[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and Dave, they are two experts Was that the name of the show was Blank Check? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, podcasting times here. It's a good Australian, you're getting better. Thank you. It's sort of subtler.
[00:00:30] Remember, no matter where you go, there you podcast. That line was written for this movie, right? This is the first time that Max... Did this movie invent two men enter one man leaves? Like, is this the movie that came up with that? I think so.
[00:00:45] And this movie also invented fighting. Yeah, right. People had never come to blows before Thunderdome. And then after this, everybody got a Thunderdome. I know. It became the hottest backyard accessory. Can I just start out right off the gate? The audacity of this movie, the confidence.
[00:00:59] If this had been titled Mad Max, Thunderdome, you'd go, Oh my God, fucking cool title. I can't wait to see what a Thunderdome is. The movie goes, no, no. We're beyond Thunderdome. You don't even know what Thunderdome is yet, but we don't need it.
[00:01:12] We're gonna introduce it in this past. You dumb idiot. We're beyond Thunderdome at this point. They're first telling you they're beyond. You go beyond what? Thunderdome. I didn't even know that Thunderdome existed until you just told me... Why do they call it that? That you were beyond it.
[00:01:23] Well, because the first half is Thunderdome, the second half goes beyond Thunderdome. You go beyond Thunderdome. What I want to see is a pie chart that shows all of the movies, the percentage of movies that take place on this side of Thunderdome. Sure.
[00:01:35] The movies that are beyond Thunderdome. There are not many. I can think of one. My favorite joke of all time, what they teach you at Harvard Business School, what they don't teach you at Harvard Business School, like when you buy those two books, you're like, that's it.
[00:01:49] That's all the knowledge. This movie is beyond Thunderdome, and also I think Mystery Alaska is beyond Thunderdome. That movie does have a Thunderdome sequence. J.R.A. is in a series. God, it also has the Rangers tying a local Alaskan hockey team. It makes me so bitter.
[00:02:03] I cannot stand it anyway. Here's a question. Is Mystery Alaska J.Roch's second best film? Third? It depends on where you fall on the Austin Powers, I feel like. His best movie is Austin Powers 1. No question. That's no question. It's also one of the great debuts. Yes.
[00:02:21] A really promising day. And then after that, it's sort of like, what do you want? You want a power sequel? Do you want one of the Fokker's movies? Right. He did what? Two? He did two. Are you weirdly into dinner for schmucks?
[00:02:36] I always confuse him with Tom Shadyak. That's fair, but Tom Shadyak's weirder than Shadyak. Yeah, he's got the hair. And Roche is like, I'm very political and I'm very serious. Right, he's like, yes, we have to talk about Trumbo. Yes. Which one of them did?
[00:02:50] Which one of them did? Every episode of Blank Shadyak. Oh! Which one of them did Bombshell? Roche. Roche. Shadyak this year did Brian Banks, the movie about the football player who was accused of playing. He deleted a lot of emails about that movie.
[00:03:04] But here's the key distinction is that Roche does the recount movie? Yes, that's right. He becomes the HBO electoral recreation movie. Have you ever wanted to watch a Wikipedia page starring a lot of famous people here? Because Curtis Hansen, I think is supposed to direct that,
[00:03:20] gets sick, drops out, Roche jumps in. Because Curtis Hansen had done Too Big to Fail, which is much better than Recon. Agreed, he's a better director. He was. A far better director. Then Jay Roche? How dare. I'll say it, knives out. We're going beyond Thunderdome in this episode.
[00:03:33] I'm ready to fight. Two directors answer or one director leaves? Okay, we'll get to Steel Book Talk in one second. But Roche jumps into that movie last second, does just the most gentlemen's straightforward job just directing the script with a good cast.
[00:03:47] I watched that movie while I was like folding my laundry and he was okay. That movie is watchable, right? And then he like wins an Emmy and he's like, hmm, legitimacy. And then he just becomes all about like, I need to be taken seriously.
[00:03:58] Except he also does dinner for Schmucks in the campaign. He does, here's his last 10 years or whatever. So wait, recount Schmucks, game change, the campaign. Yeah. The comedy. That's him trying to split the atom and go, can I do both? Trumbo. And of course that's.
[00:04:14] I'm arranging it in my bathtub. That's right. That's when he won the Golden Bathtub. And then all the way another HBO political movie based on play. Yes. And then of course, Bombshell. The biggest Bombshell of 2019. We all remember it.
[00:04:28] Now Shadyak, it's the opposite because both Roche and Shadyak. Shadyak just went, Start out doing very broad, very silly, right? And then have their like come to, to Vahala moment, right? For Roche, it's, oh my God, I won an Emmy. I'm a very serious politician now.
[00:04:43] And for Shadyak, it's like reading the secret. Shadyak gets into a bicycle accident. He got in a bike accident. And has a brain injury. Yes. And then gives away all of his personal belongings. He has like a ringing in his ears problem, I think. Right.
[00:04:55] But he's like, all of this is meaningless. Hollywood is a game that I don't want to play anymore. He gives away all of his belongings. I think he lives in like an Airstream trailer. And then he makes a movie called I Am. I Am.
[00:05:06] And then Hollywood keeps trying to offer him. You know, excuse me. According to Wikipedia, this film asks the question, what is wrong with the world and what can I do about it? It's a good question. Hey, running time 76 minutes. So clearly that movie solves the problem fast.
[00:05:20] That's all you need. But they like, there was a, I think a New Yorker piece on him where they talked about that he was still getting like 10 million dollar offers to direct big studio comedies and they'd be like, Shadyak, we need you direct the incredible Mr. Limp it.
[00:05:34] And he'd be like, the only way I'll do is I can rewrite the entire script to make it about fracking. Here is Shadyak. Because he does Evan Almighty, which is the first green production, which is why it's also the most expensive comedy ever made. Here is Shadyak's run.
[00:05:49] Yeah. Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Masterpiece 10 out of 10. Which you ask him about it. He goes, Ace is just about love. It's about pure love. I can see it. He does get a blowjob like five minutes into that movie. From what? From a cow-cheat monkey?
[00:06:01] No, from a fucking woman. That movie is insane. It's a loving blowjob though. Yeah. Number two, Naughty Professor. Huge hit. Huge hit. And people forget like Eddie Murphy like swept the critics awards for best actor. Like that movie was everywhere.
[00:06:13] And it was coming off of like seven straight years of Eddie Flops. Now number three. Massive comeback for Eddie. And here I'm going to read Fran Hoffner's review, her letterbox review of this film, which I have memorized. The film is called Liar Liar.
[00:06:24] And her review, you can't lie. Sure. Which is a movie I've seen like 40 times and it is pretty bad. Massive success. Excuse me. No more Tirene Slander on this one. More Tirene's great. While I'm here. She does have a pretty, it's a junkie role.
[00:06:40] Currently in like season three of her not making out with Dr. John Carter on ER. Oh, by. That takes a while. No spoilers, but they do. All right. Then Patch Adams, which I guess is sort of his like Michael Bay doing Pearl Harbor where it's like,
[00:06:53] can I blend what I'm known for with like Oscar Bay? It's like Michael Bress doing a sense of a woman. Sorry, Jesus Christ. Michael Bress and Martin Bay. They got combined in a transformer. Yes. Yes. Which is critically reviled, but is a enormous success. Yeah.
[00:07:10] But can we talk up, can we come up with a phrase for that? What show I've just discovered where it's like the director's like, I'm going to do my thing plus Oscar Bay. It's screen. That's the thing about Pearl Harbor. It's not him making Green Book though.
[00:07:21] No, but Green Book I think is the same thing. Green Book is so comedy-ish. I know it is. I know you're, I guess that's the more quote unquote successful version of it. Right. It's sort of like looking for Valhalla idea. Like looking for legitimacy, but yeah.
[00:07:36] Then we can crowd source it. Then Dragonfly. Don't forget Dragonfly. Right. Now that's him just going totally off the reserve. That's the Hosner near death experience movie. Definitely felt a boob during Dragonfly. Humble. A brat. Not even that humble. I think it was a good one.
[00:07:54] I am recently, I think the most recent episode of the show that aired at the time we're recording this was the Rachel Getting Married episode in which boob feeling was discussed. Oh, I forgot about that. The speakers.
[00:08:04] And so I'm just picking up the torch for what I found. Sure, sure, sure. But very true. Sure, sure, sure. Then Bruce Almighty, colossal hit. People forget. And in both cases Lyre Lyre was coming after- Yeah, they were both like Carrie Lee.
[00:08:16] No, no Lyre Lyre is before Truman Show. It's after Cable Guy. Oh, right. They're both like Carrie just being like, let me give you a comedy. I'm going to make some faces and going to do some voices and people are like, thank you.
[00:08:26] Bruce Almighty is post Truman Show, Man on the Moon. But it's also like post- Isn't it post number 23 or is it? No, it was the three dramaties. And then he comes back and does a straight down the middle. Just funny. And it opens to $70 million.
[00:08:42] Griffin, I remember that opening until the day I die. Right? I think 240 domestic. It was huge. And then Evan Almighty. Then Evan Almighty. Right. Which is, that's the blank check. If we did Shadiak. Now Evan Almighty is, he was like, look,
[00:08:58] if I'm making this movie, it's going to have a serious environmental message. The film is half PSA sort of in like tone. And it also, it costs $180 million. It was quite pricey. Well, Lauren Graham was commanding a hefty fee at the time.
[00:09:13] Gilmore Girls is at the height of its popularity. I mean, they always say the three things you don't do are shoot on water. Water. Don't build arcs. Cast Lauren Graham as Steve's girl's wife. Right. But the other thing is that was the first movie where
[00:09:26] Shadiak was like, we're going to be the first studio movie to be carbon neutral. And there were not the mechanisms in place to do it. Well, hey, look, that's pioneering stuff. Good for him. I feel like that movie feels like it's always a
[00:09:38] hair away from just becoming like a Christian family values film. Correct. And it's fighting that impulse the entire time. It's such a weird movie. Then he did I Am and then last year he had Ryan Banks, which just like, I just remember
[00:09:48] getting these emails, it's like he was a football player who's accused of rape and he was wrongly accused. And I was like, is this like a movie we need to have right now? And I never saw it. It actually made $4.4 million. So, look out.
[00:10:00] Morgan Freeman all over the trailer. A lot of the Q's freebies out there were finally a movie for us. Morgan Freeman's in it, uncredited. But all over the trailer. It feels like they use all 30 seconds of his performance in the trailer. I do love Aldous Hodge.
[00:10:13] I feel like anytime that guy's in a movie, I'm in safe hands. It's great in clemency. Great in clemency? Great in what men want. We talked about that. Great in what men want. He's so fucking charming. Great in that Kevin Bacon show I have
[00:10:24] definitely never seen a single frame of. Oh, I'm assuming. I'm assuming. It's supposed to be great in that. And look, let me say this is a podcast about three things. Aldous Hodge, J. Roach and Tom Shadia. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Dave.
[00:10:37] And we psyched you out. It's not about that. It's about filmographies, although we did just speed around to two filmographies in totality. That's true. I mean, Shadia, I guess we'd podcast Almighty. Would that be what we do? Well, if we do because we thought Margeman is
[00:10:50] 2020 was going to be the vulgar bracket and then it ended up being the. But he could be on a vulgar bracket. He could be on a vulgar bracket. Yeah, that'd be fun. It'd be fun to do. Yeah. And Roach would be on our woke bracket
[00:11:01] because Roach actually makes you think. He makes you laugh. If we do a woke bracket, I resign from the bucket. Roach makes you think. He does make you think. He makes you think. Can I like nap during this movie and not miss anything?
[00:11:11] That's how I felt during the bomb show. Remember that very woke scene in bombshell where he makes you think about the ugliness of men leering at women in a workplace by keeping his camera up? Leering at women in the workplace? Yeah, on Margeman's panties for fucking 15 minutes.
[00:11:25] I'm aware. It's not a good scene. That is a long time. Long time. It's just one unbroken shot. 15 straight minutes. It's like going through other scenes that she's not in and you're still hearing that audio and the camera's focused solely on her panties. What a gross movie.
[00:11:38] I'm glad I won the best picture. Happily did not win best picture. Although it's tragically, it did totally deserve the Oscar. It did win. Makeup? Oh, yeah. Well, that guy's a fucking genius. It is a genius. Remarkable. Yeah, yeah. Even though honestly, I will say,
[00:11:53] I mean the Meg and Kelly job incredible. The Lithgow is Roger Ailes job. That war just felt like he was like, I don't know. I have this, you know, he got the church old suit. It's a masterpiece. You frame it. It doesn't really matter. Right.
[00:12:06] Yeah, you know what did win best picture? Parasite. Isn't that insane? Yeah, you know what's cool about that? That's cool. It's so crazy. It's very cool. Can I tell you guys that I just interviewed Bong Joon-ho? Oh, shit. On the phone. How did that go? That's so cool.
[00:12:21] What did you guys talk about? Kelly Reichardt because he was basically interviewing her while I watched. That's what was happening. Did I not tell you I was doing this? What? This post a month ago at this point. You were witness to an interview.
[00:12:31] I was basically like interviewed Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Reichardt together about first cow. It was an episode of my conic class. Because he loves Kelly Reichardt. Okay. But really it was just like me watching them talk. Just sort of like do it. That sounds wonderful.
[00:12:44] It was truly wonderful. It took him 25 minutes to figure out how to do Skype. Okay. I have so many questions. I can talk to it with a press person. You know, I know how much he loves Kelly. Visionary of you. But it was just so cool.
