Blank Check with Griffin & David - Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome with David Ehrlich

Episode Date: April 12, 2020

Together, #thetwofriends and returning guest David Ehrlich (IndieWire) talk about not just the Thunderdome, but go beyond to examine Tina Turner’s filmography, why the children of the wasteland are 10x better than the Lost Boys of Hook, the Toy Story 3 song “We Belong Together” and more!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, podcasting time's here. That's a good Australian. You're getting better. Thank you. It's sort of subtler. Remember, no matter where you go, there you podcast. That line was written for this movie, right? It was. That was the first time that Maxon said it.

Did this movie invent two men enter, one man leaves? Like, is this the movie that came up with that? I think so. And this movie also invented fighting. Yeah, right. People had never come to blows before Thunderdome. And then after this, everybody got a Thunderdome. I know.

It became the hottest backyard accessory. Can I just start out right off the gate? The audacity of this movie, the confidence. If this had been titled Mad Max colon Thunderdome, you'd go, oh my God, fucking cool title. I can't wait to see what a Thunderdome is. Right, but this movie goes, no, no, we're beyond Thunderdome. We don't even know what Thunderdome is yet, but we don't need it. You dumb idiot.

We're beyond Thunderdome at this point. They're first telling you they're beyond. You go beyond what? Thunderdome. I didn't even know that Thunderdome existed until you just told me that you were beyond it. Well, because the first half is Thunderdome, the second half goes beyond Thunderdome. I understand.

What I want to see is a pie chart that shows all of the movies, the percentage of movies that take place on this side of Thunderdome versus the films that are beyond Thunderdome. Not many. I can think of one. My favorite joke of all time, what they teach you at Harvard Business School,

what they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. You buy those two books, you're like, that's it. That's all the knowledge. This movie's beyond Thunderdome, and also I think Mystery Alaska is beyond Thunderdome. That movie does have a Thunderdome sequence. It also has the Rangers tying a fucking local Alaskan hockey team. It makes me so bitter, I cannot stand it.

Anyway. Here cannot stand it. Anyway. Here's a question. Is Mystery Alaska Jay Roach's second best film? Third? It sort of depends on where you fall on the Austin Powers is, I feel like. His best movie is Austin Powers 1. No question. It's no question.

It's also one of the great debuts. Yes. A really promising debut. And then after that, it's sort of like, you know, what do you want? You want a power sequel? Do you want one of the Fockers movies? Right. He did what?

Two? Three? Two. He did two. Are you weirdly into Dinner for Schmucks? I always confuse him with Tom Shadyak. That's fair, but Tom Shadyak's weirder than Shadyak. Yeah, he's got the hair.

And Roach is like, I'm very political and I'm very serious. Right he's like yes we have to talk about Trumbo. Yes. Let's talk about Trumbo on every episode of Blank Chat. Shadyak. Oh! Which one of them did Bombshell? Roach. Right. Roach. Shadyak this year did Brian Banks

the movie about the football player who was accused of rape or something. Deleted a lot of emails about that movie. Yeah. But here's the key distinction is that Roach does the recount movie. Yes, that's right. He becomes the HBO electoral recreation movie guy. Have you ever wanted to watch a Wikipedia page starring a lot of famous people?

Here you go. Because Curtis Hanson, I think, is supposed to direct that. Gets sick, drops out, Roach jumps in. Because Curtis Hanson had done Too Big to Fail, which is much better than recount. Agreed. He's Because Curtis Henson had done Too Big to Fail. Right. Which is much better than Recon. Agreed. He's a better director.

He was a far better director. Than Jay Roach? Yes. How dare you? I'll say it. I'll say it. Knives out. We're going beyond

Thunderdome in this episode. I'm ready to fight. Two directors answer and one director leaves. Okay. We'll get to Steelbook Talk in one second. Because you said Knives Out.

But Roach jumps into that movie last second. Does just the most gentleman's straightforward job just directing the script with a good cast. I watched that movie last second does just the most gentleman's straightforward job just directing the script with a good cast. I watched that movie while I was like folding my laundry and it was okay. That movie's watchable, right?

And then he like wins an Emmy and he's like, hmm, legitimacy. And then he just becomes all about like, I need to be taken seriously. Except he also does Dinner for Schmucks in the campaign. He does, here's his last 10 years or whatever. I love Dinner for Schmucks. the campaign. He does. Here's his last 10 years or whatever. Recount. Schmucks.

Game change. The campaign. That's him trying to split the atom and go, can I do both? Trumbo. And of course that's him. I'm writing in my bathtub. That's right. That's when he won the golden bathtub. And then all the way another HBO political movie based on a play.

And then of course Bombshell the biggest bombshell of 2019 we all remember it now Shadyac it's the opposite because both Roach

and Shadyac start out doing very broad very silly right and then have their like come to Valhalla moment

right for Roach it's oh my god I won an Emmy I'm a very serious politician now and for Shadyac it's like reading The Secret.

Shadyac gets into a bicycle accident and has a brain injury and then gives away all of his personal belongings. He has like a ringing in his ears problem, I think. Right, but he's like, all of this is meaningless. Hollywood is a game that I don't want to play anymore. He gives away all of his belongings. I think he lives in like an Airstream trailer. And then he makes a movie called I Am. I Am.

And then Hollywood keeps on trying to offer him. No, excuse me. According to Wikipedia, this film asks the question, what is wrong with the world and what can I do about it? It's a good question. Hey, running time, 76 minutes. So clearly that movie solves the problem fast. That's all you need.

But there was, I think, a New Yorker piece on him where they talked about that he was still getting like $10 million offers to direct big studio comedies and they'd be like, Shadyac, we need you direct

The Incredible Mr. Limpet. And he'd be like, the only way I'll do it is I can rewrite the entire script to make it about fracking. Here is Shadyac. Because he does Evan Almighty, which is the first green production,

which is why it's also the most expensive comedy ever made. Here is Shadyac because he does Evan Almighty which is the first green production which is why it's also the most expensive comedy ever made here is Shadyac's run yeah Ace Ventura Pet Detective

masterpiece which if you ask him about it he goes Ace is just about love it's about pure love I can see it he does get a blowjob

like five minutes into that movie from what the cappuccino monkey no from a fucking woman that movie is insane it's a loving blowjob though yeah number two Nutty Professor huge hit humongous and people forget Cappuccino monkey? No, from a fucking woman. That movie is insane. It's a loving blowjob, though.

Yeah. Number two, Nutty Professor. Huge hit. Schumann, yes. And people forget, like, Eddie Murphy, like, swept the Critics Awards for Best Actor. Like, that movie was everywhere.

And it was coming off of, like, seven straight years of Eddie flops. Now, number three. Massive comeback for Eddie. And here, I'm gonna read Fran Hoffner's review, her letterboxed review of this film,

which I have memorized. Okay. The film is called Liar Liar, and her review He Can't Lie. Sure. Which is a movie I've seen like 40 times, and it is pretty bad. Massive success. Excuse me. No Maura Tierney slander on this podcast.

Maura Tierney's great. She does have a pretty, it's a junkie role. Currently in like season three of her not making out with Dr. John Carter on ER. That takes a while. No spoilers, but they do. All right.

Then Patch Adams, which I guess is sort of his like Michael Bay doing Pearl Harbor, where it's like, can I blend what I'm known for with like Oscar Bay? It's like Michael Brest doing Sense of a Woman. I'm sorry. Jesus Christ. Michael Brest and Martin Bay. They got combined in a Transformers. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Which is critically reviled, but is an enormous success. Yeah, but can we come up with a phrase for that, which I've just discovered where it's like, the director's like, I'm going to do my thing, plus Oscar bait. It's Green Book. Because that's the thing about Pearl Harbor. It's not him making Green Book, though.

No, but Green Book, I think, is the same thing. Green Book is so comedy-ish. It's so I know it is. I know. I guess that's the more, quote-unquote, successful version of it. Right. It's sort of like looking for Valhalla idea. Yeah. Like, looking for legitimacy. But yeah, I don't know. What is the term?

Yeah. Well, we can think about it. We can crowdsource it. Then Dragonfly. Don't forget Dragonfly. Right. Now, that's him just going totally off the reserve. That's the Costner near-death experience movie. Oh, I definitely felt a boob Then Dragonfly. Don't forget Dragonfly. Right. Now that's him just going totally off the reserve. That's the Costner near-death experience movie. I definitely felt a boob during Dragonfly. Humble. Not even that humble. I think it was a good one.

I think the most recent episode of the show that aired at the time we're recording this was the Rachel Getting Married episode in which boob feeling was discussed. Oh, I forgot about that. And so I'm just picking up the torch where I found it. Sure, sure, sure. But very true. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Then Bruce Almighty, colossal hit. People forget. And in both cases, Liar Liar was coming after Yeah, they were both like Carrie Rebound movies. No, no, Liar Liar is before Truman Show. It's after Cable Guy. Oh, right. They're both like Carrie just being like,

let me give you a comedy. I'm going to make some faces. I'm going to do some voices. I'm going to do some voices. And people are like, thank you. Bruce Almighty is post Truman Show, Man on the Moon. But it's also like post. Isn't it post number 23 or is it? No, pre.

