Mad Max

[00:00:00] They say people don't believe in podcasts anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max. We're gonna give them back their podcasts. Now here's what I want to ask you right away. How bad is your Australian accent? How can it be so bad? I worked on it a lot.

[00:00:37] Your accent's fine. Question you're gonna ask me. The unrated extended edition of Big Mama's Colin Like Father Like Son. Sure the third film, The Franchise. What do you think the subtitle was for the unrated edition? You know how it's like too hot for school or...

[00:00:55] Unrated out of control. Exactly. Now let me tell you, it's six minutes longer. It's six! A gentleman six minutes longer and there's six rowdy minutes. They're rowdy! Okay, I have to assume it's some play on the word dress. You're wrong. Really? Think stupider. Think... Is it size?

[00:01:17] Is it size-based? No but what's the name of the movie? Bigger? Yeah but the other word? Mama? So can you do something with that? Here we go. Mom rated? It's the motherload edition. I think that's bad. I think all the other things I guessed are funnier.

[00:01:35] Yeah, I agree with you but I think with that one they decided to not take the let's go with the funniest option a lot of the time. I think like undressed and unrated is... Yeah, here's the thing. Apparently it mostly just adds a dance sequence.

[00:01:49] It claims it's unrated but it doesn't actually add offensive material. They just add deleted scenes that are like... You can't add anything and say it's unrated. Right, it's unrated because you didn't submit it to the NBA. Oh, it's out of control.

[00:02:03] What's out of control is that their editor was not there? I don't like it. I don't... Anyway. It's out of control. This sequence is very self-indulgent. It's current shape. Exactly. Anyway, can you tell me the final domestic gross? Big Mama's like...

[00:02:18] You know what actually let's do the box office game for Big Mama's calling like Father Like Son because we don't have one for Mad Max. We don't. Guys, we were talking about Martin Lawrence's career. David and I got in two fights.

[00:02:29] Over the quality of Bad Boys, which is not a very good movie. I think Bad Boys 2 and 3 are both better but I think Bad Boys 1 is good. I also think that Martin Lawrence is entering a new era and you dismiss that immediate.

[00:02:41] Yeah, I'm more just like, no, I think he'll be in Bad Boys movies and otherwise we'll relax. But... He could be hanging out. My point was he hasn't done good work in a long time until the last 12 months he's done two good films, two really good performances.

[00:02:53] You're saying that the combo of him and Beach Bum and Bad Boys is the beginning of something where I'm like total aberration. It's like when Brady Anderson hit all this home runs that one year.

[00:03:02] This is why I don't think it's an aberration and these are going to be boiling hot takes by the time this episode comes out. We're recording this on Martin Luther King Day, Bad Boys for Life is ripping up the box office. It is. It is.

[00:03:15] One of the classic it overperformed studio estimates. And I saw it Friday night in Times Square and it played like fucking cheap trick at Budakon. People were losing their fucking minds and I texted you and I said the only

[00:03:27] thing I can equate this to was going to see Fast and Percent Furious opening weekend where it felt like this movie was like... Obviously that's what Will Smith is glomming off of. When you see it?

[00:03:37] Not only that, I mean Deadline actually reported that he had a hand in the script and he was like let's do a Fast and Furious type thing. Everything about it is so Fast and Furious where it's like it is so in conversation.

[00:03:46] I knew it was written by Dominic Toretto. He was written by Dominic Toretto. Dominic Toretto, comment WGA. But it's so much as in that vein. There's an end credit stinger that is totally ripped from like Fast Five.

[00:04:02] It's totally in that mode and it's the thing I realized watching this in theaters, which I felt watching Ampersand was like, oh, I didn't realize to how many people this movie is like a classic because they were responding to it as if it was like The Force Awakens.

[00:04:18] You know? And Ampersand is where I got into Fast and Furious and it was almost because I was like, oh, I didn't realize I cared about these previous movies. I felt the same way watching Bad Boys for Life, very effective film.

[00:04:28] The point I was going to make is everyone was taken back by how good Martin Lawrence was in Beach Bum and I think part of that was, oh, this is him in a totally different gear.

[00:04:39] You're used to like the manic motor mouth really like sort of anxious Martin Lawrence and the chilled out sort of like more peace with himself, Martin Lawrence. That was the bit of the movie though, I will say.

[00:04:51] The bit being it's like weirdo people kind of doing almost cameos like characters. Totally. You know what I mean? So that that I view, I go, he's great in this, but maybe that's an aberration. Yeah.

[00:05:03] But then I see Bad Boys for Life where they've sort of retrofitted the movie around the fact that Martin Lawrence isn't who Martin Lawrence was in the 90s and rather than what I was worried about where it just could be like, fuck, it's old Martin Lawrence

[00:05:15] not keeping up with his old game. Right. But it's new Martin Lawrence in a similar vein as Beach Bum and I'm like, I kind of like this relaxed. I haven't seen it yet. So if you really want Bad Boys too, he also is like that.

[00:05:30] But I think Bad Boys two year like maybe he's lost his fastball. I think you're watching this and you're like, no, Martin's playing golf now. Like that's my analogy. All right. He can't pitch anymore. Great way to start a new miniseries. Well, and before we move on.

[00:05:46] I just think that if he doesn't want to maybe do movies, I'd be cool with bringing Martin back the show. The show. Oh, the show was so good. I mean, it was. But unite the gang, especially the cast member who sued him for sexual harassment.

[00:06:03] I was about to say like we might have to leave that in the past as Martin Lawrence has decided to do. Oh, right. Old Martin let the past die, Lawrence. I mean, Gina Arnold is doing great. Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

[00:06:16] Anyway, maybe bring back as an audio drama anyway. Anyway. New miniseries. Many series. Hello, everybody. This is Blank Check, the Griffin and David. I'm Griffin and David Sims. And this is of course a podcast about filmography's director. So a massive success early on in their career.

[00:06:43] Given a series of blank checks, so to speak, to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. This is miniseries on the films of George Miller. Yes. Mad Pod Fury Cast. That's what we're going for. Done.

[00:07:08] You don't get to weigh in on this one. You don't because we're keeping this one a secret from you. My pause wasn't trying to remember that. What I was trying to remember is I think George Miller has been given some sort of order by the Australian government.

[00:07:21] Oh, I'm sure he has. He is an AO, which is the order of Australia. Like being knighted. Kind of. Which is like, you know, not for full nighting, but like, you've done a pretty good job. OK. Yeah. You know, so he's gotten sort of the similar, you know,

[00:07:38] governmental recognition of his artistic. Isn't Australia kind of like, like still like related to the United Kingdom in some way? The we have we have the same monarch. The Queen is the Queen of Australia. What do you mean? Huh? How does it actually walk into that?

[00:07:55] For how much you hate this bit? It is incredible how dumb you are. And I think you're an incredibly intelligent man. I think you're an incredibly intelligent both in terms of knowledge, emotional intelligence, really small guy,

[00:08:09] but you always just fucking love it up for us like a slip and slide. You lay it out. It's an generic part of my fucking existence. Like it could not have worded that better for us. Australia has the same monarch, the Queen, Queen Elizabeth is also

[00:08:27] the Queen of Australia. Obviously, Australia once belonged to the thankfully mostly defunct British Empire and it is a prison. I was used as a prison. Oh, but I mean, of course, before then it was a land unconquered

[00:08:40] with its own people who lived happily lived their lives before we arrived and were like, I'm getting a good prison vibe from this old island. Maybe we could put some prisoners here. Quick question. What do you mean? We I grew up in England. I'm a British citizen.

[00:08:59] I should say I think the Dutch arrived in Australia first. I don't actually know all of its colonial history. But, you know, anyway, it is part of the Commonwealth, which is like the group of nations that is governed by the Queen. And that's on that money.

[00:09:12] It's kind of crazy how the UK just rolled in and we're like, no, this isn't a country anymore. This is just a UK spin off. It's you don't get to have your own country anymore.

[00:09:21] This is now just called UK colon jail as if it was like CSI Miami. It is how terrible. Well, also like Australia, you know, it's like Tara Australis, which means in Latin like Southern land. And it was just they were just like, what should we call it?

[00:09:36] Like, I don't know. Southern Island, Southern land. Is that fine? And everyone was just like, yep, sounds good. Can you bring over 10,000 prisoners? People are so bad. Like, we turn this into the planet from Alien 3. It's it's very strange to think about it.

[00:09:54] That it was just like, well, it's so far away. Yeah. They won't be able to come back because it's so fucking far away. So, uh. Like, option chose like, let's not even figure out what else we could do with this plan.

[00:10:08] When you start digging into that history to it gets so bad. It's terrible because then it was all this, all these men and they needed something to do or they were going to revolt. And so then they started sending like is concubine like inappropriate to say.

[00:10:26] But I guess that's essentially what it was. One of my favorite movies of 2019, The Nightingale. Yes, very much about is a film that is a really excellent film about sort of the ghosts of colonization. I believe is that set in Tasmania? I believe it is. I need to.

[00:10:44] I think it is. I think that's right. In Demonsland. Yes. Yes. But it but it is a it is a very. Yeah. Parallel. Yeah. Yes. OK. Now, before we get into Mad Max, just had this thought. Sure.

[00:10:56] I've been getting down with my man, Paul Hollywood on the reg. OK, you tried to bring up Paul Hollywood on another podcast. I remember this and we were so deep in other that we were like then what? I can't even call Paul Hollywood. But he's not Australian.

[00:11:12] So I know. But OK, so watching we should mention that we're on home turf right now. Oh, right. We are at small fine, small fine, which is Ben's apartment. Of course, David has moved. He now lives in Little Nicer, which is smaller than Big Nice,

[00:11:24] but a little nice. You haven't officially dubbed it that yet, but that is the on deck title at least like that's the sort of I'm waiting for confirmation when I see with my own eyes. Ben, of course, lives in small fine.

[00:11:34] I live in medium messy and that it's pretty well sized. It's too messy for me to ever allow anyone to come over. I have. I wonder if I'll ever see it. I wonder if I'll ever maybe at some point the other question. Will I ever get shelves?

[00:11:46] I don't know. You can hire someone to just handle it for you. I know that's sort of I've been working towards that. Yeah, just a contractor just gets someone in for a day. I don't know. Yeah, I know a guy. I think I found a guy. OK.

[00:11:59] It's just hard to talk to people. Oh, sure. When there's not a mic around. And it's not about movies. Maybe I have to structure it as a podcast and then I can get the. That was a fucking genius idea, Griffin.

[00:12:10] You should start a podcast where you just have to accomplish like life tech life tasks, but you make the episodes about it. I have a guess on them. Like, so how does one build shelves? And then the end of the episode is them to find a stud.

[00:12:24] How do you find out if you're healthy or not? And you just go to the doctors? No, my guest would be a doctor. They would make a house call. That's the thing. I do it from home. I booked guests and asked them, so how do you do this

[00:12:36] in your profession? And then they just fix me. OK, OK, so Paul Hollywood and watching the whole episode. British Bake Off. Great show. They've got so many weird words and like where I'm literally just like they just said a string of sounds

[00:12:51] that I don't know what they're saying. Wait a second. What do you mean they? Well, you know, like Britain, like people cross the pond, if you will. Oh, I can't even relate. I know, I can't either. I don't know who they look like. I mean, different.

[00:13:06] If I saw one, I would know it immediately. I know. I feel like I would sense or maybe I don't know what they smell. I don't know. Anyway, what's your point of about? I do think, though, that Australians beat them with weird words. Oh, sure.

[00:13:21] For example, this is my favorite. Little kangaroos are called joeys. Yeah. Yes. See, I know after Matt LeBlanc, I've known that since I was a little kid because my brother's name is Joey. Spinoffs. That's why they called him that. Because I were like, Kangaroos,

[00:13:35] spawn off another kangaroo, damn it. Why do we call that? And they're like best spin-off all the time. Joey and. In Australia, if nothing else. Got a fascinating country. Would love to visit it. She was like a slightly shorter flight. That's always been my hang up.

[00:13:49] So long ass flight. I bit twice. Yeah. Well, congratulations. Why have you been? I went. I think you've told me this. I went once for tick press. Right. Jesus. That's crazy. Exhausting. No shit. But you were only there for like 48 hours or whatever, right?

