Kill James Bond's SCUM ratings

The podcast Kill James Bond has a science-based rating system for rating the James Bond movies. Here are the SCUM ratings for them, collected from the ends of the podcasts. The ratings are "out of 007", higher being worse, with the maximum score in principle being 28.

^† From Russia With Love had a tech­nical prob­lem, and the ori­gi­nal re­cor­ding for the SCUM ra­tings was lost. The SCUM rating of 3+5+2+6=16 was given by Devon in the last 1½ minutes of the epi­sode, in an after­wards-recorded seg­ment. How­ever, in later episodes, From Russia With Love is referred to as having a score of 19, so something is off somewhere. (For example, in the Diamonds are Forever episode, at 1:26:50, a score of 19 is calculated for DAF, "equal to From Russia With Love".) On the KJB official site the scores here in the table above are given also, adding up to 16, but no total is mentioned.

In episode 22 (The Rock, 1996) a new scoring system, GIRTH, was introduced, and it's later used from episode 28 (The Bourne Identity) onwards, for non-Bond films. Sadly, it is then aban­doned in favor of SCUM; a decision I under­stand but don't agree with.

For S2E11 (Jennifer's Body) no score for misogyny could be settled on, so scoring was abandoned for that particular film. For S2E14 (One Spy Too Many) there was some discussion on the Smarm score; initially given 4, then downgraded to 3, but eventually counted as 4 for the total.

S3E8 (Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell) was specifically awarded a smarm score of "4, but in a weird font". In S3E23 (Thunderball with No Notes), Abi gave a total score of 16, with the misogyny score being 5, but I double checked and misogyny was rated at 6.