[00:12:57] Like we were just waiting. So it's like Sharon in picture. And Kelly in the great Sharon Troy. And we're just kind of like, and Sharon's just getting texts from him being like, ah, he's trying something else. Like it was just like a Skype thing.
[00:13:09] And then suddenly he pops into frame wearing a big red sweater and just a wall of DVDs behind him. And he was like, I'm in my house. And I was like. He may be currently the greatest living human. He's very cool. He's tough to talk to.
[00:13:23] He's a human Paddington level right now. He really does. He does have a bit of a Paddington energy. Yeah. He's a sweet man. Chaotic Paddington. Sure. David, did you ask him the burning question? Here's the thing. The question about the movie Burning.
[00:13:38] He loved, he specifically in his first question shouted out night moves. And did you ask him what his favorite performance in the final scene of Night Moves that isn't Jesse Eisenberg? Because they were already talking about aspect ratios or whatever. So they were off to races.
[00:13:51] But he specifically said old joy and night moves. Where the two, because apparently he like rushed her on the can stage. There's just something I love about night moves that can't put my finger on. We're talking about the Bob Seager song? It's named after the Bob Seager song.
[00:14:05] It's a movie that Griffin was in. Directed by Kelly Reichart. Watched by Bong Joon-ho. Watched and enjoyed by Bong Joon-ho. I'm going to start listing that as a credit. I have been enjoyed by Bong Joon-ho. I can say enjoyed, but certainly watched by him. Blink check.
[00:14:22] I gave the introduction, but here's the thing. This is a mini series clearly, as if you couldn't already tell, on the films of George Miller. It's called Mad Pod Fury Cast. We love it. Wow. And this is the third film in the Mad Max trilogy. Record scratch. Quadrilogy?
[00:14:41] It's also the third film in his career. Yes. It's pretty crazy that he just came out of the gate and was just like one, two, three moving on. And then surprisingly came back to Mad Max when I felt like that was never going to happen.
[00:14:54] They took him 30 years later? Yeah, pretty nuts. But this film today is called Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Let's get past the Thunderdome. I would happily stay in the Thunderdome for the whole movie. Me too. I'm going to read Roger Ubert's quote on the Thunderdome
[00:15:11] in a moment because I love it. But joining us from Indy Wire, from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, from Hell's Moving Castle, from Le Vélage. Are there any more? How'd you tie your hidden dragon? There you go. By the Doctor Strange episode?
[00:15:29] Which Beatranum is it? No, Guardians 2. Guardians of the Vault 2. But I'm counting, I guess there was one, two, three, four. This would be the fifth time. Oh, they all acquaintance, baby. Isn't that the Five-Timer song? Ben is digging up the Five-Timer jacket from the carpet.
[00:15:51] Artisially buried underneath the audio boom carpet. Naturally distressed. I've heard of people in the winter Olympics wearing roots, but I've never heard of Five-Timer's on-blank check wearing a jacket with roots in it from the ground because it was buried. I've heard of LeVar Burton being in roots.
[00:16:12] Well, that's one way. That's a pathway. That is a pathway. Well, so I'll just say, right, that I dug up the jeans. It's true. By this point, Bob's show. This is posting in mid-April. So the news is out. So it's already been revealed at the live event.
[00:16:30] I dug up the jeans. You've dug them up. You have revealed them for the first time on stage at our live shows at the Bell House. But that actually hasn't happened yet to us. We don't know what the results are. But they're fresh out of the ground.
[00:16:41] No, we know what the result is. Did you know what the picture is? I know I did. Can we talk about the immediate result? You buried three pairs of jeans. How many pairs of jeans came up? Two. I would say 2.2. The earth swallowed the other pairs for you.
[00:16:53] One of them is more of just completely disintegrated. It's just sort of a shape, a fabric shape at this point. Lots of the creative process. It's like it would be like the really, really short shorts. And then just the middle part of the pants
[00:17:07] just kind of hanging down like a tail. Right. It would be sort of a string jean-keanie. It would fit into the vibe of this movie. Sure. Costume wise. For sure. A little thunder dummy. But that pair died so the other two could live. Yeah, but it worked.
[00:17:25] Guys, it really worked. The ground distressed the jeans naturally. Three jeans enter the ground. Two jeans leave. I would love nothing more than if in Mad Max Furiosa I would assume inevitable fifth film in the trilogy, or trilogy in the quintilogy that George Miller had a scene
[00:17:49] where the people in the wasteland dig into the dunes and bring up a pair of distressed jeans that have been buried there since before the nuclear apocalypse and look better than ever. Or what about if it's like a worm tribe? Someone in the opening credits of this film
[00:18:05] is credited as visual consultant, I think. God, if the fifth Mad Max movie happens, how do we get Ben in that job? I want it so bad. Like salt jeans are my next thing. This is my wheelhouse. It's like Namibia with Fury Road.
[00:18:22] He has to hope that it doesn't rain in Jersey for the next three years and then he can film there. Yeah, so Ben and you. Speaking of Dr. Dealgood, are you Blackfinger? Are you Skrullers? Yeah, I'm just looking at names from Thunderdome right now.
[00:18:38] I was just going to say it's kind of weird that this movie filmed me and my friends hanging out. I had no recollection. It filmed you and your friends as kids. And then it also filmed you as your friends as adults. And then it flipped the order.
[00:18:51] It's like, it has no memory. It's boyhood but with Ben Hosley, essentially. People think of this film as being a third Mad Max film. Right? It's the second Mad Max sequel. When in reality, the way it should be viewed is George Miller's Gus Van Sant Psycho-esque take
[00:19:07] doing a shot-for-shot remake of Ben Hosley's home video. Yeah. It's shot-for-shot and it's crazy. Yup, yup. That was me at summer camp. Warm truck. This is you at summer camp. Your summer camp was in a crash 747? Yeah, in the desert. Waiting for the captain to show up?
[00:19:26] The Jersey governor just has a bazooka, shoots down airplanes. He's like, there's a summer camp over there if you can find it. What if Sully were the captain though? Waiting for Sully. Oh man, that's a good point. Right, because their god is a captain in Thunderdome.
[00:19:41] Sully would be the greatest of all gods. Before we can move on with this episode, how many souls were on board? 155. He did eyeball it too. I do feel just based on the evidence we've seen that 150 souls did not come out of that plane that day.
[00:19:55] Some souls were lost along the way. You think souls were lost? You think even though their human bodies endured, souls were lost in a geese strike? Do you think like innocence died for a few of those passengers? They hit a gyrocopter and it went down.
[00:20:10] I do think a couple of people did. Oh, you're talking about the Thunderdome plane. I thought you were a Sully truth. Yeah, I was going to say. No, I'm a Sully the movie truth or whereby truth is that it's not especially good. But no, I'm talking about the...
[00:20:23] That is your canceled or one? I think in every episode... This will get brought up if you ever try. This audio will leak Shangela style. Listen, I'm just here trying to push boundaries. Let me tell you, buddy, you missed. But was Pete Davidson potentially stepping down?
[00:20:43] Maybe there's room for Shangela to come right up. I love... I don't mean this backhandedly. I genuinely love Pete Davidson knowing that he is under a seven year contract and just being like, yeah, I don't really like being on the show. I wish they would fire me.
[00:20:59] It's the last King of Staten Island. He is. He's the last. Yeah, he is basically begging to be fired. But also, we can only employ him just because they're worried about him. Like it's a weird dynamic in general. But also then what they have him on to do
[00:21:12] is essentially make fun of his... True, to make fun of himself or be like the third guy in a sketch. He's like, hey, how you doing? It's the last King of Scotland. I think he's just the King of Staten Island.
[00:21:23] He's just the King of Staten Island and of course, yes. When Judd Apatow aspires to the Hollow or whatever better version we have of describing when a director shoots for Oscar Bate, it can be the last King of Staten Island. But isn't funny people him shooting for Valhalla
[00:21:37] but it's interesting because he doesn't succeed? Like the whole value of that... He misses the Oscars and lands on a masterpiece. Exactly. That's my take. This is why we have to do him at some point. I know because we... Yes. Yes, because funny people is good.
[00:21:52] One of the great films of this century, I would go so far as to say. Close for me. It's like a tweener. I got to watch it again. I've also seen it like three times. It's been a few years. If I ever interviewed Sandler, it would be like,
[00:22:03] yeah, I'm cut gems, great for the Jews, punch drunk love, we stan Paul Thomas Sandler. No, that's his best performance. Let's talk about funny people for three hours. I think that is the Adam Sandler performance. Yeah. If you want to reckon with him as a star,
[00:22:15] him as a... Right, yeah. That's a broken performance? I think it's an interesting question. I don't think so. He is good. He's very good. He's usually good. That's the thing with Rogan. I think he's... Yeah, I think he's incredible in Knocked Up.
[00:22:33] Like, I think that's a little underrated almost. A movie that I have watched while taking notes about five times in the last year. For any reason. Oh, because you had that. For any reason. It's helpful. Just because I'm really going through a Catherine Heigl phase right now.
[00:22:47] She changed her hair color. I saw it on Instagram. She's also incredible in Knocked Up. She's very good in that. But also, that movie is more effective training for having a child than any of the 12 pregnancy or childhood books that I told my wife I read.
[00:23:00] Well, and Harold Ramis is no longer alive to give you in-person advice. Yeah, I'm sad. That movie is all you have. He's so good in that movie. This is the one that I feel like anyone would guess that I would say. But one of...
[00:23:12] You know what? He's really, really good. Not fucking long. He's fine. Come on. I mean, you don't like this movie, that one, but I love it. It's just an obvious David loves this movie. Dead Rogan's in. He's not even a star. Oh, Steve Jobs. Yeah.
[00:23:26] I think he's incredible in that. Yes. I think he's the best performance in that movie. I wonder if he... It's like a six-way tie for it. Was disappointed that he didn't get an Oscar for that. If you thought that was something in the cards.
[00:23:36] I don't think that he is someone who experiences that kind of disappointment, but I do think there was certainly a moment where people were probably saying, hey, if this hits, you could be in the Oscar race. Before the movie came out,
[00:23:45] when it was being seen by critics at festivals, then its first weekend, it does really well in limited releases. And he was on everyone's five prediction list. And then the next weekend, it goes wide and he drops off of everything.
[00:23:56] Can I tell you that they blew that movie's release? That was the big problem. Oh yeah, it's also, you know, they blew that movie's ending. No, they blew it. They blew it. That's what we have today. I can... I've tweeted my take, but people need to hear it.
[00:24:07] I'm going to sing it. God, I'm so glad you was fired from Bond. But I do want to say that of all the people in Hollywood and maybe in the world, I am most not only upset that I'm not a star, I'm most not only upset
[00:24:20] that I'm not close personal friends with Seth Rogen, but like I feel like it's a cosmic injustice of some kind that I see him on screen. He speaks to me so clearly. I feel like of course we would be... I could be his like super neurotic,
[00:24:31] you know, up tight, strong. What's the word I'm looking for? I don't even know. High strung. High strung, thank you. Sure, tightly. Friend that he needs to balance out his chill group of funny improv stoneers and some reason God put us on opposite sides of this country.
[00:24:47] And opposite sides of the economics spectrum and talent. You should say because this is not a medium, I want to let the listeners know you're not wearing it currently, but you very frequently wear your promotional the night before sweater. Like deep into the summer.
[00:24:59] Deep into the summer you were. I don't give a fuck. I just have to say it's my one emblem of Jewish pride. Do I have a mizaza on my door? No, I do not. No, but you wear the mizaza on your heart. It's exactly right.
[00:25:10] The scene at the end of Longshot, which is of course a masterpiece when he becomes not only America's first mister, first first mister, but it's first Jewish first mister. I cried. Yeah, that's interesting. Didn't even remember that scene. There is only... I like...
[00:25:27] I remember when he falls down the stairs. It's pretty funny. It's very funny. Pretty funny. Are those the boys? So good. Don't remember that line. So long shot. It's on cable at all times. I don't have 18 hours to devote to that. It's not long enough.
[00:25:43] Definitely not long enough. It's not even that bad. It's okay. It's fine. Graded on the curve because we get one romantic comedy a year. There is one joke I go fawed at in that movie and it's the most griffin' joke,
[00:25:57] which is also at the very end of that movie when he reveals that Todd McFarlane painted that's his portrait. That's funny. That's funny. There's funny jokes and I like both of their energies. It's barely a movie. So Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,
[00:26:12] which I feel like I had seen most of on TV but had never really sat down intentionally watch from beginning to end. Fair enough. I mean too, 100% actually. Immediately, from the first visual, because one thing this movie does very well
[00:26:30] that I think all the other Mad Max films should do, although no, I'm sorry, Fury Road does this? No it doesn't. What? You have to say what it is. Opening credits where you list everyone's names and their characters. Fury Road does that in the closing credits
[00:26:45] and I do love it when it does that. It's the only way that movie could have blown minds even faster than it does. That's true. Because the cast names, the character names of Fury Road are... They're even better than this one. He only tops himself. If it's possible.
[00:26:59] But this, yes, it starts out incredibly strong. Where's the one? Tina Turner as Anti-Entity or whatever. There's one that fucking blew my mind. Oh, Ingrie Anderson as Iron Barf. Robert Grubb as Pig Killer. You can't start a movie stronger. And the funny is when you watch the movie,
[00:27:20] you're like, oh Pig Killer's sort of a sympathetic killer. Did you know that Pig Killer's a vegan? He's got a good guy. He's a vegan. He's a vegan, like IRL or in the movie. He's a terrific guy. But once the actual visuals start in this movie,
[00:27:36] it immediately feels like this movie is the one Mad Max film filtered through the ambulance sensibility. Although somebody takes Swirlin, I was watching the credits for this movie. Of course my first thought was, ooh maybe, maybe this is actually a masterpiece. Maybe this is a great film
[00:27:54] and the world has just slept on it for 30 years and now we are going to bring it to justice. This is before there had been a single shot in the film just looking at the character names of course,
[00:28:02] which are all deserving of a place in a museum somewhere. But man, the last time I was here was for Hell's Moving Castle, which I picked. There's a Miyazaki film, I don't feel strong because you wanted something you weren't going to just accept.