[00:14:04] Like you were out of there pretty fast. Well, you know, I mean, the bummer is I was like, it was the end of the press tour. Yeah. And I was like, I think went from LA to London to Australia. There's no way you did that.

[00:14:16] No, I did London to LA to Australia. So it was New York. No, that's the, that's the, you know, LA is from where you can get to Australia. But I was filming something else in Steve Kugin's hot air. Hey, massively successful. It's coming out this year, I believe.

[00:14:34] It came out a year ago. No one who noticed. But was filming that then went to London, then went to LA, then did press there. London Press, Australian Press. And I was like, if this is the last thing, can I please,

[00:14:48] like, can you make my return flight later and could you give me two extra nights in a hotel? So I actually can like enjoy Australia. Yeah. And I was so wiped that I barely, right? I wonder around a little bit anyway.

[00:15:01] And then I wanted my best friends in middle school moved to Australia. Right. You told me that. And I went to visit him when I was in high school. It's a very long flight. Very long, as long as flight you can do, LA to Sydney.

[00:15:14] It feels so exotic. Like I really do want to go. That's a place I just am dying to go. I like it a lot. Yeah. I think it's really cool. David, you and college studied Australian film, not exclusively. No, no, no, my friend. No, no, no.

[00:15:28] You remember basically correctly, but it was New Zealand film. It was even more niche brand of cinema. I studied it because I had a crush on someone who is taking it. Humble brag. Yeah, I've talked about it on the podcast.

[00:15:43] We had to bleep her name because her name is so funny. Oh, right. If you want to do it again, we can. Can you say it again? Yeah, do it. I wanted to make sure I wasn't remembering it. I believe is now married and has changed her name.

[00:15:58] And I want to make something very clear without giving any greater clues. We're not laughing at her name like, oh that name stupid. No, it's not a stupid name. It's just hilarious and very apropos that I would have had a crush on someone named.

[00:16:09] It is the funniest name for David to have a crush on. Let's put it that way. She married into the family. You have to bleep that because that gives it away. You have to bleep that, but that's also really funny.

[00:16:24] And now anyway, so I took a New Zealand cinema class, which was great because it would come up in film trivia a lot. You would get a lot of obscure sort of Osploitation New Zealand based films. Right. But that was we did not actually study any Australian.

[00:16:37] But of course they are related and they do have similar genre like obviously the sort of Western influence on both. You know, the kind of open prairies of Australia makes sense. New Zealand also made a lot of road movies and stuff like that. A lot of hobbits.

[00:16:52] But no, we did not study Australian film, which is a little more robust is more of it. I feel like sure. I mean, New Zealand made a lot of great movies for such a small country. Yes. Population size. But Australia has produced a lot of

[00:17:07] a lot of great actors and a lot of actors, plenty of filmmakers, but a lot of especially in the 80s and 90s, a lot of Australian filmmakers coming to Hollywood and making big careers, including Philip Noyes, who was somewhat of a Miller, not protege.

[00:17:22] Philip Noyes, but yeah, worked with Peter. We're these are all guys working at the same time. Well, but Lerman's a little later using the same talent, you know, you know, like there it's a it's a whole little universe. I'm who else am I forgetting someone obvious?

[00:17:39] Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Those are the media. It's because there's a lot of other like isn't PJ Hogan, you know, Muriel's wedding obviously was a big Australian. Jane Campion, New Zealand or PJ Hogan? No, no, Jane Campion's New Zealand.

[00:17:50] She's crown jewel of New Zealand. Yeah. Obviously we studied her in my New Zealand cinema class. You know, and then of course you have let me we can't forget Paul Hogan. Oh, Bruce Beresford. That's another one.

[00:18:05] He made like break of Miranda and tender mercies and driving Miss Daisy and movies like that. There's so many. Jillian Armstrong. Yes. Oh, the original not the original 90s little women. So there's that there's those types. Yes. And then there's the Osploitation type.

[00:18:23] The cars that ate Paris like the movies like that these like which George Miller comes out of. But then you got this guy who kind of bridges the two. He is he is the two. Yeah, you have this guy.

[00:18:34] There's one sort of very anomalous filmmaker in many ways. Right. Right. Who is a Greek immigrant? First generation Australia. Oh, sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With three brothers. I think maybe all four of them go to medical school. That might be he yeah. But George Miller certainly goes.

[00:18:58] He has a twin brother. They both went to medical school. Right. One of his younger brothers becomes his pretty permanent producing partner for the last 15 years. And the fourth brother also worked with him on the early films. Interesting. Interesting. I believe you.

[00:19:11] I believe at least one of his brothers also went to medical school. Yeah, but his dad, you're right was from Ketheria in Greece. His name was Dimitri Milotis and they angle size that to Miller. And then the mom was also Greek refugees from Anatolia

[00:19:31] disrupted in the in the 20s by the population exchange and they moved to Australia which was I think a country where it's like the great unknown. Let's go make a life right the other side of the world.

[00:19:42] Now there's one thing I couldn't figure out and I kept on looking for any anecdote about what the activation moment is. But when he goes from being a medical student and a doctor to starting to make experimental films on the side,

[00:19:56] it sounds like he was making short films while he was in medical school. He made a short a one minute short that won some student competition. Then he went to a film workshop at Melbourne University. That's when he starts getting that's where he meets Byron Kennedy.

[00:20:11] And that's all while he's still in medical school. He graduates, he completes his residency in 1972 and that year they found Kennedy Miller, the production company. And so yeah, his first work was violence in cinema part one.

[00:20:28] Which I desperately tried to find but is a 20 minute short film that starts out as a sort of like academic lecture on the nature of violence in films where he's showing like clips and talking about the way we process violence.

[00:20:41] And then the film is this meta thing where then violence starts happening to the professor. The professor. Right, right. And people were so freaked out by it. They thought it was real. They thought it was a documentary. They thought it was like a snap film.

[00:20:52] It's sort of a snap film. Right. And it had this very controversial reputation. It played at a bunch of festivals. But it gets distribution from an Australian distribution company. And they say, and he didn't even realize distribution was a thing.

[00:21:05] He didn't realize there was a pathway to be able to make films. It seemed like a very unattainable thing. And they said if you had a feature we would distribute that too. And the origin of Mad Max's in 1971, this distribution company, who I'm forgetting the name of,

[00:21:25] Sada George Miller and Byron Kennedy, if you had a feature we would distribute this. And eight, nine years later they come up with Mad Max. And for a movie that feels so much like two guys going, let's just make a movie tomorrow.

[00:21:40] You know, not that you could set it up overnight, but Mad Max is so primal and so spare that it feels like something that they rushed to the finish line. I watched, we pushed back the release, the recording of this episode

[00:21:52] because I found in my Mad Max box set, there was a two hour and 40 minute documentary. I have this, is the Blu-ray box set? I have that one with eight discs. Okay. There's the high octane collection. That's the one I have. Okay.

[00:22:04] So that's the one where there's a DVD. It is in Standard Def. Oh, for the extras you mean? Yeah. And it's its own disc and it's called the Madness of Max and it's two hours and 40 minutes just on the first movie. Cool. Which I have watched very freshly.

[00:22:16] But why is it high octane? Can you watch it really fast? Well, you can. That's an option. The actual answer is they released a box set after Fury Road where they were like finally they're all together and they left off a bunch of special features.

[00:22:29] So then they re-released it six months later and were like never mind, here's the actual one. And it still feels like it's not as good and comprehensive as it should be. Well because there's tricky rights with two, I forget, there's something weird about it.

[00:22:41] The first one is the one that MGM has taken. The other three are owned by Warner Brothers at least in terms of distribution. Yeah, they are. But I think some, it feels like they've never gotten the proper restorations they deserve. This one is the rawest looking. Yes.

[00:23:02] So how did he get the name Hollywood? Did he pick it? I believe. Does he come from the Hollywood family? Insanely, it's his name. That's ridiculous. Like Paul Hollywood again? Yeah, his dad is John Hollywood. It's just like, you know, like. That can't be real.

[00:23:17] It is and he's just from like Cheshire or something. He's just like an English kid. On his Wikipedia, he was on like the North West. Gedeology or like, you know, like tracing your roots kind of show. And maybe see, I'm like, did they address the fact

[00:23:30] that his last name is Hollywood? I mean, but like what is the etymology of Hollywood? Like is it just a wood of holly trees? Like it's not that complicated. Well, as we all know, it was originally called Hollywood land. The real estate that the thing is marking

[00:23:45] was called Hollywood land, but the neighborhood had been called Hollywood before. Really? Yeah. Mr. Hollywood over. They built that. Like it was called Nopalera, which means cactus field, I think or something like that. You know, before we fucking showed up and were like, great place to make movies.

[00:24:03] This is movie town. Wait a second. I'm sorry. What do you mean? We white people. That one ain't a spoiler guys. It reminded me of how he came up. Reminded me of Bigelow in that it was like an academic approach to sort of violence and sin.

[00:24:21] I was going to make this a key to him is that he's very academic and much like Bigelow. It's like he's a guy who starts out sort of deconstructing the thing. Sure. And then figures out how to make. He's very academic, but he makes violent genre movies

[00:24:34] because he's like, but that's how you get seen. But here's the other part of it. The other part of it is he was in medical school. He was dealing with horrible accidents. That's the Verhoeven kind of thing where he's like, he's got the weird creepy like yeah.

[00:24:47] And not in the way where he was like desensitized to it like Verhoeven where it's like none of this matters. It's the opposite thing almost where he spent so much time looking at injuries and dealing with the repercussions of accidents people had.

[00:25:00] And so much of Bad Max comes out of like his sort of perverse fascination seeing the aftermath of car accidents. You know, and also working with other people, you know, ambulance drivers, people who are telling him accounts of what they found,

[00:25:14] what states people were in, having to stitch people up. I mean all these sorts of things. He was, you know, in addition to sort of his fascination with violence, not as much as the act of violence as the actual effect the violence has on a human body.

[00:25:31] He also just sort of couldn't get over having to deal with the business end of car accidents. The idea that people are putting themselves in such dangerous situations all the time, you know. And he made this point, I think Byron Kennedy, this documentary is actually really good.

[00:25:48] A little basic in terms of how it's constructed, but it's so comprehensive. It's just kind of taking you through every step of it right. Yeah. And every like chapter heading has like and then there's like graphics of like new words popping,

[00:26:01] like driving onto the screen saying like post production. Right. I get you. With burnt rubber underneath. But they have all these really good audio recordings of Byron Kennedy talking because Byron Kennedy tragically died in 1983. He died in a helicopter accident, I believe 83, yes. Helicopter crash.

[00:26:14] Don't get in those things. Do not. But this was sort of your what's your pants from uncut gems. Then you got to Julie Fox. Right. I mean, I couldn't remember the character's name, but I believe her character's name is Julie. I think you're right.

[00:26:26] This was the point I was going to make. And I forget whether it's Byron Kennedy or George Miller who says this in the documentary. But the thing that they were so obsessed with was it's crazy how much damage a car can cause.

[00:26:39] Right. How much damage you can cause to someone else. Right. How much damage you can cause to yourself. All of this. It happens on a pretty regular basis at this time in Australia was happening a lot.

[00:26:50] And people aren't afraid of them on a day to day basis in the way they should be, in the way that they are of other things. Griffin is making. I mean, this is speaking to Griffin. But this is why I love the Mad Max times.

[00:27:03] But but the idea like you know you go like oh helicopters obviously don't get a helicopter. That's what happens. But cars don't have that kind of stigma around them, despite how high the stakes truly are. Even if the odds aren't overwhelming,

[00:27:16] it's still high stakes and uncomfortably high probability. So he's stewing all of that. He's stewing on the way the violence is depicted in films. And he's stewing on sort of the American cinema. And that Australian film either seems to be really sort of trashy exploitation stuff. Yeah.

[00:27:37] Gonzo stuff. Or is fairly sort of like high brow. Tony art movies. Right. It's kind of more BBCS fair. When did Walkabout come out? What a great movie. It's my dad's favorite movie. 1972. It's a great book too. I highly recommend reading the book. 1971, I'm sorry. That's Nicholas Rogue.

