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The Rewatchables ·

Skyfall

year 2012decade 10sdirector Sam Mendesgenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Amanda Dobbins
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 18:50

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

Five candidates are laid out, with an effort to keep scene distinct from sequence: the Shanghai skyscraper shootout, the new MI6 introduction in Churchill's tunnels with word association and sit-ups while Rory Kinnear briefs him on the state of the world, Silva and Bond's first meeting with the William Tell scene, the tube chase, and the church scene at the end; a Shanghai versus Macau mix-up is corrected along the way.

Smaller stuff is what connects one host to the movie: the first meeting with Q in front of the Turner painting, talking in metaphor and at cross purposes in really well-written dialogue, with Wishaw great as Q; it is not a sequence where a train bursts through the ground.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:26:26

"Mommy was very bad"

Candidates read aloud: Silva's lines about orphans making the best recruits and what is this if not betrayal, the evaluation line about not being approved for field duty, the coconut and rats speech ending with what she made us, called top shelf and Shakespeare, and Mallory's then we're all buggered, carry on, after Q worries about the PM.

The film

Skyfall (2012)

Directed by Sam Mendes · Drama

143 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

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Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

18:50

Most Rewatchable Scene

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:50Read transcript
  • Five candidates are laid out, with an effort to keep scene distinct from sequence: the Shanghai skyscraper shootout, the new MI6 introduction in Churchill's tunnels with word association and sit-ups while Rory Kinnear briefs him on the state of the world, Silva and Bond's first meeting with the William Tell scene, the tube chase, and the church scene at the end; a Shanghai versus Macau mix-up is corrected along the way.
  • Smaller stuff is what connects one host to the movie: the first meeting with Q in front of the Turner painting, talking in metaphor and at cross purposes in really well-written dialogue, with Wishaw great as Q; it is not a sequence where a train bursts through the ground.
  • M reading Tennyson at the inquiry, cut against Daniel Craig sprinting through London with Big Ben behind him, lays it on thick but is moving every time; Craig is called a fantastic movie runner, maybe number two behind Cruise, and the film came out months after the London Olympics, which Bond kicked off in the Danny Boyle opening with the queen.
  • Mallory and M's philosophical conversation about whether the enemy is in the shadows is a favorite dialogue scene, read as metaphor about waging a war on terror and the rights of a government to exceed its power, reflected later in the court scene; nothing in Quantum of Solace, written during the writer's strike, has that crispness.
  • Two more suggestions: the planning conversation at Skyfall with Albert Finney's Kincaid, including the line about men coming to kill us and killing them first, which is right out of Eastwood, and the fight on top of the train with the excavator and the sleeve adjustment; the Istanbul opening with Moneypenny feels like typical Bond until M orders her to take the shot, and the motorcycle chase on the narrow walkway is illogical but shot beautifully.
  • The pick is called a category of one: the Silva intro, shot by Mendes and Deakins from right behind Bond's shoulder as the villain comes down in an elevator and starts talking from forty feet away, his face withheld until the rats story nears its conclusion; the filmmakers knew what they had and let it play, and the episode plays the rat speech from the film.
  • The scene inverts the Bond convention of saving the villain's big speech for the end, as parodied by Austin Powers, by putting it at the close of the first act; it is playwriting, one long metaphor monologue, spiced with the question of whether Silva is sexually attracted to Bond or something fraternal, and the hosts wonder whether the unbuttoning was in the script.
  • Bardem is called the greatest Bond girl, lighting Craig up more than anyone since Eva Green; the villain tilts the movie on its axis, funny and destabilizing and more unsettling than other Bond villains, while the backstory with M is brushed aside in one line about Hong Kong.
  • Silva hacking Bond and MI6 in 2012 is seen as prescient, a technocracy story rather than the money-and-power plots of villains like Mads Mikkelsen's; the abandoned island, shot off Macau but based on one off Nagasaki, is a faded ghost town that parallels Bond's own enjoying-death stretch.
  • The scorpion scene is loved, with a nitpick that a British guy doing scorpion tricks in a Turkish bar while keeping a low profile would go viral; Silva mirrors Bond as a lone wolf with mommy issues operating to his own ends.
  • After the action discussion, the answer is the rats speech, the Silva intro.
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41:24

What’s Aged the Best?

