Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior with Jon Gabrus

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Stranger Stranger Just one podcast can make a difference

[00:00:37] Yeah, but I liked the longer one, drawing it out This film has four taglines and zero quotes on its IMDb page Cause this movie has very little dialogue Here's another tagline When all that's left is one last chance Pray that he's still out there podcasting

[00:00:55] How about this is a tagline? Ruthless, Savage, Spectacular I mean that fucking rules Yeah, it's pretty good Every movie poster should just be one word ellipses I wish I could read this German one cause it looks very intense It's kinda crazy how every poster for this movie rules

[00:01:17] Yeah, that's true Like there's the painted Australian one that's the Mad Max 2 one There's the sort of just like him on the road that's the American Road Warrior one Mad Max 2 Dare Fault Strecker This Japanese one's pretty cool too That fucking rules Well here's an idea

[00:01:35] Maybe if every single piece of imagery in your movie is fucking awesome It's almost impossible to make a bad poster for it Whether you're just compositing images Or shooting something particularly for the poster or painting it Everything in this movie looks so goddamn cool

[00:01:51] Hello everybody, my name is Griffin Newman Who are you? I don't know who you are I'm David Sim Oh, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success

[00:02:04] Early on in their career and are giving a series of blank checks To make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they bounce baby And this is a main series on the films of George Miller It is called Mad Pod Fury Cast

[00:02:21] Well done Well done Light applause Okay, oh thank you everybody Thank you so much It's a very nice sounding golf claps Today You think we still play golf in the Mad Max world? No question No question I mean essentially the world has become one giant sand pit

[00:02:42] Yeah, sure Right? Big old sand trap Yeah, sand trap Is that the right term? Yes I know a lot about golf To say we're talking about Mad Max 2, aka The Rogue Warrior Hell fucking yeah bro Just one podcast can make a difference

[00:02:57] Just one podcast can make a difference Just one man can make a podcast That's not true, you need two friends You need two friends Right And sometimes you need Ben Hosley That's right Hey it's me The word friend not being used there Pretty pointed

[00:03:15] Yeah, it's always kind of been the thing that I feel like even fans talk about They're like are you a friend? Yes I'm a friend to the two friends Correct But you are also a Ben Hosley I am a Ben Hosley Which is a very specific honor

[00:03:26] That's true It's an honor that my parents bestowed upon And you're a poet laureate and a tie breaker And a meat lover and a fart detective And I love a Dusty Boy You love a Dusty Boy That was your big takeaway from this movie Yeah

[00:03:40] You love a Dusty Boy And they rarely have they come dustier Oh there are just covered in sand and grit But in the best kind of way They're dirty I would even venture to say this much Because I've been on the record saying I love wet stuff

[00:03:55] Right, we all know this about me This is no wet There's no water But all the sand, all that dry ass sand I like sand too So I like it dry on occasion What is sand but dry water Exactly You know like it's like how the moon

[00:04:09] You know has like the sea of tranquility There's no water But it's like you know a Dusty I don't know I let the record show David put moon in quotes I'm ready to put sea in quotes And then just did it for moon

[00:04:25] Well we've let the government tell us But the moon is fake Right, they couldn't have faked it Because the moon doesn't exist So right Exactly I like the idea that you're the world's first Anti-moon truth Now Mary Ann Cotillard's there with me There is no moon

[00:04:41] There is no moon It's just cheese Hung from a tree And we love cheese Ben I don't know if I'm exposing you here But you in conversation And if this is too hot Rachel get ready to cut this out Okay I'm not trying to out you here Uh-oh

[00:04:58] In private conversation Yeah You had told me at the end of 2019 That you were thinking of rebranding That you felt like Oh that he was gonna go off wet He was gonna get dry Yeah Yeah I had been thinking about it

[00:05:12] It's a bit that's been going on for near four years Me You've been so little sick of you joking one time That you like a wet thing And then every one anytime Anything has water in it Which is by the way Lot of stuff has water in it

[00:05:26] People are like Hey Hey you excited Hey did you see this episode of this random show You see this random movie There's like a lake in it There's some wet stuff You should watch it But also like We're in a post-Aquaman world

[00:05:38] We sort of hit the apex of wet movies Yeah Aquaman is kind of right Right Well What about Aquaman 2 though Well that's the question I mean maybe that's the comeback But I feel like Ben You and I were at a bar A couple weeks ago

[00:05:50] And we had a long conversation About the dry Subsection of the Nintendo character sphere Yes Dry Bowser, dry Bones Oh dry Bones is one of my favorite characters Of all time That there's now all these dry varietals Yes Of Mario villains

[00:06:07] So I think what it comes down to And you were like I think I want to be a dry guy Yeah I think I'm done with wet It's like think about it There was a wet level in Mario I've beaten the level

[00:06:18] And I've now transitioned to the desert level Perfect timing I mean we're talking So you're into pyramids now? Well I've always been into pyramids I love a tomb Big and dry He likes a big and dry This is seismic We are actually embracing that Ben

[00:06:32] Is now anti-wet pro-dry I'm not anti-wet But I'm now more pro-dry Because there's this Japanese movie Weathering with you That's out this week as we record Okay It's set in a Tokyo where it's always raining But now you're out on that Damn it Well That's course on

[00:06:49] We've been there You're not the person on the planet coming I'm sorry I'm fucking around I've got Dune to look forward to Which is gonna be a dry as a storm But you know in Dune everyone's obsessed with water You know when he cries in Dune

[00:07:01] They're all like He uses his water to express his grief They're all like It might be the ultimate Venn diagram for Ben Exactly And it's not a movie about loving water About the value of water They're coming together Alright great well we figured it out

[00:07:16] Alright see you later Alright bye Thank you for coming Mission accomplished Now I know why you got him this bouquet of flowers Because he's coming out as a dragon As a dragon It just felt like Look I'm not trying to force you Out of the dry closet

[00:07:31] And it is all cactus by the way We should mention the bouquet And it's kinda poking him Dangerous But I do appreciate You must have been on the train carrying this Ben's hugging it like a prom queen And his whole left side is bleeding

[00:07:44] No but it felt like If we're gonna be talking about the Mad Max movies For the next couple months What better time to sort of embrace The dry guy 2020 persona Yep Dry guy 2020 It's here to stay Alright Like shy guy Another Mario character Yeah Dry guy

[00:08:01] Or dry shy guy I don't have the I'm telling you I mean I was drunk But we went onto the Nintendo wiki And there were like 20 different Dry varietals There's like a dry Like toad and a dry everything Yeah What about that makes them dry?

[00:08:15] They're just skeleton versions Of the regular villain So it's like Oh this is like a skeleton paratrooper This is a skeleton Or skeleton This is a dry bone That dude But then there's Right rather than calling him like bone bowser Skeleton bowser His name is dry bowser

[00:08:33] Which fucking rules Yeah That is cool It's cool I don't know why it's cooler You do not have to say that this is cool No it's cool No I don't think it's cool I think it's cool to have learned that Yes There you go You're proud of me

[00:08:48] I'm saying that's cool Thanks for sharing You're proud of me Yeah Our guest today of course He's cool He's cool Cool guy Cooler than dry bowser Wish I was dry But unfortunately Developing quite a bit of moisture Already This studio is kind of like a coffin

[00:09:05] It's like some ancient Egyptian Mummification room Where we just Have all of the moisture Sucked out of our body Over the course of recording long episodes And we're sitting here with The man who currently holds the record For longest main feed episode still If I'm not mistaken

[00:09:24] I believe you're right Silence of the lamps came close Great episode Emily van der Waerf put up a fight I believe you still have her beat By a minute or two Is that right? I think so I can double check this I think it might be

[00:09:37] I have an unfair advantage to that movie Heat is the longest movie Yes, quite long And this is a short movie But similarly dense In terms of things we could talk about John Gabers back on the show From the High and Mighty podcast

[00:09:49] Thank you for having me fam I'm so excited to be here I rarely reach out to someone To ask them to do their thing No but it was like perfect We were recording an episode We were getting ready We had just finished Demi

[00:10:02] Getting ready to start George Miller And it's crazy how George Miller Hits the ground running with two Mad Maxes And we hadn't found someone for this one yet Yes, and then you fell into our life It was perfect And it was like

[00:10:15] This is such an important canonical action movie That I was like We need to have a guest Who's representing the action movie sphere A ton of tropes are created in this movie A ton of action movie tropes are launched On the back of this movie

[00:10:28] One of those movies that is like formative For the next 40 years of genre cinema Arguably chose the path that cinematic dystopia would shoot Created, becomes the almost Sporting good stores are just available No matter what Whether the country, the world is flooded The world is dry

[00:10:47] At least the used sporting good store is always open It's one of those crazy things where people talk about The first Mad Max being one of the most influential movies Of the last 40 or 50 years I suppose But it's one of those things where it's like

[00:11:01] Oh, the elements within that are influential This is the influential one Well, but it's like It's so weird because it's like Mad Max if there were never any sequels Would sort of have like a velvet underground reputation As like, oh it inspired these people

[00:11:15] To do the things that would then permeate the industry Mad Max 1 is like a hyper indie action movie Which is just with such an unusual idea But then Mad Max inspires other people To take the elements of what he's done

[00:11:28] And then also inspires George Miller to be like I think I can perfect this Much like Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 In the horror series They're very similar things where it's like The first one's both made on a shoestring Surprise hits Yeah

[00:11:40] And then the second one's the director being like No, give me like 10 times the budget And I can give you something that's even cooler Right And it's kind of a sequel but it's kind of a standalone But it's much different Yeah, same basic plot Same basic vibe

[00:11:52] Just chew it up a little bit Exactly, bigger canvas And then sort of like focus in a way like strip it down Right To its basic elements and then take it to the extreme But also both will weirdly acknowledge The first movie in like a brief prologue

[00:12:03] And then be like we are a sequel But it's also kind of a remake Yeah And it's joy A lot of both And I'm so glad you said the Evil Dead 2 thing Because it's really like opened it up to seeing it It's like Road Warrior and Evil Dead 2

[00:12:15] Where like both looked at their first movie And be like we now know what people dug about Those movies too Like Evil Dead If people didn't find the irony or the fun in the first one Yeah It wouldn't be a part of the second one

[00:12:27] You know what I mean Yes, yeah So the audience kind of helps steer it We're allowed to mix those tones Yeah So then the directors are like fuck now if I know you like that kind of tone Wait till you see my second

[00:12:37] You know Rami's like wait till you see another one And then George Miller is like oh you guys like the violent part The car chase parts Well you're gonna love this one You're also dealing with like first films With largely like first time crew and cast Yeah

[00:12:50] So going into the second movie we figured it out We've all done this job one time and we've done it with each other And now we can hit the ground wrong Here's the other thing They also both have a third sequel That's kind of like really like grand

[00:13:02] Right And fans dig but is definitely a harder one to deal with It's own sort of thing Like Army of Darkness and Thunderdom are also weirdly similar And weirdly, and this is so pert- Specific to me but though I think it's just because of my age

[00:13:16] Those were the two I was most familiar with Yeah Was Evil Dead 2 and Thunderdom Were the two that I Cause they were like on cable Or Army of Darkness and Thunderdom Army of Darkness and Thunderdom Right Thunderdom was on TNT I think every weekend that I was grounded

[00:13:30] Any weekend I happened to be grounded it felt like Thunderdom was on Cause I've seen that with commercials a hundred times How often were you grounded? Very often But grounded you were still allowed to watch TV Yes, yes Well grounded but no one's home

[00:13:42] Because my parents would have to work weekends So it was a very complicated form of grounding Where I'm like, okay I can't go to a friend's house Technically It was just your media education Every time you were grounded Little did I know I would eventually weaponize that

[00:13:55] To podcast hundreds of dollars Well that's, well yeah and then I said hi and mighty But also action boys You have a podcast that is like specifically going over Your favorite sort of action movies Yeah it's like from what we deem the classic action movie period

[00:14:09] And we a couple of months ago did Road Warrior You did So yeah I'm so pumped to rewatch it Yeah it's so fucking watchable The other thing I realized watching this is like Beyond Thunderdom I don't think I've ever seen Like all the way straight through

[00:14:24] But I've seen so much of it on TV Fury Road I've seen too many times already The original Mad Max I saw Like they screened at midnight at IFC right When Fury Road was coming out Okay

[00:14:38] Road Warrior I think I saw in high school and haven't seen since I hadn't seen this since I was a teenager Yeah I've only seen Mad Max once And it was after I've seen everything Yeah I guess when I was a kid I thought Road Warrior

[00:14:51] And Thunderdome were the two Mad Max Right And I thought it was weird that Road Warrior was Mad Max too I couldn't really figure out what that meant When I finally watched the original Mad Max I'm like wow this is nothing like It is shocking

[00:15:04] It's very fun to watch it last when you're like I know what this, I know what everything's supposed to be And then you watch it and you're like oh this is not at all What I thought it was going to play

[00:15:13] It's especially funny to watch it after Fury Road Yes Yeah all of it That's right, right, right I think I might have actually seen it after Did I say after or before? I saw that I've seen either right before or right after Fury Road came out

[00:15:23] I don't remember what you said I don't remember what I said four seconds ago I did see one and two when I was a teenager It was sort of just me being a movie nerd And being like well I should watch those

[00:15:31] And then years later we were at Trivia And they played Mad Max And that was the first time I'd seen it in years Oh really I forgot this is like a cop drama basically Like you know like I remember being shocked by How lo-fi it was

[00:15:43] And that it has like emotional dialogue scenes Like all these things Yeah there's like an interlude where he's with his kids But you know we talked about that But it's that same sort of thing where like Your cultural understanding of who Mad Max is

[00:15:54] It's like even before you see these movies It's so much a part of pop culture Right That when you You're coming in like unfortunately Or fortunately pre-informed So then when you're watching Mad Max and you're like There are still diners and stuff Right Right

[00:16:09] Like Australia is having a bad crime year Right Is what's going on in Mad Max And then Mad Max too there's like There's no government Right There's no towns But I remember like when I saw the first Evil Dead I was like why doesn't he have the chainsaw

[00:16:22] Like why is it taking this long for him to make jokes Right You know like I didn't get That movie is so fucked up So fucked up That movie really messed me up That's the thing like it's The Which we will do on this podcast We will do

[00:16:34] We will definitely do at some point But the other thing that struck me watching this Having seen it for the first time since Fury Road Is that like as much as Road Warrior is To Mad Max what Evil Dead 2 is to Evil Dead 1

[00:16:48] Fury Road is also Evil Dead 2 To Road Warriors Evil Dead 1 Right Right It ignores thunder dom and it's like What's pop back to what we liked about Road Warrior Oh you like the part where the truck is driving And people are chasing it No it's true

[00:17:04] It's like I bet you I could do 120 minutes of this Fury Road is basically just an updated Version of this exact movie Which is pretty crazy Of one scene from this exact movie Technically Right it's like can I make the whole thing That one scene

[00:17:15] Can I deepen all the themes Can I figure out a way to do more Building less dial The villain is played by the villain from Mad Max 1 Like it gets so It's so crazy Weird how he has reused bits and pieces Yeah Of these movies his whole life

[00:17:25] It's also crazy that he is an extremely respected Art Director Art House director in a way Even though his first three movies Were these insane car movies Yeah And like He's never really made an art house movie He's made one studio drama

[00:17:40] But I think that he has always been highly Respected by critics Like there's just no It's not like he was a Rami was a schlock guy Yeah You know what I mean Miller it was like Oh well you know He's from Australia And even like

