Blank Check with Griffin & David - Mad Max

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

Witness Blank Check because this week, Griffin and David ride towards Valhalla and into a new mini series on the films of George Miller! Together they examine Miller’s medical background, the early camera and stunt work of Mad Max that Miller would continue to develop and refine, and more.

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check They say people don't believe in podcasts anymore Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're going to give them back their podcasts.

Now, here's what I want to ask you right away. How bad is your Australian accent? How can it be so bad? It's fine. I worked on it a lot. It's fine. Your accent's fine. Question you're going to ask me.

Clinking glass. The unrated extended edition of Big Mama's colon like father like son. Sure, the third film. What do you think the subtitle was for the unrated edition? You know how it's sort of like too hot for school. Unrated and out of control. Right. Let me tell you, it's six minutes longer.

It's six. A gentleman's six minutes longer and they're six rowdy minutes they're rowdy okay i have to assume it's some play on the word dress you're wrong really think think stupider think what's the size is it size what's like what's the name of the movie bigger yeah but the other word mama so can you do something with that here we go mom rated it's the mother load edition oh i think that's bad i think all the other things i guessed are funnier um i yeah i agree with you but i think with that one they decided to not take the let's go with the funniest option a lot of the times i think like undressed and

unrated is yeah here's the thing apparently it mostly just adds a dance sequence like it claims it's unrated but it doesn't actually add offensive material they just add deleted scenes that are like you can add anything and say it's unrated because you didn't submit it you never submitted it so they can be like oh it's out of control and like what's out of control is that their editor was not there i don't like it like i don't you know anyway it's out of control this sequence is very self-indulgent it's current shape anyway uh can you tell me the final domestic gross that big mama's like you know what actually let's do the box office game for big mama's calling like father like son because we don't have one for madman we don't guys we were talking about martin lawrence's career david and i got in two fights we yes over the quality of bad boys which is not a very good movie right i think bad boys two and

three are both better but i think bad boys one is good i also think that martin lawrence is entering a new era and you dismiss that immediately yeah i'm more just like no i think he'll be in bad boys movies and otherwise we'll relax. But my point was, he hasn't done good work in a long time until the last 12 months he's done two good films, two really good performances.

The combo of him and Beach Bum and Bad Boys is the beginning of something where I'm like, total aberration. It's like when Brady Anderson hit all his home runs that one year. This is why I don't think it's an aberration. And these are going to be boiling hot takes by the time this episode comes out.

Put on gloves! We're recording this on Martin Luther King Day. Bad Boys for Life is ripping up the box office. It is. Right? It is. One of the classic, it overperformed studio estimates.

Yes. You know, yeah. And I saw it Friday night in Times Square and it played like fucking cheap trick at Budokan. People were losing their fucking minds. And I texted you and I said, the only thing I can equate this to was going to see Fast Ampersand Furious opening weekend where

it felt like this movie was like too late. Obviously that's what Will Smith is coming off of. When you see it? I mean, Deadline actually reported that he had a hand in the script and he was like, let's do a Fast and Furious type thing. Everything about it is so Fast and Furious where it's like, it is's like it is so in conversation it was written by dominic terretto he was written by dominic terretto dominic terretto come at wga

but it it's so much is in that vein there's an end credit stinger that is totally ripped from like fast five um it's it's totally in that mode and it's the thing I realized watching this in theaters which I felt watching Ampersand was like oh I didn't realize to how many people this movie is like a classic because they were responding to it as if it was like The Force Awakens

you know and Ampersand is where I got into Fast and Furious and it was almost because I was like oh I didn't realize I cared about these previous movies felt the same way watching Bad Boys for Life very it was almost because I was like oh I didn't realize I cared about these previous movies felt the same way watching Bad Boys for Life very effective film the point I was gonna make

is everyone was taken back by how good Martin Lawrence was in Beach Bum and I think part of that was oh this is him in a totally different gear right

you're used to like the manic motor mouth really like sort of anxious Martin Lawrence and the like the chilled out sort of like more like sort of anxious Martin Lawrence. And like the chilled out sort of like more at peace with himself, Martin Lawrence. That was the bit of the movie though, I will say.

The bit being it's like weirdo people kind of doing almost cameo. Yeah. Like characters. Totally. Right. You know what I mean? Right. So that I view, I go, he's great in this, but maybe that's an aberration.

Yeah. But then I see Bad Boys for Life where they've sort of retrofitted the movie around the fact that martin lawrence isn't who martin lawrence was in the 90s and rather than what i was worried about where it's just gonna be like fuck it's old martin lawrence not keeping up with his old game right instead it's new martin lawrence in a similar vein as beach ball and i'm like i, I kind of like this. I haven't seen it yet. Martin. I, if you ruin bad boys too,

he also is like that. But, but I think bad boys too. You're like, maybe he's lost his fastball. I think you're watching this and you're like, no, Martin's playing golf now.

Like that's my analogy. All right. He's, he can't pitch anymore. Great, great way to start a new mini series. Well, and before we move on,

I just think that if he doesn't want to maybe do movies, I'd be cool with bringing Martin back. The show. The show. Because the show was so good. I mean, it was. Unite the gang. Especially the cast member who sued him for sexual harassment.

We might have to leave that in the past as Martin Lawrence has decided to do oh right old Martin let the past die Lawrence I mean Gina Arnold is doing great yeah I mean I don't know maybe bring it back as an audio drama

anyway anyway new miniseries miniseries yeah hello everybody this is blank check with griffin and david

i'm griffin i'm david sims and this is of course a podcast about filmography it's directors who have massive success early on in their career

and are given a series of blank checks, so to speak, to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Sure.

This is a mini series on the films of George Miller. Yes. Mad Pod Fury Cast. That's what we're going for're going done you don't get to weigh in on this one you don't because we're keeping this one a secret from you my pause wasn't trying to

remember that what i was trying to remember is i think uh george miller has been given some sort of order by the australian government oh i'm sure he has letters he is an ao which is the order of australia like being knighted yeah which is like you know not for full knighting but like you've done a pretty good job okay yeah yeah you know so he's gotten sort of the the similar you know governmental recognition of his artistic it's like you know isn Isn't Australia kind of like, like still like related to the United Kingdom in some way? We have the same monarch. The queen is the queen of Australia.

What do you mean we? How did I actually walk into that? For how much you hate this bit, it is incredible how dumb you are. And I think you're an incredibly intelligent man. How dare you? I think you are an incredibly intelligent, both in dare you? I think you are an incredibly intelligent, both in terms of knowledge, emotional intelligence.

Really smart guy. But you always just fucking lob it up for us, like a slip and slide. You lay it out, you host a town. It's an inherent part of my fucking existence. I can't hide it. You could not have worded that better for us. Australia has the same monarch, queen queen elizabeth is also

the queen of australia obviously australia once belonged to the thankfully mostly defunct british empire and it is a prison uh it was used as a prison oh but i mean of course before then it was a land unconquered with its own peoples who lived happily lived their lives before we arrived and we're like i'm getting a good prison vibe from this old island maybe we could put some prisoners here quick question what do you mean we i grew up in england i'm a british citizen um i should say i think the dutch arrived in australia first i don't actually know all of its um colonial history, but you know,

anyway, it is part of the Commonwealth, which is like the group of nations that is governed. Got the queen on that. I saw that money. It's kind of crazy how the UK just rolled in and we're like, nah, this isn't a country anymore.

This is just a UK spinoff. It's, you don't get to have your own country anymore. This is now just called UK colon jail as if it was like csi miami it is how terrible well also like australia you know it's like terra australis which means in latin like southern land and it was just they were just like what should we call it like i don't know southern island southern land is that fine and everyone was just like yep sounds, sounds good. High five. Can you bring over 10,000 prisoners? People are so bad. Can we turn this into the planet from Alien 3?

It's very strange to think about it. That it was just like, well, it's so far away. Yeah. They won't be able to come back because it's so fucking far away. So, uh, option chose. Like, let's not even figure out what else we could do with this place when you start digging into that history too it gets so bad it's terrible because then it was all this all these men and they needed something to do or they were going to revolt and so then they started sending like like is concubine like inappropriate to say,

but I guess that's essentially what it was. One of my favorite movies of 2019, the Nightingale. Yes. Jennifer Kent is a film that is a really excellent film about sort of the, the ghosts of colonization. I believe. Is that set in Tasmania?

I believe it is. I need to, I think it is. I think to, I think it is. I think that's right. Demon's land. Yes. Yes. But it,

but it is a, it is a very parallel. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Now, before we get into Mad Max, just had this thought.

Sure. I've been getting down with my man, Paul Hollywood on the reg. Okay. You tried to bring up Paul Hollywood on another podcast. I remember this and we were so deep in other that we were like ben what we can't bring in paul hollywood but he's not australian so i know but it's okay so i'm watching we should mention that we're on home turf right now oh right we are at small fine small fine which is ben's apartment of course david has moved he now

lives in a little nicer which is smaller than big nice but a little nicer you haven't officially dubbed it that yet but that is the the on deck title at least like that's the sort of i'm waiting for confirmation when i see with my own eyes ben of course lives in small fine i live in medium messy and that it's pretty well sized it's too messy for me to ever allow anyone to come over i have shot down two different records i wonder if maybe at some point the other question will i ever get shelves i don't know you can hire someone to just handle it for you i know that's sort of i've been working towards that yeah just a contractor just get someone in for a day i don't know yeah i know a guy i think i found a guy okay it's just hard to talk to people oh sure when there's not a mic

around and it's not about movies maybe i have to structure it as a podcast and then i can get the fucking genius idea griffin you should start a podcast where you just have to accomplish like life tasks but you make the episodes about it i have a guest on i'm like so how how does one build shelves and then the end of the episode to find a stud how do you find out if you're healthy or not? And then you just go to the doctors? No, my guest would be a doctor. They would make a house call.

That's the thing. I do it from home. I book guests and ask them, so how do you do this in your profession? And then they just fix me. Okay. Okay. So Paul Hollywood,

been watching the hell out of some British bake-off. They've got so many weird words. and like where i'm literally just like they just said a string of sounds that i don't know what they're saying wait a second what do you mean they well you know like the people across the pond if you will oh i can't even relate i know i can't either i don't know who they look like i I mean, different. If I saw one, I would know it immediately. Yeah,

I know. I feel like I would sense or maybe, I don't know what they smell. I don't know. Anyway, what's your point of, about, I do think though that Australians beat them with weird words.

Oh, sure. For example, this is my favorite. Little kangaroos are called Joey's. Yeah. Yes. See, I know after Matt LeBlblanc i've known that since i was a little kid because my brother's name is joey spin-offs that's why they call them that because they were like kangaroos spun off another kangaroo damn it why don't we call that and they're like best been in australia

if nothing else uh got a fascinating country. Would love to visit it. Yeah. Wish it was like a slightly shorter flight. That's always been my hang up. It's a long ass flight. I bit twice. Yeah. Well, congratulations.

Where have you been? I went. I think you've told me this. I went once for Tick Press. Right. Jesus. That's crazy. Exhausting.

No shit. But you were only there for like 48 hours or whatever, right? Like you were out of there pretty fast. Well, you know, I mean, the bummer is I was like, it was the end of the press tour. Yeah. And I was like, I think went from LA to London to Australia. There's no way you did that. No, I did London to LA to Australia.

So it was New York. That's the, you know, LA is from where you can get to australia but uh i i was filming something else in uh steve coogan's hot air hey massively successful it's coming out this year i believe it came out a year ago no one who noticed all right uh but was filming that then went to london then went to la then did did press there, London press, Australian press. And I was like, if this is the last thing, can I please like, can you make my return flight later? And can you give me two extra nights in a hotel?