Adele's theme song

Adele's theme song

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:24Read transcript
  • Judi Dench literally has aged the best: seventy-seven when she gave a performance of just-enough British acting, with the stature and gravitas to make standing over six coffins feel important; Adele's song is an all-time jam.
  • The locations are sensible rather than volcano-and-Tokyo Bond locations: Istanbul and London, very London-centric, like a board of tourism; the fiftieth anniversary of the series and the Broccoli family's hubbub may have driven the reminder that this is a British spy from Scotland, and M's garage line about the car not being ostentatious is a favorite Dench moment.
  • Waning empire keeps waning, the ministers' hearings read as Brexit, and movies about washed-up middle-aged men are on trend for 2019; the cast has not a single error, and the Deakins photography would be cutting-edge if released today.
  • Casting a prestige director for a franchise has aged well: Mendes had just bricked with Away We Go after American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead and Revolutionary Road and retreated to theater, with the New Yorker covering him and Jez Butterworth; the Bond films had been a schlocky volume play that needed re-engineering into an event, and the move leads to Ryan Coogler doing Creed and Black Panther.
  • Tarantino was long rumored for a Bond film, Danny Boyle left the most recent one, and Nolan would be bank-breaking but only makes Warner Brothers movies; Mendes openly lifted the Dark Knight aesthetic, and Nolan's films are themselves a commentary on Bond, with the orphan avenging sins in common.
  • Costumes have aged well: Ben Whishaw's climactic Dries sweater and museum parka, the cut of Craig's suits, Moneypenny's business casual, the barber jackets (as transcribed), the final Skyfall look with boots, and the wool-looking training tracksuit with low-top Adidas that only Craig could wear; everyone's sweatpants should fit like that rather than like the Ad Astra moon base.
  • Albert Finney's last film performance has aged well: a perfect role for an actor of his age as a father figure to old Scotland, old England and Shakespearean movie acting.
  • The song has the highest approval rating and is chosen; an Oscar winner.
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49:50

What’s Aged the Worst?

Severine's storyline and the shower scene

Severine's storyline and the shower scene

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:50Read transcript
  • The hacking is pretty stupid as a plot point, though the stylized Pac Man ghost animation is defended since HTML was further along; M at seventy-seven clicks a message that says click me on her laptop, Q boasts nobody can hack him and then plugs Silva's machine into the mainframe, and Hillary Clinton is invoked.
  • Computer plots are inherently un-cinematic; a vodka-soaked Bond reading opaque code, the unused subway station deduction and the red-lines map of London are weird, and Whishaw is trying hard with a script that is not there, though the headquarters screens and the sculptural servers on Silva's island are beautiful art made out of hacking, with jokes about 3G on the island.
  • Severine is a classic Bond girl who lives and dies quickly and naked; Bond responding to her account of being a Macau sex worker by sneaking up on her in the shower and discarding her at the villain's island is not a good look, as if two different writers handled the sex-trade thread and the seduction.
  • Because the film is so purposeful about stakes and emotion, making her a sex slave and then having Bond offer help, take her to Silva's island and watch her shot in the head is rough; Berenice Marlowe (as transcribed) is good in the bar scene and the hosts are surprised she had no bigger career; the film already has a sex scene in Turkey and Moneypenny tension, so a knock on the door would have been fine.
  • Imperialism is a second nominee; Naomi Harris's Moneypenny lacks chemistry and feels jaunty, doing girl-power line readings in a sedate movie where everyone is depressed, as if in a different film, though she is spared the overacting category since nobody is really overacting; the Moneypenny-as-action-hero idea ending in administrative work is totally weird.
  • Severine's plotline is the final answer, called a little tough.
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56:54

Casting What-Ifs

Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid; Kevin Spacey was approached for Mallory; the discarded Peter Morgan ...

Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid; Kevin Spacey was approached for Mallory; the discarded Peter Morgan script

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:54Read transcript
  • Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid before the producers decided the stunt casting would take people out of the movie, which the hosts agree was right; Kevin Spacey was originally approached for Mallory, Mendes having directed him in American Beauty.
  • Ralph Fiennes as Mallory is loved: in a sedate movie where everyone operates at a mild level he chews the scenery in every scene, and he has gone on to be M.
  • Connery would have been distracting, nobody wants five seconds of fading Connery, who has not been seen in public for a few years, and it would have been the Marvel interconnecting universe, which Bond movies are not.
  • A behind-the-scenes what-if: release the Peter Morgan cut, though a Morgan disciple sees plenty of his DNA in the finished film; the making-ofs describe a collaborative effort rather than a writer's version being ruined.
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59:22

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Ben Whishaw

Ben Whishaw

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:22Read transcript
  • Bardem may not qualify, so Fiennes is one answer, with cases for Finney and Wishaw; Wishaw is a good reinvention of Q, novel for being younger than Bond, everyone in the cast is overqualified, and he was starring in the BBC show The Hour at the time, whose third season the hosts want made.
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1:00:02

Apex Mountain

Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:02Read transcript
  • Daniel Craig is a yes: he opened the Olympics and starred in a billion-dollar Bond movie considered the best ever; Knives Out is great but not the same level of power, and he now does Southern accents and married Rachel Weisz.
  • Sam Mendes is a no; his peak was earlier, right after American Beauty made around four hundred million and won the Oscars, into Road to Perdition and Jarhead.
  • Javier Bardem is a no: 2012 did not feel like his moment any more than 2007, and objectively his peak is the No Country for Old Men Oscar; his run through Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Beautiful, Eat Pray Love, To the Wonder, The Counselor and Mother is admired, and he is married to Penelope Cruz.
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1:02:12

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Helen McCrory

Helen McCrory

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:12Read transcript
  • The award is temporarily renamed for a British character actor, the Denholm Elliot award; nominees are Rory Kinnear, in every good English television show, Helen McCrory, who goes on to play Polly Shelby in Peaky Blinders, as the minister questioning Judi Dench, Nicholas Woodison from the word-association evaluation, Albert Finney behind the beard, and Ola Rapace, Noomi Rapace's ex-husband and a well-known Swedish actor, as Patrice.
  • Helen McRory (as transcribed) is the pick, recognizable by voice even without a straight close-up. — Amanda Dobbins
  • Most humans would pick Rory Kinnear, known for the pig on Black Mirror, while the Anglophile hosts know his shows; the show South Cliff (as transcribed) is recommended.
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1:03:51

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Javier Bardem, overruled; the boat captain by compromise

Javier Bardem, overruled; the boat captain by compromise

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:51Read transcript
  • The award is now the Linda Partridge 'don't call me lady' award after Julianne Moore in Magnolia, having passed from Ruffalo to Saul Rubineck (as transcribed); the first answer is that nobody is overacting and Bardem is acting just right.
  • The award was named after Mark Ruffalo despite Zodiac and You Can Count on Me, so it is not a positive award, and the Bardem performance is called the performance of the decade; the boat captain who sticks his head in to say they should push off is offered instead.
  • The counter-case is that overacting is a skill, that Bardem seems outsized because everyone else is muted, and that he is doing a lot without ruining the movie; the Bardem voter admits being outvoted as always, and the award goes to the boat captain so everyone stays friends.
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1:06:12

Half-Assed Internet Research

Yale professor Stephen Carter's theory that M is Silva's adopted mother, with 'Raul Silva' and 'think on your sins' a...