[00:28:16] And then I was thinking of myself afterwards. I was like, you know, the next time I go on that show, I want to pick a movie that is near and dear to my heart. And so when Sims was like, you want to do Thunderdome,
[00:28:25] a movie that I have seen 20 minutes of on cable television when I was pretending to be sick from school when I was 10. I was like, oh hell yes, let's ride and die in the Thunderdome. And so that's where my head was at watching this movie.
[00:28:38] The Ambulant Energy is strong with this one, but I do, and maybe we should just circle back this later, but for me, I feel like the hottest take I've got on this, the most flattering thing I have to say about this movie
[00:28:48] is that I don't know if I've ever seen a live action film that has this big studio Ghibli energy. Yeah, it has real cartoon world in it. That's a fair point. It has the same sort of spare, you know, beyond the setting of it,
[00:29:05] but the same sort of like spare aesthetic of Nazca Valley of the Wind. It has the same approach to sound design, which it borrows from a lot of like, Wusha films of the time. It just, it really has that energy that I think
[00:29:18] even when it leans into Goonies territory and becomes superambliny, it still feels the anarchy of it all and just like the sort of, just the whole spirit of it feels to me even more in common with Ghibli. It is also the most...
[00:29:32] It spends more time in like a town, you know, than the other Mad Maxes, so that helps too. It's the film that has the longest stretch with hot action sequences, you know, in a way that's kind of unusual for a Mad Max film and tied to that,
[00:29:45] I think it is the most openly emotional Mad Max film. Yes. But it is emotional in a film about emotionally reserved characters, which feels very Ghibli adjacent where the filmmaking is emotional and the characters are not openly. Something too about like when it was made,
[00:30:04] the aesthetic of sex is great. Yeah. Any time you get like a sexy sex, it just really just makes it better. Also very 80s. It is the jazziest of the Mad Max films as well. The Maurice Jarre score, rather than Brian May's weird sort of like
[00:30:20] bing bing bing bing bing bing. But then, yeah, and then pipe clanks too are great. The pipe clanking in the first half of this movie, it's so good. Going in, I was like, I know what the take on this movie is, the sort of general take,
[00:30:33] which is like first 45 minutes, pretty fantastic. The kids kind of suck. The end's pretty cool. Yeah. And then I watched the movie and I was like, and I guess that's kind of how I feel. I was sort of annoyed that I didn't have like,
[00:30:44] I wasn't like, oh my God. I was looking for some radical interpretation that having been said. I mean, it's good. It has a thunder, though. That take is judging it against the three other Mad Max movies, which fucking rip. None of which have thunderdoms though.
[00:31:00] Well, that's the thing. Fury Road really fucking dropped the bomb. I'm actually going to change my reign into one star. What movies would be best improved by having a thunder dome? Like even in recent history, like a green book with a thunder. That'd be good. That'd be great.
[00:31:13] Roger Ailes does look more like a wasteland character than a real human being in bombshell. That's true. If you put like a metal like claw on him, you could fight and cut it. I was reading some interviews or whatever. It'd be a great, yeah, makes sense.
[00:31:29] I was reading some interviews with George Miller and he mentions Rupert Murdoch in all of them because Murdoch and his media empire was so crucial to what he was doing. And Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are technically different people. They're kind of a master blaster.
[00:31:45] They are a bit of a master blaster thing. It was Malcolm McDowell played Murdoch in bomb show? In bomb show. Because Murdoch is also in the loudest voice, which I watched every episode of for reasons I cannot begin to fathom. Wow. And he's a better character in that.
[00:32:03] I feel like in bomb show, you're doing it. But who plays him? You don't remember? It was more... Fuck, I have to look it up. See, I think McDowell's really good in bomb show. I think that's one of the better performances. Is that a fair whence he's bad?
[00:32:15] I think that's a pretty fair whence he's bad. Even though he makes like tons of crap, I feel like you could probably get Malcolm McDowell for your movie with these. I told you about my dad when I was growing up, knew someone who knew Malcolm McDowell.
[00:32:30] My dad who did not understand just culture in general, but certainly movies. Learned that I was starting to get into movies and thought it would be cool to have Malcolm McDowell who starred in Clockwork Orange, the film when I was 10 years old I was not intimately familiar with.
[00:32:43] And had Malcolm McDowell call me on the phone and I picked up the phone at home and the voice on the other end just goes, Hello, Drux. And I was like, hello. He was speaking to you in references? No, that was his intro.
[00:32:59] Someone had cajoled him into calling. He's like, oh, we know this kid. He's a huge movie fan. He's going to flip his mind when you call him. And he was just like, hello, Drux. And I was like, hi. But he treated it as if it was like
[00:33:12] he's Alan Rickman in Galaxy's Quest and finally like daining to say by Gravthar's hammer. Right, right. Exactly. And I was just like, I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I remember watching that movie like seven years later and being like, oh.
[00:33:26] Can I call him back? But sounds like he was pretty good on that phone call. I mean, this supports David's thesis that he's never bad. He's never bad. He's never bad. It was so good. I just was very, very kind of him and mortifying to me.
[00:33:38] Even when he's literally phoning it in, he never actually phoned it in. He brought it. I was scared in ways I didn't understand. McBurney. Oh, good. Because there's a crucial, the crucial scene and the loudest voice, which I watched every episode of on showtime
[00:33:53] is when Ailes has been, you know, slamming Obama on Fox News, right? He's been going hard. And then he's told like this isn't cool because he's going to win like Murdoch should have comes down and it's like you can't be that mean.
[00:34:08] And Ailes is like, I could do what I want. He like eats a whole birthday cake, which is like shit that he does in that show. That's insane. And then he's like supposed to meet Obama and then instead like he comes into a room
[00:34:19] and Murdoch's like, I'm going to go meet Obama and you go home. And like that's when like the power begins to shift. It's a good scene. And then Russell Crowe eats like four more birthday cakes. Anyway, so many scenes have been meeting birthday cake in that show.
[00:34:31] I'm not joking. Tastes delicious. I don't blame him. Does he fold it Tony lip style? No, it's just like it's always like Seth MacFarlane is like, Hey, this is what's going on. He's like, So it's somebody's birthday. But I do feel like
[00:34:50] he was talking about type or the the Rodrails type was very much on his mind. Although, you know, he got a lot of money to make these documentary series from the Murdoch Empire and was actually complimentary about how hands off they were.
[00:35:03] But it certainly like think when he's talking about like like future tyrants, there's always he loves right like tycoon type characters in the bed like these big corpulent or the sort of Tina Turner type, right? Like kind of like imperious like dictator types. He loves them. Imperator Tina.
[00:35:21] Imperator Tina. But again, that is the Murdoch reputation like the Simpsons where he's like, Oh, okay. I don't watch that shit. Do whatever you want. I'm rich. So evil doesn't care. I mean, the couple important things are context in this movie.
[00:35:39] One, as you sort of alluded to her like at this point, Kennedy Miller has become like a pretty big operation. They're doing a lot of stuff in Australia, mostly in TV, but a lot of miniseries, a lot of documentaries. They're supporting a lot of filmmakers.
[00:35:55] Philip Noyce is going through their system. That's right. And will soon cross over to America. Yeah, there's a very cool miniseries, cool sounding miniseries called Bodyline starring a young Hugo Weaving about a famous Australian cricket drama from the 30s. Sounds kind of cool.
[00:36:14] A lot of the Australian film industry luminaries of the 80s who eventually make their way over to Hollywood are sort of being given real shots through the Kennedy Miller operation. And it's a lot of autonomy, a lot of creative integrity
[00:36:27] and integrity and that these two guys are by all accounts real menches, real supportive, want to raise the tide for all in the Australian film industry. And then the second thing that happens is Byron Kennedy dies who is very much George Miller's real partner
[00:36:43] in these first three films and in building this little cottage industry they have. George Miller was always very, very generous and sort of saying like we are 50-50 partners. The fact that I'm the director and he's the producer ostensibly was like a coin toss.
[00:37:00] We both have as much say in this movie and this world building and all of this. And so when Byron Kennedy dies, he's at the standstill where he's like do I cancel the movie or do I force myself to make the movie in order to honor this guy?
[00:37:13] And he decides to go through with it because he feels like it's the best way to pay tribute to Byron Kennedy but he also brings on a co-director whose name is George Ogilvy who was a man who had done a miniseries for Kennedy Miller.
[00:37:31] Yeah and he did Bodyline, the great cricket drama I was just talking about with Hugo Weaving and other people too probably but I don't know who they are. It was just Hugo Weaving playing every real Tom Newton style and anomalies.
[00:37:45] Right and he does eventually go on to make a couple more Australian movies and some more TV movies and so on and so forth. But he's never quite got beyond Thunderdome, they left him at Thunderdome. He did not get beyond Thunderdome. Two directors enter, one director leaves.
[00:38:00] Miller says I asked my friend George Ogilvy who was working on the miniseries could you come and help me but I don't remember the experience because I was doing it just to dot dot dot you know I was grieving.
[00:38:11] So he very much talks about this movie as like I I was in a haze essentially. I felt like I needed to do it to work through my grief and instead I barely remember what was going on. Imagine if your grieving process involved outfitting Tina
[00:38:24] Turner into a post apocalyptic town mayor. Right with a crossbow. It is weird because this movie is fully formed. It's not like you watch this movie and you're like what a mess. But I mean because I think Kennedy had been there for all of that ideation.
[00:38:43] You know everything had sort of been developed at least on a conceptual stage. But then all that needs to be done was to take it to the finish line. Miller and Kennedy were people who prepped extensively in great detail that I think he was
[00:38:55] bringing on Ogilvy to help like deal with a lot of the actual practical day-to-day stuff that he was too sad to deal with. Well the what they'll tell you on IMDb trivia which is where I especially when writing reviews get most of my information that
[00:39:09] I need has never failed me in the past is that Ogilvy shot all of the dramatic scenes where Miller did all the action. I think that that breakup is probably a inaccurate but be too clean. I don't think it really works like that. Right.
[00:39:26] I think that's also the kind of thing that fans want to say to make sense of the movie because they don't like the dramatic scenes as much. Is that confirmed at all? Like is there any... I didn't dig too deep into it but not that I found
[00:39:35] but I also there's like such there's such so much of George Miller's DNA even in the dramatic scenes that either Ogilvy did an immaculate job of getting that vibe or that's just simply not the case. Once again it you know it is he's a guy
[00:39:48] who prepped so extensively that it's not like if someone's following the plans that he laid out they're gonna remove his DNA from the equation something like the two stop motion Wes Anderson movies where especially for Fantastic Mr. Fox by all counts he was not there he was not
[00:40:03] animating or directing the animators or any of those things he was mostly directing that movie over Skype but he had written it and he'd storyboarded extensively and he gave them very clear rules to how his visual language works now it doesn't what performances he wants
[00:40:17] but I think George Miller was far more hands-on than that when I read interviews with him about this and he's reluctant to talk about I think just because it was so emotionally painful it doesn't sound like oh he wasn't on set for a
[00:40:29] lot of it and let this other guy carry entire scenes it sounds like he was on set but he wasn't totally there mentally. He just didn't have the emotional bandwidth to do it all yes and needed some support this time to be trivia page is actually
[00:40:44] kind of fun such as quote Tina Turner had to shave her head for the wig to fit properly she reportedly had no problem with that. That's the end of that little story. It's just a little story. They were asked to do this they said yes
[00:40:57] they said okay yeah. You talk about it Tina Turner has maybe pound-for-pound cinema's greatest filmography. Let's run through it. All right so she did she appeared as herself in a number of different movies like Gimme Shelter which I don't really think are worth mentioning.
[00:41:12] Her first movie where she's playing a character is in Tommy. She's the acid queen. The acid queen. Acid queen number one role on your resume. Also just sounds like a Mad Max character like you know it's like who are you playing in Thunderdaugh? The acid queen.
[00:41:27] From there she doesn't want to go down the only way to keep the momentum going is of course to play a character on par with the acid queen. Then the Beatles come in knocking in 1978 and they ask her to play one of the guests at Heartland in Sergeant
[00:41:42] Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The movie where the Bee Gees play the Beatles. So the Bee Gees and the Beatles together arm in arm showed up at her door and asked her to be in this movie and she reluctantly said yes. Goes back to herself for a Chuck
[00:41:54] Berry thing where she is in concert with Chuck Berry is then auntie entity in Mad Max Thunderdaugh realizes once more. I'm sorry they actually went beyond the momentum. They went straight through it and far beyond. My apologies. Then I'll spin the wheel of forgiveness.
[00:42:09] Do you want to hear all of the outcomes on that wheel? Not at this very moment. But then she is like okay I think I've put my stamp on this medium and then is called back into service one last time for Last Action
[00:42:24] Hero where she plays the mayor. That's right. Her entire filmography of fictional characters are the acid queen. I'm not really an account so it's really acid queen, auntie entity and the mayor. So she has never played a character with a proper name. And she's never played a character
[00:42:38] who didn't have some authority. Oh, right. Massive authority. Or over some sort of fictional town usually a wasteland. Right. Either elected or through birthright or through violence. Through force. Has ascended to the top. Yeah. Wow. Badass. What was I going to say?