[00:17:52] Like Cameron and Bigelow You feel like there's a little bit of a bell curve In terms of people getting them Where it's like You watch like Siskel and Ebert Reviewing the first Terminator And they're like This is fucking garbage They're not even giving it Any consideration

[00:18:04] Right it's like trash Years later they're like Oh I guess I recognize There's a filmmaker there Even if I don't like that movie Right But they're just like There's nothing going on here Whereas George Miller It feels like It's interesting I mean you read like The reviews from

[00:18:18] The first Mad Max When I was looking up A bunch of shit last night Because I watched I rewatched First Mad Max And then did Road Warrior this morning And then was reading A bunch of stuff Accompanying both The reviews in Australia

[00:18:32] For the first Mad Max are really bad Well because they were Scandalized It was just like This is a scandalous film It's a very conservative country Especially it was back then Whereas it didn't make much of an impact No offense to this one Of course there are many

[00:18:44] Not conservative Australians I'm sure some listen to this podcast It didn't make much of an impact When it came out here So I think its reputation Was a little better Because it was seen as more of a Curio for the people Who wanted to seek it out

[00:18:54] Was it our cherry pop To Osploitation Like was it like The America 100% So that I think that That juice where it's like Oh this is You know like Remember when we were like This is a Japanese horror movie Yes Like when that kind of came to America

[00:19:07] So whether it was very well Sawed after in Australia The fact that it was Do you guys know that The Aussies are making some Crazy ass car action movies Or whatever And so we get that And to us that's the Like that's the iconic Quote on quote

[00:19:21] Because I don't think Like the cars that they pair Those are early Osploitations That's really made it to America Except for like a midnight movie Weird doesn't hit until he Becomes kind of respectable Yeah You know Oh the other example of it

[00:19:34] I think that's like kind of analogous You also have the meat pie western That's a type of Australian Exploitation movie Which I just like the name The name The pie western It's such a weird country I don't want to generalize About Australia But anytime I think about it

[00:19:49] I go down a rabbit hole About it or anything Such a strange place Americans have been obsessed With Australia I mean I know That's different for you Wait a second John What are you talking about Are you accusing my co-host And friend Of un-American behavior

[00:20:03] What are you saying here Do you think he's like a rusky I believe he's an expat From where What country trying to attack He's doing a double salute I don't know why He's got one of those tall Like boom microphone hats That the fucking Westminster guard wear

[00:20:15] Whatever their name is I don't know What's the name Of the American American behavior What are you saying here Do you think he's like a rusky I believe he's an expat From where What country trying to attack Whatever their name is Boom microphone

[00:20:27] If I was a boom operator That's what I would do to be fun Is wear that Hey guys, guys Check it out, check it out Hey I'm like that Yeah, you see it I'm not moving I would wear that hat And have someone else hold me

[00:20:37] No I feel like there was A similar phenomenon with Like Luke Bassan Where people were really Excited by Lafam Nikita And then in France They were like We're trying to get Releasing this guy Right Right And even I mean John Woo I think is more respected

[00:20:54] Than the American In France I mean, I think it's More than the first Mad Max Right People watching Like right Australia is like Some desert That's just filled with Criminals that you know Like I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not

[00:21:14] I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I type I type Ha Type Like Oh, this bike And then It turns Is there Leave yourself It turns Oh, this bike Open This car This car

[00:21:45] But It's just There I Another Cause Yeah Like when we learned about martial arts, when martial arts movies, and we were like, it's magic. Like Asian people became magic in our movies for a while where they were like, they could stop bullets,

[00:22:02] Aussies can talk to bears and walk on water. Weird mystical outback folk. Well, within the 80s you have Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max. And you have Einstein. Well, yeah. You have these two franchises that are both different genres but are both creating these insane archetypes

[00:22:21] of what an Australian man is. What was the actor's name? And young Einstein. Oh, the Yahoo Sirius. Yes! One of the greatest names of all times. He's a good name. He was like the proto Jamie Kennedy. Yes. He does have a Jamie Kennedy.

[00:22:33] Yahoo Sirius walked so Jamie Kennedy can run. It's one of those. So DJ Quiles can run. It's one of those things I always find fascinating where you look at like a Yahoo Sirius or Jamie Kennedy and you're like, we really have the confidence

[00:22:45] that this guy was gonna work in movies. Like I don't care how funny we found him on TV, we really thought we were gonna watch 90 minutes of this guy carrying the emotional weight of the film. But Griffin, you're forgetting we all did get exed. We did get exed.

[00:22:59] I've been exed. Have you actually been exed? No, not yet. What a dream. The nights are pumping. Not yet. You're waiting for the night to pump it. But then the crazy thing is that you're saying that and at the same time George Miller made a no budget

[00:23:13] fucking action movie in Australia and just like in auditions on Earth, Mel Gibson. I know, it's crazy. Who's born in New York? That's true. The story with him is that his dad was so insane that he was like moving to Australia.

[00:23:26] The real story or the other story I've heard is that his dad won Jeopardy. I used that money to take them to move to Australia because my wife is from Westchester and he's actually was born in the town of- Is Mel Gibson's father?

[00:23:42] Yes, and Mel was born in Peakskill. So crazy. So they have that pride of like, what everyone thinks Mel Gibson's Australian but he was actually born here in Peakskill. Which has gone from being like a pride to being like, we wanna make it very clear.

[00:23:57] You would be surprised. Peakskill might agree with some of the things. He's still alive. He had 11 children. Mel Gibson. Okay. He is 101 years old. Jesus. In my head, I having no idea what this man looks like, he like sits on like a throne of bones

[00:24:14] in like some Australian desert. I feel like he looks like- In my head, he looks five years older than Mel Gibson. Sure. He has a beard that makes Mel Gibson look sane. When the Simpsons would show a photo of Matt Groening, do you know what I'm talking about?

[00:24:28] Yeah, they're like eye with the eye patch. Yeah, that's what I imagine Hutton Gibson look like. I mean, that's incredible. Just 101 years old and still hating Jews with as much energy as ever. If you think Mel Gibson's bad, anytime he's ever given an interview, it is incredible.

[00:24:43] Right, right. Yes. Right, he's one of those guys who's like, you know how the Catholic Church kind of slightly chilled out in the 60s? The Vatican II. I picked up. That's when I jumped there accidentally. That's when I was like, go screw.

[00:24:57] When the Catholic Church got too liberal for me. But you're right. I mean, it's like Mel Gibson becomes like this definitive Australian action star, but it's such random happenstance that George Miller found him, that it became a career and he isn't actually even technically Australian.

[00:25:13] Well, it's funny because he went full sex symbol in America, but there he is so attractive despite what this movie does. I know. But what these movies do. I mean, this is him, it is peak him at hot as Max. I think he's at his hottest.

[00:25:30] In this one. As Max in this one. Because the first one, he's a little soft. There's something a little delicate. But this one, they just know how to like sort of grind them up just right. He's a little too baby-faced in the first one.

[00:25:40] He clearly cut his own hair, hair cut. And it's so perfect. It's so cool. And also we see Mel Gibson with a dog, which we know means like at least in most movies means the character has got humanity to them.

[00:25:51] It's the first layer of humanity given to Max or Mel Gibson in reality. And it's funny because I just recently rewatched Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2 and he's got that dog that he loves and the dog is very weird. It is classic 80s though, you're right.

[00:26:07] I mean, yeah, they're like, how crazy could he be? He loves his puppy. There's like this fetishization of like the loner dude who like the stereotype, the cliche is really hammered in Lethal Weapon but it's gone on forever where it's like in Cobra you come home

[00:26:23] and you cut your pizza, you put your gun in the fridge, you do this. But there's a dog or a cat that demonstrates that like, oh, I'm gonna root for this guy at the home. Or there's a blonde with visible breasts.

[00:26:34] But it speaks to the efficiency and economy of this movie that George Miller's just like the opening, the first thing you see this guy is him with a dog. I don't need to show you anything more. I need to show you find him the dog.

[00:26:44] The fact that they're close is just shorthand. There's something about the one sleeve down, one sleeve cut look too. I love that. Do you know, tell me, tell me. The reason behind that is because he breaks his arm in the first movie.

[00:26:57] Yeah, I forgot that there's all those little hints about the first movie. So they connected to that in that if, and that's why he has the leg brace too because he gets shot in the leg. So in the first movie he gets his arm broke

[00:27:07] so you would assume the EMT has cut the, it's a really fun, simple little set up callback situation. But it also explains that like the end of the first movie happened and Max was unable to find clothing or anything else. That's it.

[00:27:23] He was just like guessing where it is. But if you remember the first movie it didn't like end with like the oil's gone. But the fashion in this movie is so great. The costume design especially of like the white clan, like the Euro clan, all the mesh.

[00:27:37] I really love it. And I also think that this is so 80s with that and that it's punk adjacent. Yes, for sure. It's got the like spikes and the like leather jackets. And everyone in this movie could be in the decline of Western civilization.

[00:27:51] The bad guys have like four different like aesthetics amongst them which I really appreciate. And they're all sort of each one of their aesthetics has sort of been co-opted or created in the gay community. Because there's like the S&M look.

[00:28:08] Then there's also like the biker cop look which was sort of like the motorcycle policeman of the village people type situation. The T-1000 sort of a cue ball phallic helmet. Yeah, and then like unseeing eyes like aviators. And then there's like the golden boy type guy

[00:28:24] like Wes's sidekick which is like the effeminate like style like it just they hit all of that. Oh, and then Lord Humongous which was why I would like you guys to call me for the room. Of course, hello Lord. I'm the humongous.

[00:28:39] That might actually be a good title for myself. The way it's spelled too, it's like hummus and humongous. It's raw humongous. I mean that's the vibe he continues from now on, right? I mean that's the Fury Road where everyone's called

[00:28:52] Toast the Knowing and Cheeto and all that shit. It's just kind of amazing. The memes are so fun. So great where he's like, I don't know, it's the future they're all idiots now. They don't read. This franchise is second only to Star Wars

[00:29:05] and on certain days I would consider- Wait, you just said that to you it's just the number two franchise. What am I about to say? I think it's phenomenal franchise. But I think it's second only to Star Wars and maybe surpasses it in terms of how cool

[00:29:19] every fucking character looks. Like how like you can pluck some tiny background character and he looks cool and the names are great. And you just go like who is this person? Like who is she? Where did she come from? Cause it's like, yeah, it's some fucking mechanic

[00:29:33] who lived I don't know in the town over there and we put a hockey mask on him. Right, but that feeling of- And he's like, yeah, oh, it was a good time. Yeah, right? If you asked they would have an answer for everything

[00:29:45] but they have the confidence to not tell you. You just can tell that they have the confidence of a backstory in every performance and every design and every character name. I think we haven't seen that. You don't see that again in cinema until

[00:29:59] and this is a softer version of what you're saying. But I think John Wick had that feeling when you watch it. You're like, I feel like there's a series of books about Lance Reddick's character. Like, and like, cause I always use Star Wars

[00:30:13] and like Tales from the Cantina or The Bounty Hunters like those books that fleshed out the five characters you see once in the movie. Like I feel like you can have that about this is how the origin story of these freaks end up here in the post-apocalyptic Australia.

[00:30:26] Mad Max, John Wick has the added level of also the bureaucracy, the way they world build the bureaucracy. There's a moment in the third one when Asakite Dillon first enters and throws down a bigger coin and says I'm the adjudicator. I probably laughed for three minutes straight.

[00:30:46] I lost my shit and then they mentioned that well we'll have to bring this to the higher table or whatever you're like there's another fucking table. The best thing in John Wick 3 is like, no we're international, there's Europeans we have to think about.

[00:30:59] But I feel like almost like any- I had to rewatch all three of those. They're the best. But anytime any franchise outside of I feel like basically Mad Max, John Wick and Star Wars tries to do that it feels too forced. It feels like they're going-

[00:31:13] Surely there are other franchises. But they're the ones I think about where I feel like they consistently work and in other franchises it sometimes feels to me like Peacocking where they're like mystery at the bar wearing something stupid so you ask them a question. I get that.

[00:31:26] You know? Right, right. It feels like two pointedly like we want to write a comic book about this. The consistency through which throughout the films throughout the universe every element feels that- Oh I would love to try to think of what other franchises come close. It's the mystery.

[00:31:41] It's the fact that they're able to sell the mystery but make it seem enticing and like it's not just random. Yeah like I think the Mad Max trilogy the Star Wars trilogy and the John Wick trilogy would have people like modern people asking is this based on anything?

[00:31:55] Totally. Because it's just so rich and so specific that you'd be like oh there has to be a graphic novel that John Wick's being stuck on or like there has to be something that Star Wars- You're telling me someone just sat down and made all this up?

[00:32:07] Right, like the way that people like you know big fans of the Harry Potter books of Lord of the Rings books or the song of Ice and Fire books will be like oh that character who's like in the background for two lines

[00:32:18] is actually like a big part of this other thing. Which is right. I mean with Game of Thrones I like the show a lot but the books have that quality which I adore where he's like anyway let me talk to you

[00:32:28] for five minutes about the meal this person's making. And Mad Max is like there's something to the fact that Mad Max- The Witcher is like that. My favorite new show. You watching The Witcher, Gabriel? Of course I've watched it. It's so fucking good. Of course first of all,

[00:32:40] The Witcher is high fantasy featuring my gay for a day number one Henry Cable. There was a recent, I have like one episode to go. There was a recent foreground shot of just his arm where it looks like I don't know. A snake, I mean a dragon snake.

[00:32:56] I don't know. It's so big. Anyway sorry. Yeah and the movie, I mean that means the show is like right over the plate for me. So excited for it. And I just didn't love it. Wow. Oh that's insane. You're sick boy. I know and I'm kind of bummed

[00:33:11] and I was, we'll talk about this. We'll just have to be honest but what the fuck is the timeline of that show? Okay it's like Dunkirk once two weeks once like 10 years, once 80 years. I know. It's fucking insane. It rules.

[00:33:23] Can I ask, I know you guys are watching The Witcher or any of you a witch in the watcher? Oh I've witched the watcher. Who witches the watch man? I bought a full screen DVD of the Keanu Reeves thriller, The Watcher

[00:33:35] and I've been casting witch and wick and spells on it. I just did an impression of the poster of The Watcher. Of course. He's holding the grots. He's holding like a, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah it is that thing though where like

[00:33:47] George Miller has also retained such control over Mad Max that there was so little. One of those rare like it is only mine. Yeah and there's so little appendix media. And there's no need to like delete some canon. Right. You know what I mean?

[00:34:00] Where it's like, ignore the Lord Humongous web series that came out five years ago or whatever. They did a couple like comics when Fury Road was coming out that I think were pretty poorly received but they, if I'm not mistaken we're like four one shots

[00:34:14] that gave you a little bit of runway into the movie. Not like all the backstory but here's like, well what would have happened in the 30 minutes before? And that's like from what I know the only real additional stuff he's done. But like.

[00:34:28] The video game isn't like a canon thing. Most true. Video games are fun. But you're right that it never like stumbled into that terminator problem. Yeah. Where there have been so many failed sequels that now anytime they do a sequel

[00:34:38] they have to specify which sequels they are ignoring. Like you know right there like this one is one two three is implied. Like you know this one's just wanted to because it's fast enough. And now Star Wars is even doing that. Yeah, Star Wars is doing it.

