Monday, November 9, 2015

F This Movie! - Spectre

The new Bond movie is the author of all Patrick and Mike's pain.



Download this episode here. (72.6 MB)

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Listen to F This Movie! on Stitcher.

Also discussed this episode: Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), The Peanuts Movie (2015), Bridge of Spies (2015), Last Shift (2015), Lost After Dark (2015), Human Centipede: Final Sequence (2015)

33 comments:

  1. This podcast was spot on. I'm happy to hear someone else articulate the exact frustrations I had with the movie.

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  2. So Spectre was not very good. Which sucks, because it was what I was looking forward to most this year. Not quite as bad as Quantum, but still bad.

    I think the best way to articulate this is by sharing my favorite moments, which didn't actually happened in the film. Spoilers, I guess. There's a moment when M and C are confronting each other, M does something silly and C says "now I know what M stands for, moronic." A few seconds later, C does something silly and M says "now I know what C stands for..." and I was thrown into a tizzy for about 3 seconds, thinking "he's going to call him the c-word, Sam Mendes has completely lost his mind, Ralph Fiennes is about to drop the c-word in a Bind film." Of course he says "careless" and I'm once again disapointed, but those 5 seconds almost made the other boring 9,000 worth it.

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    1. Yep. I thought they were just going to leave it open ended and let us fill in the blanks, which is why the line got a laugh. Then he says "careless" and the theater deflated and the moment was ruined with bad writing.

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    2. I thought the exact same thing! That was such a disappointment ugh.

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    3. Great show! It was cathartic. I thought the M and C "fight" was so poorly handled. It was clearly two actors that had a very low comfort level with stunt work.

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    4. I was going to use the word cathartic as well. It's always a delight to hear Patrick voice my thoughts in a much more eloquent way than I ever could. Especially for a such a poorly edited mess of a movie. (Also LOVED Patrick losing his mind in an English accent)

      That fight was such a disaster! I couldn't help but laugh at that stupid fall it ended with.

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    5. Yeah I think they just didn't realize the joke there, as it was clearly written as a serious moment for M. So it's not just bad enough that the comedy doesn't really land, the writers can't even recognize a joke when they fall ass-backwards into one. I think Craig can do comedy as Bond, but not as one-liners, I think he's really good at being "cheeky."

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  3. I haven't listened to the show yet, but can anticipate what the tone will be. I was so excited for Spectre and now I feel hollow inside. To me it felt like they tried to wrap up this iteration of Bond with a by giving us a modern version of the classic Bond film. Except that it was not earned, has nothing new to say, and it is completely ridiculous for this Bond to try and follow a Roger Moore Bond film template. It might have worked as two films had they tried to set the pieces in place and then let things unfold organically, instead everything felt rushed and ultimately wasted. A shame.

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  4. I feel so bad, because u remember commenting on into darkness because I liked it so much. Then I like Spectre for all the same reason you hate it. It really is that bad but good. The table to the face in the dining car is my favorite Bond moment ever.

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  5. Well, someone has to come to this movie's defense. I love this movie. I've seen it twice now, and I love it. I'm a huge Bond fan, and this might be my second favorite Craig Bond film under Casino. This movie is SUCH a Bond film. Warts and all. While the past three really shyed away from being a Bond movie and tried to be more 'gritty', this one dives head first into traditional Bond and was a complete blast for me. I know it's extremely far from perfect and has a ton of problems. I disagree with few of your points. The continuity with Silva is completely ridiculous. I don't like that Bond gets suspended right away. And a silly little nitpick of my own, I don't like that Bond's apartment is messy. The Bond I know would NEVER have a messy apartment.

    I have no problem with Waltz being Blofeld. He's been in several of the movies, being played by five different actors. So why not also in this movie played by another different actor? He isn't Goldfinger who's definitively Gert Fröbe. No, Waltz is not a great villain, like Silva is. But how many Bond villains are? Not many. I love The Living Daylights and that has one of the worst villains. These movies aren't about the villains. Bond is who we come to see. And I thought Craig was the best he had ever been here. For the first time since Vesper died, it seemed Craig's Bond actually likes being Bond. He's funny, and he has fun. He enjoys his life. I love that. He's so much fun to watch. Skyfall is terrific, and objectively better than Spectre, but Craig is so darn depressed in so much of it. I know it fits the tone, and I'm not really complaining, I just enjoy this version of Bond so much more. I love the song. I love the action scenes. I love the lovely lead Bond girl. I love the opening sequence. I love the locations. I love so much of it. You guys say you hate it because it's like the Bronsan Bonds. But I love those. I love GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough. So I suppose that's just the difference. I love 'fun Bond' and that's what this is. We all want different things out of a Bond movie I suppose. Still, much love and respect to the show as always.

