This is the thing that makes the Cuba segment of Octopus, he looked like an Inarritu movie, you know? I mean, it's like, what are we looking at? What I find interesting is, of course, the heiress, he goes in, he kidnaps the, he saves the heiress.

Well, he's rescuing, yeah, unbinding her, yeah.

The mission is he is rescuing an heiress who has been abducted by swarthy men who mean her no good. And of course, Bond-

Either a cartel or a revolutionary force or some combination thereof.

I think both, you know?

Yeah, probably, probably.

But when Bond goes to cut the zip ties off the woman, she stabs him, because it turns out that she, and we find out in the later scene that she had been brainwashed by the evil Latinos. But here's the thing, Paul. First of all- Go ahead, go ahead.

But she wasn't, because this entire opening sequence-

Was a training exercise.

Is bullshit. It is bullshit. Except for this.

Except for this, Bond straight up murders a bunch of guys, and then it turns out it's a training exercise, and I'm like, I literally saw him kill it, like strangle a man to death. Who got that job? Like, he really hurts the villains. I mean, they're not playing it with blanks, you know?

I mean, we're kind of led to believe this is a Kobayashi Maru training exercise. Oh, for God's sake. But instead of, because we cut from him being stabbed to M's office reviewing videotape footage.

Which has been edited every bit as nicely as the... He's literally watching the movie on VHS.

He's watching the movie that we just watched.

It's like he went to Blockbuster and rented Never Say Never Again on VHS. It's great. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

M played by Edward Fox. Whom I adore in the remains of the deus, Lord Darlington, a very different performance.

Yes. But also it's immediately jarring because like this is not M's office, this is not M. Who are these people? Where are we? But that is Connery as Bond, but as this older, different Bond.

And they do say that this is a new M. They do bring that out, you know, because you're vaunted. So again, conversation with the original. Why is this man not Bernard Lee? Because his predecessor, right?

You know, well, that's because it's not an official. Because you can't.

Yeah. But you can kind of mention it, you know. But what's interesting is all of the Brits in this movie, their whole performance is like screaming. Have you noticed how Edward Fox screams out, Mr. Bond, why? And you're like, dude, we're in your office. I'm like right next to you. What are you doing? You know? They're very shouty.

Yes. There is, let's say, a disparity between the aspiration of energy in this film and-

The actual deliverance.

The actual presence of it.

Yes.

And in part that maybe is its own commentary about the age of our lead. But we are informed very quickly that Bond is basically being checked to see if he's still in shape because he's been teaching.

Yes. Can you imagine James Bond as a tool that would even be like- Yeah.

What does that even look like? Which is like, why don't we get to see that? Why don't we get to see the version of him teaching like we see Professor Jones-

Yes.

Yes. Teaching a class so that we see that alter ego if you're going to plant that seed or give us that tease. Like, I feel robbed that we do not-

In a lecture hall, giving a lecture about stabbing Latino people.

Teaching young agents, yeah, teaching young agents how to be a sociopathic, like racist, colonial power killer.

Now Paul-

Like, I want to see that. I want to see that.

Paul, would you walk into a lecture hall if you knew your professor had a license to kill?

Yes.

Really? You'd take that chance?

I would sit in the back.

Good, good, wise, smart.

But I would want to see that. I would want to hear what this guy has to say. We're robbed. So the Double O program has been mothballed, has been shelved as a relic.

Now, Paul, let me, Paul, plot you a little bit here. This is our first real digression from the Bond formula in that James Bond is not given a mission in this-

Well, he is.

Sort of, but it's not-

He's given a mission of self-care.

Which for James Bond, we find out, is about as difficult as, you know, stopping Max Zoran from nuking San Francisco, you know?

He is given a very specific challenge, an opponent that he is tasked with eliminating.

Entirely, yes. And that opponent is-

And that is-

Too many free radicals. That's your problem.

Free radicals, sir?

Yeah, they are toxins that destroy the body and the brain, caused by eating too much red meat and white bread, and too many dry martinis.

Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.

You will do more than that, 007. From now on, you will be suffering a strict regimen of diet and exercise. We shall purge those toxins from you. Schroblins, you got it.

Have you got an assignment, James? Yes. Yes, Moneypenny. I'm to eliminate all free radicals.

Oh. Do be careful.

When did Gwyneth Paltrow, as Goop, get recruited to be the head of MI5? Because that sounds like something from her website, doesn't it?

Yes, Moneypenny. I cannot get enough of Connery as Bond. He is having so much fun.

Oh, yeah. I think he prepared for this movie by having a steak dinner and a cigarette.

He was apparently not pleased with the degree of competence by the production team on this film. But aside from that, was showered in money to come back. Just like they backed up a brick truck to get him back.

I will say, though, in the interest of fairness, and it's like Sean Connery was legendarily one of the most crotchety actors ever. And I've actually heard it said of him by a director that most actors, I think the quote was, most actors want to direct, but Sean Connery is the only actor I know who wants to be an assistant director. Because for those of you who don't know, what an assistant director really does is he schedules the movie or they schedule the movie, right? And they make sure that the day runs on time and that you get to go home after eight hours.

Because Connery wants to go play golf. And I'm like, he's earned it.

He's earned it.

So he's sent to a health farm.

A health farm, yes.

Javi described this health farm that he arrives in not an Aston Martin, but in a Bentley, which is accurate to the early novels.

To the Fleming books, yeah. The health farm looks like Downton Abbey.

It's a mansion.

Yeah, I mean, it's like a castle. It's like some sort of Earl of, you know, Chespin-Hemton Castle.

It's like some kind of spa in a sprawling estate. And then we get one of the funny and obligatory jokes about our character's age and putting him in this very undignified, un-Bond-like mission situation.

Mr. Bond, I need a urine sample.

If you could fill the beaker for me.

From here? I mean-

The setup being- He's across the room. He's sitting across the room from the fetching nurse.

Look, I am not a fan of dick jokes, but that's a pretty good one. From here?

This is the thing. Either you are just on board with this or you're not.

Because one of the things that you don't realize watching, you think it's just a little joke, but actually this urine sample becomes a massive plot point later in the movie, in the most uncanny way.

Not uncanny, insane. In a way that just makes no sense. No goddamn sense. And I believe, because it's one of those things that part of me is torn, because it's so fucking ridiculous. There's just no other way around it. But it's really funny. It's really funny. It's stupid. It's so stupid. But it's brilliant. So now we cut to the introduction by first seeing the clattering of her heels across a marble floor in what's revealed to be a bank or something. Fatima Blush is escorted into a safety deposit box vault that's revealed to be a secret door down into a secret lair that is luxuriously appointed. And it is the secret headquarters of the new Blofeld, played by Max Von Sydow.

Oh, I thought it was Colonel Sanders. Come on, he looks like Colonel Sanders. They gave him a Colonel Sanders goatee. Come on, come on. Close your eyes and realize I'm correct.

Okay, okay. A decidedly different attire and accent. And instead of holding a bucket of chicken, he's holding a white fluffy cat that he's petting. And his number one who is...

He was one bucket of chicken away from a lawsuit is all I have to say.

Yes, yes. He was Klaus Maria Brandauer, I believe. Correct? Yes.

So basically, the scene is Max Von Sydow as Blofeld is explaining to all of the great sort of heads of Spectre that they have a new plan. And then he introduces the actual villain of the movie. Or, you know, who is played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, who is Largo just like in Thunderball.

Yes, his instrument of terror and doom and extortion.

Yes. And Klaus Maria Brandauer explains that... What is it that... I mean, he basically explains that... Yes.

So there's an American pilot that has been brainwashed or put under control.

He's a heroine.

But it turns out...

They've addicted him to heroin, yeah.

And they apparently, we find out later, also have his... are holding his sister hostage. Yes. More or less. At least that's what they've told him. And on top of that, they've replaced his eye, one of his eyes...

Right...

.with an eye that somehow...

It's the exact corneal match of the President of the United States.

Yes. In order to pass a retinal scan, a la Star Trek 2...

Yeah...

.for some nefarious means that will become known soon, which is basically to get access of nuclear weapons.

How is it easier to get the retina of the President into a contact lens than to steal two warheads? It's a big mystery to me.

Or they, I don't know, kidnap the President. Or what... like, this makes... it makes no sense.

No goddamn sense, yeah.

This is so insane and absurd. But number 12 is Fatima Blush. I was going to say Tia Carrera. That's different. Barbara Carrera, who is...

Portia Carrera?...

who is acting as the pilot's caretaker, nurse, and let's just say a very naughty nurse.

Very naughty nurse, yes...

.who, coincidence, you decide, is being taken to the very same health farm, mansion spa that Mr. Bond has just checked into.

Before we leave Spectre, that's the other reason to be excited about this movie in 83 because it's the first time we've seen Spectre and Blofeld in 11 years because they had the rights.

Right, yes, yes, and...

Oh, is that why they stopped doing Blofeld after Diamonds Are Forever?

Yes.

Ah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then they dumped Spectre down that chimney stack. Unnamed.

They didn't say who he was, but you know who it is.

The reason Blofeld is not Blofeld in For As long as they couldn't use the name Blofeld.

Correct.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So now we get Blofeld and it's a pretty great Blofeld. Honestly, we don't get enough Blofeld in this movie. I feel like we are Blofeld deprived. And when you've got Max Von Sydow, there's never a moment between Max Von Sydow and Connery, which is like, how?

I gotta go back to Strange Brew.

Was Sean Connery in Strange Brew? Never mind.

If only.

Can you imagine?

If only it had been the brewmaster, the Scottish brewmaster.

Are you kidding? If only in the exact same movie, except it's Sean Connery instead of Rick Moranis, that's a fucking movie. Anyway, or maybe Dave Dennis, you know.

But speaking of cosmic cinematic crossovers that will break your brain, it turns out the American pilot under the control of Spectre is Brad from Superman 3.

Like, right, like Super, like Brad got his shit together. Brad got in the Air Force. Brad, you know, like got his sister out of Smallville, and then this happened, and then Spectre hooks him on. You know, if this were part of the Superman cinematic universe, that actually were Brad. But his name is Jack, Jack Petacchi, right?

No, no, no, no. His name is Brad.

Is Brad, OK.

I will only, I refuse to call it, and apologies to producer Brad. But the whole movie, I'm like, it's Brad, it's Brad.

But he's gone evil. We're going to pretend that Brad sobered up, Brad joined the Air Force, Brad did really well, and then this heroine happened.

Yeah, it's the same character. Just like the crossover between Staying Alive and Flashdance, of what's your name, the dancer.

Yes.

Anyway, it's all connecting. We're connecting at all.

And by the way, Staying Alive and Robocop with Kurt Wood Smith. What I'm trying to say is, this is a really interesting example of, look, a lot of people talk about lazy writing, okay? And whatever. And I don't know if this was lazy or if they just decided they're going to do it because fuck it or whatever. But in a Bond film, usually M gives Bond the mission and then he starts his investigation. In this movie, he goes to this fat farm and weirdly, the plot is delivered to him. He's really just there and then the plot arrives in a wheelchair.

He stumbles into the plot.

Yes.

That literally kind of is handed to him on a silver platter out of the blue. It's like Deus Ex plot in Act 1. Yes. It's a really crazy structure.

I think I call it Deus Ex Blofeld because there's a couple of Deus Exes in here.

Yeah.

Anyway, Paul, Deus Ex Brad. Sorry. You're saying, meanwhile.

But don't forget, that's the exact same plot as Thunderball. He happened to be at X-Rub Lands 2.

In Thunderball?

Yeah. It was just as random. It was handed to him. He didn't go there following a clue.

All right. Then you know what? I apologize to the force ghost of Lorenzo Semple Jr. I love Flash Gordon and the Parallax View, whatever.

But it's weirder here. It's way weirder in this movie. And so meanwhile, and to Connery's credit, and I'm wondering if maybe this is in part informed by a new iteration of Cinematic Hero as like best expressed in Raiders of the Lost Ark, later in Die Hard where we have heroes who get the shit beaten out of us, who are not impervious but are actually punished brutally. Connery's Bond gets immediately gets just abused by a chiropractor.

So they have some dialogue that makes you think that he and sex chiropractor are going to have sex. And then they cut to him and the chiropractor like they're holding each other, and they're rocking back and forth, and Bond is panting like he's putting some effort into it. But weirdly, they're both wearing gray sweatshirts, and then you find out, crack, she's cracking his back.

She does horrible things to him.

She really does. It's interesting, because they sort of humiliate the character a lot in this movie. And they played for laughs, which is, you'd never see that in a Broccoli Bond movie. They would make you see Bond as being feeble. Even in the Daniel Craig movies, where Bond is supposed to be a little bit, he's lost a step or three. It's played as a tragedy.

Right, right. They see him suffer, but it's never comedic. It's always dramatic and tragic. Later, I believe, then, after some flirting, she brings him a healthy dinner. He reveals he has packed his own suitcase full of indulgences.

Quagra.

Including vodka, caviar, like everything.

The vodka is absolute vodka, which was really interesting to me.

Yeah, there's some interesting parallel universe product placements in this movie.

Yes, because we all know that in the Bond movies, it's Smirnoff.

Yes, yes. I mean, at the time, yeah. So there are all sorts of things. It's like, oh, they couldn't get this, so they had to get something else. But a lot of brands bet on this movie.

Yes.

And on the Connery, which is, I think, is really interesting. But then, meanwhile, across the whatever, courtyard and the other wing, conveniently, Brad has decided to have a cigarette. Well, yes. And he's busted by psycho naughty nurse Fatima Blush, who is amazing in this movie.

Because she proceeds to kick the shit out of him because the cigarette smoke will destroy the corneal implant, right?

And I know we've already done the Maltese for the summer of 83. And this is passed way past the summer.

Yeah.

But I've got to give some kind of award. Fatima Blush, Barbara Carrera is so committed to being so unhinged and like deliciously psycho.