Pre. It was the three dramedies. And then he comes back and does a straight down the middle. Just funny. And it opens to $70 million. Griffin, I remember that opening till the day I die. I think $240 domestic? It was huge.

And then Evan Almighty. And then Evan Almighty. Right. Which is, that's the blank check. If we did Shadyac. Right. Now, Evan Almighty is, he was like, look,

if I'm making this movie, it's going to have a serious environmental message. The film is half PSA, sort of in like tone. And it also, it costs going to have a serious environmental message. The film is half PSA, sort of in like tone. And it also, it costs $180 million. It was quite pricey. Lauren Graham was commanding a hefty fee at the time.

Gilmore Girls was at the height of its popularity. I mean, they always say the three things you don't do are shoot on water, animals, cast Lauren Graham as Steve Carell's wife. Right. But the other thing is that was the first movie where Shadyac was like, we're going to be the first studio movie to be carbon neutral. Right.

And there were not the mechanisms in place. Well, hey, look, it's pioneering stuff. Good for him. I feel like that movie feels like it's always a hair away from just becoming like a Christian family values film. Right. And it's fighting that impulse the entire time. It's such a weird movie.

Then he did I Am, and then last year he had Ryan Banks, which just like, I just remember getting these emails. It's like he was a football player who's accused of rape, and he was wrongly accused. And I was like,

is this like a movie we need to have right now? And I never saw it. It actually made $4.4 million. So, Morgan Freeman all over the trailer. A lot of accused rapists out there were finally a movie for us. Morgan Freeman's in it, uncredited. But all over the trailer a lot of the Q-trippers out there were finally a movie for us Morgan Freeman's in it

uncredited but all over the trailer it feels like they use all 30 seconds of his performance in the trailer I do love Aldous Hodge I feel like anytime that guy's in a movie

I'm in safe hands it's great in clemency great in clemency great in what men want we talked about that great in what men want he's so fucking charming great in that

Kevin Bacon show I have definitely never seen a single frame of. City on a Hill. It's supposed to be great in that. And look, let me say, this is a podcast about three things. Aldous Hodge, Jay Roach, and Tom Shadia. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm Dave. And we

psyched you out. It's not about that. It's about filmographies. Although we did just speed around to filmographies in totality. Yeah, it's true. I mean, Shadyak, I guess Podcast Almighty, would that be what we do? Well, if we do, because we thought March Madness 2020 was going to be the vulgar bracket, and then it ended up being the

hardware bracket. But he could be on a vulgar bracket. He could be on a vulgar bracket. Yeah, that'd be fun. It'd be fun to do. Yeah. And Roach would be on our woke bracket, because Roach actually makes you think. He makes you laugh, but he makes you think. If we do a woke bracket, I resign from the podcast. Roach makes you think. He does makes you think. He makes you laugh. If we do a woke bracket, I resign from the bucket. Roach makes you think. He does make you think.

He makes you think, can I like nap during this movie and not miss anything? That's how I felt during Bombshell. Remember that very woke scene in Bombshell where he makes you think about the ugliness of men leering at women in a workplace by keeping his camera up. Leering at a woman in the workplace? Yeah, on Margot Robbie's panties for fucking 15 minutes. It's not a good scene. That is a long time.

Long time. That's just one unbroken shot. 15 straight minutes. It's like going through other scenes that she's not in, and you're still hearing that audio, and the camera's focused solely on her panties. What a gross movie. I'm glad it won Best Picture.

Happily did not win Best Picture. Although, tragically, it did totally deserve the Oscar. It did win. Makeup? Oh, totally. Oh, yeah. Well, that guy's a fucking genius. He's a genius.

Remarkable. And, yeah. Yeah. Even though, honestly, I will say, I mean, the Megyn Kelly job, incredible. The Lithgow is Roger Ailes job. That more just felt like he was like, I don't know. I have this. You know, he like got the Churchill suit.

I got to put this on. You paint your masterpiece. You frame it. It doesn't really matter. Right. Yeah. You know what did win Best the Churchill suit. I gotta put this on. You paint your masterpiece. You frame it. It doesn't really matter. Right. Yeah, you know what did win best picture? Parasite. Isn't that insane?

Yeah, you know what's cool about that? That's cool. That's so crazy. It's very cool. Can I tell you guys that I just interviewed Bong Joon-ho? You got no doubt. Oh, shit. On the phone?

On Skype. That's so cool. What did you guys talk about? Kelly Reichardt, because he was basically interviewing her while I watched That's what was happening Did I not tell you I was doing this, Erlich? What? But this posted months ago

You were witness to an interview I basically like interviewed Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Reichardt together about First Cow It was an episode of Iconoclast Because he loves Kelly Reichardt Okay But really it was just like me watching them talk Sure That sounds wonderful

It was truly wonderful. It took him 25 minutes to figure out how to do Skype. Okay. I have so many questions. I concocted it with a press person. You know, I know how much he loves Kelly. Visionary of you. But it was just so cool.

Like we were just waiting. So it's like Sharon in picture, his translator and Kelly. The great Sharon Choi. The great Sharon Choi. And we're just kind of like, and Sharon's just getting texts from him being like, ah, he's trying something else. Like it was just like a Skype thing.

And then suddenly he pops into frame wearing a big red sweater and just a wall of DVDs behind him. And he was like, I'm in my house. And I was like. He may be currently the greatest living human. He's very cool. It's tough to touch love.

He's a human Paddington level right now. He really does have a bit of a Paddington energy. Chaotic Paddington. Sure. David, did you ask him the burning question? Here's the thing. The question about the movie Burning? He loved, he specifically

in his first question shouted out Night Moves. And did you ask him what his favorite performance in the final scene of Night Moves that isn't Jesse Eisenberg? Because they were already talking about aspect ratios or whatever

so they were off the races but he specifically said Old Joy and Night Moves were the two because apparently he rushed her on the Cannes stage when he won.

There's just something I love about Night Moves I can't put my finger on. We're talking about the Bob Seger song? It's named after the Bob Seger song? It's named after the Bob Seger song, I believe. It's a movie that Griffin was in. Oh. Directed by Kelly

Reichardt. Watched by Bong Joon-ho. Watched and enjoyed by Bong Joon-ho. I'm going to start listing that as a credit. Yeah. I have been enjoyed by Bong Joon-ho. I can't say enjoyed, but certainly watched by him. Blink check. I gave the introduction, but here's the thing.

This is a miniseries clearly, as if you couldn't already tell, on the films of George Miller. It's called Mad Pod Furycast. We love it. Wow. And this is the third film in the Mad Max trilogy. Record scratch. Quadrilogy. It's also the third film in his career.

Yes. It's pretty crazy that he just came out of the gate and was just like, one, two,, quadrilogy. It's also the third film in his career. Yes. It's pretty crazy that he just came out of the gate and was just like, one, two, three, moving on. And then surprisingly came back to Mad Max when I felt like that was never going to happen. It took him 30 years later. Yeah. Pretty nuts. But this film today is called Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Let's get past the Thunderdome. I would happily stay in the Thunderdome for the whole movie. Me too. I'm going to read Roger Ebert's quote on the Thunderdome in a moment because I love it. But joining us from IndieWire, from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, from Howl's Moving Castle, from Le Village.

Are there any more? Crouchy Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There you go. The Doctor Strange episode? Which Patreon episode? No, Guardians 2. Guardians 2, that's it. But I'm counting, I guess there's one, two, three, four.

This would be the fifth time. Oh! May all acquaintance be forgotten. Isn't that the five-timer song? Ben is digging up the five-timer's jacket from the carpet. Artesially buried underneath the Audioboom carpet. Naturally distressed. I've heard of people in the Winter Olympics wearing roots,

but I've never heard of five-timers on blank check wearing a jacket with Roots in it from the ground because it was buried. I've heard of LeVar Burton being in Roots. Well, that's one way. That's a pathway. That is a pathway. Well, so I'll just say that I dug up the jeans. It's true. By this point, Bob Joel. This is posting in mid-April.

So the news is out. So it's already been revealed at the live event. I dug up the jeans. You've dug them up. You have revealed them for the first time on stage at our live shows at the Bell House in New York. But that actually hasn't happened yet to us. We don't know what the results are.

But they're fresh out of the ground. No, we know what the results are. Did you not look at the pictures? No, I did. Can we talk about the immediate result? You buried three pairs of jeans. How many pairs of jeans came up? Two.

I would say 2.2. The earth swallowed the other pair of shoes. One of them is more of just... It's completely disintegrated. It's just sort of a shape, a fabric shape at this point. Lots of the creative process. Yeah. It's like, it would be like the really, really short shorts.

Yeah. And then just the middle part of like the really, really short shorts. Yeah. And then just the middle part of the pants just kind of hanging down like a tail. Right. It would be sort of a string jean kini. It would fit into the vibe of this movie. Sure. Costume wise. Sure.