[00:34:51] Ignore the last one. Yeah. But it's fasting that like we're like divorced. We're like the children of divorced Ryan Johnson and JJ Abrams where it's like I don't know what your mother told you when you were with her this weekend but it's completely different here.

[00:35:05] That's what episode nine is right. Right. I don't care what you think Finn and Poe are not gay. Right. I'm your dad now. Definitely doesn't matter. Abrams comes in and he's like he does matter in that he doesn't matter the emperor created him.

[00:35:18] It's that battle too of like half shit talking the other parent but then also trying to be lenient on other things to make the kid like you more than the other parent. Yes, yes. So it's like your dad's an asshole that shit's not gonna fly

[00:35:31] but also you're allowed to watch our rated movies. Like he's doing things in Rise of Skywalker that he thinks are gonna make us feel better about the fact. I got chicks kissing in one scene. Like, all right JJ relax. It's integral and exclusively gay moments. Finally. Finally.

[00:35:51] No it is kind of crazy that there's like no other thing there that all four movies are kind of standalone in a certain way. You know they build on each other if you've watched all four but. The real connection is just George and the style.

[00:36:03] But the fact that like the fourth one is a new Mad Max who is younger than the guy was in the third one and it doesn't care at all whether it's where it is in the timeline. If it's chronologically the last,

[00:36:17] if it's in the middle, why he's younger, if it's a new thing. Yeah there's no like moment where he takes dice off the mirror of the truck and he's like these are my dice for the first movie. It's just a fucking straight fuck.

[00:36:28] And name another franchise that takes what 20 years off and then comes back with a fucking banger? I mean you know we'll talk about this more when we get to it but the night that we figured out what this podcast was was the night that David

[00:36:44] and I were going to see Fury Road. Yes of course because you look at this guy's filmography and it's, I mean the story behind when he was coming out with Fury Road there were us film nerds were like do you know what other,

[00:36:57] like I remember saying to my wife and just I was like I want to see your face when I tell you this guy's other movies. Yeah. And when you just like list his other movies. No it is the wildest. But the thing that's crazy is

[00:37:08] the version of that story that would make sense is David and I walk out of Fury Road and go that's the podcast. We've been doing Star Wars for a year. The through line is a director who has that sort of success

[00:37:18] now that we've seen Fury Road it makes sense. What's crazy is we had that idea 30 minutes before the movie started. We were sitting in the theater waiting to watch it. We did not know it was gonna be that good.

[00:37:27] We did not realize that we were about to see one of the greatest examples of a blank check ever. You know? Yeah. And a movie that in terms of what we've like discussed in our five years doing this show by all accounts should be a fucking disaster.

[00:37:41] Like every time anyone's done something like that spent 20 years trying to make one thing go back to their old franchise change that many elements. It's like a fucking train wreck. But there's something incredible to how much this

[00:37:52] and Fury Road are of a piece just by being decades apart at different budget levels with radically different technology and different. I mean, even though Fury Road has a lot of the aesthetic of this obviously it also has this whole updated angle of like it's about female

[00:38:08] liberation and Charlie's there with a robot arm and overcoming the patriarchy, which this does not have. Obviously. No, I mean so he Mad Max comes out, costs $400,000 and ends up making $100 million worldwide. It is a massive worldwide success almost everywhere

[00:38:26] except for the United States where it does not do well. And the studio's got really scared. I'm gonna just call bullshit on the $100 million thing it's made up. The stat that they like to share. It's made up. It's made up. That's an insane amount of money to not

[00:38:39] miss the American market. They make that much money without the American market or to be that successful. You can call bullshit but that's the stat that they repeat. I'm gonna call bullshit on you, calling bullshit on them. Thank God. It's a stat where they're taking every single home,

[00:38:53] rental, every merc sale. It's a made up step. But let's say it's on now but it was not. Inarguably it was one of the most powerful movies of all time. It's sort of like when I say, when people ask me about High and Mighty

[00:39:03] and I'm like, oh yeah, three million downloads. And they're like what? And I'm like, well it's 280 episodes but let's not get into the details. I'm just gonna tell you three million downloads. And 10 people have re-listened to every episode 20 times. Yeah exactly. It's mostly a core element of freak

[00:39:18] somewhere around America. Fuck boys. Number one fuck boys. What was this insanely profitable movie that doesn't do well in the States? They redubbed the film with all American accents because they think- And the film was so little dialogue. Well it has more than this. It's so bad.

[00:39:34] It has more than this but it still is not a very dialogue heaven movie. Redub an English language movie. Just because you're like all the accents are gonna throw them off. Insane. And they have that as an option on the Blu-ray

[00:39:46] and I toggle it off a little bit. And it's astounding how bad it is because it is one of those things where it like- It's not astounding how bad it is, it sounds bad. I'll tell you no. Sure. It's even worse when you do it.

[00:39:56] What is particularly weird about it is when you're watching a bad dub of a movie it is usually like the way people like parody like bad dubs of martial arts films where it's like- Like delay or whatever. Right, the energy doesn't match

[00:40:07] but it's also like the mouth is so out of sync with it. And then this it's like they're saying the exact same words but they're just coming from a disembodied voice that is a bad performance. Right. There's something to the fact that the lips are matching.

[00:40:20] It's such an insane idea. Right, right, right. So that's one of the things that you know sort of sabotages the movie doesn't do crazy well here but like within the industry people go like oh look at what this guy made out of nothing.

[00:40:30] So it becomes a calling card film and he gets offered like fucking everything and he gets offered first blood. He gets offered like all these big 80s studio action films. It's kind of the John Woo thing. Right. Where they're like, oh well you, yeah

[00:40:41] let's hook you up with the Sylvester Stall owners. Who do you wanna work with? All the movie stars wanna work with him. Cause Woo's first American movie is hard target. Is hard target with Vandana. So it's that kind of thing of like

[00:40:51] any big star is gonna go like this is a guy I should get in my corner any big action star. He comes to LA, he takes all the meetings and goes you know what, no I'm gonna fucking go back to Australia,

[00:41:01] double down and make the like four times as big Mad Max sequel. Does that and then that becomes huge in the States. But as a creative you can imagine George Miller watching Mad Max, watching its success and like having to see it in theaters, having conversations about it

[00:41:16] and just the whole time going, fuck let me get another swing at this. I, oh man now, if I had money we would do this stuff. Oh man, I wish we could do this. Oh fuck it, the fucked up bad guys

[00:41:28] is the most favorite part of Mad Max. What if I extrapolate that out and like you could just see it and then he's like forget it. Let me go back to Australia. Let me wait, don't just stay right there. Let me come back with a movie

[00:41:38] I think you're gonna really like. But it's a ballsy move because if this had fucked up then all those Hollywood offers would have been rescinded. Right, right. You know I mean he's always probably conducted his career with so much like integrity and gone against the grain

[00:41:54] of how anyone else would like go about making a career at this budget level. And it's always sort of benefited him where he's just like consistently played by his own rules. A big thing that helped him is that he was with

[00:42:03] like roadshow pictures which later becomes Village Roadshow which becomes one of like the biggest film financing companies and later does like The Matrix and a ton of things at Warner Brothers. But the fact that he was a local boy that he was with them from the beginning

[00:42:17] that he had this good relationship meant that he always had like good funding. He sets up the Kennedy Miller company from the Gecko. He has a strong crew he works with. He's built somewhat of a little industry around himself with all of his like key team.

[00:42:30] But he just makes this crazy big bet on himself. And in the same way that you watch like Fury Road and you go, oh this is probably what Road Warrior looked like in his head and he couldn't until this point execute it. You watch this.

[00:42:44] This is what Mad Max looked like in his head. Yeah and it doesn't feel small to you. Like what's crazy is even though the budget is like minuscule compared to Fury Road and the difference in technology and the scale. I watched this movie and I'm like,

[00:42:56] it still feels so fucking big. Like you watch this. Those wide horizons baby. This feels like the biggest movie ever. That anamorphic photography. Stretch it out. Just that the way fucking Road Warrior uses the sky is insane because you're just like, oh right I never seen movies where

[00:43:13] there are no manmade structures anywhere on the horizon. Yes, I didn't even put that together. That's just like one little fucking water tower. There's like a little crater. But Sea of Sand if you will. It just feels endless. Like you just every shot is like this.

[00:43:30] He's just been googling that phrase for like 40 minutes. He's like, Sea of Sand. Sea of Sand. But like almost every shot in this movie is just this insane vanishing horizon of just like yellow and blue. Also upon watching it this time around

[00:43:44] I kept jumping back for a little like he does a great job of shooting these five second sequences that are small things like the dude's hand coming back in or like you know these minor little looking things that are, you're like, oh this dude has such an eye

[00:44:00] that you know he's like give him millions of dollars and you could still know he's gonna shrink it down to this cool ass five second. Just like, oh when Max crawls it's gotta look like the choices he makes. You're like, oh and that's Fury Road was like

[00:44:14] the best movie of the last several years. And it was so long after all the Mad Max movies that you were kind of like, yeah remember like in the Mad Max movies this is cool. And you watch it. We're like, yeah, do we know one of those?

[00:44:25] Those are fine, right? I remember when it was announced I was like why is he doing that? Why would you do another Mad Max? Right, it felt desperate in a weird way. Yeah and then the trailer, well we'll talk about Fury Road later.

[00:44:37] Anyway, I also wanna note that he was trying to make a rock and roll movie called Rock Sand which never happened but would love to know what that was. I forgot that was the step in between. When he turns down all the LA jobs

[00:44:49] he works on Rock Sand. He comes back and he's like I'm making Rock Sand. It's a rock and roll movie. Right, and then when he couldn't get that together then he said let's go back to that. We couldn't get Steve Martin to sign on. Yes.

[00:45:00] And he brings aboard the guy who wrote the novelization of Mad Max, this guy, Terry Hayes who becomes a collaborator for him to write the script. And Dean Semmler who becomes like a really big part of it. Cause the first film is well shot.

[00:45:15] Scrappy and then this film just like takes it to the next level. Dean Semmler who's like less than a decade away from winning the Oscar for Dances with Wolves becomes like this very prestigey Hollywood cinematographer. Oh yeah. Also shot Apocalypto speaking of Melchus. Yes.

[00:45:32] And they went out to New South Wales to this sort of blasted deserts of Australia to a place called Broken Hill. Which sounds like a grim place. I propose. Exactly. The thing I feel like I've always heard about Miller and his reputation is that

[00:45:49] like his movies, he always squeezes maximum value out of the budget he's given. Even when his films are expensive, he somehow makes every movie look four times more expensive than it actually is. And the main thing that he like bathes in is time.

[00:46:03] That's like the main thing he wants is the time to do everything correctly. And I think that comes across in what you were saying John about like all those little shots where it's just the kind of stuff that would often be relegated to a B unit.

[00:46:15] Or you're just like, let's just do it again from a different camera setup. But he understands like the energy with which you crawl in this one setup has to be different than how you're crawling from other angles. Because in this shot. Yeah and he feels like he knows,

[00:46:29] he's like the tone I want when your hand is coming back into the car is like you're destroyed, you're defeat, you're slinking back to your whatever. When it becomes maximalist, when the performance has sort of become like Kabuki theater. There's a story I kept on thinking

[00:46:42] about watching this movie that when Peter Bug Donovich was doing last picture show and it was like his second movie ever and his first movie was they gave him a bunch of scraps of footage of Boris Karloff and were like, can you shoot 20 minutes

[00:46:55] around this and make it a narrative? But this was his first time like writing a script and shooting it. And Bob Raphelson was producing it and he shoots the scene where Timothy Bottoms and Jeffridge is getting a fist fight over Sybil Shepard at the end of the movie.

[00:47:07] And the people at Columbia pictures see the dailies and call up Bob Raphelson and they're like, this kid's a moron. He doesn't know how to fucking shoot an action scene. This is incomprehensible. We're screwed. You have to go over and take over production.

[00:47:20] And he was like, let me see the dailies. And this is one of my favorite terms ever. But Bob Raphelson says he called up Columbia and he was like, are you stupid? This thing's gonna cut like butter. Isn't that gorgeous? That's pretty sexy.

[00:47:34] I will say if you didn't give me the setup of like, and I love this term, and I still am, I'm just injecting that directly into my vocabulary. I'm like, oh, I gotta remember that. But this is a movie that cuts like butter

[00:47:45] and the reason why, and it's the same thing that worked with Last Picture Show is he was like, it was Bogdanovich's Naivete being such like a film critic and a film student and loving watching the construction of things but having so little experience making it himself.

[00:48:01] He didn't realize that the way anyone else would do it is choreograph a fight, shoot it from eight different angles at every angle you do the whole fight and then you cut it together later. So what he did is he went, okay, so this shot

[00:48:13] I'm close up right here and this shot is just when I say action bridges your fist goes from here to here. Like he was just- He knew what it was gonna be. He knew what the end piece was. He knew what the end piece was.

[00:48:22] And so he did it in a totally disjointed way where they never did the full fight as actors straight through. But he got every piece he needed and when you watch that fight it has the same kind of energy that the Mad Max movies do

[00:48:33] where every little piece has so much force in it because it is just focused on just that one piece. Making that thing play the best it can from that angle. And it's tough to do that and also make the performances feel cohesive and continuous

[00:48:47] because you're doing it so piecemeal but somehow Miller just always has that like throttle of like, you know and so much this movie is someone looking at something establishing the next sort of danger the next conflict by someone clocking who's at the window next to me.

[00:49:04] What's the spatial relation? Like life in an apocalypse where there's no settlements like that is what it is where it's like something's coming down the road. What would that be? Yeah, right. There's smoke over there. That's weird. That's not supposed to happen.

[00:49:16] I think it's because it kind of like there's a person there. Weird, there's never people there. That's bad. It's usually not on people around. I don't know if you guys are gonna hang out here. But like to do this at high speeds

[00:49:29] like to do it in motion above all else and like a lot of the times the cars are going like 60 miles per hour and they're speeding up the footage, you know and I am the first person to like dislike visible effects but the fact that it's practical

[00:49:43] with just a little bit of speed it's and it's not used the whole time but it's used at certain times it really hits you extra hard where you're like this doesn't bother me at all. No, no, no and it doesn't bother me at all

[00:49:54] when it's like weirdly takes off when the car takes off you're like this is kind of cool actually but it's like weirdly he's getting the performances out of his actors that also will play well at that speed if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:50:06] You know like everyone's got a certain energy. Yeah, I mean I don't this is not a performance movie for me really apart from Mel. Well, everyone's you know what's doing Bruce Spence is pretty fun. Thank you. Yeah, he's pretty good. That's Gyrocopter? Yes.

[00:50:22] Which back in the Star Wars days I kept on bringing up that he is Tiaan Miedon in Revenge of the Sith and every time I brought it up you went who cares? So here was the situation. He's in Revenge of the Sith. Right. He plays the Tiaan Miedon.

[00:50:36] He's like I mean I'll show you what he looks like. He's got lines on his face and pointy. And right Griffin was like and do you know who that is? He's the Gyrocopter? The Gyrocopter pilot for Rural War and I was like all right Jesus who cares?

[00:50:48] There he is. Oh shit. I mean he's got a good vibe. It's Bruce Spence long face. Yeah tall long face. He's also in Thunderdome. Yes. And then get third was on the podcast he tried it on him and he was like what?

[00:50:59] And then but he is of course also in a performance that matters a lot to me the evil train man in the Matrix Revolutions. And in Return of the King he is the mouth of Sauron. He is in a deleted scene.

