Raven On Podcast

Nat & Stu are joined by guest Scott Driscoll to dive into Roger Moore's final outing as 007, A View to a Kill. It's a puzzling film, with good ingredients such as Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, and that banging Duran Duran theme, but still ends up a bit... soggy... thanks to a confusing plot featuring horse racing, Nazi experiments and microchips. Enjoy!

In this bonus mini-episode, Natalie reveals to Stu that the fight co-ordinator on "Never Say Never Again" was none other than Steven Seagal. That prompts a merry wend through the now-faded action star's bulky filmography. That's literally it. It's just Seagal Talk. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Never say we don't do anything for you! Ahhh, you see what we did there. Yes, Nat & Stu have taken a sharp detour to put Sean Connery's non-canonical return film "Never Say Never Again" through its deeply weird paces. How does it stand up next to Octopussy, the other film of the Year of Two Bonds? Your delightful pair get excited about the fabulous Fatima Blush (or is that Bush?), detour into psychic encounters for... reasons, and talk all things hairpieces and colonics, which feature far more in this film than you might remember. Enjoy!

We mentioned in the main Octopussy podcast that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator of Fleabag, had been brought in to do a script punch-up on No Time To Die. Well, did you know that our very special guest co-host, Tom Salinsky, was there at the very beginning of the Fleabag story?! Check out this mini-pod bonus to hear all about it, plus a few of Tom's other Bond connections.

Nat & Stu are back and have brought special international corresBondent Tom Salinsky with them for a deep dive into Octopussy, oo-er. The 1983 film saw the return of Roger Moore to ensure a good turnout against the long-touted Kevin McClory Thunderball remake "Never Say Never Again", which was also released the same year. It's full of exotic locales, daring action sequences and terrible jokes. There's also an over-abundance of villains with Octopussy, Kamahl Khan and General Orlov all in the OTT mix. Oh yeah, and Bond is in clown makeup, which Tom believes he can defend. Lots to discuss in this episode, so enjoy!

Wait a second, this isn't James Bond! Well-spotted, keen-eyed detectives - this is in fact a "filler" podcast, recorded to give Natalie a chance to catch up on her James Bond writing and editing. Thank you for your patience! Nat & Stu are joined by guests Dan Beeston and Tom Salinsky for a VERY deep dive into 2005 film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the broader Hitchhiker's universe. There's also side tangents involving Hamilton, Monty Python, and Natalie's Dad's new Netflix obsession. Enjoy!

Welcome to the Eighties, the decade that brought you your hosts, Nat & Stu! Bond comes back down to Earth in "For Your Eyes Only", investigating a plot to hijack a British missile tracking system and sell it off to the Soviets. There's more ski chasing, the two-faced villain Kristatos, the heart-of-gold smuggler Columbo, a smart and deadly Bond girl in the form of avenging Greek/British goddess Melina Havelock, and a deeply unsettling B-plot featuring a teenage girl's sudden and intense desire to jump a 007 old enough to be her father. For Your Eyes Only has risen in appreciation over the years, but is it enough to convince Nat & Stu to give it a good ranking? Enjoy!

What do you mean, Nat & Stu diverged into Disney discussions when they should have been talking about For Your Eyes Only? With their reputation? Well yes, it was bound to happen. Excised for time, here's what happened when Natalie went off on the Disney films she hasn't seen, which turned into a dissection of the Aladdin stage musical, and finally Hamilton. This was recorded a couple of days before the filmed stage production of Hamilton dropped on Disney on July 3. It's worth a watch while you wait for the main For Your Eyes Only pod (a shabby attempt to equate ourselves with the greatness of Lin-Manual Miranda).

Oh, so you think Star Wars is good? Well, did it have any actual sexy times in space? No? Not even one space sex pun? Then clearly the Bond franchise made a good choice in sending its superspy up above the stratosphere. Nat & Stu are joined by special guest Eloise Dundas-Taylor to discuss Moonraker, the most expensive and expansive 007 film to date - even if there are rather a lot of similarities to The Spy Who Loved Me. From gondola hovercrafts, to a batshit plan to create a master race in outer space, to the return of Jaws, your three analysts have it covered. Enjoy!

Would you believe Nat & Stu spoke for three hours about The Spy Who Loved Me? You would? Yeah, it checks out. Anyhoo, here's an extra bit of content about the film that was cut for time, in which Natalie goes through the copious notes she took while watching one of her fave Bond films.