It did look a little Thunderdome-y. Yeah. But that pair died so the other two could live. Yeah. But it worked. Sure. Guys, it really worked. No, I'm very proud of you.

The ground distressed the genes, naturally. Three genes enter the ground. Two came out. Two genes leave. I would love nothing more than if in Mad Max Furiosa, the, I would assume, inevitable fifth film in this trilogy, or trilogy, in this quintilogy, that George Miller had a scene where the people in the wasteland dig into the dunes and bring up a pair of distressed genes that have been buried there since before the nuclear apocalypse and look better than ever.

Yeah. Or what about if it's like a worm tribe? Oh, boy. Someone in the opening credits of this film is credited as visual consultant, I think. Sure. And, God, if the fifth Mad Max movie happens, how do we get Ben in that job? I want it so bad. I think they're going to film in New Jersey for the next one.

This is my wheelhouse. Well, it's like Namibia with Fury Road. He has to hope that it doesn't rain in Jersey for the next three years, and then he can film there. Yeah. So, Ben, are you Dr. Dealgood? Are you Blackfinger? Are you Screwloose?

Yeah, I'm just looking at names from Thunderdome right now. Yeah, I was just going to say it's kind of weird that this movie filmed me and my friends hanging out. I had no recollection. It filmed you and your friends as kids, and then it also filmed you and my friends hanging out. I had no recollection. It filmed you and your friends as kids, and then it also filmed you and your friends as adults, and then it sort of flipped the order. It's weird.

It's like I have no memory. It's boyhood, but with Ben Hosley, essentially. People think of this film as being a third Mad Max film, right? It's the second Mad Max sequel, when in reality, the way it should be viewed is George Miller's Gus Van Sant psycho-esque take doing a shot-for-shot remake of Ben Hosley's home videos. Yeah. Yeah.

It's shot-for-shot. It's crazy. It's shot-for-shot. Yep. Yep. That was me at summer camp. Warm try. Pretty much.

This is you at summer. Your summer camp was in a crash 747 in the desert. Waiting for the captain to show up. The Jersey governor just has a bazooka. He shoots down airplanes. He's like, there's a summer camp over there if you can find it. What if Sully were the captain, though? What if they're just waiting for Sully?

Oh, man. That's a good point. Right. Because their god is a captain in Thunderdome. Sully would be the greatest of all gods. Before we can move on with this episode, how many souls were on board? Oh, 155. He did eyeball it, too. I do feel, just based on

the evidence we've seen, that 150 souls did not come out of that plane that day. Some souls were lost along the way. You think souls were lost? Even though their human bodies endured, their souls were lost in a geese strike? Do you think innocents died for a few of those passengers?

They hit a gyrocopter and it went down. I do think a couple of people. Oh, you're talking about the Thunderdome. I thought you were a Sully truther. No, I'm a Sully the movie truther, where my truth is that it's not especially good. You're canceled. Number one. You can never run for president. about the... That is, you're canceled. I think in every episode... You can never run for president.

This will get brought up if you ever try. A thousand percent. This audio will leak Shane Gillis style. Listen, I'm just here trying to push boundaries. Yeah, you're pushing boundaries. Let me tell you, buddy, you missed, okay? But with Pete Davidson potentially stepping down, maybe there's room for Shane Gillis to come right up.

I love, I love, I don't mean this backhandedly. I genuinely love Pete Davidson knowing that he is under a seven-year contract. Right. And just being like, yeah, I don't really like being on the show. I wish they would fire me. Yeah. Yeah. He's the last king of Staten Island.

He is. He is. He's the last. Yeah, he is basically begging to be fired. But also, he seems to only employ him just because they're's the last. Yeah, he is basically begging to be fired, but also they seem to only employ him just because they're worried about him. It's a weird dynamic in general. But also then what they have him on

to do is essentially make fun of his True, to make fun of himself or be like the third guy in a sketch who's like Hey, how you doing? It's the last king of Scotland. I think he's just the king of Staten Island. He's just the king of Staten Island and of course, yes. When Judd Apatow aspires to

Valhalla or whatever better version we have of describing when a director shoots for Oscar bait, he can be the last king of Staten Island. But isn't Funny People him shooting for Valhalla, but it's interesting because he doesn't succeed? Like the whole value of that movie. He misses the Oscars and lands

on a masterpiece. That's my take it's fair this is why we have to do him I know because we yes yes because Funny People is good one of the great films

of this century I would go so far as to say it's close for me it's like a tweener I gotta watch it again I've also seen it like three times but it's been a few years if I ever interviewed Sandler

it would be like yeah Uncut Gems great great for the Jews Punch Drunk Love we stan Paul Thomas Anderson. No, that's his best performance. Let's talk about Funny People for three hours. I think that is the Adam Sandler performance. Yeah.

Right. If you want to reckon with him as a star, him as a, right, yeah. Best Rogan performance? I think it's an interesting question. I don't think so. He is good. He's very good. I think he's usually good. Sure I don't think so. He is good. He's very good.

I think he's usually good. Sure. That's the thing with Rogan. I think he's, yeah, I think he's incredible in Knocked Up. Like, I think that's a little underrated. A movie that I have watched while taking notes about five times in the last year. For any reason. For any reason. It's helpful.

Just because I'm really going through a Katherine Heigl phase right now she changed her hair color I saw it on Instagram she's very good in that but also that movie is more effective training for having a child than any of the 12 pregnancy or childhood books that I told my wife

I read well and Harold Ramis is no longer alive to give you in person advice yeah I mean this is he's so good in that movie that I told my wife I read. Well, and Harold Ramis is no longer alive to give you in-person advice. Yeah. That movie is all you have. He's so good in that movie. This is the one that I feel like anyone would guess that I would say, but one of, I mean, you know what?

He's really, really good. Long shot. Not fucking long. He's fine in long shot. Come on. I mean, you don't like this movie, that one, but I love it. It's just an obvious David loves this movie.

It's an obvious David loves this movie. That Rogan's in. He's not even a star. Oh, Steve Jobs. I think he's incredible. I think he's the best performance in that movie. I wonder if he was disappointed that he didn't get an Oscar for that. If he thought that was something in the cards. I don't think that

he is someone who experiences that kind of disappointment, but I do think there was certainly a moment where people were probably saying like, hey, if this hits, you could be in the Oscar race. Before the movie came out, when it was being seen by critics at festivals, then its first weekend, it does really well in limited release

and he was on everyone's five prediction list. And then the next weekend it goes wide and he drops off of everything. Yeah, they blew that movie's release. That was the big problem. Oh yeah, it's also, you know, they blew that movie's ending. No, they didn't.

They blew it. They blew it. No, they didn't. That's blue that movie's ending uh so i can i've tweeted my take but people need to hear it they need i'm gonna sing it i'm so glad he was fired from bond but i do want to say that of all the people in in hollywood and maybe in the world i am most not only upset that i'm not close personal friends with seth rogan but like i feel like it's a cosmic injustice of some kind that I see him on screen. He speaks to me so clearly. I feel like, of course we would be, I could be his like super neurotic,

you know, up, uptight, strong. What's the word I'm looking for? I don't even know. Highly wound. High,

strong. Thank you. Friend that he needs to balance out his chill group of funny improv stoners. And some reason God put us on opposite sides of this country. And opposite sides of the economic spectrum and talent. You should say, because this is an audio medium, I want to let the listeners know, you're not wearing it currently,

but you very frequently wear your promotional The Night Before sweater. Like deep into the summer. Deep into the summer you wear it. I don't give a fuck. It's my one emblem of Jewish pride. Do I have a mezuzah on my door? No, I do not. But you wear the mezuzah on your heart.

It's exactly right. The scene at the end of Longshot, which is of course a masterpiece, when he becomes not only America's first mister, first first mister, but its first Jewish first mister. I cried. Yeah, that's interesting. Didn't even remember

that scene. There is only, I like, I remember when he falls down the stairs. It's pretty funny. It's very funny. Pretty funny.

Are those the boys? So good. Don't remember that line. Don't watch Longshot. It's on cable at all times. I don't have 18 hours to devote to that.

It's not long enough. It's definitely long enough. There's only one. It's not even that bad. It's okay. It's not long enough. Definitely long enough. It's not even that bad. It's fine. Graded on a curve because we get one romantic comedy a year. There is one joke I guffawed at in that movie and it's the most

Griffin joke which is also at the very end of that movie when he reveals that Todd McFarlane painted his portrait. That's funny. That's funny. There's funny jokes, and I like both of their energies. I just like, it's like barely a movie. So Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,

which I feel like I had seen most of on TV, but had never really like sat down intentionally watch from beginning to end. Fair enough. Immediately. Me too, 100% actually, yeah. Immediately, like, you you know from the first visual because one thing this movie does very well that i think all the other mad max films should do

although no i'm sorry fury road does this no it doesn't what you have to say what it is opening credits where you list everyone's names and their characters. Fury Road does that in the closing credits. And I do love it when it does that. It's the only way that movie could have blown minds even faster than it does. That's true. Because the cast names, the character names in Fury Road are... They're even better than this one. He only tops himself.