[00:27:56] That's another you know. Yeah. He's British. Yeah. He's not Australian. That's a great film about Australia, but not made from the Australian film industry. But that is part of the earlier like quote unquote Australian New Waves, right? Stork which has what's his pants? Bruce Spence.

[00:28:15] That's one of those. Oh you mean the Tower Captain? Tia Medan from Avengers 6. But interesting trivia fact. But like what Peter Weir does once Mel Gibson becomes big doing like Gallipoli and You're Living Dangerously and all those films are like sort of more what comes out of Australia.

[00:28:32] That's 80s Australia. Yeah. You're living dangerously so good. Peter, why don't we do him? Peter Weir? He was on the bracket last year. He was. I know you love him. But he got thumbed. I love him so much. I love him. He's a weird one. Sure.

[00:28:46] He's a weird person. Mr. Weir? I don't know what I'm doing. So George Miller is like stewing on all of this right? They do the short film. It gets interest. They're told they could get distribution if they made a feature.

[00:29:03] He sits down with a guy who's his co-writer on this film. I forget his name if you have it in front of you. Oh, on this film? Yeah, Jennifer Coslin. Right. Who was a buddy of his who was not a film student.

[00:29:13] Who was an American expat living in Australia. But that was the guy who he liked talking about movies with. He was pretty much a drinking body. I forget what he did for an occupation, but it was totally outside of everything.

[00:29:25] And he said, I want to make a movie like I'm going to sit down with a guy who I like talking about movies with and let's talk about what we like about movies. And so they sit down and just have that talk,

[00:29:35] much like every conversation that we've ever had. Right. And they're just breaking down elements of what they like. And they talk about the thing that I feel like at this point in time hadn't been sort of identified that clearly.

[00:29:49] Years later Spielberg would own this and say that this was his design. But that he was trying to make movies that were only the good bits. You know, he always said that about Rares Lost Ark that he and George Lucas said,

[00:30:00] what if you make a movie that was just the most exciting scenes in every other movie without the boring shit in between. And now of course when you watch Rares Lost Ark it plays like fucking Satan tango where you're like, this is so slow and ruminative. Right.

[00:30:12] And you also feel like the destructive force of other movies taking that lesson in the wrong direction. Right. I mean, because that's the difference is someone like George Miller or Steven Spielberg, even if they go, I'm only going to do the exciting parts.

[00:30:23] Too much storytelling integrity in their bones that they can't make something totally devoid. They do. Although I will say like Mad Max, you watch that and then you see Mad Max, you see the Road Warrior number two.

[00:30:33] You are like, oh, I see where he's just like great, let's pair even further down. Let's communicate character very simply. Like right, like how economical can we get this? But so he's sound with this guy there coming up with that.

[00:30:45] He's talking about the sort of like, you know, car anxiety. And the original pitch for the film was it was going to be a present day movie about a journalist. It almost sounds a little bit nightcrawler ask about someone who's following the aftermath

[00:31:01] of the car crashes to report on them. That is a little nightcrawlery. So he goes about writing that he works on that for like six to nine months and is like, fuck, this doesn't work. It should be a cop.

[00:31:11] It should be someone who's chasing after trying to prevent it, trying to like, you know, sort of control this works on that for six to nine months is like it doesn't it feels weird. It's too over cranked.

[00:31:24] It feels too exaggerated for me to do the things visually I want to do. And then he goes, I can't set a present day. So it's like a three step process with two failed screenplays where it was like first thing to figure out what this guy's relationship is

[00:31:38] to the auto destruction. And then it was, you know what? I need to make a world around this so I can get the energy in my head. So he's drawing from there. There had been a big oil crisis in Australia in 1973.

[00:31:51] And like that had caused all these riots and these fights at gas stations and stuff like that. So they're like, okay, let's talk about peak oil, right? The world running out of energy, the world, right? You know, the apocalypse.

[00:32:02] But for a movie that you could believe watching it like, oh, this was a by product of like Rocky style him locking himself in a room for three days and banging the whole script out that the first draft was like some years for them to raise the money.

[00:32:16] The film is entirely independently financed. They went to the Victorian Film Board at first. And they were just like, as Miller says, they were just making artie movies and this wasn't their kind of absolutely not. So what Miller and Kennedy started doing after years of

[00:32:29] film to get this up anywhere is they start going to a lot of their doctor buddies and they raised the movie through independent capital. I believe they also did like emergency medical calls themselves. And like Miller would be the doctor and Kennedy would drive the car

[00:32:42] and they would raise independent funds that way. Yeah. It caused both still working as doctors. I believe it costs not Kennedy, but Kennedy was driving him. Yeah. But believe it the whole the movie costs like 400 Australian, yes, 400,000 Australian dollars.

[00:32:57] And it was totally independent by the time they get all the money, the Victorian Film Board comes back to them and offers to put up the money. And at that point, they said like we've gotten this and now we have no oversight.

[00:33:07] Yeah, we can realize we've sort of circumvented the system. It took us a long time. But now no one's going to give us any notes. We're not going to have anyone trying to censor us.

[00:33:17] We feel an enormous responsibility to make back the money that we've taken from people. No, of course. That's the only impetus. And so we want to have something that's going to play and we want a thing that can cross

[00:33:28] over in a way that Australian films usually do not. His script is 260 pages long. That's crazy. But whatever. Now what's nuts is very often it's like, oh, there was never like a shooting draft.

[00:33:40] We talk about this when people go like the first draft was 500 pages and you're like, you vomited out 500 pages. Yeah, right. And then you dealt with it. Right. By all accounts that 260 page draft is essentially what they shot,

[00:33:51] but it is because it's not that they cut stuff out. It is because he was sober boasting describing every single element. I believe also when they were, yeah, because they had like storyboarded lots of it when they were raising money.

[00:34:02] They were like, here's what it's going to look like. They had a lot of pre, yeah, they put a lot of effort into what it would look like. And that was like a little bit of a tiny way you could make this. That's the thing.

[00:34:09] On one hand, it's naivete to be like, no one wants to read this much. But on the other hand, the thing is so sparse and primal and the tone and the energy is of what he's trying to do is so bizarre and is so unprecedented at this point

[00:34:23] that especially to friends of his who aren't in the industry who he's taking money from. They were like, you read this thing and there was clearly something in it. Like there was a thing that he was able to convey in the way he wrote the script

[00:34:34] that you knew just no matter what happens in production, they can't beat this thing out of it. There's some heart here. There's some weird vital organ. So yes, they have the money. They go hire a casting director and go, look we don't have any money.

[00:34:51] Who are the people coming out of drama school? There was that. That's how they found Mel, right? And Bisley is as in Plays Goose. Yes, Steve Bisley. Right, who is Mel Gibson's best friend. And the urban legend is always that Mel Gibson wasn't even an actor

[00:35:03] and he didn't even want to be in the movie. He showed up giving someone a ride. Yeah, he's like grooming or rye, exactly. Which I think it is true that he was not called in at first and he gave Bisley a ride, but he was a drama student.

[00:35:13] He was and they were looking for a spunky young guy. And I think Mel is probably canny enough that he knew, but the big part of the urban legend is he'd gotten in a bar fight the night before and so he walks in looking like shit.

[00:35:26] And immediately they were like, this guy feels dangerous. Judy Davis apparently, well-known actress now, auditioned and was passed over. But Miller says that's not true. She was just hanging out with Mel Gibson and like, she didn't audition. It does seem like one of those movies

[00:35:42] where everyone probably has a story with like, oh, you know, definitely was in the run and you know, like whatever. But it is a thing where they're mostly pulling from like Australian theater and Australian drama school as opposed to-

[00:35:54] Well, but a lot of the cast is from a movie called Stone. An Osploitation Biker movie that Miller adores, the Quentin Tarantino adores- The QB's current- Hugh Keesburn. Jesus Christ. And Roger Ward and Vincent Gilt.

[00:36:07] Like a lot of people who are villains in this had been in that. And so Miller was like, well, that's the- It's like a biker movie. That's the vibe I want. So you're going to be great. Hugh Keesburn was like a Shakespeare company guy.

[00:36:19] And I think continued to be. Yes. Like after this. But he, they showed this in the documentary. He did a production, a very popular impactful production of a streetcar named Desire, where he played Stanley Kowalski, where they showed the photo. Sure, sure.

[00:36:36] And you wish you could fucking see that. Right, right, right. And his blanche was Jackie Weaver. They don't call it out, but they just show a photo of like the playbill and it's fucking toe cutter and Smurf from Animal Kingdom doing streetcar together,

[00:36:51] which must have been fucking amazing. Have you seen Animal Kingdom? It's a real Ben movie. Australian mob movie. Okay. Oh, Ben. Ben Mendelssohn and Animal Kingdom. Jackie Weaver. That's when Ben Mendelssohn gets fucked. And then of course they turned it into everybody's favorite

[00:37:08] TNT show that's fully on the air. It's season five. How many seasons have they made? Three, four? I want to say maybe a fourth is coming, like three or four. Let's see. Four seasons. Four seasons of the Animal Kingdom. It's been renewed for a fifth.

[00:37:24] But it's what I rarely watch TNT, but when basketball playoffs or anything, I watch TNT, they have basketball. I'm over it. And like so anytime you watch that, they're just like TNT's great lineup. For example, Animal Kingdom. This year Dennis Leary's in it. I'm like, no, he's not.

[00:37:38] It's made up. You made it all up. It's all made up. Well, it's not such thing. It's one of those fucking things where like, I don't know if this is still a case, but when you're like for 10 years, I'm not getting Ellen Barkin and Scott Speedman

[00:37:49] are the stars of it. No, I think she got nominated for a gold globe at some point. It's possible. I believe Ellen Barkin is Smurf is the. Correct. But I believe she's no longer on the show. I think that a lot of them are now dead.

[00:38:01] Yes, because you know, in the animal kingdom sometimes. Dennis Leary will come for you. It's Dennis Leary playing the guy Pierce character maybe? Oh, I don't know. She did not get a gold globe nomination. Are you sure? Yeah. You were shooting too high.

[00:38:15] It's gotten two sadder knots and one motion picture sound editor. Not that's it. Those are so. What I was going to say is it's that stat, which I don't know if it's still the case, but that for like 10 plus years,

[00:38:29] USA was far and away the highest rated cable channel. Oh yeah, because they had burn notice. All these shows that like fall into the. In the plain sight. That doesn't exist. You know anyone who's watched that. Royal pains. Yeah. Now the thing about royal pains.

[00:38:42] These guys are royal pains. Yeah. And political animals, the lowest rated show in the history of USA. That one unfortunately didn't stretch it out. Go on. What's up? What's up? Uh, yes. Okay. So Hugh Key Barnes comes out of the RSC. Right. Hugh Keane's burn Jesus Christ.

[00:39:01] Hugh Keane's burn. Keane's burn who of course plays toe cutter in this. Yes. And then we'll eventually show up as Immortan Joe. Immortan Joe in Mad Max, Very Road. But was thought of as this sort of like Brando ask very imposing. That's his right. He's husky. Right.

[00:39:18] He's got a face. And he's unconventional. He's very behavioral. He's very organic. He's so good in this movie. I mean, so much of the shit he does in this movie is improvised physically or energy wise. The things that he's doing. Which is wild. How he's intimidating people. Yeah.

[00:39:35] Another thing they talk about is that he was very big into the like with the biker boys with his gang being like we got to like really be a gang. We got to be like united. Sure. Sure. Sure.

[00:39:48] So this is a crazy thing they would do which in retrospect maybe inspire Jared Leto in the wrong way. Right. Right. They would cut their thumbs. Okay. And then write letters for the other cast members with their own blood. Okay. That's very Jared Leto and Suicide Squad.

[00:40:06] Yeah, that's crazy. So they like broke into like Mel Gibson's hotel room and like Is that where Mel Gibson learned to be a prankster? Maybe. Because until he was an anti-Semite, a famous drunk anti-Semite wife harasser and racist. He was as famous goofers.

[00:40:19] It was like Mel Gibson likes to put a cigar in his ass and take a picture of it or whatever. And it was just like, oh great. Just like the 90s it was just like can we get in that he's a notorious prankster?

