Kill James Bond! - S3E17.5: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion [PREVIEW]

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Okay okay okay, how about a fun one. I know the Card Counter and To The Bone were heavy, and you've all been so good. With the state of the world as it is, maybe we just need to watch a 1997 comedy about two best friends who want to impress their small-town high school. ------ FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. Give money to people crowdfunding for passage out of Rafah first and foremost, then purchase ESIMs, then donate to this link if you feel you need a big name attached to the fund to trust it. Please don't only donate money. You have to do other things now. https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate ----- Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ WEB DESIGN ALERT  Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/   Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com

Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood. Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Kill James Bond. It's girls night! That's right. YAY! Oh my god! I am November Kelly, I'm joined as always by my besties, Abigail, Thorne, and Devon. Hey!

Hi! My BFFs. Oh my god! And we're watching, this is my pick, and because like, Avi, like, at the time of recording this I knew you had like a heavy week, right? And so, to support you, as a BFF, I brought you the blondest, most American film about the power of friendship ever made. This is perfect.

This is like I dreamed a movie. This is, this is a wonderful movie. Thank you. I really appreciate this actually. Oh it's my pleasure. It's Romeo and Michelle's high school reunion. You wanted to do some like really serious shit and I was like can we do a silly one? I've been going through it. We like I had to sit down right and I was like I was in crisis mode because I'm like do I like any films that are fun to watch? I was doing the same thing! We were in the chat just desperately trying to spin up fun movies, like, oh my god, is

there anything out there? Do I like anything that's like, enjoyable? Like, oh fuck. My first suggestion, by the way, before you told me that was The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant? Which is- Yes. And verbatim you went, is that a fun movie? Which-

I think I said, is that a silly one? And you were like, no. Yeah, ask me in like, three weeks time, you know? When hopefully we're on a bit more of an even kill. It's coming. This is a movie that I really like, it's like a 90s comedy, and it has a lot of the things that make 90s comedies problematic, but it also has a lot of heart, and I think it's a really sweet movie.

Yeah. So, on that basis, you know? It seems like they had fun making this, which I love. Yeah, I believe. 100%. And it's about being transgender, so. It's 100%. Because Eleven hadn't been invented yet.

So it has to be. It was in the 90s! They only knew how to make movies about being transgender! This movie ends with the sort of plain whoosh from the end of Charlie Wilson's war. Yes, which we formally believe every movie made before 2000 should. Yes, yes. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's a story about two best friends, and about being unhappy in high school,

maybe. So we begin in Venice Beach, California. We have a very colourful opening, because girls is when you're colourful, masculinity is when you're black and white, as we learned from the card counter. Yes. It's true. And another thing girls is, is when you're watching movies and making fun of them with your friends.

Making fun of other girls, specifically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we go to this apartment on the beach, in Venice Beach, it's lovely. I never do that. I leave that to you. Uh huh, yeah, your heroes are like, purely advisory, you know? Just like, I have a serious point to make here. God, no, I don't!

These two girls, Romy and Michelle, Romy Mirasolvino and Michelle Lisa Kudrow, sitting in their like, haze code separate beds, watching the movie Pretty Woman, and making fun of it. This is exactly how we record, except there's three haze code beds. It's like three single beds with like a foot and a half in between them. And we're all watching Pretty Woman on like a CRT TV and going... Or a holding hand. Yeah. Well I have read the words ideal existence in all caps here because- Yeah. Be like, ah, ha ha ha.

Well I have read the words ideal existence in all caps here because... Yeah, it's great, isn't it? They live on Venice Beach in this really nice flat, fuck knows how they afford this. Venice Beach! They live on the beach! On the actual beach! They dress up, they talk about diets, they compliment each other, they're like, you look cute, no, you look cute, no, we both look cute, and then they hit the club, and I'm like, this is like I've died and gone to heaven. This is all I

want. I have a drop even, like the drops in this by the way have a problem, which is that like every movie in the 90s just kept the music going at a low volume throughout all the dialogue, so I apologize in advance, but I wrote this, I wrote down, because I heard this line. I can't believe how cute I look. I wrote down, because I heard this line. I can't believe how cute I look. I know. You know what? This is like the cutest we've ever looked. Oh, it's definitely the cutest. AGP. It's AGP as f***.

This is all of it. This is the whole thing. This is the whole movie. They're genuinely just like, isn't it so nice how we can say that and like, no we're not being conceited? We just actually are the best we've ever looked. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah. This reminds me of something I never ended up saying, but my outfit for the second live show, the one with the black stirrups, whatever the fucking call, and the denim jacket. When I was planning that out, I said to Bec, I was thinking about doing that, and she was like,

oh, I don't know if black and denim really go together all that well. And my verbatim response to that was like, yeah, but I feel like I'm sort of like a generational talent at looking good. And I fucking am, and I did as well. So I fucking owned that one. Fuck it, absolutely. Yeah. yeah. Nailed it, yeah. Also, black and denim don't go together. I think cowboys have something to say about that. I think Orville Peck, the second Orville Peck reference consecutively. Think about Orville Peck a lot.