Awards for the Kron­steen Ro­set­te and the Good­night Cross

Season 1

1. Dr. No: Not a thing yet.
2. From Russia With Love: Kronsteen! From what I heard not nominated yet, but made his appea­rance one. Maybe I missed the nomi­nation in the re-listen.
3. Goldfinger: The first nomination, for "under­appreci­ated henchman and villain": Oddjob.
4. Thunder­ball: Fiona Volpe was mentioned once, but no "official" nomi­nations.
5. You Only Live Twice: Tiger Tanaka.
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service: No nomination?
7. Diamonds are Forever: No nomination?
8. Live and Let Die: No nomination?
9. The Man With The Golden Gun: The Kronsteen Rosette, for a villain who went "above and beyond in the line of duty": the second karate guy that Bond fights, Chula. Lazar was also nominated for the Rosette, but didn't win. The Goodnight Award, "the ally version of the Kronsteen Rosette", goes to Mary Goodnight.
10. The Spy Who Loved Me: Kronsteen Rosette goes to Naomi. Goodnight Cross almost went to General Gogol, but was given to "that young-ass lieutenant who im­medi­ately gets killed".
11. Moonraker: Kronsteen Rosette almost went to "the pilot who is like: yeah, I'm just gonna fire one shot into the altimeter of this plane and jump out of it and everything that happens after that is your fault", but ended up going to "the coffin guy". The Goodnight Cross went to "the woman who can't read", Corinne Dufour.
12. For Your Eyes Only: Kronsteen Rosette went to Apostis, who "instead of just getting some help, decided to absail down the side of a mountain and perso­nally kick Bond's clim­bing anchors out of the wall himself". The Good­night Cross went to Bunky, who got "fucking obli­terated at baccarat".
13. Octopussy: The Kron­steen Rosette goes to Gobinda, because there are no other villains worthy of it. The Good­night Cross goes to Vijay.
14. Never Say Never Again: No nomination.
15. A View to a Kill: The Kronsteen Rosette went to "the guy at the mine who makes Bond wear a hardhat". The Goodnight Cross went to Tibbit.
16. The Living Daylights: The Kronsteen Rosette went to Brad Whitaker's sergeant, who was so under­appreci­ated he wasn't even mentioned until this point. The Goodnight Cross went to the otherwise-anonymous MI6 agent-butler who was protecting the safehouse Koskov was in, Green 4.
17. Licence to Kill: The Kronsteen Rosette went to the accountant, Truman-Lodge. The Good­night Cross went to Sharkey.
18. GoldenEye: The Kronsteen Rosette went to Ourumov's driver. The Goodnight Cross went to Zukovsky's goon who replies sincerely to the question "do you know how long winters in Russia are?"
19. Tomorrow Never Dies: The Kronsteen Rosette was given as a joint award this time: firstly, to "the guy who touches the elec­trified car for the third time", and secondly, to "the pilot who tries to kill the guy who's flying the jet he's in". The Goodnight Cross goes to Charles Robinson, "the guy on the radio in the first scene; MI6's first and only black employee".
20. The World Is Not Enough: The Kronsteen Rosette went to "Cigar Girl". (It almost went to Mr Surname Mr Bullion). The Goodnight Cross went to "the colonel who runs the Kazakh­stani nuclear weapons dis­mantling facility".
21. Die Another Day: The Kronsteen Rosette went to Mr Kill. The Goodnight Cross went to General Moon.
22. The Rock (1996): The Kronsteen Rosette went to "Knife Guy". The Goodnight Cross went to "the hair­dresser".
23. Casino Royale (1967): The Kronsteen Rosette, with bar, was given to Orson Welles. The Goodnight Cross was given to the agent who poisons Woody Allen and calls him gay ("James Bond 007 she/her"). The Kaufman Star makes its debut, awarded for "exploding a Bond movie" with an excep­tional per­for­mance; it was awarded to Orson Welles.
24. Casino Royale (2006): The Kronsteen Rosette went to Valenka, Le Chiffre's girlfriend, for "being on board for torturing Vesper Lynd". The Goodnight Cross went to Mr Mendel. The Kaufman Star went to Eva Green's Vesper Lynd, because she made Alice horny and derailed the episode.
25. Quantum of Solace: The Kronsteen Rosette went to Mitchell. The Goodnight Cross went to Straw­berry Fields.
26. Skyfall: The Kronsteen Rosette was given to "the amazing tele­porting cunt", who's the only guy who was in any way in the running for an award in the first place. As for the Goodnight Cross, it was not awarded because the movie sucks. Alice wanted to award it to "the gender psychiatrist who asks Bond about jerking off", but this didn't actually happen in the movie – it was a bit made up, riffing on the tests Bond was given when rejoining MI6. No Kaufman Star was awarded, of course.
27. Spectre: Kronsteen Rosette was considered for James Bond himself, but ultimately neither award was awarded.
28. The Bourne Identity: no Kronsteen Rosette, no Goodnight Cross, but the Kaufman Star was awarded to Castel, for entering, fucking shit up, and leaving through the window.
29. The Bourne Supremacy: no Kronsteen Rosette, no Goodnight Cross.
30. No Time To Die: Kronsteen Rosette went to James Bond, for "going above and beyond for the cause of killing James Bond". (It almost was awarded to the guys mopping up a puddle throughout a gunfight.) The Goodnight Cross was awarded to Hugh Dennis, for his "sterling service on Mock the Week".
31. The Bourne Ultimatum: The Goodnight Cross goes to Nikki. The Kaufman Star (actually the Kronsteen Rosette but they mistakenly said Kaufman Star) goes to the "will you commit to this program" man.
32. The Bourne Legacy: No awards.
33. Bourne 5: You Know His Name: It's Jason Bourne: No awards.