Yale professor Stephen Carter's theory that M is Silva's adopted mother, with 'Raul Silva' and 'think on your sins' as anagrams; the James Bond codename theory; alternate titles Silver Bullet, A Killing Moon and Once Upon a Spy; the Golden Dragon Casino interior was built at Pinewood; Silva's island is based on Hashima off Nagasaki

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:12Read transcript
  • Yale professor Stephen Carter believes there is a deeper mystery to Silva and M, possibly that she is his adopted mother; Raul Silva is an anagram for a rival soul and think on your sins for your son isn't in HK, readable on Bloomberg and in blog posts.
  • Codename theory holds that James Bond is a codename used by different individuals, one per actor; one host does not buy it, finding it overthinking a series that before Casino Royale had no such intentionality.
  • Heroes like Superman or Bond don't expire, yet like Unforgiven and the Rocky films the best entries are about a hero no longer as powerful, and this movie's genius is being both; a further wrinkle says the Bond of this film does not know about the codename theory, was brainwashed into believing he is an orphan, and that Silva is also a James Bond.
  • The franchise used to just not worry about continuity, bringing back an old actor and ignoring the dead wife; the spreadsheet-making impulse is mocked, Silva knowing the layout of Skyfall is explained by recon or Google Maps, and gaming out archetypal themes is called a bummer.
  • Asked whether they want continuity across the next films, one host says Skyfall would then be the logical end of the franchise and nothing with Craig will be as good; another notes the series rarely takes risks and wonders whether Carrie Fukunaga (as transcribed) will break the formula against the controlling Broccoli family, who could not accommodate Danny Boyle; both look forward to Bond 25.
  • Alternative titles were Silver Bullet, A Killing Moon and Once Upon a Spy; the Golden Dragon Casino interior was Pinewood Studios, production visited China, Turkey, all over England and Glencoe in Scotland, and Silva's island was shot off Macau but is based on Hashima, an abandoned mining town off Nagasaki, prompting jokes about dial-up and Prodigy.
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1:14:20

Recasting Couch

Daniel Kaluuya; Tom Hardy; Kano; Emily Blunt (Richard Madden, Cumberbatch and an aging Idris Elba rejected)

Daniel Kaluuya; Tom Hardy; Kano; Emily Blunt (Richard Madden, Cumberbatch and an aging Idris Elba rejected)

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:14:20Read transcript
  • The curveball is casting the next James Bond rather than this film's roles; the Idris Elba angst conversation is declared over since he is now older than any previously cast Bond, though Daniel Kaluuya fits some of the profile.
  • Among white male Brits there is no strong class: Richard Madden, Scottish and hot after Bodyguard, is a little wooden without Craig's layers of pain, after a Richard-James-Steve Madden stumble; the next Bond must be handsome, different from the archetype, a good actor, sexy, cool and good with a gun.
  • All the thirty-something British actors are already in Marvel or other franchises; Tom Hardy would be welcome but won't take the mask off, Kano, the grime emcee from Top Boy, is a way-out-of-the-box pick, and no Cumberbatch.
  • On a woman as Bond, Charlie's Angels is a depressing example of marketing to women, but Emily Blunt is the one: British, charismatic, great in action films from Edge of Tomorrow to Sicario, already engaged with English mythology via Mary Poppins, though Bond is called an inherently conservative property unlikely to make that choice.
  • For the film itself, Rubenek (as transcribed) as M is wished for, and nobody missed Felix Leiter, Jeffrey Wright's character who picks Bond up at the airport, since this movie refreshingly does not care about America.
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1:18:54

Picking Nits

Bond in khakis in bed after sex on a Turkish beach; the scorpion trick while supposedly dead; MI6 selling his apartme...

Bond in khakis in bed after sex on a Turkish beach; the scorpion trick while supposedly dead; MI6 selling his apartment and Skyfall; three to four months to decode the agent list; the NATO list on one hard drive; hackers posting reveals on YouTube; Q's secret breadcrumb trail run from the hacked HQ screen; strangling a man underwater with a knee; Bond announcing his name everywhere and never simply being shot