[00:42:56] Oh yeah so here are the options on the wheel. Yeah. Sure. You don't want that one. Hard labor doesn't seem fun. Not fun to watch. Goulag which is sort of similar to hard labor but whatever. Auntie's Choice would have loved to see that one. It's the Goulag.
[00:43:11] Spin again. You always have to have that on a wheel or magic eight bars. It's fun because it just ramps up tension. Forfeit goods which is actually that seems like pretty mild. That's the best one to take. That's sort of like getting over me.
[00:43:26] He has no goods at that. I mean he's there to get nothing to forfeit. Underworld. You have to watch the entire Len Weisman series. The entire Len Weisman series. Yeah. It's tough. I take Goulag personally. Amputation. Life imprisonment. And then Aquital is on there. So you know.
[00:43:48] So there's a clear winner. There's one that is unquestionably. Of course Underworld. I just feel like there should be a good thing that isn't just the removal of a bad thing. Oh you're saying like Aquital isn't enough. There should be one where you make a profit. Yeah.
[00:44:03] And you should get. Yeah exactly. And also. Gaining of goods you want. I worry about what the prison system is like in the wasteland and also why their need for I mean everyone is a thieving murderer. So let's not talk around this. The wasteland could use
[00:44:18] prison reform right. It feels like it could use bottom up prison. There's there's a new deal required in the way you know what I mean. I just feel like there's a lot of wealth that could be redistributed. A thousand percent. I do like that. Pig fart energy system.
[00:44:34] That's pretty good. Yeah. Like that they seem to have sorted out. And I would say and you know Master Blaster they're getting a lot done. Totally. So that's how master Blaster absolute unit and right. Cinema's greatest love story. Yes my favorite kind of character.
[00:44:52] Yeah and probably the biggest of the Mad Max big guys. Definitely the best of the Mad Max big guys. But when you got a big brawn and then you got a little smart. This is your number one favorite together. They're a package deal. It's always great.
[00:45:05] Right like Alugashu. Yep. Original character of mine from years ago when we were still just doing Star Wars. I said that I wanted to have a character named Alugashu who's giant and then he had a little head growing out of his shoulder. That whispered in his ear.
[00:45:19] A smart one. And Alugashu is still canon within Blank check legends. Yes. Let's just make it clear. Yeah. Coming to Hulu. To Hulu. Is he a playable character on the Blank Check mobile game? He is. Okay good. That would be so cool. Talk about a way of
[00:45:34] fleecing people from their money. I would give you like $40 a day just buying packs of Alugashu Alugashu energy. I went for the raid. I was very surprised you're currently playing a Star Wars mobile game. Oh no it's gotten worse Griffin. Oh is it a Marvel mobile game?
[00:45:47] It's both. Have you gone into the Marvel one? I've supplemented my Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes addiction with Marvel Strike Force. Wow. I've been playing for this as like a... I tried that one. A gambling addict who doesn't have access to gambling. This is really the next
[00:46:02] best thing to scratch in the age. That's why I play Disney more? You're still on that one? Yeah I'm still on an Adler. I'm playing a game called Piffle Experience of Piffle. I tried the Disney Battler like the RPG Battler and it sucks.
[00:46:17] And the DC one is also very bad but the Disney one it's like it's really meant for young children who have their parents credit cards and you can't control characters during battle. And so it's just like Olaf go fight and watching Olaf throw his own body at people.
[00:46:29] It's not... I tried it and it wasn't even fun playing as Ralph. Like you're not even getting joy out of wrecking people. You can be like one of the default characters that give you when you start. Yeah I just started to earn Ralph. Well yes.
[00:46:41] But it also tells you how bad the game is if Ralph is only set as a default. Like he's not more powerful than you know fucking Sebastian. Anyway those things are really good. Anyway those things are menace but Master Blaster. Yeah well here's
[00:46:57] the thing I want to say I agree that like you know we all came to this movie going like oh man I'd love to come in here with a take on my This Filmed a Secret masterpiece. Yeah. It is not bad in any way
[00:47:08] it also in pretty much any other franchise would probably be the best movie. Like the Mad Max Bar is so high and the films are so inventive that this film pales in comparison because it's a little more rote but if any other franchise
[00:47:25] had a movie that was this bug nuts you'd be like oh that's the interesting one. And also the action in this movie is like next level fantastic. I don't know I feel Are you going to disc the action? No I'm not going to disc disc disc try again
[00:47:39] Yeah. Just throwing more consonants at the end of this word that doesn't need it. The man on man fight scene action in this movie which I think if anything I mean you'll see about how George Miller talks a lot about Barring from Buster Keaton
[00:47:53] but for me again to go back to sort of the kung fu movies that were being made at the time is real who shot energy. Again it for me it's the sound it's also the way they use the acrobatics the way they use in the
[00:48:04] Thunder Dome where you can't just I think a common misconception about Thunder Dome everywhere is of course that people are just not suspended on wires and are just free to run at each other but no Thunder Dome is not just a geodesic dome
[00:48:18] which has hordes of streets of rage style extras on the side cheering throwing you full turkeys to consume to regain your health. Yeah Ben would make a good streets of rage movie. Yes it would. Oh sure I love that shredded jeans. Oh my god they're so
[00:48:32] the jeans are so shredded they've got to be and the shirts but you need you need the the harnesses yeah and you got to utilize the whole space. Oh absolutely. It's like multi-dimensional fighting like he's adding different axes. Right I mean I think Ebert's review he literally
[00:48:47] was like I've never seen an action seeker like this. He gave it four to four stars and placed it as one of his 10 best films of 1985 and his line is the Thunder Dome itself is the first really original movie idea about how to stage
[00:49:00] a fight since we got the first karate movies. Would you say that the Thunder Dome is almost like a character in this movie? Definitely. It's like the fifth character. Yeah I think it was in the title. Max. I think the film critics gave it a best supporting
[00:49:15] master blaster Thunder Dome. What about Jebediah though? Jebediah who Jebediah played by Bruce Fence who's the driver captor pilot and now is the airplane pilot. I know they were like apparently literally just trying to cast the role and they were like why don't we just hire him again.
[00:49:31] The same guy. He was like can I play the same character like no but like yeah. But it's like it's like a toe cutter. No I know I know. Morton Joe. Yeah I love that he just re-use a certain people it's like you have the right
[00:49:43] energy for this you work well in this kind of vehicle. It's hard to make movies out in the middle of the desert if there's someone you can get along with it's going to do the job why not bring him back but I do I did want to say
[00:49:52] that the the vehicular carnage at the end of this movie it is hard now in retrospect for it not to feel like it's a dry run for what he was going to do later which I guess you could say about really all the car chases in this
[00:50:06] trilogy here but this one in particular feels like other than the train which yeah maybe they can bring back in some way. Yeah there's no flying in Fury Road. Of course you would say that David you love trains. Love trains. But there is no flying in
[00:50:20] Fury Road right now. No the most you've got to sort of acrobatic. Doesn't the train feel very Indiana Jonesy to you guys where it's like all of this feels Spielberg-y. Right not in a mad way. No no no okay we like maybe in a mad way.
[00:50:33] Hey also any train in any context feels Indiana Jonesy to me or needs to like I'll be on the Metro North and I'm like Indiana Jonesy but needs more stuff. And obviously you know very Buster Keaton generally. Yeah it's generally generally yeah but
[00:50:49] but it does has this Spielberg thing of rather than the usual Mad Max thing of just things intensifying building building heightening it's like we're on one track you're trying to problem solve this thing it's that Indiana Jones like every action scene is kind of a puzzle that he
[00:51:06] has to solve how to not die rather than it just being like survival you know just like outweighed outlast outplay right. Yeah well the Indiana Jones movies are directed by a man named Steven Spielberg and one of the things that's interesting about him is that he understands
[00:51:21] that an action sequence can actually be a narrative unto itself and further the story and doesn't just have to be fucking shit thrown at your face to numb you into submission right and that is something that not all filmmakers implicitly understand. No road warrior also feels a
[00:51:36] little bit like a dry run for Fury Road but road warrior is so committed to just the fucking car chases it like Fury Road is like 90% just high octane high speed. And I wonder if like the brokenness of this story and sort of its lump
[00:51:51] in misshapen quality where the two halves of it feel so different from one another was part of what made him want to do something so streamlined for the next one. I think so yeah I mean because for a very long time he said
[00:52:03] I wasn't going to come back to it and then Fury Road he claims came in a fever dream on an airplane and it was just like I want to make a movie that's just that. You know what I think it was? I think it's that he said
[00:52:13] because he said an interview on Ann Billsons blog this very long interview that she had did for Time Out magazine and then it was the interview she wrote for Time Out was canceled because as soon as it was about to go to publish
[00:52:27] Orson Welles died of a heart attack and they just scuttled all that footage. Wow. For Orson Welles tribute like the due to made Citizen Kane dead time out also here's where you should drink tonight in London. But the thing that I read in that interview is he was
[00:52:41] like they're asking about the music and he's like you know I just couldn't figure out a way to get rock music in Mad Max and I don't think I ever will. I stopped at jazz. And then jazz jazz is one thing jazz is no problem but rock
[00:52:55] impossible and then one day he was like a man trapped to the front of a truck. Yeah it's guitar on fire and he is the most thunderdomey character because he's got sort of a bungee cord thing going on the do for air. But there is right there's that
[00:53:09] thing of this movie felt like a they were on a roll why not continue it be road warrior had been such a breakout success in the U.S. in a way that the first one wasn't so there was like Warner Brothers more actively I think supporting and
[00:53:24] asking for another Mad Max film and Mel Gibson star was growing independently after this he does lethal weapon and then explodes and then you know just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until he completely crashes into the side of a wall. But right but in between Mad
[00:53:41] Max 2 and this he had made the Year of Living Dangerously which is sort of no Gallipoli is pre-Mad Max 2 same year I believe Gotcha but your I feel like Year of Living Dangerously is like this is a fucking Hollywood bulletproof so handsome leading man like that performance might
[00:53:56] be his best performance he's so phenomenally handsome in that movie I'm I know the Mel Gibson is has an ugly soul is not the greatest person in the world that he has been canceled thrice over and we have to separate the
[00:54:12] hot from the but I do I do feel like the living Year of Living Dangerously is kind of that movie where Hollywood is like oh maybe we should give this guy a call and you can even tell that like he's excellent in the first
[00:54:26] and second films but in this one he shows up and just has the energy of I have completely figured out how to be a movie star he has a little more to do as well I don't even that's not even a good or bad thing but driving force
[00:54:40] behind this movie sort of hinges more about Hollywood arc right you know sure it sort of hinges on the perception of his morality it on the idea of Mel Gibson emanating a sort of intrinsic goodness like that is at the root of this
[00:54:55] movie in a way that wasn't in the two previous films because this story George Miller's described it as a coming out story of his own like the characters own innate sense of empathy for other human beings that he once upon a time was a DC
[00:55:10] new being who had a family we loved we meet in the first movie and then after things went to shit even further than they already had convinced himself that survivalism was the only way to get by just a ruthlessness look out for himself and no one else
[00:55:26] but I see that in the road warrior where he is mostly doing things to avoid his own murder and then it like sometimes realizes that helping other people might be advantageous to his own wants but this is the first movie where he when he's with the kiddies in
[00:55:42] the second half of the movie and things go real Peter Pan real fast that he is doing something not only for his advantage but also he sees a sort of glimmer of opportunity and he's sort of emerging into that goodness and the whole movie I think is
[00:55:58] made possible at that time because the world is starting to get a sense that this is our Tom Cruise now you know pre Tom Cruise this is a guy who has a good soul and all of the barbarousness of the wasteland sort of grafted on top
[00:56:12] of that and it's just so funny seeing that that didn't quite pan out sure but it is a movie that has the sort of meta energy of a we have to acknowledge that this character has now become an icon the audiences are going to be excited
[00:56:24] when Max shows up on screen again so you kind of want the universe to reflect that in some way that characters are more terrified of him and other characters look up to him more think he's more powerful and capable of saving them and secondly
[00:56:38] that this guy is now a movie star he's minted it's unquestionable this guy's on the track so you need to give him a little bit more of like a classical hero's journey down to this having the kids the real refusal of the call
[00:56:52] being that the other movies don't really do they just have him kind of fight against saving at every moment he's always conflicted in any moment how much he wants to help this movie has the like I'm gonna hear your story
[00:57:04] I'm gonna walk away you're gonna win me back I'm gonna go all in it's great when the refusal of the call comes 80 minutes into a film you know you're really cooking with gas right because he actually answers Tina Turner's call right and then
[00:57:16] he's annoyed that she was just kind of like using him and he's like no more calls yes ma'am I want to point out just the movies apart from living dangerously that he had done none of them hits but it is the first sign of him making
[00:57:30] a movie called well he made the bounty with Anthony Hopkins which was a bomb but it was like a big costume drama you know about me remake then he made the river which I've never seen with Sissy Space second Scott Glenn that's a Mark Rydele movie
[00:57:44] just like an American movie called Mrs. Soffle I have never heard of it it's directed by Jillian Armstrong okay stars Diane Keaton wow and him wow he could have been a good look at this movie like back in the day what is this movie
[00:57:58] like he could have played in the river movie oh sure yeah because he had that sort of like high tufty hair and yeah you could have pulled it off I mean he's look he's just one of he's in lethal weapons the one that figures it out but
[00:58:10] like his eyes are incredible and he really does seem like a really scary person speaking of his hair he has I think maybe the exact same wig that he later busts out for Braveheart like this is similar for that right it's like a 90s version of a period
[00:58:26] adventure haircut yeah I mean the 80s like this modeled right long sort of high some mullet yeah and yeah some what he was just reading about you know Robert the Bruce and William Wallace yeah it was like kind of looked hot in that wig let's win some Oscars
[00:58:46] George Miller has talked about the like the innate sort of insanity of Mel Gibson and that being the main thing that drew him to him in auditions that I think the better he became as a movie star the more he both figured out how to use it
[00:59:02] and also know how to not let it overwhelm every other bit of energy he had I mean when he's really like cooking as a leading man it is that thing where just like he has crazy eyes all the time but he's able to project other energy
