Oddjob Pod - A James Bond Podcast

After reacting to news of the sale of control of the James Bond movie franchise, we spend some time on the 1967 screwball comedy adaptation of Casino Royale, a film that sits outside the official franchise and was received with little acclaim.

Gary, Graham and Terry reflect on the film’s troubled production which featured an all-star cast and five (yes, five) directors.

The Oddjob Pod returns with another edition of the Action Movie Landfill.

On each episode of the Landfill, Gary, Graham and Terry fish out a DVD from the vast, imaginary pile of action movies from the sell-through era and decide if they shoud be placed on the shelf or returned to the landfill.

In this edition we have unearthed Michael Bay’s The Rock starring Ed Harris, Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery. Many Bond fans have looked at Connery’s character, John Mason, a retired SAS officer incarcertaed in the US for 30 years, and wondered if he is an alternate universe James Bond. The film-makers have been at pains to deny this.

In any event it is a film with much to admire and the Oddjob Pod trio spend a happy hour and a half ruminating on this 90s classic.

To celebrate Christmas 2024, Gary, Terry and Graham gathered to record a very special musical podcast. Don't worry we don't do that much singing, we leave that to the professionals.

In this episode, the Oddjob Pod team imagine they are stranded on a desert island with just six pieces of music from the James Bond films to keep them company while they await rescue or succumb to the anaconda nymph women.

Which tracks shall we choose? Listen to the podcast and find out. You can also check out Gary's, Graham's and Terry's picks on our YouTube channel.

The Oddjob Pod make another trip to the Action Movie Landill. In this edition, Graham leads the show after retrieving Michael Mann’s 1995 classic, Heat, from the landfill.

Our film-by-film review of all the Eon-produced James Bond films comes to a close with the latest release, the 2019 film No Time To Die, which was delayed until 2021 due to the pandemic lockdown.

Given its denouement, this film takes a somewhat darker tone the closer it gets to the conclusion. As Graham says, “It’s not your typical ITV4 James Bond film.” Like all Daniel Craig Bond films, this one has an emotional depth that is usually absent in earlier entries.

Given the uncertainty of the future of the character and the longevity of the intellectual property, we find ourselves wondering what will become of the franchise and ask ourselves: will James Bond return?

The Oddjob Pod crew are back at the Action Movie Landfill. This time is was Gary’s turn to fish out a dusty VHS, slot it into the machine and see if it’s worth keeping or chucking back on the pile.

His choice? An absolute doozy: Paul Michael Glazer’s distopian sci-fi actioner, The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In this particularly brown episode of the Oddjob Pod, Gary, Terry and Graham don their colour corrected glasses and ceremonial Blofeld wigs and take a close look at Spectre, the fourth film with Daniel Craig as 007.

This film was hugely anticipated after the success of Skyfall but doesn’t quite land in the way it should despite being a beautifully shot film and a fine example of the brown genre.

The Oddjob Pod returns for another edition of the Action Movie Landfill. A dive into the almost limitless mound of action films from the sell-through era in the late twentieth, early twenty first century.

For this episode it was down to Terry to choose and it’s fair to say that he chose… poorly.

Not for the first time Terry allowed his fond memories of a film from years gone by to cloud his judgement and selected the political action thriller from 1997: The Peacemaker.

Starring Nicole Kidman and George Clooney, this big budget blockbuster was directed by Mimi Leder and reflects that post-Cold War, pre-911 period where studio representations of US foreign policy was resolutely in denial of their place in the world. Watching back now it seems naïve. The film’s crude characterisations and dated tropes mean that it does not hold up to contemporary scrutiny and is best enjoyed with a time machine.

Sam Mendes’ Skyfall marked a stylistic departure at a time when the James Bond franchise was undergoing a renaissance with the Daniel Craig era. Mendes took what has always been a series of films that has prided itself on lavish productions and elevated the aesthetic to art. The mise en scene, cinematography and set pieces are spectacular and beautiful in equal measure.

But the film has its critics: a somewhat hokey and derivative plot and an unsatisfying albeit beautifully shot final act.

But the film also has a powerful emotional theme about family obligation. We also see James Bond at something of a crisis point as he approaches the final stanza of his career and is confronted with his own mortality.

Stephen Norrington’s Blade sits (if you’ll pardon the pun) at the leading edge of big-screen Marvel movies. Not counting Howard The Duck, the 1998 film is the first Marvel superhero to be given a cinema release and heralded an unending wave of movies.

The film also sits on something of an intersection in 90s vampire films; the most successful being Neil Jordan’s Interview With A Vampire and Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula which place the vampire as the main protagonist and invite the audience to feel as much sympathy as they do horror. Meanwhile, Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn and Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer are reviving the old monster rally vibe to the genre, making vampire stories a lot more fun.

The Buffy TV series is also injecting a dose of vampire romance and eroticism which would be dominated in the subsequent decade by Twilight and The Vampire Diaries.

In the middle of all this is Blade, himself something of an intersectional character: neither vampire nor human; at home nowhere and is cursed to fight until he dies. All told, a pretty grim existance, magnificently portrayed

So there’s plenty to discuss in the latest Action Movie Landfill edition of the Oddjob Pod. Join Graham, Terry, and Gary as they sharpen their steel and tuck into Blade.