If it's possible, yes. But this, yes. It starts out incredibly strong. Tina Turner as anti-entity or whatever. There's one that fucking blew my mind. Oh, Angry Anderson as Iron Bar. Robert Grubb as Pig Killer. Yeah, that was a good one. You can't start a movie stronger.

And the funny is when you watch the movie, you're like, oh, Pig Killer is sort of a sympathetic character. Did you know that Pig Killer is a vegan? He's kind of a good guy. Yeah. He's a vegan. He's a vegan. Like I when you watch the movie, you're like, oh, Pig Killer's sort of a sympathetic character. Or no, it's like, did you know that Pig Killer's a vegan? He's kind of a good guy. Yeah. He's a vegan. He's a vegan. Like IRL or in the movie? In the movie.

He's a terrific guy. But once the actual visuals start in this movie, it immediately feels like this movie is the one Mad Max film filtered through the Amblin sensibility. Although, somebody takes Swirlin'. I was watching the credits for this movie. Of course, my first thought was, ooh, maybe this is actually a masterpiece. Maybe this is a great film and the world has just slept on it for 30 years

and now we are going to bring it to justice. This is before there had been a single shot in the film, just looking at the character names, of course, which are all deserving of a place in a museum somewhere. But, man, the last time I was here was for Howl's Moving Castle, which I picked because I was like, there's a Miyazaki film. I don't feel strongly one way or the other. Yeah, you picked it because you wanted something you weren't going to just success over. And then I was thinking to myself afterwards, I was like, you know, the next time I go on that show, I want to pick a movie that is near and dear to my heart. And so when Sims was like, you want to do Thunderdome, a movie that I have seen 20 minutes

of on cable television when I was pretending to be sick from school when I was 10, I was like, oh, hell yes. Let's ride and die in the Thunderdome. And so that's where my head was at watching this movie. The Amblin energy is strong with this one, but I do, and maybe we should just circle back to this later. But for me, I feel like

the hottest take I've got on this, the most flattering thing I have to say about this movie is that I don't know if I've ever seen a live action film that has this big Studio Ghibli energy.

Yeah, it has real cartoon world in it. Yes. That's a fair point. It has the same sort of spare, you know, beyond the setting of it, but the same sort of like spare aesthetic of Nausicaa, Valley of the Wind. It has the same sort of spare uh you know beyond the setting of it but the same sort of

like spare aesthetic of nausicaa valley of the wind it has the same approach to sound design um which it borrows from a lot of like uh wuxia films of the of the time um it just it really has that energy that i think even when it leans into goonie's territory yeah and becomes super amblin-y it still feels the anarchy of it all and just like the sort of, just the whole spirit of it feels to me even more in common with Ghibli. It is also the most-

It spends more time in like a town, you know, than the other Mad Maxes, so that helps too. It's the film that has the longest stretch without action sequences, you know, in a way that's kind of unusual for a Mad Max film. And tied to that, I think it is the most openly emotional Mad Max film. Yes.

It is emotional in a film about emotionally reserved characters, which feels very Ghibli adjacent. The filmmaking is emotional and the characters are not openly. Something, too, about, like, when it was made, the aesthetic of Sax is great. Yeah. are not openly. Something too about like when it was made, the aesthetic of sax is great. Yeah. The on-camera sax.

Like a sexy sax. Yeah. It just really just makes it better. Also very 80s. It is the jazziest of the Mad Max films as well. Rather than Brian May's weird sort of like. And then pipe clanks too are great. The pipe clanking in the first half of this movie rules. It's so good.

Going in, I was like, I know what the take on this movie is. The sort of general take, which is like first 45 minutes, pretty fantastic. The kids kind of suck. The end's pretty cool.

Yeah. And then I watched the movie and I was like, and I guess that's kind of how I feel. I was sort of annoyed that I didn't have like, I wasn't like, oh my God. I was looking for some radical interpretation. That having been said. I mean, it's good.

It has a Thunderdome. That take is judging it against the three other Mad Max movies, which fucking rip. None of which have Thunderdomes, though. Well, that's the thing. Fury Road really fucking dropped the ball. I'm actually going to change my rating to one star. What movies would be best improved by having a Thunderdome's though. Well, that's the thing. Fury Road really fucking dropped the ball. I'm actually going to change my rating to one star. What movies would be best improved by having a Thunderdome? Like even in recent history, like a green book with a Thunderdome.

That'd be good. That'd be great. Roger Ailes does look more like a wasteland character than a real human being in Bombshell. That's true. If you put like a metal claw on him, how many of you could fight in front of him? I was reading some interviews with George Miller and he mentions

Rupert Murdoch in all of them because Murdoch and his media empire was so crucial to what he was doing. Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are, I guess, technically different people. But they're kind of a master blaster. They're a master blaster. They are a bit of a master blaster thing.

It was Malcolm McDowell played Murdoch in Bombshell? In Bombshell. Because Murdoch is also in The Loudest Voice, which I watched every episode of for reasons I cannot begin to fathom. Wow. And he's a better character in that. I feel like in Bombshell. But who plays him? You don't remember? It was more. Fuck. I have to fathom. And he's a better character in that. I feel like in Bombshell. But who plays him?

You don't remember? It was more. Fuck. I have to look it up. See, I think McDowell's really good in Bombshell. I think that's one of the better performances. Yeah. Is that a fair when he's incapable of being bad? I think that's a pretty fair when he's when he's bad.

Even though he makes like tons of crap. Like, you know, like I feel like you could probably get Malcolm McDowell for your movie with ease told you about like my dad when I was growing up knew someone who knew Malcolm McDowell and my dad who like did not understand just culture in general but certainly movies like learned that I was starting to get into movies and thought it'd be cool to have Malcolm McDowell who starred in Clockwork Orange the film when I was 10 years old I was not intimately familiar with, and had Malcolm McDowell call me on the phone and I picked up the phone at home

and the voice on the other end just goes, hello, Droogs. And I was like, hello. What? He was speaking to you in references? Yeah.

That was his intro. As if someone had cajoled him into calling. He's like, oh, we know this kid. He's a huge movie fan. He's going to flip his mind when you call him. And he was just like, oh, we know this kid. He's a huge movie fan. He's going to flip his mind when you call him. And he was like, hello, Drew. And I was like, hi?

Who is this? But he treated it as if it was like, he's Alan Rickman in Galaxy's Quest, finally deigning to say, by Grabthar's hammer. Right, right. Exactly. And I was just like, I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I remember watching that movie like seven years later and being like, oh, can I call him back?

But sounds like he was pretty good on that phone call. I mean, this supports David's thesis that he's never bad. He's never bad. He's never bad. It was just very, very kind of him and mortifying to me. Even when he's literally phoning it in, he never phones it in. No, he brought it. I was scared in ways I didn't understand.

Simon McBurney. Oh. And he was good. Because there's a crucial scene in The Loudest Voice, which I watch every episode of on Showtime, is when Ailes has been, you know, slamming Obama on Fox News, right? He's been going hard.

And then he's told, like, this isn't cool because he's going to win like Murdoch comes down and is like you can't be that mean and Ailes is like I can do what I want he like eats a whole birthday cake which is like the shit that he does in that show that show is insane and then he's like supposed to meet Obama

and then instead like he comes into a room and Murdoch's like I'm going to go meet Obama and you go home and like that's when like the power begins to shift. It's a good scene. And then Russell Crowe eats four more birthday cakes. There's so many scenes of him eating birthday cake in that show.

I'm not joking. Tastes delicious. I mean, I don't blame him. Does he fold it Tony Lip style? No, it's just like, it's always like Seth MacFarlane is like, hey, this is what's going on, boss. And he's like, ah, ah, ah. It's always somebody's birthday.

Yeah. Yeah. But I do feel like he was talking about type. Yeah. The Roger Ailes type was very much on his mind. Although, you know, he got a lot of money to make these documentary series from the Murdoch empire and was actually complimentary about how hands off they were.

Sure. But it's certainly like thinking when he's talking about like future tyrants, right. And there's a way he loves, right. Like tycoon type characters in the med, like these big corpulent or the sort of T uh,

Tina Turner type, right. Like kind of like imperious, like dictator types. He loves them. Imperator Tina, imperator, imperator Tina.

Um, but you know, that is the Murdoch reputation like The Simpsons, right? Where he's like, I don't care. I don't watch that shit. Do whatever you want. I'm rich. I'm so evil.

Doesn't care. I mean, the couple important things for context in this movie, one, as you sort of alluded to, at this point, Kennedy Miller has become like a pretty big operation. They're doing a lot of stuff in Australia, mostly in TV, but a lot of miniseries, a lot of documentaries. They're supporting a lot of filmmakers. Philip Noyce is going through their system. That's right. And will soon cross over to America.

over to America. Yeah, there's a very cool sounding miniseries called Bodyline starring a young Hugo Weaving about a famous Australian cricket drama from the 30s. Sounds kind of cool. A lot of the Australian film industry luminaries

of the 80s who eventually make their way over to Hollywood are sort of being given real shots through the Kennedy Miller operation. And it's a lot of autonomy, a lot of creative integrity, and that these two guys are by all accounts real menches, real supportive, want to raise the tide for all in the Australian film industry. And then the second thing that happens is Byron Kennedy dies, who is very much George Miller's real partner in these first three films and in building this little cottage industry they have. And, you know, George Miller was always very, very generous and sort of saying, like, we are 50-50 partners.