    And though Waltz isn't a great villain, Bautista is. And one great villain is more great villains than a lot of Bond films have.

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    1. I liked it didn't love it. I wish Christoph Waltz was in the movie more. And the more I think about it Monica Belluci really didn't add anything to the overall plot of the movie. I was under the assertion that she was going to have a more prominent role. I guess I was wrong. Personally, I put it on par with Skyfall. Casino Royale is still my favorite.

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    2. Thank you so much! I've seen nothing but hate for this movie and I loved it so much. I recognize it's flaws but everything works for me. Almost every single thing works for me.

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  6. On the subject of the screenplay, I looked up this Butterworth character, and he was a co-writer on Edge of Tomorrow, so the dude can't be all bad. *shrug*

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    1. No, I know. He was also a co-writer and director of Birthday Girl, a movie I really like. I just thought it was funny to keep calling him out.

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  7. Awwww man, bummed you didn't like Lost After Dark. I did write something to the effect that I felt it was perfectly executed in all of it's mediocrity. I think that's why I loved it so much. It was spot on of a somewhat boring 80's Horror film and it was just a lot of fun how well they nailed it. The only thing that I didn't like was the "missing reel", that should never be done in modern film again. Also, just to clarify, it will be on my top ten Horror of the year but "We Are Still Here" or "Hellions" are probably my favorites of the year. Can't win 'em all.

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    1. Like I said, I love that we get to talk about this stuff even when our opinions differ (and with WASH at the top of both our lists, maybe our opinions aren't so different after all!). I totally agree that Lost After Dark feels super generic in that early '80s, Final Exam kind of way...but do you think that was intentional? Like that was the goal? Because I'm not sure that was my takeaway, but maybe I'm not giving them enough credit.

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    2. I absolutely think that it was intentional! I'm actually surprised that wasn't what you felt when watching it. It makes sense to me now, if I had not felt that way I probably wouldn't have liked it that much! Interesting. And yes, I most definitely love getting to talk Horror with you, especially outside of SMM since, well, you know, it's Scary Movie Year for us all the time.

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  8. Can Sam Mendes appear on every podcast from here on out? Freaking hilarious!

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    1. Gentleman T. Dalts has met his batshit match in Lovesick Sam Mendes.

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  9. I liked Spectre a lot, though as with a lot of Bonds I *liked* it much more than I think it's "good". I should say I warmed up for five months (!), watching all the movies chronologically, one every week from June until the end of October (I live in Europe), so by the time I sat down to watch Spectre I had the entire franchise in my mind, good bad jokey and serious, and Spectre was deeply satisfying.

    Even though it's flawed and uneven and patchy and too long (like most Bond movies) it does what it sets out to do: Make a jokier and mo(o)re octopussified Craig Bond movie with a lot of fan service, jokes and and in-jokes, acknowledging that Moore is also part of the legacy. I'm actually surprised that more people haven't anticipated the series going back to the goofier days, I always saw the moody Craig thing as a kind of temporary trend, given how a big majority of the Bond movies after all are more silly than serious. I think the scene with the rat, in all it's off-beat smallness, is one of Craig's best Bond moments ever.

    It all goes back to taste I guess, at least mainly so in the case of Bond movies (in fact, I can't think of any other fan-crowd as diverse in opinions as the 007 crowd). While listening to the podcast (great as always) I find myself ducking in my chair, as nothing Patrick thinks is garbage registers with me as garbage so it's all bombs to me. Don't wanna get beaten the shit out of, *scared*

    I like that Spectre is splitting the audience - that's always fun - and if I'm to defend the movie's plot, I do think it looks like it's setting up for a sequel, which would explain why we don't get to know all that much about Blofeld and Bond's feelings toward MI6/dr. Swann *and* why Craig is commited to another Bond movie. I read the ending as a pretty straight "to be continued" - more so than the endings of Casino Royale or Skyfall - and I also think the structure of the movie suggests a kind of two part farewell to Craig, this being number one. But maybe that's just me.