So I actually can like enjoy Australia. Yeah. And I was so wiped that I barely, I wandered around a little bit anyway. Um, and then I, my, one of my best friends in middle school moved to Australia. Right. You told me that. And I went to visit him when I was in high school. It's a very long flight.

Very long. It's the longest flight you can do, LA to Sydney. It feels so exotic. Like, I really do want to go. That's a place I just am dying to go, Australia. I like it a lot. Yeah. I think it's really cool.

David, you in college studied Australian film, not exclusively. No, no, no, my friend. No, no, no. You remember basically correctly, but it was New Zealand film. It was an even more niche brand of cinema. I studied it because I had a crush on someone who was taking it. Humble brag. Yeah, I've talked about it on the podcast.

We had to bleep her name because her name is so funny. Oh, you want to do it again we can but we don't have yeah do it i wanted to make sure i wasn't remembering it who i believe is now married and has changed her name and i want to make something very clear without giving any greater clues we're not laughing at her name like oh that name's that means stupid. No, it's not a stupid name. It's just hilarious. And very apropos that I would have had a crush on someone named that. It is. It is the funniest name for David to have a crush on.

Let's put it that way. Did she marry into the family? No, you have to bleep that because that gives it away. Yeah. You have to bleep that, but that's also really funny. And now, anyway anyway so i took

a new zealand cinema class which was great because this would come up in film trivia a lot you would get a lot of obscure sort of osploitation new zealand based films right but that was we never we did not actually study any australian but of course they are related and they do have similar uh genre you know like obviously the sort of Western influence on both, uh, you know, the kind of open prairies of Australia makes sense. You know, New Zealand also made a lot of road movies and stuff like that. A lot of hobbits, obviously,

but no, we did not study Australian film, which is a little more, uh, robust. There's more of it. I feel like, sure.

I mean, New Zealand made a lot of great movies for such a small country. Yes. Population size, but Australia has produced a lot of, uh, well, a lot, a lot of great movies for such a small country. Yes. Population size. But Australia's produced a lot of filmmakers. A lot of great actors and of course plenty of filmmakers.

Especially in the 80s and 90s, a lot of Australian filmmakers coming to Hollywood and making big careers. Including Philip Noyce, who was somewhat of a Miller, not protege. Philip Noyce, Baz Luhrmann Peter Weir

these are all guys working at the same time well but Luhrmann's a little later yeah using the same talent you know yeah

you know like it's a whole little universe who else am I am I forgetting someone obvious those are the ones that immediately come to mind those are the immediates

because there's a lot of other like isn't PJ Hogan you, Muriel's Wedding obviously was a big Australian hit. Is Jane Campion New Zealand? Yeah, PJ Hogan. No, no. Jane Campion's New Zealand. She's crown jewel of New Zealand.

Yeah. Obviously we studied her in my New Zealand cinema class. You know, and then of course you have, we can't forget Paul Hogan. Oh, Bruce Beresford. That's another one. He made like break him around and tender mercy and driving Miss Daisy and movies like that. There's so many Jillian Armstrong.

Yes. Director of the original, not the original, the nineties, the nineties of the women. Yeah. So there's that, there's those types.

Yes. And then there's the Osploitation type, the cars that ate Paris like the movies like that which George Miller comes out of but then you got this guy who kind of bridges the two yeah he is the two you have this guy

this one sort of very anomalous filmmaker in many ways who is a Greek immigrant first generation Australian oh sure right

yeah yeah with three brothers I think maybe all four of them go to medical school that might be he

yeah but George Miller certainly goes he has a twin brother they both went to medical school right one of his younger

brothers becomes his pretty permanent producing partner for the last 15 years and the fourth brother also worked with him on the early films interesting interesting um i believe you i believe at least one of his brothers also went to medical school um yeah but his dad you're right was from katharia in greece uh his name was Dimitri Milotis, and they anglicized that to Miller. And then the mom was also Greek refugees from Anatolia, disrupted in the 20s by the population exchange. And they moved to Australia, which was, I think, a country where it's like the great unknown.

Let's go make a life, right? The other side of the world. Now, there's one thing i couldn't figure out and i kept on looking for any anecdote about what the activation moment is but when he goes from being a medical student and a doctor to starting to make experimental films on the side it sounds like he was making short films while he was in medical school he made a short a one minute short that won some student competition then he went to a film workshop at Melbourne University.

Right, that's when he starts to get more serious. That's where he meets Byron Kennedy. Right. And that's all while he's still in medical school. Yeah. He graduates,

he completes his residency in 1972. And that year they found Kennedy Miller, the, you know, production company. And so, yeah, his first work was Violence in Cinema Part One. Which I desperately tried to find.

But it's a 20-minute short film that starts out as a sort of academic lecture on the nature of violence in films, where he's showing clips and talking about the way we process violence. And then the film is this meta thing where then violence starts happening to the professor. And people were so freaked out by it, they thought it was real. They thought it was a documentary.

They thought it was like a snuff film. And it had this very controversial reputation. It played at a bunch of festivals. But it gets distribution from an Australian distribution company. And they say, and he didn't even realize distribution was a thing. He didn't realize there was a pathway to be able to make films.

You know, it seemed like a very unattainable thing. And they said, you know, if you had a feature, we would distribute that too. And the origin of Mad Max is, in 1971, this distribution company

who I'm forgetting the name of, say to George Miller and Byron Kennedy, if you had a feature, we would distribute this. And eight, nine years later, they come up with Mad Max. And for a movie that feels so much like two guys going, let's just make a movie tomorrow. You know, not that you could set it up overnight, but mad max is so primal and so spare that it feels like something that they rush to the finish line i watched we push back the release the release the recording of this episode because i found in my mad max box set there is a two hour and 40 minute document i have this is the blu-ray box set i have that one with eight discs okay

there's the high octane that's the one i have okay so that's the one where there's a dvd it is in standard def oh for the extras you mean right yeah and it's its own disc and it's called the madness of max and it's two hours and 40 minutes just on the first movie cool uh which i have watched very freshly but why is it high octane can you watch it really fast well you can that's an option cool the actual answer is they released a box set after Fury Road where they were like, finally, they're all together, and they left off a bunch of special features. So then they re-released it six months later, and we're like, never mind, here's the actual one.

And it still feels like it's not as good and comprehensive as it should be. Well, because there's tricky rights with two. I forget. There's something weird about it. The first one is the one that MGM has staked in. The other three are owned by Warner Brothers, at least in terms of distribution. I mean, I forget. There's something weird about it. The first one is the one that MGM has taken. Yeah. The other three are owned by Warner Brothers, at least in terms of distribution. Yeah, they are.

But I think some, it feels like they've never gotten the proper restorations they deserve. This one is the rawest looking. Yes. Yeah. You know, we have a saying in our family. Use sports. Don't let sports use you. Hi, it's Jeff Merrick from 32 Thoughts to Podcast.

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Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball, we're on the move even more. While our house just sits there. Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place. Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash, and who doesn't need that these days?

Maybe your home could be the way to make it happen find out how at airbnb.com so how did he get the name hollywood did he pick it i believe does he come from the hollywood family insanely it's his name that's ridiculous paul hollywood yeah his dad is john hollywood it's just like you know that can't be real. It is. And he's just from like Cheshire or something. He's just like an English kid. On his Wikipedia.

He was on like a genealogy or like, you know, like tracing your roots kind of show on BBC. I'm like, did they address the fact that his last name is Hollywood? I mean, but like, what is the etymology of Hollywood?

Like, is it just a wood of holly trees? Like, it's not that complicated. As we all know, it was originally called Hollywood Land. Well, the real estate that the thing is marking was called Hollywood Land, but the neighborhood had been called Hollywood before. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mr. Hollywood over here. They built that. It was called Nopalera, which means cactus field, I think, or something like that. You know, before we fucking showed up and we're like, great place to make movies. This is movie town. Wait a second. I'm sorry.

What do you mean? White people. That one ain't a spoiler, guys. No, no, I don't know. It reminded me of how he came up, reminded me of Bigelow in that it was like an academic approach to sort of violence and very much. I was going to make the key to him is that he's very academic.

Yeah. And much like Bigelow, it's like he's a guy who starts out sort of deconstructing the thing. Sure. And then figures out how to make. He's very academic, but he makes violent genre movies. Right. Because he's like, but that's how you get seen.

Right. Well, but here's the other part of it. The other part of it is he was in medical school. He was dealing with horrible accidents. That's the Verhoeven-y kind of thing. That's the Verhoeven-y thing. Where he's like, he's got the weird, creepy, like, yeah. And not in the way where he was like desensitized to it, like Verhoeven, where it's like none of this matters.

It's the opposite thing almost where he spent so much time looking at injuries and dealing with the repercussions of accidents people had and so much of bad max comes out of like his sort of perverse fascination seeing the aftermath of car accidents you know and and also working with other people you know ambulance drivers people who are telling him accounts of what they found what states people were in having having to stitch people up. I mean, all these sorts of things. He was, you know, in addition to sort of his fascination with violence, not as much as the act of violence as the actual effect of violence has on a human body. He also just sort of couldn't get over having to deal with the business end of car accidents.

The idea that people are putting themselves in such dangerous situations all the time, you know, and he made this point. I think Byron Kennedy, this documentary is actually really good. A little basic in terms of how it's constructed, but it's so comprehensive. It's just kind of taking you through every step of it right yeah and every like chapter heading has like and then there's like graphics of like new new words popping up like driving onto the screen saying like post-production right i get you with burnt rubber underneath but they have all these really good audio recordings of byron candy talking because byron candy tragically died in a helicopter accident i believe 83 yes helicopter crash don't get in those things do not but but this was sort

of less your what's your pants from uncut gems then you got to julia fox right i couldn't remember the character's name but i believe her character's name is julia i think you're right yes um this was the point uh i was gonna make and i forget whether it's byron candy or george miller who says this in the documentary but the thing that they were so obsessed with was it's crazy how much damage a car can cause. How much damage you can cause to someone else. How much damage you can cause to yourself. All of this, it happens on a pretty regular basis. At this time in Australia, it was happening a lot.

And people aren't afraid of them on a day-to-day basis in the way they should be. In the way that they are of other things griffin is making i mean this is speaking to griffin but this is why i love the mad max but but the idea like you know you go like oh helicopters obviously don't get a helicopter that's what happens but cars don't have that kind of stigma around them despite how high the stakes truly are even if the odds aren't't overwhelming, it's still high stakes and an uncomfortably high probability. So he's stewing on all of that.

He's stewing on the way that violence is depicted in films, and he's stewing on sort of the American cinema, and that Australian film either seems to be really sort of trashy exploitation stuff. Yeah. Gonzo stuff. Yeah. Or

is fairly sort of like highbrow. Tony art movies. Right. It's kind of more BBC-esque fare. When did Walkabout come out? What a great movie. It's my dad's favorite movie. It's a great book too. I highly recommend reading the book. 1971, I'm sorry.

That's Nicholas Rogue. That's another, you know. Yeah. He's British. Yeah, he's not Australian. That's a great film about Australia, but not made from the Australian film industry. But that is part of the earlier, like, quote-unquote, Australian new wave. Stork, which has, what's his pants? Bruce Spence.

That's one of those. Oh, you mean the Gyro Captain Tiamidon from Revenge of the Sith what an interesting trivia fact but like what Peter Weir does

once Mel Gibson becomes big doing like Gallipoli and You're Living Dangerously and all those films are like sort of more what comes out of

Australia and carries over yeah yeah yeah You're Living Dangerously is so good. Yes. Peter Weir, why don't we do him? Peter Weir? He was on the bracket last year.