She's great.

At every moment, she is stealing every, not just every scene she's in, every shot that she's in.

She's one of the most beautiful women on screen. I mean, she's a gorgeous, she's beautiful. And she's also, she's not a bad actor. I mean, and she's really committed to being like just over the top. She's in a different movie than I think everybody else, but it's a better movie.

Yes, yes, yes. She's dangerous, but she's also hilarious because she's so deranged and having fun. Like she's really like giddy about how evil she is.

Look, we're going to talk a lot about incompetent villains in this film because this film is in ways that the Roger Moore movies could never be. These films, this film is the pinnacle of just shoot the motherfucker.

Yes.

But even those things, she's kind of able to sell in a really interesting way.

She sells everything, the costume designer and hair and makeup on this film.

There's one outfit in this movie.

Serve her well, even though all her outfits are insane.

Insane.

But she is serving looks every time she has a camera anywhere near her.

There is a great deal of leather and plastic bondage that's coated into her character. And in this scene, she's beating the crap out of Brad and then kind of tempting him with the syringe full of heroin.

And kissing him, like making out with him, also revealing to us that his sister, who we have not met yet, has been held hostage in his danger.

He thinks she's been held hostage, yes.

Yes. So that's part of the leverage. They have all this leverage that they converged onto him to get to do evil things that he's doing.

And here's what's interesting about this film. And this is a problem with all James Bond movies. Roger Moore talked about this on The Tonight Show, okay? James Bond is with sex chiropractor, and they're finally having sex and not chiropractic. And here's what happens. He hears the beat down between Fatima Blush and Brad.

He hears a very loud assault.

It's a beat down. That's happening.

And it's not happening. And at first, here's what's hilarious. Here's what's hilarious to me. There's so many things that are hilarious. It's set up like it's set up as if it's happening in the suite next door.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. The reveal is it's happening across the courtyard.

Right. But we're kind of making a shit.

In another wing. In another wing of this place where he can see through the barred because all the windows are barred. Because it's like a sanatorium also, I guess. I don't know. And so Bond then witnesses rear window style.

Right.

Barbara Carrera viciously beating poor Brad.

But here's the part that I find so fascinating is that he, Bond, seeks away from sex chiropractor to try to get a look at what's going on. Because he's an investigator. He's an investigator, right?

Yes. He has actual espionage in the scene. He does actual spying.

Yes, but he gets spotted. Barbara Carrera spots him. And here's the thing. Immediately she goes, it's James Bond. Yes. Like, again, how can James Bond be a secret agent when everybody knows him? He can't walk anywhere without people. Oh, Mr. Bond, your room.

Your usual.

So two things. First of all, I love it because it's hilarious. It's so stupid. But secondly, I give it a little bit of a pass because at this point in the internal continuity.

He's been fighting Spectre for years.

He's done. He's retired. He's teaching and the double O program is shelved. OK, his identity, his secret identity is no longer a state secret.

No, no, for me, it's more about he's been fighting Spectre for so long that they know him.

Well, of course, they all there's also that that also like everyone in Spectre has got to be fully briefed on on Bond.

Because the man is a menace to Spectre, you know.

Yeah. Before she spots him. And I will say there are moments. And I think this DP is is Doug Slocum. Yeah.

Who shot Temple of Doom and Raiders and yeah.

The cinematography in this film is a mixed bag. I think partially mixed because of budget and schedule constraints because Connery was led to believe this was going to be, I think, a more lavish production than it turned out to be. And then was very frustrated by the bean counting, penny pinching that the production had and that the film did not fulfill its potential. And so you can feel that even just in the basic movie making of it. But there are moments and shots that are genuinely cool. And so there's a moment where Bond has hidden himself in shadow. But Fatima Blush has a night vision scope. And then she lifts it and scans and then re-reveal that then she sees him in the shadows. And it's Bond. And it's a great cool shot of Bond in the shadow, like then being exposed. But before he's spotted, he has spied Brad doing this weird eye test.

Oh yeah, the retinal scan. He's somehow practicing putting in the precedence code while getting retinal scanned. Because it takes skill apparently, I don't know. It's a whole thing.

Well, yeah, there's a...

He's doing a hack. He's going to have to do a hack to do the thing with the device.

Yes. Anyway, next day. So now Fatima knows the Bond is there. Bond does not know Fatima is part of the spectrum yet.

I did not get this quip from the movie. But there is a great quip in this film where Bond is... He's had a kind of a rough night because he was up with sex chiropractor.

Yes.

And the doctor says, You look a little peaky, Mr. Bond. A herbal enema should set you up.

Yes. He's prescribed an herbal enema. And then Bond thanks him.

Yes. But then he's at the weight room.

Right? Well, no, no, no. First, he still has his spy habits. Right. He goes to search Brad's room. And he finds a matchbook with a conspicuous logo of two crossed flags that he also saw on a jacket or a bag or something when he was spying in the room. So we're establishing this logo that then appears later, really has nothing to do with anything, has never explained what it is. It doesn't matter.

It's kind of like Quantum of Solace, like the villains had these nicely embroidered things with Q and you're like, if I were the head of a worldwide organization, I wouldn't have a logo.

Yeah. Also, it's something that then when you get to the end of the film, you're like, all this stuff about the flight, you could cut that all out because it doesn't matter. And this movie is too fucking long. It is two hours and 15 minutes for no good reason. It is languid and flabby. Kind of like Bond. Yeah. But we have moments that are kind of great because, you know, while they could not get most of the Cub-a-lee, Cub-a-lee, broccoli, Cub-a-lee broccoli.

Cuddly broccoli.

I'm just going to call him, I'm going to call him Cub-a-lee.

Cub-a-lee.

We have somehow the producers, maybe they were like, you know, it's like you're putting together, you're making your draft picks and you have a limited budget and they made one really smart move. They got Vic Armstrong to do stunts, stunt coordination. And we get, I mean, the opening scene, very lackluster. It's not a great Bond opening adventure. It's like, it's very mediocre. Then we get the weight room. Javi, tell us about the weight room.

First of all, you see this big guy walking into the building, and he sort of chokes out the guy who's polishing the floors in the weight room while Bond is working out.

Yeah. The attendant.

And that man is the great, the very great Pat Roach, who we know as the bald Nazi from Indiana Jones, from Raiders, who gets, he's also the evil Indian, I mean, brown face, which is reprehensible, but probably one of the least reprehensible things about Temple of Doom, FYI.

But the machete twirling, yeah, yeah.

And so we've seen, so I like this guy just because every time I see him, I know like shit's going to go down, you know? He's one of the-

Also, he's huge. And he's towering over Connery, who is on his back.

Yeah, he's on a weight machine.

Bench pressing on a weight machine. And I just have him described as a big goon. He attacks Bond ruthlessly in the weight room, almost choking him to death with the weight bar. Bond manages to escape, and we get this extended fight scene.

It's actually rather quite extended, isn't it?

It keeps going on and on. And I love it. They make as much use as they can in the weight room. They make it out into a hall.

They go down a staircase, and then they go into another room, and then there's an intermission.

There's one of two, I feel like, whether intentional or not, I take as rocky homages. Because they're going down a hall, and it's like a retirement home...

TV room, yeah.

The TV room that they pass, but everyone's watching TV, so their backs are turned to the hall. And there's watching a prize fight. So we're hearing sound effects of a prize fight as Bond and the big goon shift into boxing each other, which doesn't make sense, but it's hilarious. And then the fight moves into a kitchen, and so we get all the fun of a fight in the kitchen with all the props and everything. They make great fun use of that. Then into a bedroom, into a bedroom with this woman who's in bed, and then the laboratory. But pick any of that.

And also, Padraig has a weird belt that he takes out that has like a steel spring that he's using to attack Bond, right? So that becomes kind of his weapon. But here's what happens in the lab, guys. There's a fight in the lab. Bond looks like he's going to get his...

Well, Bond has tried everything. He has thrown everything at this guy, from the weight room, from the kitchen, from the bedroom, kind of wrapping him in sheets. And now we're in the laboratory. And he's just like, how the fuck am I going to get rid of this huge big goon who's unstoppable?

And he's getting kind of pinned down. And he reaches back for a vial of something.

Whatever is within reach.

And he throws it at the goon's face. And the goon reacts like he has been hit with hydrochloric acid. It is literally like your mom walking into you having sex with your girlfriend in high school kind of response. I mean, he is streaking, holding his face, rending his garments. He backs up into a thing full of pipettes and stuff. And he stabs himself in the back. And that's how he dies. Because literally he's got like a Florence flask stuck to his spinal cord. And that kills him somehow. I don't know. And then he falls over dead. And then Bond looks at what was in that vial that he threw at the guy. And it is Paul.

It is the aforementioned urine sample that Bond had, that was requested to give to us.

Thus establishing that James Bond's lifestyle is so unhealthy that his urine can kill the Nazi from Raiders. A man who could previously only be killed by a rotating flying wing blade.

Bond's urine is classified under international law as a chemical weapon.

I mean, look, Paul, this is ridiculous and stupid, but how funny, it is so funny.

It is a full on cartoon at this point. And again, you're either on board with the fun, or you are running away screaming as this being sacrilege and just, but I kind of love it, it's so stupid, but it's so funny.

Much like the Daniel Craig movies tip their hat at Bond being kind of an alcoholic drug addict, right? With a very bad lifestyle. You know, this I feel like the first nod, acknowledging that he's kind of the Keith Richards of espionage, really.

Yeah, yeah. And then even though, even though, you know, this Bond was not looking for Trouble.

Trouble found him.

Trouble finds him, as it seems to the, our new M is not at all pleased and gives him a dress down.

For, yeah, but let's hear it.

I send you to a health farm to get yourself in shape. Instead you demolish it. I've had to notify the local police, pull out the special branch, get the minister to muzzle the press and allocate a sizable chunk of my meagre budget to renovating the establishment.

A man did try to kill me, sir. No!

Caught you seducing his wife, did he?

No, sir, not at all. But in fact I lost four pounds and God knows how many free radicals.

That is the kind of attitude that dumps me to the spend, you 007!

You see, like he's shouting every line and also like Edward Fox doesn't sound like that. I've seen him in other films. Like he's sort of pretending to be Statler or Waldorf. I don't know what he's doing. Now, Paul, here's something that's really... So we get through all of that and now Bond is...

Yes.

And then we see the plot has to kick in at some point, right?

Yes.

So it does now. Now the plot is kicking in. The bad guys are...

At the Air Force Base, we get this briefing. On a cruise missile test, this is going to go well. And Brad is there, not producer Brad.

No, Brad.

And he very conspicuously sneaks into a mainframe room with all this gear that he has on this big case. And it is this hacking device with the eye scanner. He plugs in somehow. He knows how to do this. It's nonsense.

And he triggers the automatic dummy warhead removal mechanism.

Yes, yes. Which again, again, the biggest, dumbest security lapse one could imagine that there is an automated warhead removal mechanism.

You should just let him have an automated dummy warhead replacement with real warhead mechanism. Yeah.

Yeah, like who thought that was a good idea? And he surreptitiously replaces the dummy warheads in these two cruise missiles with live nuclear warheads.

Yes.

And then we see them loaded into the bomber as then Brad leaves the base, the cruise missiles launch.

Yep.

And then because at this point, I don't know about you, but I am thinking, you know what I'd really like? You know what I'm really missing and want to see more of?

Excitement, action, fun.

Yes, in the form of Fatima Blush.

In the form of Fatima Blush, that's right. But before we do that, I want to say I do have one note on this scene, which was, the model working bad. Like that sequence of the cruise missiles fly, like honestly, compositing. OK, as we know from having seen Firefox in the summer of 82, compositing against blue sky is really difficult with analog green screen, not green, blue screen traveling matchups.

I played in the early 80s.

I was shocked at how good this looked.

It's decent. It is pretty good. It is pretty good. There is one in the third act we'll get to it.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, this is not a word, not that not a word.

There's one composite shot we'll get to. That's among the worst I've ever seen. And it's hilarious.

So Brad gets in his car. He's driving away having committed the crime. And you know, then and Barbara Carrera.

Thinking by the way, thinking by the way, he's going to be reunited with his sister. He's thinking he knows he's done something wrong, but he's done it for this greater good of saving his beloved sister.

And getting some heroin. And feeding him.

And getting more lifetime supplies. And who happens to then enter the scene?

Fatima Blush drives up to him in her car, which is already awesome, because just Barbara Carrera driving is better than most movies.

With the wind blowing in the breeze.

Oh, and the weird outfit and everything. And then as she's sort of waving and making eyes at Brad, she reaches into her passenger seat and pulls out a snake, which she throws into Brad's car, the snake bites Brad, and Brad is sort of like, look, most snake bites take about an hour, you know, to like really kill you, but this one like immediately like just starts, ah, he starts having his snake bite response.

I don't know that even gets bitten. He just freaks the fuck out because someone threw a goddamn python in his lap.

All right, all right, Paul, that could happen.

And then he loses control.

And he flips the car spectacularly over to us into like some sort of a thatched roof cottage in the countryside.

I don't know, yeah.

And then Fatima Blush goes there, she gets back the snake.

Yes, she has to retreat.

It's her beloved pet, it's apparently her beloved pet.

She wraps the snake around her like a shawl.

Puts an explosive in the car that any decent forensic investigator would have found in a second and then drives away and blows up the car with her little sort of James Bond mail your serial coupons in walkie-talkie detonator.

Yes, her dainty little remote-control.

It kind of reminds me of one of those Calibri lighters that they used to make for women when they smoked Virginia Slims and you had those very, very, yeah, like that.

Yes, it's like a lady lighter version in the early 80s of a remote detonator.

I believe it was in fact called Lady Detonator. That's the brand name.

It should have been, it should have been. If not, huge missed opportunity. Huge. I have a note here.

It do go on.

