♪ Entertain, me, entertain me right now ♪
Hello and welcome to the Pop Culture Junkie podcast.
I'm Shauna here as always with my fellow junkie.
Olivia.
And this week we have a very special guest.
Daniel de Boulay is a producer, essayist and screenwriter
who served as an acquisitions executive at Sony Pictures
for several years.
de Boulay is an alum of the Academy Awards Gold Program.
He is also an accomplished music producer and composer.
He's currently working on an essay about James Bond
for the Splice.
Welcome, Daniel.
Thank you for being here.
- Hello, hello, hello.
It's good to be here.
I am definitely a Pop Culture Junkie.
So it's gonna be a good conversation.
- Yes.
Where are you joining us from today?
Where do you live?
- I live in Culver City, which is in Los Angeles
County, which is really, really hot.
Man, it's like, I don't know if you guys can,
whoever can see the video here,
if you've ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke.
- I look like I'm from the movie Cool Hand Luke.
(laughing)
There's like an episode of Cheers
where I think it's norm and wording
have this debate about what movie has the most sweating.
And at the end, they're like cool hand Luke,
lots of sweating and Cool Hand Luke.
- That's hilarious.
I probably would have said like an inappropriate film
has the most sweating, but Cool Hand Luke's a good choice.
- There you go.
- Yeah.
- Okay, I see what you mean.
- I saw it.
- I see what you mean.
I don't know if that's what you mean.
- I see what you mean.
- Oh gosh.
Well, of course you live in California being, you know,
the Mr. Movie Guy that you are,
that makes a lot of sense.
It's a close to Hollywood.
- I basically live eight minutes from where I used to work
at Sony.
So it's like, I moved to, I guess, because of that,
but I don't work anymore.
So I guess it's like living just near your ex-girlfriend.
- Just drive by sometimes.
- Yeah.
- And you can just go to your own town.
So take us, I guess, to the beginning, Daniel,
how did you get into becoming, you know,
a movie producer and essayist, a screenwriter,
and what kind of started your journey
in pop culture and film?
- Probably by six great teacher, Mrs. Patch Kowski.
So like, she's gonna do this thing where,
if you wrote a book report about anything,
and so she was like, you got a book report about a movie,
about a TV show, about a song, whatever.
As long as you're writing, she would give you extra credit.
And so I guess I used to start,
I guess that's the first time someone
that would let me write about movies.
If I'm gonna be, ah, it's probably, it's Patch Kowski.
So it's probably her, I haven't thought about that in a minute.
It's probably her.
I mean, she got remarried, so now her name is Reed now.
- Well, if you're listening,
you started this man on his career path.
- Yeah, they're also listening after us.
- That's amazing.
- And walk us through kind of like,
what does an acquisition executive do for us,
a layman people?
- That's funny, 'cause I didn't know what acquisition was
when I graduated college.
I was put into the division because I had work,
I'd interned at a few production companies,
and then I interned for the Los Angeles Creek Film Festival.
I guess the HR department at Sony,
he was which was a guy at the time, Joe Camarena,
and I think he might have used to be a photographer too.
But he, I guess, saw that I was interested
in that side of the business,
and then he put me in the acquisitions division of studio.
But if people that don't know,
it should be like me when I was put into the division.
- Definitely me too.
(laughs)
- Yeah, 'cause anytime you do like an indie movie,
getting acquired by a studio,
then that has to go through the acquisitions division.
So essentially acquisitions are folks who are buying
independent movies on behalf of the studio.
It's kind of like the studios liaison
to the independent film.
- I feel like.
- It's not a good thing because more and more things
are independent these days because a lot of money
in development is just not there.
So I have a more interesting things
to really get developed internally at studios anymore.
So acquisitions has become pretty important as a late,
'cause a lot of packages are put together
by capital outside of the system,
and then acquisitions divisions will see it.
Even with studios like,
I'll refer to 824 as a studio, technically,
you wouldn't call them one of the major studios,
but for this exercise I will.
- They're getting up there now.
- Exactly, exactly.
So, but even with a studio like 824,
when they want to distribute their movies internationally,
they also submit their titles to an acquisitions division,
like Sony or Universal or any of them,
because they'll want to take advantage
of the international machine that's so fun
that the C Studios have because they don't really have
their own international machine.
'Cause typically, and the business needs to be a lot better,
but typically, you know, you can make a movie
and then sell the rights all around the world
to different countries.
And people still do that very well.
Lionsgate, honestly, they do that very well,
where they'll make a movie like 100 games,
or even 100 games prequels,
and then they'll take some of those territorial rights
and they'll pay for the movie by its tree selling
and all around the world.
But that business is a lot more troubled as of way.
So typically, as a studio like 824,
if they can, they'll make a deal with one distributor
who has a wide international footprint.
And it saves them the hassle of having to do deals
all around the world, 'cause you have to close a deal
for every individual territory when you do do that.
And that can accumulate to be a larger amount,
and if you were to just, you know,
make a deal with one global distributor,
like if you were to do the work of doing it,
that number can be higher, but it is a lot of work.
And there are less buyers than ever.
And so a lot of times you see more global folks,
just taking all of the international for someone like
at 824, but it doesn't always happen that way.
Usually, but it does happen.
- Yeah, that like conglomerate coming together.
- Yeah, exactly.
- So did you go to school for filmmaking?
Like what made you want to follow the path to become
like an acquisition executive?
- So I got accepted into film school
at the Lolli-O-N-R, at university.
And when I went there, we were like a top 10 film school,
and then when I left there were a top eight
and I think now they're top five.
- Nice. - 'Cause they told me,
"Okay, of course."
(laughing)
So that was good.
But when I was there, I went in as a film production major,
and then at the time, I told myself,
like, "Oh, I'll be a film production major.
"I'll study marketing and I'll study screenwriting."
And then I couldn't do all three.
So then at some point what I did was,
I switched from production to screenwriting,
because I looked at this woman named Jeanette,
and Jeanette was always on set.
So I assumed that she was a production major,
because I had just always seen her on set.