This is the ideal existence, this is what I wanted, is to be a twenty-something blonde American woman in Venice Beach in 1997 doing absolutely nothing. This is all I've ever wanted. Yes. Living with your equally blonde, equally cute best friend. Yes. And just kind of like gassing each other up. On one cashier's salary. Yeah.

Exactly. One solid, you know, single income, no kids. Obviously. Yeah. Like we learned it. So like, Romy is a cashier and like Lisa Cudor is just completely unemployed and they have this apartment on the beach. And I'm like, how the fuck have you done this? Like LA is like $10 a coffee. How are you managing this? Nowadays. This is set in a parallel universe where socialism was like, you know, invented very early in the United States. The Romy and Michelle live in like the people's Republic of council. They live in a rent controlled flat on Venice Beach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Astonishing. Miracilvino Romy is the one with the kind of like, deep voice and the like, comedy Philadelphia accent, like, Philly Jersey accent. Was that her accent? Oh, I quite liked the sound of it. Yeah, I think it's really cute, actually. Sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted.

Start to finish, actually. And I noticed that way too early in the movie. And I was like, oh fuck! Whereas conversely, like, Lisa Kudrow is like dialing up the Californian as Michelle. I see, I thought Mira might be a sort of stealth Brit, because those Rs are very, very bitten into. And I was like, oh, you, you a stealth Brit? It's Philly. It's Philadelphia. Okay, yeah, I thought it sounded familiar, actually. They're also looking through their wardrobe and it is nothing I was like, oh, you a stealth Brit? That's Philadelphia. Okay, yeah, I thought it sounded familiar, actually.

NARESH They're also looking through their wardrobe and it is nothing but, like, cool dresses start to finish, they're like, ah, got nothing to wear. I'm like, this is me, this is me. ALICE It's all rainbow colours too, because girls just weren't colours, you know? NARESH Yeah, well they make their own dresses, that's part of why they talk about this, cause they're like, oh my god, I got nothing to wear and no time to make anything either. The ideal existence.

So they go to the 90s club, my soul note here is that at 3 minutes 56 into the movie a guy with the funniest hat, perfectly 9-11s the front of my brain, he's wearing a kind of like a clown top hat, just to the club, he's in the background of a shot. Check this out for the 90s club fits, but also at this point we have to establish, to my great regret, they are not gay. Obviously they're gay. Which I was like, what do you mean they're not gay? ALICE Okay, so Camp is about adopting a movie as

gay even when it says that it isn't, because you don't believe it. RILEY It's insisting that they're not gay, and I'm like, yeah, straight up, yes you are. I don't believe you. You are literally gay. I think the lady doth protest too much. We have to get the like, 90s lesbophobia in, but it's done, it's done as comedy, right, because what Romi says is like, just the thought of having sex with another woman creeps me out.

Which, okay. Well, the thing is, Michelle goes, do you wanna try having sex one time, just the thought of having sex with another woman creeps me out. Which, okay. GARETH Well, the thing is, Michelle goes, do you want to try having sex one time, just to see if we like it? And she goes, the thought of having sex with another woman creeps me out, and then pauses, clearly thinking about it, and is like, you know what, ask me again when we're 30 if we're still single. ALICE Which is in two years, like... SONIA Yeah, cause the context of this is that they're

looking for boyfriends, they don't have boyfriends, they're single, and then at one point I think Romi says, I wish I were a lesbian. Which prompts Lisa Kudrow to be like, do you wanna have sex and see if we like it? That line only works some of the time. It's kind of nice that like, Lisa Kudrow at least is like, if we were it'd be fine, like maybe we would? Like, okay cool. Yeah, absolutely. YeahICHOLAS Yeah.

They're in California! ALICE Yeah. They dance together and they have like a whole involved dance in this club which is like, perfectly choreographed. Yeah, it's really cute. NICHOLAS Yeah, they just like, pre-rehearsed dance sequence, it's really sweet actually. NICHOLAS It shows us like, 50 men that show like,

all of their faces and everything, I just feel like, ah, there's no guys in this club. ALICE No guys?! NICHOLAS There's no guys in this club. No guys? There's no guys? It's so hard to find. It's so crazy. See, I thought this movie was gonna... Because this moment happened in the first five minutes, for a brief moment I believed that this movie was gonna be about them realizing that they're gay.

Oh, it'd be a better movie, is the thing. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's about as much as I can let you listen to right now. You fucking freeloader. But do not fear if you go to Patreon.com slash kill James Bond, or one word and sign up today for five pounds a month, five pounds a month. That's like nothing nowadays. Getting a coffee is like 15.

You know, if you leave the house it costs you 25 pounds. 5 pounds a month for two beautiful, sexy, informative podcasts with your friends? I don't know, it feels like a no-brainer to me. I don't know.