And maybe this goes on the list of potential Multiplex Overthruster bumper stickers.

Yes, sir.

And merch that will one day exist. I just have, I love her crazy chaos.

Oh my God.

I just, I can't get enough.

I love her crazy chaos. I know she is.

I can't get enough.

Yeah, I mean honestly.

I know, I know I would die horribly. But it would be, it would be so fun while it lasted.

I want to, I want to just put something out there. I want to put something out there and, you know, you tell me if I'm wrong, but this film has convinced me that there is no film made in the history of cinema that would not be improved with the addition of Fatima Blush. Okay? Gone with the wind. Look, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I mean, Citizen Kane, Coyanes Cotsey, you put Fatima Blush in there. All these movies are going to get so much better.

And, and my friends, yes sir, she is as the sirens declare or foreshadow. She is just getting warmed up. We have not even begun to see the nightmare madness of her. Then we get, and this is like, okay, there's a fishing boat that then intercepts the cruise missiles. I have a note here that, you know, Le Grand score is not bad. Like there are moments where I'm like, the score is not bad.

If it were accompanying a French romantic comedy, it'd be great.

But it's not a Bond score. And that, I'm just craving John Barry so bad.

But you have just literally, like, look, Michelle LeGrand, there is no denying the man's talent, right? I mean, you look at something like Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I mean, this guy had done work that is foundational. But for most of his American film work that I've seen, I mean, I was just looking at the credits here, and every one of those movies, I'm like, I didn't feel like that score fit the movie. He has this jazz trumpet kind of sensibility that's a little bit on the, I don't know, it just does not work for me at all. And it happens more than once with his scores for me.

Yeah, it's not quite a tonal match. Then we get a cut to, and in a timely bit of, I don't know.

Then comes the Dr. Evil scene, right?

Yes, at a NATO meeting, presumably.

The National Association of Theatre Owners. They're having real problems right now, man. They gotta meet a lot because cinema's in danger.

I was going to say, which NATO is more stable and on firmer ground right now? Which is in greater existential danger?

You know, I think they're tied, Paul. I think they're tied for that honor, and that's interesting. You know, but there's one thing I want to say, which my note here, because, you know, like, I'll just put notes that are like, but my note here was, this movie is so flat and ugly. Where was Peter Shushitzky who shot The Empire Strikes Back? This movie, the cinematography, weirdly, in the third act of this movie, I start seeing the director who shot The Empire Strikes Back. And it's not just the cinematography gets better when they go into sets that they can light. So you get the sense that they really run, this movie was kind of run and gun. They didn't set up a lot of lights. They didn't do a lot of, probably not a lot of coverage and all that. And then when they get into sets, all of a sudden, like a great DP can control the light, and you get these great shots, right?

And also, yeah, there's some great stuff later.

You know, Kirchner is a very classical type of director. He is a creative master that is really interesting, really painterly, has good foreground, background elements, everything's interesting. He blocked it really nicely, and he only cuts in to the master when he has to, right? And so that's a very classical style of filmmaking. And this movie feels like it doesn't play to any of his strengths as a director. Like the way it's shot, it looks like they shot a bunch of it, like on tripods and hand held or something. It looks, it's just a movie that looks flat and ugly. And it, I think that I look, I didn't know that this movie was financially troubled or any of that. So like, and actually, but then I read that Kershner actually got sued for trying to make the movie good and because apparently it went out of budget. So, so, yeah, but you literally it's it never plays to Kershner's strengths as a director.

No, no, he's hobbled.

And it doesn't play to to Slocum's sort of as a DP either, you know, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's it's it's a little heartbreaking because there are moments where you get glimpses of what the movie could really be.

Yep.

If it had gone full on, but it's not given the the the runway, the the the gas to go all the way.

And as fun as it is to talk about this movie, like this NATO scene comes in at around the 30 minute mark. So we've literally just been fomfering around in health farms. And even though we've had naughty nurses and BDSM and snakes and Flabby, Harry, Sean Connery.

This movie has been loitering.

It really has. It really has. Anyway, so Paul, you know, I'm sorry to pivot again, because as usual in Multiplex Overthruster fashion, we're an hour into the movie and we're 20 minutes into the movie or 30 minutes into the movie. I feel like Sean Connery had a very, very awkward phase between kind of like Zardoz and up until Hunt for Red October. And Hunt for Red October, my perception of how that movie was perceived when it came out was Sean Connery is hot again. Somebody thought, let him have the white beard, let him have the white crew cut, let him kind of play his age. And suddenly, like in that crew cut and that goatee, Sean Connery was fucking hot, right? And, but I feel like in this movie and in so many of the movies that he did in the mid to late 80s and all that, he just, he's kind of in an awkward phase. I think like, like he was great up until about 45, and then he had 10 years. And then when he got into his 60s, he fucking blossomed, you know? I don't know. You tell me.

I, I would say Untouchables three years earlier.

Oh, but he, but he was playing a Paunchy kind of older dude in that movie. He wasn't hot. He was good and he won an Oscar and he deserved it. But you know, I mean, I would not fuck Jimmy Malone, but I would fuck Marco Ramias.

Okay. I've, I've learned more than I ever dreamed I would this episode. I'm not going to, not going to get near that. I don't know how to, how to engage for that. But you know, people like what they like. The hair piece, I will say, Come on, the schoolmaster of Vilnius. Well, well, it's the best, it's the best hair piece Connery ever got.

Holy crap, is it ever, right? No, come on, yeah.

Maybe, I mean, although The Rock gives it a good run for the money. I don't want to go down a whole rabbit hole here.

The Rock, by the way, which was intended as a James Bond sequel, an official James Bond sequel, where James Bond had been imprisoned for doing what he did in this movie.

I was going to suggest to bookend one's experience of Never Say Never Again, one should follow it up with The Rock, because it is a Bond movie.

But you should have in your head, Ken, in a little snippet, right, where there's an interstitial story where Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter, was ordered to actually arrest James Bond, and they threw him into The Rock for some American reason, whatever. For embarrassing America for knowing about those top secret things later on.

We'll talk about that joke. Because of NATO really fucking up the world by their incompetence, their elapsed competence, I should say. So Blofeld issues this demand.

The Dr. Evil scene. This is the Dr. Evil scene. I will destroy the oil fields of Saudi Arabia unless I receive $25 billion.

And Blofeld reminds us what the acronym is. Oh my god, yes. The SPECTR is an acronym.

Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. That's what the acronym is, right?

Yes, yes. And he delights in revealing that he is now checking two of those boxes.

Counterintelligence.

No, Terror and Extortion.

Yes, but.

And he's going to add another one. If within seven days, NATO does not hand over 25% of the world's annual oil purchases.

They will make good on the other part of their name, which is Revenge. And then the film that has this ultimatum cuts to a mushroom cloud in case we don't know what those warheads can do.

Yes, stock footage of a mushroom cloud that Blofeld's just been waiting to intercut. It's so crazy, this scene, in so many ways. There's a little aside where someone's like, that would cost billions of dollars, which now is hilarious.

Yeah, it would be $25 billion and literally, that was what they estimated it in the room.

Yeah, so present day billionaire pocket change. Immediately, this meeting concludes with M being ordered to reactivate the double O's.

40 minutes into the goddamn movie.

And so now, here's my big plot hole question, and I don't know why I care, because it's like there's no point trying to make sense of this movie. Bond is back at the office looking through Largo's file.

Right.

How? Why? Is he psychic? Why does he know that Largo is anywhere near this? Has anything to do with anything? Does he know that Fatima, did he recognize Fatima? No, she's a Largo accomplice?

And if so, then why is he later briefed about Largo?

Yeah, yeah. It's like why and how? And again, it's a scene we don't need. It doesn't pay off. You could cut it. Like, God, I would love to cut this movie shorter. But he's pulled into M's office by Moneypenny. We don't really see that. But we do see Largo landing his helicopter in a ship with that same flag logo that's never explained, doesn't anything, as then Bond gets his briefing. And it's because M doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. But Bond does, but he's not inclined to share everything. He kind of teases a little bit of his knowledge that then M tosses off as being ridiculous. But Bond connects the false I dots.

For some reason.

Of the plot. Even though M doesn't know what's going on, Bond is like, hey, I got this. I'm gonna go take care of this.

Even by the very loose standards of investigative cohesion of this franchise, this is pretty rickety, you know?

Yes.

I bought this. He saw Jack Pitaci with the eye patch using the rig. To me, that's all he needs to know that there was something up with eye scanning.

Yes, but it still is like, how does he know Largo? How does he know like all, yeah. But he, yeah, he doesn't, he did see the eye scan thing. He hears about that, how somehow the cruise missiles were activated because someone hacked or bypassed the retinal scan security thing. And so he's like, well, obviously, okay, that's connected. So, yeah, but M dismisses that as like preposterous.

And then finally, Paul, finally, this movie does what a James Bond movie is supposed to do, which is take us to an island that's pretty with a lot of people who are not wearing a lot of clothing.

No.

No, what does it do?

I thought you were going to say it takes us to a dance studio.

Oh, well, you see them wearing a lot of clothing and it is in a yacht. I mean, yeah, okay. So.

Well, we're in a dance rehearsal and we finally see Kim Basinger as Domino.

Domino Patacchi, Jack's sister.

Jack's sister, Kim Basinger is getting a dance lesson slash rehearsal in a dance studio and she is being watched through a one way mirror or one way window or I forget what they're called by Largo.

Yes.

Who's in a control room and it turns out this is all on his yacht.

Yeah. And it turns out that he literally has a one way mirror from his control room slash office that he can look into because I guess he dates dancers but this is like an elevator door that opens to reveal that it's weird. Did he have this built so he could spy on Kim Basinger? What is happening, Paul?

I'm so glad you brought this up.

Are you?

I was hesitant to go on this tangent but I got really fixated on this because you start thinking backwards. At what point when designing his presumably dream yacht, did he think, here's what I'm going to need at some point in the future? Because first of all, it's pretty clear Largo not really into contemporary dance. No. Does not seem to be a dancer himself but had the foresight to say within the very limited real estate and confines of this still rather expansive yacht.

But nevertheless, it's a yacht and the headquarters are tight.

Nevertheless, space is at a premium, especially when you're tasked with the kind of ambitions that are soon to be revealed for the yacht as a mobile potentially world government controlling headquarters. He says, I know what I need. I need a full dance studio with a bar, with a whole thing, with a full grand fucking piano and a wall of mirrors, just a full on dance studio like Martha Graham in New York or wherever. Because one day there's going to be a plot that...

The sister of the Air Force guy that I gotta give the president of California to is gonna become my girlfriend, but I'm gonna fool him into thinking she's a hostage. So I'm gonna go ahead and build a dance studio.

Because she's gonna want to dance. Because she is gonna be really into dancing. And I'm gonna build my... And yeah, and have the one we mirror. I'm like, what? What? It exists purely for the convenience of the plot. But again, it's just so preposterous that it's hilarious, even though it's stupid, but I kind of love it.

There's a couple of things that I want to point out about this scene though. Eventually Largo goes into the dance studio and he kind of dismisses the hot sex dance instructor.

And we get this immediate sense that Largo does not suffer from a deficit of jealousy.

No, he is a violently...

He is easily triggered.

As evidenced by the last line of the scene, which was insane.

Which is great.

So basically, he gives Kim Basinger... Is it Basinger or Basinger? I've never known.

Basinger.

Okay. He gives Kim Basinger this medallion, the Tears of Allah, which is this very...

Yes.

And that he's just bought for her and she doesn't want it. She just wants him. But he just gives her the thing. And it's a whole thing. And...

He says it's like the most precious possession after her.

Which is funny because later on, he gives her another artifact and says, it's my most precious possession.

Yes, exactly. It clearly has a lot of them.

It's a sliding scale. Anyway...

Yes. And it is called the Tears of Allah, the necklace. Yes. Which is also the name of the plot that Blofeld laid out in the first Specter scene.

Yes, in the first Specter scene. The code name for the plot is the Tears of Allah.

Yes.

The necklace is called the Tears of Allah.

And also weirdly, at least it's weird to me, because Largo is a weirdo. Like he's objectively creepy.

He's objectively, yeah, he's psychotic, yeah.

And yet Kim Basinger's character, Domino, is inexplicably infatuated.

In love. Like she just wants him. But here's the thing that makes it inexplicable is that she, she at one point jokingly, and it's the last line of the scene, she says, he says, I'd never leave you. And she goes, well, what if I leave you? And he kind of looks at her and says, well, then I'd cut your throat. And he leaves the room. And I'm like, that's not the way a loving person behaves.

No, no. I mean, it was, it was bad enough that he describes her to her face as his possession.

Possession, yes.

It's like, it's kind of a red flag. Kind of a red flag. But then, but then he unleashes, he unleashes a whole parade of red flags by just kindly saying, yeah, if you leave me, I'm going to murder you.

Yes, yes. It's like, it's like, I mean, it's a May Day parade, Paul.

It's like, get out. Get out, Kim. I know you've got your dream dance, like, rehearsal studio on a fricking yacht, but probably a good idea to get the away.

But the Red Army drum corps is outside waving everything they got, sweetie. Here's the thing, Paul, now here, now here. I'm sorry. I just, I, I, this movie is so weird. Paul.

Well, again, next, next, we have Q.

Now, now here's, here's the thing. I want to say two things before we leave the scene. First of all, Klaus Maria Brandauer is a wonderful actor who's not seen in a lot of American movies. He was mostly, did most of his work in Europe. And I think that this may not be my favorite Bond villain, but this is by far my favorite acted Bond villain. I love what he does in this movie. He, the way he plays this character, you always feel like he's got something else, like, like he, he's in the movie, but he's also like got a billion plots going on in his head about how he's ruling and everything. And you get the sense, he just feels, I don't know how he does it, how he did it, but I genuinely felt like this character had a complexity that no one else in the film has. And that he's always has his thoughts on like, that he's playing eight-dimensional chess. Thoughts, Paul?