[00:40:30] You know like in any puffies. But that's the crazy thing is you watch this documentary and they're all talking about like yeah we were intense we slept together. We were cutting ourselves and doing all this stuff.

[00:40:41] And Mel was like yeah they were uh they had a vibe going on. And then they cut to other crew people and they were like Mel was terrified. He would come to us and complain all the time. I believe it.

[00:40:50] He didn't like he did not sanction their buffoonery. And he's like they left me notes and stuff. They were like really in character and they were like Mel would call us, he was worried they were going to attack him on set. Oh my god. You want protection?

[00:41:02] The idea that these guys were freaking Mel Gibson out. But this is when Mel Gibson's just a lovable prankster. You also wonder if he's like oh is this how you're supposed to behave on movie? So the plot of Mad Max let's get into it. Yeah.

[00:41:16] Because we've now done I mean they shot it guerrilla style or whatever right. Like there's all that legend where they were like. But a three month shoot which is pretty fucking long for a movie like this.

[00:41:25] Yeah although I believe it was partly because uh what's her name got injured. The original wife got injured so they delayed them two weeks. Yeah well so this is the time of that. Of that for a movie that is all insane stunts.

[00:41:38] The biggest injury that happened happened two days before filming started. Which was their stunt supervisor who was also going to be their lead stuntman and the woman they had hired to be Mad Max's wife. Got in a motorcycle crash leaving like pre-production. Oh man.

[00:41:52] Because that's another thing they talk about is like they were so like strapped and so much of the budget went to the vehicles for this movie. That all the motorcycles and the muscle cars were also being used as like transpo.

[00:42:03] Like they were like Byron Kennedy was like dropping off crew members every night in the V8 interceptor. You know like that's so so the stunt guy gives the lead actress a ride home on a motorcycle

[00:42:14] and then there's like a freak accident and they spin out and they go into the office and George Miller is a doctor who's immediately able to analyze them and he's like your leg is broken in like six places.

[00:42:25] This is going to take like three four months to fully recover. You're not going to be able to walk and the other guy was wearing glasses and when he crashed they went into his face and his nose was lacerated.

[00:42:35] Like all this fucking shit he had internal bleeding so they freak out. They hire a new guy to be the temporary stunt guy. They hire a new actress. Join Samuel. He rejiggers the screenplay and also the scheduling around now you know all that anyway.

[00:42:57] The first day shooting the first piece with the car and this new stunt driver they get the shot it's not great and then when he asked him to reset the guy backs off and dents the car and George Miller just goes like I can't do this. Yeah right.

[00:43:13] Like he goes like I'm in over my head I clearly can't handle this. I'm so freaked out by the fact that this injury happened before we started filming. I shouldn't be making this movie so they reach out to the guy whose name I forget who directed BMX Bandits.

[00:43:26] I've seen that movie who at this point is like an Australian. The young Nicole Kidman. BMX Bandits was directed by no but he hadn't made it yet because BMX Bandits came out four years after. But it's this guy Brian Trenchard Smith. Correct. Yes.

[00:43:42] And George Miller and Kennedy Met. Who also made Leprechaun 3 let's put some respect on this name. Put some respect on this name. George Miller was like I can't fucking do this let's hire him. He's an old pro he's doing like Australian TV.

[00:43:55] Miller had never been on a proper film set before and this is a guy who's like gonna know how to handle it. He's done action stunt stuff you know. There are a lot of like cop shows in Australia which is mostly where they were pulling their crew from.

[00:44:06] And he's like they'll feel comfortable with this guy. I'll stay on as a producer. I can't do this. And all the biker actors come to him and they're like we're not doing the movie with another guy. Go on Mike come on now. Yeah.

[00:44:17] And so after like they're shut down for a couple days. But George Miller goes like you know what you're right I have to do this. And he comes back and does it. The biggest entry still to date on any of the Mad Max movies happens

[00:44:29] in pre-production of the first one which is pretty nuts. I don't know the do four year though how's he doing? Have we checked in on him? He's doing great. Okay. He's doing great. He's doing great. Are you kidding me? Terrific guy. Terrific guy. Cheeto is she doing okay?

[00:44:42] Cheeto? Cheeto she's one of the fucking... In which one? In Fury Road. Oh really? Yeah. Shall I read the names of the ladies in Fury Road? We'll get to that eventually. But should I read it right now though Cheeto? Capable Cheeto toast the dag and the splendid agnorette.

[00:44:58] These are the other like... Those are the five women in Fury Road. Really? Yeah. You know capable Cheeto. Is it more than a Valkyrie? That's the people they run into at five. Oh the Triangale. Technically I've been in multiple gangs. So I've just been thinking... Technically.

[00:45:12] What do you mean technically? What do you mean technically? Like gangs. Like my graffiti crew. We were kind of... What do you mean I'm... You mean like IV? You're like a plant over here? This is weird New Jersey talk. How is this?

[00:45:35] You were in a graffiti crew that would tag your whatever. Congratulations or whatever your tag was all over the city. Yes. And I had a group of friends and we would steal... What would you steal? Liquor from people's outdoor patio bars. We would deliver pizza.

[00:45:56] You would taste the joint. That's a real Jersey vibe. It's like my outdoor patio bar. Wait a second. Here in New Jersey where it's always warm except for eight months out of the year. But you would find people that have like they're into grilling.

[00:46:08] They've got an outdoor bar situation. So we deliver pizza, we go, we steal that. I'm sorry. I have 15 follow up questions. Were any of you employed as pizza delivery people? Yeah. You were. Okay. So the end was... It's not like you showed up with a pizza.

[00:46:25] Like what if they just showed up with like Dijon? That was my question. Like are you mugging a pizza delivery guy and stealing his route? We're casing the joint. What's that? No violent crimes. No. No, no. You're casing the joint like the beginning of a home alone. Yeah.

[00:46:39] So you work at pizza places. They were like, you scouted out. Those guys have one of those dumb bars we could grab. No, no. I get that. I get that. My question was... It's hard to come by vodka when you're in high school. Sure. I understand that.

[00:46:53] My question was is there an additional grift? Yeah. No, no. Are they music? Are they gainfully employed? Think about Ben as a teenager. Do you think there was grift upon grift or...? Possibly. No. No. The vibe is more like, hey. Oh yeah. Right.

[00:47:07] But then you're like, yogi bear style stealing liquor from windowsills. It is very quaint. Because then we would have to go and break an enter. We weren't breaking an enter. You knew that that would elevate your crime. Yeah. So you would take it while you were...

[00:47:22] The outdoor bars. It's outside. What do you mean outdoor bars? Well this is what I was making fun of. You were so concerned with whether they were getting pizza legitimately. It's like a porch bar. It's like a deck bar. What are you talking about?

[00:47:35] I mean, what are you... Anyway, look. What's important is... Max Rakodansky... There are a couple more things I want to say here. Okay. Or maybe we can do it as we talk about the plot. Yeah, come on. Let's get into the movie.

[00:47:49] Like what else do you need to say? No, I just think a big part of it is that they had a long pre-production that there was so much thought put into it that he hires all these actors and they really work for a while.

[00:47:59] I mean not just the biker guys like spending time together but the cops all spending time together and establishing vernacular. And George Miller is a very collaborative filmmaker. They talk a lot about that like he and Kennedy were like complete partners.

[00:48:15] And that Kennedy could have just as easily been the director and George Miller could have just as easily been the producer. It was kind of arbitrary that they landed in that way. And the first two films are such thorough collaborations between the two of them.

[00:48:26] And it really fucks up his career when... Not his career, it fucks him up emotionally mentally when Kennedy dies. No, no, you should talk about it. But we'll get to that. That's post-Bam X2 I believe. That's Thunderdome is the him grieving movie. But that he... The guys...

[00:48:45] There's the one guy in the biker gang who like only makes animal noises. And he had like... The same as he's credited as Ben Hosley in this thing here. Ben plays eight characters in this film, nutty professor style.

[00:49:02] Every scene with the gang is just Ben six times super info. It's like they're all wonners. It's just like... All right, buddy. Yeah, I'll agree. Herculeys, Herculeys! But that character had like three or four lines in the script.

[00:49:16] And the actor went up to George Miller and was like... How about I just do noise? Yeah, he was like... I could say three or four things and be the guy who doesn't say much. Or I could be the animal noise guy. And George Miller was like...

[00:49:25] Yeah, absolutely great idea. This is what I like. Like he was very much a creating ecosystem. Have people around him. And he talks a lot about that so much of even the weird design elements of this one,

[00:49:37] because this movie still takes place in like half a recognizable society. That's what I want to get into. Yes. A lot of the weird design elements would be like actors showing up on the day and being like...

[00:49:46] I was in like my shed and I found this fencing helmet. Could I throw this on the set or wear this in this scene? Like the weird jumbalaya of all these different like objects and costume pieces.

[00:49:58] A lot of it was brought in by the actors themselves or by crew members bringing things in and being like... This feels like it should be in a location, right? This feels like someone should wear this. Let's get into the movie. Yes.

[00:50:10] Because one thing I like about it, especially if you are watching this, having seen another Madman, which I feel like most people probably do. And you and I both watched it after seeing later Mad Maxes. 100%. I had definitely seen The Road Warrior and yeah, I think...

[00:50:25] I can't remember if I saw this. I think I saw it in high school before I saw it for you. It doesn't matter. But it is weird to watch it in that order. This isn't set in just like the desert. Like this isn't just set in a pop-up.

[00:50:37] They didn't play all of these movies in your history class. That teach you the history of your people. Just like to think like this is still set in a place where there's like... You can like go get ice cream at a store. Right.

[00:50:50] Like there's still cops and a civilization and stuff like that. People still do laundry. Right. It's just that the crime is out of control. Like that's sort of what's sort of near future.

[00:50:59] But I remember the first time I saw it and not just that I had seen Road Warrior before it, but also that I had seen the things influenced by Mad Max.

[00:51:07] I've heard the way people talk about Mad Max and how influential it was in the sort of post-apocalyptic genre that I watched it for the first time going like... So what? Is the halfway point where society collapses? Yeah, exactly. You're like, right. Is this about society collapsing?

[00:51:20] It's like no, it's a simpler story about a cop. Trying to take someone down, you know? Take a gang down. Right. And it's just in a world where it's kind of like, yeah, shit's fucked up.

[00:51:30] So when I first saw it, I remember being like not underwhelmed by it by going like, oh, but this isn't the real shit. Sure. I mean, it's a raw movie. It's a raw fucking movie.

[00:51:37] And I watched it a couple times and I watched even twice in the last couple days because I watched it once with commentary, once without. And I was really trying to apply to it this like Star Wars thing of

[00:51:48] try to just pretend that the other ones don't exist and view this just as its own movie. Not even as like a fucking No Smits bit, but as a like... No, I get 100%... This individual movie would probably have a better reputation

[00:52:00] if he hadn't made three incredible sequels afterwards. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's got a good reputation. Oh, totally. But I'm saying if this was his dead alive, rather than this being his Evil Dead one... All his skills on display. Right.

[00:52:13] I mean, we, yeah, Evil Dead is a great comparison. Yes. Yes. And we'll talk more Evil Dead comparisons in later episodes as we compare it to the Evil Dead sequels and it's a pretty clear analog. It's in the most insanely clear.

[00:52:24] Yes. But this movie, right, you start out with like in the near future. Yes. After the title just a few years from now, it's striking just the like the black on white, the music is booming, Mad Max and like Chrome letters.

[00:52:38] He said the title was literally I just want something that sounds cool. Is alliterative. It's a great when you're eight, you're like that must be the coolest movie ever. Mad Max. Mad Max. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. Dad Ben.

[00:52:52] I think it was, Mad was the first word I ever said. Yeah. But you... So Max is the second. They thought you were going to say mama and then you just said, MAD! But you have that like, you know, a few years in the future

[00:53:07] and then you have the halls of justice where like the letters are falling off of it. Right. Then you see a street sign that says anarchy. Right. Right. Spell is... The beginning of it is you're like, yeah! Right. Yeah! Graffiti. It's so cool.