The fact that I'm the director and he's the producer ostensibly was like a coin toss. We both have as much say in this movie, in this world building and all of this. And so when Byron Kennedy dies, he's at the standstill where he's like, do I cancel the movie or do I force myself to make the movie in order to honor this guy? And he decides to go through with it because he feels like it's the best way

to pay tribute to Byron Kennedy. But he also brings on a co-director whose name is- George Ogil name is George Ogilvie, who was a man who had done a miniseries for Kennedy Miller. Yeah, and he did Bodyline, the great cricket drama I was just talking about, with Hugo Weaving and other people too, probably. But I don't know who they are. It was just Hugo Weaving.

It's one cast member. Playing every role, Tom Noonan style, and Anomalisa. Right. And he does eventually go on to make a couple more Australian movies and some more TV movies and so on and so forth. But he's not... He never quite got beyond Thunderdome, I would say. No. They left him at Thunderdome.

He did not get beyond Thunderdome. Two directors enter, one director leaves. Miller says, I asked my friend George Ogilvie, who was working on the miniseries, could you come and help me? But I don't remember the experience because I was doing it just to dot, dot, dot. You know I was grieving. Right. So he very much talks about this movie as like I –

I was in a haze essentially. I felt like I needed to do it to work through my grief. And instead I barely remember what was going on. Imagine if your grieving process involved outfitting Tina Turner into a post-apocalyptic town mayor. Right, with a crossbow. It is weird because this movie is fully formed. It's not like you watch this movie and you're like, what a mess. But, I mean, because I think Kennedy had been there for all of that ideation.

Sure. You know, everything had sort of been developed, at least on a conceptual stage. But then all that needed to be done was to take it to the finish line. Miller and Kennedy were people who prepped extensively and in great detail that I think he was bringing on Ogilvy to help, like, deal with a lot of the actual practical day-to-day stuff that he was too sad to deal with. stuff that he was too sad to deal with. What they'll tell you on IMDB trivia, which is where I, especially when writing reviews, get most of my

information that I need, has never failed me in the past, is that Ogilvy shot all of the dramatic scenes where Miller did all of the action. I think that breakup is probably A, inaccurate, but B, too clean. I don't think

it really works like that. Right. I think that's also the kind of thing that fans want to say to make sense of the movie because they don't like the dramatic scenes as much.

Is that confirmed at all? Like is there any I didn't dig too deep into it but not that I found but I also there's like such there's such so much of George Miller's DNA

even in the dramatic scenes that either Ogilvy did an immaculate job of sort of getting that vibe or that's just simply not the case. Once again, he's a guy who preps so extensively that it's not like

if someone's following the plans that he laid out, they're going to remove his DNA from the equation. Something like the two stop-motion Wes Anderson movies where, especially for Fantastic Master Fox, by all accounts, he was not there. He was not animating or directing the animators or any of those things. He was mostly directing that movie over Skype,

but he had written it and he had storyboarded extensively and he gave them very clear rules to how his visual language works and how it doesn't, what performances he wants. But I think George Miller was far more hands-on than that. When I read interviews with him about this, and he's reluctant to talk about it, I think just because it was so emotionally painful,

it doesn't sound like, oh, he wasn't on set for a lot of it and let this other guy carry entire scenes. It sounds like he was on set, but he wasn't totally there mentally. He just didn't have the emotional bandwidth to do it all. Yes.

And needed some support. This IMDb trivia page is actually kind of fun. I mean, such as quote, Tina Turner had to shave her head for the wig to fit properly. She reportedly had no problem with that. That's the end of that little story. It's just a little story.

They were asked to do this. They said, yes, they said, okay. Yeah. Can we talk about a Tina Turner has maybe pound for pound cinema's greatest filmography. Let's run through that.

Alright, so she appeared as herself in a number of different movies like Gimme Shelter, which I don't really think are worth mentioning. Her first movie where she's playing a character is in Tommy. She's the acid queen. The acid queen. Acid queen, number one role on your resume. Also just sounds

like a Mad Max character. It's like, who are you playing in Thunderdome? The Acid Queen. From there, she doesn't want to go down. The only way to keep the momentum going is, of course, to continue playing herself. The only character on par with the Acid Queen. Then, the Beatles come a-knocking in

1978, and they ask her to play one of the guests at Heartland in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The movie where the Bee Gees play the Beatles. Great. So the Bee Gees and the Beatles together, arm in arm, showed up at her door and asked her to be in this movie

and she reluctantly said yes. Goes back to herself for a Chuck Berry thing where she is in concert with Chuck Berry. Is then auntie entity in Mad Max Thunderdome. Realizes once more... I'm sorry. They actually went beyond Thunderdome. Just FYI.

They went straight through it and far beyond. My apologies. Then I'll spin the wheel of forgiveness. Do you want to hear all of the outcomes on that wheel? Not at this very moment. All right, fine. But then she is like,

okay, I think I've... A couple more of ourselves, a documentary. Put my stamp on this medium and then is called back into service one last time for Last Action Hero where she plays

the mayor. That's right. Her entire filmography of fictional characters are the acid queen. I'm not really going to count Sergeant Bevers.

It's really acid queen, anti-entity, and the mayor. So she's never played a character with a proper name. And she's never played a character who didn't have some authority.

A ruler over some sort of fictional town, usually a wasteland right either elected or through birthright or through violence through force has ascended to the top yeah wow um badass what was i gonna say oh yeah so here are the options on the wheel yeah death sure you don't want that one hard labor it doesn't seem fun not Not fun to watch. Gulag, which is sort of similar to hard labor, but whatever. Auntie's Choice. Would have loved to see that one.

Spoiler alert. It's the gulag. Spin again. You always have to have that on a wheel or Magic 8 ball. It's fun because it just ramps up tension. Forfeit Goods, which is actually, that seems like pretty mild. That's the best one to take. That's sort of like getting a whammy. He has no goods at that. I pretty mild that's the best one to take that's sort of like

getting away on me he has no goods I mean he's there to get goods he's got nothing to forfeit underworld you have to watch

the entire Len Wiseman series the entire Len Wiseman series yeah it's tough I take Gulag

personally amputation life imprisonment. And then acquittal is on there. So, you know. So there's a clear winner. There's one that is unquestionably. Right, of course, underworld.

I just feel like there should be a good thing that isn't just the removal of a bad thing. Oh, you're saying like acquittal isn't enough. There should be one where you make a profit. Yeah. And you should get, yeah, exactly. Gaining of goods you want. I worry about what the prison system is like in the wasteland.

And also why their need for prison. I mean, everyone is a thieving murderer. So let's not talk around this. The wasteland could use prison reform. Right? It feels like it could use bottom-up prison reform. There's a new deal required in the way. You know what I mean?

I just feel like there's a lot of wealth that could be redistributed here. A thousand percent. I do like their pig fart energy system. That's pretty good. Like that, they seem to have sorted out. Methane gas. And I would say, you know, Master Blaster, they're getting a lot done. Totally.

So that's helpful. Can I say it? Master Blaster, an're getting a lot done. Totally. So that's helpful. And can I say it? Master Blaster, an absolute unit. MVP, right? Cinema's greatest love story. My favorite kind of character. Yeah, and probably the biggest of the Mad Max big guys. Definitely.

The best of the Mad Max big guys. But when you got a big brawn and then you got a little smart. This is your number one favorite. And they're together. They're a package deal. It's always great. Right. Like Alu number one favorite. And they're together. They're a package deal. It's always great. Right. Like Alu Gashu.

Yep. Original character of mine from years ago when we were still just doing Star Wars. Yeah. I said that I wanted to have a character named Alu Gashu who's giant. And then he had a little head growing out of his shoulder. Sure. That whispered in his ear. Sure.

It was the smart one. And Alu Gashu is still canon within Blank Check Legends. Yes. Yes. Let's just make it clear. Yeah. Coming to Hulu. Coming to Hulu.

Is he a playable character on the Blank Check mobile game? He is. Okay, good. That would be so cool. Talk about a way of fleecing people from their money. I would give you like $40 a day just buying packs of Alugashu energy for the raid. I was very surprised. You're currently playing a Star Wars mobile game.

Oh, no. It's gotten worse, Griffin. Oh, is it a Marvel mobile game? It's both. Oh, you got into the Marvel one? I've supplemented my Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes addiction with Marvel Strike Force.

Wow. I'm such an easy mark for this as like a... They tried that one. A gambling addict who doesn't have access to gambling. Yeah.

This is really the next best thing scratching the edge. That's why I play Disney Emoji Blitz. You're still on that one? Is that your... Yeah, I'm still on that one? Is that your point? Yeah, I'm still on that one. I'm playing a game called Piffle.