He's an objectively gifted actor.

Yes.

And actually overall, this cast is really good. Like this is, they got, they assembled quite a high caliber cast. And clearly Connery from his contemporaneous interviews was delighted. And was, and actually had a hand in selecting and casting. He was a very active producer on this, also active in supervising the writing of it. He really dove in and took ownership of it. His wife came up with the title for the film and gets a credit. Thanks for the film. Later it's revealed in one of the interviews, she was promised a fee that the producers did not pay. And then Connery had to-

Everyone's on the grift, aren't they? It's just amazing.

Connery had to go after them for it.

Oh my God.

So yeah, but at the outset, this is a pretty exciting array of talent to surround Connery.

On paper, the director of The Empire Strikes Back, Kim Basinger, Edward Fox, Klaus Meyer Brandauer, and the one surprise guy we're going to talk about later, Barbara Carrera. I mean, wow. Yes, yes.

There's some, I mean, this is really cool. If this had been mounted on the production of a real Bond movie, this could have been a really great Bond movie.

Yes, it could have been a good movie, yeah.

But instead, we get this weird, bizarre world, alternate reality, Cockney-accented cue.

Can I give you my theory about this scene?

Yeah.

Okay. So this scene, 1983, right?

Yeah.

Thatcher's England.

Oh, yeah.

As we know, Thatcher's England was a hellscape of privatization of the cutting off of government services. Busterity. Draconian monetary policy. It generally feels like this is Margaret Thatcher's James Bond. It's a James Bond whose agency has been literally stripped to the studs. They don't have any of the shit they used to have when, you know, when Cubby Broccoli was running things. When Cubby Broccoli was prime minister. And Q is like in this overcoat because they don't turn the heat up in the basement where he works now. And like literally the gadgets are like an exploding pen on a motorcycle, right?

Yeah.

And then there's a joke about how Q sinuses are bothering him. And James Bond picks up like a bullet-shaped thing and goes, what's this? And he goes, oh, well, you unscrew this and you stick it up your nose. And it's like because that's where his medicine for sinuses is like an inhaler.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's but but I genuinely feel like it looks like something that might be stuck up somewhere else. Yeah. I don't know.

Yes, it does. Indeed. I would not have picked that up with my bare hands. So but what I want to say is, is like it genuinely feels like not a commentary, but it feels like a kind of like like like it feels like it exists in that world where England was really on the decline and where England was literally just imploding in order to try to pull itself from the decline, you know. And again, it's one of the weird things about this movie that makes it so interesting is that it does have a point of view about England that is not the cubby broccoli one, because the cubby broccoli one in England is powerful. England is regal. Bond has every luxury, you know, and this is very much the opposite. This is like cheap Bond, you know.

Yes. And also it may be more than any other Bond film presents Britain and MI6 and the whole infrastructure of the military and intelligence as being more subservient than ever to the US.

United States, yeah.

And there are many examples of this. But yeah. And on the one hand, the whole plot is sparked by American incompetence. Yes. But on the other hand, as we'll get to later, the plot is saved not by the British coming to the rescue. It's the American military.

There are multiple moments of Deus ex America in the form of Felix Leiter in this film, which is really... You can tell this was an American production, by the way.

And the US. Navy. Yeah. And it's striking in terms of how it shifts. Well, the depiction of the US.

Navy, of this stuff in other Bond movies, is very much like the idiots with the really big stick who have to be led by us aristocratic, better, more wise, better knowing older culture. That's not what we're seeing here.

But it's also like, okay, we've established there's NATO. We've established from the beginning that the US fucked up. And it's because of their incompetence that these nukes got stolen. There's never any accountability for the Americans on that. Again, not anything echoing where we are now. And then, but then, but then there's a moment we'll get to. I'll wait till later because there's a moment later when you're like, oh, finally the British are showing up. And it's like, oh, no, that's not the British.

So, so Paul, so finally, so finally we get to Nassau. We get to a hot climate. Well, first, Q gives Bond, The Exploding Pen, two critical plot devices that could have only, that literally foresee things in this film to such a degree that you think Q developed time travel.

The Q branch has some latent psychic ability to issue devices that are very specifically going to meet needs that have yet to arise. But will inevitably present themselves. I just love it. So part of the fun of a Bond movie and of the Q scene is, you get the gadgets but then you're immediately thinking, oh, what is he going to use this for? What's he going to use that for?

You really don't get that in this movie. It's like, no, I pretty much know what you're going to do with that.

No, I know, but this is important. The laser watch, you can pretty accurately guess, and he's had laser watches before and we've seen him like it.

Yeah, he had one in Moonraker just a couple years ago.

Yeah, and maybe Thunderball. But it's like, oh, that's a good way to escape things and cut through things and whatever. But the exploding pin.

Which is a little explosive missile, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was trying to figure out how to describe this because it's a projectile weapon that fires an explosive projectile.

It's like a mini RPG in a Mont Blanc pen, in the chassis of a Mont Blanc pen.

Yeah, and it's such a specific thing.

What could you possibly use that for, Paul?

I would say in the full expanse of 60 years of Bond canon and canon-adjacent Q-gadgets in terms of the setup versus the payoff of the gadget, I think this is the greatest.

You know, Paul, I can't disagree. Even as obvious and also as depressing as the Q-branch scene is, because it's about diminished circumstances, the way that this one works out is pretty great.

It is at least, it is the most insane.

It is insane, yeah.

It is the most, like, unexpected. If you don't know, you would never imagine. But then once the scene starts in motion, you're like, oh my god, this is what he's going to use the pen for.

The convolutions that he has to go through, and the leap of faith you have to make in character motivation.

We'll get to it.

What I miss though in this Q Branch scene, because it's, you know, the thing I love about Q Branch scenes is that there's always somebody doing something interesting in the background. You know, like the guys in the ascending, you know, infiltration, Indian snake rope, you know, or you know, there's a room opens and people are doing karate in there with laser guns, you know, and sadly, you know, this is a cube, this Q Branch is not a...

There's not a lot going on. There's not a lot going on in this Q Branch. Although the opening of the scene is really good because Bond is doing target practice, Q sneaks up behind him with the blaster pen and like blows the shit out of the target from behind Bond and like freaks him out. It's pretty good. And then we also get the scene, the first exchange that opens.

Paul, we are now entering the 20-minute mark of my trying to get to Nassau.

We're now in Bahamas. We're in the Bahamas. Bond is finally in the Bahamas where he belongs.

Where he belongs.

And Javi. It's been a long time since Connery's looked this good. He's in this tan suit.

He looks good in the tan suit. He does.

And a blue shirt and tie. And he looks like a million bucks. And immediately...

He wears the hell out of that suit. He's wearing the hell out of that suit.

He immediately encounters and hits on a ridiculously hot Fisherwoman.

Yes, as you do. Because you know the thing... It's not that I realized, but the thing that really struck me in this movie, and I don't know why it stuck out so much in this, these movies, the entirety of these films are predicated on the irresistibility of James Bond. Like literally James Bond could be played by George Wendt. And every scene with Bond ends with some women kind of looking longingly as he passes by, you know? It wouldn't matter who the actor is, but with Sean Connery at this age and given what they're doing with it, it just doesn't feel particularly true.

No, no, no, no, no. Here is why. Because it is the flip side of the chemical weapon that is his urine.

This is pheromones.

Pheromones. I was going to say one word.

One word. Pheromones.

Pheromones. He has clearly weapons-grade pheromones.

And then in another great example of Bond doesn't have to do anything, the plot just shows up. Sometimes...

Well, and unfortunately, because he's about to go have a fling with Hot Fisherwoman, but who interrupts by calling his name, again, speaking of that he's supposedly a secret agent, and someone calls his name from across the dock, the harbor, bay, wherever we are, and we get this just wild character introduction out of the blue.

Let's hear it.

Let me help you.

Mr. Bond. I say Mr. Bond.

Catch you later, perhaps. Right.

Nigel Smallford, British Embassy, Nassau.

How did you do, Nigel?

Sorry, I'm late. But as you were one of these undercover Johnnys, I took a precaution of not being followed.

And that's why you shouted my name across the harbor?

Oh, God, did I? Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm rather new to all this.

And it's none other than Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean walks into a Bond movie.

Except he speaks, which I wish he didn't. Look, I appreciate Rowan Atkinson. I saw his stage show when it was on HBO, and I thought it was phenomenal. I think Rowan Atkinson needs to be deployed very judiciously in other people's films, because he is playing a variation. A lot of the time, he's playing a variation of that obnoxious character. And oh my God, like I literally, you know what I wrote in my notes? I wrote, I hope this is the one they killed to show that the bad guy means business.

Yes.

Yes.

Also, I'm watching this, because I don't remember a lot of this movie as I'm watching it. I remember a lot of it, but there's a lot I don't remember. Basically, I remember all of Barbara Carrera. I'm hoping, oh, this is just a cameo. He's just in this one scene, because he kind of takes you out of the movie, because it's Rowan Atkinson. But it's like, oh, no.

It doesn't have to be the year 2026, and you've seen Mr. Bean, and there's been a whole thing.

No. In 1983, he took you out of the movie.

Just by being so over the top and not being in the wrong movie. He's playing a character, you know, yeah.

It's Rowan Atkinson. It's Blackadder. It's like it's just, yeah. Anyway, so he briefs him on Largo. And again, the question is, how does Bond already know that Largo is involved? Like, there's something, and I, at this point, I should just give up.

I think it's the flags. Because when he was looking at the files, he saw the flag with Largo.

But why would he know to go look at Largo's files in the first place?

Paul, I think what you're missing here is that this film trusts the audience to put the dots together. They're not spoon feeding you like American cinema does, okay? They're assuming you're smart.

I have so many scenes in my head that they fed me that aren't in the movie that make it all make sense.

Or just at this point, Bond is also psychic. Bond, then, and we get one of the great character meetings.

Oh my God.

Finally, at Long Last, because we've been waiting for these two forces.

Of nature.

To collide. Yes. And Bond, of course, priorities, hits a bar. Of course. On the pier.

Yeah. I mean, nuclear warheads are missing, but cocktails.

Got it. It's cocktail hour. He's a civilized man. What a really nice...

What is he, a farmer? Of course he's gonna go get a martini.

And beholds just as if delivered by heaven.

Oh my God, Paul, yes. Actually, this is what I thought was gonna happen when you brought up Rowan Atkinson, that the plot again is delivered to him in the most amazing manner possible. Literally there is a ramp that the plot literally slides up to him. Can you describe the scene?

I mean, this is art because as much as Rowan Atkinson takes us out of the movie, we're delightfully lured back in by the sight of Fatima Blush water ski.

In the greatest one piece swimsuit ever. A swimsuit that I believe proves, by the way, that so many, like the iconic Bond girl is obviously Ursula Andress and then later Halle Berry in that bikini, right? But my God, there's always the presumption that the more skin you show, the better it's going to be. That red one piece she's in is fucking epic. It's beautiful and she looks amazing in it and it's not nearly as revealing as...

She looks amazing in everything she's in this movie.

Yeah, that's true.

But yeah, it's got this asymmetrical red thing, but she also spots Bond and she is like such a master craftsperson at perfectly calibrating her glare. And we get just this flash of a glare as she recognizes Bond on the pier, but she immediately pivots back into her natural state of delight.

Yes. While water skiing.

While water skiing. This is while she's water skiing. It's freaking amazing. She then careens on water skis up the ramp.

There's a ramp leading to the bar. There's a ramp that leads to the bar that you could ski.

To the bar.

It's like Largo's one-way mirror. Like who thought, you know what this bar needs? It needs a ramp that goes to the water so that somebody can ski right up to the bar.

And not just right up to the bar, but right into James Bond's arms.

Leading to this great meet cute.

Yes.

Let's hear it, producer Brad.

How reckless of me.

I made you all wet.

Yes, but my marfini is still dry. My name is James. Hello, James.

I'm Fatima Blush.

You ski very well. I do many things very well. I'm sure you do.

I mean, wow, right?

So the Olympics are on right now as we're recording this. This whole bit is like Olympic level in terms of getting her, and I know it's stunts and it's editing, whatever. I don't care. This is cinema. This is cinema.

She literally skis up into his arms. It's amazing.

Yes, and it is not a stunt woman. It is Barbara Carrera on skis that suddenly somehow magically come off of her feet. But skis, and it's just at the perfect velocity to just deliver, like to stick the landing for Olympic gold right into the unexpected embrace of Bond, and they had this exchange and then the rest of this exchange, she's asking him, what are you looking for, whatever, what are you here for? And he's like, oh, I'm looking, you know, I forget what he says. But then she says, I'd like you to find what you're looking for in the most amazing Vaseline glazed lens closeup. And oh my God.

With a lot of these scenes with Barbara Carrera, it's kind of like watching an old timey Star Trek episode where Kirk is always like just sharp and high contrast. And then they cut to the women and they're like, na na na na na na na.

And it's like, it's like a dream stage. Like you're seeing this almost hallucinatory image.

I totally get it.

And then we immediately cut together to them on a yacht together. And they pretty much immediately, as they're getting ready to scuba dive and then realize that they've got some time before they reach the reef, they get it on in the craziest sex scene of them rolling around, intercut, intercut with underwater footage of fish. Back and forth, they are having sex on the floor in this equipment room, inside the yacht, in the bottom of the boat, while then we're intercutting with underwater beauty shots of fish. And they're saxophone playing.

Well, of course, this is the 80s.

It is so 80s. Oh my God. And it is so insane.

Except that the leading man is so 60s, but yeah.

Well, yes, yes. I haven't even looked up how young Barbara Carrera was, but.

She's ageless. How dare you?

At this moment, at this moment, we have undeniably turned a corner and this is cinema that we're watching. I mean, this is a, yeah.