[00:53:21] Wall and then you see the street sign. The amount of fatalities that have happened on this road. Like you have four pieces of just street sign. That's funny. It says anarchy. Yeah, right. But it's like A-N-A-R-C-H-I-E. But you have like four things in the first five seconds

[00:53:38] that visually do so much table setting for like, this is just sort of like the temperature of this place. Right. And then there is the head cop who is shirtless wearing a scarf. And then you're like, okay, this is the future. Yes, sure. We're in a different time...

[00:53:54] We perfected fashion. We have perfected fashion and how one dresses. No, but I mean, the beginning of this movie, it's very cool. It's a car chase. This was one of their ideas as they said, his co-writer's name, I'm already forgetting again. Oh, Jesus. James McRoss.

[00:54:10] He said, what if the movie started with a day in a month? Sure. Right. Right. You've got Knight Rider. Right. Cool guy. But you just, you open with the kind of thing that movie spent the first 30 minutes building up to. Played by Vincent Gil.

[00:54:25] And then you go down. We've been in that movie, Stone. Knight Rider's having a ball. He's got a lady in the car with him. Yes. Yeah. You also have the man spying with the sniper goggles and the people having sex. It's very like lurid.

[00:54:40] That's Johnny the boy, isn't it? Yes. Right. So you've got those guys, the sort of shitty cops. The new cop, the shitty cop. What are their names? I don't remember any of their names. Yeah. I mean, they all have good names. They do all have good names.

[00:54:53] It's hard to differentiate between them. It is. I was, I just watched the other night, the, what should I call it, the Hollywood reporter, like director's round table thing. Like the newest one with Scott Phillips and all those people? And Greta Gerwig and Martin Scorsese.

[00:55:10] And of course they litigate the Scorsese cinema thing, whatever. And then they, after everyone was fighting about it, they went like, what about you Greta? Like what defines cinema? And she was like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like why are you throwing this on me? And then in her defensiveness,

[00:55:25] she came with I thought such an eloquent answer, which was like, and at first it sounds like she's making a joke, like sort of riffing on the old pornography thing. Right. But she's like, you know it when you see it. Right. Right. Isn't Lulu on that panel?

[00:55:39] And she's the one who talks to Marnie about it. Kills it. But Gerwig is like, look, I've been lucky enough that I've been on film festival juries and a certain way that's the best way to watch a movie because you're going to see all this stuff

[00:55:50] but you're watching it devoid of context. You're going to these screenings and you don't know where they're coming from, what they are, whatever. And the thing I've learned through doing that and especially when you're watching films from different countries with actors you don't recognize

[00:56:00] is not only do you know it when you see it, but you almost always can tell within the first 15 seconds if you're watching a movie with someone who is a filmmaker. It's 100% true because I... And she's like, it doesn't always mean it's going to be a great film.

[00:56:12] Like the movie could fall off but you can tell when someone has an actual understanding of the medium and a thing to say. I mean, I have not been on, I assume Greta's been on like a Venice jury, like a very high fuller and good jury.

[00:56:24] First name basis. Yeah. Yeah, first name, yeah, me and Greta, we go away by. But like I have done Gotham's juries many times and other juries where you're like handed a pile of screeners of true indie movies. Right. Like movies that are not,

[00:56:36] maybe in some of them will never be released. Right. And it is totally that. You watch one scene and you're like, mostly you're like, oh, okay. And then once in a while you put in something and you're like, holy shit, like this is a movie. Yeah.

[00:56:48] But like my experience with film score or like going to like short film festivals or things like that, you can just always tell within like a couple of shots whether or not the thing is great if someone is kind of... Has the bones of a filmmaker.

[00:57:01] And this is one of those movies where like you watch it and in the first like five minutes you're like, this is a filmmaker. This is someone who knows how to put a movie together. Right. You know, there is something just about the elegance

[00:57:15] and the clarity of how it's structured where even though you have eight million questions about the world. There's a lot of something thrown up in the air. And who these people are and the intricacies of their relationships with each other on such a primal level.

[00:57:27] And it's a word I feel like I'm going to keep on using with Miller and especially with these Mad Max movies. But on such a primal level, the elegance of how this opening chase is structured, which is like essentially 13 minutes long.

[00:57:40] And you don't really get a clear shot of Mel Gibson until minute 13. But it's introducing him very sexily where it's sort of like little glimpses. But all of this, I mean his level of control and his understanding. That's the idea they have that's so smart. Right.

[00:57:53] Like here's our hero but we're not going to... We're not just going to let you see him. But also this is a movie where there's not going to be a ton of characterization. So we need to sell to you why this guy is the important one to follow.

[00:58:03] In this scene. Because he's not Luke Skywalker. He's not the chosen one. Right. But you've got Knight Rider whose vibe is he wants to drive his car very fast and go like, I am the Knight Rider blah blah blah blah. The whole time and run people down.

[00:58:14] That's his vibe, right? He's a... Can I say it? Go ahead. He's a messy bitch who lives for the drama. And it's kind of true. And so you have these cops part of the MFP, the main force patrol going after him. One of them who see...

[00:58:28] I feel like he thinks he's sort of Mad Max-y and one who's a newbie. Yeah. And they're doing a shit job. And they're sort of an odd couple bickering energy. Right. And you've got Max chilling waiting, but he's not doing anything. And when Max finally enters,

[00:58:42] that's when Knight Rider just starts to lose it because he's just like, fuck oh shit, oh shit, like Max is on his tail. So he has magic to him. And there is also... Very magic. There was this... Magic Max. Magic Max, Mad Mike.

[00:58:56] There is this energy too of like, there's something a little bit crazy about Mad Max that is the same thing that is just innately a little bit crazy about Mel Gibson, even in this which is arguably his most normal performance. Yeah. You know?

[00:59:12] His most normal performance as Max for sure. But also I think as he becomes more and more of a movie star even when he's playing a normal Charming guy, he always coasted on a certain live wire manic energy. He did.

[00:59:23] And this movie he hasn't totally harnessed that yet. He's a lot more subdued. But there is this weird caged animal thing in Mel Gibson's eyes that is like constantly there. And the idea that like this guy scares the night rider

[00:59:38] because this guy's crazy enough to go as fast. Right. And to fucking ride him bumper to bumper. Right. But it's like, and it's the cops and robbers thing, but it like, and this is I feel like a thing that Sims would love like it's...

[00:59:50] There's a system in which cops know the reputations of these robbers and vice versa. Well what do you mean? And they end that Max has this respect and there's a fear amongst like the... The criminal community. What's that?

[01:00:04] You said you feel like it's something that David would love. Why don't you ask him if he loves it? David, do you like that? Yeah, I love it. Cool. It's great. Cool. Okay. Honestly, hey, I wasn't sure. I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked.

[01:00:13] And I was stressed out. I'm totally... For a minute. Totally. And we weren't going to be doing a thorough job in this episode if we didn't get confirmation. Right. Did it have enough rules for you and this one

[01:00:23] or do you feel like the rules ramp up in two and three and then you're like... No, this has more rules. You would say more rules. I would say. Because the basic law in order like this. Exactly. He still goes and talks to a boss who's like,

[01:00:34] hey Max, we got you a new car. A shirtless boss. I mean, okay, there's some energy. And he's thick. Can I say it? He is an absolute unit. And he really is. Man. I mean, the second he came on screen,

[01:00:48] I was like, that is who that term exists for. Yeah, he's a big boy. He looks like a fucking 1910s strong man at a carnival side. He looks like a Miyazaki character. Come to life. But he does have this like Dr. Robotnik, like long mustache.

[01:01:03] So he's in the documentary. I'm excited to see Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, but I do wish they had cast a thick king, which is sort of like his, you know, computer look. Yes. Yes. Because he's a thick king.

[01:01:15] He's got long, skinny legs, but he's got a thick old boss. It does feel like, do you remember when Jim Carrey was an egg man? Was supposed to play Curly in the Three Stooges movie. Right. Right. And he spent like a year beefing up

[01:01:25] and everyone was like, there's, he's just not going to get round enough. You're not going to be that size. It's, it's no, you know, inherent. Like, you can't make yourself look like that. Right. I agree with you. You want, you want an egg man.

[01:01:37] But this actor whose name I'm forgetting who plays the chief. Who is it? Fifi is the character. Yeah. Yeah. Roger Ward. Yes. So George Miller, like any actors he was getting, especially the ones who had been on TV and were recognizable within like the Australian media,

[01:01:54] you know, landscape. He was like, if I'm, if I'm, I want to cast a lot of actors who are unknown, haven't been on camera before. But if people have been working, I want to change their look because I don't want anyone to go like,

[01:02:05] oh that's the cop from this show. That's the doctor from this show. Right. So he was giving people these assignments of like, we're going to die this. We're going to shave this, whatever. To this guy, he says, we're going to shave your head

[01:02:14] and have you grow out a mustache. Right. And he in this interview was like, look at that time, no one shaved their head. Right. It was like career suicide. Even if you were going bald, you were to pay. It was Yule Brenner, it was Telysa Valles,

[01:02:26] and that was it. And they, their 90% of their image was that they had shaved head. Right. And he was like, George Muller was super trepidatious asking me this. He was like clearly like afraid of the boundaries of it. And what he didn't know is I had spent years

[01:02:40] wanting to shave my head, but I was too scared to do it. He was just like, yeah, let's do it. And he was like, and at that moment George gave me permission and in the interview that is filmed probably sometime in the late 90s, early 2000s,

[01:02:51] the guy looks exactly the same as he does in this movie. Good for him. A thousand percent bald other than a long mustache. And it's like George Muller unlocked the image that this guy had in his head who he was afraid to be

[01:03:03] and then has just spent the last 40 years looking like that every day of his life. The fucking rules, it's a great look. Isn't that a beautiful story? Yes, that fucking is great. Anyway, Max Chase is down the night right now. And they use the first flash

[01:03:15] of that amazing prosthetic shot of the eyes bulging. But it's so quick. It's so quick. But it's that's the moment where you're like, wait, this isn't just a good filmmaker. Is this guy a genius? Yeah, it is. It's a weird. Is this like the inklings of a genius?

[01:03:27] Also, just the car chases you are just, I cannot believe they pulled that off with no money and like basically just like closing down a road for 15 minutes and all that shit. And they talk about their two things. One, because the Victorian government

[01:03:39] eventually came back around to them, offered them financing. They didn't get that. But the thing that Brian Kennedy, Byron Kennedy was kind of in on it, right? What they were really smart was they got a letter right, right, right. That said that the film had been approved by.

[01:03:50] Right. All right, close the road for you. So they call it the get out of jail free card. And there's a scene in the movie where Goose says that to someone. He gives them a get out of jail free card, which was like an inside joke.

[01:04:01] Because Byron Kennedy had this one document that he would show to anyone any time they got a question. It was like a guy named like detective Stubbs or something gave him this thing. And a lot of the crew people are like,

[01:04:11] in retrospect, I don't know that that was real. We never met that detective. It might have been forged. Kennedy's dead. We don't know. But they use this one document to get everything. But the other thing is all the crew was like, this guy's an idiot.

[01:04:25] He doesn't know what he's doing. He's so inexperienced with George Miller because he would do a crazy setup and just get a two second shot and cut and move on really quickly. And maybe like that wasn't worth it. That was insane, right?

[01:04:36] Or you're not going to be able to use that. You can't cut together. That's you're going to cross the line here. That piece won't work with this piece. And it was this thing that he just like had it all in his head. In this opening chase,

[01:04:47] there's the moment where the kid runs out into the middle of the street. Yes, which is incredible. And is this incredibly tense moment? And he's also foreshadowing what's going to happen. Totally. Let's brog. But you watch it and you're like, oh fuck. And it feels like,

[01:04:59] is this going to be some toxic avengers shit where you have to watch like the most gruesome thing ever? So you're like on board 100%. Right. And so you're like in your face. What you're about to see. And that's my janitor from my high school.

[01:05:10] Not only is the movie not that gruesome, that most of it's sort of suggestions. Yes. But I was watching it with the commentary. And it's like the DP and the art director and maybe the explosions guy all talking about that moment. And they're like,

[01:05:21] if you look at the four shots that comprise the kid almost getting hit by the car, the kid is never close to the car. Right. Right. Like the way it was shot was in the safest way possible. They were not doing fucking donuts around a baby. Right.

