S4E43.5: Sorceror

[00:00:17]Hello and welcome to season 4, episode 32 and a half of Kill James Bond.

[00:00:24]>> I am November Kelly. I am joined as always by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon.

[00:00:29]>> Hello gentle listeners.

[00:00:31]>> Hello. How How are you doing? Cowabunga.

[00:00:33]It's definitely not that episode. I I don't know why you are you doing a new thing?

[00:00:37]>> Yeah. Well, the thing is the thing is that in in season 4, episode 32 and a half, we confronted a film made in in France, which is where they invented the concept of having seen something before, you know? I forget what it's called.

[00:00:50]>> Yeah, there's there's some kind of term in French.

[00:00:52]>> Mhm.

[00:00:53]>> It's in French. Yeah. At this point here, we have to confront that French term, whatever it is, because we're watching a remake of that film. That film was Wages of Fear.

[00:01:04]>> Yeah. Which we enjoyed. We really liked it.

[00:01:07]>> Had a really good time with Wages of Fear. I had a somewhat difficult time watching it, like physically finding and and watching it. But that's probably a me problem.

[00:01:16]>> Something that it has in common with it's a remake, I'll say. Mhm.

[00:01:19]>> But yeah, The Wages of Fear was was a black and white existentialist sort of um uh death march of capitalism film.

[00:01:28]And in this case, we are doing the American '7s remake of it. Sorcerer.

[00:01:37]>> Yeah. where they kind of remove most of the anti- capitalist themes and it becomes a kind of man v god movie >> as they call it in the industry or a man v natur nature movie which I think is it's still a good film and it's well made but I I just can't the table I like the original better but all right we'll get into it >> I like the original better definitely there's there's some things in this I like more than the original but not everything not the whole movie >> crucially this is a film directed by William Freriedken um who directed cruising one one [laughter] episode about before and that was the one where it was everyone von.

[00:02:11]>> Oh yeah. Okay.

[00:02:13]>> I don't I don't mean to just do this exclusively to you, but I I'm not a huge William Frieden fan. Um we've done we've done two actually. We've done Rules of Engagement as well. I think you're right.

[00:02:26]>> Okay.

[00:02:26]>> Ages back. Yeah.

[00:02:28]>> Which did not like that movie.

[00:02:30]>> This is an evil film.

[00:02:31]>> Also an evil film. That was an evil movie. Yeah. Is this guy evil? Yeah, I think maybe yes. I mean, we're gonna do um To Live and Die in LA at some point, which absolutely is an evil film. Um hopefully just The Living Part Dying Part Sorcerer is This was like Willing Freen's passion project. If you remember the the tweet that's like my new script, Bright, if made properly, could be my Star Wars.

[00:02:59]>> Yeah. Yeah. I think about that a lot. He went all in on getting the rights to the book that Wages of Fear is an adaptation of and doing not a remake in his mind, but a sort of a different adaptation of it. This was going to be the thing that put him on the map. And then [clears throat] this came out in in June of 1977.

[00:03:21]And do you know what else came out?

[00:03:22]>> 10,000 decel Star Wars music kicks in.

[00:03:28][laughter] No one's seeing any other [ __ ] movies. [ __ ] >> George Lucas said, "If made properly, this could be my Star Wars on account [laughter] of that it's Star Wars."

[00:03:38]>> And so this this was kind of this really >> under God, my wife is editing my movie.

[00:03:42]Hope we never divorce. [laughter] >> George Lucas driving the longest car in the world, perfectly running over and killing William Frieden. And Freen never really kind of got over this even for the rest of his career. He was like, "No, this should have been the thing that made you a huge hit." Lucas big, right? And I don't think that it's good enough to do that.

[00:04:08]It's not good enough to do that.

[00:04:09]>> Very glad you teed that up.

[00:04:10]>> Yeah, he put his heart and soul into it.

[00:04:12]>> He He's been on record all the time about how good this would have been if not for Star Wars.

[00:04:18][snorts] >> It's fine. It's a fine movie.

[00:04:20]>> It's not better than Cruising.

[00:04:22]>> Let me Let me do a little segue here because I've been watching the World Cup, right?

[00:04:27]It's coming home. It's coming at time of recording. It is coming home. It's coming home.

[00:04:30]>> At time of recording, it's coming the [ __ ] home.

[00:04:33]>> It's coming home to current Prime Minister Kama.

[00:04:36]>> Yeah. [laughter] Uh and you know, we're going to we're going to beat France and then in Andy Bernham's first day in office, he's going to have to call McFron and talk about it, which is going to be funny. But no, I I've been watching the World Cup and I'm going to embark on kind of a risky gambit given um half of where our listeners are from, but America is one of the cheating nations on the face of the planet.

[00:05:02]>> It's so crazy.

[00:05:04]>> Every American I am personally enemies with. It's crazy how if you do anything to hurt an American's feelings, that becomes intolerable to them. And that comes in like a left flavor. It comes in a lib flavor. It comes in a right flavor. Um, my enemy is the American people. Sick of these [ __ ] Get them out of here. No, >> do not unsubscribe from the Patreon.