[00:59:16] in addition to that and it is that way that like a lot of the best actors are angry you know there's some sort of like fiery energy there that is just innately watchable and if they're able to layer things on top of that
[00:59:30] then they're able to play multiple different shades and colors do you think this is what's holding you back as an actor like I look at you now I'm curious you're wearing a t-shirt that has one of the little guys from twice yeah and you're just not
[00:59:42] like the portrait of anger that I would expect from an up and coming leading man I'll tell you though the single biggest note I got on season one of the tech was that I was playing every single scene too angry and I think that performance
[00:59:54] is too angry and that was them cutting it down and trying to use only the takes where I was the least angry I think I got it better the second season but I think that's also it's more compelling to be angry
[01:00:06] if you look like Mel Gibson or Jean Hackman than if you look like Griffin Newman maybe maybe this is a thesis I'm working on post this lethal weapon yes tequila sunrise lethal weapon to right and lethal weapon to is just explosion right bird on a wire air America
[01:00:24] which was kind of a hit at the time yeah with Downey forever young Hamlet right which is him going serious not really being respected for it but like a pretty solid movie like a solid Shakespeare drama you read the reviews at the time and it
[01:00:40] he it is treated as if it were Channing Tatum announcing that 100% yes which is unfair considering the Australian half of his career it's it's fair enough considering in his American movies he was mostly like an action star also unfair considering that Channing Tatum's breakthrough role was in
[01:00:56] She's the Man which is in itself a fair point and we should go point that out to the 1990 reviewers because they would love hearing all of that but you're right it would make sense to them it is weird that he was dismissed that much and mocked
[01:01:10] that much playing this guy wasn't you know Peter we're moving to stuff you know whatever like one Oscars and then forever young and lethal weapon three and then he does man without a face is directorial debut Maverick brave 90s are just
[01:01:22] like all of them are hits pretty much even the ones that haven't aged well you're like all of these did well the opening shot of this movie is after the awesome opening credits set to a Tina Turner song is just George Miller immediately showing off that he
[01:01:38] has big studio money now he's got Warner Brothers money it's so cool helicopter shots amazing where you just stay this Mars like what is this so cool that it's revealed to be a subjective shot it's not just like right we're actually in a plane you're
[01:01:52] the POV of Jedediah but but it is like you know we've talked about these movies just feel so fucking big because the landscape is endless and you just can't see like way any civilization anywhere off in the distance you can't imagine where the crew would be
[01:02:08] and this movie just does the craziest one of them all which is just like we're going to show you what feels like a different planet and just push in and in and in and until you realize there's an action scene
[01:02:18] going on in the middle of it yeah so Jedediah he buzzes Max with his son steals his shit let's say Max's in his V8 interceptor but it's being drawn by horses that's right which is camel cool camel I'm sorry I'm sorry which is cool right
[01:02:34] he's presumably run out of guzzling he is out of guzzling guzzling they don't he don't know it's Max though when he takes the stuff well no I don't think they really covered and they're not they don't write letters and keep in touch different guy extensively okay
[01:02:50] extensively different guy sure but I also like that you could read it as being the same that's how I did but yeah I would love if they one of the people who runs one of these post apocalyptic towns would have pivoted
[01:03:00] away from just naming it after what it does and like give us like a pleasantville or something sand village yeah pleasantville this is where we barter so yes so he makes it to barter town where as the name implies you got a barter
[01:03:14] yes you do have to barter and he's got nothing a barter way they're kind of like maybe leave everything he got was just it was just took in took in yeah to took in town he's looking to get a little something
[01:03:28] get himself back on the road and they're like you got to put up or shut up you got what's the big guy's name who's sort of like anti entities like all the glasses yeah he's sort of like this little but you know I can't remember their names
[01:03:42] the collector that might be a collector I think it's this guy Frank Thring yeah of course who isn't been her of course we love him I think it's this guy yeah I'm a counter right ooh Radliff he's got a little Radliff energy yeah this guy right yes
[01:03:58] yes yes okay as they described him a cold-eyed Australian character actor cold-eyed particularly not for his biblical villains apparently his eyes are cold and it also says here there's a quote from him on the page a personal quote on his hand to be
[01:04:14] paid to says I didn't like school and it didn't like me there you go sir Alec Guinness got him fired off of a new hope because of his cold eyes so he gets to barter town with the collector but yeah but he does some cool mad max
[01:04:32] shit right he's still got it he's got the reflexes he can you know get his way out of a fucking headlock or whatever and so anti entity is like alright alright alright you're the real deal and he's looking kind of busted he's got long
[01:04:46] rad he's got the hair but they get rid of that yeah they get him looking really well what I need to stop praising milk is just let's stop praising his look and start praising his politics I think that he's pretty even handed yeah
[01:05:02] what do you think of Tina's lair I think it's a great lair I just still can never get over that you're like mad max two films that are all just about this one fucking guy no supporting characters carry over into the second film
[01:05:14] everyone else is kind of just like supplementary like universe building window dressing and then they're like finally another actor to share above the title billing with mel Gibson in the third mad max film who is it of course Tina Turner in her second film role ever
[01:05:28] like it's such a move to just be like yes this one is a two-hander with Tina Turner even though she disappears from two hander with Tina Turner but she seems all in like she you know I and for my accounts
[01:05:42] she was very she was cool with shaving her head yeah she was supportive on the project and remained friendly with Mel Gibson and tried to help him when he was at his lowest but yeah not that that's you know remaining friends with Mel Gibson is necessarily the highest
[01:05:54] mark of some of his honor. Bro two songs for the movie both of which were hits huge hits but she there's not a moment in her performance where you feel her holding back no ranging or thinking like what am I doing here in the fucking desert
[01:06:04] acting with Mel Gibson well and it's like smart casting in that in a mad max universe what you're looking for is more rockstar energy than conventional actor energy yes you want someone who can wear the shit out of some clothing yes and can move with authority lord
[01:06:20] humongous you know famously headlined Oz fast he did and how now you have Tina Turner who famously did not and master blaster were at woodstock 2000 right what's like they started they started fire they started the fire master blaster so cool yeah it is so funny that she's like
[01:06:36] alright here's my problem one look at these pigs of course yeah I got a bunch of pigs been there she's got a periscope in her flair she has a periscope in her layer she also has a cool crossbow which is oh yeah I feel
[01:06:48] like you're into crossbows right I mean my parents would never let me have one sure it's interesting they wouldn't like why not they're so practical for a child they said they didn't trust me with it it's a bizarre because you proved yourself so responsible with that slingshot
[01:07:02] why wouldn't they give you a deadlier projectile weapon it's fine just want to remind all our listeners that Ben used to literally carry around a slingshot as a child I feel like it's a while since that's been brought up so I just want to reestablish that
[01:07:17] as canon is not legends it is continuity canon that sets some night eggs shit yeah but you're saying her other problem is like you know also there is this Voltron of a human right there's this sort of big strong guy little smart guy combo
[01:07:31] what if brains are the plus one they know how to turn pig poop into energy right so I kind of rely on them but they keep like negging me publicly over the P.A. system but if you had a big dummy with a tiny gentleman
[01:07:43] I essentially need you to stop them from tweeting at me right these people will just will not stop the ultimate reply guys you could say master blaster kind of the Krasenstein brother but I do I just all day along with pig shit posting
[01:07:57] what I think rules about this is that I am on Tina Turner side of the sort of movie because she's Tina Turner so I'm just sort of like look max listen to what she's got to say these master blaster they
[01:08:07] lame like all the way up to the reveal yeah of like what's really going on with master blaster you are you are in you get it you get why max is doing and this is another key this is why you need to hire
[01:08:19] Tina Turner or someone of equivalent star power because there are a lot of great support and character performances in these mad max movies but you need someone who shows up and seems like she can go toe to toe with Mel Gibson to be the dominant force
[01:08:33] of this movie and could also just like use her sheer sort of charisma and inherent leadership to win over this area there's the idea that I think is meant to rhyme with what happens to max when he joins the kids at the end of
[01:08:45] you know she was not a bad person she may still not be a bad person she was following the ordinary heroes journey but she planted her flag and stuck around a little bit too long you know and live the hero long enough to become the
[01:08:59] villain or at least the antagonist she's the least villainous of the format max she's just trying to hold together and I think later on max gets the idea where you know these kids look at him as a god and he could do some good for them but
[01:09:11] there's no way that dynamic doesn't harden into him being some kind of desperate if even coming from a paternalistic place that he would be better just leaving as a legacy and letting them carry on in the positive image that he left behind she's in the same boat that's
[01:09:27] a weird heroism of max is that here's a guy who started out as quote unquote a good cop right this is someone who by all accounts at least as the movie codes it became a law official an officer of the law in order to help people
[01:09:43] and protect people right for the right reasons and then he has everything taken away from him in a way that makes him question all justice right seems like he's on a path of becoming an insane vigilante and then following three movies it is him trying to be
[01:09:57] like I don't care I'm not going to get invested sucked into some situations like okay I gotta go right fucking guy and the moment he finally like gives in fights for other people helps them improve himself and could be seen as a hero he walks away
[01:10:11] he always walks away because I think pointedly he doesn't want to become on to entity he doesn't want to start right buying his own he's not gonna make max town right with fucking you know his like max sites and have a bunch of max children
[01:10:25] he understands that like the the greatest through line across the mad max franchise is like the cult of personality and absolute power corrupting absolutely that the second these people except they have done something great and let people sort of follow their every whim and listen to
[01:10:41] their every judgment and build rebuild society in their own image or their own sort of value systems this second they get all fucking out of whack you know because a morn Joe used to be a really fucking cool guy I am more than Joe
[01:10:55] like you know he built hospitals he built no I don't know socialist original he built hospitals that were entirely filled with people that he had put into those places to put them anyway so max challenges master blaster to a thunderdome dual
[01:11:13] but it's a kind as you do it's a handshake deal it's like sure yeah she's like you guys I'll refill your your view of vehicle everything you need to get back on the road get the fuck out of here right and what's the thing that he says
[01:11:25] when he goes like you know is he a good fighter and gets most most men get killed by his breath or something like that right I mean this line this movie has some of the greatest disses ever committed to film and that includes the number one greatest disse
[01:11:39] of all time which I don't believe is uttered until the second half of the film when it's spoken by one of the children who says and I quote he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth yep which is
[01:11:51] really how I've wanted to describe so many people in this world and couldn't possibly say it better myself I'll say word stuff from ass to mouth is how I usually describe this podcast how dare you how does he realize that the blasters weakness
[01:12:05] is sound like because he that's how he defeats blast when he's in the big shop yeah the alarm for his car right right and he recognizes the high frequency messes with him but the whole thunderdome sequence is the best sequence in the movie it's just
[01:12:19] I love it there's still nothing like it's like a video game come to life and they'll never be anything like this well no that could be but like you know what I mean like now it would be previous and it should have just left the
[01:12:29] thunderdome standing as a set that other productions could come and use every movie should have one thunderdome right just in terms of endearment thunderdome or XFL yeah add a thunderdome yeah well then I watch but like what if the opening scene in the place beyond the pines
[01:12:45] movie that I think everyone listening to this podcast knows by heart of course not just set in another movie that's like pretty good and then really bad right no no this is less extreme I wish they were bad in the same exact way
[01:12:57] but they had that not just been in a random dome but in the thunderdome it is pretty cool yeah but yeah no but like any movie that shooting they're like we could shoot in Louisiana for the tax breaks or we could shoot in Melbourne for
[01:13:15] the thunderdome I think that's a big problem though if you look it up the tax incentives in the thunderdome are horrible that's true that you have to pay more taxes it's easier to like fake Connecticut for thunderdome because there's just a better initiative there the local film
[01:13:31] office and thunderdome is dropping the ball there are a lot of things that are really intrinsic to our world today that I I wonder if they have in the wasteland and the big one when I was watching this movie through the lens of my shitty personality
[01:13:47] was thinking about neuroses in the wasteland like are there neurotic people are there is there self deprecation or self loathing or is everyone just is it the hierarchy of needs been so reduced that everyone is just thinking like okay I gotta I gotta eat
[01:14:05] I gotta kill I gotta survive the thunderdome because even the weasley people in the Mad Max universe are very aggro yeah and everyone's constantly like speaking through playing the dozens at all times I see no one's ever sort of like well you know I tried my hardest
[01:14:19] I feel like Jedediah who's sort of doing his own thing is the closest to someone we might be able like I'm like I could see me doing that like being kind of like a scavenger jerk the scene where they go to his home cave
[01:14:31] that's what I'm thinking of really triggered me though was the guy selling water outside of barter town who Mad Max then tests the water and finds all the radiation he's like what's the problem with that it'll fall out pep in your step it's basically five hour energy
[01:14:47] and so I was like that's fucking dick all that shit is so good it's the barter town shit I love the thunderdome but then yes the revelation is that blaster has down syndrome he's like you know he's not the aggressive cruel villain that he appeared to be exactly
[01:15:07] he's just got caught cosplaying Bioshock when the fallout hit and was stuck in that look forever and Bioshock's so inspired by the look of master blaster right yeah sure and also you know like deep sea diving but let's go with master blaster
[01:15:19] yeah let's go with master blaster I should do that on my video game podcast yeah and so and Max is just like I'm out yeah I'm out I'm not I'm not fucking doing this but he announces it to the audience which is a