And then as I get talking,
I was like, "No, I'm actually a screenwriting major,
"because I'm a screenwriting major.
"I just take it apart myself to be on set all the time."
And then I was like, "Huh, I want to be more like Jeanette."
So then I changed my major after having a conversation with her.
I changed to screenwriting,
and then I just kind of did what she did,
which was I was on set like every single week at in film school.
I was talking to Jeanette, joking with somebody.
I mean, one time we were on set,
and we were filming something like in front of like a building
where all the sorority girls were gonna get ready
to go to a party.
So we just see like all these trap hoys and sorority girls,
like lying up, getting ready to get drunk.
And we're just looking at them and we're like,
"We did not spend college having fun,
"but we did not do that."
I have so many memories of spending my weekends in film school,
like in downtown LA, carrying combo stance.
For those who don't know,
the combo stand is like a very heavy,
light holder.
I guess that's a very work way of simplifying it.
Like the lights in film are heavy.
So you'll have very heavy things to hold.
I was just doing manual labor.
- Yeah, I'm pretty much a pro artist.
- For free, yeah, for free.
I was sending a loan to do it.
When you're on set, it's like, you know,
a person's thesis, they only have three days to do it.
So they don't have enough time and it's 12 hour days.
And you know that and you kept,
yeah, so I was like, we was doing 36 hours on the weekends.
So basically a full time job in a three days
and then going back to class.
So I was like, man, I have a few might have had a lot more fun with me.
But, yeah.
- Well, hopefully you could have some party
since graduation then.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- I find it a lot of business stuff.
I find one.
(laughing)
- And do you,
any film like really exciting film sets
that you remember being on?
Like what were some of your highlights
or anything we might have heard of?
- Well, I mean, in film school,
I don't think I was on any sets that you've heard of,
but there was a,
my one of my first sets that was really cool was
one of the graduate students
made a short film about immigration.
And so he wanted to shoot some of it on a stage.
So we had to like build and recreate and paint
the inside of a U-Val
'cause that's like in the plot of his story.
There were like immigrants
that were being transported in the back of a U-Val.
So we built that on the stage,
then he matched it with like another U-Val
that he just like rented for a day.
And that was a cool project.
'Cause.
- Yeah.
- It was very creative.
It was very, it was difficult.
Like I spent a lot of time like doing production,
like at least helping people doing production art.
I said, and I kind of like,
they're like, there are two things that are really important
in the frame to make something look high quality.
It's the production design of course,
but also people, people take it,
they do, you sometimes take for granted
how it's like filling people in a frame
who will make something look big.
So yeah, yeah, for some interesting sense.
I'm don't know how that was on a set of something called,
I think it was called American Ninja Warrior,
which is like a rock show.
- Yeah.
- I love American Ninja Warrior.
- It was like something with the rock.
Yeah, I remember that.
And I remember like,
I remember being a TA or something like that.
They'd be shouting like the middle of a parking lot
in a row in a day.
I remember in my head thinking like,
on TV this looks like it's like a whole arena.
And like, it looks like it's like this huge thing,
but they wouldn't do that.
Oh, it's just a parking lot.
(laughing)
- The magic of Hollywood.
- Yeah, it looks so much bigger than the TV.
- TV magic.
That's amazing.
That's really really cool.
And how did you ultimately start transitioning into SAS?
And what was kind of that evolution in your career?
- So after I left so many,
one of the things that I,
after the Sony from being a buyer,
traditionally being a producer,
so now I got to spend more time
just focusing on the things that I cared about.
So I produced a movie last year
with Justin Long, One More It's That's In Close Production.
- Oh, awesome.
- And then one of the things about that journey
was it's a comedy film.
And one of the reasons that the producer brought me
onto the project thought,
she was like, you're gonna be perfect for this.
Is that I am low-key obsessed with comedy.
And one of the habits that I started
when I left Sony was going to open mics
with real comedians and just doing them.
I don't think I'm a real comedian like them
'cause there's like two aspects to comedy.
There's writing the joke,
which I think maybe I can do.
But then there's like performing the joke,
which I'm like, I don't know.
(laughing)
I've done a few shows.
I've done like a some like,
bring your shows and I'm like,
I don't think this is my craft.
And when you're there with like a comedian
who's like a theater type kid who loves to perform,
then you do gotta feel like,
oh this guy, this guy, this guy.
But one of the things that happened in doing that is
I just started to get in the habit of writing more
and which is what I really wanted to do.
I remember I was playing up cat,
filling gas in the tank when you're like,
it's just go to the conversation to just do this.
I always wanted to do it.
And then I love going to a comic that I'm using this.
It's like, I almost cheated like,
the way other people treat AA means, sometimes I'm going too much,
I'm like, I have to go to a meeting,
I have to go to a open light and get something off my chest.
And I've also noticed that sometimes there've been things
that I've never been able to talk about,
even some dark things in life,
but then I'll be like,
now let me try it on stage.
And then this app also noticed that it's also good
for a moment for like,
if there is anything that I'm still like,
he having joked about that, honestly,
it's 'cause I'm too nervous.
And it's also like a kind of thing for myself,
it's like, you probably still work there.
'Cause it's like, you should, in my theory is life,
and maybe this is everyone's theory,
but in my theory is like,
you should be able to joke about literally anything.
- Yeah.
- And it should roll off of you.
And she can't do that, then you're in active pain.
That's why I call it a real life.
(laughing)
- I like that, I like that.
- You know, like, and it may not be the same
for everybody else.
- No, Olivia and I make a lot of dark jokes
on the podcast to work your ass,
- Yeah, trombas.
- Yeah, that's like, that's how you know,
and like, we have the two to what I love about,
when you go to the open mics is,
sometimes you'll joke about something that was bothering you a lot,
but then it doesn't resonate with anyone in the room,
which is humbling,
'cause then you're like, oh, literally nobody cares.
(laughing)
Or someone after you, like, I know one time,
I remember I was like complaining about something to suit.
And then the guy went on after me,
was like, what are you complaining about?