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:54Read transcript
  • Early on, Bond has sex with a woman by a Turkish beach and the next shot has him in khakis in bed with a Heineken, which is weird. — Chris Ryan
  • The counter is that both are dressed, she in a pink cover-up, and they are lounging rather than in bed; who has ever put on khakis after sex and gotten back in bed?
  • Made personal, the post-sex routine offered is a giant turkey sandwich and telling the mirror you're the best. — Chris Ryan
  • Others want a cigarette or a vape, lie in post-coital bliss, get a water and put on boxers; the conclusion is that Bond goes no-underwear khakis, impractical for a man who may need to run, and one host admits having done it.
  • While pretending to be dead you do not entertain a bar with scorpion tricks, though the defense is that Bond cannot keep a low profile, feels a sense of duty and wants to be loved by mommy; another host would be mad that they sold his apartment and Skyfall, with Her Majesty getting the money.
  • Three to four months for hackers to decode one list of agents is stupid, the list of NATO agents being on one hard drive in 2012 is worse, and the hackers posting reveals on YouTube is accepted with a joke about a Macau hacker vlog.
  • Q's top-secret breadcrumb trail for Bond and M is laid in the middle of headquarters on the giant screen of the computer that was just hacked and let everyone out of jail; whether Bond can strangle a man underwater with his knee is debated against Craig's short legs and compacted power, with the reminder that he dies of hypothermia doing it.
  • A nit with James Bond himself: a secretive operative who tells everybody his name, dresses impeccably and sleeps with strangers has never simply been shot in the face over a coffee, since villains always lure him to an island to explain the master plan, Scott Evil style; the reply is that Silva is after Judi Dench's attention and a cell, essentially the Joker plot from Dark Knight.
  • Earlier, during the scene discussion, the scorpion trick was flagged as a low-profile failure that would go viral in 2012.
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1:26:26

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"Mommy was very bad"

"Mommy was very bad"

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:26:26Read transcript
  • Candidates read aloud: Silva's lines about orphans making the best recruits and what is this if not betrayal, the evaluation line about not being approved for field duty, the coconut and rats speech ending with what she made us, called top shelf and Shakespeare, and Mallory's then we're all buggered, carry on, after Q worries about the PM.
  • The line about men coming to kill us and killing them first is a great one, and mommy was very bad is settled on.
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1:27:55

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

A Peter Morgan-written Bond series for Netflix, filmed on location at this production level; an MI6 show built around...

A Peter Morgan-written Bond series for Netflix, filmed on location at this production level; an MI6 show built around Judi Dench's M and Ralph Fiennes at Whitehall hearings

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:27:55Read transcript
  • One host would watch a Bond Netflix show if Peter Morgan made it, but only filmed on location at this production level, which no Netflix show including The Crown reaches; a self-described spy head would love an MI6 show centered on a reckless alcoholic; another says Bond going to Netflix is how we know movies are dead.
  • A spinoff around Judi Dench's M, with Ralph Fiennes, Whitehall hearings and backroom deals, plus an extended set piece every other episode, appeals to some, with M's line about running out of drink an A plus moment; the dissenter is a barker outside a marquee for the movies.
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1:29:31

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What was Silva's relationship to M beyond an agent she screwed over?

What was Silva's relationship to M beyond an agent she screwed over?

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:29:31Read transcript
  • The only question is what Silva's relationship to M actually was beyond being an agent she screwed over; one host takes it literally, another wants to know what transpired, with the cyanide torture suggested as a prequel, Silva in Hong Kong.
  • M's quick explanation that she cut him loose for six agents is perfunctory and she is not to be trusted; the takeaway is that agents are changeable instruments of the state, which the moving ending between M and Bond defies.
  • Watching Judi Dench's face in scenes with Bardem is a favorite part, since she seems legitimately disturbed when he puts the gun to both their heads; the ending and M's death were underdiscussed, the Skyfall sequence has her doing action scenes, and this is reportedly the most screen time M ever had in a Bond film.
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1:31:47

Who Won the Movie?

James Bond, the franchise

James Bond, the franchise

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:31:47Read transcript
  • The opening answers are Barbara Broccoli and Sam Mendes, whose career the film resets: he was nowhere after Away We Go, went on to Spectre and 1917 with Roger Deakins, and took a franchise property to more awards and more money.
  • The film also rejuvenates the Bond franchise, reminding people of its possibilities as the twenty-fifth film approaches amid franchise and spy overload, Brexit and an old conservative character; it is not the same movie without Bardem, with Jeffrey Rush (as transcribed), Johnny Depp and canceled actors imagined in his place.
  • One host initially sticks with Mendes, another names the Broccoli family and James Bond the franchise, and the Mendes voter switches, convinced: James Bond continuing as a powerful force for moviegoers.
Podcast choices
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James Bond (the franchise)
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James Bond (the franchise)
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More from the conversation