[00:51:11] And so he's only in the special edition. But that puts him in five different trilogies in the last movie right? In Finding Nemo he is also He's one of the sharks. Right. There was a stat where in 2003 So if they made a third of those

[00:51:26] then that would be a fifth trilogy. In 2003 he was the highest grossing actor. Right. Because he had Oh yes. Star Wars or not Star Wars but you know what I mean? You know the man was in some higher earners. But the man was in like

[00:51:39] 1.8 billion dollars worth of movies. Right. With like six months. He was in like 2% of them. Right. Yeah. But it was this crazy. His performance is really great because he's the only person in this universe who is having fun. Who has any. Yeah.

[00:51:54] Who still seems sort of like a human. Right. Yeah. 100%. And I feel like there's something to the fact that he is the only person that's ever in the air. Yes. So that makes it seem like It seems like such an insane advantage.

[00:52:06] It's an insane advantage but it also gives him a different perspective than every single other person that exists in this world. Like the ground is so dire in this movie. Right. But it makes it seem like Oh that would be why he's got some positive

[00:52:19] Some hope to him because he can see He sees more than everyone else sees. Right. Yeah. So he's got like a weird perspective. Also do you think that Steven Merchant saw this guy and was like, All right. When he was like zero.

[00:52:31] He's like I'm going to stretch your machine. I'm going to grow to be just like this. I mean he looks like George Miller designed him. His proportions. I mean the size of his hands and the skin of his legs. He makes Jack Skellington look like Danny DeVito.

[00:52:44] It is insane that this is his real body. It is. And he is really fun in this movie. So fun. Also his head is four feet tall. Yeah. It's the length of the head. That's all of it. He had been in the Cars That Ape Pair.

[00:52:56] He'd been in some of these sort of small budget Australian exploitation. What do you want to call them? But I will say this. You're saying it's called Stork, which was like a breakout hit for some like comedy. You were saying this is not really performance movie,

[00:53:10] but watching the first and the second back to back pretty much, it does make you realize that as opposed to a lot of genre cinema, especially genre cinema coming out of like these sort of, you know, humble beginnings, the performances are often so wackadoo.

[00:53:28] You have people who cannot act or people who overact so much because they don't have respect for the material. And in this, even though it's a cranked up movie, it does feel like everyone is actually invested in the world. The people who have two lines,

[00:53:41] the people who are just in the background, even the people who aren't making a big impression, there's like an integrity to all what the actors in this. There's something to like if you're in a movie and you only have two lines, you're like who gives a fuck? Right.

[00:53:52] But if the lead only has 10 lines, you're like, well, I guess. Right. I mean, fair point. I'm the fucking weird captain who has the 80s blonde daughter. Right. The mechanics assistants. The mechanics is, the mechanics are the fucking Stattler and Waldorf for this movie. They're my comic relief.

[00:54:12] They're the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But it's also one of those things where it's like probably the 14th-built person in this movie still worked 35 days. And mostly just like on a dirt bike with a mask on in the background. But has like a dozen close-ups.

[00:54:27] Like because it is such a physical movie, all the supporting actors in this are so much more invested by the nature of what they have to do. Yes. I agree with that. My, I think one of my beefs is with,

[00:54:41] and I hate to say something mean about the Lord Humongous. I don't love the Lord Humongous. He's my least favorite Mad Max villain. I don't think it's even really a debate. Toe Cutter is so good. I mean, the two keybodies' performances are so good.

[00:54:57] Those are the best two. And then Tina Turner also kicks. The Lord Humongous, it's like, okay, I get your big. Your big guy. Which is cool. You know his hockey mask? I mean, you're not the first to do that, but okay. Maybe he is the first.

[00:55:09] Although in 1991, Jason's still wearing a sack. Jason might still have a sack at this point. None of us, like a hockey mask. Jason might be a kid in the bottom of the lake. Look at this point. The opposite. This guy's desert with a hockey mask,

[00:55:22] taking sack in the lake. The hockey mask is fine. It's good. Right, the fact that Lord Humongous is this huge bodybuilder who uses a pistol with a scope for most movies. It's like, get in the fucking, you would see a pustage. He's a lot of bark.

[00:55:35] He's a lot of like, oh Lord Humongous is back. You have two more chances to disobey me. Debate me, you coward. Invince me otherwise in the public's hands. I'm planning on leaving soon. I mean, he's scary. One of my big beefs with most action movies

[00:55:53] is they always get like a big actor to play the villain. Just like a big guy. Yeah, but not even, I mean, I got a major name. An overqualified thespian. An overqualified thespian. So by the time, by the time Steven Seagal's squaring off against a bad guy,

[00:56:08] you're like, Steven Seagal's gonna kick this 60 year old guy's ass. Tommy Lee Jones is supposed to be scary. He just fought 100 Navy SEALs. Now he's gonna fight Tommy Lee Jones. Who cares? The ultimate example of that for me is- Pagosian and Underseach too is a big one.

[00:56:22] I think there's an even more egregious one. The one I just remembered going like, this movie should end right now is Quantum of Solace, where the film expects you to feel any tension in a final fight that is Daniel Craig on a catwalk with Matthew Ulmarik.

[00:56:36] It was like, I am an eco terrorist. You know Bond has had a few of those problems like Jonathan Price and Tomar Niverda. I mean, often when you have the ineffectual, they'll have a heavy, you know. Right, you give them a heavy.

[00:56:49] They do the order wrong where you fight the bad ass martial artist who's his sidekick and you have to feed him. It's like, now you have to fight, you know- Jonathan Price in a Nehru collar. The weapon too has got the best one.

[00:57:00] He kills that guy, fights that guy and then he's like, now you have to fight me, the old fat South African man. Robocop is like a Robocop. Robocop, yes! Wait, there's another, well, Heywire makes the very strange decision of having Ewan McGregor be the final boss,

[00:57:15] like no offense to him. But she's already dispatched Channing Tatum, like bigger guys, it's weird. Heywire also makes the weird decision to be totally incomprehensible. Yeah, but that I love. But so then you see this movie and you're like,

[00:57:29] oh finally a fucking bad guy worthy of a head. He's big! Yeah, he's just gonna be like, sort of never deal- Oh, doesn't matter if you're a bodybuilder, if everything you fight is in a fucking weird, what are they called? Fanboat turned car or whatever.

[00:57:43] The first one has that thing too. He's got those Mississippi roots, he can't let them go. What if that's the backstory? He used to be a fanboat captain. The first one has that thing too. He's like a Cajun guy. Where Toe Cutter gets killed second to last.

[00:57:58] Yeah, he gets killed penultimate, yeah, it's true. And the same happens in Fury Road. He doesn't care about the hierarchy. No, right, right. You might get hit by a truck and that's good. And it's cool that they set up a different, because this movie and Fury Road,

[00:58:11] it's not something to do, isn't about the needing to defeat or banish the background. It's about chasing the finish line. And it's also about these are the guys who like open the gates of hell. So ultimately it's not that stopping them the problem.

[00:58:23] The problem is everything that they've unleashed. Right, right. You know, and then also you have like, you have an endpoint you got to get to. You gotta do a delivery. I do like his prosthetic pulsating veins on the back of his head.

[00:58:37] So do you know the original plan for him was that he would be Goose. He would be Max's old buddy from Mad Max One, who gets all burned up. But you never see his corpse, I guess. You see his arm. Yeah, and that's why he's burned.

[00:58:53] They were like, let's do that. And then I think someone was just like, it doesn't make sense. So don't do it. And it's also cooler to just be like, who the fuck is this guy? I agree.

[00:59:01] I think it would be a little too much to have it be. Yes, I love the fact that you don't know who any of these, you don't even know their motives at all. Except that like gas is important and you want it.

[00:59:12] They have it, they need it too. In the Mad Max world, all you need to do is like find gas or water or something and then be like, okay, I am Lord fuck you and I'm the boss, you all answer to me now. And that's it.

[00:59:24] It's feudal, you know. I think one of the reasons why I love the Mad Max franchise so much is it's the only piece of media that seems to find cars as terrifying as I do. As someone who will never get a driver's license

[00:59:36] does not like being in a vehicle. The idea stresses me out. Like watching this movie is how I feel every time I'm in an Uber. I'm just like, someone's gonna fucking ram into us. It's too much, you know?

[00:59:48] Like no one should have this much power in their hands. No one should control this much like fucking muscle. Dom Deerekes used to have this stand up bit that was really funny. He was like in like 40 years, kids are gonna be like,

[00:59:59] so you were just like in these 5,000 pound death machines going 80 miles an hour next to each other. That's how I feel. Yeah, and they were like... I mean it's the old joke, but right. Anytime you're driving a car, you're like, what if I just like... Right.

[01:00:11] You're like, oh well thank God I have like a fully working cerebral cortex and I'm not gonna do that. Right, right. For example, I do not have a fully working cerebral cortex and do not have a driver's license. Smart!

[01:00:23] Out of a sense of compassion for the human race. But this movie, like the way they just in the prologue set up so beautifully. Like because the first one you're watching it and society hasn't fully collapsed, but you're like there is a weird dominance of vehicles. You know?

[01:00:38] It's like a pre sort of Pixar cars thing where it's like the scales are starting to like unbalance between the natural and the mechanical. And then the second one just sets up this whole thing of just like we got all into machines. Like everything was all about machines

[01:00:53] and we went into war and then realized, oh fuck, we blew our machines trying to win the machine. Yes. And now society has crumbled and the only thing we care about is how to keep the machines running. Right. It's just such beautiful table setting

[01:01:08] and to just have some old man over like stock footage of World War II. Explain this, you're like I get it. It's the type of self-destructive thing that humanity does. The movie is so oddly poignant. Watching it now, you're like this is crazy.

[01:01:22] You're like almost crying just in the opening narration which is like their version of the Star Wars crawl but the guy is really imbuing it with a sense of real sort of pathos about like of course we did what humans do. You know?

[01:01:34] And this idea where it's just like, it's all about fucking guzzling. Like just let's hammer the point, let's underline that this movie is about one thing everyone's gotta get guzzling. Guzzling. Guzzling. I'm sure we talked about it in the last episode

[01:01:48] but there have been all these gas crises in Australia things like that. That was what inspired him. Feral Child by the way, we haven't shouted him out yet. You know with the boomerang. Yeah, yeah, cool guy. You were looking at me confused

[01:02:02] and I was like John, John you've got the boomerang. Please clarify which character is the Feral Child. Which one I'm trying to... No, I was gonna say he must have learned to speak quite eloquently. Very eloquently. Cause I love that reveal.

[01:02:13] How are my, there's no surprises left in movies anymore for me. And then when it's just something small like and I am the narrator, you're like oh that's fucking cool. Yeah. And I don't know why I liked it so much. It is such a classic twist.

[01:02:26] Are you remembering that that is the final twist to Rook the last flight, the first flight? The Avatar Cirque de Soleil show that we saw live. Of course you saw, I'm sure you saw. Where like you're watching the Cirque de... You know they have a whole Avatar adventure

[01:02:40] and there's a narrator and then at the end of it he's like and by the way that guy is me. I'm him. Later. It was great. Hard blackout waiting for people to go like... Like yeah. Lights back up to him like this. To people slowly walking out.

[01:02:58] Anyway, yeah, Feral Child. A bit of a bend vibe from Feral Child, right? Did you ever have a boomerang? I did. Yeah. Actually one time it hit my friend in the head and he had to go to the hospital. Oh come on, man.

[01:03:10] It wasn't like I was doing it on purpose. We were doing American gladiators. You even threw it. And I lined up, he was next to me and I was gonna throw the boomerang and I guess I kind of let go and it went right into his head.

[01:03:24] Point blank range. Yeah, it was close. What type of injury are we talking about here? Not a metal boomerang, I'm hoping. No. But like a hard plastic. Yeah, sure, right. It wasn't good. He had to get stitches. I felt bad. But yes, I've had a boomerang

[01:03:39] and I've thrown them many a time. Ben, what was your American gladiator name? Oh wow. I don't know. I mean, I think it was who was my favorite guy. Was either Nitro, Laser or Tower. I had two Goldfish and I wanted

[01:03:52] the Belmore Street Fair that were named Nitro and Laser. Mine was Nitro. Yeah, those were the two coolest guys I thought. American gladiator feels indebted to Mad Max too. I mean, like everything's fucking indebted. But it is wild. There was all Britain had its own gladiators.

[01:04:06] It was just called gladiators. What did you read this in some sort of book? Are you like a big gladiator guy? In England they didn't have American gladiators. Once in a while it would cross over with the American and they would show up and they'd be like,

[01:04:17] hi, Nitro and the Brits would kind of be like, alright buddy. I'm picturing like the British sport. It's like, all in Earl Grey. And he's like, and it's like about raw cake fingers. Yes, biscuit. It's all about kicking soccer balls and shit at like.

[01:04:33] It was the, as far as I know, it was a very similar show. They did the like, the jewels with the right. Except with Spatz on. But there was a character called Wolf who had long hair. And he was like the bad guy.

[01:04:48] So like everyone else was really nice, which is sort of weird to think about that's what gladiator was. Like they would joust and maybe one wins and then it'd be like, how do you feel about that hunter? And he'd be like, oh, he's a great competitor.

[01:04:59] I had a great time. But Wolf would like eat the microphone or be like, I'll get you. It was great. I loved gladiators. They did try to bring it back. It was one of those things where they like brought it back. I feel like during the writer strike

[01:05:12] when they needed like a ton of programming. With Ninja Warrior eats its lunch so hard. It's a little more hardcore. And then gladiators starts to feel goofy. It starts to feel childish with some of the events. Which I mean, it's for children. He was very childish.

[01:05:27] There was a dude, he's like, he's got his own Wikipedia page. I wish I can remember his name, but he was the guy who like... Oh, Russell Crowe. Yes, yes. That's the guy who threw a phone. No, this dude showed up on gladiators

[01:05:40] on American gladiators and was such a fucking stud. He could like no one could beat him in anything. And he was just like, you know, it was like, and Gary wins again or whatever. And it's like tiny little black dude just smoking everyone in every event.

[01:05:53] Like they just never dealt with this. They were like, it was like Ken Jennings. Like we need a robot to fight them in the jest. You could just beat everybody in everything. It was very fun. Did you guys have the travel later? Did you guys have that? No.

[01:06:06] What do you guys, we all grew up in Britain. What? Holy shit, I haven't heard that in 30 episodes. Jeez. Where I watched. That's only because we're 30 episodes. Where I watched. The British gladiators with Wolf and Hunter and Jet and Nightshade and all the other ones. Nightshade.

[01:06:26] Tom Brady's worst nightmare. Nightshade unfortunately was the black woman. No. And guess what they called the black man? No. Shadow. No. So bad. Oh my God. It's just like when I was a kid, I'm like right, yeah, black ranger and yellow ranger, it's a black guy

[01:06:42] and an Asian woman. Pink ranger is the girl. Yeah, that makes sense. Right, you know, I'm a child. I have a very, you know, impressionable brain right now. This is what I should be watching. Can I move backwards in conversation and make a joke that's not worth it?

[01:06:53] Yeah, please. I thought Tom Brady's worst nightmare was an air pump. Oh. The one thing Griffin knows about football. Thank you. Griffin dipping his toe into sports humor for the first time. I just learned. I know one other thing about football. Anyway. Tell the truth.