He was, but he got filmed. I love him so much. I love him. He's a weird one. Sure. He's a weird one. Mr. Weir? I don't know what I'm doing.

So, George Miller is like stewing all of this, right? They do the short film. It gets interest. They're told they could get distribution if they made a feature. He sits down with a guy who's his co-writer on this film. I forget his name. If you have it in front of you. Oh, on this film?

Yeah, James McCausland. Right. Who was a buddy of his who was not a film student. Who was an American expat living in Australia but that was the guy who he liked talking about movies with he was pretty much

a drinking buddy I forget what he did for an occupation but it was totally outside of everything and he said I want to make a movie like I'm going to sit down

with a guy who I like talking about movies with and let's talk about what we like about movies and so they sit down and just have that talk much like every conversation that we've ever had right and they're just breaking down elements of what we like about movies. And so they sit down and just have that talk, much like every conversation that we've

ever had. Right. And they're just breaking down elements of what they like. And they talk about the thing that I feel like at this point in time hadn't been sort of identified that clearly. Years later, Spielberg would own this and say that this was his design, but that he

was trying to make movies that were only the good bits. You know? He always said that about Raiders of the Lost Ark, that he and George Lucas said, what if you could make a movie that was just the most exciting scenes in every other movie without the boring shit in between? And now, of course, when you watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, it plays like fucking Satan Tango,

where you're like, this is so slow and ruminative. Right. And you also feel like the destructive force of other movies taking that lesson in the wrong direction. Right. I mean, because that's the difference is someone like George Miller or Steven Spielberg, even if they go, I'm only going to do the exciting parts, have too much storytelling integrity in their bones that they can't make something totally devoid. They do. Although I will say like Mad Max, you watch that and then you see Mad Max, you see the Road Warrior number two. You are like, oh, I see where he's just like, great great let's pair even further down totally let's communicate character very simply like right like like how how economical can we get this yes um but so he's done with this guy they're coming up with that he's talking about the sort of like you know car anxiety yeah and the original pitch for the

film was it was going to be a present-day about a journalist. It almost sounds a little bit nightcrawler ask about someone who's following the aftermath of the car crashes to report on them. That is all nightcrawler. So he goes about writing that he works on that for like six to nine months and is like, fuck, this doesn't work. It should be a cop.

It should be someone who's chasing after trying to prevent it, trying to like, you know, sort of control this works on that for six to trying to prevent it, trying to like, you know, sort of control this. Works on that for six to nine months. It's like it doesn't, it feels weird. It's too overcranked. It feels too exaggerated for me to do the things visually I want to do.

And then he goes, I can't set it present day. So it's like a three-step process with two failed screenplays where it was like, first thing to figure out what this guy's relationship is to the auto destruction. And then it was, you know what? I need to make a world around this so I can get the energy in my head. So he's drawing from there had been a big oil crisis in Australia in 1973. And like that had caused all these riots and these fights at gas stations and stuff like that. So they're like, Oh, okay. Let's talk about peak oil,

right? The world running out of energy, the world, right. You know, the apocalypse, but for a movie that you could believe watching it like, Oh,

this was a byproduct of like Rocky style, him locking himself in a room for three days and banging the whole script out that the first draft was like some years for them to develop, raise the money. The film is entirely independently financed. They went to the Victorian Film Board at first. And there was like, as Miller says, they were just making arty movies and this wasn't their kind of movie. Absolutely not.

So what Miller and Kennedy started doing after years of failing to get this up anywhere is they start going to a lot of their doctor buddies. And they raised the movie through independent capital, $400,000. I believe they also did like emergency medical calls themselves. Yes. And like Miller would be the doctor and Kennedy would drive the car. And they would raise independent funds that way. Yeah. I mean, they're both still working as doctors.

Right. I believe it costs. Not Kennedy, but Kennedy was driving him. But I believe the movie costs like $400000 Australian dollars. Yeah, and it was totally independent. By the time they get all the money, the Victorian film board comes back to them and offers to put up the money. And at that point, they said, like, we've gotten this, and now we have

no oversight. Like, they realized, we've sort of circumvented the system. It took us a long time, but now, no one's going to give us any notes. We're not going to have anyone trying to censor us. We feel an not going to have anyone trying to censor us we feel an enormous responsibility to make back the money that we've taken from people

that's the only impetus and so we want to have something that's going to play and we want a thing that can cross over in a way that Australian films usually do not his script is 260 pages long now what's nuts is very often it's like

oh there was never like a shooting draft we talk about this when people go like the first draft was 500 pages and you're like you vomited out 500 pages that wasn't a job with it right by all accounts that 260 page draft is essentially what they shot but it is because it's not that they cut stuff out it is because he was so verbose in describing every single element i believe also when they were yeah because they had like storyboarded lots of it when they were raising money they were like here's what it's gonna look like they had a lot of pre yeah they put a lot of effort into what it would look and that was like a little bit of the only way you could make this that's the thing on one on one hand it's naivete to be like no one wants

to read this much but on the other hand the thing is so sparse and primal, and the tone and the energy of what he's trying to do is so bizarre and is so unprecedented at this point, that especially to friends of his who aren't in the industry who he's taking money from, they were like, you read this thing, and there was clearly something in it. Like, there was a

thing that he was able to convey in the way he wrote the script that you knew just no matter what happens in production, they can't beat this thing out of it. You know, there's some heart here. There's some weird vital organ. So, yes, they have the money. They

go hire a casting director and go, look, we don't have any money. Who are the people coming out of drama school? There was that. That's how they found Mel, right? And Bisley, is that his name, plays Goose? Yeah, Steve Bisley.

Right, who was Mel Gibson's best friend. And the urban legend is always that Mel Gibson wasn't even an actor and he didn't even want to be in the movie. He showed up

giving someone a ride. Right, exactly. Which I think it is true that he was not called in at first and he gave Bisley a ride, but he was a drama student. He was,

and they were looking for spunky young guys well and this and i think mel is probably canny enough that he knew but the the big part of the urban legend is he'd gotten in a bar fight the night before and so he walks in looking like shit right right and immediately they were like this guy feels dangerous um judy davis apparently you know well-known actress now uh yeah auditioned and was passed over but miller says that's not true she was just hanging out with mel gibson and like she didn't audition yeah it does seem like one of those movies where everyone probably has a story with like oh yeah you know i definitely was in the run

and you know like whatever but it is a thing where they're mostly pulling from like australian theater and australian drama school as opposed to a lot of the cast is from a movie called stone yes an exploitation biker movie that miller adores that quentin tarantino adores that qb's kirk hugh keys burn jesus christ uh and roger ward and vincent go like a lot of people who are villains in this head were had been in that and so miller was like well that's the it's like a biker movie that's the vibe i want so you're gonna be great uh hugh. It's like a biker movie. That's the vibe I want. So you're going to be great. Hugh Kiesbren was like a Shakespeare company guy. And I think continued to be. Yes.

Like after this. But he, they showed this in the documentary. He did a production, a like very popular, impactful production of a streetcar named Desire. Where he played Stanley Kowalski. Where they show the photo. Sure, sure. sure you wish you could fucking see that right and his blanche was jackie weaver hey they don't call it out but they just show a photo of like the playbill and it's fucking toe cutter and smurf from animal kingdom doing

streetcar together which must have been have you seen animal kingdom it's a real bad movie australian mob movie okay oh ben ben mendelsohn uh jackie weaver that's when ben mendelsohn that was when he breaks out and then of course they turned it into everybody's favorite tnt show that's fully on the air it's season five how many seasons they made three four i want to say maybe a fourth is coming. Like, three or four. Let's see. Four seasons. Four seasons of the Animal Kingdom TV show.

It's been renewed for a fifth. But it's one... I rarely watch TNT, but when basketball playoffs, or any time... You know, we watch TNT, they have basketball. Oh, right.

And, like, so anytime you watch that, they're just like, TNT's great lineup. For example, Animal Kingdom. This year,is leary's in it i'm like no he's not it's made up you made it all up it's all made up there's no such thing it's one of those fucking things where like i don't know if this is still the case but when you're like for 10 years i'm not kidding ellen barkin and scott speedman are the stars of it

i think she got nominated for a gold globe at some point it's possible um i believe ellen barkin is smurf is the is correct but i believe she's no longer on the show i think that a lot of them are now dead yes because you know in the animal kingdom sometimes right um dennis leary will come for you it's but it's dennis leary playing the guy pierce character maybe i don't know she did not get a gold globe nomination are you sure yeah you were shooting too high. It's gotten two Saturn nods. Oh. And one motion picture sound editor nod.

That's it. Those are it. What I was going to say is it's that stat, which I don't know if it's still the case, but that for like 10 plus years, USA was far and away the highest rated cable channel. Oh yeah, because they had burn notice. All these shows that fall into this category.

In plain sight. That doesn't exist. You know, anyone who's watched the Royal pains. Yeah. Now the thing about Royal pains, these guys are Royal pains. Yeah.

Yeah. Political animals, the lowest rated show in the history of us. That one, unfortunately. Yeah. Didn't, uh,

stretch it out. Go on. What's up? What's up? Uh, yes. Okay. So Hugh,

Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh,

Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh,

Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Go on, what's up? What's up? Yes. Okay. So Hugh Key Barnes comes out of- The RSC. Right. Hugh Keynes Byrne. Jesus Christ.

Hugh Keynes Byrne. Keynes Byrne. Who of course plays Toe Cutter in this. Yes. And then will eventually show up as Immortan Joe. Immortan Joe. Yeah. In Mad Max Fury Road.

But was thought of as this sort of like Brando-esque, very imposing- That's his- Yeah, right. He's husky husky right he's got a face you know and he's unconventional he's very behavioral he's very organic so good in this i mean so much of the shit he does in this movie is uh improvised physically or energy wise the things which is why how he's intimidating people Yeah. Another thing they talk about is that he was very big into the like with the biker boys with his gang being like, we got to like really be a gang. We got to be like united. Sure, sure, sure.

So this is a crazy thing they would do, which in retrospect, maybe inspire Jared Leto in the wrong way. Right, right. They would cut their thumbs okay and then write letters for the other cast members with their own blood okay that's very jared leto and suicide yeah that's crazy so they like broke into like mel gibson's hotel room and like is that where mel gibson learned to be a prankster maybe because until he was an anti-semite a famous drunk anti-semite wife harasser he was a famous goof it was like mel gibson likes to put a cigar in his ass and

take a picture of it or whatever it was just like oh great you know like just like the 90s it was just like can we get in that he's a notorious prankster you know like in any puff piece but that's the crazy thing is you watch this documentary and they're all talking about like yeah we were intense we slept together we were cutting ourselves and doing all this stuff and mel was like yeah they were uh they had a vibe going on and then they cut to other crew people and they were like mel was terrified he would come to us complain all the time believe it didn't like he did not uh sanction their buffoonery and he's like they left me notes and stuff they were like really in character and they were like,

Mel would call us. He was worried they were going to attack him on set. He wanted protection. The idea that these guys were freaking Mel Gibson out. This is when Mel Gibson's just a lovable prankster. You also wonder if he's like, oh, is this how you're supposed to behave on movie? So the plot of Mad Max. Let's get into it.