Okay. Can I talk about what follows, Paul, because this is.

Yes, the scuba diving scene and the, oh my God.

So Fatima Blush and James Bond are going to scuba dive. That's, you know, the post-coital swim. And now, Paul.

Yes.

Fatima Blush has been given the assignment to kill James Bond. Okay.

Yes.

She just had sex with him, right?

Yeah.

They're in a room full of scuba equipment, right? She has a very large knife for most of the scene.

Probably lots of knives.

Stab him.

Handy.

Stab him. Stab him. Cut his throat, stab him. Okay. But what does she do?

She also has a snake somewhere. Like she has many options.

Stick one of her little, like, stick bombs and use the lady detonator on him.

She probably has poison lipstick. She probably has everything.

She could strangle him with her thighs, like standing on the top. I mean, totally, right?

There, there, or her hair. Like, I mean, there's, there's no bounds.

But.

To the possibilities within reach of her.

Literally, while he's putting his pants back on, fucking stab him in the back, right?

Sure. All right.

Or, you know, put the snake in the pants.

Snake in the pants?

And then as he's pulling again.

Yeah. I mean, he freaks out because he's got a snake or the snake bites him. Either way, then she's got an opening to stab him, right? It's awesome. Or blow him up. Whatever she wants. Instead, they go scuba diving in Old Wreck. And she puts, she very surreptitiously places a shark, a track.

We don't know what it is yet. All we know is that.

I'm moving a little forward. But this is important.

In the moment, she's putting something on his scuba tank that appears to be some kind of tracking device. But what it is. Maybe, maybe plausibly. Because if you don't know yet, because about what it is. But you're thinking, OK, it's probably it's tracking device. Why? Because she's with them and they're underwater. This is like, well, could it be like a micro explosive? But it doesn't really look like a micro explosive. What the hell is she putting this device on his scuba tank?

Overthinking it in every way.

No, it's called watching a movie. It's called watching a movie.

So Barbara Carrera signals the boat and she's about to just sort of kind of leave Bond. So Bond goes into the wreck. He's kind of looking around. She very, very sneakily goes away from him and signals the boat to start to turn the thing on.

To push the button.

Yes, to push the button. And now can I say what it is, Paul?

Please.

It is an electronic shark attracting beacon.

Yes. And not just to attract a shark or sharks.

It's not a lemon shark, not an epaulette shark, not a nurse shark.

But cybernetic sharks.

Is it?

That had been fitted with radio receivers on their dorsal fin.

I think I winked during that part of the movie because I don't remember any of that.

And at first, it looks like there's just one. And there's an underwater duel and chase between Scuba Bond and Cyber Shark. And it's insane. But it's kind of cool. Like, it's like, wow, I haven't seen this.

It's kind of cool, but it's kind of boring in language.

Cyber Shark. It's a little slow because you're underwater. It's a little slow mo. Oh my God.

It's so slow.

But the shark chases him into the ship. Michelle LeGrand, by the way, not very inconspicuously is channeling a little John Williams jaws into his score.

He's doing a lot of light lifting in this scene. He really is. He's really, yeah.

Then he traps a shark, but more sharks converge. And we're like, oh, he's screwed. And Fatima has taken off.

Oh yeah, she's gone now.

She's gone. And Bond is like, oh, what am I doing? And, or a stunt man. Then he traps another one under a fallen mast. He sees then that the shark has this like cyber radio on its fin.

I think I dozed off during this. I don't remember any of the sharks being cybernetically inhanged.

This is crucial. And then he realizes-

I thought it was the beacon that attracted sharks.

They must be tracking, following something on me. There must be a reason why they're coming after me. And then he reaches and conveniently, Fatima placed the tracker on his scuba tank in a spot where he could reach behind him. Stab him.

She had a knife.

And find it.

Stab him.

She could have stabbed him.

She literally had a knife.

She could have stabbed him. He removes the tracker. Oh, and one of the sharks cuts off like his breathing tube. So now the clock is ticking, but he tosses the tracker into the ship to lure the sharks. And then he escapes on Deus Ex fishing line. Not that he needs a fishing line to haul him up to the surface, but he sees a fishing line with a lure. And Javi, what does he find on the other end? A hot fisherwoman that he planted.

Because this film is a...

They're reunited.

It is an object lesson in planting and payoff. She was planted and now she's paying off.

And again, great, again, Bond, Bondmott, that's irresistible. He reunites with the hot fisherwoman, who of course is surprised and says, it's you, I don't think we have this clip. And then he of course says, Connery is so fucking perfect. You did say you'd catch me later. Oh my God, yes. You know, again, it's layers and layers of cheese, but it's really good.

You know, and the thing is, look, there's a reason Sean Connery was James Bond, okay? There's a reason. It is that he's awesome.

And there are, as kind of middle-aged and flabby and weird as he is in this movie, and he's, as Fatima observes, in the prep, the pre-Scooba sex scene, he's in pretty good shape. He looks good when he undresses.

Yeah, he's fine. Yeah. I mean, he looks, yeah.

I mean, yeah.

He's like...

He doesn't look flabby. He doesn't look like Roger Moore.

No. And, yeah, but it's, you know, he's got that 60s body.

But he looks like he's, he looks like he's a well, he's a guy in his 60s who's kept himself in good shape.

Yes. So, here's an observation that I kind of want to talk about, and, you know, I know we got to get through the rest of this movie, because I don't even.

Yeah.

Paul, this movie is a movie about other movies. This is not a movie about movie, about anything real, realistic, or that exists in the world. To me, this movie feels like it literally is a movie about everybody behaves in this movie, like they don't have, their motivations never seem real or human. I think that's maybe why Brandauer sticks out to me so much in this movie. It's a movie where everything is a trope. And sometimes there's a manipulation of a trope that can be clever, but it really just feels like a movie about movie. It just feels like it's clutched together from parts of other movies, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And of course, presumably, most people who've seen this will have seen Thunderball. So it's also this weird deja vu you're having throughout the film, because it's like, I've seen a version of this. I've seen like this is, he's had, he's Bond has been on this mission before and he doesn't seem to realize.

I don't know how much they have, well, maybe that's how he knows the plot.

Maybe that's how he knew Lara was involved.

I think I did this one already. I'm going to go to the Bahamas now.

I did this back in 71.

65.

Thunderball, 65. I'm thinking of Diamonds Are Forever.

But kind of like in the Doctor Who special where the oldest doctor thought of something and then all the other ones remembered it simultaneously because tiny whiny. Anyway, this movie does one thing that I really like, which is it takes every opportunity to put Sean Connery in an embarrassing outfit, but not as embarrassing as the clown costume because he's Sean Connery.

But then we get, oh my god, this is so glorious. So first, we're back on the dock, the marina, whatever. And Fatima Blush is now has now transcended to become Fatima Bliss because she is she is dancing by herself with murderous glee because she is the one who finally has killed James Bond in her mind.

Yes.

And she is living the dream.

Yeah. There's one of those little Calypso bands and they're playing and she's dancing on the deck, you know, yeah.

She not only got to be the last woman to ever have sex with him, she got to be the one person who defeated and murdered him in the most deviously insane way.

So she's literally dancing with Glee.

By sharks. She is, she's, and she's in another spectacularly amazing-

Somehow she's in like a beautiful sundress and a hat, or something.

But her Glee, her Glee is popped like a red balloon.

Yeah.

At the sight of Hot Fisherwoman's boat arriving at the marina and she sees very much alive James Bond-

Holding a fish on a line.

Holding a fish that he's caught.

And wearing, and the cute fisherwoman-

And wearing, and wearing, overalls. Her overalls.

Her denim overalls. You meet her, she's in these denim overalls, and then when they come back, she's in her bikini, which is underneath, and he's wearing the overalls, and he looks comical.

He looks so happy.

So happy.

He looks so happy.

Well, he caught a fish.

Yes, and the Hot Fisherwoman that he thought was lost forever because of stupid Rowan Atkinson spoiling their first encounter. But here's the other thing. There are many other things. As we've established, I have too much stuff. I'm too much of a collector and a... I was going to say hedgehog. I don't know that hedgehogs collect things or operate. Things.

You think pack rat?

No, I'm preferring hedgehog. A little happy hedgehog, sure. But in this moment, I'm thinking, I need a Sean Connery as James Bond in Denim Overalls action figure.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think...

That needs to exist. I don't know that it ever has, but we need some high-end collectible company that has the Bond license.

I'm actually kind of shocked no one's done it, because honestly...

To make this... I should look. I didn't think to look, because I don't expect...

There is a Will Rowe Hood action figure. How does this other thing not exist?

I mean, I will say the two Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures I have are Fiesta Giles in his poncho and sombrero and Bunny Anya in her full-on fuzzy bunny suit.

Let's speed up a little bit here, because we're...

Yes, so immediately, Fatima was like, fuck, he's still alive. But she's got plan B. So she races to his room, places a bomb under his bed. She's like, I'm not fucking around anymore. I'm not going to do elaborate like shark like dream construct of doom. I'm just going to blow the shit out of him. Right. And enough, enough. And so she's, since she comes back to the lobby, just in time to stand like some kind of statue as goddess behind a pillar facing camera. As in the background, we see overall clad Bond and hotfisherwoman returning to the hotel and then going up to, presumably, his room and the expression on Barbara Carrera's face through this oner, as she is in foreground outside of their sight, but knowing like that she has planted the bomb and they're going to their doom. He is going to the doom. She doesn't care about it. She doesn't know who she is. Although she's probably sad that now this other woman is going to get to bed him and be the last one and it wasn't her. But she's going to die for it.

I think she's okay with it. I think she's okay with it.

But there is this expression that I've never seen, I think another actor master of psychotic serenity, that is so just beautiful and captivating and also kind of terrifying.

But here's the thing, she takes out the lady detonator, right?

Well, Bond and the hot fisherman get in bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't mess around.

She takes out the lady detonator, she presses the button.

Why, why, why, why? She goes out to lunch. This is important, because the phone rings, the phone rings and it's fucking Rowan Atkinson calling to update him that Largo's yacht, because he's like, where's Largo? We got to find him, track him. His yacht has left for the south of France. And so Bond has now gotten this information. And then we cut to.

Okay. We have we have now reached the point where I beg you to move this thing along.

But it's so good, like this. Now we're getting good stuff.

She blows up the apartment and you see the explosion from the window of the Fisherwoman's apartment.

Yes.

And then Bond delivers the line, we made the right call. And she's about what? And he goes, your place are mine. Okay. Anyway, finally, Bond is going to meet the bad guy at a casino, right?

Yes. Well, cut to the south of France.

That whole other part was not in Nassau. I don't even know.

Now we cut to Nice and who but Felix Leiter meets Bond by testing his reflexes. That's right.

Paul, first of all, the great Bernie Casey.

My God.

And however, as much as, and Bernie Casey is the MVP of this movie, honestly. Like, when this movie ended, I was like, I want to see the Felix Leiter movie that we were denied with this guy.

That is true. That is true. I don't know that I've ever wanted, at least until this point in the Bond canon, there's no character that you're immediately like, oh, he needs a spinoff. We need a movie. We need to follow. And there's a lot of others.

Jack Lord, there's John Terry, you've got Jeffrey Wright, not Bernie Casey.

No one's as cool.

But there is a formative film in my childhood that I saw many, many times on cable TV called Revenge of the Nerds. And you may recall that the nerds, they solicit to get into this fraternity, not realizing it's a black fraternity and it's lambda, lambda, lambda. And that opening shot where all of the members of lambda, lambda, lambda come in and you realize the disparity, say, between the collective goals of each organization. And Bernie Casey plays the comedy of the phenomena. So the moment Bernie Casey showed up, I was like, lambda, lambda, lambda! Anyway, so yeah, he throws like a orange or something at Bond, doesn't he?

It's some kind of rubber ball or bouncy ball, whatever. And he freaks out like the other, the attache, because apparently Agent 326 is also this woman is there to brief Bond and whatever.

And they have the motorcycle from Q Branch on some sort of a horse trailer. What the hell is that? It's like a foam form, right?

Yes. Yes. Some trailer, vertical like compartment thing that is delivering Bond's new motorcycle.

Again, Q Branch, thinking ahead, thinking ahead.

Yes. But they immediately go to a villa.

A really nice villa, by the way. I love the architecture. It's gorgeous.

It is spectacular.

Super modern, really.

The exterior is a little weird, but the interior is like this modernist dream. And they start spying on Largo's yacht. And lo and behold, they see Domino dancing on the deck. And then we know and they know that she is the pilot's sister. Then Bond stalks her slash follows her into town, into a spa full of hot women where he does what, Javi?

Commits sexual assault.

Yeah, kind of.

She is waiting for a female masseuse to show up. He has somehow commandeered a uniform, right? She's lying naked on the thing. He literally lifts up the towel and says, turn around, you know, whatever. And then he starts massaging her. She has not given consent. He's not the masseur.

Yes.

It's not good.

No, it's not. She is given consent to the masseur she thinks he is, who he is not.

Yes. Of course, why she didn't say, where's the lady who's supposed to touch me now? She, I mean, I don't know exactly.

But she seems to feel like she's in good hands and instructs him to go lower. Again, she's on her stomach. And he kind of casually interrogates her to get some information through chit chat, finds out about Largo's benefit party tonight, and also the fact she's clearly infatuated with Largo. Then he makes his escape as the real masseuse comes in, arrives, replaces her. And at first, Kim Basinger plays the moment as first registering a little bit of confusion and dismay, but then a little bit of amusement and perhaps delight at then what just happened.

Because in all of these films, you need to take the stink of the sexual assault away by saying, but she enjoyed it.

Yeah. Which is not cool. Which is not cool. Bond then finally in a tuxedo.

One of the greatest scenes, honestly what happens next is one of my favorite scenes in a Bond film ever.

It's great.