[01:07:09] Tell the truth, of course. In the end of the big gladiator, they did like a big gauntlet run at the end of every show. The last thing they had to climb a thing and do a thing, you know, but the last thing was

[01:07:19] that you just had to walk up a backwards escalator. Essentially, yeah, they had to run up a treadmill that was going down, which was that's the travel. That was called the travelator. And it was always it was so hard and I always appreciate.

[01:07:30] I'm like that it's so simple, but so fucking difficult. Do you do which and also American gladiators? I don't know if gladiators with a U at the end had this. Majesty's gladiators. I don't know if you guys had this,

[01:07:45] but the fucking it was all the going through the paper door where there's sometimes a guy there and sometimes someone not there. That's just like the if you have the if you choose what the guy you lose. No, I had the breakaway paper.

[01:07:58] Yes, I mean, it was a good show. I enjoyed it. Tennis ball air guns. Right. Can't get a lot of that. The assault as a kid was the best one. There were like you shoot the rocket launcher. Yeah, that was did you guys have what they called

[01:08:10] atlas spheres where you're in like a giant mouse ball? That one was cool. And then Powerball was the one I always thought I would be the best at, which was kind of like rugby but with like a slam dunk. Oh yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Bring it back.

[01:08:23] Why not? I don't know. I don't know. I feel like they did that revival. American Ninja Warrior right there now. American Ninja Warrior. It's like the CrossFit games like eat the lunch of all this bread. I also I feel like... I also think no offense to the gladiators

[01:08:36] but it's probably like a steroid situation happening over there. They all looked very large. I also feel like the American gladiators reboot came in a slight little period for the WWE which has since swung back really hard and is just so dominating that world.

[01:08:50] I would assume out from WWE to even just say professional wrestling because now there's so many other shows and shit. I think no one wants that. Do you know what I thought I had watching this movie? It is insane that this is almost 40 years old.

[01:09:03] And there is still not a stunt category at the Oscars. I know it's a thing that gets discussed a lot but you're right. But this is the fucking point where they should probably go, oh, this is a thing we need to acknowledge.

[01:09:14] Because this is like the birth of a more a modern type of stunt movie. This is the birth of a type of movie where you have like 80 people doing insane things that defy logic. And real people doing real stunts with real fire and real cars. It's just like...

[01:09:29] And I don't know if it's because I've watched all these classic action movies for action boys or because of just modern movies. I'm so tired of CG and the dignification of everything that like, watching this movie is like a fucking antidote. That's what's crazy. You're like, watch this.

[01:09:46] You're like, dude, when that one biker who I think according to IMDB actually breaks his leg because he's not supposed to hit the car and he's doing like those rag balls. And I'm like, you watch that, you're like, holy shit. Now that's insane. Someone actually got hurt. Apologies.

[01:10:00] But if he didn't get hurt, that's still a dude soaring 30 feet through the air. And what's crazy is... And that was the intention. Oh, he wasn't supposed to hit the car but he was supposed to definitely fly 30 feet as a person. And that's fucking awesome.

[01:10:13] That person made that choice to do that. I respect it. It just, if like, it's what... I'm not a director, but as a director that would frighten me so much. Like the days you have that shit to do. But here's what's crazy. He's made four of these movies.

[01:10:29] And I believe, and I was trying to do my research on this, it seems like the worst injuries that anyone's gotten on any of them is like that. Is like a broken bone. Like a badly harmed limb. But nothing that you couldn't recover from.

[01:10:43] Sure, no one died or anything. There's like, I was reading an article two days ago about the amount of people who have died making Resident Evil movies. Because they got like that Bulgarian loophole or whatever that they're shooting outside of America. And just poor planning and...

[01:10:57] And Norton almost took down a fucking Harlem apartment or Brooklyn apartment. I mean like two firemen got killed. I mean it's one of these things that sort of speaks to George Miller where it's like even the first one where he is like in retrospect,

[01:11:08] we were like playing with death a lot. We got really lucky that no one got more hurt. But from then on, he becomes very aware of like if I'm gonna ask people to do this, we have to plan out so deliberately,

[01:11:19] I have to be very specific on what I'm asking them to do. I'm not gonna ask them to do footage I'm not gonna use. Here comes that time shit again. It's all about the time. Like that's his main expenditure. So if he uses money for days,

[01:11:29] that's what you're talking about when you say time, right? He just takes days. Correct. And it's like we might have to... For stunt shit, like that's a dream. And especially when you're like traversing large, large patches of land, the reset time for this stuff is crazy.

[01:11:40] The stunts are complicated enough. There are enough moving pieces, there are explosions and stuff that like I was reading this article about this woman lost her arm making the last Resident Evil movie because they didn't like the way the shot looked on playback and they decided,

[01:11:53] hey camera guy let's change the timing of your move by two seconds and didn't communicate to her. And as someone who has been on set, I'm sure you can relate to this as well John. I read that and I go, holy shit I know that moment.

[01:12:04] I've never been in that moment where the stakes are that great. I've done it where I'm like, I'm set up to fail here. Totally. But not die. Not to get hurt. And to fail is I'm not gonna land this joke. Right, because they're like,

[01:12:16] and cause they leave you out of one piece of conversation or you're not even being considered. There was a time when we were filming Tic where they had a big crane and the director wanted to change the timing of when the crane moved

[01:12:26] and because of that and the rush and we're being like we have to go, we have to go. The crane completely smacked Seraphina which upside the head. And thankfully it was not any sort of serious injury but he was super freaked out by it, right? Right.

[01:12:40] And he's had the insulation of wearing this dumb machine on his head, right? But it was one of those things where it was like that was just a product of people being like we don't have time to speed it up, speed it up, speed it up.

[01:12:49] And a movie like this where you have so many complicated shots, so many cranes, things in the air, things on the ground, things mounted to vehicles, things being held, moving at high speeds with people jumping and explosions and all of that.

[01:13:01] The fact that their track record for injuries is so great that it is so low. I think it's something you gotta give him credit for. But here's my question. What? Are they just lying? Well, possibly. That does seem to be something that happens all the time

[01:13:15] where it's like much later they're like, yeah actually like 16 people fell off a cliff but they're okay now. It wasn't technically during a stunt. Right, right. But I'm not talking about that. You're saying a stunt Oscar but would we measure a stunt Oscar by like

[01:13:28] most people put in death's way who didn't die? Like would it be a stat thing? How do you measure, I am supportive of a stunt Oscar. But how do you measure the sort of like artistic craft of a stunt? I think you treat it like best choreography.

[01:13:42] Well, I assume you would throw it, you would have stunt members be part of the academy but like the way the Oscars work, like the peers would decide or whatever. But it's sort of like what is, what's the metrics for sound design? You know what I mean?

[01:13:53] Well, that's, I love to think about those guys being like, oh yeah, no, no, no, no. Good poppin'. David's holding his headphones. Yeah, cause it's like people are always just like, well what movie has great cinema, what movie has a lot of cuts? Yeah. That's the best editing.

[01:14:05] That can be unfortunately. What movie has a lot of sound? That's best sound design. Especially when you throw it to the general bunch. Right, cause I mean the sound Oscar almost always goes to a movie with a lot of vehicles or movie with a lot of music.

[01:14:16] It's either cars or war. Or all times music. Right, the walk the line sort of bohemian raps. Helicopters though. Yes, they love that. If you got helicopters then you could win a sound. But you're like in what university of Rome not win best sound?

[01:14:30] In the universe where everyone's fucking watching on Netflix and not hearing that there's like waves over there. Yeah, everyone's watching from the- What's up Ben? Oh, I feel that way about quiet place. Yes. Best sound. It's incredible sound. I mean that's the whole, oh. Incredible sound. Attack sound.

[01:14:46] We refuse to move to the waterfall. Just fucking pick up your shit and move there. The thing we always joke about, cause it's the best part is when they show Krasinski is like a layer where he's planning everything. On the whiteboard it says like they dislike sound

[01:15:02] with like a circle around it. It's like we got it. Attack sound. We do not need to- Attack sound. Can you imagine how good he felt the day he figured that out? Yeah, right, we should have that in the book.

[01:15:13] Oh, it's not the smell thing, it's the sound thing. Like it stopped rubbing dog shit all over my body. Call off the three months of smell experiment. The kids are like no more dog poop dips you're like no. Now I have to-

[01:15:26] Every morning I wake up and shit on my baby. Here we go. Creature, blind, attack sound, armor, how many an area? What is the weakness? He's a good father, he's not particularly good at whiteboards. That's what that movie is about. That's really funny to me.

[01:15:44] But I just feel like the reason why this movie doesn't feel like a dry run for Fury Road. You know it doesn't feel like it's just sort of out modeled by Fury Road. Is that you cannot believe that they did all of this

[01:15:58] in this time period without any digital effects. And Fury Road is still more practical than most movies. But he's embellishing everything. And this you're just like on the budget they had, the time you had when there's no model for this.

[01:16:10] When people really haven't done a movie like this before. I mean where essentially the movie is pretty much one long action sequence. Right, yeah. Or it's like, it's kind of two. There's the stuff at the beginning, there's kind of a pause as we like meet what Papa Johnus.

[01:16:27] Well it's like the leader of the community. Act one and act three are action sequences. Act two is like, here's who everybody is. Yeah, here's who everybody is. And he's like, I don't want to help you. I'll help you.

[01:16:37] You know right, which is sort of the classic Max dynamic. But Fury Road is like two chases too. Yes, it is. The thing that's wild about Fury Road is that the pause in the middle is just in the middle of nowhere. Right?

[01:16:50] Like he gets to a city and meets new people. Right, right. The breath is just like. He is so good though at sort of structurally knowing when to slow things down. I was literally just about to say, but when I saw, when you watch Fury Road on IMAX

[01:17:04] and the theater, when it stops in the middle of nowhere, you are like, oh okay, all right. Like stretch my, oh my God. I just realized I've been crunching my shoulders for one hour. Griffin was at the press screening with me. If you remember, it's the first,

[01:17:16] it's literally at minute 30, there is a shot of the flare. If it goes into the storm, the flare like goes to black and it's a black for like one second and the whole audience burst into applause. Yes. And it was an incredible moment. And then you heard everyone's.

[01:17:29] And it was a press audience. Sorry, like a hundred percent. Like exhale at the same time. And then you have the sort of small scale, really cool, we'll get to that. It was one of the best audience response I've ever seen.

[01:17:38] It was also incredible because we were seeing it at like a press screening where we were like. It's traditionally not the most vocal? Well yes, A that and B people were like, I've heard it's good. It had been, it can. And then everyone was like, it's great.

[01:17:49] But you can never trust Cannes because they've been watching all these movies about like Moldovan lepers. And then they like see like solo and they're like, there's like a laser cut. This thing's reinventing cinema. People forget like how good like the kingdom of the crystal skull reviews

[01:18:02] were at a Cannes. I always think of like Port in the Storm at Cannes, right? Because it's just like, I just watched eight black and white. And then here comes a movie with recognizable music. And you're like, that was actually pretty good. It's like yeah.

[01:18:15] If you saw that movie last, you would be like, that's stuck in your head George Miller is a functional filmmaker. It's probably going to be a better action movie than most, but you don't know if Cannes liked it that much, if that's really going to translate.

[01:18:26] His last credit was happy feet too. Yeah, it just wasn't something where you're like, this is guaranteed. Yeah. But this it's like he's kind of creating everything. I mean the only real forebear he has for what he's trying to do is the previous movie he made. Right.

[01:18:40] And like in terms of the larger storytelling themes he's pulling from like Westerns and samurai films. I mean, he's doing like a very compelling thing. As he's you know, he's very stripped down. He does credit like Joseph Campbell and all that. I mean, it's denial of call.

[01:18:54] It's got everything. Yeah, stuff. Yes, exactly. But it's amazing how he just it's like there is it is so lean. It is so focused always. He hits those beats so efficiently. The movie doesn't tell you anything that you don't need to know. It has nothing extraneous,

[01:19:11] but it also feels like there's so much going on around it. Like he's this one filmmaker I feel like is able to be completely maximalist and minimalist. Mad maximalist and mad minimalist at the same time. You know who's the person that the people

[01:19:26] who are really influenced by this? And I saw them say this in an interview and then watching it today. I really, really saw it. The Cullen Brothers. Oh, that makes sense. They talk about how this and the first Mad Max were like the two films

[01:19:40] they studied obsessively going into. Gyro Captain is just so close to like a random Cullen Brothers character. The moment when Gyro Cutter's having the extended conversation with the dog about snake recipes is the moment that you feel like this would be in so many modern movies.

[01:19:57] It's and this is the most unbroken dialogue in the movie. Like for one character. You're right. Raising Arizona is interesting. Raising Arizona is like comedy Mad Max. Right. Yeah, it has that sort of like anarchic energy and like the nonstop movement and all of that.

[01:20:11] And then you even go like they're serious films. Like even something like Blood Simple feels like they are they're the byproduct of like Howard Hawks and. No, you're right. George Miller. Blood Simple is very like again lean and economical.

[01:20:23] And whether they're doing like a drama or a crime film or a comedy, it always has that like Miller crank and a lot of the visual like notes I feel like come from. There's something about he his movies just look so expressive.

[01:20:38] You know, I mean, there's those little flourishes he'll put in the famous one is obviously the eyes bulging out and like the first man Max. I fucking love. Oh, you get a we get a little bit of that when the guy falls out of the truck. Yes.

[01:20:50] When I went in this one when Max opens the passenger side door of the truck. Yeah. Yeah, just like that small moment. I know I mentioned the hand before the dog holding the bone in its teeth with the string attached to

[01:21:00] the shotgun and a general captain in the back. That is three seconds of the movie must have taken forever to set up and to get to work with a fucking sheltered dog like that. But that's like you choose that your priority is time. Right.

[01:21:11] And you get a movie that feels this deliberate where it feels like I mean he's talked about how he wants them at Max movies to feel like a literal fever dream. Like they come out of the dreams he has when he has like the flu. Yeah.

[01:21:24] And it does feel like when you wake up and you're like in cold sweat. Was that guy shirtless with a hockey mask screaming a Dutch poem into a microphone? You wake up and you try to break down what the dream was.

[01:21:35] But while you're dreaming it, it all makes perfect sense. Right. You know. Yeah. And it is right, which I love. Right. Not a movie that wants you to think about like and break it down and be like why would they be you know there's no there's no necessity.

[01:21:47] There's no. It doesn't give you the time to ask questions and doesn't give you enough leeway to like want to ask a question. There's not like a too much rope or you're like wait a minute. Why does this character care so much about this character?

[01:22:00] Because there is not a lot of that. But then when you have what's his name? Papalardo the leader of the Warriors. I just wanted to get it wrong. Is it yeah. John Papsadera. Well, Dary. His name is Papagallo. Papagallo. Nick Papagiorgio. Got it.

[01:22:14] When he has that sort of scene with him where he's like you've fully succumbed to the madness of this world. Right. Like you're telling us that like you're the same as us. But we've done what we need to survive but have maintained

[01:22:28] hint of stability and a sense of hope. You are gone. Yeah. You're more like those right. And Max knows that because by the end he's like all right, I'll see you later. It is one of the longest continuous dialogue scenes in the movie.

[01:22:41] And it is still pretty short and pretty sparse. Right. But it is a basic statement of like here's me. Here's you. That's what's going on here. But it's like he uses dialogue when it's something that you cannot communicate other than through dialogue.