Yeah. Because we've now done i mean they shot it guerrilla style or whatever right there's all that legend where they were like but a three-month shoot which is pretty fucking long for a movie like this yeah although i believe it was partly because uh what's her name got injured the original wife got injured so they delayed them two weeks yeah well so this is this is the time of that for a movie that is all insane stunts the biggest injury that happened happened two days before filming started which was their stunt supervisor who was also going to be their lead stuntman and the woman they had hired to be mad max's wife uh got in a motorcycle crash leaving like pre-production oh man because

that's another thing they talk about is like they were so like strapped and so much of the budget went to the vehicles for this movie. Right. That all the motorcycles and the muscle cars were also being used as, like, transpo. Like, they were, like, Byron Kennedy was, like, dropping off crew members every night in the V8 Interceptor. Right, right, right. You know, like, that's, so the stunt guy gives the lead actress a ride home on a motorcycle and there's like a freak accident and they spin out and they go into

the office and George Miller as a doctor is immediately able to analyze them and he's like your leg is broken in like six places

right this is gonna take like three four months to fully recover you're not gonna be able to walk and the other guy

was wearing glasses and when he crashed they went into his face and his nose was lacerated like all this fucking shit. He had internal bleeding.

So they freak out. They hire a new guy to be the temporary stunt guy. They hire a new actress. Jordan Samuel. He rejiggers the screenplay and also the scheduling. Sure. Around now, you know, all that. Anyway,

the first day shooting the first piece with the car and this new stunt driver, they get the shot. It's not great. And then when he asked him to reset, the guy backs off and dents the car.

And George Miller just goes like, I can't do this. Yeah, right. Like he goes like, I'm in over my head. I clearly can't handle this. I'm so freaked out by the fact that this injury happened before we started filming. I shouldn't be this. Yeah, right. Like he goes like, I'm in over my head. I clearly can't handle this. I'm so freaked out by the fact that this injury happened

before we started filming. I shouldn't be making this movie. So they reach out to the guy whose name I forget who directed BMX Bandits. I've seen that movie. Who at this point is like an Australian stalwart.

The young Nicole Kidman. Yes. BMX Bandits was directed by, no, but he hadn't made it yet because BMX Bandits came out four years after. But it's this guy. Brian Trenchard Smith. Correct.

Yes. And George Miller and Kennedy Met. Who also made Leprechaun 3. Let's put some respect on his name. Put some respect on his name. George Miller was like, I can't fucking do this. Let's hire him.

He's an old pro. He's doing like Australian TV. Miller had never been on a proper film set before. And this is a guy who's like going to know how to handle it. He's done action stunt stuff. You know, there are a lot of like cop shows in Australia, which is mostly where they were pulling their crew from.

And he's like, they'll feel comfortable with this guy. I'll stay on as a producer. I can't do this. And all the biker actors come to him and they're like, we're not doing the movie. Come on now. Yeah. And so after like, so canceled, we're not doing the movie with another guy. Come on, now. Yeah.

And so after- God, I'm going to get so canceled. They're shut down for a couple days. Yeah. But George Miller goes like, you know what? You're right. I have to do this.

Yeah. And he comes back and does it. The biggest entry still to date on any of the Mad Max movies happens in pre-production of the first one, which is pretty nuts. I don't know. The Dewphoria, though.

How's he doing? Have we checked in on him? He's doing great. Okay. He's doing great. He's doing great. Are you kidding's doing great. He's doing great. Are you kidding me? Terrific guy.

Terrific guy. Cheeto. Is she doing okay? Cheeto? Cheeto. She's one of the fucking. In which one? In Fury Road.

Oh really? Yeah. Shall I read the names of the ladies in Fury Road? We'll get to that eventually. But should I read it right now though? Cheeto? Capable, Cheeto, Toast, The Dag, and The Splendid. Ignorant. these are the other like

those are the five women in fairy road really yeah you know capable cheeto is that one of them in valkyrie like no that's that's the people they run the dragon gale okay technically i've been in multiple gangs i've just been thinking technically you mean technically i mean technically like gang my graffiti crew you mean i've you like iv you're like a plant over here it's just weird new jersey talk what is this you know, you're in a graffiti crew that would tag your, you know, whatever. Congratulations or whatever your tag was all over the city. Yes. Yeah.

And I had a group of friends and we would steal. Uh-huh. What would you steal? Liquor from people's outdoor patio bars. We would deliver pizza. You would taste the joint. That's a real Jersey vibe, too. It's like my outdoor patio bars. We would deliver pizza. That's a real Jersey vibe. It's like my outdoor patio bar here in New Jersey

where it's always warm except for eight months out of the year. You would find people that have like they're into grilling. They've got it at, you know, an outdoor bar situation. We deliver pizza. We go. We steal that. I'm sorry. I have 15 follow-up questions questions were any of you employed

as pizza delivery people yeah you were okay so the inn was it's not like you showed up with a pizza like what if they just showed up with like dijon that was my question like are you mugging a pizza delivery guy and stealing his route or casing the joint what's that violent crimes no being committed. You're casing the joint like the beginning of Home Alone. Yeah. So you work at pizza places. You deliver it. You scout it out. Those guys have one of those dumb bars we could grab.

No, no, I get that. I get that. My question was. It's hard to come by vodka when you're in high school. Sure. I understand that. My question was, is there an additional grift? Yeah, no, no.

Are they using, are they gainfully employed think about ben as a teenager do you think there was grift upon grift or possibly no no the vibe is more like but then you're like yogi bear style stealing liquor from windowsills it is very quaint because then we would have to go and break you weren't breaking and enter right you knew that that would uh elevate your crime yeah so you would you would take it while the outdoor bars it's outside what do you mean outdoor bars well this is what i was making fun of you were so concerned with whether they were getting pizza it's like a porch bar it's like a most insane jersey shirt anyway look what's important is yeah max rock tansky there are a couple more things i want to say here okay or maybe maybe we can do it as we talk about

come on let's get into the movie like what else should you need to say no i i just think a big part of it is that they had a long pre-production that there was so much thought put into it that he hires all these actors, and they really work for a while. I mean, not just the biker guys spending time together, but the cops all spending time together and establishing vernacular. And George Miller is a very collaborative filmmaker.

They talk a lot about that he and Kennedy were complete partners, and that Kennedy could have just as easily been the director and George Miller could have just as easily been the producer. It was kind of arbitrary that they landed in that way. And the first two films are such thorough collaborations between the two of them. And it really fucks up his career when, not his career,

it fucks him up emotionally and mentally when Kennedy dies. No, no, you should talk about it. But we'll get to that. That's post-Femex too, I believe. That's Thunderdome is the him grieving movie. But that he, you know, the guys, there's the one guy in the biker gang

who like only makes animal noises. Right. Yeah. And he had like- His name is, he's credited as Ben Hoslinson here. Ben plays eight characters in this film nutty professor style there's that every scene with the gang is just ben six times super in so they're all one but that that character had like three or four lines in the script and the actor went up to george miller and was like how about i just do noise yeah he was like i could say three or four

things and be the guy who doesn't say much or i could be the animal noise guy and george miller was like yeah absolutely great idea this is what i like he was very much a creating ecosystem have people around him and he talks a lot about that so much of even the weird design elements of this one uh because this movie still takes place in like half a recognizable society yes a lot of the weird design elements would be like actors showing up on the day and being like i was in like my shed and i found this fencing helmet right could i throw this on the set or wear this in this scene like the weird jambalaya of all these different like objects and costume pieces a lot of it was brought in by the actors themselves or by crew members bringing

things in and being like this feels like it should be in a in a location right this feels like someone should wear this you know we have a saying in our family use sports don't let sports use you hi it's jeff merrick from 32 thoughts Podcast. Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? If you're like me, you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel. You know, our families use sports to see different parts of the world, meet new people, and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed, and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball

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Let's get into the movie. Yes. Because one thing I like about it, especially if you are watching this, having seen another Mad Men, which I feel like most people probably do. And you and I both watched it after seeing later Mad Maxes. 100%.

I had definitely seen The Road Warrior. And yeah, I think... I can't remember if I saw this. I think I saw it in high school before i saw fury it doesn't matter but anyway but it is weird to watch you're like oh this isn't set in just like the desert like this isn't just set in an apocalypse all of these movies in your history class to teach you the history of your people like just like to think like this is still set in a place where there's like you can like go get ice cream at a store.

Right. You know, like there's still cops and a civilization and stuff like that. People still do laundry. Right. It's just that the crime is out of control. Like that's sort of what's sort of near future-y. But I remember the first time I saw it and not just that I had seen Road Warrior before it, but also that I had seen the things influenced by Mad Max. it but also that i had seen the things influenced by mad max i've heard the way people talk about mad max and how influential it was in the sort of post-apocalyptic genre that i watched it for

the first time going like so what is the halfway point where society collapses exactly you're like right is this about society collapsing it's like no it's a simpler story right about a cop yeah trying to take someone down yeah you know take a gang down right and it's just in a world where it's kind of like yeah shit's fucked up so when i first saw it i remember being like not underwhelmed by it by going like oh but this isn't the real shit sure i mean it's a raw movie and i've watched it a couple times and i watched even twice in the last couple days because i watched it once with commentary once without and i was really trying to apply to it this like star wars thing of try to just pretend that the other ones don't exist and view this just as its own movie.

Yeah. Not even as like a fucking No Smits bit. But as a like. No, I get it. I 100% get you. This individual movie would probably have a better reputation if he hadn't made three incredible sequels afterwards. Yeah. Sure.

I mean, it's got a good reputation. Oh, totally. But I'm saying if this was his dead alive, rather than this being his evil dead one. All his skills on display. Right. I mean, yeah, evil dead is a great comparison. Yes, yes.

And we'll talk more evil dead comparisons in later episodes as we compare it to the evil dead sequels. And it's a pretty clear analog. It's the most insanely clear analog. Yes. But this movie, right, you start out with like, in the near future. Yes. After the title yes after the title a few years from now it's striking just the like the black on white the music is booming mad max and like chrome letters he said the title was literally i just want

something that sounds cool is alliterative it's a great when you're eight you're like that must be the coolest movie ever mad max mad max yeah i loved it yeah bad man i think it was mad was the first word i ever said yeah but you still max is the second they thought you were gonna say mama and then you just said uh but you have that like you know a few years the future. And then you have the halls of justice where like the letters are falling off of it. Right. Then you see a street sign that says anarchy. Right. Right. Spelled.

The beginning of it is you're like, yeah. Right. Yeah. Graffiti. It's so cool. Wall. And then you see the like. The street sign.

The amount of fatalities that have happened on this road. Right. Right. Like you have four pieces of just world sign that's funny it says anarchy yeah right but it's like a n a r c h i e but you have like four things in the first five seconds that visually do so much table setting right for like this is just sort of like the temperature of this place right and then there is the the the head cop who is shirtless wearing a scarf and then you're like okay this is the future we're in a different time we perfected

fashion we have perfected fashion and how one dresses i mean the beginning of this movie it's very cool it's a car chase this is one of their ideas as they said uh his co-writer's name i'm already forgetting again oh jesus uh james mccoskey but he said what what if uh the movie started with a denouement sure right right you've got night rider right cool guy but you just you open with the kind of thing that movie spent the first 30 minutes building up to played by vin by Vincent Gill. And then you go down. Who had been in that movie, Stone. Knight Rider's having a ball. He's got a lady in the car with him. Yes. Yeah.

You also have the man spying with the sniper goggles and the people having sex. It's very like lurid. That's Johnny the Boy, isn't it? Yes. Right. So you've got those guys, the sort of shitty cops. Yeah.

The new cop, the shitty cop. What are their names? I don't remember any of their names. Yeah, I mean, they all have good names. They do all have good names. It's hard to differentiate between them. It is. I just watched the other night, whatchamacallit, the Hollywood Reporter Director's Roundtable thing.