I'm very into Piffle. I tried the Disney Battler, like the RPG Battler, and it sucks. And the DC one is also very bad. But the Disney one, it's really meant for young children who have their parents' credit cards,

and you can't control the characters during battle. And so it's just like, Olaf, go fight. And watching Olaf throw his own body at people is not... I tried it, and it wasn't even fun playing as Ralph. Like, you're not even getting joy out of wrecking people. He's like one of the default characters they give you when you start. Yeah, I just started as Ralph. Well, yes. But it also tells you how bad the game is

if Ralph is only set as a default. Yeah. Like he's not more powerful than, you know, fucking Sebastian. Anyway, those things are a menace. But Master Blaster. Yeah. Well, here's the thing I want to say. I agree that, like, you know, we all came to this movie going like, oh, man, I'd love to come in here with a take on why this film is a secret masterpiece.

Yeah. It is not bad in any way. It also, in pretty much any other franchise, would probably be the best movie. Like, the Mad Max bar is so high and the films are so inventive that this film pales in comparison because it's a little more rote. But if any other franchise had a movie that was this bug nuts, you'd be like, oh, that's the interesting one. And also the action in this movie is like next level

fantastic. I don't know. I feel... Are you going to diss the action? No, I'm not going to diss try it again. Just throwing more consonants at the end of this word that doesn't need it. The man-on-man fight scene action in this movie, which I think, if anything, I mean, you'll see about how George Miller talks a lot about borrowing from Buster Keaton. But for me, again, to go back to sort of the kung fu movies that were being made at the time as real wuxia energy.

Again, for me, it's the sound. It's also the way they use the acrobatics uh the way they use in the thunderdome where you can't just i think a common misconception about thunderdomes everywhere is of course that people are just uh not suspended on wires and are just free to run at each other but no a thunderdome is not just a geodesic dome which has hordes of streets of rage style extras on the side cheering throwing you uh full turkeys to consume to regain your health. Yeah, Ben would make a good Streets of Rage movie. Yes, he would.

Oh, for sure. I love that game. Shredded jeans. Oh, my God. The jeans are so shredded. They've got to be. And the shirts. But you need the harnesses.

Yeah. You got to utilize the whole space. Oh, absolutely. It's like multidimensional fighting. Like he's adding different axes. I mean, I think Ebert's review, he literally was like, I've never seen an action sequence like this before. He gave it four out of four stars and placed it as one of his ten best films of 1985. And his line is, the Thunderdome itself is the first really original movie idea about how to stage a fight since we got the first karate movies.

Would you say that the Thunderdome is almost like a character in this movie? Definitely. It's like the fifth character. It's in the title. I think film critics gave it Best Supporting Actor that year. Antionity, Master Blaster, Thunderdome. What about Jebediah, though?

Jebediah, played by Bruce Spence, who's the gyrocaptor pilot and now is the airplane pilot. I know. They were like apparently literally just trying to cast the role and they were like, why don't we just hire him again? The same guy. And he was like, can I, am I playing the same character?

They're like, no, but like, yeah. But it's like, it's like a toe cutter. No, I know. I know. Morton Joe. Yeah. I love that he just reuses certain people. It's like, you have the right energy for this.

You work well in this kind of vehicle. It's hard to make movies out in the middle of the desert. If there's someone you can get along with who's going to do the job, why not bring them back? But I did want to say that the vehicular carnage at the end of this movie, it is hard now in retrospect for it not to feel like it's a dry run for what he was going to do later. Which I guess you could say about really all the car chases in this trilogy here, but this one in particular feels like, other than the train, which maybe they can bring back in some way.

Train rules. And there's no flying in Fury Road. Of course you would say that, David. You love trains. I love trains. But there is no flying in Fury Road right now. No. The most you've got is sort of acrobatics. Doesn't the train feel very Indiana Jones-y to you guys where it's like. All of this feels Spielberg-y.

Right. Not in a mad way. No, no, no. Hey. We like Spielberg. Maybe in a mad way. Hey. Also, any train in any context feels Indiana Jones-y to me.

Yeah. Or needs to. Like, I'll be on the Metro North and I'm like, Indiana Jones-y, but needs more so. Sure. And obviously, you know, very Buster Keaton generally. Yeah. It's generally, generally. General, yeah.

But it does, it has this Spielberg thing of, rather than the usual Mad Max thing of just things intensifying, building, building, heightening. It's like we're on one track. You're trying to problem solve this thing it's that Indiana Jones like every action scene is kind of a puzzle that he has to solve how to not die rather than it just being like survival you know just like

outwit, outlast, outplay right yeah well the Indiana Jones movies are directed by a man named Steven Spielberg and one of the things that's interesting about him is that he understands that an action sequence can actually be a narrative unto itself

and further the story and doesn't just have to be fucking shit thrown at your face to numb you into submission. And that is something that not all filmmakers implicitly understand. Road Warrior also feels a little bit like a dry run for Fury Road, but

Road Warrior is so committed to just the fucking car chases. It, like Fury Road, is like 90%, just high octane, high speed. And I wonder if like the brokenness of this story and sort of its lumpen misshapen quality where the two halves of it feel so different from one another was part of what made him want to do something so streamlined for the next one. I think so. Yeah.

I mean, because for a very long time he said I wasn't going to come back to it and then Fury Road he claims came to him in a fever dream on an airplane and it was just like I want to make a movie that's just that. You know what I think it was? I think it's that he said, because he said in an interview on Ann Bilson's blog, which is where I read this very long interview that she did

for Time Out magazine and then it was the interview she wrote for Time Out was cancelled because as soon as it was about the interview she wrote for Time Out was canceled because as soon as it was about to go to publish, Orson Welles died of a heart attack and they just scuttled all that footage for Orson Welles' tributes like the dude who made Citizen Kane dead.

Time Out, also, here's where you should drink tonight in London. But the thing that I read in that interview is he was like, they were asking about the music and he's like, you know, I just couldn't figure out a way to get rock music in Mad Max. And I don't think I ever will.

I stopped at jazz. And then jazz is one thing. Jazz is no problem. But rock, impossible. And then one day he was like a man trapped to the front of a truck with his guitar on fire. And he is the most Thunderdome-y character because he's got sort of a bungee cord thing going on the do for a year you know but there is right there's that thing of this movie felt like a they were on a roll why not continue it b road warrior had been such a breakout success in the u.s in a way that the first one wasn't so there was like warner

brothers more actively i think supporting and asking for another Mad Max film. And Mel Gibson's star was growing independently. After this, he does Lethal Weapon and then explodes. And then, you know, just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until he completely crashes into the side of a wall. But right. But in between Mad Max 2 and this, he had made The of living dangerously which is sort of no Gallipoli is pre Mad Max 2 same year I believe but I feel like year of living

dangerously is like this is a fucking Hollywood bulletproof so handsome leading man like that performance might be his best performance he's so phenomenally handsome in that movie I'm I know that Mel Gibson has an ugly soul and is not the greatest person in the world.

Wait a second. Did Mel Gibson get canceled? That he has been canceled thrice over. Listen, we have to separate the hot from the hotness. I do feel like You're Living Dangerously is kind of that movie where Hollywood is like, oh, maybe we should give this guy a call. And you can even tell that he's excellent in the first and second films. But in this one, he shows up and just has the energy of, I have completely figured out how to be a movie star. He has a little more to do as well.

That's not even a good or bad thing. But the driving force behind this movie sort of hinges on— A little more of a Hollywood arc, right? Sure. But it sort of hinges on the perception of his morality, on the idea of Mel Gibson emanating a sort of intrinsic goodness. Like that is at the root of this movie in a way that it wasn't in the two previous films because this is a story – George Miller described it as a coming out story of his own – like the character's own innate sense of empathy for other human beings,

that he once upon a time was a DC human being who had a family who he loved, who we meet in the first movie. And then after things went to shit, even further than they already had, convinced himself that survivalism was the only way to get by, just a ruthlessness,

look out for himself and no one else. And you see that in The Road Warrior, where he is mostly doing things to avoid his own murder, and then sometimes realizes that helping other people might be advantageous to his own wants. But this is the first movie where he, when he's with the kiddies in the second half of the movie, and things go real Peter Pan real fast

that he is doing something not only for his advantage but also he sees a sort of glimmer of opportunity and hope there, a chance to rebuild and he's sort of emerging into that goodness and the whole movie I think is made possible at that time because the world is starting to get a sense

that this is our Tom Cruise now you know, pre-Tom Cruise. This is a guy who has a good soul and all of the barbarousness of the wasteland is sort of grafted on top of that. And it's just so funny seeing that that didn't quite pan out. Sure. But it is a movie that has the sort of meta energy of, A, we have to acknowledge that this character has now become an icon. The audiences are going to be excited when Mac shows up on screen again. So you kind of want the universe to reflect that in some way. That characters are more terrified of him and other characters look up to him more, think he's more powerful and capable of saving them.