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    1. Thanks for sharing! I'm glad I'm not alone on this. But I also think people overestimate the seriousness of the serious Bond films. I just rewatched From Russia with Love (freaking amazing) and that's one of the most serious Bond films. And yet, its still packed with witty one-liners and jokes from Bond. That's just a part of Bond! And I'm glad this movie got back to that.

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    2. Yeah, though I failed to mention it that did come across my mind while going through all of the Bonds. One of the reasons why I think OHMSS is the best Bond movie is because it reaches a perfect and beyond serious emotional high yet it's also as silly as I don't know what. Looking at all the movies it became very clear to me that Bond is indeed part comedy - Moore's movies are just the opposite end of Craig's but in between there's a whole *spectre* of humor (or I should say very Brittish "jokism"). From Russia With Love was dark as a dungeon but not only did it have one-liners it had Sylvia Trench, Pedro Armendáriz, Rosa Klebb (!), that Anita Ekberg pun and Blofeld. Yes Blofeld. I've always thought he was a great - but in reality also a very, very silly - bad guy. He's wonderful just as a menacing presence - but whenever he was out in the open and moved around as an actual character, he never felt like much of a threat. Part of suffering from megalomania is being a wimp at heart. This is why Waltz makes perfect sense in the role - his typecast role is much like Blofeld, verbally nasty but pathetic when it comes to show. He fits splendidly next to Donald Pleasence and Charles Grey, only he's better I think (it feels like Telly Savalas is the iconic Blofelt but I don't think even he made the character very interesting or menacing).

      Not sure how fair it is to assume Craig is hesistant to do the comedic Bond either (he co-produced and as far as I understand he's had quite a lot of creative input). I think Craig has been pretty funny from the get-go, at least in relation to the movies themselves. Even in Casino Royale, Bond is the merriest chap in the movie, often with that weird "hrrrr, I need to take a shit"-smirk on his face.

      And by the way, while we're on the subject, one thing that doesn't get mentioned often enough is what a childish wild-card Craig's Bond is. Say what you want about Brosnan but he had the "queen and country"-seriousness down. I remember when I first saw Skyfall and Bond mentions his own "pathetic love for my country" (or something like that) and I immediately reacted to how weird the line felt. It never occured to me up until that point that Craig's Bond gave half a shilling about his country. He just seemed like a slightly sociopathic killer with a somewhat awkward sense of humor ("If you had just been born wouldn't you be naked?").

      With every new Bond incarnation it's going to be less of this and more of that. But both this and that is there, in it's varying degrees. In Spectre, Craig's Bond is modified somewhat, and that usually means that a new Bond actor is on the horizon. I think the feeling is very similar to Connery in Diamonds Are Forever, Moore in For Your Eyes Only (which was kinda-sorta-originally supposed to be his last one) and Brosnan in The World is Not Enough (enter Wade/Purvis). Don't know if this all means that the future of Bond is rests in the hands of Jazz Butterclutter (or whatever the name was), but who cares I've gone on for too long.

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  10. I agree with Patrick and Mike's sentiments. However I feel QOS was still more of a slap in the face as it contained nothing I go to Bond movies to see. Spectre contained a lot of what I want to see in a Bond movie, it was just done poorly.

    I also really missed Roger Deakins here.

    For me when I look back on Spectre it will be all about Mr. Hinx and that jaw-dropping opening shot.

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  11. I'm in full agreement with Patrick and Mike. The last third of Spectre gets to a point where I wondered how much of the film became a casualty of a bad test screening. Blofeld's final fate (Bond's choice) felt like a rushed reshoot, the performances during the Craig/Bellucci "love" scene seem awkward and forced, as though it were a rushed change; the last shot -- Craig and Lea in the car -- felt tacked on. It seems to me the producers just don't know what they want when it comes to their own franchise. After Quantum, it seemed like their game plan was to retcon whatever was popular at the moment, and what was popular at the moment was Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight. Skyfall followed the Nolan model, and it worked. They went back to the Nolan model for Spectre, but they also followed the Marvel model (Spectre attempts to control MI6 from the inside, like Hydra with SHIELD), and even cribbed from Star Trek Into Darkness, another film that felt inclined to copy from the Nolan model. It's like "Nolanesque" became its own subgenre post-Dark Knight, and the Bond producers were just trying to fit in.