You're a film producer, like,
"Dude, I'll be on my lunch break.
I work at Target."
And his set was hilarious.
It was really good.
- I remember it was like, yeah,
like I'm probably in my head, that's what it was.
- But it's perspective.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Yeah, I love that.
So writing has been an outpouring of emotion for you.
- Yeah, I think it's like,
when you're starring in comedy,
it's a mixture of your writing,
it could eventually not say what there's rules,
but then there's also kind of like,
it's like a puzzle piece,
'cause you're trying to like get to a joke,
but also you have to tell us for you,
'cause like, and the story should be entertained,
even if there were no jokes.
So even if you didn't laugh,
I think you should kind of still be able to like,
I don't know what I enjoy it.
So I started doing that.
And once I started doing that,
I just kind of had to write it more.
And then I was like, well,
I don't know if I really want only right-spirit blade sign
to sometimes right-street blades of my own.
But I was like, there's some,
there's some like topics that I just like to write essays for.
And then I started reading,
and I think also when I was at Sony,
there was a movie, the division made it called Downtown Owl,
which is an adaptation of a novel that Chuck Clawsterry wrote.
And Chuck Clawsterry has become one of my favorite writers.
I think when they created that movie,
based on his book,
King King back up in my,
I guess just like my radar.
And so I've been reading a lot of his stuff lately,
and I like the way he writes,
he disparates himself as a generalist.
So sometimes he'll write these,
not sometimes.
So what he'll do is he'll write these really interesting pop
cultural essays.
And there'll be about all sorts of things.
There'll be about football,
it'll be about why Nerfana decided to make Inuita Rwanda,
an album, it'll be about Kirk Vandes in authentic.
- Yeah. - It'll be,
it's just like random, different things.
- Unbound. - Unbound, right.
- Love it. - And like every now and then
it'll be something like profound
and he got there, you do using something
go better or get there.
- And I love that.
I also need to go to something smart
and apply it to something a little bit.
And he just didn't take,
it's like a cool, Jeff's acquisition.
- Yeah, that's awesome.
Now I love that.
Does that kind of carry over,
you're a music producer, your composer,
like when you're creating music too?
- Yeah, I definitely think so,
because I think that I, a product of internet
and millennial, a lot of the art that I like know about
is from Wikipedia.
I just do a guy like, you know, go out with me,
and he's going to do a lot of,
do you know I find you still put
the Wikipedia game in college?
I'm also a little bit nervous.
Was I still doing, like,
60 degrees of separation with Wikipedia?
- Oh yeah.
- I love that.
- I do, I get in so many Wikipedia holes.
I'll just be laying there in bed.
And I'm like, why did I read the entire plot
of this movie I've never seen?
(laughing)
- And I think one of the things about that
where it does is maybe like, if someone,
I got my thinking always,
I'm like, maybe when my dad heard it,
he didn't hear all the context.
He just heard the music.
But now when, you know, I read about
Patty Smith's forces,
by the time I'm done with the Wikipedia album,
I have no problem more about the album.
Some people listen to the album for decades.
(laughing)
So then, and then you like,
we'll dive into the album.
And then, and like, I remember like,
what this experience looks like in real life,
like I never one time,
I was writing a list of like, best total rock albums,
which is like a term that only the music critic
is applying to music after the fact, right?
And then, and then, and then I think one time,
I said, "Protol," I used the phrase "Protol Punk"
'cause sometimes someone might work
instead of like, Patty Smith to be "Protol Punk"
not necessarily, kind of, whatever.
But I wrote something like that on the Instagram,
and they're like, "Older person in group with Patty."
So it was like, "What's?"
(laughing)
What is this phrase?
I never heard of this in my life.
- You made that up.
- Yeah, correct, correct.
So it's like, I think that's interesting.
But like, so I think, not because I've written these essays,
I kind of think about like, well,
it definitely happened in intellectualized approach to art.
So I think it's like, it's interesting,
'cause George Lucas is releasing this museum
out here called the museum,
that I remember, but he, he had said like,
well, I want to call it a museum for orphanage art,
as it's like, you know, people kind of looked down upon
where art is viewed, so I want to give it a museum
just for that.
- So I like that.
- Yeah, it's an interesting idea, but I'm wondering,
I'm like, well, that's like a definitely generational thing,
because I'm like, we've grown up consuming all sorts
of pretentious analysis of very low-brow art.
Like, I can go on YouTube and watch like a three hour dive
into the Star Wars World War,
and the person who made it is like a master's
educated person who put the museum in the USA.
So I'm like, I'm wondering, I'm like,
I feel like we have a more analytical approach
to even low-brow art than like,
we did in the past.
So I guess it's like, now I feel like,
it's not so uncommon to get like an essay,
it's like a truck pass journey.
So I've been like, what I like writing about in this is those
that, so right now, I've started getting happy
of trying to write more about the business of entertainment too,
and using LinkedIn as a way to kind of,
because my network includes a lot of executions
and like, pretty soon, kind of talking about it,
you and I say, they're, and I've found it to be
a very high experience.
You learn a lot, and sometimes there's a phrase
that Chris never gets into, which is,
sometimes you don't know what you believe
until you write it down.
Like, you kind of think you believe in certain things,
and you think you have a certain process or something,
but then sometimes when you write an essay,
you're like, do I actually play this?
Or when you're weighing your thoughts out,
you're like, is this actually gonna,
like I want to, at LA La Mena,
you talk about the Jesuit retreat sometimes.
So, 'cause it's like the Jesuit's one in the university.
- Yeah.
- So like, you talk Augustine, and so,
saying Augustine, I was like,
we have a way to argue, it's where it's,
okay, we're gonna say this, we're gonna say this,
we're gonna say this, and because we said all this,
actually the conclusions this.
I think that, and the exercise of forcing yourself
to do that and writing, I think clarifies you thinking.
So, I like that.
I think it was, oh gosh, you want to talk a low-brow.
Matt Stone or Trey Parker.
- There you go.