[01:15:31] trick to me anti-entity like no no yeah I fulfilled my part of the deal right and then blaster is like deal what are you talking about deal everyone sort of turns on him he's like I'm not doing this I'm not doing the killing so
[01:15:47] wait can I just uh you gotta get gov robinski on the podcast I think you can get him talking about the Bioshock movie that he never made now is the time I love to hear about that I feel like he's been attached to multiple video game movies
[01:15:57] and I want Karen on sobbing quietly in the corner not speaking I just want to hear I would love to talk about Bioshock because Bioshock is not that I wouldn't love to hear about it filmable in a way that most video game movies are not anyway
[01:16:11] anti has blaster she just kills blaster she she finishes the job she crossbows him Max get out of here yeah get on a horse you don't belong here right exactly you're going that away yeah five stars for this movie so great
[01:16:25] I'm just like this is the bad one but I also know I do know that there are these Ewok esque kids on the horizon once again I'm quote-unquote not gonna like and I like the kids this is the thing
[01:16:37] I turn I like the kids just fine wait can we just before the moment is passed completely can we have a moment if not of silence of quiet contemplation for the random extra outside of the Thunderdome who gets murdered very often one of my favorite extras
[01:16:53] uh just what a way to go and how excited that guy must have been when he was picked by George Miller to be the guy on the cage who gets killed featured extra man hey also the scepter carrying shoulder pad scarecrow creepy guy you mean your uncle
[01:17:09] yeah a lot of shoulder pads wait would you get residuals Griffin if you were the extra who's killed outside of huh extras don't get residuals right but I featured extra I think featured extras don't I think you need to turn around over yeah get a harpoon
[01:17:25] get a harpoon dialogues the crossover because there's like been I've been on sets where like people will be improvising line specifically referencing certain extras like naming them and then they'll get to the point where they're like can we let him say something
[01:17:41] and it becomes the debate of do we have the room in the budget to bump him up to respond to the ad lib and say yes but what constitutes dialogue so if I was impaled by something and went ah and then fell off
[01:17:53] let's say a thunder dome right with that be enough to constate possibly but certainly if it was like no it would immediately crossover I wonder if it has to I wonder if you take it have to go Miriam Webster and go like ah is not in
[01:18:07] here you know it has to be can I play this word in the New York Times spelling I guess that's part of the question but I think I think it's usually any sort of clear verbalization that isn't in a crowd okay yeah ma'am X beyond thunder sure
[01:18:21] he goes beyond thunder this is actually the point at which he goes beyond that's when the title starts to make itself bad ass would it be if he went like a Houshou Shen route and dropped the title card when he left that would be very
[01:18:33] cool that would I mean I'm always a fan of like the 45 minutes in dropping I believe what's it called long days journey tonight does it ever and with great purpose no 100% but man that move is always so
[01:18:47] I guess I'm just used to pull that it would drop the title card like 30 minutes into an episode or what I like there's a there's show departed it gets 40 minutes it's not 40 departed has three full sequences though and they're long they're long last life in the
[01:19:01] universe a lot of Asian films sure with elastic 20 there's another big one I'm forgetting that we've covered on this podcast where the title card comes really late but whatever I'm not going to hold us up on it I do think
[01:19:13] once again I just want to stop it like it's a hard thing to do with this it is one of these there's gotta be a letterbox list there eternal sunshine also takes a long time before I guess the first title card
[01:19:23] but this is one of those movies that most of its issues are only matter of comparison where it's like a you're in a franchise with a bar set so high where the second movie totally like trumps the first movie and then you also have a third movie in
[01:19:39] which the first 40 minutes are so fucking insanely good that it's almost impossible to live up to them that I like everything that happens for the rest of this movie it just doesn't rock my fucking socks exactly that's how I feel but also I don't want the dipping
[01:19:55] quality of the second half to elevate the first half too much I mean I think the first half of this movie is very solid yeah and again I'm just talking about in terms of the greater Mad Max universe on its own would be even more impressive
[01:20:07] but it's not it doesn't quite reach the heights of some of the other movies okay he's in the desert he's got a dang mask on his head he's on a horse fair point I'm gonna I'm gonna say something that's gonna incur the the wrath
[01:20:23] of a certain sub sect of blankies but I don't care we have pissed them off before I'm gonna piss them off again I stand by it from the moment Max comes upon this tribe of kids I go this is already superior to hook
[01:20:35] oh yeah this is the exact dynamic Spielberg is trying to achieve with the lost boys in hook that feels so forced to me in that film so like 90s tubular everything has to be an action figure they skateboard am I remembering board yeah of course they do
[01:20:51] they do every fucking thing it's weird because I think they do the backpack dance they do trends that wouldn't exist for another 20 years they throw down pogs yes I agree with you I think the problem with hook in general is what you're talking about
[01:21:07] is that everything's a little too clean yeah you know the kids feel like they're you know what like that they've all been cast out of toy commercials you know which Spielberg himself admits he's the first one to throw this criticism at
[01:21:21] himself no I'm sorry it cannot be a hot take to say that hook has some problems single one of them looks at Rufio and says he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth yeah which is should have been the first line of dialogue in almost everything
[01:21:33] but I also I think there was genuine chaotic energy to these children you know there's a sense of and I like their dialect I like how weird they sound I like the weird way of talking future speak this is like I think maybe the best
[01:21:47] out of all four it's up there it's so good I really are delivering on it but yes the kids are good they're doing like a really direct precursor to the true true of Claude Atlas oh yes that is a very good point yeah but I do think
[01:22:03] you know there's something to even if this is the most sort of a cute section of any mad max film sure this still is the only time I've seen someone build a society of children like this in a genre film that feels aggressively dangerous
[01:22:21] you know in the way that kids governing other kids would actually we were dangerous for sure it's half lost boys and it's half like Lord of the Flies but it's also like this is the language that kids would speak if kids raised each other
[01:22:37] but I think he gets a little bit caught up in he snagged between wanting to tell a softer story that is a little bit more permeable for the max character to like have that sort of coming out as he's described it towards his better the better
[01:22:51] angels of his nature and also wanting to maintain the savagery of the wasteland right and I actually think that while I well there's truth in what you're saying I feel like max's evolution would have been better served by a more violent society of kids
[01:23:07] well he had to help curb through his own sort of reform ways I think in a much smaller more focused but also subtler way his entire relationship with the feral child gets at all of these ideas better and more economically right and that is a more dangerous violent
[01:23:25] child right this feels a little toy story 3 where it's like we're gonna it's the same theme as toy story 2 but we're just gonna hit it harder and let it reach its natural conclusion rather than introducing a fully new idea and you have the same ending pretty much
[01:23:41] not to jump ahead but road warrior and beyond thunder don't have the same ending where it's like one of the children narrating what their life was like for the years after max land and then the Randy Newman song for a thunder dome comes in you got a thunder
[01:23:57] I love the opening song with rules in this movie it is dare I say better than you can't let yourself you can't throw yourself away we can't let you throw yourself away I think that's a great song and I'm gonna fight you on that
[01:24:09] it's so much better Griffin it is absolutely insane it's a great song utterly vile garbage I adore Randy Newman I own multiple Randy Newman albums I like a lot of his Pixar songs he literally got on and I support
[01:24:23] the man he should play on the Oscars every year for all I care but he's literally just got on stage and was like like 40 times what is going on formal letter of apology to Mary Steenburgen for being nominated but it was not the worst song nominated
[01:24:39] she should have won maybe it was that was the most egregious novel the great first song is the no offense to Diane Warren but that was the worst no offense to Diane Warren who has written the song 12 times for the Oscars before
[01:24:49] is really phoning it in even harder than Randy Newman does here Randy Newman song is truly it's a perfect song there was at least craftsmanship in the Diane Warren song even if it's the same tired craftsmanship can I recite some lyrics for you I can't let you
[01:25:07] I can't let you I can't let you throw yourself away yeah I remember that it's a suicide prevention song for a sport perfect in the movie it's fine like it's great one of my favorite sequences it's a great sequence I was afraid
[01:25:25] they were going to nominate Ballad of Alones of Cowboy which I think is the more traditionally Oscar baby song but is the uncredited song I was happy that they nominated the Forky song they could have nominated neither they could have just nominated Glasgow from Wild Rose
[01:25:39] yeah that should have won I agree with you what one was the Elton John song because and what sealed the deal was the game at the Golden Globes oh but I never want to go we've never won something together and everyone in the audience was like
[01:25:55] oh I guess I'll do that one but also you have just won something together that is why you're on stage at the Golden Globes there's no need to repeat this all over again those things are only useful Golden Globes are the caucuses of awards
[01:26:07] and we need to abolish them they're fucking everything up every year we're always like these don't matter and every year we treat them as if they're life or death and just because like 40 people in Iowa show up to a gym
[01:26:19] to run across the room and be like Tom Steyer bombshell these 10 people this is why our democracy is fucked and I think it starts with ending the Golden Globes we gotta end the Golden Globes that's the first thing we gotta abolish I'm a single issue voter
[01:26:35] my issue is abolish the Hollywood form cancel the millionaires and the billionaires and of course the Golden Globes the foreign gossip journalists yeah I do like the whole captain thing I do like this idea of like even if the story has gotten distorted of course
[01:26:53] if we are to presume that Max has been going through these cycles many times off screen in between the films that we've seen that eventually he would start to build a reputation you know he would become a sort of mythic figure the idea of this savior
[01:27:07] I mean because the painting on the wall is clearly him no 100% even if he was not an airplane pilot I do like the idea though that by the time Fury Road comes around again everyone's just like who's this guy? like the world is just so splintered now
[01:27:23] that every little thing I'm not saying he would be infamous but that enough there would be pockets of the world where people would be like I hear this as a guy who comes and says people well there's something that I'm just like what read this one
[01:27:35] really illuminating interview with George Miller that I've quoted at every time I think he said in this episode but he talks about the dynamic between and this is about the children like the little lost kids talking about the dynamic between knowledge and belief
[01:27:51] and like the faith that they have is a direct sort of negative image of the lack of knowledge that they have and so it's like all has to be balanced out to an equilibrium and they need to have this sort of religious ideology they have around
[01:28:07] the Mad Max character because they have so little hard knowledge about the world around them. There has to be something to justify them getting out of dirt in the morning. And so if you extrapolate that to an entire wasteland of both kids and
[01:28:19] adults who are all looking for something to believe in because they have so little concrete reason for hope it would be so easy for I mean you see how the cult of personalities flourish but it would be that much easier for an abstract figure to have
[01:28:33] a place in everyone's parts of mind Right, the adults tend to congregate around these power structures that build up very quickly around like Titans and Tyrants and Demagogues and whatever but these kids are into the abstract notion
[01:28:49] of we're not going to sign up for what anyone else is selling. We believe that there's someone out there who is setting a template for how we should follow It's just like in my understanding they are the first generation. I mean their parents are on that plane
[01:29:01] we took off from a runway in the industrialized world. This is the first generation of people who know nothing besides the wasteland. But that's what I always like about Mad Max is that it's always kind of like the near-ish future. They never let it advance
[01:29:15] Right. But the idea that you couldn't find that sort of seed of hope that could excite that sort of meaningful change in people who had lived to see the fall of man and has been that jaded by everything that came from it
[01:29:29] You needed people who were born into this like why not hope? Even if it's a hope to go backwards to the future of Tomorrow, Morrowland Because their life hasn't been such a dramatic set of diminishing returns. Having to watch a society collapse. They're just being handed
[01:29:47] a pile of shit and going couldn't we have something better than this? Explain to me why it's not possible to build something better here I like the kids. I do. I like them. I just don't like I say this as a new father
[01:30:01] I just don't know if I like kids in movies anyway. When is a movie better for having children? Bicycle thieves That's one movie. There's good movies with kids obviously. There's one movie that's good with kids There are good movies with kids but often yes, I'm sort of
[01:30:21] taking it on the kids You can't tell that their hands are sticky You can see the viscous the jelly hands man and they're just like they have those voices that are kind of high pitched. They all want things they all want candy and stuff
[01:30:37] I got some tough spoilers for the next couple years of your life but I do feel like narratively kids have certain demands that can sink a lot of movies and we always see it in the third part of trilogies it feels like the Ewoks
[01:30:49] are sort of the kid equivalents who soften things up, tenderize the main characters so they can have that sort of change and I feel like it backfires a lot because kids are really hard to wrangle in these cases I don't hate it
[01:31:05] but the movie does kind of slow down and I'm just sort of like I'm just kind of staring into space for some of these things This is also the only Mad Max movie that suddenly has a 30-40 minute stretch without any action sequences
[01:31:17] It's not just that they're kids I don't like that I don't need the sequences I think that's inextricably tied to the kids thing I think that's worked Exactly, but that's the problem But then you associate the two things Exactly, right Because they are happening in this movie
[01:31:35] Mad Max is very D&D in that it's sort of like you go from situation to situation New cast of characters, new mission, new environment What's the deal here? Okay And this is just the least interesting of the locations in all of the Mad Max
[01:31:49] What's a good movie about like a roving gang of kids? Not just like one kid like to think of it in a very recent example Minari which we saw at Sundance has one kid, amazing kid incredible film. What about like a roving gang
[01:32:01] of kids with a majority of kids? Gummo Gummo Okay We got gummo Gang of kids having Bugsie Malone Yeah I feel like this should be my question And I can't think of one Because when you were a kid you stand kid actors