    But what if originally, the third act of Spectre went in a totally different direction, and either the producers got cold feet during principal photography, or after initial test screenings, and forced Sam and the cast into doing more and more pickups to see what they liked, Amazing Spider-Man style? If so, what Craig said when he started speaking to the press about the film -- that he would rather slit his wrists with a broken bottle than play Bond again -- make much more sense.

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    2. And, now that I think about it, since it's been quite awhile since I saw Quantum of Solace -- didn't that movie kind of crib from the Bourne movies in its action and tone?

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  12. I didn't dislike the movie as much as Patrick and Mike but it was definitely a disappointment. Even though im not the biggest fan of Skyfall I had high hopes for Mendes and Spectre. The action scenes in Spectre are fairly boring with the helicopter sequence being the worst. The train fight was awesome. Its up there with some of the one one Bourne fight scenes. Maybe even better because I found it easier to follow.

    In hindsight we should of saw this coming. Skyfall was clearly taking us back to a more traditional Bond and I think that's why ive never like it as much as other people. I like Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace Bond, serious and brutal. The opening car chase in Quatum of solace is better than every chase in Spectre. Bring back Martin Campbell and see if he can save the series once again.

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  13. Patrick, you do a fantastic British accent.

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  14. Would both of you guys consider doing an entire podcast as Timothy Dalton? Your impressions makes me laugh really hard every single time.

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  15. Gotta call you out on your Spielberg misreading. The most common criticism against him is that he's never bleak and pessimistic. He's always sappy and sentimental. Even Schindlers List is more sentimental than bleak, and War of the Worlds has that laughably pat ending.

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  16. Why is no one onto John Logan?

    This man gets his name on stuff because he was somewhere in the mix and the Writer's Guild decides that something minor he came up with stays in the script. He has credit in "Gladiator" because he created the son of the Emperor when he did the second go at the script - nothing else he wrote stayed in the script (see a magazine called Scr(i)pt). Leo DeCaprio announced at the Oscars that "The Aviator" was completely re-written by Michael Mann and got no credit - another movie with John Logan's name on it. It's possible that Logan's name is on this movie because he came up with one of the names of the bad guys and that's enough? In fact, going by some of his shitty writing and "borrowing" stuff from other films I wouldn't be surprised if the stupid idea of Blofeld being the adopted brother was all his.

    Movies we know he actually wrote? Star Trek Nemesis, The Time Machine (the Guy Pierce one), Bats!, Sinbad and the Seven Seas...doesn't anyone remember these? Why don't people in the industry know that anything he writes someone has to come behind and completely fix or it's a complete piece of shit?

    Meanwhile, he's just be given the script to Prometheus: Covenant (or whatever they're calling it today) to re-write. I'm almost nostalgic for Damon Lindelof.

    I would almost say that if this theory out there that the end of the movie is actually an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge/Brazil type ending - everything after the last needle to his head is just his imagination and considering the over the top action and stupid stuff like those pictures in the basement I can believe it - was Logan's work but I doubt he's that well read.

    One note about the guy playing "C"....he's well-known for playing Moriarty in "Sherlock". He is very good there and I've seen him in other things. He might have been trying to stay away from just doing that character again and the script wasn't helping at all.

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  17. Okay I finally got around to watching Spectre and listening to this podcast, and I'm so conflicted because everything you say is absolutely true (and absolutely hilarious, Timothy Dalton and Sam Mendes guest appearances are THE best), but I just had a slightly different reading of the film which sort of saved it for me. I don't know if I'm reaching for this interpretation, or if it actually makes sense for the character. To me though, Spectre is a movie where they throw all the most personal betrayals they can at Bond (his step brother, the elaborate [completely nonsensical] long plan, vesper lyn and M are thrust in his face) and he doesn't react. And I feel like that is actually true to his character that he would internalise all of that, and it all really only comes out in a simple decision he makes at the end of the movie to leave MI5 (at least for now). I just feel like that's a really interesting take on the character.

    In saying that not all of it works, and it's quite possible it was an accident because that piece of plot is so forced with the 'connective tissue' (hrrumph). And I don't think the whole subplot with C and M works. Also the torture scene and the plane set piece are flat out terrible. BUT I still managed to like the film because I thought that take on the character, the Bond that internalizes everything, was so interesting to me.

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  18. Spectre isn't very good I think

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