- That was like, right, when you're creating an episode,
like when they're creating an episode of South Park,
they want their process to go, this happens,
and therefore this happens, and therefore this happens.
- Yes.
- Instead of, you know, sometimes you watch a movie,
and you're like, instead of the therefore they do and.
And this happens, and this happens, and this happens,
and there's no, you know, conclusion,
it doesn't make sense, it has to be a therefore,
this leads to this, therefore this happens,
therefore that happens.
So, I can see that.
- That's a genius.
It's true, right?
You've got to be blessed at the gate.
That's like, that's a privilege.
- Yeah, I think about that all the time
when I watch films and you know, even television shows,
I'm like, are they just throwing things at the wall
and then and then, or is it, therefore, and therefore?
- Every now and then, and then will be an interesting movie,
every now and then, but it's like, it's not,
it's not awesome, but every now and then.
- Yeah, if it's like absurdist comedy,
it's just like, and then they do this,
and then they go there.
- Yeah, and then, and then, and then, yeah.
- What is the Academy Awards Gold Program,
and how does one become a member?
- So, you can apply to it.
I sort of applied to it.
So, when I was made an internet tummy,
it kind of went in this program
so that I was concurrently,
so I was an internet sony,
and that I was also placed into this program.
So, with the Academy Awards data was,
they did this like in the wave
when they were diversifying their body,
they diversified the voting numbers,
and then they created like a workforce pipeline
with the intention of helping to diversify the industry.
And one of the ways that they did that
were they took a ton of the interns
who were interning at different companies
all around the industry,
and while they were interning at those respective companies,
they were then meeting every week.
Yeah, a few times a week for eight weeks
at the Academy's building,
and that was a way of speeding up the networking process
of different folks in the industry.
And I'd say that like,
I don't know how, I mean,
I don't know how easy it is to get into the program,
they kind of put me into the program,
and I was like, okay, cool,
because it was like, when I was doing it,
it was like the second,
the third year that they were doing it,
it was a really good program
'cause they fed us every time, what,
which was great.
(laughing)
- Love it.
- Yeah, 'cause you were leaving like one internship
at six, going to traffic,
and you get there and you're starving,
and we were like, oh, thank God.
(laughing)
I know it was a really good program.
It goes on.
You got to like,
they got to show you different parts of the business,
different folks on the business
will come and lecture to you.
So like, you know, those are guys from Disky Day Accounting,
and you like,
open up movie magic budgeting and stuff.
This is how it was put.
You got, so it was like really hands on,
and also the relationships that you build
with that program.
They're really great.
And the other thing too is that because
there's a new class of a character in gold interns every year,
it's a very easy way for someone
like I was class at turn like day.
I could reach out to someone from 18 class
or one of the classes asked me,
"Hey, we're both in California, go."
And for the most part, they want to talk to you
'cause it kind of like, you're similar folks.
So it was like,
it's an underrated, but very ingenious thing
that we had in the academy put together,
and it was all managed by the sky.
I kept on only saying,
"You said a very sweet white man named Randy."
And he was really curious about it.
He gets a great emotional talking about it.
I haven't seen what he does.
'Cause it's a really good program.
- That's amazing.
Did you ever get to go to the Academy Awards?
- Not yet.
Some of the people who have been in the program,
they've gotten to hand out auskars and things like that
'cause did you get opportunities to do that
with the program?
You have not got yet constantly counted with.
It's on bucket list.
I guess I gotta get not.
- I'm done.
- Yeah.
- Awesome.
We are gonna take a quick break,
and then we wanna dive in with you about this James Bond essay
that you're working on.
- Oh yes.
- So, yeah, we will do that right after the break.
(dramatic music)
And we are back at the Pop Culture Junkie podcast
with our special guest, Daniel D. Boulay.
You are currently writing a essay about James Bond
for the Splice.
Tell us about that as much as you can.
- Well, this very thing is, so like,
I've been writing for him,
I guess it's like writing for the editor,
a man by name, but Jimmy,
of the Splice, which is like a UK based,
but we use publications.
And so I wrote a review for him of a leader
on Jeekel's album.
He really liked that.
And with leader on you,
this POT, he liked it too, 'cause I really loved it.
So then, and my view of it is very pretentious.
So I'm, I hope she's still using it.
(laughing)
So then, I mean, she made it easy with the cure.
But like, after I did that,
he was like, "Oh, you should do one on James Bond."
Because he had seen something I written about,
spy movies that aren't Mike James Bond.
And the funny thing is that I was saying,
it's like he picked up on an argument
that we wasn't making.
So then, like, 'cause he was like,
"Oh, you're comparing spy fiction to like high literature."
But I really wasn't comparing James Bond to Highwood,
so I was comparing it like,
and there's spy movies, "Ti-Low-Witcher."
And I was, at the time, saying that James Bond
is low literature.
It's a joke.
And so, I wrote a draft of it
that more reflected what I think is James Bond.
So now, I have to send,
I have to still finish this draft,
'cause they have to finish,
I have to finish doing the version
that he wants to read.
'Cause he was like, "I don't want my article,
"my public fiction to be so political."
But in my view of James Bond--
- Well, shit.
Yeah, share it on the pop culture drug.
- Yeah, that's it.
We love politics here.
- We love politics here.
- I know, he's, so like, in my,
and that's what I would say.
So I was like, in my view of James Bond,
he's like, proper gambler.
He's political pro gambler.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause there's a few things about the history of James Bond.
One is, so he and funny, he was a spy,
that he was a journalist.
He wasn't better than Turkey at one point.
So sometimes, and one of the things that he does
in some of his novels is he'll,
he'll like, regurgitate political talking points
that he knows are wrong.
So like, in, from Russia with love,
in the novel itself,
James Bond says something casually
about like how the communist
caused all these riots in Turkey.
But we know that that's not what happened.
That's necessary.
So it's like, the one thing that influenced me is,
it's like, he is a, he is a colonizer.
Like that was his job.
Like he was a British spy.
So there's like, yeah.
It's like, it's not even like,
all like putting a,
a U from this and one putting like a negative bias there.