[00:05:24]>> I don't know. I'm >> Every single one of you keep giving me that money.

[00:05:28]>> I'm not so sure about that. I [laughter] I like Americans. I I did I did very much enjoy watching the World Cup last night in a room full of Americans supporting Norway as the only in there and then >> just getting to be the smuggest [ __ ] at the party. That was really [ __ ] funny.

[00:05:44]>> It was England, boys. How good was [laughter] >> I also really enjoyed watching the Belgium v USA match in a bar and then IMMEDIATELY ORDERING A BELGIAN BELGIUM ONE. LET ME LET me just let me just go back here to my [clears throat] um to my text to the group chat that I did um after we after we beat Norway which just says u Stellan Scarsgard P Lundfist Hans Christian Anderson your boys took one hell of a beating. And I'd like you to note that none of those people are nor [laughter] coded. What's the problem? You know, here's the thing. I was I was getting ding out on this a lot last night. This is actually it was a a colonizer versus colonized football match where we got to be the colonized football.

[00:06:31]>> This one's to support England.

[00:06:35]>> Yeah, absolutely. And so >> as it will be against Argentina.

[00:06:38]>> The reason why I bring up Americans being [clears throat] whining cheats.

[00:06:42]Get at me in the comments. Do not get at me in the exit surveys. Is because this is a very American adaptation.

[00:06:50]>> It is. It is. And the last one that we saw was a very French adaptation, right?

[00:06:54]And I I think you can kind of talk about this most effectively with the way that they do their opening scenes, right?

[00:07:00]Because the way that Wages of Fear does it opening scene, we didn't really mention this when we talked about it cuz it's not really relevant and it's kind of uncomfortable to talk about, >> but Wages of Fear opens with basically an hour of uh this town is sad and poor and it's it's horrible here and uh also there's a bunch of child nudity in it.

[00:07:21]Right, that's France.

[00:07:23]>> The first shot >> who we are going to beat in the semi-finals.

[00:07:26]>> Who we are going to beat in the semi-finals. [ __ ] you, Killian Mbappe.

[00:07:28]It's over for you. I'm coming for you.

[00:07:30]Um, the first shot of Wages of Fear is like it's it's four tied together pulling each other in different directions. And it's such a beautiful like >> scene setting for what you're going to get.

[00:07:42]>> It's it's very philosophical. It's very It's very sort of like aesthetic. It's very studied. Why does that child naked?

[00:07:49]>> Why did he have to be naked? But then in the United Snakes of America kaka, they make the opening scene of this movie a guy getting perfectly 09 with a silence revolver.

[00:08:01]>> It's a 009 scene.

[00:08:03]>> We go to Verarac Cruz, Mexico, and we're introducing like our four guys who are going to be doing wages of fear truck driving [ __ ] later on. And our guy Nylo walks in, domes off with a silence pistol. I just want to talk about the way Nyl is dressed. He's got a blue suit, >> white shoes, sunglasses, hat, really wide color. My man is hitting the disco after this killing.

[00:08:26]>> That's crazy. Imagine killing someone wearing white shoes. That is confidence.

[00:08:30]>> You're not earning the wages of fear wearing white shoes, you know? No support, I would say.

[00:08:35]>> No way. He's not scared at all in this.

[00:08:37]>> And then it hits me with the second sort of body blow because having gone, hey, you [laughter] remember that kind of studied philosophical movie? Well, guess what, [ __ ] Gun. It then takes me to Jerusalem.

[00:08:49]>> Jerusalem and I go, "Okay, >> like like the naked gun two and a half."

[00:08:55][laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:59]>> Like World War Z.

[00:09:01]>> All of us British being very careful about what we say on the microphone.

[00:09:05]>> Yes. We see Okay, let's be as absolut Yeah. Let's just be objective. We see a group of four Palestinian immigrants.

[00:09:11]>> It takes us to Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine.

[00:09:14]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[00:09:15]for Palestinian um militants, let's say, uh taking action. They blow up >> the they blow up uh one of the gates, the Damascus gate, I think, in Jerusalem.

[00:09:26]>> They do an action. They do they do an operation, right? These four guys that they're wearing they're wearing kippers, right? They're like >> in a bag behind on the steps of just like a building. It's not even important which one. And they [clears throat] get on a bus, it blows up, right?

[00:09:43]>> Mhm. Battle of Alia stuff.

[00:09:45]>> Yeah. Incidentally, the whole sort of background of this is it's very noisy, right? There's a lot of kind of street noise. There's almost an Nan mixed in as well. It's like very much determined to sell the kind of like >> this is chaotic. This is like bad neighborhood stuff.

[00:10:04]>> Bustling place. Yeah. So they they race back to their safe house and they're bugging out when troops enter the building, gun down some of them, and arrest some others. There's a huge crowd outside that forms and is like arguing with the authorities. And I really like that the crowd shots are shot from within the crowd as if you are in it.

[00:10:23]It's a really Yeah, it's a really nice like creative way of shooting a crowd for probably not a lot of money cuz you only need like four guys and then you need the sound of 50 guys and you can make it look really big. So it's clever.