[01:05:34] But you watch it and it feels like I can't believe that car missed that kid. And it doesn't feel like I can't believe they organized that that well. Yeah. It feels like you're you feel like it's happening in real time

[01:05:48] and there's no way they're going to be able to avoid an accident that the risk is so high. So Knight Rider's pals are toe cutter and his gang. A great name. It is a great name. He never cuts any toes, but he has. Yeah. That's how he got.

[01:06:03] I mean he does other shit. That's how I get the fucking name. That's how I get the fucking name. That's how I get the fucking name. Maybe he was just like, I'm going to be called toe cutter. And everyone's like, did you cut a toe?

[01:06:11] And he's like, I don't know what's my name. Toe nail. Yeah. Right. And then he grabbed like shoe polish every three weeks. And he just rubbed it on his eye. Do you think or did he see a dog with like a black sort of spot?

[01:06:22] He was like, I like that look the character toe cutter. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He shaved his eyebrow because he saw a real biker gang guy who looked like that and just showed up and was like, I don't have an eyebrow now and everyone was terrified.

[01:06:37] Genuinely terrified. He's so good because he's got so much personality. But also he is not like he is this like Shakespearean trained actor who is speaking with this like gravitas and this diction. Like he's not trying to be like scuzzy. That's what's beautiful about it. Yes.

[01:06:55] But okay, so. Which is why I prefer him to the Lord humongous. 100%. There is though this whole sort of like late 60s acid sort of cult kind of vibe to the biker gang as well. And I think it really sells how dangerous these guys are

[01:07:15] because it's not even that they're menacing and tough. It's like they're so psychologically like messed up from something because the barking guy like that trope. I feel like I don't know if that was like a thing in genre

[01:07:30] or if it was just like kind of biker exploitation kind of like movies. I think a little bit of both. I mean the thing they talked about was like this whole thing of them sort of like remaining not in character but staying in the mode and like

[01:07:44] spending this much time together and doing shit to other people and whatever. It's not like they were ever attacking people. But they were like we were constantly doing things that people would not usually do non-criminal things

[01:07:59] to get ourselves past the point of any sort of fear or embarrassment around each other to feel that. That's why it worked. Where there's this like reckless abandon especially when there's a group shot of all of them.

[01:08:09] So they were like we would make people think we were about to fight them. We had no interest in ever fighting anybody but you wanted to be able to look someone in the eye and convince them

[01:08:18] that you were going to fight them and seem like you had what it took to do it. So much of their they're not even doing car stuff. They're just being scary. It's also beautiful that there's no like it's not like there's a heist.

[01:08:28] It's not like there's a specific time. No they just go to town and ruin it. Bees fucking rascals. The way they... They're a little more than rascals. They're a little rascals. More than... But I also love how arched they are too.

[01:08:40] It's like West Side Story kind of where they're just hanging out and like just like just being like sarcastically menacing. That's also the weird actor thing where you have like a bunch of actors who all want to pop in a scene.

[01:08:52] Where people are doing shit like let me burn my forearm. Like even if you're in a scene by yourself you're like I got to show that I'm just as crazy as the other guy. I'll be the animal guy. Everyone's doing like a lot of bits.

[01:09:03] Oh but they're all great. Yes. Oh great. You've got Johnny the boy. Yes. His protege. Yeah. Johnny the boy. Who's you know he's into it but he's not quite... He doesn't quite have the sort of mean streak.

[01:09:14] But all the Mad Max movies have this weird like sort of like mentorship thing. There's always like a big guy and a little guy. Right, right, right. You know there's some sort of odd like is it sexual? Is it paternal? Like what is it?

[01:09:26] Fury Road is so good. You know what that movie is? The only problem with Mad Max now is that even though the other movies are all good like anytime I watch them I'm like I do love Fury Road.

[01:09:35] I know and it is bizarre how successfully Fury Road works as I spent 30 years and I've done all the research and now I know how to make a perfect Mad Max movie. Right, truly. Like all these films have their own value as I said watch this again.

[01:09:49] I know 100% but like you watch this movie and you're like oh but what if Tocutter had a truck that was so big and the wheels were so big. I can't wait to watch Fury Road.

[01:09:59] Like I'm edging like this whole mini I almost watched it a couple weeks ago. I watched it recently just because for my sake. I've been waiting because I'm like I want to watch in order up to this. Like it would just be really fun.

[01:10:12] I'm sure I can own this thing now right? There must be some toy of it the Giga horse. Well, I mean could you get the real car though? Yeah, real merchandise. Yeah, the real car. Yeah. Yeah no I know the toys are complicated. Yeah we'll get into that.

[01:10:26] It would be cool to race cars in the desert. Yeah you're saying you want to live in the wasteland? Have you been to Australia? No. No. I've never been to the desert. You've never been to like the Irish owner or somewhere like that?

[01:10:39] No but I'm gonna try now and and race cars. Yeah. I kind of surprised you haven't been to Burning Man. But it's too hippie-ish I guess that's the element. He doesn't like hippies. Yeah, he don't like hippies. Everything other than the hippie contingency feels very up your ass.

[01:10:55] Oh yeah no it's the drugs. That's why I was gonna go is the drugs and nudity. Burning things. Oh effigy I'm there. Tense. Effigy. I consider myself a fan of effigies. So they then this is the thing that is weirdest about Mad Max.

[01:11:15] He goes back home to his wife and it's actually- His wife plays the saxophone. I mean that's great. His baby wears the sailor. No it's that they arrest Johnny the boy and take him to court and he like gets off on a technicality.

[01:11:27] That's the thing where you're like in the movie they're like oh the world has gone to shit but you're like there's a court, there are laws. He's like getting away with something. This is also- In Mad Max 2 you would just like run him over. That's the point.

[01:11:39] That's the point. I think if you're seeing this film in 1979 you're like I can't believe a movie is this crazy. Right. If you're watching this movie in 2020 you're like they have walls this is way too big. Exactly they have doors? Right. This house looks heated. But yeah.

[01:11:54] We don't see him in his baby boy for quite a while. She comes in for like 15-20 minutes. You have this straight action sequence and then there's like a fade to him in his home. There's sax music playing. He's hanging out with his baby.

[01:12:07] It's nice domesticity and then an amazing reverse shot reveal of his wife is the one playing with sax. I mean an incredible bit. But yeah because you're cutting between that and then he goes back to Copland and they're like we made you a cool car.

[01:12:22] Let's keep being a cop and he's like all right you know that's where you meet the interceptor. And when they're in that pursuit special. When they're in that garage and it just feels like oh my god how can they

[01:12:31] afford to have a garage this big with this many cars in it? It's truly a thing where they would shoot one angle and then they would move all the cars around to the other side and shoot the other angle.

[01:12:43] So no matter what angle they're at it looks like there's three cars in the background which makes you feel like they're 20 cars but they're actually only three. Shit like that's incredible. Byron Kennedy is also the one who is doing a lot of the stunt driving in this movie.

[01:12:57] He was like a big motorhead. He was the guy who really understood the language of the vehicles. George Moller gives him a lot of credit in particular for the sound that he was sort of a genius with sound and a big thing that he said is like

[01:13:08] each of these motors has to have a different register, a different pitch so they each sonically are their own characters that unconsciously you start to recognize the vehicles in that kind of way. So he's like picking the cars, designing the cars

[01:13:23] and driving a lot of them on camera and also picking up lunch in the Viet intercept there. Which they in all the making of stuff always call the black on black which is kind of cool. That is cool. Yeah. So Johnny gets off. Yes.

[01:13:39] Well he sabotages Goose's bike and Goose crashes but survives even though he's like flipped off his fucking bike. Which the two heckle and jackal cops at the beginning in failing to catch the

[01:13:50] night ride or the one guy ends up a glass his neck and then he's got the sound box thing. But it was another George Miller thing is he's like I want everyone to have all these like little curtsies right? Yeah. Yeah. But that's when they burn up Goose.

[01:14:07] Yeah. I mean we're zooming but yeah. We're not. What have we missed? Goose dies at like the 45 minute mark. Yeah. Yeah. Well what is there? What do we talk about? Right. What's Goose's car chase? Max's family tow cutter. That's right. There's a lot of tow cutters.

[01:14:21] Does Goose I mean he seems like he's got charisma but everyone's making out to seem like he's got the most in the country. In the budget movie he can like say a joke so everyone's like this guy's a cut up. Here's the other problem.

[01:14:34] They didn't know that the other actor was going to be Mel Gibson which say what you will. No no he's great. About it. Well yeah I was going to say say what you will about his acting. His personal life is fantastic

[01:14:44] but no but it is like it is so insane to just think that this movie which you're so used to seeing these types of movies with lead actors who either never become anything or become just sort of cold figures like Jeffrey Combs or like Bruce Campbell you know

[01:15:01] are like working actors. To watch this movie which is so scrappy and gorilla and be like and then it produced this dude who became the biggest. At a point was the biggest star in Hollywood. The biggest star became the highest paid star in Hollywood had like a

[01:15:13] 25 year career. Won all the Oscars like everything. It's just a they all talk about like they cast him he was good in auditions he had a real reputation from drama school and busy with best friends it felt like those were

[01:15:25] the two guys who were going to make it but it wasn't until that they started filming the movie and Mel Gibson stepped in front of camera and everyone looked behind the lens and they were like oh fuck. This guy's popping.

[01:15:35] That weird X factor thing where certain people just fucking work on a movie screen. Where they like looked at him and they were like this guy's really handsome and then they looked at him like through the viewfinder and they were like

[01:15:46] Oh $20 million leather motorcycle jacket just like boom which all of them are vinyl. Yeah. For budgetary reasons they were like it was so gross. You were like ringing out your stuff and they're like changing on the side of the road

[01:15:59] you know like I mean they're like driving the vehicles in the on camera vehicles to weird desolate locations and then everyone's like setting up the actors are like grabbing sandbags and the crew was so small everyone in this movie had

[01:16:12] like four titles who was part of the crew and every actor ended up doing like two crew jobs on top of it and he was like we were helping light like everything. So they burn goose up. Well it's worth it. They burn goose up. They burn them. Yeah.

[01:16:27] They burn them up. It's a roast goose. They roast the goose. Which it is crazy there are two different canonically like humongous action films in which the hero loses a best friend named goose and that's what like

[01:16:40] it's a fair point right yeah yeah very very yeah yeah yeah. Because that's when the lesson is never make a best friend named goose. Never call anyone goose. Never call anyone goose. Stupid name yeah especially not a cat.

[01:16:50] So Max retires and he goes to live with his wife and just chill out. You can't deal with it anymore. And that's when his kid gets smashed up by the toe cutter guy. It's just funny that there are two revenge points like you don't really need Max's

[01:17:04] family to die like you know killing goose is I would be like yeah I get it now he has to go kill toe cutter like I don't really need the second thing. I don't mind it to be clear. I think the total loss of his humanity.

[01:17:15] It makes total sense. I think that's what is I think it's the goose thing almost feels the purpose for you're like okay yeah goose had to go to I guess. No because the point is even if look obviously losing the wife and child is more catastrophic

[01:17:27] right yeah would be harder than anywhere to go to overcome. Right. I think having those two things happen is two separate instances so close together is what drives him into madness. It drives him into madness.

[01:17:38] I mean his wife and child died he would probably go into deep depression and seek some sort of revenge but the level of just like I don't give a fuck that he hits by the end of the movie can only be reached if like your life becomes that

[01:17:52] like like cosmically absurdly tragic right. But you also it's like the initial conflict in the movie is he's like should I quit being a cop. Yes. And then goose dies and he does yeah but then right you know then obviously it's

[01:18:05] like this world doesn't make sense I don't have anything to live for anymore. Yeah. Toe cutter I don't talk more about like I've now reached the end of the fucking Wikipedia. So I'll say this summery is not long it's not a plotty movie. I feel like rewatching it.

[01:18:21] It was almost like this thing of being like I don't feel like Max was as directly responsible for the death of their friend. We're like what a thing that I kept getting on night writer. Night writer yeah he's pretty responsible he chases him down. He chases him down.