And secondly, that this guy is now a movie star. He's minted. It's unquestionable. This guy's on the track. So you need to give him a little bit more of like a classical hero's journey down to this having the kids and the real refusal of the call. Right. The other movies don't really do. They just have him kind of fight against saving at every moment.

He's always conflicted in any moment how much he wants to help. This movie has the like, I'm going to hear your story. I'm going to walk away. You're going to win me back. I'm going to hear your story. I'm going to walk away. You're going to win me back. I'm going to go all in. It's great when the refusal of the call comes 80 minutes into a film.

You know, you're really cooking with gas. Right, because he actually answers Tina Turner's call. Right. And then he's annoyed that she was just kind of

like using him and he's like, all right, no more calls. Ring Thunderdome? Yes, ma'am. I want to point out just the movies

apart from You're Living Dangerously, that he had done. None of them hit, but it is the first sign of him making a movie. He made a movie called, well, he made The Bounty with Anthony Hopkins, which was a bomb, but it was like a big costume drama.

You know, The Bounty remake. Then he made The River, which I've never seen, with Sissy Spacek and Scott Glenn. It's a Mark Rydell movie, which is like an American movie. And he made something called Mrs. Saffle. I have never heard of it, With Sissy Spacek and Scott Glenn. It's a Mark Rydell movie, which is like an American movie. And he made something called Mrs. Soffel.

I have never heard of it, but it's directed by Gillian Armstrong. Stars Diane Keaton and him. He could have been a good young Bruce. Look at this movie. I feel like back in the day. What is this movie? He could have played in the River movie. Oh, sure. Springsteen.

Yeah, because he had that sort of high, tufty hair. He could have pulled it off. I mean, look, he's just one of... And Lethal Weapon is the one that figures it out, but his eyes are incredible, and he really does seem like a really scary person. Speaking of his hair, he has, I think, maybe the exact same wig that he later busts out for Braveheart.

Oh, it's a similar... It's a similar one for that. Right, it's like a 90s version of a period adventure haircut. Yeah, I mean, the 80s, like this mottled long mane. Feather, sort of high. And it's a mullet.

Yeah, and he was just reading about, you know, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace and was like, kind of looked hot in that wig. Let's win some Oscars. George Miller has talked about the innate sort of insanity of Mel Gibson

and that being the main thing that drew him to him in auditions. That I think the better he became as a movie star, the more he both figured out how to use it and also know how to not let it overwhelm every other bit of energy he had.

I mean, when he's really like cooking as a leading man, it is that thing where just like he has crazy eyes all the time, but he's able to project other energy in addition to that. And it is that way that like a lot of the best actors are angry. You know, there's some sort of like fiery energy there that is just innately watchable, and if they're able to layer things on top of that, then they're able to play multiple different shades and colors. Do you think this is what's holding you back

as an actor? Like, I look at you now, you're wearing a t-shirt that has one of the little guys from Toy Story, and you're just not the portrait of anger that I would expect from an up-and-coming leading man. I'll tell you, though, the single biggest note I got on season one of The Tick was that I was playing every single scene too angry. And I think that performance is too angry, and that was them cutting it down and trying to use only the takes where I was the least angry.

I think I got it better the second season. think I got it better the second season but I think that's also it's more compelling to be angry if you look like Mel Gibson or Gene Hackman than if you look like Griffin Newman maybe maybe this is a thesis I'm working on post this

lethal weapon yes tequila sunrise lethal weapon to write and lethal weapon to is just explosion right bird on a wire air America which was kind of a hit at the time yeah uh with downey forever young hamlet right which is him going serious not really being respected for it but like a pretty solid movie like a solid shakespeare drama you read the reviews at the time and it it is treated as if it were channing tatum announcing

that 100 yes which is unfair considering the australian half of his career you know it's it's And it is treated as if it were Channing Tatum announcing that he was going to do Hamlet. Which is unfair considering the Australian half of his career. That's what's weird. It's fair enough considering in his American movies he was mostly like an action star. It's also unfair considering that Channing Tatum's breakthrough role was in She's the Man, which is in itself a Shakespeare adaptation. That's a fair point. And we should go and point that out to the 1990 reviewers. Because they would love hearing all of that.

It would make sense to them. It is weird that he was dismissed that much and mocked that much playing Hamlet. When it's like, this guy was in Peter Weir movies and stuff. He did two Peter Weir movies. It's not crazy. And then Forever Young and Lethal Weapon 3. And then he does Man Without a Face, his directorial debut, Maverick, Braveheart.

His 90s are just like, all of them are hits pretty much. Even the ones that haven't aged well, you're like, all of these did well. The opening shot of this movie is, after the awesome opening credits, set to a Tina Turner song, is just George Miller immediately showing off

that he has big studio money now. He's got Warner Brothers money. The helicopter shot. The helicopter shot's amazing. And you're like, is this Mars? Like, what is this landscape? And it's so cool that it's revealed to be a subjective shot. It's not just like. Right, that we're actually in a plane.

You're the COD of Jedediah. But it is like, you know, we've talked about these movies just feel so fucking big because the landscape is endless. And you just can't see like any civilization anywhere off in the distance. You can't imagine where the crew would be. And this movie just does the craziest one of them all, which is just like, we're going to show you what feels like a different planet and just push in and in and in and in until you realize there's an action scene going on in the middle of it. Yeah.

So Jedediah, he buzzes Max with his son, steals his shit. Let's say Max is in his V8 Interceptor, but it's being drawn by horses. That's right, which is camels. Cool. Camels. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Which is cool.

Right. He's presumably run out of guzzling. He is out of guzzling. Guzzling. He don't know it's Max, though, when he takes his stuff. Well, no. I don't think they really- Because he's covered and they don't write letters

and keep in touch different guy ostensibly okay ostensibly different guy sure but I also like that you could read it

as being the same as the drug that's how I did but yeah I would love if they one of the people who runs one of these post-apocalyptic towns would have pivoted away

from just naming it after what it does and like give us like a Pleasantville or something sand village yeah Pleasantville or something. Sand Village. Pleasantville, this is where we barter.

So yeah, he makes it to Barter Town. As the name implies, you gotta barter. Yes, you do have to barter and he's got nothing to barter with. So they're kind of like, maybe leave. Everything he got was just tooken. So he's looking to get a little something to get himself back on the road. So they're kind of like, maybe leave. Everything he got was just Tukin. Tukin, yeah.

To Tukin Town. So he's looking to get a little something to get himself back on the road. And they're like, you got to put up or shut up here in Barney Town. What's the big guy's name? Who's sort of like Antientity's like, you know, kind of. With all the glasses. Yeah, he's sort of like the little ombudsman type. I can't remember their names.

The Collector? That might be it. I think it's this guy, Frank Thring. Yeah, of course. Who is in Ben-Hur. Of course, yeah. We love him. I think it's this guy.

He looks kind of like Conor Ratcliffe. Ooh. Ratliff. He's got a little Ratliff energy. Yeah, this guy, right? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. As they described him, a cold-eyed Australian character actor. Cold-eyed? Particularly known for his biblical villains. Apparently, his eyes were cold, and it also says here, there's a quote from him on the page, a personal quote on his IMDb page that says, I didn't like school, and it didn't like me. There you go. Sir Alec Guinness got him fired off of A New Hope because of his cold eyes.

So he gets to Barter Town with the Collector. But he does some cool Mad Max shit, right? He's still got it. He's got the reflexes. He can, you know, get his way out of a fucking headlock or whatever. And so Anti-Entity is like, all right, all right, all right. You're the real deal. And he's looking kind of busted.

He's got long, ratty hair. He's got the hair, but they get rid of that. They get him looking really – I need to stop praising Mel Gibson's looks. Yeah. Let's stop praising his look and start praising his politics. I think that he's pretty even-handed. What do you think of Tina's lair? Great lair.

I think it's a great lair. I just still can never get over that you're like, Mad Max, two films that are all just about this one fucking guy, no supporting characters carry over into the second film. Everyone else is kind of just like supplementary, like universe building, window dressing, and then they're like,

finally, another actor to share above the title billing with Mel Gibson in the third Mad Max film. Who is it? Of course, Tina Turner in her second film role ever. Like it's such a move to just be like, yes, this one is a two-hander with Tina Turner. Even though she disappears from most of the movie. A two-hander with Tina Turner.

But she seems all in. It's a T-H. Like she, you know, and from all accounts, she was very. She was cool with shaving her head. Yeah, she was supportive on the project and remained friendly with Mel Gibson and tried to help him when he was at his lowest. But not that that's, you know, remaining friends with Mel Gibson is necessarily the highest mark of someone's honor. Wrote two songs for the movie, both of which were hits. Huge hits.

But there's not a moment in her performance where you feel her holding back, cringing or thinking, like, what am I doing here in the fucking desert acting with Mel Gibson? And it's like smart casting in that, in a Mad Max universe what you're looking for is more rock star energy than conventional actor energy. Yes. You want someone who can wear the shit out of some clothing and can move with authority?