Things get raunchy as Nat & Stu dive deep into one of the best films of the Bond franchise, with Natalie discovering hitherto unknown levels of thirst for Roger Moore's Bond. 2020 is bringing up all sorts of surprises. Your intrepid culture vultures pick over the delicious meat that is The Spy Who Loved Me, including the amazing Triple X, the gloriously ridiculous lair of creepy fish-man Stromberg, the fantastic Lotus Esprit (underwater model), and the mighty menace that is Jaws. The film was so much fun to discuss, a lengthy bit has been chopped out to form a follow up podcast, so keep your eyes out. Enjoy!

Roger Moore's round two is routinely rubbished - but what say Nat & Stu? Can the presence of Dracula and Saruman himself, Christopher Lee, raise the bar? What are the optics and/or politics of having a little person as a henchman? Are the women underserved by the script, or is it just bad acting? Did this film tank solar energy in the popular mind?And how good is that kung fu fight scene? These and many more discussion points are raised in this super-flared edition of Raven Bond. Enjoy!

Why IS Natalie so obsessed with James Bond? That's what guest host Dan Beeston wanted to know during the Live and Let Die podcast. For time purposes, we excised it from the main pod, but here it is as bonus content. Enjoy!

Nat & Stu don their flared safari suits to welcome Roger Moore to the role of James Bond in 1973's Live and Let Die. The pair is joined by Dan Beeston from the Smart Enough to Know Better podcast to talk about the first Bond film that had a predominantly African-American cast, but also a heavy tread into blaxsploitation territory. Along the way, Solitaire has a problematic love scene, Bond has a lengthy boat chase, Kananga explodes in several ways, and Bondfind out what it's like to wear Crocs. Enjoy!

Sean Connery returns for his final canonical appearance as 007 in the first Bond film of the 1970s, and it's a diamond-encrusted doozy. There's Plenty O'Toole-ing about with Nat & Stu as they chat about why Connery came back, the numerous memorable set pieces, the somewhat problematic henchmen Mr Wint & Mr Kidd, and Tiffany Case's tiny pants. Natalie also invents the term "Flying Gusset", so that's a thing. Enjoy!

Holy podcast filler, Batman! It's Nat and Stu, the caped crusaders of pop culture communications! Yes, because they rambled on waaaay too long about Diamonds Are Forever, Nat has excised two chunks of chat in which she and Stu randomly decide to do a Batman podcast after James Bond; and also talk about the infamous "Snyder Cut" of Justice League. There's also a concluding anecdote about going to see Heaven's Gate which is thankfully much shorter than that notorious flop film. This won't be in the full DAF podcast, but it still somewhat fun, if you like Batman and that sort of thing. Enjoy!

By George (Lazenby), it's a new James Bond! Nat & Stu are joined by journalist and film buff Nick Wiggins to discuss the strange parcel that is 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. There's the marvellous Diana Rigg, the enigmatic Telly Savalas, the brazen editing and special effects - and of course, the Boy from Queanbeyan himself in his only Bond outing. Enjoy!

It's time for James Bond to make like 1980's one-hit wonders The Vapors - he's "Turning Japanese". Yes, your hosts Nat & Stu, two very white people, grapple with the incredibly uncomfortable plot twist of You Only Live Twice that sees 007 disguised as a Japanese man. Natalie tries to find explanations in the differences between the book and film, while Stu is mostly horrified. There's also a bunch of fun stuff in this movie, including the first appearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his massive volcano lair, Little Nellie the gyrocopter, and a ninja training school. Enjoy!

Once again, Nat & Stu are recording long podcasts for the James Bond retrospective, which means some necessary cutting. But this was a fun 10 minutes which we thought it worth sharing as its own little teaser. A discussion of the depiction of Bond's two Japanese female leads as relatively "innocent" (which will be in the main podcast), Natalie started reminiscing about Beyonce's casting in Goldmember, which leads her and Stu down a rabbit hole in which they discover Billie Eilish's new theme for No Time To Die has actually been released, and somehow they missed it. So they listen to it, and react accordingly. Plus there's some Shirley Bassey in there for good measure. Enjoy!

Nat & Stu bring the thunder this week to discuss the fourth film in the franchise and it's "biggest" to date (certainly in terms of length), Thunderball. With Natalie still emotionally bonded to this movie, it's up to Stu to explain just how overly long and in need of an edit it is. There's some wibbley-wobbley-timey-wimey stuff happening as well, despite Bond most definitely being on the clock to retrieve two stolen nuclear weapons. Still, there's a lot of fun with SPECTRE, some very beautiful ladies, some very blatant sexual harassment, and Stu's delight in discovering the jetpack in the pre-credit sequence was in fact real. Also, at 46.20 mark you may just hear Natalie's best-ever quip. She's certainly proud of it. Enjoy!