Season 2

71. Syriana: no nominations for any awards. Start of Season 2.
73. Breach: no nominations.
75. Enemy of the State: no nominations.
77. Patriot Games: no nominations, but there was some talk of a future "Brian Cox Memorial Award" for a character that easily gives away the secrets.
80. Clear and Present Danger: the Brian Cox Memorial Award for Intelligence was given to President Bennett, for revealing everything to Jack Ryan in the end.
82. Air Force One: a new award: the Oldman Medal for Unrefuted Villainy, given to villains who "make good points that the film does not address, argue against or counter", given to I assume Gary Oldman's character. The Kronsteen Rosette is given to "the guy who took the strap". The Goodnight Cross goes to "get down mr pilot" guy. The Devon Ribbon for Sickest Shit (not real) goes to Harrison Ford for ordering an airstrike on his own position to win a fist fight. The Alice Avizandum Award for Contemplaing Milk goes to Mr President.
83. The Sum of All Fears: Goodnight Cross to French Guy who's like "actually I don't think we should be in the plan any more".
85. A Queen's Ransom: Brian Cox Memorial Award in Intelligence to Cambodian Queen's Chief Goon. Kronsteen Rosette to Chen Lung.
87. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: no awards.
89. Without Remorse: no awards.
91. Jennifer's Body: no awards.
93. To Trap A Spy: no awards.
95. The Spy with My Face: no awards.
97. One Spy Too Many: Brian Cox Memorial Award in Intelligence awarded to Robert Vaughn/Napoleon Solo. Goodnight/Kuryakin Cross awarded to Kuryakin.
100. One of our Spies is Missing: Goodnight Cross, Oldman Medal, Kaufman Star awards were given out, but throughout the episode, and I lost track of them.
101. Dr. No (again): Kronsteen Rosette post­humously and retro­actively awarded to "podcast-looking-ass guy, podcast mf, podfella" who's just looking for Bond. Goodnight Cross awarded to Quarrel. Brian Cox Memorial Award in Intelligence to Dr. No for identifying the secret criminal organization SPECTRE by name.
102. The Spy in the Green Hat: Kronsteen Rosette awarded to Captain Line-read.
104. The Karate Killers: Kronsteen Rosette awarded to the Karate Killer who jumps onto a moving car to attack the driver.
106. The Helicopter Spies: no awards.
108. The Raid: Redemption: Kaufman Star awarded to the sniper team who explore each other's bodies through synchronized breathing.
109. How to Steal the World: no awards.
111. Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E: The Fifteen Years Later Affair: no awards.
113. I lost my SCUM-scoring notes for a few episodes in between here and haven't had the will to re-listen to them.
116. From Russia With Love, reanalyzed without rewatching: Ali Kerim Bey was given a retrospective Goodnight Cross (albeit he was not unappreciated – if anything, he was overappreciated).
119. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me: no awards.
121. Austin Powers: Goldmember: no awards.
123. First Blood: no awards.
125. Rambo: First Blood Part 2: the Kronsteen Rosette – nay, the Vietnamese Army Medal of Honor – to the Rambo himself, for attacking the pilot of the vehicle he was in; and another of the same for "boat guy".
127. Rambo 3: no awards.
129. S2E28.5 Cruella:
131. Rambo (2018): no awards.
133. Rambo: Last Blood: no awards.

Season 3: Eurospy Season

135. OSS 117 se déchaîne: no awards. Start of Season 3, the Eurospy season.
137. Agent Secret FX-18: no awards.
139. OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok: the Kronsteen Rosette was awarded to "the suicide guy who yeets himself off the balcony at the hotel". Goodnight Cross awarded to Sonsak.
141. The Tiger Likes Fresh Blood: no awards.
143. The Great Spy Chase: no awards.
145. Secret Agent Fireball: Kronsteen Rosette awarded to Mr. Pipe, who goes above and beyond for the cause of communism. Goodnight Cross awarded to Lepetit. The Kaufman Star was awarded to the Aqua-car featured in this movie in the next episode.
147. Shots in 3/4 Time: no awards for anybody in this movie, but at 1:00:14 the Kaufman Star was awarded to the Aquacar in Secret Agent Fireball.
149. Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell: no awards.
151. Die Hard 2: no awards.
152. Goldfinger with No Notes: Oddjob was re-awarded the Kronsteen Rosette (at 45:35), for attacking James Bond despite being locked in a vault with him and an atomic bomb.
153. OSS 117: Mission for a Killer: henchman drip commendations at 10:00, 18:40, 56:50, but no awards.
155. Red Dragon (not that one): no awards.
157. That Man in Istanbul: Kaufman Star to Klaus Kinski's character. Kronsteen Rosette to the pool-playing goon.
159. Our Agent Tiger: some awards were mentioned in passing, maybe in jest, but this episode was so incomprehensible I didn't understand them. The Goodnight Cross was at least awarded to "lassoo guy".
161. Modesty Blaise: The Gal Gadot Award for English as a Foreign Language was jokingly awarded to Modesty Blaise. No other awards.
163. Charlie's Angels: Kronsteen Rosette mentioned but not awarded.
165. Charlie's Angels Full Throttle: Kronsteen Rosette mentioned ("we have to give") at 1:14:00 for Cameron Diaz for attacking the driver of the car she's in, but not explicitly awarded at the end.
167. Charlie's Angels (2019): Kronsteen Rosette awarded to Rock Crusher Goon.
169. OSS 117: Terror in Tokyo: no proper awards, but at 1:08:18 there was mentioned the "Die Another Day Award for anti-Korean racism".
171. The Quiller Memorandum: no proper awards, but at 40:44 the Brian Cox Memorial Award was mentioned.
174. Deadlier than the Male: no awards.
176. OSS 117: Double Agent: no awards.
178. Some Girls Do: no awards.
180. Thunderball with No Notes: no awards.
182. Alphaville: no awards.
184. Danger Diabolik!: no awards.
186. Johnny English [LIVE]: no awards.
188. Johnny English Reborn [LIVE]: one Kronsteen Rosette to "the guy who jumps off the burning boat to jump onto a platform to fight Johnny English". A second Kronsteen Rosette to "the goon who stole the stewardess's clothes". And a Goodnight Cross to Daniel Kaluuya.
190. Johnny English Strikes Again [LIVE]: no awards.
192. Diabolik!: no awards.
194. Diabolik: Ginko Attacks!: no awards.
196. Diabolik: Who Are You?: no awards.