The newest one? Yes. With Todd Phillips and all those people and Greta Gerwig and Martin Scorsese and of course they like litigate the Scorsese cinema thing whatever and then they like after everyone was fighting about they went like what about you Greta

like what defines cinema and she was like Jesus fucking Christ like why are you throwing this on me and then in her defensiveness she came up with I thought such an eloquent answer which was like and at first it sounds like she's making a joke like sort of riffing on the old pornography thing right but she's like you know it when you see it right right isn't lulu on that panel yes and she's the one who talks to marnie about it kills it but um gerwig is like look i've

been lucky enough that i've been on film festival juries in a certain way that's the best way to watch a movie because you're going to see all this stuff, but you're watching it devoid of context. You're going to these screenings and you don't know where they're coming from, what they are, whatever. And the thing I've learned through doing that, and especially when you're watching films from different countries with actors you don't recognize, is not only do you

know it when you see it, but you almost always can tell within the first 15 seconds if you're watching a movie with someone who is a filmmaker. It's 100% true because I... And she's's like it doesn't always mean it's going to be a great film like the movie could fall off but you can tell when someone has an actual understanding of the medium and a thing to say that i mean as i have not been on i assume gretta's been on like a venice jury like a very high full good yeah yeah first name yeah me and greta we go way back but like i have done gotham's juries many times um and other jury where you're like handed a pile of screeners

of true indie movies right like movies that are not maybe some of them will never be released right and it is totally that you watch one scene yeah like mostly you're like oh okay and then once in a while you put in something and you're like holy shit like this is a movie yes like my experience with film school or like going to like short film festivals or things like that you can just always tell within like a couple of shots whether or not the thing is great if someone is kind of has the bones of a filmmaker and this is one of those movies where like you watch it and in the first like five minutes you're like this is a filmmaker this is someone who knows how to put a movie together you know there is something

just about the elegance and the clarity of how it's structured where even though you have 8 million questions about the world and who these people are and the intricacies of their relationships to each other on such a primal level and it's a word I feel like I'm going to keep on using with Miller,

and especially with these Mad Max movies, but on such a primal level, the elegance of how this opening chase is structured, which is like essentially 13 minutes long. And you don't really get a clear shot of Mel Gibson until minute 13. But it's introducing him very sexily where it's sort of like little glimpses but all of this i mean his his level of control and that's the idea they have that's so smart right like here's our hero but we're not gonna we're not just gonna let you see him but also this is a movie where

there's not gonna be a ton of characterization so we need to sell to you why this guy's the important one to follow in this scene because he's not luke skywalker he's not the chosen one right but you've got a knight rider whose vibe is he wants to drive his car very fast and go like i am the knight rider the whole time and run people down that's his vibe right he's a can i say it go ahead he's a messy bitch who lives for the drama it's kind of true and so you have these you have these cops uh part of the mfp the main force patrol going after after him. One of them who I feel like he thinks he's sort of Mad Max-y and one who's a newbie and they're doing a

shit job. And they're sort of an odd couple bickering energy thing. And you've got Max chilling, waiting, but he's not doing anything. And when Max finally enters that's when Knight Rider just starts to lose it because he's just like, oh fuck, oh shit, oh shit, because Max is like on his tail. So he has magic to him and and there is also magic there's this magic max magic max mad mike

um there is this energy too of like there's something a little bit crazy about mad max that is the same thing that is just innately a little bit crazy about Mel Gibson, even in this, which is arguably his most normal performance. Yeah. You know, his most normal performance as Max for sure. But also I think as he becomes more and more of a movie star, even when he's playing a normal charming guy, he always coasted on a certain live wire manic energy.

He did. And this movie, he hasn't totally harnessed that yet. He's, he's a lot more subdued. But there is this weird caged animal thing in Mel Gibson's eyes that is like constantly there. And the idea that like this guy scares the Knight Rider because this guy's crazy enough to go as fast. Right.

And to fucking ride him bumper to bumper. Right. But it's like, and it's the cops and robbers thing but it like and this is i feel like a thing that sims would love like it's it there's a system in which cops know the reputations of these robbers and vice versa and they and that max has this respect and there's a fear amongst like the the criminal community what's that you said you feel like it's something that david would love why don't you ask him if he loves it do you like yeah I love it cool it's great honestly hey I wasn't sure I'm glad you asked

and I was stressed out for a minute totally I mean we weren't going to be doing a thorough job on this episode if we didn't get confirmation right did it have enough rules for you and this one or do you feel like the rules ramp up in two and three and then you're like this has more rules you would say more rules I would say this one or do you feel like the rules ramp up in two and three and then you're like no this has more rules you would say more rules i would say this one still has like structures exactly he

still goes and talks to a boss who's like hey max we got you a new shirtless boss he i mean okay there's some energy and he he's thick can i say it in a great way an absolute unit the second he came on screen i was like that is who that term exists for yeah he's a big boy he looks like a fucking 1910s like strongman but he does have this like dr robotnik like long mustache so he's in the documentary i'm excited to see jim carrey as dr robotnik but i do wish they had cast a thick king which is sort of like his you know computer look yes yes because he's a thick king he's got long skinny legs but he's got a thick it does feel like do you remember when jim carrey was

an eggman was supposed to play curly in the three stooges movie right right right and he spent like a year beefing up and everyone's like there's he, he's just not going to get around to that size. It's, it's no, you know, inherent. Like you can't make yourself look like that. Right.

Uh, I agree with you. You want, you want an egg man. Um, but, uh, this,

this actor whose name I'm forgetting who plays the chief, um, who is he is the character? Yeah. Yeah. Roger Ward. Yes. So George Miller,

like any actors he was getting, especially the ones who had been on TV and were recognizable within like the Australian media, you know, landscape. He was like, if I'm, if I'm,

I want to cast a lot of actors who are unknown, haven't been on camera before, but if people have been working, I want to change their look. Cause I don't want anyone to go like, Oh, that's the cop from this show. That's the doctor from this show.

Right. So he was giving people these assignments of like, we're going cop from this show that's the doctor from this show right so he was giving people these assignments of like we're going to dye this we're going to shave this whatever to this guy he says we're going to shave your head and have you grow out a mustache right and he in this interview was like look at that time no one shaved their head right it was like career suicide even if you were going bald you

wear a toupee it was Yul Brynner it was Telly Savalas and that was it and they they're 90% of their image was that they had a shaved head. It was Yul Brynner. It was Telly Savalas and that was it. And 90% of their image was that they had a shaved head. Right. And he was like, George Muller was super trepidatious asking me this. He was like clearly afraid of the boundaries of it. And what he didn't know is I had spent

years wanting to shave my head, but I was too scared to do it. Yeah, let's do it. And he was like, and at that moment, George gave me permission. And in the interview that is filmed probably sometime in the late 90s early 2000s the guy looks exactly the same as he does in this movie good for him a thousand percent bald other than a long mustache and it's like george miller unlocked the image that this guy had in his head who he was afraid to be and then has just spent the last 40 years looking like that every day of his life fucking rules it's a great isn't that a beautiful story yes that fucking is great anyway max chases down the

night rider and they use the first flash of that amazing prosthetic shot of the eyes bulging but it's so quick it's so quick but it's that's the moment where you're like wait this isn't just a good filmmaker is this guy a genius yeah it is such a weird is this like the inklings of a genius also just the car chases. You are just, I cannot believe they pulled that off with no money and basically just closing down a road for 15 minutes and all that shit. They talk about there are two things. One, because the Victorian government eventually came back around to them,

offered them financing. They didn't get that, but the thing that Brian Kennedy, Byron Kennedy was- The cops were kind of in on it, right? What they were really smart was they got a letter that said that the film had been approved right all right close the road for you so they call it the get out of jail free card and there's a scene in the movie where goose says that to someone he gives them a get out of jail free card which was like an inside joke

yeah because byron kennedy had this one document that he would show to anyone anytime they got a question it was like a guy named Detective Stubbs or something gave him this thing. And a lot of the crew people are like, in retrospect, I don't know that that was real. We never met that detective.

It might have been forged. Kennedy's dead. We don't know. But they used this one document to get out of everything. But the other thing is, all the crew was like, this guy's an idiot.

He doesn't know what he's doing. He's so inexperienced with George Miller because he would do a crazy setup and just get a two second shot right and cut and move on really quickly like that wasn't worth it that was insane right or you're not gonna be able to use that you can't cut together that's you're gonna cross the line here that piece won't work with this piece and it was this thing that he just like had it all in his head in this opening chase there's the moment where the kid runs out into the middle of the street yes which is incredible and it's this

incredibly and he's also foreshadowing what's going to happen totally frog but you watch it and you're like oh fuck and it feels like is this going to be some toxic avenger shit where you have to watch like the most gruesome thing ever so you're like on board 100 right so you're about to see and but that's my janitor from my high school. Not only is the movie not that gruesome, most of it's sort of suggestions. Yes. But I was watching it with the commentary and it's like the DP and the art director and maybe the explosions guy all talking about that moment. And they're like, if you look at the four shots that comprise the kid almost getting hit by the car, the kid is never close to the car.

Right, right, right. Like, the way it was shot was in the safest way possible. They were not doing fucking donuts around a baby. Right. But you watch it, and it feels like, I can't believe that car missed that kid. And it doesn't feel like, I can't believe they organized that that well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like, you feel like it's happening in real time, and there's no way they're going to be able to avoid an accident. That the risk is so high. So, Knight Rider's pals are Toe Cutter and his gang. A great name. It is a great name. He never cuts any

toes. But he has. That's how he got them. I mean, he does other shit. That's how I get the fucking name. That's how I get the fucking name. Maybe he was just like, we called Toe Cutter. And everyone's like, did you cut a toe? And he's like, I don the fucking name that's how I get the fucking name that's how I get the fucking name maybe he was just like I'm gonna be called toe cutter and everyone's like

did you cut a toe and he's like I don't know what's my name toenail yeah right and then he grabbed like shoe polish

every three weeks and he just rubbed it on his eye do you think or did he see a dog with like a black sort of spot he was like

I like that look the character toe cutter right right right he shaved his eyebrow because he saw a real biker gang guy who looked like that look. The character, Toe Cutter. Right, right, right, right. He shaved his eyebrow because he saw a real biker gang guy who looked like that

and just showed up and was like, I don't have an eyebrow now and everyone was terrified. He's genuinely terrified. He's so good because he's got so much personality.

But also, he is not, like, he is this, like, Shakespearean trained actor who is speaking with this,

like, gravitas and this diction. Like, he's not trying speaking with this like gravitas and this diction like he's not trying to be like scuzzy conventional shakespearean that's what's beautiful yeah yes but okay so which is why i prefer him to the lord humongous 100 there is though this whole sort of like like late 60s acid sort of like cult kind of vibe to the biker gang as well and i think it really sells how dangerous these guys are because it's not even that they're menacing and tough yeah it's like they're so psychologically like messed up from something because the barking guy

like that trope i feel like i don't know if that was like a thing in genre or if it was just like kind of biker exploitation kind of like movies. I think a little bit of both. I mean, the thing they talked about was like this whole thing of them sort of like remaining, not in character, but staying in the mode and like spending this much time together and doing shit to other people and whatever. It's not like they were ever attacking people but they were like we were constantly doing things that that people would not usually do non-criminal things to get ourselves past the point of any sort of fear or embarrassment around each other right to feel that that's why it worked where there's this like reckless abandon especially when there's a group shot of all of them so they were like we would make people think we were about to fight them we had no interest never fighting anybody but you wanted to be able to look someone

in the eye and convince them that you were going to fight them and seem like you had what it took to do so much of their they're not even doing car stuff they're just being scary it's also beautiful that there's no like it's not like there's a heist it's not like there's a specific no they just go to a town and ruin it these fucking rascals but the way they're a little more than rascals these little rascals more than but i also love how arch they are too it's like west side story kind of where they're just hanging out and like just like just being like sarcastically menacing well that's also the weird actor thing where you have like a bunch of actors who all want to pop in a scene where people are doing shit like let me burn my forearm like even if you're in a scene by yourself you're like i gotta

show that i'm just as crazy as the other guy i'll be the animal guy yeah everyone's doing like a lot of bits oh but they're all great yes oh great you've got johnny the boy yes his protege yeah who's you know he's into it but he's not quite he doesn't quite have the sort of mean streak but all the mad max movies have this weird like sort of like mentorship thing they there's always like a big guy and a little guy right right right you know there's some sort of odd like is it sexual is it paternal like what is it fury road so good uh you know the only problem with mad max now is that even though the other movies are all good like anytime i watch them i'm like i do love i know and it it is bizarre how successfully fury road works as i spent 30 years

and i've done all the research and now i know how to make a perfect mad max movie right truly like all these films have their own value. As I said, watch this again. You watch this movie and you're like, what if Toe Cutter had a truck that was so big and the wheels were so big. I can't wait to watch Fury Road. I'm edging. This whole mini

I almost watched it a couple weeks ago. Me too. I watched it recently. I've been waiting because I'm like, I want to watch an order up to this. It would just be really fun. I'm sure I can own this thing now, right? There must be some toy of it. The Giga Horse.