Like, that's what his job was.
So there's that.
The other thing is, is that he was a journalist.
So he knew how to convey these ideas
to like the public,
in a very entertaining way.
But he sort of, I think he's sort of like a frog
because he was educated at some of the world's
best universities.
I appreciate his even educated.
So for those who don't know,
like if you're, if you're a British in college school,
even there are certain schools,
a kind of reinforced class.
So if he was going to them,
he was learning the reclassic to all these things.
But then when he came down to writing
the James Bond novels,
the James Bond novels are really for an audience.
So if we were,
if we were to contemporaries them,
they would be Brexit voters.
And like, none of those are cool that,
in my research,
at Christopher Hitch was right about James Bond once.
He was like,
James Bond just expresses massive global penis envy.
He's like, that's what James Bond is.
It's like, you have the British empire is basically irrelevant.
And so he's invented this propaganda figure
of this guy going around the world.
He's the most important person in every room,
all the little one hand,
every man lost a B.M.
And it's just like, it's all BS.
And the irony of all this is,
all of this is made with the idea of kind of
undermining America's glory and influence in the world.
So it's like, that's what James Bond is really kind of
speaking towards.
So now he's owned by Amazon.
That's like the most American thing you can have.
Yeah, it's a question.
Kind of ironic there.
When they make the next movies,
do you think they're going to make it more sympathetic
to American leanings?
Well, what I would argue is that
there's been this process between the novels
and the movies where now the movies are
district in the books in a lot of ways.
So because as James Bond is more of business
than anything else.
So there's a time for us to make
Roberto Echo.
I think it's made.
So if he kind of said that James Bond is less of a character
and we'll just say, "How are we going?"
And what he says is,
James Bond is a shoes of oppositions.
There's Bond versus Emmy, which is his boss.
There's Bond versus the villain.
There's the idea of duty versus comfort,
service versus luxury.
And he's like, "That's it."
He's like, "Nobody watches a James Bond movie
expecting a surprise.
They kind of watch it like they're watching
a basketball movie where the score is besides the point.
There's been during watching the sport of this set."
And so there's that aspect to James Bond.
And one of the things that Roberto Echo says is,
"Any time you can identify something without its creator,
that's when something becomes an algorithm,
that's when it becomes an asset."
So after you're in for like, "Dies,
we're able to kind of recreate this James Bond experience
without, 'cause it's really like a hollow creation
that he created."
'Cause one of the things that happens is,
so if in the novel,
she's writing these books for essentially a racist
and sexist misogynistic on audience.
- Yeah.
- And I think also in my view of James Bond,
you can't really separate the misogyny
from the colonizing.
I think they go hand-to-hand.
- Yeah, 100%.
- Like, 'cause he's literally just going around the world
finding it's eye-convenated to look.
And so it's like a heart to separate it.
Like even if you wanted to,
like it's kind of like,
I have to turn my brain off to the unsupervised it.
- I totally agree.
I'll watch James Bond films.
I've seen all of the Daniel Craig films,
a few of the Pierce Bros, and then ones.
You know, I'm a millennial too.
- Yeah.
- And it's so glaring that he,
you know, the wealth and the status is very important.
He's always a well-dressed, glamorous white man,
who like you said,
everyone in the room wants to be.
And that he just uses and disposes women so quickly.
Like, I was laughing at my husband and like,
you know, no one's life is shorter than that
of someone James Bond has sex with.
Like, he sleeps with you.
You are gonna die in the next 15 minutes.
Or you'll die by the end of the movie
to set forth his emotional journey for the next film.
- 100%.
And there's like, there's this interesting thing
with these movies.
So like, Daniel Craig's credit of all the actors
who played James Bond, he seems to be the one
who had the hardest time actually being James Bond.
Like, from the way he talks about it,
I'm sure like being being $100 million really helps.
(laughing)
And like, I'm sure that's why he kept doing it.
The way he would talk about,
it's so funny, like when you pay people
a lot of money, sometimes you get your bills,
just how much they don't wanna do this thing.
- Yeah.
- Like if you, like if there's an interview
that Charlie Rose gave with that George Lucas
gave of Charlie Rose, I think so as far as $4 billion.
And I don't know if I've seen a more unhappy rich person.
He's just like, like, miserable.
- To see him.
- And like, the same thing with Daniel Craig,
when he talks about James Bond, he'll be like,
I tried to make it more funny.
He's like, I don't know, I tried to make it this.
He gives these interviews,
like I tried to do this.
You could tell he's really uncomfortable
with the whole thing.
- Yeah.
- Because you have this kind of about like the Americanism
of it all.
So it's like, they have Americanized James Bond
in the sense that like, we stripped away all the things
that made the Brexit Grover kind of into James Bond
to begin with.
So then now what you're really left with
is just this idea of like a guy who likes good service,
luxury service.
And like, and then he's willing to do anything for the empire.
So it's kind of, we've, we've really stripped James Bond
of what he met because, and I thought about the space
in the room, like when you have people
having conversations like, why can't a woman be James Bond?
Why can't a minority be James Bond?
That's how deep the brainwashing goes
because if you're asking yourself,
like why can we diversify the propaganda
that we're receiving?
Then it's like, the propaganda is,
it's really working.
There's like a, a Jew walking around,
I will use this to be honest,
and it was crazy.
But it's like, you're like a Jew walking around,
like not seeing Jeremy and then saying like,
why can't more black people be on the posters?
Why can't we?
So true, Raleigh.
It's like, the idea is so ridiculous.
They're like, you really caught into this propaganda.
Yeah.
Why can't we diversify this product
that is literally rooted in racism and misogyny
and classism?
They'd be really cool if we could get a black woman in here.
Right.
It's like, you know, it's like, what are we asking?
Like, why would we want this?
And so, and one of the things I also think
that's weird about James Bond is he's different
from other franchise,
and it's because I think James Bond is true,
like an heirloom.
Like for instance, my dad introduced me to James Bond.
And I think I have some vague idea
that one day I'll introduce my own son, James Bond.