[01:18:38] I mean look night writer made a few mistakes long. That doesn't have a perfect perfect guy. And I like night writer. I think he's cool. I like his deal. I like just think I don't like think toke under is getting being like well

[01:18:51] night writer he was he was a bit of a hot you know I mean like I think I understand why he doesn't like Max. What are you what's up they're going after him so hard and they're not going

[01:19:01] after those two other dopey cops but they those guys are that's their small potato yeah I can just say one thing about night writer. What's up it's been said that he enjoys women almost as much as I do some of

[01:19:12] them even on the younger side no question about it night writer enjoys his social life. It's in close to retiring that one I feel it's definitely on death. Yeah that's the next one that you're gonna have to put that one on the retirement express yeah.

[01:19:27] Oh you know what some great vulture work sure great vulture work who is it Jesse David Fox yeah what is this hunter Harris. Great vulture Rick Allison Wilmore new hire Jerry salts what are we talking about I guess he's more main line magazine yeah.

[01:19:48] Vultures are fucked up yeah it's a weird thing yeah like that sucks that they exist I guess so it's like I find everything about them scary they're they are doing an important job like garbage men right they like clean up the

[01:20:02] sort of stuff we don't want to deal with yeah but they look so they do that's the thing they look messed up they look messed up and they're kind of the like funeral work that's it'd be one thing if they were just like seagulls where they

[01:20:16] just look around for garbage and they eat it but like the idea that they like will see something and be like oh what's this and start circling around I think their behaviors are really scary can I also say and I don't know if there's

[01:20:28] a specious of me I think they are the most innately scary looking quite pretty they're probably top 10 if you're just talking visuals yeah they're top 10 they're designed there's other must be other scary animals that I'm not thinking like you know you're the angler fish right you know you're

[01:20:44] classic scary animals for tech is asking stick bugs freak me out really I mean you mean like a stick into like a little cute stick guy he looks like a stone like the idea of reaching for a branch and it's a bug like slim from

[01:21:00] a bug's life played by David Hyde Pierce um sort of a comical FOP character there's also a stick a stick insect in in do little oh that movie uses is like a spy character fuck I gotta go see do a little now

[01:21:15] hold on I just got checked do little show times but vultures yes we're designed and involved over the years to eat dead or soon to be things yeah things that's fucked this fuck great but your work yeah great vulture work um

[01:21:33] I don't know what else can we say about this but I mean it's hard to talk about because it's so purely when to cutter gets run over by the truck like well that looks so

[01:21:42] fucking good and that is the best thing like it looks so good that's so much of it is like this shit's real like it's like they're putting rockets in the back of cars they're like driving everything at like 140 kilometers you know

[01:21:57] and they're and they're just crashing things nothing looks better I'm just watching a clip nothing looks better than one Mel Gibson behind a wheel just leather gloves on just like you know just that like you know that that's just sort of yeah um just that close any

[01:22:12] close-up that you know like that always looks good yeah the other thing that always looks good well I'd open Australian landscapes yes you know like which this film is like all animorphic lens it's the magic thing it was the first animorphic film ever made in australia

[01:22:25] and I believe it is the only Australian film ever shot on the Tadeo format and the secret is the getaway is that what's called the paw the peckin paw movie the san peckin paw movie that

[01:22:37] I think was shot in australia um he had shot that with those lenses and just left them sure and they like bought them at like a fucking garage yeah I mean it was like they had like

[01:22:49] outdated lenses that they were like gerry rigging to these cameras that could barely fit on but that was the sense they had of like this is all about like a road a straight line that

[01:23:00] can curve depending on where we place the camera and just like bear in landscape as far as the eye can see everywhere around it yeah um but yeah him as as in fury road and man max two and most like

[01:23:12] that he dies before the final you know joey is actually joe johnny sorry johnny the boy is the last one the final guy uh and that's the moment when when his he's done when it's not just

[01:23:24] that he's gonna kill johnny the boy but that he's gonna like psychologically torture him he does the saw trick it's crazy to this one bar the end of the fucking movie though it's a pretty good

[01:23:33] end that he like drags a guy by a handcuff chains him to a car right and he's like you have five minutes to saw through your leg you know he sets up the whole gasoline how long it's gonna take

[01:23:43] for the fire to go off this is how long it would take you to saw through the chain of the handcuff which and this is how long it would take you to saw through your life right

[01:23:51] walks away explosion which you just need of movie you need that satisfying explosion the explosion very big explosion and the ending is also nothing will ever be the same yes like

[01:24:03] that's what really it's just like ma'am x2 is just him being like i'm glad i got all that out of my system and he's very normal therapy he's like talk to a therapist because i imagine watching this

[01:24:13] like when it comes out and then going like they announced they're making ma max two and you're like but what does this guy do next yeah like you can't you can't make a movie where the guy

[01:24:21] has like already got a road warrior yeah like some other things brian may score very cool yes weird discordant kind of still score right brian may from queen beautifully played by i don't even know

[01:24:37] who played him i don't know i was gonna make a terrible joke still haven't seen it but well rap yeah well is the best comedy of last two years ago

[01:24:49] or was was it did green book went for drama and it for comedy no you know what david you are 100 percent correct isn't it crazy himian rhapsody one best drama and green book one best it was the

[01:24:59] double whammy of one that those were the two best films of the year according to gold glows but two that they were weirdly like flopped in that way yeah it's that crazy thing of like it's crazy

[01:25:09] they didn't put a star is born in musical right they put it in drama it's crazy judy didn't run as a musical i am actually i'm gonna just say jode jode jode that i'm i'm purposely not watching green

[01:25:23] book for the day that we decide to open the book well my friend by the time this episode comes out we will be deep in march madness we'll know there is albeit a very march plan is over almost

[01:25:37] over so yeah that fairly takes a day to go to like marty versus peter yeah the two kings it could happen i mean i'll say this we used to talk about like i used to make the pitch for you of the

[01:25:49] fairly brothers and you would go i don't want to do that yeah the fact that green book changed everything green book makes it such a fascinating because the fairly brothers before it was like

[01:25:56] it ended at like hall pass or whatever we were like all right it ends in dumb dumber two but now it ends at best picture winner green book that's really more of a battle but there's

[01:26:06] so much more great work to come out to by peter i mean i don't even think we should like we should have this movie coming out called blue book about buying a car i don't know i feel like

[01:26:17] red book it's a malbiopic what if he just kept with books but it's like an eskimo or like a native american person from alaska this time and he's connecting like with an italian american

[01:26:30] i feel like he's announced his next thing and it's definitely announced something but i don't know if it was i also feel like it's maybe like a mini series circling something though yeah i can't

[01:26:38] remember if he was actually confirmed i interviewed him he's a nice guy okay uh well i can't remember the oh well you know uh and i guess i can't no there was a third gang and i wasn't really

[01:26:53] supposed to talk about it but i think enough time has gone on it well i was in a fight club you really shouldn't talk about that i'm not supposed to talk about they say it twice

[01:27:04] i am for you cut that out okay and have it actually keep it in triple it we get to the box house game with the big mama's house we're gonna do that i'm just trying to see if there's any other

[01:27:15] well of course there was the famously weird american version where they dubbed over the dialogue right well no one likes that george miller says never seen it tanked in the u s

[01:27:26] they dubbed over like oh it was like hey you right and like i love ronald reagan i don't know they were saying and i don't know what they were saying but wrote a village road show

[01:27:37] sold it to warner brothers where they had one person distribution who was really really bullish on it botched it in the u s but sold it really hard in japan and it blew up there and that's what

[01:27:50] sort of started the run of it being this like global crossover sensation because once japan did well and the posters are all so evocative for this movie i mean they're like him in the weird cop

[01:28:02] leather with the helmet contrast in front of the car and they would like tailor a new piece of graphic design for each country and it sort of just did well everywhere uh all non english-speaking territories because in all english territories they released this horrible fucking dub that is

[01:28:19] horrendous i saw a clip of it it's so fucking bad i'm sure um but yeah why it's also super weird to dub the english language yep yes it is um but it's super weird and it became one of

[01:28:31] those profitable movies of all time the weirdest thing is that at the australian like film institute awards that year they didn't even nominate oh i was going to say they didn't even nominate

[01:28:41] mil Gibson but he actually won for a different movie called tim wow which is 100 percent the oscar bait movie a mentally handicapped 12 year 20 year old works as a labor like they were like

[01:28:55] yeah mad max was pretty good but like oh tim you were so moving is tim yeah by the way our next mini series is tim it's just just that talking to him tim hiper lorry mil Gibson wow all right so

[01:29:09] there's no box office for this movie partly because it was barely released in america anyway but also because that's from a long time ago but we do have to talk about february team 2011 which is when

[01:29:18] big mama so you specifically want to do the third one yeah we have february 18 2011 yeah mama's calling like my like mama like father like son yeah uh debuted number five at the box office

[01:29:30] with a 16 million dollar opening weekend five at 16 five and it's one of three big openers that week so everything just did okay because what is it an up to classic february where it's like 20 19 18 16 20 you know like everything's making kind of the same amount of money does it end

[01:29:46] up at like 50 or does it oh i don't think it multiplied like that no it ended up at 37 oh it was a two multiplier like in the old num the numbers which i do appreciate has to sort of shading for

[01:29:57] like this is where you would want to end up it's a little below yeah but do they is this like a four day weekend is this a presence day weekend am i wrong in the time if it is which it might be

[01:30:07] it's not showing okay so that's number five it is it is but number one that what if we do a reverse order let's just go out let's go all right number four was number one the week before

[01:30:17] oh wow and is a comedy with a big comedy star a comedy with a big comedy star yeah and it's 20 one of his last big just down the middle i'm in a movie is it just go with it correct yeah

[01:30:32] amazing that you got the movie as well as the star i figured you get saying i want to take i was like i could ask if it's sandler but i'd rather just go i just love that he released a movie

[01:30:41] that's just like i'm just go with it it's me jennifer anison run vacation or whatever who cares it's it's an adaptation of a french play that was personally adapted to cactus flower she has to

[01:30:50] pretend to be his wife she's his co-worker right like there's a whole flim flam yeah brooklyn decker isn't brooklyn decker is playing the goldie han role that won goldie han and oscar did brooklyn

[01:31:01] decker win an oscar she did okay good for her and can you give me the final she won a technical award in the academy science ceremony can you give me the final domestic total it was like 105

[01:31:12] one of three it's like his last hundred million dollar gross it's sort of the end of it but hey when jennifer anison won a sag award last night she shouted him out on stage he's got magic i've

[01:31:21] seen up close and isn't she doing mystery murder mystery i think she two three four gotta do them all hey i'm excited they're gonna do all that i think that's an avatar style like we're pushing

[01:31:31] two back because we're gonna shoot five but i also wanted to be like the first one he's investigating some fictional i wanted to do like zodiac right fucking the glenberg baby get into all of

[01:31:41] them all those people you know your thing and the dial out of pass instant in russia where all those people died and no one knows why he'll figure it out detective mysteries on the case zodiac i can't

[01:31:52] do samar i just want to say tonight i'm excited going to see a live reading of grown-ups oh reading yeah it says there's a special surprise guest i mean i guess everyone will know by the

[01:32:05] time this episode comes out but i kind of wonder if samler is going to show up i mean that would be crazy but do you think we'll find out i don't know all right so i mean he's doing in new york in the

[01:32:14] la one yeah i'm curious maybe he'll be spade fingers crossed he love he's love yeah he's sure number three of the box office had been number three the weekend before it's an animated film

[01:32:33] it's come up a lot yeah this film is a lot sure well it's an important work of the decade no manjulia exactly it's about a little adventure going a long way do you like that i got it off of those clues

[01:32:45] this is a vile poster never even seen this one show it's a little tushy and what's the tagline a nomus turned around he's leaning over he's showing you a little plumbers plumbers cracking it says

[01:32:58] i'll crack you up jayvon do you know the final domestic total on nomo and julia 400 billion dollars no i don't know i think it will shock you look it up for it 99 it didn't make 100 though