No, I mean, could you get the real car though? Yeah, real merchandise. Yeah, no, I know the toys are complicated. Yeah, we'll get into that. It would be cool to race cars in the desert. Yeah, yeah you're saying you want to live in the wasteland have you been to australia no no no i've never been to the desert you've never been to like the arizona or somewhere like no but i'm gonna try now and and race cars yeah i'm surprised i haven't been the burning man

i know hippie-ish i He doesn't like hippies. I don't like hippies. Everything other than the hippie contingency feels very up your alley. Drugs, nudity. That's why I was going to go. Drugs and nudity. Effigy, I'm there. Tense.

Effigy. I consider myself a fan of effigies so they then this is the this is the thing that is weirdest about mad max he goes back to his wife well that is actually his wife plays the saxophone i mean that's great i love his baby wears a sailor they arrest johnny the boy yeah and take him to court and he like gets off on a technicality that's the thing where you're like in the movie they're like oh the world's gone to shit but you're like there's a court there was but that's he's like getting away with something this is also in mx2 you would just like run him over that's the point i think if you're seeing this film in 1979 you're like i

can't believe a movie is this crazy right if you're watching this movie in 2020 you're like they have walls this is lame they have doors right this house looks heated um but yes what is this bullshit we don't see his wife for quite a while right she comes in it's like the 15 minute mark it's 15 20 minute you have this straight action sequence and then there's like a fade to him in his home there's sax music playing he's hanging out with his baby. It's nice domesticity. And then an amazing reverse shot reveal of his wife is the one playing the sax. Right, right, right, right. I mean, an incredible bit. But yeah, because you're cutting between that and then he goes back to cop land.

And they're like, we made you a cool cause. Keep being a cop. And he's like, all right. That's where you meet the interceptor. And when they're in that. Pursuit special. When they're in that garage. And it just feels like, oh my God,'s where you meet the interceptor. And when they're in that pursuit special, when they're in that garage and it just feels like,

oh my God, how can they afford to have a garage this big with this many cars in it? It's truly a thing where they would shoot one angle and then they would

move all the cars around to the other side and shoot the other angle. So no matter what angle they're at, it looks like there's three cars in the background, which makes you feel

like there are 20 cars, but there are actually only three. Shit like that's incredible uh byron kennedy's also the one who is doing a lot of the stunt driving in this movie he was like a big motorhead he was the guy who really understood the language of the vehicles george miller gives him a lot of credit in particular for the sound that he was sort of a genius with sound and a big thing that he said is like each of these motors has to have a different register a different pitch so they each sonically are their own characters that unconsciously you start to recognize the vehicles in that kind of way so he's like picking the cars designing the cars uh and driving a lot of them on camera and also you know picking up lunch in the V8 Intercept there.

Right, right. Which they, in all the making of stuff, always call the black on black. Sure. Which is kind of cool. That is cool. Yeah. So Johnny gets off. Yes.

Well, he sabotages Goose's bike. And Goose crashes but survives. Yeah. Even though he's like flipped off his fucking bike. Which the two heckle and jackal cops at the beginning in failing to catch the night rider the one guy ends up a glass in his neck and then he's got the like the sound box thing yeah but it was another george miller thing is he's like i want everyone to have all these like little injuries right yeah yeah um but that's

when they burn up goose yeah i mean we I mean, we're zooming, but yeah. We're not. What have we missed? Goose dies at like the 45 minute mark. Yeah. Yeah. But what is there? What haven't we talked about?

I mean, that's just what's Goose's deal. Max's family, toe cutter. That's right. There's a lot of toe cutters. Does Goose, I mean, he seems like he's got charisma, but everyone's making it out to seem like he's got the most um in a country budget movie he can like say a joke so everyone's like this guy's a cut up here's the other problem they didn't know that the other actor was gonna be mel gibson which say what you will no no he's great

about well yeah i was gonna say say what you will about his acting his personal life is fantastic but uh no but but it is like it is so insane to just think that this movie which you're so used to seeing these types of movies with lead actors who either never become anything right or become just sort of cult figures like jeffrey combs or like bruce campbell you know or like working to watch this movie which is so scrappy and gorilla and be like and then it produced this dude who became the biggest at a point was the biggest the biggest star in hollywood like the absolute biggest star became the highest paid star in hollywood had like a 25 year career yeah won all the oscars like everything it's just a they all talk about like they cast him he was good in auditions he had a

real reputation from drama school and busley were best friends it felt like those were the two guys who were gonna make it but it wasn't until that they started filming the movie and Mel Gibson stepped in front of camera and everyone looked behind the lens and they were like, Oh fuck, this guy's popping that weird X factor thing where certain people just fucking work on a movie screen where they like looked at him and they were like,

this guy's really handsome. And then they looked at him like through the viewfinder and they were like, Oh, $20 million leather motorcycle jacket it's just like boom which all of them are vinyl yeah for budgetary reasons they were like it was so gross you were like wringing out your stuff and they're like changing on the side of the road you know like i mean they're like driving the vehicles in the on-camera vehicles to weird desolate locations and then everyone's like setting up the actors are like

grabbing sandbags i mean the crew was so small everyone in this movie had like four titles who was part of the crew and every actor ended up doing like two crew jobs on top of it and he was like we were helping light like everything so they burn goose worth it they burn goose up they burn goose up. It was worth it. They burn goose up. They burn them. Yeah. They burn them up. It's a roast goose. They roast the goose. Which it is crazy. There are two different canonically like humongous action films in which the

hero loses a best friend named goose. And that's what like. It's a fair point. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Very,

very good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.. Yeah. Yeah. I make a best friend name never call anyone goose stupid name yeah so max retires and he goes to live with his wife and just chill out you can't deal with it anymore and that's when his kid gets smashed up by the toe cutter guy it's just funny that there are two revenge points like you don't really need max's family to die like you know

killing goose is i would be like yeah i get it now he has to go kill toe cutter like i don't really need Max's family to die. Like, you know, killing goose is, I would be like, yeah, I get it. And now he has to go kill toe cutter. Like I don't really need the second thing. I don't mind it to be clear. I don't mind the total loss of his humanity. It makes total sense. I think that's what it is. Right. But then the goose thing almost feels a privilege for you're like,

okay, yeah. Goose had to go to, I guess. No, cause the point is, even if look, obviously losing the wife and child is more catastrophic,

right? Yeah. Would be harder. You don't have Yeah. Would be harder to overcome. He doesn't have anywhere to go to after that. Right. I think having those two things happen as two separate instances so close together is what drives him into madness. It drives him into madness. I think if his wife and child died, he would probably go into deep depression and seek some sort of revenge.

and seek some sort of revenge. But the level of just like, I don't give a fuck that he hits by the end of the movie can only be reached if like your life becomes that, like cosmically absurdly tragic. Right. But you also, it's like the initial conflict in the movie is he's like, should I quit being a cop? Yes.

And then Goose dies and he does. Yeah. But then, right, you know, then obviously. It's like this world doesn't make sense. I don't have anything to live for anymore. Yeah. Toe cutter. i don't talk more about like i've now reached the end of the fucking wikipedia summary is not long it's not a plotty movie i feel like re-watching it i it was almost like this thing of being like i don't feel like max was as directly responsible for the death of their friend. A thing that I kept getting hung up on is it felt-

Of Knight Rider? Knight Rider, yeah. He's pretty responsible. He chases him down. He chases him down. I mean, look, Knight Rider made a few mistakes along the way. That's what I'm saying. That guy doesn't have a perfect bullet.

And I like Knight Rider. I think he's cool. I like his deal. I like his look. I don't think Toe Cutter's getting being like, well, Knight Rider, he was he's cool. I like his deal. I like, I just think, I don't like think toe cutters getting, being like, well,

Knight Rider, he was, he was a bit of a hothead. You know what I mean? Like, I think I understand why he doesn't like Max. They're going after him so hard and they're not going after those two other dopey cops, but they,

those guys are, that's their small potato. Yeah. If I can just say one thing about Knight Rider, what's up? It's been said that he enjoys small potato. Yeah, I guess you're right. If I can just say one thing about Knight Rider. What's up? It's been said that he enjoys women almost as much as I do. Some of them are even on the younger side. No question about it.

Knight Rider enjoys his social life. It's in close to retiring that one, I feel like, right? Oh, it's definitely on deck. Yeah. That's the next one. We're going to have to put that one on the retirement express. Yeah. Oh, you know what?

Some great vulture work sure great vulture work who is it jesse david fox yeah what is this hunter harris good to great vulture work allison wilmore new hire jerry salts what are we talking about i guess he's more mainline. New York Magazine. Vultures are fucked up. Yeah. It's a weird thing. Yeah. Like that sucks that they exist.

I guess so. It makes total sense. It's like, well, there's going to be dead things. I find everything about them scary. They are doing an important job. Yeah, they're like garbage men, right? They like clean up the sort of stuff we don't want to deal with. Yeah, but they look so scary. They do.

That's the thing. They look messed up. That's the thing. we don't want to deal with. Yeah, but they look so scary. They do. That's the thing. They look messed up. That's the thing.

They look messed up and they're kind of the like funeral worker of the nature. It'd be one thing if they were just like seagulls where they just look around for garbage and they eat it. But like the idea

that they like will see something and be like, ooh, what's this? And start circling around. And you're not even dead. You're not even dead. I think their behaviors are really scary.

Can I also say, and I don't know if this is specious of me, I think they are the most innately scary looking creatures. They're probably top ten. If you're just talking visuals. Yeah. They're top ten. I just feel like there must be other

scary animals out there that I'm not thinking. You know, the angler fish. You know, your classic scary animals. I'm sure Tekazansky. Stick bugs freak me out. right? You know, you're classic scary animals. I'm sure Ted Kaczynski. Stick bugs freak me out. Really? I mean, you mean like a stick insect? Like a little cute stick guy? He looks like a stick?

I just don't like the idea of reaching for a branch and it's a bug. Like Slim from A Bug's Life played by David Hyde Pierce? Sort of a comical fop character. There's also a stick insect in Doolittle. Oh, that movie. He uses it asical fop character. There's also a stick insect in Doolittle. Oh, that movie. He uses it as like

a spy character. Fuck, I gotta go see Doolittle now. Hold on, I just gotta check Doolittle showtimes. But vultures, yes, were designed and involved

over the years to eat dead or soon to be things. Dead things. That's fucked. That's fucked. Great vulture work.. Great vulture work. Great vulture work.