Which is like, why?
I don't care.
But it's a man's man.
Yeah, right.
It's almost like you're passing some torch
of like masculine heritins, introducing your kid
to like certain things you grew up with.
And then do this with certain, like they unconsciously do this.
But I think James Bond is a really good example of that
because I don't think other actual franchisees
are really marketed that way.
Like, I don't necessarily think my dad,
like my dad may have shown you the mission
and possible TV series because he's like,
oh, I grew up watching these.
But I feel like with James Bond because James Bond is them,
he's like recast like the Pope every so often.
It's kind of like this, like this tradition,
like you have it James Bond, I have my James Bond.
We have this together.
It's like this weird thing that they've done.
And it's so real because it's like in 2012,
when the Olympics were in London,
they had like a whole thing with Queen
and Dan O'Kraight as James Bond.
We're at the Olympic Games together in front of the world.
Talk about political propaganda right there.
Doing anything for the great empire of England.
And the fact that like those two symbols were put together
for the world like that, it means that, you know,
it implies I don't want to make too much of a meaning out of it.
But I'm like, these two symbols are almost
of equal importance to this country
because they're both just symbols that are fictional.
Like the Queen and Dan O'Kraight have a real tower,
but she means a lot to these people.
Yeah.
To the point that they're like, well, we're both,
if you ask them to get those, I'm not going to keep it.
Yeah.
And I'm like, James Bond kind of,
if he shows that same role,
and it's just kind of as a, I'm a son.
So, no.
Yeah.
Well, and it's interesting because James Bond
has kind of started it in the 1960s as this propaganda
around like capitalism versus communism.
And over time--
You mean the next of that, yeah.
--throw up the years.
Yeah, it's really moved through time based
on these economic anxieties, right?
And then now, in the later movies in the Daniel Krag movies,
it's like data capitalism, like technological oligarchies
and all of these things.
And it's not become communism versus capitalism.
It's like good capitalism versus bad capitalism.
Bad capitalism.
And the Western state, like a James Bond control,
the capitalism is the good one.
But it's not really asking itself, is there any good form
of that?
And what does that really look like when this man is incredibly
rich and he's funded by a state organization--
You literally come all this money.
Like, he's come all full circle around.
And it's like, wait, this man is rich from a government?
Are we back to communism?
Yeah.
It's true.
And the whole logic, what makes a James Bond villain
is usually there are associated with communists.
They're a feminine/honal sexual.
Or they have some type of visual, physical deformity.
So they're disabled.
So it's like, the best--
I think the best thing about villain is
our real bar down in Skyfall.
And he basically plays James Bond as a gay man.
I'd like to please you that character as a gay man.
With a physical deformity.
With a physical deformity, with his mouth and everything.
And then the cool thing about that movie--
and this is the thing about these movies--
the people making them know that the text is what our say it is.
Because then what the writers are doing,
they're trying to push the boundaries.
Because John Logan is a gay man from what I understand.
The guy who wrote the script for Skyfall, if he's not,
I apologize, but I appreciate it.
And one of the things that he wrote in that version
of the character is--
so Silvers are in S.D.A. because he flustered Bond.
And he's like, we're up and he was so gone.
And then Daniel Craig counts as like, what makes you think
this is my first time?
And so--
[LAUGHS]
And by him saying that, they're basically saying,
OK, we're going to remove this expectation
you guys have of James Bond.
Like, we're removing that, right?
Because that's how he influnds version of James Bond.
Yeah.
And by doing that, too, because Silvers
is supposed to be a mirror of Bond in that movie, because even--
he like brings to T.C.A.L.S. and Mother, right?
So it's supposed to be like these weird sibling
rivalry.
He took a different path, but started at the same beginning.
Yeah.
Right.
So these writers are trying to like,
push the boundaries of what they can get away with in this text.
And it happens a little bit every time.
But I think what happens is one more you realize it, like,
well, then why am I participating in this?
You know, it's like once the point, it's not like Shakespeare.
It's like, there's a reason to kind of keep participating
when they keep changing the updating Shakespeare.
I don't necessarily know if there is as profound a reason
for us to keep participating in James Bond.
Yeah.
But we keep doing it.
I know.
And when they--
I remember that controversy when Daniel Craig's bond quits.
And they give the 007 number to a black woman.
Yes.
And oh gosh, the headlines were 007.
It's a black woman now, right?
And just the uproar that caused.
Right.
Yeah.
And you watch the movie and it's like she got the code number.
Yeah.
That was underrated.
That was pretty good.
Because I think--
Yeah.
That's right.
I like it.
That's the hard part about this.
It pulls us in.
Yeah.
I would say that the thing is, is the writing of--
like Ian Flunny's not the world's best writer.
And even his wife said that, she would make fun of this business.
She loved being rich, but she would make fun of these clothes.
She would be like--
like she would make fun of the fact that the characters
named Monty Canny and Pussy Gollar--
she thought this was a bad tarot.
Like her and then the near friends, their high society
friends, they were like, this guy is like right
to low grow literature.
And he only taught the influnny.
He would say, I don't consider James Bond to be like little
Jill of the cap or L. So he kind of knew
he was like making this product.
And it's so-- he's just like speaking so much money.
But I think one of the things that the movies have done
is the movies have really elevated this character.
Because in addition to making all these changes,
where the massager is racism, massager is wrong for me.
The other thing that they've done is they've massaged
the classes of James Bond.
Because James Bond is described to be a kind of eaten,
educated commander or a commander bond.
That's who he's supposed to be.
But when you cast Sean Connery as James Bond,
you're casting a working class colonized subject
of the British Empire, which immediately
changes the nature of that character.
Because it's like you're selling an image of the rich
to the world that isn't real because he is a working class man.
So it's like a kind of class, transmutation is occurring.
But then they kept doing that.
Like when they cast Roger Moore, I'm
pretty sure Roger and Moore and Timothy Dalton,
they're like, well, sure, something of that nature.
They are people who live on the margins of the British Empire.
- British society. - Yeah.