[01:22:56] And it feels like he's using it so sparingly. I mean he always said that his goal for the first Mad Max and I feel like every movie since then he's just intensified this as the goal is to make a silent movie with sound.

[01:23:08] The things he studies the most going into each one are like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Well that makes sense for like elaborate stunts and elaborate visuals. Like it makes total sense. Like Chaplin was like these guys were like the original stuntman.

[01:23:21] And most of those movies are like chase movies. There's usually some fucking cop with a night stick like chasing after that. Yeah. My favorite stunt is when the house falls down but they land like in the window. An incredible guy. So good. I was reading.

[01:23:35] I was going through reviews of Blu-ray releases for these films because weirdly for how much he controls the rights of these films they haven't gotten the kind of treatment in a lot of areas that most films that are creative on a protected do.

[01:23:51] Like the home video releases have never really been up to the level of how beloved these films are. Right. Right. They haven't gotten like the criterion adjacent. Right. And he's like never really done much merchandise which is both good and bad.

[01:24:06] Good in terms of artistic integrity bad in terms of my apartment. The Lord's little Lord knows the box is mad. Mac shit I would own if he made it. But this this Blu-ray review I was reading that was just

[01:24:19] talking about the transfer the guy just mentions in the middle of the review. Like I remember watching this as a child and going what is this. These aren't even stunts. Right. This is just really happening. This feeling that you're watching it where just the

[01:24:32] amount of damage being like caused to vehicles when they go to a wide shot of the desert and you just see 40 vehicles moving fast in the endless sand. Caravan of destruction. You're like this feels like the largest movie ever made. There's yeah there's five or 10 scenes where someone

[01:24:51] is just looking at something. Yeah. The thing that they're looking at is 12 independent vehicles moving in some way. Right. Sometimes it's like Max is just looking at the camp and two motorcycles are jumping off of ramps. Sometimes it's like three dune buggies chasing one part like

[01:25:06] they just constantly showing you do this. That's just scary enough. I know not even cell phones is not like as Griffin said just driving a car is pretty terrifying to get 40 people to do it like in coordination with each other and a camera

[01:25:20] or driving a car with two people chained to the front of chasing another car like being on the roof of a speeding fucking truck. This is all shit that those people were objectively doing. Right. And when I see the shots like that I go where is the crew?

[01:25:35] You know like there's one guy behind the camera operating it's the magic of fury road as well. But yeah you're right. It's crazy. I'm like is there are there some chairs set up somewhere because they're moving full speed down a road.

[01:25:45] Well there is something behind the scenes thing to shoot Max driving. They had to build a rig on the outside of the car and shoot in and that's where the cameraman and the camera setup was and they thought they had it all set up

[01:25:59] and then they went over like one hail and that thing bottom down since sparks flying everywhere and they were like I guess this is just what the conditions are and continue to shoot like that. So awesome. I have not been able to get over Dominic's bit about how

[01:26:14] it's crazy that we all drive cars. I'm having like a slightly existential crisis about just driving cars reeling into yourself the last 20 minutes. Welcome to my life. This is how I feel all the fucking time. And yet I love driving a car.

[01:26:26] I moved to Los Angeles and I've adjusted to being in my car big time like David. Think about how it freaks me out is right that you're in your car like hours a day. Like that is wild. But yes I do have a car in New York.

[01:26:38] I'm the rare. He likes driving people. I love driving people. I love driving places. Yeah. Flying. So I've like doubled down on roads. You know. I'm totally qualified. Yeah. It's so so weird that you're cool with totally qualified Mad Max for me is like that's my like

[01:26:55] existential horror movie is like this world. It's all car has anyone ever attempted like a planes Mad Max like an aerial Mad Max. I mean I feel like not saying like a Kevin Costner in a sequel to Waterworld called Airworld. Yeah.

[01:27:11] I mean that kind of rules because kind of rules right. Someone's going to do that eventually like a blimp fight. Ooh yeah that'd be good. Lips you know what would be cool too is a small made a movie that was like like Star Wars.

[01:27:24] Like it was like Mad Max but in space. Yeah. Like this can of mints is empty and I will whip it at your head. Like Star Wars. But when will there be Star Peer? I don't know. Care about Star Wars gamers I forget like you don't

[01:27:40] you're not really going to shoot a Star Wars right. I used to really play I did all the Star Wars at customizable card game all the video games loved it growing up fell off during the I was I was really fucked up by Phantom Menace like I wait.

[01:27:53] And then you were just like that's why I'll leave it inside of the road. Yeah. Yeah I didn't watch anything. I mean I watched every movie of course in the theater but it was like in one ear out the other.

[01:28:01] Yeah and I've now reached that level with Marvel. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm at that point now where I find myself. I've never been really vocal online about the stuff I like despite being a podcast host because I'm just like whatever.

[01:28:14] But now I have to take the wine definitely less vocal about what I dislike. I think yeah now I take the time to be like any time someone makes a movie like any time the safty brothers come out with fury anything that comes

[01:28:25] out and it's like not Disney and not. You just want to be like God let's put this in a fucking pedestal. Yeah. 1917 it watched this fucking movie. Not one superhero. But like that's the thing like the Mad Max movies

[01:28:39] it could only be the result of one person having a very specific well thought out and well planned vision like that's the other part of it. It's not just like someone had an idea and then it got fucked up in the editor or whatever.

[01:28:53] It's like he's making a movie that can only be constructed one way isn't so so fully in dialogue with itself that you couldn't even fuck it up if you took the footage away from him to an extent. You could make it worse but you probably make it

[01:29:07] worse but you couldn't make it. I know what you're I get your content. There's a there's a fun game to play where you're like oh I would love to see so and so direct a Marvel movie. I would like to see so and so direct a Star Wars

[01:29:18] movie. Yeah. I don't think you should say that about Mad Max. Right. I don't think anyone but no should be directed no ownership. Yeah. His pure ownership is true. And even as we were saying like the fact that unlike all these other franchises he never goes

[01:29:33] like I'm going to let you write like a novel. Right. He keeps it tight. That's the stories of young water down. He doesn't want to do like a Peacock original series or something like that. Well you know what actually probably he will little Max Mad Max babies. Yeah.

[01:29:47] HBO Mad Max. I feel like didn't another little cartoon. It was funny. He's got to sell it to HBO Max. He's got to sell it to. He has to. I guarantee they're out to I guarantee they're out to George Miller. There's at least been an email. Yeah.

[01:30:01] We've got to get you. George. HBO Max Fury Road please. What were some let's run through some fucking great sequences in this in this movie. Well the first big Feral Kid sequence is so great when it's taken so much effort to like get to the compound. Yes. Yes.

[01:30:21] You know he finds this guy. He saves this guy. He's willing to bring him back and go through the trouble because he knows there'll be some gasoline in it for him. He gets back to the compound. What's his name? Jez and the golden child. Oh Wes. People. Wes.

[01:30:36] Wes. They all. Wes is visible but cheeks. Yeah. Yes. He's the Mohawk fella. They all follow him there and then this stinky kid comes out and just fucking massacres them with three throws of a boomer. I know. It cuts kills golden boy cuts the fingers off

[01:30:51] toadie and then disappears into us. I really appreciate the inclusion of toadie. Like that not everyone is like I am just a tough guy who rides a motorcycle. It's still true for him. Yes. I think he invented that's like future dystopian jester like comic relief.

[01:31:07] You see it in Waterworld which rips this movie off a ton. But like you see that in every post apocalyptic movie and then eventually every action movie every group of baddies features the the books. Exactly. The guy who has weird wireframe glasses or whatever.

[01:31:23] I think die hard is the great example of the black dude who's just like and we're in you know. He must have annoying character in the history. Right. I love that character. Or almost annoying performance maybe. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. But like that's the character that's

[01:31:35] going to get you into the fast franchise. That's the character that's going to get you. That's the thing. Fast of course has had versions of that but then they've never had a big one though which is the one reason I still feel like they're like oh let's

[01:31:46] have a nerd in this one. Can she be played by the hottest woman in the universe. You know like that's the Vin Diesel note where he's like I saw Natalie Emanuel and something like let's have her play a computer. They have like the like the nerdy

[01:31:57] sort of like squirt body shop worker in the first movie who's like part of the family right. But it's like nerdy on a relative scale in comparison to them. Right. But I feel like they still haven't gotten that die hard archetype in there. But yeah.

[01:32:11] I want to be and you want to be James Gablefini and killing them. So you've got a D&D you know you want to be Benedict Wong and Gemini man. You want to be Hawaiian shirt. I know a guy. Yes. Yes. He's the Bard. He's an evil Bard.

[01:32:23] I mean that's what I love about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great it's a great archetype. Yeah. Fucking rules. It's just this thing. It's warm tongue. Yeah. It's always just kind of impressive that when you watch a movie that is this formative that becomes

[01:32:36] this much of a dare I say it Rosetta Stone for other filmmakers that watching the first and purest execution of the thing always still somehow is more powerful than the people who have in theory perfected it with years. Right. And multiple tries. Well there's something about that.

[01:32:53] There's also something about watching the movie that created the references that you know. You know what I mean. Like yeah. When you when you watch The Godfather if you watch it like you're like oh now I get why people do so many different things. It's like great.

[01:33:06] So much shit is like on the block. Casablanca. Right. I see the invention of every right. Right. Yes. Yes. Casablanca is an even better example because it's something like you don't seek it out when you're people leaving the factory. That's one of those moves that

[01:33:18] everyone's ripping off because they had the idea to place a camera. Oh yeah. Well then there's. There's train. There's train coming into the station. Oh I can't see that in the theaters. It scares the shit out of me. Wait that going has anyone spoiled that for you.

[01:33:34] I can't watch the ending. I watched the first minute of it and keep falling asleep. It was the ending is fucking crazy. I keep falling asleep watching it on Netflix. Are you still watching? The train's coming. They pause 40 seconds in. Are you still watching?

[01:33:49] It sort of got the original twist ending in a lot of ways. Yeah it's it kicked M Night Shyamalan off. He was like wait a minute. I didn't expect that thing to come right into the theater. Right because the twist ending was I thought movies could kill me.

[01:34:03] Now learn they can't. I was prepared to be murder by a new machine. I do a bunch of stuff but one of them I'd be like when did they fucking first show that thing? Is that for real? I would just like be in the

[01:34:16] back and be like have they really got to freak out right now? Like news stories are just everyone's like this movie's got people scared. People are saying they're going to bring their own trains to the movie theater and you're like we had securities being doubled down

[01:34:27] on every theater as everyone pulls up in trains and engineering outfits and stuff. You know what I would love to read? I love to read where they're like reviving the movie where they're like reviews of the train coming into the station. Hate it. Derivative.

[01:34:40] It lacks the nuance of Shakespeare. 4.5. I don't think movies are going to take off. I expect this to be a fad. So many vehicles could be filmed coming towards a camera. We know all the tricks now. Now I have to look at the stupid movies.

[01:34:56] The other one I always think of is the kiss. There's that one that's like two middle-aged people and he has a disgusting mustache and they kiss and it's five seconds long and it was like fucking scandalous. I can imagine people were flipping the fuck out.

[01:35:08] You just made me think when you talked about that Fury Road shared audience experience that's something that a lot of people are losing. I don't want to be old man movie podcast but that's something a lot of people are losing and it's so fun

[01:35:20] when you can have that. I know these days. It's even kind of rare because even the second Infinity War, whatever. I was tired of the movie by that point but the way the audience went ape shit. Good to feel an audience feeling. Makes the movie better, makes

[01:35:38] every comedy better but I'll tell you the best version I've had of that recently was when I saw eighth grade in a crowded theater. I swear to God people watched it like it was a horror movie. The entire crowd going everyone awkward at the same moment.

[01:35:55] I've never felt that shared we're all cringing at the same time. Like Jackass 3D is one of the best movie theater. Jackass 3D is incredible to see with an audience. I feel like both of the Jordan Peel movies. I got really good experiences. Harri's always a good one.

[01:36:08] But it was like we've talked about this but just walking out of us I saw midnight showing in Times Square and people were standing outside the AMC 25 going like so what do you think the theme of that movie is? And I was like this is amazing

[01:36:21] that he got people to see a horror movie at midnight. And they're going to discuss it. People are screaming and clapping and laughing and at the same time. I just want to say I saw 8th grade in a tiny screening room and the only other person there

[01:36:33] was Peter Travers. It was a very strange movie. I was fucking squirming in my seat the whole time because that movie really does make you squirm in your seat. It's like Cronenberg level reaction. It has one of my most uncomfortable like sort of like teenage experiences in it

[01:36:48] which is giving a present at the birthday party where everyone else is giving presents and then like open all her presents and she got her like a card game or something and has to be like it's really fun. And she's like oh thanks.

[01:37:00] And I was just like melting down in my seat. The front porching of it too you're like you can open mine later. I got to go to the bath or you're opening my. That kills how hard she oversells that the games are. Even in memory it feels

[01:37:17] too real. Of course there are there are even rougher moments than movie but I was like he's a genius that he gets those little moments right. And it's like that's when you're 40. Yeah exactly. And that's what's cool about it is like that's awkward when you're 40 and you're just

[01:37:31] like trying to hey look I got you this Funko thing and I hope you like it. I have it. Oh sorry. I already on three do four years. That's the flaming guitar right. Ben's favorite character. Because he's just like fire baby. The guy who had played the

[01:37:51] flute in front of the army and I've always been like what an insane person. A politician leading himself to die in war. That's what's kind of incredible though is that is there like a jerk in the army who's like I like to shoot the flute player

[01:38:05] when he's like right. I was trying to find that fucking flute. I'm a five guy. It does feel like Miller is just so like you know the dude's a fucking genius. He was a former doctor. He has a PhD. He's a very thoughtful academic guy.

[01:38:24] And it does feel like the kind of thing that everything looks like sort of like some sort of Santa Claus. He has the glasses on the string. He looks like some sort of Victorian librarian. And there's something to the fact that like something like

[01:38:36] the do for your doesn't just feel like weirdness for the sake of weirdness because he is tapped into the fact that it's like nothing's weirder than the fact that we used to have actual fucking musicians on the front line. Every weird thing he's doing is only an insane

[01:38:50] heightening of something that humans actually do. How we behave in war. There's the two types. You know there's the Guillermo del Toro types where you're like oh of course this guy makes horror movies. He's like oh hello yes. I am a little creature from the darkness.

[01:39:03] And then there's like the George Millers or Arias where you're like who's this like nice person. He's like a Muppet English Professor. Arias is a good example like a dude who's like kind of funny and normal in person. You're like what's your movie about? It's like oh here.

[01:39:17] When you're editor is a Sundance and like that's when no one knew who he was like all of the publicists were like just wait until they meet this guy. And we're like oh is he like really fucked up and like no. Yeah you think you're meeting Rob Zombie

[01:39:29] and you meet Rob Cohen accountant. It is this kind of incredible thing though that like these movies for how intense they are, for how visceral they are. They are not very violent in a traditional gory way. These movies are so famously violent and yet they are not right.

[01:39:47] They're not that intensely gory at all. So much of it is suggestions. I mean so much of it's the editing around things. Which is always the that's always true. Like the movies that were so famously violent, psycho when you watch them you're like right now this was all

[01:40:01] just people working themselves up. It's very suggestive. There's not a lot of guts or whatever. But car crashes and penetration from like sharp objects. The arrows and stuff is tough. But those are also too very what's where I'm looking for like understandable or triggering like we can

[01:40:21] know what a car crash feels like. We can know. But when like someone gets their neck snapped in like a John Wick movie you're like I don't fully this is of course visceral in the way that it's relatable. They're very visual too. He's always like it's easily

[01:40:34] visual trackable things. Mel Gibson also is so good at playing pain. I think it's that whatever the weird part of him that is so obsessed with like masochism and torture and martyrism or whatever that has come up in all of his films after this.