Um, I don't know. What else can we say about this? I mean, it's hard to talk about because it's so purely When Toe Cutter gets run over by the truck, like that looks so fucking good. That is the best thing. It looks so good. But that's so much of it is like

this shit's real. Like it's like they're putting rockets in the back of cars. They're like driving everything at like 140 kilometers, you know? So nuts. And they're just crashing things. Nothing looks better. I'm just watching a clip of Tobi. Nothing looks better than one, Mel Gibson behind a wheel.

With his leather gloves on. He belongs there. He belongs there. that's just sort of just that close any close up that always looks good the other thing that always looks good wide open Australian landscapes which this film is like all anamorphic lenses

it was the first anamorphic film ever made in Australia and I believe it is the only Australian film ever shot on the Todd AO format. And the secret is the getaway. Is that what it's called? The Paul, the Peckinpah movie, the Sam Peckinpah movie that I think was shot in Australia.

He had shot that with those lenses and just left them. Sure. And they like bought them at like a fucking garage. Yeah. I mean, it was like they had like outdated lenses that they were like jerry-rigging to these cameras uh that could barely fit on but but that was the sense they had of like this is all about like a road a straight

line that can curve depending on where we place the camera and just like barren landscape as far as the eye can see everywhere around it. Yeah. Um, but yeah, him as, as in fury road and Mad Max two and most like the, he dies before the final, you know, Joey is actually Joe, sorry,

Johnny, the boy is the last, the boy is the final guy. Uh, and that's the moment when, when his, he's done when it's not just that he's going to kill Johnny, the boy,

but that he's going to like psychologically torture him. He does the saw trick. It's crazy that that's the end of the fucking movie though. It's a pretty good ending. That he like drags a guy by a handcuff, chains him to a car. Right. And he's like,

you have five minutes to saw through your leg. You know, he sets up the whole gasoline. This is how long it's going to take for the fire to go off. This is how long it would take you to saw through the chain of the handcuff. And this is how long it would take you to saw through the chain of the handcuff and this is how long it would take you

to saw through your life. Right. Walks away, explosion, end of movie. You need that satisfying explosion. The explosions

are so crazy. And the ending is also nothing will ever be the same. Yes. Like, that's what really it's just like.

What if Mad Max 2 is just him being like, I'm glad I got all that out of my system and he's very therapy I'm watching this like when it comes out and then going like they announced they're making Mad Max 2 and you're like, but

what is this guy do next? Yeah like you can't you can't make a movie where the guy has like already got road warriors. Yeah, like some other things Brian May score very cool. Yes, weird discordant kind of score. Brian May's score, very cool. Weird, discordant kind of score. Not Brian May from Queen.

Beautifully played by... I don't even know who played him. I don't know. I was going to make a terrible joke. I still haven't seen it. Bo Rap? Yeah. What was the best comedy of last year?

Two years ago. Or was it... Did Green Book win for drama and it for comedy? No. You know what, David? You are 100% correct. Isn't it crazy? Bohemian Rhapsody won best drama and Green Book won best comedy. It was the double whammy of one, that those were the two best films of the year, according

to the Golden Globes, but two that they were weirdly like flopped in that way. It's that crazy thing of like, it's crazy. They didn't put a star is born in musical right they put it in drama it's crazy judy didn't run as a musical right i am actually i'm gonna just say jody jody jody that i'm i'm purposely not watching green book for the day that we decide to open the book. Well, my friend, by the time this episode comes out, we will be deep in March Madness. We'll know. I'll be at a very slim chance. March Madness will be almost over.

Then Peter Farrelly takes it to the hoop. Maybe it goes to like Marty versus Peter. Yeah. The two kings. It could happen. I mean, I'll say this. We used to talk about, like I used to make the pitch for you of the Farrelly Brothers,

and you would go, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Green Book changed everything. Green Book makes it such a fascinating thing. Because the Farrelly Brothers before, it was like it ended at, like, Hall Pass or whatever. We were like, all right. It ends at Dumb Dumber 2. But now it ends at Best Picture Winner Green Book.

That's really more of a battle on the picture. But there's so much more great work to come out too by peter i mean i don't even think we should like we should he's got this movie coming out called blue book about buying a car i don't know i feel red book it's a mal biopic what if he just kept with books but it's like an eskimo or like a native american person from alaska this time and he's connecting like with an italian american i feel like he's connecting like with an Italian American. I feel like he's announced his next thing and it's weird. He definitely announced something,

but I don't know if it was. But I also feel like it's maybe like a mini series. He might've been circling something though. I can't remember if he was actually confirmed. I interviewed him. He's a nice guy. Okay. Well, I can't remember what the thing was.

Oh, well, you know, and i guess i can't no there was a third gang and i wasn't really supposed to talk about it but i think enough time has gone on i was in a fight club you really shouldn't talk about that i'm not supposed to talk about that they say it twice i am okay cut that out okay and damn Damn it. Actually, keep it in triplet. We can do the box office game with the Big Mama's House movies. We're going to do that. I'm just trying to see if there's any other... Well, of course, there was the famously weird American version

where they dubbed over the dialogue that no one liked. That George Miller said he's never seen. It tanked in the US. They dubbed over like, Oi, oi, with like, Hey, you. Right. And like, I, Oi, with like, Hey, you! Right. And like,

I love Ronald Reagan! I don't know what they were saying. But Village Roadshow sold it to Warner Brothers where they had one person distribution who was really, really bullish on it. Botched it in the U.S., but sold it really hard in Japan

and it blew up there. And that's what sort of started the run of it being this global crossover sensation. Because once Japan did well, and the posters are all so evocative for this movie. I mean, they're like him in the weird cop leather with the helmet in front of the car, and they would tailor a new piece of graphic design

for each country, and it sort of just did well everywhere all non-english speaking territories because in all english territories they released this horrible fucking dub that is horrendous I saw a clip of it it's so fucking bad but yeah it's also

super weird to dub the english language yep yes it is but it's super weird. And it became one of the most profitable movies of all time. The weirdest thing is that at the Australian like film Institute awards that year, they didn't even nominate. Oh, I was going to say they didn't even nominate Mel Gibson, but he actually won for a different movie called Tim, which is 100% the Oscar bait movie.

Yeah. A mentally handicapped 12 year, 20 year old works as a labor. Like they were like, yeah, Mad Max was pretty good, but like, oh Tim,

you were so moving as Tim. Yeah. By the way, our next mini series is Tim. It's just, just that. Talking Tim. Hyper Laurie Mel Gibson.

Wow. All right. So there's no box office for this movie, partly because it was barely released in America anyway, but also because it's from a long time ago. But we do have to talk about February 18th, 2011, which is when Big Mama's... So you specifically want to do the third one?

Yeah, we have to. February 18th, 2011, right before my birthday. Big Mama's colon, like mama, like father, like son. Yeah. Debuted number five at the box office with a 16 million dollar opening weekend five at 16 five and it's one of three big openers that week so everything just did okay what is it enough to classic february where it's like 20 19 18 16 20 you know like everything's making kind of the same amount of money does it

end up at like 50 or does it oh i, I don't think it multiplied like that. No, it ended up at 37. Oh, it was a two multiplier. Like in the old number, the numbers, which I do appreciate has the sort of shading for like,

this is where you would want to end up. It's a little below. Yeah. Um, but do they, is this like a four day weekend? Is this a present stay weekend? Or am I wrong on the time?

If it is, which it might be, it's not showing me. So that's number five. It is. It is. But number one that week. What if we do a reverse order?

Let's just throw all the rules. Let's go up. All right. Number four was number one the week before. Oh, wow. And is a comedy with a big comedy star. A comedy with a big comedy star. Yeah.

And it's 2011. One of his last big, just down the middle middle i'm in a movie is it just go with it correct yeah amazing that you got the movie as well as the star i figured you would get that was the swing i wanted to take i was like i could ask if it's sandler but i'd rather just go i just love that he released a movie that's just like oh just go with it it's me jennifer anderson we're on vacation or whatever who cares it's it's an adaptation of a french play that was previously adapting the cactus flower she has to pretend to be his wife she's his co-worker right like there's a whole flim flam yeah brooklyn decker is playing the goldie hawn role that won goldie hawn an oscar did brooklyn decker win an oscar she did okay good for her yeah and can you

give me the final she won a technical award in the academy science ceremony can you give me the final technical award in the academy science ceremony can you give me the final domestic total it was like 105 right it's like his last hundred million dollar gross it's sort of the end of it but hey when jennifer aniston won a sag award last night she shouted him out on stage he's got magic i've seen up close and isn't she doing mystery murder mystery i think she two i think three four they gotta do them all hey i'm excited they gotta do all the i hope excited i gotta do all the i hope they announced an avatar style like we're pushing two back because we're gonna shoot five sequels i also wanted to be like the first one he's investigating some fictional i wanted

to do like zodiac right fucking the glenberg baby get into all of them all those people thing and the dialogue of passinson in r Russia where all those people died and no one knows why. He'll figure it out. Detective mysteries on the case. Zodiac. I can't do Sandler. All right. Zodiac.

I just wanted to say tonight, I'm excited to go in and see a live reading of Grown Ups 3. Oh, the traveling reading. Yeah. It says there's a special surprise guest. I mean, I guess everyone will know by the time this episode comes out, but I kind of wonder if Sandler's going to show up. I mean, that would be crazy, but we'll find out. I don't I guess everyone will know by the time this episode comes out, but I kind of wonder if Sandler's going to show up. I mean, that would be crazy, but

we'll find out. I don't know. All right. So, I mean, he's doing the New York and LA one. Yeah. I'm curious. Give me a little D, Spade. Fingers crossed. He loves me. He's sure. Number three at the box office

had been number three the weekend before. It's an animated film. Oh, it's Holden City number weekend before it's an animated film oh it's Holden City number three it's an animated film this has come up it's come up a lot yeah this film has come up a lot

sure well it's an important work of the decade Gnome and Juliet exactly it's about a little adventure going a long way do you like that I got it

off of those clues this is a vile poster i've never even seen this one and what's the tagline a gnome is turned around he's leaning over he's showing you a little plumbers plumbers crack and it says i'll crack you up david do you know the final domestic total on nomio and julia uh 400 billion dollars no i don't know i think it will shock you look it up for it 99 it didn't make a hundred though so close didn't crack the hundo if you read i think i've talked about this before but look up interviews with elton john about nomi and julia because he's been talking years about this and he's just like those fuckers told me i was dumb for making my no movie and they

all had to eat my fucking shit so here's the other 99 domestic in january you assholes all right here's the other thing huge hit sonic just released uh some character posters obviously you have a sonic of course you have a robotnik of course a james marston poster officer human no he's credited as donut lord oh i guess because he probably does donuts but then this is the one I'm most excited about. The Tika Sumter poster. Maddie. Just a name.

It's just her name. I might get that poster on my wall. Because it also doesn't say Sonic anywhere on it. It just says Maddie. It's just a picture of Tika Sumter. In a jean jacket. A very good actress. And just says coming soon.

It has no Sonic branding whatsoever. What is Sonic? Like is so. I saw the trailer and I feel like Sonic's fast. He's got to go fast. He simply must go fast. And the funny thing about it... He has no choice but to go fast.