This is the first James Bond movie on the show; Skyfall is the 23rd Bond film, the most critically acclaimed, reportedly engineered by Sam Mendes to win Oscars; it made $1.1 billion, was written by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan with an uncredited assist from Jez Butterworth, and was nominated for score, song, sound editing, sound mixing and cinematography, winning song and sound mixing.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:01Read transcript
The biggest Skyfall fan owns the film and puts it on at home to a husband's dismay, calls it the best Bond movie, also liking Casino Royale, and responds to the Craig films because this one has ideas about the character, about empire and about how to make an action movie while still referencing everything before it.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:12Read transcript
A host who was never a huge Bond person and never cataloged the series says this film scratches that part of the brain: the Adele theme feels both a hundred years old and modern next to the Chris Cornell and Jack White and Alicia Keys songs, Roger Deakins is catnip for movie nerds, and it is best in class for song, photography, Bond performance, villain and supporting cast.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:17Read transcript
The stacked cast carries some stock lines: per an Adam Neiman (as transcribed) piece, most of MI6 has played Hamlet, including Rory Kinnear, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Judi Dench.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:23Read transcript
Skyfall is called two or three movies: the death and resurrection of Bond, the classic-Bond Shanghai sequence with Severine, the shootout and the martini, and then everything changes on the island off Macau when Silva appears.
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:38Read transcript
Bardem's missing Oscar nomination is called the number-two outrage of the decade behind The Social Network; the 2012 supporting actor field is recited, and the quality of Bond villains has climbed from Mads Mikkelsen and Matthew Almaric (as transcribed) through Bardem and Waltz to Rami Malek in the Carrie Fukunaga (as transcribed) film.
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:32Read transcript
John Logan is called one of the best screenwriters of the century, with Rango cited; Silva is Hannibal Lecter meets Julian Assange meets Robert Shaw's blonde from Russia with Love; a discarded Peter Morgan script for Bond 23 was too dark but seeded M as a stand-in for England with a son rising against her, and the film is read as being about trauma for every significant character.
Approx. transcript time · 00:09:41Read transcript
Big ideas usually weigh a franchise film down, but here the performances, writing and photography keep it from feeling forced; M is almost explicitly the crown, quoting Tennyson, and the turn to Scotland is an emotional journey that still pays off as a Bond movie with Albert Finney, a booby-trapped house, a helicopter and a subway crash.
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:00Read transcript
Skyfall is called the Unforgiven of Bond, a reckoning with everything before it that Spectre failed to follow up; the location shooting in Istanbul, Scotland and the lantern-lit Asian kingdom is transporting; Craig is a legitimately great actor unlike most Bonds, the Connery films are loved as bite-sized B movies, and Craig talked Mendes into the film after Mendes saw him in a play, before swearing off the role after Spectre.
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:13Read transcript
On action filmmaking: most Bond movies are not the preferred kind of action, the series has Mission Impossible-itis dating to Brosnan, the sequences here work because of how they look rather than the sense they make, the final shootout is coherent, and the shadow fight in the Shanghai tower with jellyfish projections belongs in the National Gallery.
Approx. transcript time · 00:36:03Read transcript
The Bond action is legible: a host who struggles with animated films like Spider-Verse and with Pacific Rim can follow people punching on a train or running through rush-hour London, because it emerges from reality and the stakes are clear, unlike the Uganda opening of Casino Royale; the Craig films also let Bond just kill someone.
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:59Read transcript
The film has surprises, including the drive up the A9 to Scotland when the audience has no idea where Bond is taking M.
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:35Read transcript
Sign-off: the hosts swear off recording on a Friday afternoon after the khakis tangent, one host is wearing khakis, and the show is signed off as 3 Logicals (as transcribed) by Chris Ryan for Amanda Dobbins and Sean Fennessey.
Approx. transcript time · 01:33:27Read transcript