And the funny thing is that Ian's lonely
because he's such a capitalist.
When he saw that people love Sean Connery,
he just kind of evolved the character
through a time match with their scene and the movies.
- Interesting.
- So so many things happen.
So by the time we're getting James Bond now,
which I think is our cool thing with myths and geoboacidas
with the Odyssey, right?
And all adaptation of us,
and after a while, people aren't just adapting the text.
They're like adapting their interpretations of it.
And then people's interpretations of it,
all the conversations had around it.
- Yeah, well, who scored best at the box office?
Who is everyone's favorite poll and their favorite bond?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So the deal.
We get, they've like, it's hard to resist
'cause that the crowd for what they do is they hire great artists
to kind of bring this to life.
And so it's like James Bond,
it has some of the best cinematic sequences you will see in film.
Just 'cause they have a lot of money,
but also the way they've drawn, at least at the last time.
Who knows what I'm talking about, too.
But the way that the broccoli family,
the Wilson family, the East of these movies together,
I remember one guy at LMU, finally enough.
One of the people who produced the Bond films,
their daughter went to LMU.
And so like one of the theaters is named like
the Barbarale of Rock Leads Theater,
or something like that.
But one of the Michael G. Wilson produced the Bond movie.
So he came to our school to talk to us,
and he explained how the company works.
And he's like, well, we teach these people
the production people.
He said, we teach them on payroll all throughout the year.
And they're designing things for us and things of that nature.
So it's like, and you realize like,
huh, that's how these movies are put together.
You know, like, ever breathing, ever growing.
Yeah.
Like somebody already knows who the new Bond is.
They just haven't told us yet.
But they're well in that.
It is.
I wonder who this is.
As of like next year, it'll be the longest stint
without a new bond or like the longest pause
if we make it past next year.
So it'll be an interesting time to see,
like, have we evolved past it, have like audiences?
Or are we really looking into it?
I mean, they have a lot of rumors.
I was still hoping for an Idris Elba,
but I don't think we're ever going to get it.
I know.
I thought it would have been amazing.
No, no, no, no.
I don't think we're ever going to get it.
You know, what a bit of a reason.
Yeah, at this point, at this point, you should say that.
That would be sick.
I bet it's going to be Aaron Taylor Johnson.
He's young and British and handsome.
I like to be able to shirt off.
I don't like his wife, but I like him.
Oh, that's hilarious.
That's hilarious.
She's a filmmaker.
She's an excellent movie.
Yeah, she's a filmmaker and a very controversial woman.
I think she directed the first 50 shades of the gray, right?
She did.
She also did nowhere for us with Aaron Taylor Johnson
when he was 17.
Yes, when he was a small little baby, but Squirrel.
I know.
I think it'll be really.
Yeah.
It'll be interesting.
Like you said, just you were Amazon does with it and has, you know, Daddy Bezos' claws
in there.
It'll be interesting.
I mean, it's when they say it'll be the longest church because it's like, I guess,
well, you used to be the longest church.
Ironically, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah, there was like when the Berlin Wall came down, there was like the lot.
That was the last longest church between the V's because they kind of had to figure
out like, well, what is Bond supposed to be now if he's not kind of fight kind is a.
Yeah.
What's his answer?
Yeah.
And what they kind of did was, maybe I'm curious if they were, but in the James Bond movies,
you kind of get a precursor to the one we talked about the War on Terror.
So when we talk about the War on Terror and we talk about these kind of, these international,
like what does Osama Belon, Osama Belon is this international,
gay man who has access to always crazy resources and he's held bent on world domination threatening
our western way of life, but he also exists outside of any government.
So, you know, which which which is financial middleman is the bad guy.
Yeah.
Financial terrorist.
Yeah.
And the book, he man that we can all unite against.
Correct.
And I don't have to be a country anymore.
He could just be like, he's a super villain essentially.
And so I feel like, yeah, I feel like there's definitely some type of closer relationship
there than I'm dry.
I feel like there's a lot of these are the, but it's interesting that like after the Cold War,
these are the villains that James Bond is kind of going up against.
And this is now how we talk about geopolitics.
He's framing them all those in the, like, a language that we've experienced in movies.
And with some person like, that's definitely conscious because he's like a team.
Yeah.
And I mean, he's a jackass in an idiot.
So he doesn't.
Yeah.
He knows movies.
He's like, I read this in a, you know, I've told us in a movie once.
That's where he draws his knowledge, quote, quote, from his, yeah, what he's seen in movies
and what he sees like a cool dictator do or a cool sexy rich guy do.
Yeah.
Sure, it's just what he thinks of poor persons ideal in each person.
Exactly.
That's why everything spray paint and gold.
Yes.
It's like if you're a poor person, that you will understand this as well, but like real
person, real rich person.
So I don't know.
Yeah.
So you got that at home, deep, oh man.
Yeah, exactly.
So I mean, so that was the, that was kind of what I came up on with James Bond.
And like at the end of it, I kind of liked him a lot less than intellectually like him
a lot less.
Yeah.
Enjoy some of these movies.
I don't think I ever, I don't think like that idea that I have like one day I'll introduce
that on it.
It'll be so cool.
Kind of like when I was a kid, they sent this fight to you and marathon over all these
days, all of all the James Bond movies.
Yeah.
I'm like, I don't think I'll ever do that.
That's like the channel for men.
Yeah.
That was the channel for men.
And now it's time.
Yeah.
But my aunt show.
Yeah.
I remember being like marketed as like the channel for men.
I was like, Oh, I guess I can't watch any of this.
I don't know.
I'm going to see.
But it's something.
Yeah.
I'm going to fight.
I remember like the end of the whole awards ceremony one time to honor fight club within
the old red and negative reviews.
I'll fight club at the awards and I get to be a man.
As a man's will.
Yeah.
So if you were going to show a child some of your favorite movies someday before we close
out this episode, well, what would some of the favorite movies be?
Right.
That's a good question.
I haven't thought about that before.
What I think I thought about it because I thought about this recently in terms of a lot of
difficulties where we talk about it just with dating.