[01:32:19] You were sort of like that could be me Well I simultaneously stand and reviled them for taking the jobs that I thought I deserved without auditioning I was constantly waiting for someone to notice me on a street corner sucking a lollipop and be like kid you got it
[01:32:35] A lot of that Yeah I did but now I'm trying to think We talked about this recently, I forget if it was on mic or off mic with Emily Ashida mother Blank Little rascals movie Yeah Little rascals, right
[01:32:51] I mean they exist, my brain immediately goes to little giants Anything with the word little in the title But that's when you get like that's teams They came out the same year but yeah Teams is different than gangs I feel like We're talking about like sports league movies
[01:33:03] I'm a huge D2 fan I'm a big heavyweights fan Yeah, I liked D2 a lot D2, I mean despite the fact that it is slanderous towards Iceland It is Everyone who lives there is evil creedness They don't even have They totally just span a globe and were like
[01:33:21] Who are the villains? Iceland Iceland is the loveliest place on earth I forgot that Iceland was the villain I guess they were just like Russia is tired It's the 90s now We need new sort of northern I don't think there's a single Icelandic hockey player in the NHL
[01:33:37] No It's not a big country They say Iceland is very nice It's cold Iceland is more green in England But their little giants think is more weighted towards the kids and the dynamics between them and they're also younger Whereas Mighty Ducks soon to be rebooted
[01:33:57] with Emilio Estevez exhumed and Lauren Graham is more about like the it's more of a way back you got the kids but really it's about the coach Yeah You know what's another one I really like The big green The redheaded kid or the larger kid Lauren Bacall
[01:34:19] You don't remember Lauren Bacall plays the goat in the big green Yes I know which kid you're talking about and now forgetting his name He could have been a Judd Apatow superstar if he had come along just a couple years later Well Judd Apatow does heavyweights
[01:34:35] and it feels like that kid just missed right Anyway This section is not that much fun to talk about No and they kind of just world built for you They tell you about the flight captain who they think he is and like I don't know their whole story
[01:34:51] And it's a lot of them getting ready then getting closer It is I don't like seeing Max really get close to them He counts one of them during the presentation Well technically this is kind of a paradise lost Don't leave They have like vegetation
[01:35:09] They might even be able to hunt animals I don't know It's one thing if this is where Max ends up at the end of a film He shows up and they're like we want to leave and he's like don't leave I'm just like yeah Max is right
[01:35:23] Kids don't know This gave me an Ewok vibe Yes it's very Ewok and it's a couple years post Return of the Jedi And you are right that like they exist to soften up our characters we don't really need to soften up I like how Max teaches lessons
[01:35:41] by shooting a gun That's great and that's fine He's disciplining and he's teaching them important life lessons It's a cool school What did you guys think about the moment when one of the kids says he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth I like that part
[01:35:57] I thought that was a real pick me up Two things I'd like to bring up just because I think we haven't discussed them yet in this episode One the kids have a little bit of an Ewoky vibe and two there is that line where the kid says
[01:36:09] you got words from ass to your mouth Got the kid great design He's cool Savannah, one of the kids and a bunch of other kids leaves She's really good She's very good And one of them gets stuck in a sinkhole so Max has to go fucking get him
[01:36:27] and then we have to have our final act They don't save that one That one goes down the sinkhole Another life lesson Which actually comes up all the time in cartoons where like stay away from quicksand Sometimes kids sink That would be such a bad way to go
[01:36:43] Just slowly suffocating under Can you imagine just getting sucked in the quicksand never getting to tell Ray the thing you want to tell her That you're also... I'm Force Sensitive I don't really know how you think about the Force
[01:36:55] but I just sort of like a kind of a mental vibe recently Ray also I want to make sure you understand the Palpatine's actually a clone of Palpatine's a clone and Exegol and Scythcultus have built the ships
[01:37:05] Don't worry about it, you'll learn about it on a Star Wars tweet And if you're going to kiss Kylo, I get it it's more of a platonic respect thing than a sexual thing Also Ray, I strongly recommend that you download the Fortnight DLC
[01:37:17] We can thread the needle between We're not threading it, it's probably not the right term here. We can connect the dots between Star Wars and Mad Max What we're talking about On the Wikipedia page for Mad Max Thunderdome, which is of course my second resource for information
[01:37:35] after I've exhausted the IMDB tribute page. It says at the end that friend of the pod Chris Weitz is cited as having Mad Max Thunderdome and not any other Mad Max, specifically this film as an inspiration for him. He's cited this as one of his major influences
[01:37:53] This one. He couldn't have made About a Boy without it No, he was making in 2014 a show that never got off the ground that had something to do with post-apocalyptic children that would have reversed the curse I am sure about entertainment properties based around roving gangs of kids
[01:38:09] But Yeah, he is the one filmmaker cited as being inspired by this movie I'd love to talk to Chris about it I thought about DMing him last night and then I just clicked a link and it has at length his thoughts about why he mentioned that
[01:38:23] and I was like, well, I guess that's what he had to say You know what? I'm going to say it right here At this moment, let's cut to an audio clip of Chris Weitz telling us some of his thoughts on Beyond Thunderdome Hi guys
[01:38:37] So I'm going to be quick because I might be interrupted by a child at any moment Also, I thought that my message for the fifth anniversary thing was probably too long and legubrious so I'm going to try to keep this short
[01:38:51] So it was probably some bullshit I was saying while I was on tour, on a book tour trying to get people interested in this series of books that I was writing which ironically enough was about a virus that killed off everybody except young people
[01:39:03] Anyway, that was a waste of three years of my life Everything I can say about Beyond Thunderdome has actually been superseded by Fury Road which is a much better movie but also brings up some of the things I liked about Beyond Thunderdome So here they are quickly
[01:39:21] One of them in terms of movie making is the importance of subsidiary characters Each person has his own particular kind of swagger or attitude to the world I think another thing would be that I'm really interested in temporary cities or cities that are
[01:39:37] built up from nothing and that doesn't reflect any movies that I've made really But it is sort of reflecting what I'm interested in my life, like Burning Man for instance which is sort of a big part of my life where I met my wife is influenced
[01:39:53] by Mad Max to a great extent In fact, in some kind of slightly overblown ways For instance there is a Thunderdome there where people actually do fight and they don't kill each other but they generally manage to break somebody's arm or rupture testicles or things like that
[01:40:11] And I think that the most important part is probably in terms of the stuff that I write which is that I think that Barter Town has its own logic to it its own kind of conventions and culture and modes of power that explain why things are going on
[01:40:27] And as I find myself writing, especially some of these Disney's things actually weirdly like Cinderella or what else am I working on Anyway, I start to think about what is the social economy and the cultural economy of this place How does it work? What is the political economy
[01:40:45] of a movie of the culture in a movie And I think that's something that's incredibly well realized although not overly explained in George Miller's movies and that's pretty great Another thing I think they always do really well is to tailor the geography
[01:41:03] of things to the necessity of the plot without it being too obvious A lot of comics movies are kind of there and back again or in a straight line or looping around from one place to another and the places are exactly the way that they need
[01:41:17] to be to make the hero do the things that he needs to do or she needs to do I think that's about it for now. Thank you guys In under three minutes. Ray, bye bye And hey, if he didn't weigh in that's okay. We still like him
[01:41:33] If he was busy or something But hopefully, you just heard him talk about the influence this movie had on him I did pretty good as an interviewer, right? I think Uh oh. And of course he mentioned that he's going to come on to do a on the Patreon
[01:41:49] a live commentary for About a Boy Amastropies. Such a good movie I continue to think of my life in 30 minute units of time. Yeah. No man that's an island That's a big panic attack movie for me Rachel Vice. That's a good warm bath movie
[01:42:03] for me because it's got the right amount of sadness to do it too. It doesn't feel like hollow placation, you know? Shake your ass Watch yourself. Show me what you're working with. Mystical Yes, correct. That's a Mystical joint.
[01:42:15] Yes. Alright so come on the final sequence has a big train They get this thing on track. Which is really cool It has some Paddington 2 energy It does but the difference is Master, I like seeing master in this new light You know where he's more of a Bephuffle
[01:42:27] Professor type. But there's one key There's one key difference and only one that I can think of between the third act of Beyond Thunderdome and Paddington 2 Which is that everything that happens in the third act of Paddington 2 is brilliantly set up in the first act
[01:42:41] Whereas in the third act of Beyond Thunderdome, my big problem with it is just it feels like we have sort of shifted rails to another movie entirely. It is funny that they're just like, yeah there's a train. Yeah
[01:42:53] And it's just like I want to be on board with this action sequence but it's hard to sort of get It's great. The choreography of it was great I love the grace note and I do want to talk about like the 80s, back when
[01:43:03] movies you know to get to just think about the good old days. Like back when movies like this actually took their time and had moments for like expressions of humanity that wonderful scene where he's standing outside and he's helping the kids play the record player and it's the
[01:43:17] lesson recorded or the French lesson and it sort of blows their minds, expands their worlds, this idea of other languages It's great. It's the kind of thing that would be never even conceived of in a movie that was made today
[01:43:29] by the composer of this kind written in a writer's room and so on. But it's just like what movie are we in at this point? It's just all over the place There are kind of three separate movies in this and they kind of go from one
[01:43:41] to the other. They don't feel disconnected but they're also not Well that's what I'm saying, like the other Mad Max films are so much on the road and the first two-thirds of this movie has almost no vehicular shit. It's true. Right?
[01:43:55] So like first act is pretty much the freedom world building No you're right, it is. And it is lacking a little bit You do like high speed Which from the moment Jedediah takes his vehicle that's pretty much out of the equation Right? Then act two is
[01:44:13] Max learns to care again which is foot off the gas for too long Yeah. And then act three is here's the Mad Max vehicle chase that you wanted. Only this time It's on track. I feel like that shot of the train going straight at the camera is like
[01:44:29] the Mad Max shot that everyone thinks of all the time. Now was it just me or did you feel like the train was going to come through Yeah, I just jumped off my couch It was terrifying It was that Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty cool
[01:44:43] and I like that Antti gets a sort of nice ending note You know versus the other Mad Max films Exactly. I wanted to say I feel like Master Blaster is a totally different character when he's got a suit on even just the way he's like
[01:44:57] carrying himself. I don't know He was like a master of a pig poop factory and now he's all like polished looking I just found that weird You know it's like that thing where like sometimes old people who've been married for decades
[01:45:09] and then one of them dies and the other one's like Fuck, I gotta figure out a new personality now You know? They were a unit they were like so inextricably tied that like he cannot be the same guy without his big body But do you think that there's
[01:45:23] kind of a resonance with Master Blaster between Miller and his producing partner? I mean, I think possibly I think that's part of... There is the moment where these two characters who at presentation just feel like another element of like chaotic Mad Max world building. The moment that Blaster
[01:45:45] Blaster's the bigger one Master is the smaller one Blaster is unmasked and everyone sees his vulnerability and Master jumps into the Thunderdome is sort of like the Rancor Keeper where it's like this isn't just like a survival thing like I care about this person
[01:46:01] I protect this person, I am emotionally tied to this person. We are inextricably connected I wouldn't be surprised if because Miller always talks about that he was like they were very much films that were made by the two of us. The fact that I have the director
[01:46:15] credit and he does not know how to make a film and he is very much a genius from the reality of how we were. But also what better metaphor or visual expression for the relationship between a director and a producer than a tiny person
[01:46:29] riding a much bigger person and controlling them I don't know. And he has to pick himself off the floor put on a little suit, get in a helicopter figure out who he is, get a little plane and then I don't know
[01:46:41] but like this is kind of I guess the last thing I want to try to make sure we talk about the film that I have here is I do think the Mad Max films are such an interesting case study in different ways that you can build a franchise
[01:46:55] whereas I think like the thought of a franchise has become so binary now it is so much most people trying to follow the exact same model but using Earl like that thing like the scene of him playing the front record
[01:47:07] for the children or something that would never come out of a writer's room but I also get so bummed out when post-Rise Skywalker, I saw so many people say well the problem is that they didn't strategize and blueprint out the entire trilogy before
[01:47:19] they started filming the first one which I don't necessarily think is the right approach but now because Marvel has done that and to be fair, that's an ever-evolving thing. It's not like Kevin Feige had 22 fucking scripts written out you see those movies adjusting
[01:47:35] on the fly. He knew in advance exactly how much money all those films are going to make in China and what characters were going to be popular exactly like he's like fucking changing the levels constantly in the edit based on what's working
[01:47:47] and what is. Well Ryan Johnson's time and time again when he was writing and directing Far and Away I think you can universally agree on without any ranker or dissension whatsoever, the best film in that trilogy he was really on his
[01:47:59] own with no guidance from the greater Lucasfilm system. Philosophically I like the fact that Kathy Kennedy was like our approach is not Marvel our approach is hire the right person let them tell the story they want to tell. But then they hired the wrong person
[01:48:11] They hired the wrong person twice and then the other problem was I think that she was so beholden to this like every other year thing which is just not enough time to be able to like lick your finger stick it up to the air
[01:48:23] and figure out how the public's responded to the thing rather than reacting sort of based solely on immediate fear there's not enough time for the response to settle. But I also just think that sort of writer's room mentality that like a film franchise has to be seen
[01:48:37] as like a season of television and you look at the Mad Max movies and they're all kind of like the same variations on the same story told over and over again with one character who's not going through conventional growth and it is just every time like
[01:48:51] changing the world around him to some degree making a bigger change in state Even though he wins the kids kind of win him over and he helps him out and then they go find like Ruin Sydney and they're gonna live in it or whatever