Because Bond is trying to get into this very exclusive club and this very large bouncer tries to manhandle him, right?

Yes.

And the bouncer's got a really big machine gun or something and Bond kind of like manhandles the guy back into a closet.

Yeah.

And he puts this gizmo in his hands and he explains to him that it's a detonator with a gyroscope.

Yeah.

And if the guy, any lateral movement will cause the detonator to explode. And I love the line because Bond goes, any lateral movement and you can be served in an egg cup. And so the guy literally is left there in a closet holding...

Very specific imagery. And that gets a gold screenwriting star for that very specific choice.

So the guy is literally left in a closet holding this thing, unable to move. And that's how Bond gets into the place.

Presumably forever or until he drops it and then is blown to smithereens. So again, it is not like the ticking bomb under the table. It is the ticking time bomb in the coat closet as then everything proceeds to happen. He spots Domino, a Kim Basinger, follows her into a pretty awesome video arcade in this palatial place.

I just want to throw this out there, though, Paul. This is a really interesting thing that this brings up is that it is a fundamental flaw of how the Broccolis especially, but even this movie, do James Bond. James Bond movies, the reason why I think they're not as, say, transcendent as Star Wars or any number of other things, they're essentially trend followers. Yep. This is 1983, right? Ann Arbor just got their first arc, well, we had Pinball Pete's and the Simulation Station and Mickey Rat's, right? Producer Brad and I, in a couple of years, would be going to these arcades and all of that, but video games are getting big. So of course, there's going to be a video game in the movie. It's like all these movies are so trend following and you keep hoping that they'll actually make that, and even the later ones that are so much better made are still sort of like, oh, parkour, you know? And I think that's a fundamental issue with the Bond movies that keeps them from being as transcendent as they could be, speech over. They go to the video game arcade and then he actually introduces himself to her and finally says the line we've been waiting to hear for 18 years.

My name is Bond, James Bond.

Thank you.

Yes. Also, I got to say, what a pleasure seeing Connery as Bond in a tux again. Yes. Yes.

But then he proceeds to order a vodka on the rocks, which is weird.

Yes. They hit the bar and Fatima and Largo then start circling them like sharks. And there is a really good exchange between Fatima and Largo while Bond and Domino are at the bar. And Bond is clearly hitting on Domino.

And you really get, and by the way, you really get the sense that Fatima and Largo have their own messed up... Psycho.

Psycho-sexual thing. So there is this weird thing where Fatima is clearly manipulating Largo's jealousy. Like she's poking the bear. At the same time...

And by the way, not the hardest bear to poke. No, no.

Easy, easy. At the same time, she is trying to kind of like replace Domino. Like she's trying to move in on Largo because she's just sort of hot for everything and everybody. And, but Largo is like setting boundaries. And there's a great moment, I think it's in this scene, where he says something as far as like, you know, I may be wrong on when this happens. If I am, I'll correct it later. But there's a great exchange moment where, and the way it's blocked and it's performed, where he's like, well, if he goes too far or whatever, then you can get another chance to kill him, to make it right or whatever. And then she moves in on him, like she's gonna embrace his head with her hands, and he just raises a finger and just says, Fatima, like basically sets up a wall, like an invisible force field. And then she turns and walks away, but with this impish, evil smile. She's just playing with everybody and everything. She is so just fascinating. All of her choices, I find amazing. But-

Two things happen. One of them is that as James Bond, so Largo intercepts Bond and Domino.

Yes.

And then we get the explanation that we're in a benefit, that it's for Largo's favorite charity, which is Mutant Children. And then as they leave the arcade, okay, I'm sorry to point this out, because this dude turns, because just as James Bond, every time he walks through a scene, somebody's got to look back at him like, oh my god, what a man. Fear of Mones, right? As Kim Basinger walks by, a dude turns around from his Pac-Man game, a dude in a tux turns around from his Pac-Man game and looks at her longingly. Paul, I don't know if you noticed this, but that man was the spitting image of Timothy Dalton. And I thought I was crazy for seeing that. Producer Brad, back me up.

It looked like him.

I gotta go back and look. I did not notice that. I was looking at trying to identify all the different stand-up arcade consoles. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously. Because it's a treasure trove. But, so at this point in any Bond film, what we are set up to expect is that there's gonna be-

Bond plays Baccarat with the bad guy.

Exactly, exactly. They're in the casino, they're gonna do that. But, because again, the filmmakers cannot help themselves to be trend whores.

Give me those trend whores. Don't let them end.

My god. I almost spit, take, laughed my whole esophagus out of my body.

It turns out that in addition to being a world-dominating oil magnet who can hijack warheads and who has the corneal implants of the president, Maximilien Largo is also an amateur video game designer, right, Paul?

Yes, he's an independent video game developer. And he challenges Bond to this elaborate just construct of this huge table.

It's like a giant gilded pool table that hosts a video game. You sit on either side and it's got a flat screen.

It's like an electroshock version of war games by way of risk. Yes. It makes no sense.

Yeah. You have to hold the joysticks. The joysticks give you mounting electric shocks the longer the game goes on, while you're trying to play.

Yeah.

And if you let go of the joysticks, you forfeit the game and the game is called Domination.

Yes.

And you're sort of aiming little lasers at municipalities in these countries, and you're trying to beat each other at lasering municipalities until you've got the whole country.

Like nothing we're watching, nothing that's displayed on the vector graphics of the game, whatever, it doesn't make any sense as far as gameplay.

However, I love this sequence.

Yeah, it's insane. And so, and you get the classic three act structure of the duel, okay? Because Bond is obviously at a disadvantage. Largo has designed it, he has mastered it, he spends his spare time practicing and playing it to perfection. Bond has never played this before.

And he doesn't even know that the thing gives you electric shock.

Yeah, until like he gets shocked and then he's like, oh, I forgot to tell you, so like...

I forgot to tell you that makes it gives you electric shocks.

You get to go again and then it's like it happens again and it's like, oh, and you know, and if you let go, then you forfeit and lose whatever. And then like it apparently escalates, like the more points you lose, whatever, the higher the shock value goes, and or something like that. But there's no correlation to what we're watching in terms of why.

And everyone's in a game, you've got like a boss nuke you can fire.

Yes.

Which is what I want to just... There's one moment when Largo fires a boss nuke and Bond hits his shield, and an iris closes on the screen over Bond's face to stop the missile. And it looks exactly like the gun barrel from the beginning of the Roger, of the classic Bond.

Yes, yes. It's like a digital video game version of that that we see Bond frame.

Which I think is another fuck you cuddly.

Yeah, yeah, it's gotta be. And so anyway, so Bond is like, he's getting the hang of it, he thinks he's going after it, and now a crowd has gathered, Fatima is watching, like just like drooling, and Domino is getting increasingly concerned. Finally, it reaches a point where Bond, the electric shock wave.

Bond falls out of his chair.

He is knocked on his ass out of the chair.

And it's not glamorous or pretty.

No, he is soundly defeated. Soundly.

And he now owes Largo like 50 grand, because the more countries have different cash values and whatever.

And he's kind of emasculated in front of this entire crowd and in front of Domino. And then we kind of think like, wow, this is not good.

I've seen that before. Yeah.

But then he bravely...

I don't think they did anything like that to James Bond until they gave Daniel Craig the poison in Casino Royale and had him have to like... Not that this is anywhere near the level of that film or filmmaking, but...

Or I was going to say the torture scene on the chair that doesn't have the seat. Anyway, the whipping under... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Bond regains his composure, asks for a rematch, basically, everything or nothing. And for it all.

Yeah, and Bond is sweaty.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's sweaty. He's not looking good.

Yeah. And they rematch. Bond now feels like he knows enough in terms of how to win. And somehow he turns the tables on Largo, who finally has to be the one to submit and let go.

And let go of the control.

Of the joysticks forfeiting. And then we get this exchange.

It seems I underestimated you. $267,000.

I'll settle for one dance with Domino.

So, do you lose as gracefully as you win?

I wouldn't know. I've never lost.

Now, it's moments like this.

He's the man.

On the one hand, the video game thing is stupid and absurd. It makes no sense. But on the other hand, you get an exchange like that. And that is as Bond as it gets. Like there are moments where this is real Bond.

And I got to say that as cheesy and trend-following as the scene is, I really appreciate, like, I actually thought the scene was well done. I appreciated the escalating dramatic tension of it. And I mean, think about when we got an octopus. We literally got the most on-the-nose hackneyed, oh, you know, Louisa O'Dan is playing with loaded dice and it's so obvious and all that. And this at least has a little juice to it, you know, like a little life.

My only real complaint is just the execution of the game, the game play, it just is nonsensical, but dramatically in terms of how the scene is structured and is played. Yeah, it's solid. It's great. And again, what a great payoff. And then we get maybe the best photographed.

Again, this is where the Director of The Empire Strikes Back shows up. However, it's batshit insane because that dance that Bond has with Domino turns out to be like an exhibition dance that like rivals like Gower and Champion. You know, it's literally suddenly Domino and Bond become Fred and Ginger. They're at the center of the ballroom. Beautifully shot, by the way.

And by the way, it opens with an overhead Busby Berkeley shot. With this beautiful like tile marble pattern. And then it comes down in this nice wide master. And it's so beautifully framed to compose. It's such a great set. It's so well lit and shot.

And the choreography is really good because it's very clearly choreographed.

The choreography is really well done. And they both execute it really well. They both look amazing. Kim Basinger is in a spectacular gown that she wears well, that moves well.

And there's a well.

He looks spectacularly in tux. And it's like, wow, this is cool. But it's also, it's also cruel because Bond is taking this opportunity to basically try to turn Kim Basinger by revealing...

Well, but here's the thing. There has never been an opportunity... I'm excited for Bond to actually download what's really happened to Domino.

Yes, exactly.

And with his usual tact and empathy, he proceeds to say the following.

Your brother's dead. Keep dancing.

Yeah. And here's the thing, here's the thing. I've mixed feelings about Kim Basinger's talents at this stage, early stage of her career. She has not come into full bloom yet as an actor. She's uneven in this film. However, how she plays this scene with the registering and processing of this information on her face and having to take it in to express the fact that she is distraught by this but also...

While executing this choreography.

While executing the choreography, while then also having to regain and hold her composure when she then tests the ferocity of it to Largo when he approaches later, while not giving, showing her cards of what she now knows. But she doesn't know whether to believe Bond until Largo then when she's like, oh wait, I've got to go meet him because he's arriving and he's like, oh no, he's been delayed and you know, whatever.

Oh, he called us, he's not going to be back for a week or two weeks.

And then immediately she knows, then for sure, Bond is not lying, this is true, he's dead. It's really, really good. However, this is the scene in the moment where meanwhile, overhead on the second floor, like overhang level, looking down on the ballroom, is this beautiful exchange, another one between Largo and Fatima, and again, Fatima needling Largo by saying, they move well together, don't they? Like just knowing exactly how to get him, and then-

Do you know what might notice on the scene? I want to see Maximini Largo and Fatima Blush in their Boris and Natasha movie.

Their scenes are so good, they're both so good. And in this exchange, this is where he says, today you have another chance, you'd better not fail. And she moves in on him with like claws of her nails. And then he says, I got it wrong before. He doesn't say Fatima, he says number 12. Like putting her in her place, in the specter hierarchy. And then she glides away, down the staircase, tossing away her hat and loosening her hair as she descends. And it's, oh my god!

Because she has been wearing an outfit in the scene that is, it has a leather cloak and bustier and like a little pillbox hat with a veil. She makes Cruella de Vil look like Ma Jode, okay? I mean, it's insane.

It is just the iconography of her as a Bond villainess in execution is exquisite. It's so exquisite.

But it's only going to get better because of course Bond is going to get a cab. He's going to go back to the villa. Yes. And then there's an interminable scene where there's someone in the villa. He plays cat and mouse to the person.

Before he does that, what does he do when he leaves the casino?

Oh, of course.

Can I do this one, please? Can I do this one? So literally, he's leaving because this is... Oh my God, Paul, like literally this scene alone is the reason this movie should exist as far as I'm concerned. He's leaving the casino. He goes to the cloakroom, opens the door, and the dude is still there holding the little gizmo. And he grabs it just very casually and goes, thank you very much. And he walks away and he opens it and it's a cigar case.

Come on!

You know...

Set ups and payoffs, baby. Set ups and payoffs.

He's got laser watches. He's got exploding pens.

Yes, because, and this is what's so great. There's so many things that I love about this. But it's also when he puts it in the hands of the bouncer, we don't know what it is. And conspicuously, we're like, wait a minute, that's not one of the things that Q gave him. What is that? Where did he get that? He improvised. It's a cigarette or cigar holder. It's so great.

What it is, it's also that you want to see James Bond do more shit like that. There's so many tropey things. He's going to race, he's going to be the motorcycle, he's going to do crap like that. But this is like the character being deviously clever. And almost villainous in that way, because it's kind of cruel. I mean, look, the guys are henshy, whatever, but it's cruel in the best way, in the most fun way. I love this part of the movie. And then we go back to the villa.

Back to the spectacular villa. Bond grabs an apple. It's very languid until then he senses there's been an intruder, a break-in.

And then it gets even more languid.

He finds Nicole, AKA Agent 326.

She's the sacrificial lamb, not Rowan Atkinson.

And she's drowned in the waterbed or something. And we never really got to know her. Then he sees Fatima gleefully escaping out on the street below.

Which, why is she doing that?

She did it to kill him. She should be... Again, it's like, she could have waited and killed him.

Hey, you know what? It's illegal. He's coming in the front door. Stand next to the front door with a knife. When he comes in, stab him! In the kidneys. Instant death.

But she wants to know what's inside the big foam box.

Well, no, we do. Because speaking of setups and payoff, we have not seen Bond's new motorcycle that Felix delivered.

Because when we see it in Q-Branch, it's literally just a frame, a chassis hanging on a chain from the ceiling.