[01:33:10] so close cracked the hundo if you read i think i've talked at this before but look up interviews with elton john about nomo and julia because he's been talked about ten years about this

[01:33:21] and he's just like those fuckers told me i was dumb for making my no movie and they all had to eat my fucking shit so here's the other 99 domestic and january you assholes all right here's

[01:33:31] the other things huge hit sonic just released some character posters obviously you have a sonic of course you have a robotnik of course a james marston poster officer human no he's

[01:33:44] credited as donut lord i guess because he probably does donuts but then this is the one i'm most excited about the tika sumter poster maddie just a name it's just her name i might get that

[01:33:53] poster on my wall because it also doesn't say sonic anywhere on it just a picture of tika sumter in a g jack a very good actor and just says coming soon it has no sonic branding

[01:34:05] whatsoever what is son like is so i saw the uh the trailer and i i feel like sonic's fast right it's gotta go fast yeah yeah and he simply must go and the funny thing about it but to go fast

[01:34:19] the funny but the funny thing is is that he'll you'll be something will be happening and then he'll go and do that thing very quickly ben i gotta give you a key piece of advice

[01:34:33] here what's up do not leave your rings around unattended when sonic is in town okay okay i'm writing it down because now i'll take him in the blink of an eye also if you have one of those

[01:34:46] and we all do sort of tv shaped boxes that if you touch it it turns you invincible for 10 to 15 seconds of course you better hide that away because he will jump on top of it because we all

[01:34:55] have one of those and we're saving it for when we really need it right but he will just go and use it rude and that's a one time use item yeah it is unless you can find another one

[01:35:04] yeah don't even talk to me if you have any chaos emeralds because then you're really in trouble here's another hot tip uh-huh if you if you like in your backyard and we're city boys but i'm

[01:35:13] talking more people living in the backyards where i've been my jeans sure go on you might want to tend to your green rolling hills all right because if your grass is out of control in my

[01:35:24] kitchen fire oh jeez it's true number two at the box office should have been number four at the box office that's a clue it's a fourth movie in a franchise no number two should have been number

[01:35:36] four the fuck does this mean z i believe and does this joke make sense to you looking at the name of the movie yeah the joke tracks okay it's take it more literally you believe david

[01:35:48] yeah no what were you gonna say you said i believe it was released by disney i think it was one of those leftover dream works movies that got released by disney but it was released by disney

[01:35:57] but it's just funny to think about it's not strange magic no which is a lucas film acquisition film it's a leftover dream works it's number two but it should have been number four should

[01:36:07] have been number four should be opening a number four yeah think about it think about it think about it this thing all right let's see so does it have four in the title anywhere

[01:36:20] it does but it's not a fourth film in a franchise oh which might have heard it honestly people might have been a little baffled by that oh it's this fucking movie i am number four that's right he is

[01:36:32] number four written by well idea by james fray right that someone else wrote james fray hot off of lying about his drug addiction yeah right started this weird company where he would like he was

[01:36:45] like a boiler room for young adult right he would like hire like english graduates and we're like all day sit here change to this desk come up with young adult concepts and people will be like i don't know

[01:36:55] it's an alien in high school it's a wizard who also the fucks i'm mermaid but they're in high school there's some the title the idea was they'll come up with the concept we'll ghost write the book

[01:37:07] all the books will be released under pseudonyms i will collect 60 of the profits from anything that comes out of my incubator and then everything's meant to be a franchise and this was the one thing

[01:37:18] that came out of it and it bombed and no one gave a shit right here's the tagline there were nine of us three are dead i am number four yeah i'm just like okay addition for that movie and that's where i

[01:37:30] number four was almost incomprehensible uh you're just like what's the fucking hook here it's about a guy who's number four so he's an alien uh yeah that's right he has like blue hands or something

[01:37:38] yeah it's one of those classic orange blue posters which just like i don't know me and i mean when are we going to meet aliens when am i really not we went i'm probably about to turn this episode

[01:37:50] yeah i'm ready for it march ish all right that's a it's weird that the world is so crazy that no one talks about the fact that the new york times has released like eight articles in the last

[01:37:59] year just like navy saw some more aliens here's the video for you to enjoy everyone's just like but trump right he good or bad president right we weigh in on those stories are like just to be

[01:38:08] clear the government you know those people are always acknowledging seeing things you know we always thought like maybe the government's lying to us about aliens new york times publishes government yeah we were lying about aliens we've seen them they're out there and people are like but pete

[01:38:24] davidson who is he dating now well he's got a big one i'm here i mean i'm so i told absolutely talking about the king of statin island all right number one at the box office

[01:38:37] number one of the box office in 2011 please go ahead small fines getting something out i don't know if it's cat allergies or what it's a card and help me i don't i took a survey yeah so

[01:38:49] okay i'm sorry number two at the box of this number one number two as i am number four confusingly enough yeah number one is another new movie it's an action film it is i believe the first

[01:39:01] in a yes i was like you said that was like dream works like disney dump yes remember this is the year that avengers their first release comes out no it's the year before oh correct 2011 disney

[01:39:13] at this point that's what i'm saying really wants that that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying three picture deal like they're like wasn't that long ago yeah but anyway number so this is the first

[01:39:23] collaboration of i think three or no but a four between this director and actor who become like sort of a fun action movie pair it's of course it's a wall burg square no it's not

[01:39:38] burg and wall burg no it's a much better pair and they work together four times and this is the first one the first they've worked together four times in the last nine years correct who puts out

[01:39:50] action movies of that kind of a clip is it leoniesa that's right is it my favorite one of course non-stop no that is also my favorite one but that was their second collaboration i believe this is the

[01:40:01] worst one this is the worst one this is unknown yes which is bad and this is only coming out like a year or two after taken never even heard of this it's like one of those things where like

[01:40:09] leoniesa goes to burlain or something and then his wife disappears and everyone's like you never had a wife like there's some weird sort of like it's a gaslit thing i'm gonna have to punch everyone

[01:40:19] to figure this one out the problem with unknown is it was like taken caught everyone by surprise yeah and where brothers was like oh let's put him in like a big budget more serious thriller

[01:40:37] and it's the most serious minded collect it doesn't get that it should just be fun right and then they're just like it's just who is he a washed up guy where is he a piece of transportation

[01:40:49] a thing that moves through the earth non-stop has my favorite fucking monologue which is like he's figured out how to save the day but no one believes him because they framed him and like all the jet blue tv screens are showing like news broadcasts about his shitty past

[01:41:05] and he gets up in this airplane that can barely fit him you're right and he's like everything you've heard about me is true i'm a terrible father it was a lousy husband

[01:41:17] i'm an awful drunk i shot four men like he just lists every bad thing he's done i remember i remember i've been delinquent on my taxes i still tip that well i still have tapes from blockbuster

[01:41:30] even though my local store was one of the first to go i'm the only person who can save you like it just goes on for so long yeah yeah i remember great movie that's my favorite i'm always late to birthday

[01:41:43] parties i think that it's for me it's non-stop the best and then the commuter i like the commuter and then run all night which is good but it's a little shaggy or it's a wild movie

[01:41:55] has them leased nison in a weird way keeps cutting to all these other people and you're kind of like i care about me and your brother right yeah and then um and then unknown of the

[01:42:05] four brothers yes we are the four nison remember when we have the same parents of course mom and dad i mean they're both tall i'll give them that right i the degree which i pump my face at the

[01:42:21] reveal of nullty being his brother in that movie it makes such beautiful nonsense but it's it's so perfect right right yeah i i never saw cold pursuit i feel like i need to watch it

[01:42:35] it was just so marred by him coming out and being a bad movie not he doesn't have the jump call it's our magic but not a bad movie at all it looked pretty fine i liked it it was fine

[01:42:44] i love my nissans i mean i also i feel like what i'll say about cold pursuit is it feels like there's a new trope in action from john wick which is like the fucking slickest sexiest

[01:42:59] mercenaries you've ever met sure we're like i always feel like my memory of thugs from action movies where they were like big hairy ugly dudes right right right or then like over the top sexualized

[01:43:12] women and i feel like now it's this thing where every guy looks like he reads gq magazine and it's just like the like the hottest fucking dude in the world which it's my favorite thing about the

[01:43:24] nissen movies is that he is so big that he can barely move right like he is not swift he's not elegant i'll see you in five minutes well then they put him in a puffy jacket you should see him

[01:43:35] in this movie looks like a big loaf man love it yeah it looks like bread everyone he was in men in black international of course i see i'm just trying to see what else he's up to recently

[01:43:47] yeah i don't know did he say anything like recently no but it was like men in black and cold pursuit were the two things that came out right after his like whole like what a kajar what was that

[01:43:58] weapon that's a kosh a kosh you know right he had this movie called ordinary love which would leslie manville which is like a sort of sad uh like maybe someone's dying movie there was

[01:44:08] a tiff so that's coming out this year but i also feel like they're like we're not gonna let him do press ever again well he's got three movies coming out oh boy next year okay this year give him

[01:44:18] to me one's called honest thief in which him and jai courtney the only other thing i've ever been honest about robert is panacea isn't it yeah like i swear to god i stole it turn himself in because he's

[01:44:30] falling in love but he wants to live an honest life but he realizes the feds are more corrupt than him and i'm like i just ten tickets please something tight as hell something called

[01:44:40] the minute man which is a rancher on the border is has to take down some cartel assassins because a mexican boy is being chased my crops are bad this year which is from robert lorenz which is you

[01:44:52] know uh the guy the guy who made trouble with the curve one of the eastward disciples yeah and then something called made in italy which that's like that's a drama that's not a he's not gonna kill

[01:45:02] anyone but that could that could be an action movie i'm gonna trace you down on these fine italian loafers um but doesn't that sound good what's it called honest thief he's an honest

[01:45:12] the thing i love about widows i mean i love so much about it is that a sub plot in that movie is that she married a liam nison character from a deca january thriller like she's like i was

[01:45:21] living a great life and it turned out my my husband was liam nison in run all night he's so good in that he is yes he's great now great movie well of course this has been our episode

[01:45:31] on mad max great episode a little static fun mad mad fun mad fun mad fun mad fun mad fun and guys well wait let me double check make sure there's nothing in the way yeah there's no uh pop ups

[01:45:47] yeah there's no pop ups next week mad max to the wrong warrior with special guest john gabris in the can in the can get excited get excited yeah get excited for george miller yeah we're

[01:45:59] finally doing him it's a wild run yeah and it's nice to be back in a franchise too i know it's a very different type of franchise very different type but you know but it's nice to spend like extended

[01:46:08] time in one universe it's nostalgic right right right and thanks you all for thanks you for all for listening listening thanks you all for listening thanks to antra good over social media thanks to rachel jacob's for editing thanks to joe bowen pat rounds for artwork

[01:46:27] layman garmie for our theme song go to willing check dot com slash patreon to become a checkmate of course as one should as one should as one should enjoy i hope you enjoy this this fury road we're

[01:46:46] going to take you down for the next two months and change and as always this realistically do you think liana is an orphe david sonnass a bigger piece niece i think so too right it's just got the height right yeah i didn't have you seen pushing

[01:47:08] ten no i think i saw like half an hour of an on what does that even mean it's a free air traffic controllers that's what air traffic controls down the runway yeah i hate that well

[01:47:20] that's what they call it that's too casual for me planes are serious well i agree with you but they you know they do that they gotta have a little fun never because pushing ten is about like john

[01:47:30] cusack's a regular air traffic controller he's like you're clear for take off and then billy bobthorne is like howdy cowboys i'm the cowboy air traffic controller who's a cowboy but it's the movie how

[01:47:39] do you know he's a cowboy he's like how do you know it's the movie where angeline and joly and billy bobthorne meet yes and that was the only reason i ever thought of that movie and then i found out

[01:47:49] the other day it is written by the trolls brothers yeah we're the creators of cheers and the main writers on taxi and it's the only movie they ever wrote i think they're just the only three

[01:47:57] things they had written years ago or something like it was like a script someone picked up and is it mike new all yeah i'm like do i need to want to push well john cusack plays a guy called nick

[01:48:08] foul zone fuck it you know what his nick name is the zone that's kind of good and maybe he likes cal zones too