[01:49:03] he then departs like that in the classic Maxi he's then like all right I'm gonna wander it's like the trip movies you know they go to a different city somewhere they eat their way through it and then they go
[01:49:13] the separate ways and bring the same problems to the next There's a cyclical nature to it and then there are variations every time it's interesting to see how they build the things that are standard to the franchise interesting to see which things they remove or add
[01:49:25] but I just think like not everything needs to be a saga in the way that I think people are conditioned now to believe they need to be and in a way that bums me out where people have to act like the whole time we had
[01:49:39] this plan and this is the big story we're telling Mad Max can just kind of be this thing where like you can watch any one of these four movies and they work as a movie on their own as a complete meal
[01:49:49] It's really symptomatic I think of like reddit culture right now and the idea of I mean Westworld 2 season 2 will always be the nadir of that for me and writing for the mystery of it all and the breadcrumbs includes but this idea of the you see with the Pixar
[01:50:05] unifying theory and all that shit which may have predated the sort of current reddit boom of people talking about movies this way but it is everything is sort of a puzzle to solve right and not a story to enjoy but there are and I'm very guilty
[01:50:17] over the years in my own writing in particular talking about being a little sanguine about the way that these sort of larger scale movies used to be and the grace with which they were told but watching something like this even at its most mediocre moments there's such beauty
[01:50:35] the blue of the sky in this movie is so deep serrullian shade that is completely arresting even when you're bored by anything else your eyes can sort of wander through that there are those quiet moments the sound design I mean there's so many textural things
[01:50:51] about this movie that would be plastic in a modern conception of this and also and I just elay some controversy in the ground for your forthcoming Fury Road episode which I don't know if you've recorded yet but one thing I think this movie does
[01:51:07] that or does not do that Fury Road does too much for me is it actually is at peace with the pace of which the action flows and doesn't speed ramp it no I like the speed ramp it which like 70% of Fury Road is
[01:51:21] framed ahead and not just it's a little irritating to me that's Chuck Jones energy but I do think yes I mean you don't find those smaller moments you don't find that sort of peace and tone and air to a film if you are so concerned
[01:51:35] with the sort of franchise building of it about setting up the next film and paying off the things from the last film and these movies are so much closer to like Charlie Chaplin movies where it's like half of those films he's ostensibly playing
[01:51:49] the same character but he is not bothering himself with having to go like was this before or after he makes the blind woman think that he's a rich man like none of that matters there is a growth to this character across four films because he's gotten older
[01:52:03] but also it's built in a way where then a different actor can take over the fourth one and it doesn't disrupt the apple cart and he's not doing an impression but he's also not doing something totally different but you wouldn't
[01:52:13] think that was true you know what I mean like when Fury Road was coming out it's not like I was like they need Gibson yeah I was more kind of like you know isn't that in the way like why does he need to do more Mad Max
[01:52:23] in the same interview I've been citing that Ann Belson did he says some kind of and I don't hold this against them it was a different world back then but he says some rather unenlightened things by modern standards about when she asked if he could ever imagine
[01:52:37] a Mad Max movie that was really led by a woman and what like the female role is in this kind of story and he sort of poofoos the idea that it makes sense that you can put a round hole in the square peg there
[01:52:49] and obviously came around to that in a big way but it's really interesting just to chart that progression to see how just sitting on that idea and drinking in the world for 20 some odd years 30 years at that point would have changed his mind
[01:53:05] yeah it's a benefit to the fact that I mean you know there were earlier attempts where he wanted the film to get made and it didn't work out and that was to his benefit but also the fact that he didn't immediately go well I need a fourth one
[01:53:15] I think this film you know disappointed a little bit at the box office only in relation to the budget was so much bigger than two but it still was a good performer and Mel Gibson only got bigger and you have to imagine if three years later
[01:53:29] after lethal weapon two or whatever he had said I have a Mad Max 4 script it'd go right away anything you want you want to keep Mel in house but he didn't he grew as a person he explored other things
[01:53:39] he came back to it when the time was right and he also came back to it with a very non-literal kind of a sense of how to continue a franchise because it's just like this is just sort of a continuum this is a world it's a story dynamic
[01:53:53] it's kind of a bond logic in that sense where it's just like you know you have the circumstances that you need it doesn't really need to but now Bond has fallen prey to every movie has to explain why the past movies were connected
[01:54:03] to everything else by the time this episode comes out we will know if they have rectified damage done by Spectre we'll know whether or not yet enough time to die but I just to balance out the cost of this movie George Miller does get five cents
[01:54:17] every time someone mentions the word thunder dome in any context so he's doing fine let's play the box office game I just want to very quickly say I've said this before the other approach to franchising that I love that I wish someone would steal today is the original
[01:54:31] play of the apes where every movie has a different lead character and that's the way that they grow rather than putting the same character through the same near-to-trial over and over again the box office game let's play the box office game July 12 1985 number one
[01:54:43] movie at the box office no number two number one is I have to imagine one of the biggest movies of the year very big enduring hit yes number one the number one film of 1985 do you know that 1985 or my way off your I don't know
[01:55:03] it wasn't nineteen so I can't remember I think it's 84 but is it Spielberg interesting it is 84 it is a temple is it a franchise film at all it launches a three-part series Oh Beverly Hills cop no that's a 4 8 4 yeah that is number 15
[01:55:23] of the box office having still playing well okay so it launches a little a little franchise yeah a little you know it has two sequels and I suppose people occasionally would have floated more but it's never come to pass it's never come to pass Ben you look like
[01:55:39] you're burning never discuss it but it's highly likely that we will it's a major like cultural sort of property three movies three movies and their major cultural properties and tell me about the movie situation in this of course what a dummy I am
[01:55:55] sure what a dummy you are what a dummy I am number one back to the future two weeks in it's made 32 million dollars but on its way to 212 yeah humongous fucking humongous movie number two is Thunderdome which opens to 10 pretty good you know and tops out at 36
[01:56:15] yeah it's like triple its budget it did fine it just didn't do that kind of Mad Max like most profitable small the other two were notorious for how much fucking profit I think it also was not as big a hit in Australia as the other
[01:56:27] one you know Thunderdome should have left standing as like a children's playground yeah sure yeah remember when we were kids like everything you slapped geodesic on anything and I'm just like give me it but like the Popeye town in Malta you know this at the Popeye
[01:56:41] set is still standing and you can just go visit it and it's in Malta Malta right oh I was I was gonna say you know the last time I was here the matrix four news broke in the middle of this episode
[01:56:51] and I thought that it was I had fingers crossed that Popeye to it was gonna pet no it was gonna be a Brewster McLeod to announce the number this right Robert Alvin back to the wreck number three I'm gonna make you refresh deadline
[01:57:03] at the end of this episode number three at the box office okay is how to define it's sort of a sci-fi family comedy hmm like sort of like a kind of like a movie you could watch at school right like so is it a Joe
[01:57:19] Dante movie uh no it's not although I would have loved to have seen him make this movie I feel like he'd make a better version this movie is a big hit if this movie was on TV and a commercial came out it'd be hearing a commercial oh cuckoo
[01:57:33] well done good clue Ron Howard's cacoon spawns a sequel which does spawn a sequel does win an Oscar visual effects supporting act yeah two Oscars right but Don Amici and uh kind of a weird win in my mind I don't think he's the best
[01:57:49] performance in that movie by Anderson no it's a very weird win and of course also notoriously got a DGA nomination it was one of those when it yeah it was weird that movie does not hold up great great score score James Horner listen to it all
[01:58:03] if you think about it they kind of are just like big egg people yeah sure which is cool I love you don't even have to think that hard it's pretty much that is what is going on now number four at the box office is the second
[01:58:15] most successful film with 1985 oh it's a sequel it's an action film first blood Rambo to first blood Rambo colon first blood part two right yeah that's how that's how it goes yeah sorry I'm in which they were like let's take this like pretty sensitive like
[01:58:33] dark thriller yeah and just turn into a movie where it's still on just like pumps people full of bullets right because it's well so shirtless it's first blood then Rambo colon first blood part two and then it's Rambo three we've been over this and then Rambo and
[01:58:47] then John Rambo I believe that's right I can't remember the fifth one but yeah I think they're called Rambo and then John Rambo yeah okay have you seen Rambo first blood part two sure yeah I would watch it on TV great at school right next to the
[01:58:59] no it's called the last one's called Rambo last blood isn't it I don't yes yes I think you're right yes all right number five is it's a western it's a good movie good movie from a great director hmm relatively early in his directing career is Walter hell
[01:59:17] no and I guess it's not that it's like 10 years into his directing career he's just had a long direct it's a western it's not Silverado no but am I close is that kind of thing no not at all not really
[01:59:29] not close this is more of like a slightly dark revisionist western master of the genre so he's a master of westerns he does he does a lot of westerns he's done several it's not a cast million ways to die in the west no
[01:59:43] you said master of the genre that's how I got there Ben's not gonna know it I like this movie you like this movie yeah I like a lot of movies this guy made like a lot of movies this guy made you did I do
[01:59:57] okay revisionist early in the career it but it's like early but like later in it's not it's it's not a Clint it is a it is a clans horses are involved hmm it's a pale rider there we go it's a good one
[02:00:11] have you seen that one I've not seen he's a preacher yeah it's cool but it's just one of those very like classic stripped down Clint sort of slightly neo westerns pre under unforgiven where like for some reason even though we would do okay
[02:00:27] and I think critics would kind of say like yeah good job like there just wasn't that like swell of like here it is he's made his like western the like definitive western can I ask you two questions sure do they in this film railroad him
[02:00:41] or is it the other I would say it's more that there's a my guilty lock like there's like a sweet town a little town and greedy minors are trying to like take it over and he like protects them sounds like maybe they're
[02:00:55] trying to they are kind of trying to try to mine car Kim well and five comedy because you're right because like even in those what it's like pale rider right that's a little more of like you know these poor
[02:01:05] guys are trying to get they're going to get taken over by the greedy people and like high plane strifter or something like that is more like where he's like I'm a monster right you shouldn't be near when people are like I like you and he's like no
[02:01:15] I suck fuck me yeah it's true yeah yeah and often he'll combine yes like you know if he's in the movie even if he's trying to help people and they're like well thanks and he's like don't thank me I suck goodbye please punch me pale rider
[02:01:33] but you know what it's funny that you mentioned Silverado because that is debuting at number seven oh wow you've also got explorers with Ethan Hawk right which is a Joe Dante film kids movie yeah interesting you also have Saint Elmo's fire the sort of like
[02:01:49] which is right it's sort of the idea where they're just like let's just do another breakfast club but like it's not a sequel it just kind of sort of has like a lot of the same cast and they're older and
[02:02:01] they're old but you know what I mean like it is that weird sort of like spiritual sequel that has no actual relation that breath pack shit was strong yes and then also another movie we mentioned some other movies the Goonies is it number 10 the good news flash
[02:02:15] at number 11 oh my boy and Beverly Hills Cobb number 15 there's this line of Fletcher he goes he's like scammed his way into like a country club and the guy takes his order and he goes I'll have a steak sandwich and steak sandwich I never mentioned
[02:02:33] that's good like to drink never he's gonna take sandwich he's gonna get one blended or like thank you for being here my pleasure hey what if you're going beyond going beyond the Thunderdome I needed a new dad is going beyond the Thunderdome
[02:02:51] I feel like I've been in the Thunderdome for the last three months but I'm waiting to go beyond is there anything you want to plug like starting a family starting family it's a great idea if you're looking for purpose and lost and have little money and just
[02:03:05] but want to ensure that you will be panicked about everything beyond the power of your control for the rest of your time on this mortal coil starting a family recommended does it take away from existential crisis or how to exponentially in fact yeah
[02:03:20] I've been feeling a little too chill recently like it's hard to thread the needle between wanting to care about something other than yourself right but not wanting to care about something so much that it drives you into early insanity and I've
[02:03:32] definitely fallen on the latter side of the fence but so that's a starting a family starting a family your baby is so beautiful and cute I love my bun he's a little bun he's a little bun Mr. Bun I wrote a song this morning that was called
[02:03:50] It Goes Fuck It it was really good I write a song every morning for him and it was like you write a new one every morning yeah every morning at 6 a.m. when he wakes me up screaming in his face and it was like you you just peed
[02:04:04] but I thought it was a poop but I thought it was a poop I like this friend I thought you just peed I liked that a lot well thank you for being here yeah plug in plug my baby fighting in the water it's also right I have reviews
[02:04:24] Indie wire the continued existence of humankind I always have to do his plugs for him blank check with Griffin and David that's plug in blank check thank you for joining the 5 timers club and thank all of you for listening of course please remember to rate, review, subscribe
[02:04:42] thanks to Andrew Guto Lee Montgomery for our theme song Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork tune in next week for The Witches of Eastwick fantastic and on that's right witch names Darryl Van Horne never rub another man's witches we're gonna have fun and
[02:05:08] go to patreon.com blank check for some real nerdy shit or if you want to say some real nerdy shit go to blankies.red.com and as always David I want you to load up deadline and let's hope that we're getting the
[02:05:24] early good luck bump tell me what the top headline is on deadline Super Tuesday Slugfest XGNC chair Donna Presil tells R&C boss to quote go to hell on Fox News blames Russia Ron and McDaniel calls Dems quote hopelessly divided why does deadline write like cable news recap
[02:05:42] yeah this fucking sucks I will say the first bit of movie news is uh that's a podcast first McLeod 2 first McLeod 2 beyond Thunder Cloud business film uh exclusive a quiet places to a quiet place to Andrew Foreman Brad Fuller team with Chad Jahelsky for Paramount Fast Car Vehicle
[02:06:04] so they're gonna make a car movie I guess?