Yes. So now we finally get the revelation of this pretty badass black motorcycle that Sean Connery gets on.

I mean, it's no street hawk, but whatever.

And then we never see Sean Connery again until he gets off the bike. Because this is genius. I just have to say, if this were a car chase, you would have to continually establish that Connery's Bond is driving the car. But by making it a motorcycle chase of the car, once he puts that helmet on, you never have to show that it is Connery. It is so smart from a production standpoint. But I also have to say, this is a really good chase sequence.

Yeah, this is actually the best thing in the movie.

It's really well done.

In terms of the action, yeah. And the other thing about this chase that I love is, like, first of all, the scene where Bond actually gets, you know, the foam padding comes loose, and there's the motorcycle, and he puts on the helmet, and he turns around, and it's Sean Connery in this. I mean, that's badass.

It is super badass. And it's almost like, again, kind of a meta-crossover. The reveal of the motorcycle and seeing like, oh, we're going to get Bond on a motorcycle, is kind of like the reveal in Condor Man when you see the Condor Mobile come out. Like, it's like, oh, we're waiting to see this thing, and finally we see it, and then it's badass.

Paul, Paul, here's the thing, and this did come up for me in a very emotional way while watching this. It's very hard for me to watch Barbara Carrera in a car chase without thinking of the Pragnovich, the Soviet Porsche driving death squad that chases after her and Condor Man in that movie, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of expect Condor Man to swoop in.

But by the way, wasn't that movie also scored by LeGrand? No, it was not. I thought it was scored, no, it was Mancini scored that, never mind.

Yes.

But here's the other thing, Barbara Carrera is riding, she's on this little Renault that is all tricked out. It's not a Lotus, it's not a Porsche, it's a Renault, but this is what in 1983 was a Fast and the Furious car, that's a market car that you aftermarket up into being a badass. Her car is awesome. Yeah. Did they get Remy Julian to do this one? Or was it just Vic Armstrong?

I have to go back and look. There was a separate motorcycle stunt coordinator, but I'm sure Vic was involved as well. But yeah, this is probably all second unit, but it is so great. This is a really great and well designed, well crafted and really well executed, well shot chase sequence. It's worth seeing. And one of the things I love is early on, it's not just Fatima's luring bond. Now we get like, okay, this is why she didn't kill him in an easy way. She is going to like make a meal of this. Other bad guys converge and she immediately commands them, don't touch him, he's mine. Okay, which again, probably not the best idea to be that selfish. But one of the great things is that they lure him into a tunnel where they corner him.

Yes. And box him in a truck.

Box him into a truck and they're trapping him like an animal. And he's trying like on the bike, like revving it and everything. And they're closing in. It is so great. Like it's viscerally suspenseful.

And of course, he goes to the back of the container.

He has no choice, no way to turn, nowhere to get out. He finally backs up and goes up the ramp into this trailer of this truck. And then there's like, oh, shit, they've got him. But then what happens, Javi?

I mean, he literally, he does a 360 or 180 and he like literally ramps off of them.

As they are closing the truck.

Using the gantry, using the gantry as a ramp, he like totally does it.

And then leaps over them. And that's still not even the coolest thing that happens.

Well, Paul, here's the thing, though. I want to just, if, look, I don't want to sidebar too much because we are, we're really testing our listeners' patience here. But I gotta say, when he first leaves the garage in the motorcycle, he's popping a wheelie. Like, he literally rides the motorcycle out in a wheelie. And Paul, I curse you because you know what I heard in my head while he did that? Your world is the man!

What I thought you were going to say was that you saw Ace Hunter.

Oh god, no, no, no, no, no, I don't see.

No, no, no. Because what then soon is revealed is this is not just a motorcycle, this is not just a high-performance motorcycle.

Yeah, because he flies it over the pier, right?

It has jet power. And not like preposterous jet power that it can just fly, but it has like jet assist jumps.

Exactly.

That he uses not once, but twice. And it's so cool, it's so cool.

And then this leads to the great, honestly, Paul, this is a scene that is so great that the movie can barely recover from having had this. It's a different, honestly, it becomes a different movie after the scene, and it's not as good a movie.

This scene is a masterpiece.

It really is. So Fatima Blush has, Sean Connery has wiped out in this, in this like cavern or something, right?

Yeah, she lures him into like on the dock, some like warehouse or some kind of, you know, factory, abandoned, whatever, and cages him in behind, like has set this trap.

Like an animal.

Yeah. Almost like Mission Impossible style. And as traps him, and he's like looking for a way to escape, whatever. And then like she's has like the spring loaded, like ship mast or something that then she releases as he's coming through and knocks him off the motorcycle, onto his, on his ass and has him.

And she's holding him at gunpoint.

Holding him at gunpoint. And.

But then he.

Tells him.

He uses, he, go ahead.

Let me relish this.

You do it. You relish. You relish away my brother.

Is there relish left?

Oh my God. Yes. Because, because we have been treated through this whole film, intermittently, through this just wondrous fashion show of.

Oh my God, her outfit here is so glorious.

Of Fatima costumes. To be capped off by her in this like sexy.

Vinyl.

It's like a sexy, naughty pirate outfit.

She's wearing a black vinyl.

Black vinyl pants and this big puffy.

The puffy shirt is transparent plastic.

Yes, yes.

And her, and she has a red sash.

Yes.

And boots that, oh my God, yeah.

Oh my God, these big, these tall boots. And she's, and her hair is like wowed and she's got her head tilted back and she's got him in her sights with the gun and she says, spread your legs.

Right.

So we're getting a moment where it's like, call back to Goldfinger and the, you know, expect me to talk, expect you to die. And then we get one of the greatest villain monologues and like final showdowns in the entire Bond camp.

Let's, let's, let's hear it. Producer Brad, give it to us.

You're quite a man, Mr. James Bond. But I am a superior woman. Guess where you got the first one?

Well, in view of your hatred of men.

Liar! You know that making love to Fatima was the greatest pleasure of your life?

Well, to be perfectly honest, there was this girl in Philadelphia.

Shut up!

Okay, okay, so let's pause there. I mean, this is genius, first of all. This is genius. But the twist of, because we have seen so many times the Bond villain monologuing about the plan and the arrogance, like then coming back to Anthem, whatever, and we see a play on this later with Bond and Largo. But this is better, because the twist here is, is that Fatima reveals her sheer narcissism.

Yes.

And that this is her weakness. And it opens the door for Bond to save himself.

What's interesting also is that she's kind of in the role of the man in this scene. Yes. Because it's men's sexual prowess that's sort of like they're undoing in so many movies. And for her, it's this. So he says, oh, no, no, actually, you're right. You're the greatest one. I was going to put you in my memoir. And somehow, that leads her to giving him a piece of paper, like a piece of newsprint from the floor, and saying, you have to write down that I'm the greatest lay of your life. And she doesn't even give him a pen because she can't put one in that outfit, but thankfully, he's got a pen.

Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.

Let's hear it.

Now write this. The greatest rapture in my life was afforded me to Bote Nassau by Fatima Blush. Sign, James Bond 007.

Just remember, it's against service policy for agents to give out endorsements.

So, for those of you at home, the pen malfunction, by the way, another plantain payoff. When Bernie Casey sees the pen in the airport, he says, oh, Q Branch, he gave me one of those. It blew up in my face. You get the sense the pen doesn't work that good. And when Q gave it to him, Q was like, ah, I'm still trying to figure it out, right?

And Q is notoriously unreliable, like they don't always work, right?

So the projectile embeds itself in her midsection, and she's obviously still alive, and that's when she starts laughing maniacally, because she's like, Bond, you missed, you asshole.

It sparks out, and we think it's a dud, and then the delay and her evil laugh, and have you ever heard a better evil laugh than Barbara Carrera? But like just the, I just, this scene is-

So satisfying.

It's so good. It's so good. And the degree of difficulty in terms of being able to come up with this, to construct it, to execute it, in the context of the whole Bond canon up until now. And to say, oh, we're going to pull this out of our hat. This is not just a lame rehash of Thunderball. We actually are going to have something that takes this to another level.

We're going to have an idea. We're going to dare to have an idea.

Yeah.

Something that doesn't happen a lot in Bond movies, to be honest with you.

And to get Connery to play along with it, you know, again, it's just, I love everything about this. This scene is a masterpiece. And both of them, the timing, the... Ah, it's... I love it so much.

And as I said before, this is a peak from which this film cannot recover. Like, usually a movie does something so horrible that it can't recover.

Yeah.

The movie is so darned!

Like, there's nothing that's going to top this. It's all like, who cares after this?

So let's get into it. So anyway, so Bond... But no, but there's one thing I want to talk about before we get into the... Before we do the speed round. And I'm going to trust you to do the speed round. But because the way Bond... Because then the cops... He's been trapped in there. The cops are trying to like... They're using a saw to cut open the gate into the tunnel so they can arrest 007, blah, blah, blah. And then Bernie Casey comes in from some other entrance to the cave and goes, Hey, James. And Bond is like, How long have you been standing there? And he's like, long enough.

Yes.

So you get the sense that he was loving the shit out of this, right?

Yeah. Well, again, the only person in the world who got to witness this scene, this moment.

Is the one guy who knew the pen, the pen was unreliable.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

It's Felix.

You get the feeling that Felix was standing there with his own gun going, if the pen doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But he's got this. Like, let's see what happens.

And then they escape by taking their clothes off and pretending to be joggers in their underpants.

Now, Javi, Javi, there's no way this is not a Rocky homage.

Oh, no, totally.

Because it looks, I mean, so they're in their skivvies, like they're stripped down to their undershirt and underwear, and Bond has found a bike and he is leading Bernie Casey behind him, who's like jogging, like he's in training, and Bond is his coach. And it's like, it's rocking Apollo. Like, I mean, it's so, it's so great.

Also, it was delightful, delightful.

This made me so happy. And also, Bernie Casey, buff as hell. Like, he is built and looks amazing.

As with so many of our podcasts, let's stop and pour one out for all of the opportunities that were lost to racism.

Absolutely.

Because a Bernie Casey, Felix Leiter movie.

Yes.

Even at this production level and level of quality of writing would have been badass, you know?

It would have been incredible. Yeah.

And Captain Morgan from Sword and the Sorcerer would have been M.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Blast you, Felix.

Anyway. So now, as like Bond and Leiter have to try to infiltrate Largo's yacht, but Felix is locked out.

Because, by the way, there was a ticking clock, by the way. We had 48 hours to solve this before they knew the world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or seven days or something. So like days have flown by and we're getting down to the end. Bond then like sneaks up through the bowels of the yacht and then is greeted by a purser with a robe, because they've been expecting Bond. Largo greets him very cordially, then gives him a tour of the Situation Room. And I think we have a little clip.

This is my Situation Room.

From here, the world comes to me.

You could run a small government from here.

Oh no, I could run a large government from here.

Nice.

Paul, there's a bit in this scene that is as great as this quip is, and it's a visual joke, but literally at one point Largo pulls out a pack of cigarettes and says, Cigarette? And Bond goes, No. And then he just tosses it over his own shoulder.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I remember producer Brad really liked that.

Yeah.

Back when we were kids.

He just assumes some purser is going to pick up his mess. He's like, Yeah, it. He can't be bothered.

The only thing that would have made that thing better is if it had just cribbed it from airplane and he'd gone cigarette and Bond had gone, Yes, I know. Yes.

So Largo, and again, in a classic Bond villain arrogance, he points Bond to the state rooms, reminds him that they have lunch scheduled for noon.

Because he assumes since they're out to see Bond is not going to be able to escape.

Right. And he leaves him alone in the situation room, where he could cause who knows what damage, but Bond dutifully heads to the state room. But before he does, he looks at a monitor and he sees the words, Tears of Allah, among a bunch of other stuff on a monitor. Then he has a brief almost encounter with Domino. Like they're like, we're going to meet up and like whatever. Then they speak, they meet up in the dance studio. And Bond then turns the music up on the boombox as cover, so they can speak and not be overheard. And asks about Tears of Allah as Largo watching through the one-way mirror. They're going to Palmera in North Africa for some reason. Bond then says, I got to send a message to M. Then he kisses, he asks Domino or he says, I'm going to kiss you for two reasons. I don't think we have this club. One, because I want to provoke a reaction and two, because I've been wanting to.

I really want to. And two, because I'm a rapey bastard. And then, so he kisses her quite passionately. He asks her to reciprocate in order to create the distraction properly. She does. Largo goes into the room, but Bond has already left the room, and so has Kim Basinger. He goes nuts. He starts shattering shit. And then he realizes that what Bond was doing was getting him out of his little office so that Bond could go in and radio MI5, which he does.

Because also, he has Domino pull the fire alarm. And so then that makes everybody evacuate the situation room. So then Bond can go in and then send a message as Largo is going nuts with an axe that he's found somewhere.

Hitting the piano, hitting the record player, hitting the mirrors in the dance studio, whatever.

And gets the message crucially because Bond has used emergency code Tango Zebra.

What's that mean? Is that important? Does that mean something?

I just am happy to know that. That's just Tango Zebra. That's Bond's emergency code.

I thought that was meaningful. I didn't realize that.

I mean, it just is to me as knowledge. And then they arrive at Palmera and Largos Retreat.

They're there because the nuke is on board the yacht and there is an underwater... there is a temple and they're going to go to the temple and the temple has an underwater cavern that leads to the place where if you detonate the nuke, you destroy all the oil fields, which is the threat of the movie.

And Javi, what other movie have we watched that has that same evil villain plot?

The Soldier.

You don't assign him, you unleash him.

Is that that insane? Is that not completely insane? It is the same plot. It's the same plot.

Bond, so somehow Bond and... Why don't they get out of the ship? I don't even remember.

Oh no, we just cut to them at Palmyra at the retreat, at the gassel. Largo then was like, enough, Bond, you're like my prisoner now. He sends him up to the tower.