[01:40:52] There's some connection to how innately good he is. Right. Fucking Braveheart Riggs, William Wallace, Riggs. These are characters that are like you want to see with blood on their face. I mean getting up again. And Hardy's good at it too. And I think that's like the

[01:41:08] commonality is both those guys there's like there's something kind of insane about these dudes. But the other thing he latches on to is with a film that's going to be really technical and piece meal you need someone who can really track their injuries

[01:41:21] and their damage and play them intelligently in every little piece because you're never losing track of how much energy Max has left. Right. How much he's smarting from the last thing to happen. It is interesting. He is, you know, not Christ like exactly.

[01:41:38] It's just because as you say in his directorial career, they're always about these people who take unbelievable amounts of punishment and that is associated with like, you know, he's like this guy so fucking tough. I wouldn't believe it, which is literally his take on Christ. Right.

[01:41:56] You will believe the shit they beat out of this. You will believe how many hit points the son of God has. He doesn't like, I mean, there's like seconds in that movie where he's like, hey, yeah, also I don't have a couple of things to say

[01:42:08] people are interested. Mostly he's like the fucking flesh they ripped out of his back, you know, but like the fact that Max isn't that visually gory and it also doesn't fetishize his pain. It doesn't because he's so like, it's just him sort of enduring

[01:42:23] everything, but they don't make that a heroic act in and of itself. And it also is telling that like Mad Max is like this like Clint Eastwood man with no name figure where it's like you don't know why he's this committed to saving this

[01:42:34] person or doing this thing. And no one ever did. He accomplishes it. He just leaves. He doesn't want any credit. Right. He doesn't like bathing it at all, you know, he just disappears again. I think that generation that's one older than us that grew

[01:42:49] up on like westerns and stuff. I feel like that's an and like from the male male perspective like the sort of machismo was you get the shit kicked out of you. You don't react. You finish your business and you're like, I don't need a cake. Yeah.

[01:43:05] It's not, you know, like and you just walk off. It'd be funny if he demanded a cake. It is my birth. The difference with Mad Max though, like on that archetype is it's not look at how much punishment this guy can take and he's still cool under

[01:43:18] pressure. Right. It's that he's mad Max. Like you can see that the guy is going insane. Right. Yeah. The fact that he by like design of him being able to survive out there, he must be insane. Right. The fact that he can tolerate all this punishment

[01:43:30] and keep trucking rolliness is a byproduct of the fact that he is way post complete psychological break with reality. Right. Like he's lost everything in his life. He's lost all his human tethers in the first movie. Even if you haven't seen the first

[01:43:43] movie, if you're being sold this film just as the road warrior, it's all sort of implied like this guy must have had something he lost. Yeah. You know? Right. But it is that thing of just it has broken this guy. This guy is not a paradigm of heroism.

[01:43:57] Like even his relationship with the helicopter guy. Yeah. They're kind of friends, but he's so removed from having actually like a real emotional relationship with this guy in any way. But even the feral child who you think in any other movie, this becomes Shane

[01:44:14] or this becomes like a father son. Yes. Right. Right. It never submits to doesn't. Yeah. Which I think makes it so. And I mean, we see when he shows up and there's Warrior Woman, which is what she's billed as. Yes. Absolute smoke show. Yep. Absolutely. Virginia Hayes.

[01:44:31] Beautiful eyes, beautiful wardrobe, beautiful body. Beautiful shoulder pads. Yeah. She looks fucking amazing and you're like, oh, these two are eyeing each other. That also doesn't matter. Right. So much to me watching it. Max is weirdly asexual and for a guy who's like sort of

[01:44:43] defined by losing his wife. I wouldn't say weirdly, like sex in this world. Oh, sure. A lot of sand. But I'm just saying Max's origin is he loses his This is where this is where your dry guy theory starts to butt up against some bit.

[01:44:55] You're like, ah, that's famously those are not a good. Oh, he's got. Technistic forces thoroughly dry. Yeah. I guess. Sandiness can be uncomfortable. I guess. I'll give you that. Yeah. But but he's like he's lost his wife, he's lost his child and he's lost his best friend.

[01:45:13] And these movies always present to him figures who could be the replacements. Right. You always get the sense that he is helping them because he doesn't want to lose someone else. But he never gets that close to them. There's never going to let him be right.

[01:45:28] There's never the breakthrough and he leaves. He'll never be hurt again. But he'll never feel the positive side of that again. Exactly. And he still got that weird idealistic cop thing in him. Whereas much as it's just like I'm just in it to survive, I

[01:45:41] just got to survive on this fucking road. He does have this certain fucking compass for justice. Well, yeah, like when you see like when he sees that those people being attacked and he goes and intervenes and he's he's you can tell he's like this is wrong.

[01:45:56] This is I draw the line. Like he wants to help defenseless people constantly. And if someone is so fucking bad, he's like God, I got to chase him across the desert. Ben, what do you want to say? By design as well. I think for a survival tactic,

[01:46:10] being alone in this world is the best option. Yeah. Because the more and more people as you can hide the more you sort of have to work as a group of collective and then be taken advantage of by other groups. So if you're a solo actor,

[01:46:25] you can sort of just operate only worrying about yourself. Play devil's advocate though. The only argument for running with like a little crew is that the carpool lane is much less violent. Oh yeah. Well, that's why he puts a little human mask on the dock.

[01:46:38] They never show you the carpool lane, but it's a bridge. What if that happened in Fury Road? We're sure this I've got an idea. Just pulls off. Yeah. There's a day we can't get to her. There's a white line and choose up a line. She's an express lane.

[01:46:50] It looks like toe cutter doesn't have easy pass. Take this next exit on over the bridge. Get in here. We need at least three. Yeah. That's a good idea. I love the looks of all the bad guys and the weapons of all the bad guy.

[01:47:05] There's a guy who has a pneumatic like he's one of the cop looking dudes. He has a pneumatic nail gun with a backpack attachment. That's so much effort and look and like, but it just. What else has he got to do? Right. He's got this movie gives you

[01:47:18] kind of a blanket justification in which what else do these people have time for? They don't need to pack for survival. They need to pack for murder and it's a matter of like whatever is around is a weapon. So the fact that there's so

[01:47:29] much crossbows, but not bows and arrows makes it so funny to me. It's all for. There's this kind of beautiful. It gives it that sort of and I open the narrative was like in the 90s, everyone went wild for crossbows for a while. That's why they're everywhere anyway.

[01:47:44] This fact that there's no Chuck Nunchucks in this movie is the only crazy. Yeah, that is not just one dude whipping. There's something perversely beautiful to the idea in this movie that like in a world where society has collapsed and survival is the only thing

[01:48:00] people like still find a way to be creative through their survival. Yes. Through their armor, through their weapons. They're still expressing themselves like there is a there is a poeticism to everything that everyone's wearing and driving the way they customize their vehicles like all that sort of stuff.

[01:48:20] Here's a little fun fact behind the scenes. That actor who played Wes in interviews went after the movie came out would say that his character, Vernon Wells, Wes is not gay. His relationship with the Golden Boy is not a homosexual relationship. It used to be in the script

[01:48:38] that he was I rescued him and he's like a father-son kind of relationship. And then in the in IMDB it has that quote from him. It says though no one has ever seen footage of this interview and George Miller admits that it was never like he's clearly like

[01:48:53] I think people think these characters are gay and he didn't see it while they were filming. He's like I'm in a thong. I cry when this when this Golden Boy like Rocky from Rocky Horror Picture Show gets his head cut. I cry and I'm so angry for

[01:49:06] the rest of the movie and I'm literally dressed like a gay dominatrix and then he's like oh shit I better come out of ahead of this. And thought for test too much. I'm a dad. Apparently he's in commando. Yes. Oh he's the bad guy.

[01:49:19] He puts on a lot of weight. Oh right. He gets mad. He's a, no Bennett's the good guy. No, Bennett's. No he is. He's Bennett. He's the guy with the weird mesh shirt. Yeah, he's dressed, he's fat Freddie Mercury in that right. He's got a chain mail shirt

[01:49:32] and a fucking mustache. He looks like donkey lips. He also eventually became a Power Rangers villain. Which one? Ransick. Are there other important things to cover in this movie? I mean it's not a thing you can go through plot wise. No, right because there's

[01:49:48] no point going beat by beat because you're like there is no, there's not even pay off the things that are set up. Yeah. Let's just talk, I like the production design of this movie creates worlds that you're like this looks so cool and then

[01:50:01] when you see the functionality of the things it's like you're just like, I was blown away when they were like close the gates and the gate was a bus that you get in and drive across and you drive it eight feet but then when it drives across

[01:50:15] the part of the bus that would be shown is steel plated. Like over the windows and stuff and you're like that's just something that comes up if you live in a campsite or like that for like a number of years you just see these things that

[01:50:26] you look at visually and you're like that's wild and then you see it pay off of like how those weird drums on Max's car you're like that just looks cool and then you're like that's where the gasoline is you're like oh fuck yeah. Nothing is ever meaningless in

[01:50:38] a Mad Max movie and none of it's ever just cool. Right, it's always cool plus thought. George Miller back or whoever with the designers is not just right like being like well yeah what if you like had a sound system on the back of a car.

[01:50:51] Yeah, like what? The way they defeat them is through intelligence both times which does still feel like kind of you know they have like the two decoy kind of tricks that they do that's like a rare you know it's like a scarcity in an apocalyptic world right

[01:51:07] is like cunning. Right, right. The sand thing and the way they blow up the compound I don't know I'm just trying to think of things we haven't forgotten. And that is also teamwork which is what the bad guys aren't going to do. Like they're all out there for

[01:51:21] the because they're all fucking insane gladiator types who are just like right like I have only yeah. As my dad used to say growing up and he just stole this from everyone he's like who wins an erase the fox that's running for dinner or the rabbit that's

[01:51:33] running for his life. And you're like oh dad interesting. And then he's like just ripping off like fucking he stops or how's you say no fear T-shirts but yeah same thing. Was your dad Tim McGraw in Tomorrowland? No. Two dogs. Jiro cap we said plenty about

[01:51:52] the gyro captain. Love when he throws a I love when he throws a snake on the guy who has a triple nail gun. Yes. And then that or triple crossbow and that kills the driver because he shoots it through the back of the car.

[01:52:02] Love that he becomes the leader. You know they say in the end narration because it's like this is a guy who wants to be around other people. They become the great northern tribe. Yes. And he's smart. And the gyro copter guy is clearly smart.

[01:52:14] He's like made the gyro copter he set the snake traffic. Yeah. Yeah. Love the there's a couple of comedy bits in this movie that I think work despite it like you would never there's the scene where gyro captain has a fucking scope to the

[01:52:28] binoculars and they have like a sort of like give me that kind of moment like right what you don't see in a movie like this and then the whole and you mentioned it earlier but the mechanic and assistant bit when it's like how how's the bus how's the

[01:52:41] truck look he's like how's the truck look he's like crack things like crack thing yeah what does that mean what does that mean nothing you know like that that's a fucking simple little silly like that is like more humor like and a stronger choice than the

[01:52:55] shit you see in like a big budget PG because it's like behavioral it's not like quippy one liner it's not cutting the stakes of the universe yeah it's not like they have motorcycles they have motorcycles they have motorcycles there there is this weird God there is this

[01:53:11] weird like touch of Looney Toons in all of George Miller stuff hundred percent not just in the comedy of the sort of escalation and the sort of like escalation of weapons and battle and road runner while the Coyote sort of ship and just the

[01:53:25] rhythms of the humor like that but also just that yeah everyone's like the great humor these are weird bits that it's a weird cartoon character that you've leaned into and invested in the do for even just like the clouds of dust is so Looney Toons like you're

[01:53:39] saying that really acting like lit up fury road is just like Road Runner running like the exact even when he does nitrous and he's like so cartoon Looney Toons yeah yeah is kind of apocalyptic oh very much right because it's always weirdly in the desert

[01:53:56] where are the easy sounds that I would have loved a bad guy run off a cliff and then be like look down like just have that moment before he falls down and just see his bulge in a codpiece and why am I wearing this

[01:54:09] so hot oh hi all the leather bugs bunny had multiple regular antagonists who were trying to shoot him right feeling of like everyone's out for this fucking guy you got some fucking text Turner like cowboy asshole you got some bumpkin hunter got some gentile rooster

[01:54:28] he wasn't trying to shoot him he was trying to kill him with kindness I said boy alright let's put the box up his okay come on alright an amazing movie yeah and also like you said like indisputably influential like if you haven't if you're

[01:54:46] listening to this podcast one of those people who can listen to a podcast talk about a movie you haven't seen yet do yourself a favor I think it's like just go see this movie and it's like so simple and stripped down in the best way possible this is

[01:54:59] the kind of movie and it's hacked to say this is the kind of movie that makes me want to make movies totally yeah that's fair right you just see it and you're like fuck this maybe is something I could do with I want to get a

[01:55:08] chain I want to get a bag of sin and I want to get a camera and let's do this thing I'm glad you want to get a camera because I was worried there for a second you're gonna be missing one big I'm gonna get a motorcycle

[01:55:18] quit my job and live in the desert sounds like a good movie dude when I saw this movie it inspired me and I opened a gas station and bought a shot honestly that might be the most fruitful like adventure like you can take from this

[01:55:34] movie is invest in gas I do like the sort of fake at at the end of the tanker getting shot the sand coming out you thinking that it's this like totally bleak ending of like it was all for not yeah and then it was like

[01:55:47] no they were using him as a distraction right we got all the gas that part is fucking cool everyone just had a tank in their own vehicle Mad Max to the road warrior in many countries made twenty three million dollars in America I don't have worldwide numbers

[01:56:05] okay it opened to two million dollars not yet yet really made ten million Australian dollars in Australia it opened at number four okay on May twenty first nineteen eighty two in America so you know I'm three now I'm four months old so you saw right yeah

[01:56:27] number of movies I did see in the theater that I in hindsight like when I do the math on it I'm like when did T2 come out I was ten and I saw that Jesus well T2 is also that era where R rated movies have like toys

[01:56:40] and cartoon shows right where you know and you're aware of it before it comes out you like I never saw the trailer but I know what terminated I haven't seen the first one they're pitching this hard to me in the pages of Nickelodeon magazines yeah all right

[01:56:52] number one is a big medieval or fantasy action movie with a big star I'm sure you've done it on your podcast yeah yes and I believe there can be only one there you go no no wait wait wait no say it there can be only one no it's

[01:57:11] not that it's not a highlander no oh um what other it's not Excalibur no it's not although there's a movie coming up in this top five that is sort of an Excalibur rip dragon slayer no I've never heard of it you'll we'll get to number one big star

[01:57:28] this is an early movie for it's not Lady Hawk no bigger bigger yeah how big the big legend legend Tom no no not legend no no that was a good guess good guess yeah sorry sorry bigger star big star physically it's Conan yeah

[01:57:46] which one um wait is the destroyer it's the barbaric oh barbarian the first one conqueror was what the third one was going to be called right yeah destroyer destroyer destroyer is Grace which has made twenty million dollars in two weeks yeah and is a big hit