Like, a lot of people do carry morals and like lessons of how they want their life to
go from movies more than they realize.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Like, and like Chuck Austin, he has this quote at the end of this his, his, his, the
book that has a lot of essays called eating the dinosaur and, and it's called that because
he's like the only good use for time machines to go back in time to eat a dancer.
Just for you.
But he says something where he says he says like a lot of times the things that we want, we
don't really want them.
We say we want them because we think that if we tell people we want these things, we
think it will impress them.
And like sometimes when you have the family who are talented, you're not a chief of thing,
that person actually doesn't want to be around joining one.
But what they do want to get around is a person who seems to want things.
And I'm like, how that's very interesting.
And so then a lot of like what you are told to walk just comes from movies and TV shows.
It would be like even, even down to like, I want a man who can do this from you.
Like, I want to want to want to do this like this.
It's like, well, this is just, you saw this on TV, which is so constructed.
And so you can like spend a little bit of your whole life.
Married with children.
Yeah.
I don't want that.
Or friends.
Like you'll say, like, I should be living in a apartment like friends.
And like, well, this is an unreality for all of us.
No one lives in a department.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
So it's like, so lately I've been thinking about like, okay, well, we kind of take a lot of
lessons from movies subconsciously and I really got away.
So if I had to show a movie, I mean, you have to show movies, you should get kids movies
because you're actually born baby.
Yeah.
Probably bandy, probably bandy.
There you go.
Okay.
There you go.
Probably teacher 50.
But there's like, but there's like, but there's one movie that I think like, okay, it'll probably
park a person be a good person.
Huh.
There is a moon like this.
Well, maybe she'll help you.
I'll say she'll help you.
Because my girlfriend, my dad is a minister.
And so like, I used to always show him, I guess, gay propaganda to kind of get him to see
the light.
Yeah.
I love that.
The one that worked on him the most was sure a little.
I know it was that because because Denzel plays a homophobic not movie.
Okay.
But his, his arc is that his arc is interesting.
Like Denzel by the end of the movie is not necessarily like the most reformed person,
but he's reformed enough to know that he's wrong.
Yeah.
So, to see the decency in humanity and other people.
Yeah.
Because in Tom Hanks, like, Tucker Stan Hanks plays for people in the Donald Philadelphia.
He's about Tom Hanks as a guy who has HIV.
And this is back in back in the 19th and 19th.
We're having that was a little bit more stigmatized than now.
And so he's in proper be fired.
But he's like a brilliant, so try to remember like a brain attorney.
And so our doctor, he said some women type of person.
So then he hires essentially who's an ambulance chase Eric Denzel Washington.
Because no one else wants to take on this case.
And then the Washington sees this as an opportunity.
It's really a homophobic.
We still take to high any words for selfish reasons.
And then by knowing to, by impingling him, he can realize that he's wrong.
Yeah.
So I think that's probably a movie you could probably show a kid and go walk away with some
good lessons.
That's a great choice.
Damn.
I like that.
That's a good answer.
No James Bond here.
No, no, no.
Not just true that.
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Daniel.
When does your essay come out and where can everyone read it once it does?
It'll be on the splice.co.inq.
And it should be in the next two months.
It should be in the next month or so.
I have to finish this.
Hopefully we got your brain, brain move in there.
Yeah, we're on top of it.
Sometimes.
Yeah, I mean, there's going to be a, there's going to be, I probably will release, I guess,
on my website when I'm done a choral, choral director's cart version of it.
Because I, I got like really indulgent.
But some of the parts where I got indulgent, I'm like, they were really well written.
Um, because it's like, I'm Caribbean.
So like the first James Bond takes place in Jamaica.
And then the other thing is that there's aspects where, you know, James Bond has taken
place in Turkey, Ian Fleming was a Turkish spy.
And then there's a story that I kind of leaked together, which is like the story that we
Mark Anthony, broccoli, a patriotic turkey.
She looked at the beach and said, like, I don't like it.
And so then he trucked in sand to replace the sand there.
But the funny thing about us, and that, that story is that they do do that in the Caribbean.
So like in the Caribbean, there's like my mom grew up on an island called St Vincent.
And because they have volcanoes, they have black sand.
And when the tourists and when they come to the resorts, they're expecting to be just to
look at how it looks like in James Bond looking.
And so then they will truck in white sand from other islands to give them a solution.
And so like I was going to always like segue.
And I'm like, he's interesting.
So that's not what I'm talking about.
It's interesting.
You mentioned your website.
What is your website and what is your social media handle?
Yes.
So my website is my name.com.
So it's danieldeboulay, that's d-e-b-o-u-l-a-y.com.
And I'm on threads.
My last name, d-e-b-o-u-l-a-y.mxf.
And so the show knows out there.
They'll know what mxf means.
It's a very, very lucky niche.
They're in term and she'll be.
Love it.
Olivia, where can the listeners find you online?
And you can find me on Instagram @livimariez l-i-v-i-m-a-r-i-e-z.
You can find me, Shauna Trinidad, on Instagram and threads @shaunatrinidad, s-h-a-u-n-a-t-r-i-n-i-d-a-d.
And of course you can find us at our website, popculturejunkie.com.
That's where you can access our podcast on all platforms along with our social media
links, blog posts, and the popculture junkie store.
And a way to contact us.
Join our Pop Culture Junkie online support group on Facebook.
We want to hear from you there and all your pop culture opinions.
And please take a second to follow, subscribe, rate, and review the show.
It truly makes a difference.
And we would love it if you could join our Patreon.
Every subscription helps us bring you more great episodes like this one.
You can find us at patreon.com/popculturejunkiepodcast
Sign up for an uncensored sneak peek at our next episode or get a personal shout out from
both of us.
And come back next week for another hit of pop culture.
The Pop Culture Junkie podcast is produced by Cheryl Lightfoot for the Pop Culture Entertainment
Network.
So why don't you take me and I take me right now.
I need it better, I need it better.
Cause I need it better, I need it better.
[Music]