Season 4: Robbery Season

1. Heat: no awards.

The early ones with "no nomination" might have a nomination somewhere else in the episode, but it wasn't at the end.

Other notes

• Bonus episode 2.5 was on OK Connery (1967), and it was also given a SCUM score: 0 for Smarm, 3 for Cultural In­sensi­tivity, 2 for Unpro­voked Violence, and 4–5 for Miso­gyny, for a total score of 9 or 10, better than any of the actual Connery Bond movies would get.
• The Live and Let Die episode has the guy who gets hit and produces the oof noise from Minecraft.
• The Moonraker episode contains the phrase "scientific science-based rating system". This movie is also the source of the drop "A woman?".
• The For Your Eyes Only episode starts with an excerpt from a CBC review of the KJB podcast. This is also the movie with the trans­sexual pool party, and Thatcher at the very end. Described as the gay one, but also elegiac.
• Octopussy breaks a streak of going to Venice for a boat chase.
• For A View to a Kill, Mayday was nominated for both the Kronsteen Rosette and the Goodnight Cross, but ended up getting neither.
• The Living Daylights was considered really good up to the point when the plane landed in Afgha­nistan.
• The crew had trouble estab­lishing the Unprovoked Violence score for The World Is Not Enough; it rose from 2, to 3, to 4. Doubts were raised about the actual usefulness of the SCUM system for rating the actual goodness of the movies. Also, Abi mentioned the guys who update the wiki; I don't know that there's a wiki, but hi Abi!
• The episodes on The Rock and the 1967 Casino Royale were made to delay the start of the Craig Era, for a live show that would never happen bc covid. The Rock was chosen primarily for the reason that it contains Sean Connery playing a British spy, captured and forgotten in prison, who has been decided is cano­nically Connery's James Bond.
• The Quantum of Solace episode came up with the idea of a parallel universe where Roger Moore just kept on making Bond movies, with titles generated by an AI: Moonpussy.
• Episode 26, Skyfall: "Bond smarm low, ambient smarm high." Also, 5½ minutes from the end, the "whoever" who keeps track of "the big league table of SCUMs" is mentioned :3 (idk if they know of this page tho)
• Episode 27, Spectre: Devon: "S is becoming less Smarm and more Same Guy". The thesis is that the Daniel Craig Bond is two characters: Craig Fingersuck, who appeared in Casino Royale, and Same Guy, who's the same guy who was in all of the previous movies: "back when I went to space and survived the wiggler, when I was the Same Guy".
• Episode 29, The Bourne Supremacy: it was mentioned that they put the SCUM scores on their own site. Fair play, I'm a bit sad that I lost the monopoly but at least there's another source for them.
• At the end of episode 30, No Time To Die, with a full table of SCUM scores, the best James Bond was calculated. My own calculations, using the total score of 16 for From Russia With Love instead of the erroneous 19, arrive at the same conclusions, but with Connery and Dalton tied for worst place. From best (lowest-scoring) to worst: Lazenby (with 8 points), Craig (with 15.8), Moore (with 17.57), Niven (with 18), Brosnan (with 18.5), Dalton (with 38÷2 = 19), Connery (with 133÷7 = 19).
• In S2E2, Breach, the "M" in SCUM was recast into miscellaneous -isms. It was back to misogyny in S2E3.
• In S2E4, Patriot Games, a Cultural Insensitivity score of 9 out of 7 was given, to match the score of Live and Let Die. The start of a Kill Jack Ryan miniseries. "Tits, from space!"
• In S2E6, Air Force One, at 14:20, giving the Kronsteen Rosette to Barack Obama was contemplated. U for unilateral violence.