[00:10:32]>> It's deliberately alienating. It's using the same kind of thing that we've we've talked about being a kind of like a racist crowd, right, in in a sort of like um you know, reverse engagement maybe.

[00:10:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The little girl with the gun is here. Yeah.

[00:10:48]>> Yeah. Yeah. A couple of things about this. First of all, it does suggest that the IDF are like they're on the case like instantly for one thing.

[00:10:55]>> Yes.

[00:10:55]>> Yes. Well, they might have been funding it for all we know.

[00:10:58]>> Yeah. They also shoot first, right? Um, and we get a kind of really loving forcytheian shot of like an Uzi muzzle as they just gun these guys down.

[00:11:10]>> Mhm.

[00:11:10]>> But then, so I think it's where we're articulating this politically is like, man, Israel's chaotic, but these guys don't [ __ ] around kind of thing, right?

[00:11:20]It's an incidental part of the movie.

[00:11:22]>> He's like, damn, that's crazy. But one of the guys gets away >> and it's his POV we see in the crowd cuz he's like watching the other guy get taken away. Two of them get killed, one of them gets captured, they don't matter, >> and he's watching him get taken away.

[00:11:35]It's really good.

[00:11:36]>> It's a really nice shot of the guy.

[00:11:37]Yeah.

[00:11:37]>> Yeah.

[00:11:38]>> Also, insanely hard soundtrack. I wasn't expecting >> synths here um as you know, any Fallout 4 player says, but what we get is um is a kind of Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and it's >> I would say the best part of the movie by far.

[00:11:54]>> Well, yeah.

[00:11:55]>> Then we go to a guy's apartment in Paris. A beautiful [ __ ] apartment, too. Oh, love this place. We meet uh guy number three, Victor, who's chatting to his wife. She's writing a history book.

[00:12:08]>> Insanely hot wife.

[00:12:10]>> Insanely hot wife.

[00:12:12]>> Barefoot wife as well. Hello, Quentyn Tarantino.

[00:12:14]>> His insanely hot barefoot wife. His insanely hot French barefoot wife.

[00:12:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Le L le piggy's uh >> my first le gripper le. No, >> but like [laughter] the there's this is where I write down, damn, this guy's insanely hot barefoot wife is insanely hot. Wish I could understand her because Devon and I had a bit of a a sort of travile watching this one. We had to go to two separate YouTube videos. One of which had the non-English dialogue subtitled, >> but also had a bunch of weird cuts for presumably evading copyright protection.

[00:12:54]and another one which didn't have the weird cuts but also didn't have the >> didn't have the non- English subtitles which has since become private also. I just went to reopen it so that I could follow along while we were doing the episode and it's been taken down.

[00:13:06]>> How easily you forget the words of Dominic Terretto. Watch any movie with free subtitles. Open subtitles.com.

[00:13:11][laughter] >> [ __ ] You're so right.

[00:13:15]>> I don't have the bandwidth to torrent anything. You're lucky you get podcasts still. Why do I sound [laughter] like I'm in a phone box?

[00:13:22]I said it before the episode, I'll say it now. You go to YouTube, you go to Google, you type in watch sorcerer free online UK, and then when nothing comes up, you go, damn, I guess I can't do the episode of the podcast.

[00:13:34]>> Also, it's I'm pretty sure it's on Amazon as well. But anyway, uh his his insanely hot wife gives him a gives him a watch that says, "I am your wife."

[00:13:42]It's a it's a classic anniversary gift that we've seen movie protagonists get before.

[00:13:46]>> Yeah. It says, "Do not have the wages of fear happen to you." Engraved on the back. By the way, the the book that she's writing is is a is a biography of this colonial officer >> like back in the day. And we see that our Frenchman, he's kind of like uh woke, you know, and so he's >> he's dismissive of it. Yeah.

[00:14:05]>> Yeah. She's telling him the story about how this officer was going to have to like fire his artillery, but like a civilian woman was in the way, and he knew that he would like remove her from the world with a gesture. Um to which our Frenchman asks, "Well, well, did he do it?" and she says yes and he goes okay well he's just a soldier then and she says no one's just one thing right which is the moral of the movie again I feel like there's more than a few times talking about sorcerer where I'm going to say that I think it's a strangely insecure film about its message and [clears throat] in this one it's really like no second scene you have to know this right no one's no one's just one thing pay attention this will be on the test >> sure um but anyway Anyway, uh Victor goes to see uh a banker and his banker's like, "Yo, what's up?

[00:14:56]>> 15 million questions. We've got some questions about the all of the money.

[00:15:02]>> Come in. Come in. Sit down."

[00:15:04]>> Yeah. You know, you invested all this money in AI. Uh >> he's he's kind of already at the end of his rope, right? He's he's yelling at his younger colleague to like call his colleagueu's father who owns the business and is like the kind of, you know, pacifio.

[00:15:20]>> All my apes gone. If you want to hear the rest of this episode of Kill James Bond and the 45 uninterrupted minutes of anti-American insults, stings, barbs, and arrows, then you are going to have to head on over to our Patreon. patreon.com/killjamespond all one word and sign up today for as little as £5 a month. £5 a month. How many things are asking you for £5 a month these days? It's mostly 15 now.

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