Ties him up in manacles that are easily destroyed by a laser watch, while, by the way, he takes his revenge on Domino for betraying him by selling him to some very non-stereotypical Bedouins.

But first, he gifts her or presents her with another item. The most valuable item. It's his most precious possession, which is a jade statue that belonged to Napoleon's empress as a wedding present. And then, yeah, she drops it because he's, she finally is like, you know, revealing that she knows that he had her brother killed and blah, blah, blah.

At this point, right, we have the scene where Largo knows Bond is going to be killed somehow, because he's just chained up in a dungeon. It is full of vultures. So my assumption is the vultures are gonna pick him apart alive or something, right?

It's a dungeon, but it's in the tower. So it's up high.

So it's got vultures in it.

It's full of fat vultures that look like they've been eating really well.

Yeah, those vultures look like they're watching the game. They don't look like they're gonna eat James Bond, but whatever. So then we have the, since I'm gonna die anyway, tell me your plot. So Clausemeier-Brandauer tells him, well, one bomb is right underneath the White House and the other one, I was not gonna tell you. So they weirdly split the difference on that. Bond, Largo leaves to fuck off to do whatever, to do his evil plot. Bond uses the laser watch, he manages to escape, he then saves Kim Basinger from the Bedouins, from the completely non-stereotypical Bedouins who are buying a white woman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the whole scene of putting her in a burka that then they strip off of her as she's chained to the stake and then she's in a negligee and then like all these Bedouins or Arabs or whatever are like trying to buy her for, it's really messed up. Meanwhile, like Largo has left a boombox there to play the tango?

The song that they were dancing to, being sold to the non-stereotypical Arabs. She's playing the tango that she danced with Sean Connery to prove to her that he's been...

Because Largo is a jealous little bitch. Largo then flees on the boat with nuke number two. A guard comes to check on Bond, sees that the window bars have been severed, thinking Bond's escaped even though he's way up in his hour. He looks out, it's a trick. Bond is like there waiting to pull him out and then escape, rescues Domino, who's in a negligee. They're chased by baddies and then they have no where to run. They're up way on this tower overlooking the sea.

The worst composite shot in the history of composite shots happens. Do go on.

Yes. Then on the horse, they leap off the tower into the sea and we see the horse. Looks like a real horse.

Yeah.

Thrown into the sea with them and there's stunt doubles. I have a note here. I really wish we had a John Barry score.

It's not a survivable event though.

Not really. As they're leaping off, making the leap, there's this cut to a horrible composite shot of a close-up of Connery and Basinger. Like as they're leaping and it's so bad. But then we see as they're being shot at by the bad guy Bedouins, who are sad that their human trafficking dream has been interrupted. They're shooting at them and then a submarine emerges. And I'm like, oh cool, the British Navy is there. And the submarine is firing at the Bedouins. And it turns out, no, it's Felix Leiter and the US. Navy who have rescued them.

Dayos X Felix.

Dayos X Felix, Bond and Domino have a shower together in the sub. They're making plans to like be together, but Bond doesn't take out Largo. M calls, the code has been cracked. They saved the president of Washington, DC from being nuked. So now there's just the one loose nuke, not two. The sub finds the yacht. They Bond then on the bridge of the sub, which is a cool set, matches the Tears of Ala pendant that Largo gave Domino to the map of the lagoon, wherever they're headed, and realizes, oh, that's pointing to where the underground cave is. And then he asks this question.

Commander Peterson, are you equipped with the new XT-7Bs? That's top secret. How do you know about them? From a Russian translation of one of your service manuals. Sorry about that.

And so, it's like, what is an XT-7B? What could that be? It's gotta be something awesome. And it turns out, they are missile-launched, personal hoverjet platforms that Felix and Bond use to just go from the sub to the beach. And you're like, they could have just used the same inflatable, like, round boat that they got from the beach, were rescued in, to get to the sub. And we never see these cool jet-like vehicles again. It's such that... Ah, that drove me crazy.

And here's the thing, like, you know, they go to the underwater temple, there's a big gunfight.

Yes, it's a big evil lair set, whatever.

And by the way, it is in the sequence that I was saying, like, the director of The Empire Strikes Back showed up. Yeah, you know, this is all shot indoors. And suddenly this looks great. And the and the masters are beautiful and things are, you know, especially in the in the palace in Palmyra, that's where you really start seeing some really beautiful painterly shots way too late, but what else?

Yeah.

So, Paul, here's the thing. And look, there's a fundamental issue with underwater fights because this is going to come down to Largo has the nuke on a water sled. He's taking it to the place where if you fire the nuke, it's going to.

Yeah. They radiate all the oil fields. Yeah.

And the same issue in Thunderball is like in Thunderball, they like sped everything up. It looked really cheesy, but at least they like sort of sped up the action, right? In this movie, like it's Bond versus Largo underwater.

Yeah. Yeah. The Navy showed up as backup for Felix and Bond as they're like going after the nuke in the cave, but Largo escapes the nuke, they're underwater. And then it's like Bond dueling underwater with Largo. And he's got this like underwater like craft or something. And Bond manages to pin Largo against some rocks or something, while then he can go, because he's received from M the code to disarm the nuclear warhead. So while he is doing that, Largo is then reaching toward very conveniently nearby a spear gun. And we have seen spear guns in this franchise before being used. But before he can shoot Bond, he is shot by a spear gun by no other than Domino.

Who is somehow changed into a wetsuit, became a certified scuba diver, and convinced the Navy to let her go into the front line of battle.

Yes, and Domino, who is leading the Navy scuba squad to come be backup for Bond. And, yeah, anyway, so Domino saved him, Largo is dead, the world is saved, the nuke is disarmed. All is well. We cut to Bond and Domino.

It's actually kind of a nice shot because Domino swims upward and then you see her coming back down, but now she's in a swimsuit.

It's a nice cut because we're cutting from the underwater combat resolution of that fight scene to then her underwater in a swimsuit on vacation and free back in the Bahamas with Bond at a resort and Bond and Domino live happily ever after.

Right.

Except.

Until, until the.

The intrusion of Rowan Atkinson.

And it really, and by the way, it really is an intrusion, isn't it Paul?

It is, it is. Because in this moment, because I'd forgotten how the movie ended. And in this moment, I'm thinking, what a nice button or gift to basically give Bond a happy ending and say, you saved the world one last time and you're done. You get to now enjoy life, live life happily ever after with this woman who's obviously way too young for you. But, you know, it's 1983 in a Bond movie. And I would have really liked that. But then we get the exchange of Rowan has been dispatched by Em, who's been trying to reach Em. And then we have this exchange.

Oh, no.

Sorry, Mr. Bond. Obviously, it caught you at a bad moment.

Em sent you.

Only to plead for your return, sir. Em says that without you in the service, he fears for the security of the civilized world.

Never again.

Never?

Oh, my god, that's so good. It looked like, like, like, they literally just, just found, like, the locus of awfulness. They got all the bad things in this movie. Rowan Atkinson's performance, the song, misogyny, and just, boom, you know, god.

They couldn't help themselves. They just couldn't help themselves. They could have had this, just tied up in this perfect bow and just be done. But they just had to bring Rowan Atkinson back and had to just be just a little too cheesy. And, of course, they were hoping they were gonna make more Bond movies with Connery. And if they had kept their word to Connery and delivered the production value and resources and not fucked around with things like...

Is that what happened? Yeah.

Yeah. Because the interviews that Connery gives heading into and during production are very positive and enthusiastic. And then afterwards, he's clearly bitter and pissed and like, I'm done. And he's basically like, I'm, you know, these producers are no better than the other ones.

And he looked very low key and not particularly excited to be there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Producer Brad, how did this film do when it was released? I mean, was this, did it do better than Octopussy?

Well, it opened number one.

Well, that's good.

There was only one other new movie in the top 10 and that was called Romantic Comedy by Arthur Hiller. Compared to Octopussy, Never Say Never Again made 10.9 the first weekend and Octopussy made 8.9. But Octopussy ended up making 67.9 million during its run and Never Say Never Again made 55.5.

So, how much did Octopussy make?

Octopussy made 68 million.

Okay, so this underperformed by like 13. He said the Octopussy. Wow, that must have really hurt everybody involved. That must have really like chafed everyone's ass.

Well, but it was the fourth highest grossing action film over the year.

Yeah, but underneath Octopussy, which was probably the third or the second highest grossing action movie of the year.

Well, to be fair, Never Say Never Again did not have the marketing support that the official Bond movie. God, I got to get something else in tree.

Yeah, I do.

Now, two interesting facts about this related to the Billboard music charts. The week this movie came out, Bonnie Tyler's Totally Eclipse of the Heart was number one. She was offered this theme song to sing and she turned it down. And in 2013, she said, she said, I was right. It's the only Bond song not to be a hit. I was right not to take it. Now, also in the top 10 at number 10, any guesses?

No. Go on.

It's a song that have been in the charts for 11 weeks at number 10. Frank Stallone and Far From Over.

Really?

The Frank factor.

We've been recording for almost three hours. I've literally lost my voice. And then we get the fucking brand.

How do you get Frank Stalow into a bottle?

You know, Brad, that's impressive. That's impressive.

Producer Brad, we're gonna do a couple specials, right? We're gonna do some, this was our fall special. What do we have coming in the spring of 84? Last year we did The Hunger. What do we got this year to pick from?

Well, I think we should each pick a movie. I know Javi, you have selected one.

Oh, I have selected my movie.

You've selected one. Paul, I have curated a good list of movies, so let me throw up some posters for you to look at. So your first option.

Summer of 84.

Steve Martin.

And Lonely Guy. Nope.

Peter Coyote, Sleigh Ground.

Nope.

Footloose. Remember, Flashdown straight up to be a delight.

Yeah, but I've seen Footloose.

Yeah, so have I. Never mind.

We'll move on. We're in February. Blame it on Rio. Oh, no.

No. No.

No. All right. Lasseter, Tom Selleck.

Oh, oh. Oh, God.

Boy, you guys just don't like Tom Selleck.

No, we just saw one shitty Bond movie. Why do we have to watch another one?

That's a mediocre movie. It's like a, yeah.

Against All Odds.

It's a good movie, but it's really depressing.

Yeah.

Spinal Tap.

Well.

I mean, but here's the thing. What's a podcast about that sound? It's just us repeating the jokes, isn't it? Okay.

It's like doing a Monty Python. Repo Man.

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Repo Man.

This is Marx. Let's get to April Amaze.

The life of a Repo Man is always intense.

Yeah.

Hey, ordinary people avoid tense situations. Repo Man seeks out tense situations.

You know what I'm feeling even though I'm not drinking it? I'm feeling 7 Up. I'm feeling 7 Up.

All right.

Javi. Javi.

Yeah. Yeah.

What you got in the trunk?

I don't know the line. Sorry.

Save it.

You don't want to look in there. Repo Man. My God. My God.

Splash.

Yeah. You know, Splash is one of those movies that we think is great, but it's-

It's not that good. No, no, no, no.

Okay. Here's the rest of the options. Hotel New Hampshire.

No idea what the that is.

Jodie Foster.

I will not be watching that movie.

The Ice Pirates. Oh, that's so bad. You have to be there to see it.

It's so bad.

It's so bad.

Repo Man. Repo Man.

Hold on. That's Marge. And then Greystoke. Legend of Tarzan.

Did you see Greystoke?

Yes. I saw it in a theater when it came out. And I've got to say, if you find there are a few bigger Christoph Lambert fans than me, this is not a great movie, even though it's very curious, has a lot of curiosities, like Andy McDowell's entire performance, dubbed by Glenn Close.

Just to confirm, you want Repo Man. We also have Moscow and the Hudson.

You know, I love this movie, but I don't want to do a podcast about it. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

So we're in May of 1984 now.

I don't think we're the proper demographic to engage in discourse on that.

Sixteen Candles. I know that's enough.

I'd rather have my testicles electroplated than do another John Hughes movie. Move on.

The Natural.

Oh, fuck.

That movie wasn't fun. That movie is so portentous and full of importance. No, no, I'm good. I want to have fun.

It's a beautiful film.

And the last option is Firestarter.

Firestarter. No, I mean, I'm sorry. Combine all those movies versus Repo Man. It's Repo Man.

Repo Man, it is. All right.

I mean, Repo Man, I've said this before about a few things. A metaphysical imperative.

Okay, so we'll watch Repo Man. Javi, do you want to reveal what your film is going to be or do you want me to play part of the trailer for it?

You know, producer Brad, I want you to stretch your stuff. Let's hear it.

I'm getting out of this jungle dump. I'm fed up to here with this treasure hunt business. Yeah. Ira, you miserable worm, you lied to me. You said she was a city girl out of her element. Just get her in the map and bring them back. Piece of cake. Piece of cake my butt.

What went wrong? I'll tell you what went wrong.

I picked one movie, and I'm going to pull you guys down to my level. We're going to the video store.

Oh, no. Oh, no.

We're going to watch a movie that in 83 came out in videotape.

Oh, no. So it's an 82 movie?

It's an 82 movie that I wish we could have seen. If we'd done a spring special, I would have pushed for it. So here's the trailer.

I think producer Brad suffers enough that we can give him whatever he wants.

He does have license to get a gimme every year.

I do have the ability to pick movies that are crowd-pleaser, so I hope this is one. Ready?

Do go on, yes.

His name is Lyle Swann.

The Adventure of Miles Swann?

Terry, is that for real?

It will take him 105 years backward.

Time Rider, the Adventure of Lyle Swan.

Was that Nirvana's Come As You Are playing at the end of that? Ding, ding, ding, anyway. So guys, I think that we have some really special specials coming. Once again, I will ask that you please subscribe, review, and share. And until then, ladies and gentlemen, we will see you in line at the Multiplex.

In 1984! Woo!

Catch you later.