• In S2E8, A Queen's Ransom, the smarminess of the movie was felt to be in a completely orthogonal direction to other movies' smarm – a smarm score of Q. Also not a good movie.
• S2E10 Without Remorse: moral of the movie is wife solipsism: everything is gay except hanging out with your wife, a thing they wanna take away fron you.
• S2E11 Jennifer's Body: SCUM score not given, as scoring misogyny was felt to be impossible. A movie about 9/11. The "Kill James Bond test": do the female characters have opinions on the themes of the film? SCUM: the society for cutting up men.
• S2E12.5 The Lives of Others: Devon cry score = 2.
• S2E13 The Spy with My Face: this is the one that had the müsli which kills you instantly, and spawned the "__ that kills you instantly" meme.
• S2E14 One Spy Too Many: unclear who the extra spy is. Some doubt as to the SCUM scores, 3/4/1/6 needs double checking.
• KJB Holiday Special, Die Hard: noted as being more progressive than License to Kill, the comparable Bond movie released a year later. Noted as saying nothing about Christmas, fuck off.
• S2E15 One of our Spies is Missing: the 99th episode by the hosts' count, the 100th by my podcast app's count, probably because of the short trailer episode at the very beginning.
• S2E16 The Spy in the Green Hat: 49 hats were seen before the green hat appears, and the green hat appears simultaneously with a much better-looking blue hat. Contains the phrase "trés bien, gracias".
• S2E22.5 From Russia With No Notes: "Klebbing". "It's not a fucking metasyntactic variable."
• S3E3 OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok: also known as Shadow of Evil. "OSS 117 does what James Bondn't."
• The film in S3E7, Shots in 3/4 Time, was noted for being extremely unremarkable and had been completely forgotten by the hosts. This was one of those euro-spy movies that was paid for by the city of Vienna, for some weird tourist advertising reasons or something.
• The Smarm and Cultural Insensitivity scores of S3E8, Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell, were specified as being in a "weird font" and "italicized", respectively, as the movie defied the ordinary measurement of smarm or cultural insensitivity.
• The bit of referring to killing or destruction as "deconsecration" started I believe in S3E9, Die Hard 2, and continued in the bonus episode S3E9.5 Goldfinger with No Notes.
• In S3E9.5 Goldfinger with No Notes, the movie was rated again with a total SCUM score of 23, causing Alice to observe that the SCUM system is indeed scientific as it provides repeatable results.
• S3E11 Red Dragon (not that one): completely incomprehensible as a movie and an episode. Lots of shit about junks. Strong recommendation to not watch this movie.
• S3E12 That Man in Istanbul: This is the episode where the hosts don't remember the main character's last name and keep replacing it with nouns beginning with m. Maybe the best one is at 56:10.
• S3E13 Our Agent Tiger was completely incomprehensible as a movie description, and the movie sounded like shit.
• In the S3E20 Deadlier than the Male episode the limits of the SCUM system were encountered: the system cannot handle women being evil or female-on-male sexual assault. A "problematic fave".
• S3E23 Thunderball with No Notes: 48:37: "Sean Toesuck".
• S3E30 Diabolik: Ginko Attacks!: Smarm was bumped up from 2 to 3 during the misogyny score discussion. Considered disappointing and unremarkable.
• S3E31 Diabolik: Who Are You?: From 1 hour and 5 minutes onwards there's a retrospective on the long eurospy season.

Created 2021-08-27, edited 2024-11-22. I am aware of how pedantic and nerdy this whole page is. Index.