[01:58:03] that was that was his that was the one for him I mean he a terminator already that would be fucking yeah uh number two number two is comedy with a big comedy star the eighties one of his weirder movies one of his better movies

[01:58:18] I think one of his better and weirder films yeah you ever seen this one no and he's he's the guy he doesn't have like a partner in this one is this guy one of griffin's faves yeah so is it gung-ho okay so let me is it is it

[01:58:37] a Keaton Murray or a Martin Martin I was guessing Keaton's and it's not the jerk right jerks 80 it's one of his weirder it's one of his weirder ones it's one of his weirder ones is it it's not dead men don't wear plaid it is 1982 is dead

[01:58:51] when dead men don't wear plaid yeah both weird and great yeah it's good right I haven't seen that movie in forever I think it's a writer movie yeah it's his follow-up to the jerk yeah with Carl Reiner it's kind of incredible

[01:59:03] how Carl Reiner was just all in on Steve Martin he was a guy you bet well different generation bad yeah but he like made him a movie star and then stuck with him and did four more movies well yeah I think like when you're like Martin Scorsese

[01:59:15] and Robert it's like I found the guy like why would you move on this is a race race yeah number three is one of the most successful films of 1982 it's a comedy it invents a genre that is big in the 80s and resurges in the late 90s porches

[01:59:32] John Goddard oh sorry sorry sorry no no no that was impressive I want to play impressive yeah no good poll pornography yeah soft core pornography yes I have seen porches like there is a plot in that it's like we're graduating like there's no fucking plot yeah the

[01:59:47] same director who then goes on to do a Christmas story and baby geniuses I mean it is impossible to think that those three movies are made by the same person like one is so gross one is so perfect and one is like made by

[02:00:00] someone who doesn't get a Christmas story $106 million he might in 80 to humongous humongous and you're like what's the premise no stars come out of it it is so rare for me to know stars I mean Kim cattrall's in it but apart from that like no one is kind

[02:00:15] of a star wait or no but I'm going to the nerds which is like at least has like a plot and like so you know like it's like sort of a vaguely characters have like different right you're the gay character you're the

[02:00:29] real nerd your keys has like one loser in five beef cakes yeah and then just a bunch of like anonymous I believe one of the guy's names is beef in the movie or leader I believe it's either before me because that's like what my nickname

[02:00:41] of mine was I just think it's like fascinating that most movies that are that big launch one major career and I guess I forgot Kim cattrall was in it but you even look at revenge on the nerds and you're like right Anthony Edwards like they're like

[02:00:53] John Goodman's in this you know yeah Kim cattrall been in stuff anyway crazy number four is the red word number five is a movie I've never heard of is this the medieval one yeah and you've never heard of it crawl no I

[02:01:06] please I've heard a girl I grew up in Britain it's not is it a one-word title no it's many words it's many words or five five words okay it was an independent film which is wild that's kind of 40 million dollars and

[02:01:25] it was like very successful it's like a medieval independent film with five words in the title yeah it was horribly reviewed nonetheless it was sort of a hit wow and he starts out about no no it's about what I don't know a mercenary with a three-bladed

[02:01:41] sword rescues a princess and there's an evil sorcerer like it sounds like that sounds like crawl yeah it's the three-bladed sword you're right you know I don't know it sounds like someone wrote a sort of junky fantasy movie what's it called the sword and the sorcerer

[02:01:57] wow I cannot place it it's so generic but it is one of those names that's like if you search it you would get like a thousand results of course the guy who directed it went on to make the captain America movie with JD Salander's son Albert Pionner whatever

[02:02:12] his name is right so who I think was just like a low budget guy yes I think he did love blank check for that pole I can go back and forth interaction where you're like well I never heard this movie but he did go

[02:02:24] on to make the captain America movie with JD Salander's son that everyone knows what we're talking about I know that director's name it's a young picture I'm gonna restate it because it was behind the patreon paywall but on an episode where we had my father on and

[02:02:40] we were discussing the history of new line pictures David my father and I pretty much in unison went well it's just a label now and then when Jesus fucking Christ you are the dorkiest people in the world that's awesome we were all rushing to say but new lines

[02:02:55] just a label now my wife's first job was at new line and was so huge for me as like while like we're talking about while the fuck this is 2004 this is like Lord of the Rings is coming yeah and it was such an awesome time

[02:03:06] she's like we have a DVD closet I'm like take a picture of it my dad's office was next to new lines office it was either he was the floor above or he was at the end of the floor isn't like is 888 right this was well oh

[02:03:22] no this would have been like mid 90s okay but the moment I remember very specifically his awesome powers came out and for the first time I cared about new line and they would get all this Austin Powers merch and I would like go

[02:03:32] visit my dad at the office and then go down to the bathroom which is on the new line floor and then I knew which people to bug about like awesome powershit they were getting some other movies in the top 10 fighting back Tom Skerritt kind of death wishy movie

[02:03:44] Jerry it's a fire yeah best picture Victor Victoria on Golden Pond any opening and limited release one of the blockbusters of the year John Houston's Annie yeah one of the wildest blank checks of all time so weird the first film I ever saw really yes

[02:04:02] my parents took me to like some revival of when I was like two and a little it is weird how many Oscar movies are in the top 10 concern this is made it's Memorial Day weekend essentially yeah it's like that used to

[02:04:14] be a thing but what you didn't have to release a movie in the last three months the year but wasn't 82 also sort of famously a good movie year too I feel like or my just remembering that I feel like it's a good movie year but

[02:04:25] not a great Oscar year because it's a good movie or ET right that's what I'm thinking of laid runner the thing right that's a good move wait wait a second so fire I think is a hold over last year's Oscars and on Golden

[02:04:39] Pond must be the same thing yeah cuz it's you know right cuz this is the Gandhi ET here yeah got 82 rules fast times of Richmond high verdict masterpiece Rathakon Road Warrior yeah Tron Tron 88 hours yeah diner to see like there's all you know

[02:04:57] this is Gandhi wins best picture which is sort of like yeah you know but that makes sense yeah this is a porn yeah and there's no way that these movies could have any of effect on me cuz I was born that year but

[02:05:09] the movies you just list are probably are eight facets of my personality I just realized like when you were when I was like when you said 48 hours and like I think we're at peak like I think you make that potion and you turn into gay I'm not born

[02:05:23] for years after this and I'm at least 40% tron you're I'm a lot of tron I'm tron curious thinking about getting the light I'm pretty tron fluid I will say Tron nonconforming Tron conforming yeah but it is okay so it's the opposite

[02:05:39] phenomenon of what I thought but an equally wild thing that in May the films from that years like you know that came out the previous year are you burning up the box are still in top 10 right or just like it fucking runs like

[02:05:53] you know I was talking my dad was like talking about this as if it was still like 1982 or whatever and he was like well what like parasites made like 25 million dollars so if it wins best picture I'll get to like 50 or 60

[02:06:05] and I was like if it wins best picture it will have been out on iTunes for two months right right that no longer happens like Slumdog Millionaire was the last one where it hadn't made most of its movie by the time it won best picture

[02:06:17] most of its money and kind of exploded yeah oh that makes sense now they want it out on streaming by the time it wins best picture so they can just immediately get the rentals I saw in the movie I was like I'm going to get

[02:06:29] a $10 million on screener and I want so I've never like this rarely happens where I'm like I guess I want to see it again I fuck yeah I'm like now I got to go see this again yeah because my father is only made

[02:06:41] to be seen in it yeah right exactly and it was fine on DVD I enjoyed it but I'm like fuck I would have killed to see this and like a huge screen and that is a movie too where you want to see it with

[02:06:51] like audience responses and stuff it's visceral that you want you want all of it to be okay where are you going to do merch corner I did you look up yes okay so I mean I I realize original toys so I realized recently that merch corner

[02:07:05] almost never works if it's me describing a visual right but there is kind of a story to this which is he never did merchandise originally okay but then in the early 2000s like 20 years later a toy company started releasing action figures

[02:07:19] of the road warrior and it felt like this like oh the gates are open the kind of come up now finally the mad max toys exist and then they all disappeared from shelves sure and it turned out that the company was kind of dodging they never

[02:07:31] properly got the rights for them right they were just like let's just do it who's going to get mad at us yeah 20 year old movie it's not like the guy's got something in the works where he wants to make another one of these there's no fucking way

[02:07:43] he's making happy feet he doesn't want to do this shit well little did you know the cut this was the company that had the rights to matrix and then that blew everyone passed on that no one wanted and then they started getting all these crazy

[02:07:55] licenses and then it turned out they had not properly negotiated anything they were kind of operating on like the assumption that the deal that sounds like a Netflix shit I'd watch or whatever under with their kind of a fascinating company and two toys it was like people

[02:08:09] came from Kenner who worked on like Star Wars and then got really excited about like we're going to make the action movies that never got toys for adults now and they did like the big trouble in Little China town

[02:08:21] all of the bad things I would kill to have a fucking jack Burton action and all of them were like have now like disappeared go for insane prices because it was taken off the market and since then George Miller's like I'm no merchandising

[02:08:33] a year after Fury Road came out he like relented to Funko pops and Funko was very clear that they were like we're doing this so that hopefully they'll let us make a ton of stuff and then he was like no that's the end

[02:08:45] all be all good for him yeah kind of but also I want everything and I just had this thought watching this movie this morning of the video game Road Rash that I feel like was highly influential to me yes yeah and I want a Road Rash movie

[02:09:03] there is just about motorcyclists that fight with chains and lead pipes and we're so many video games in the mid 90s that I had no time for that were like for marketing at you like to broccoli at me or whatever you were like yeah

[02:09:19] I went into a video store and someone just threw it at my head yeah I'm also realizing because of John you making the comparison that if Ben had been a cooked up studio executive in the early 90s he would have been the guy who came up with Waterworld

[02:09:33] I got it I got it okay so it's Mad Max but it's bigger in its wetter it's like Ben wants us to do a movie about water it's like wasn't he the dry guy he's like not anymore it's great

[02:09:43] his wife just left him Susie left him he's been on a bender and now he's the wet guy yeah he got a fucking dunk pool put in his office he's been splashing around in there guys ready to rock he's only doing jacuzzi meetings now

[02:09:55] it's so funny how much Waterworld ripped off this shit it's crazy even there's a gyrocopter in Waterworld and it's also it is also amazing that like so many people have ripped off pieces of what he did and no one came close until he came back 20 years later

[02:10:09] and arguably outdid himself and now it's like walked off the field again and you've seen the last five years people trying to sort of do Fury Road stuff and it's like futile no one can do it maybe he'll do it again I would fucking shit a

[02:10:23] biscuit if he comes back in 10 years and doesn't he hasn't done another movie for 10 years and just delivers Fury Road 2 Fury Warrior it's been five years and he's supposed to be starting production on a movie in 2020 starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba that is apparently a romance

[02:10:43] about a genie which one of them is the genie? that's the question! I hate to give this answer to someone that I just met but it doesn't matter I'm fucking on fucking bored dude holy shit and that's the thing George Miller has whatever

[02:11:01] the Gabriel's blank check version is like I'll see whatever that guy puts out Safty Brothers there's few people that I'll just see I'll help you build a boat you've go funded me George Miller if you're listening to this I promise you you have at least one ticket sale

[02:11:19] of whatever you make for the rest of your life and I see shit in theaters thank you so much for being on the show other than your many podcasts which you should promote now now's the time I have a podcast called High and Mighty

[02:11:31] that Griffin's been on a few times tonight at the time we're recording going to be going with you to do a power hour on stage drinking a shot of white claw every minute if you're a movie head I have a movie podcast that's on Patreon called Action Boys

[02:11:47] where three dudes review action movies often longer than the run time of the movies themselves I mean if you like blank check you like the sound of that and we have a ton of episodes now so if you want to jump on for one month

[02:11:59] and listen to like 100 episodes and then cancel your shit I'm in a tanker truck you're giving me ideas, no no no monthly guys just put the credit card info in and forget about it set it and forget it, I want to make money off you

[02:12:13] like 24 hour fitness has been for 10 years and you got the Gino Lombardo show on Stitcher and I got the Gino Lombardo show on Stitcher Premium Gino Lombardo my favorite character in comedy thank you he's my, I appreciate you calling him a character that's my

[02:12:27] character who's pretty much just a more unfiltered version of myself doing a shitty accent but I did 10 episodes of a drive time radio show fully improvised but with tons of bits I do like 8 fake commercials per episode

[02:12:41] so it's like the most amount of work I've put into a podcast ever, possibly anything ever but definitely and one last thing to plug if you're ever on YouTube search Strong Island see it's still up I found it the other day

[02:12:55] I sent this screenshot to Justin of me and you Riley Solner and I appear in an episode where Griffin plays a child to our adults and we are four years in age to return can I ask you one final question if, and it's

[02:13:11] unlikely but by the time this episode comes out we will know it will have happened if Bombshell wins Best Cast at the SAG Awards will you tell people like I was part of the SAG that's the thing I don't know how far

[02:13:25] down they go here's my bigger thing if Charlize did she get nominated for you might be the clip I might be in her Oscar clip you're right that's the biggest bet I have is that I end up you see my face at the Oscars and somehow

[02:13:43] if they get the SAG Award which I think it seems like it might be in the bag just names alone they got the quantity going if you're the SAG Awards you want that table you want a shot of that fucking table right yeah I would love to

[02:13:59] be invited to that so you might be a theoretical you probably won't get a trophy but you can tell people that you want a SAG Award oh yeah well the funny thing is like my friend, our friend Darcy is in the movie too

[02:14:11] and she has like two more scenes than me but she's more famous has more and so we went I went to the cast and crew screening and I was like are you going to this? she's like yeah I'll see you there and then like a couple days later

[02:14:23] I was like I'm the red carpet for the premiere and I was like I wasn't invited to just like real life always at the bachelor party never in bridal party and David next time I'm in New York doing High and Mighty or next time you're in LA

[02:14:39] I want you to come do High and Mighty we both grew up in America so we have a lot of stuff in common I lived here for nine full years before I moved to Britain what? wait should the bet now be that I'm like

[02:14:49] but I also lived in America it is funny because you know the premise of High and Mighty is find a common ground something that you love with Gabriel so Griffin's been on four times talking about Fast and Furious and by the way during the power hour tonight

[02:15:03] I'm mostly going to talk about Fast and Furious we're going to have our time not doing it it would be quite a move though if you picked your subject for a High and Mighty episode to be America Canada of America greatest country on earth

[02:15:17] I don't know about you but from zero to nine I'm going to be a great actress please yeah I love America from 86 to 95 those were the good years well thank you all for listening please remember to rate, review, subscribe go to patreon.com backslash blank check

[02:15:33] for blank check special features we're at this point in time we're probably we're dropping some toy stores we're finishing up Star Wars something like that Ben is whispering something very secret to David it's not going to be referenced on air Ben has to go Jesus and that fucking

[02:15:49] come on Ben wants me to end the fucking episode go to blank is that right to come for some real nerdy shit thanks to Joe Bone and Pat Rounds for artwork, Lane Montgomery for our theme song and for a good for our social media producer Rachel for editing

[02:16:07] he's packing up the laptop and as always Ben does not like me narrating what he's doing right now but he is zipping up his bag with a lot of animosity it's very weird how uncomfortable he is with this I have to go to therapy I'm late already congratulations

[02:16:21] humble brand that's the name of my clothing brand