But the funny thing is that something will be happening and then he'll go and do that thing very quickly ben i gotta give you a key piece of advice here what's up do not leave your rings around unattended when sonic is in town okay okay i'm writing it down okay he'll take them in the blink of an eye also if you have one of those and we all do sort of tv shaped boxes that if you touch it,

it turns you invincible for 10 to 15 seconds. Of course you better hide that away. Because we all have one of those and we're saving it for when we really need it, but he will just go and use it. Yeah. Rude. And that's a one time use item.

Yeah, it is. Unless you can find another one. Yeah. And don't even talk to me if you have any chaos emeralds, cause then you're really in trouble. Here's another hot tip. Uh-huh.

If you, if you like in your backyard and we're city boys, I'm talking more people living in the suburbs. I've got a backyard. It's where I put my jeans. Sure. Go on. You might want to tend to your green rolling hills.

All right. Because if your grass is out of control, it might catch on fire. Oh, geez. It's true. Number two at the box office should have true number two at the box office should have been number four at the box office that's a clue it's a fourth movie in a franchise no

number two should have been number four the fuck does this mean z i believe and does this joke make sense to you looking at the name of the movie yeah yeah yeah the joke trapped okay it's take it more literally you believe david yeah what were you gonna say you said it was released by disney i think it was one of those leftover dreamworks movies that got released by disney but it was released by disney which is just funny to think about it's not strange magic no which was a lucasfilm acquisition film it's a leftover dreamworks it's number two but it should have been number four should have been number four should be opening a number four yeah think about it think about it think about it this thing all right let's see so does it have four in the title anywhere it does but it's not a fourth film

in a franchise oh which might have heard it honestly people might have been a little baffled by that oh it's this fucking movie i am number four that's right he is number four written by well idea by james fray right that someone else wrote james fray hot off of lying about his drug addiction yeah right started this weird company where he would like he was like a boiler room for young adult right he would like hire like english graduates and we're like all day sit here change this desk come up with young adult concepts and people be like i don't know it's an alien in high school it's a wizard who also fucks a mermaid but they're in high school there's some the title the idea was they'll come up with the concept we'll'll ghost write the book. All the books will be released under pseudonyms.

I will collect 60% of the profits from anything that comes out of my incubator. And then everything's meant to be a franchise. And this was the one thing that came out of it. And it bombed and no one gave a shit. Right. Here's the tagline. There were nine of us. Three are dead.

I am number four. Yeah. I'm just like, okay. Audition for that movie. And that's where number four was almost incomprehensible. You're just like, what's the fucking hook here? It's about a guy who's number four.

So, uh, yeah, that's right. He has like blue hands or something. Yeah. It's one of those classic orange blue posters. It's just like,

I don't know. I mean, when are we going to meet aliens? When am I really not? We, when I'm probably by the time this episode comes out. I'm ready for it. March-ish.

It's weird that the world is so crazy that no one talks about the fact that the New York Times has released like eight articles in the last year. Just like Navy saw some more aliens. Here's the video for you to enjoy. And everyone's just like, but Trump, is he a good or bad president? Can we weigh in on this a little bit more? Those stories are like, just to be clear, the government, you know those people that we always-

The government is acknowledging seeing things. You know we always thought maybe the government's lying to us about aliens? New York Times publishes, government, yeah, we were lying about aliens. We've seen them. They're out there. And people are like, but Pete Davidson, who is he dating now? Well, he's got a big one. I mean, I'm sorry. Absolutely. talking about the king of Staten Island.

All right. Number one at the box office. Number one at the box office in 2011. Please go ahead. Small fines getting something out of us. I don't know if it's cat allergies or what. Clara didn't help me. I took a Zerg pack.

I'm sorry. Number two at the box office.. It's good. Clara didn't help me. I don't, I don't know. I took a Zerg pack. Yeah. So, okay. I'm sorry. Number two at the box office. Number one. Number one. Number two is I am number four.

Confusingly enough. Yeah. Number one is another new movie. It's an action film. It is, I believe the first in a, yes. I was going to say,

you said that was like a DreamWorks, like Disney dump. You have to remember, this is the year that avengers their first release comes out no it's the year before oh correct 2011 disney at this point that's what i'm saying really wants that that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying three picture deal like they're like wasn't that long ago yeah but anyway number so this is the first collaboration of i think three or no but a four between this director and actor who become like

sort of a fun action movie pair of course it's a walberg squared it's not berg and walberg no it's a much better pair and they work together four times and this is the first one first they've worked together four times in the last nine years correct who puts out action movies of that kind of a clip is it liam that's right is it my favorite one of course non-stop no that is also my favorite one but that was their second collabo i believe this is the worst this is the worst one this is unknown yes which is bad and this is only coming out like a year or two after taken never even even heard of this. It's like one of those things where like Liam Neeson goes to Berlin or something and then his wife disappears and everyone's like, you never had a wife. Like there's some weird sort of like.

It's a gas lit thing. I'm going to have to punch everyone to figure this one out. Only one solution here. The problem with unknown is it was like taken, caught everyone by surprise. Yeah. And Warner brothers was like, Oh,

let's put him in like a big budget, more serious thriller. And it's the most serious minded. It's the one that doesn't get that. It should just be fun. Right. And then they're just like, who is he?

A washed up guy. Where is he? A piece of transportation transportation a thing that moves through the earth non-stop has my favorite fucking monologue which is like he's figured out how to save the day but no one believes him because they framed him and like uh all the jet blue tv screens are showing like news broadcasts about his shitty past right and he gets up in this airplane that can barely fit him you're right and he's like everything you've heard about me is true i'm a terrible father i was a lousy husband i'm an awful drunk i shot four men like he just lists every bad thing he's

done i remember i remember i've been delinquent on my taxes i still tip that well i still have tapes from blockbuster even though my local store was one of the first to go i'm the only person who can save you like it just goes on for so long yeah yeah i remember great movie that's my favorite i'm always late to birthday parties i think that it's for me it's non-stop the best and then the commuter i like the commuter and then run all night which is good but it's a little shaggier it's a wild movie um has the least neeson in a weird way it keeps cutting to all these other people and you're kind of like i care about me i'm your brother right yeah yeah and then brother nolte and then um and then unknown of the four nieces. We're brothers. Yes, we are.

The four nieces. Remember when we had the same parents? Of course, mom and dad. I mean, they're both tall. I'll give a math, right? The degree to which I pump my fist at the reveal of Nolte being his brother in that movie. It makes such beautiful nonsense. But's it's so perfect right right yeah i i never saw cold pursuit i feel like i need to watch it it was just so marred by him

coming out and being not a bad movie no it doesn't have the jean-claude serra magic but not a bad movie at all i liked it it was fine i love my knee since i mean i also i feel like what i'll say about cold pursuit is it feels like there's a new trope in action from john wick which is like the fucking slickest sexiest mercenaries you've ever met sure we're like i always feel like my memory of thugs from action movies where they were like big hairy ugly dudes right right right or then like over the top sexualized women and i feel like now it's this thing where every guy looks like he reads gq magazine and it's just like the like the hottest fucking dude in the world it's my favorite thing about the neeson movies is that he is so big that he can barely move. Right. Like he is not swift.

He's not elegant. I'll see you in five minutes. Well, then they put him in a puffy jacket. You should see him in this movie. Looks like a big loaf man. Love it. Yeah. I look like bread.

Remember when he was in Men in Black International? Of course, I do. I'm just trying to see what else he's up to recently. Yeah, I don't know. Did he say anything recently? No, but it was like Men in Black and Cold Pursuit were the two things that came out right after his whole

like, what, Akadra? What was that? The weapon? Akash. Akash? He had this movie called Ordinary Love, which with Leslie Manville, which is like a sort of sad like maybe someone's dying movie that was a TIFF. So that's coming out this year.

But I also feel like they're like, we're not going to let him do press ever again. Well, he's got three movies coming out next year. This year. One's called honest thief in which him and Jai Courtney, the only thing I've ever been honest about Robert Patrick is in it. Yeah.

Like God, he tries to turn himself in cause he's falling in love, but he wants to live been honest about. Robert Patrick is in it. Yeah. I swear to God, I stole your belongings. He tries to turn himself in because he's falling in love but he wants to live an honest life but he realizes the feds are more corrupt than him

and I'm like, just 10 tickets, please. Tight as hell. Something called The Minute Man, which is a rancher on the borders has to take down

some cartel assassins because a Mexican boy is being chased. My crops are bad this year. Which is from Robert Lorenz, which is, you know, the guy who made trouble with the curve, one of the Eastwood disciples.

Yeah. And then something called Made in Italy, which that's like, that's a drama. That's not a, he's not going to kill anyone. But that could be an action movie. I'm going to chase you down on these fine Italian loafers. But doesn't that sound, what's it called? Honest Thief? He's an action movie. I'm going to chase you down on these fine Italian loafers. But doesn't that sound, what's it called?

Honest Thief? He's an honest thief. The thing I love about Widows, I mean, I love so much about it, is that a subplot in that movie is that she married a Liam Neeson character from a January thriller. She's like, I was living a great life, and it turned out my husband was Liam Neeson in Run All Night. He's so good in that.

He is. He's great in it. Great movie. Well, of course, this. He's so good in that. He is. He is. He's great. Great movie. Well, of course this has been our episode on mad max. Great episode. A little static,

fun, mad, mad, fun, mad, fun, mad, fun,

mad fun. And guys, well, wait, let me double check. Make sure there's nothing in the way. Yeah. There's no,

uh, pop-ups. Yeah. There's no pop-ups next week. There's no pop-ups next week. Mad Max two warrior with special guest, John Gabrus in the can, in the can. Get excited.

Get excited. Yeah. Get excited for George Miller. Yeah. We're finally doing them. It's a wild run. Yeah. And it's nice to be back in a franchise too.

I know it's a very different type of franchise. Yeah. Very different type, but you know, but it's nice to spend extended time in one universe. It's nostalgic. Right, right, right. And thanks you all for

listening. Thanks you all for listening. Thanks to Antwerp Goodo for our social media. Thanks to Rachel Jacobs for editing. Thanks to Joe Bowen. Pat Rounds for our artwork. Liam Montgomery for our theme song. Thanks to Joe Bowen, Pat Rounds for our artwork, Liam Montgomery for our theme song. Go to

BlinkCheck.com slash Patreon to become a checkmate. Of course. As one should. As one should. As one should. Enjoy. I hope you enjoy this Fury Road. We're going to take you down for the next

two months and change and as always realistically do you think Liam Neeson or Pete Davidson has a bigger penis Neeson I think so too

right he's just he's got the height right yeah I didn't have you seen Pushing Tin? No.

I think I saw like half an hour of it on TV. What does that even mean? Is that a phrase? Air traffic controllers. That's what air traffic controllers... Like Pushing Tin down the runway? Yeah. I hate that.

Well, that's what they call it. That's too casual for me. Planes are serious. Well, I agree with you, but they, you know, they do that. They got to have a little fun. Never. Because Pushing Tin is about like John Cusack's a regular air traffic controller. He's like, you're clear for takeoff.

And then Billy Bob Thornton's like, howdy, cowboys. I'm the cowboy air traffic controller. Who's a cowboy? But it's the movie. How do you know he's a cowboy? He's like, howdy. I don't know. It's the movie where Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton meet.

Yes. And that was the only reason I ever thought of that movie. And then I found out the other day, it is written by the Charles brothers. Yeah. Who are the creators of Cheers and the main writers on Taxi. And it's the only movie they ever wrote. I think they also. Those are the only three things they ever did.

I think they had written it years ago or something. Yeah. Like it was like a script someone picked up. And is it Mike Newell? Yeah. I'm like, do I need to watch? Does Pushington slap? Well, John Cusack plays a guy called Nick Falzone

fuck it does you know what his nickname is the zone that's kind of good and maybe he likes calzones too