Lord Humongous famously headlined Ozzfest. He did. And now you have Tina Turner, who famously did not. And Master Blaster were at Woodstock 2000, right? They started the fire. Master Blaster's so cool. It is so funny

that she's like, alright, here's my problem. One, look at these pigs. Of course. I get it. She's got a periscope in her lair. She has a periscope in her lair. She also has a cool crossbow, which is cool. I get it. You've got a bunch of pigs. Been there. She's got a periscope in her lair. She has a periscope in her lair. She also has a cool crossbow, which is cool. I mean, I feel like you're into crossbows, right?

I mean, my parents would never let me have one. Oh, sure. It's interesting they wouldn't let you. Why not? They're so practical. It's a great thing for a child, though. They said they didn't trust me with it. That's bizarre because you proved yourself so responsible with that slingshot. Why wouldn't they give you a deadlier projectile weapon?

It's fine. Just want to remind all our listeners that Ben used to literally carry around a slingshot as a child. I feel like it's a while since that's been brought up so I just want to reestablish that as canon is not legends. It is main continuity canon. That's some Night Egg shit. But you're saying her other problem

is like, you know, also there is this Voltron of a human team. There's this sort of big strong guy, little smart guy combo that knows how to turn pig poop into energy. So I kind of rely on them, but they keep like negging me publicly over the P.A. system. What if you had a big dummy with a tiny gentleman? I essentially need you to stop them from tweeting at me in front of all my followers. These people just will not stop. The ultimate reply guys, you could say. Master Blaster.

They're kind of the Krasenstein brothers. The shit posting all day long with pig shit. Pig shit posting day and night. What I think rules about this is that I am on Tina Turner's side at the start of the movie because she's Tina Turner. So I'm just sort of like, look, Max, listen to what she's got to say. These Master Blaster, they're lame. Like all the way up to the reveal of like what's really going on with Master Blaster. You are in, you get it.

You get why Max is doing it. And this is another key. This is why you need to hire Tina Turner. Yes. Or someone of equivalent star power because there are a lot of great supporting character actor performances in these Mad Max movies, but you need someone who shows up and seems like she can go toe-to-toe

with Mel Gibson to be the dominant force of this movie. And could also just like use her sheer sort of charisma and inheritance of leadership to win over this area. There's the idea that I think is meant to rhyme with what happens to Max when he joins the kids at the end of you know, she was not a bad person. She may still not be a bad person. She was following the ordinary

hero's journey, but she planted her flag and stuck around a little bit too long, you know, and live the hero long enough to become the villain or at least the antagonist. She's the least villainous of the four Mad Max films. She's just trying to hold it together. And I think later on, Max gets the idea

where these kids look at him as a god and he could do some good for them. But there's no way that dynamic doesn't harden into him being some kind of despot if even coming from a paternalistic place that he would be better just leaving as a legacy and letting them carry on in the positive image that he left behind. She's in the same boat.

That's the weird heroism of Max is that here's a guy who started out as, quote unquote, a good cop, right? This is someone who by all accounts, at least as the movie codes it, became a law official, an officer of the law in order to help people and protect people, right? For the right reasons and then he has everything taken away from him uh in a way that makes him question all all justice yeah right seems like he's on a path to becoming an insane vigilante and then the following three movies it is him trying to be like i don't care i'm not gonna get invested he gets sucked into some situation he's like i don't care i gotta got a fucking guy. And the moment he finally gives in, fights for other people, helps them, and proves himself, and could be seen as a hero, he walks away.

He always walks away. Because I think, pointedly, he doesn't want to become Auntie Entity. He doesn't want to start buying his own shit. He's not going to make Max Town with fucking his Maxites and have a bunch of Max children. I think he understands that, like, the greatest through line across the Mad Max franchise is, like, the cult of personality and absolute power corrupting absolutely. That the second these people accept

that they have done something great and let people sort of follow their every whim and listen to their every judgment and rebuild society in their own image or their own sort of value systems the second they get all fucking out of whack. You know, because Immortan Joe used to be a really fucking cool guy. Immortan Joe, like, you know, he built hospitals. He built – no, I don't know. He was a socialist originally.

He built hospitals that were entirely filled with people that he had put into those hospitals. Of course, he just needed places to put them. The Immortan Show Award. Anyway, so Max challenges Master Blaster to a Thunderdome duel. But it's a- As you do. It's a handshake deal. It's like-

Sure, yeah. She's like, you do this, I'll refuel your vehicle. I'll give you everything you need to get back on the road. Get the fuck out of here. And what's the thing that he says when he goes like, you know, is he a good fighter? And he gets most most men get killed by his breath or something like that. Right. I mean, this line, this movie has some of the greatest disses ever committed to film.

And that includes the number one greatest diss of all time, which I don't believe is uttered until the second half of the film when it's spoken by one of the children, who says, and I quote, he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth, which is really how I've wanted to describe so many people in this world and couldn't possibly say it better myself. I'll say word stuff from ass to mouth is how I usually describe this podcast. How dare you. How does he realize that Blaster's weakness is

sound? That's how he defeats Blaster. When he's in the pig shop, the alarm for his car goes off and he recognizes the high frequency messes with him. But the whole Thunderdome sequence is the best sequence in the movie. It's incredible. I love it. There's still nothing like it.

It's like a video game come to life. And there'll never be anything like this. There could be, but, there could be. But you know what I mean? Now it would be previs. They should have just left the Thunderdome standing as a set that other productions could come and use. Every movie should have one Thunderdome. You could do like, right, just in terms of Endearment, Thunderdome.

Or XFL. Yes. Add a Thunderdome. Yeah. Then I'll watch. But like, what if the opening scene in The Place Beyond the Pines, a movie that I think everyone listening to this podcast

knows by heart. Of course. Not just set in a- Another movie that's like pretty good and then really bad. Right. You're like, this is less extreme,

but you know what I mean? I wish they were bad in the same exact way as this one is, but had that not just been in a random dome, but in the Thunderdome. Yeah, but it is pretty cool

when the motorcycles are doing that thing. But yeah, no, but like any movie that's shooting there, like we could shoot in Louisiana for the tax breaks or we could shoot in Melbourne for the Thunderdome. I think that's a big problem, though. If you look it up,

the tax incentives in the Thunderdome are horrible. That's true. You have to pay more taxes. It's easier to like fake Connecticut for Thunderdome are horrible. That's true. You have to pay more taxes somehow. It's easier to fake Connecticut for Thunderdome because there's just a better initiative there. But it's just not quite the same. The local film office in Thunderdome is dropping the ball.

There are a lot of things that are really intrinsic to our world today that I wonder if they have in The Wasteland. And the big one when I was watching this movie through the lens of my shitty personality was thinking about neuroses in The Wasteland. Like, are there neurotic people? Are there is there self-deprecation or self-loathing? Or is everyone just is it the hierarchy of needs been so reduced that everyone is just thinking like okay I gotta eat I gotta kill

I gotta survive the Thunderdome yeah cause even the Weasley people in the Mad Max universe are very aggro and everyone's constantly like speaking through playing the dozens at all times like no one's ever sort of like going like well you know I tried my hardest I feel like Jedediah who's sort of doing his own thing

is the closest to someone we might re-able like I'm like I could see me doing that, being kind of like a scavenger jerk. The scene where they go to his home cave. That's what I'm thinking of. You know who really triggered me, though, was the guy selling water outside of Barter Town, who Mad Max then tests the water and finds all the radiation on it. And he's like, what's the problem with that? A little fallout pepping your step.

It's basically five hour energy. I was like, that fucking dick. All that shit is so good. It's the Barter Town shit. Yeah. I love the Thunderdome. But then,

yes, the revelation is that Blaster has Down Syndrome. He's like, you know, he's not the aggressive, cruel villain that he appeared to be.

He just got caught cosplaying Bioshock when the fallout hit and was stuck in that look forever. Bioshock's so inspired by the look of Master Blaster, right? Yeah. Sure. And also, you know, like deep sea diving. God, I love Big Daddy so much. Yeah, let's go with Master Blaster. I should do that on my video game podcast.

Yeah. And so, and Max is just like, I'm out. Yeah. I'm out. I'm not fucking doing this. But he announces it to the audience, which is a full fucking move. He's like, you tricked me, anti-entity. Like, no, no.

Yeah, I fulfilled my part of the deal. Right. And then Blaster is like, deal? What are you talking about, deal? Right. Everyone sort of turns on him. He's like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing the killing.

Right. So. heel. Everyone sort of turns on him. He's like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing the killing. You gotta get Gore Verbinski on the podcast. I think you can get him talking about the Bioshock movie that he never made. Now is the time. I feel like he's been attached to multiple video game movies. I want Karen Han sobbing quietly in the corner, not speaking.

I just want to hear... I would love to talk to him about Bioshock, because Bioshock is filmable in a way that most video game movies are not. Anyway. Auntie has Blaster. She just kills Blaster. She finishes the job. She crossbows him. Max,

get out of here. Get on a horse. You don't belong here. Right, exactly. You're going that-a-way. Five stars for this movie so far. Agreed. I'm just like, this is the bad one, but I also know, I do know that there are these Ewok-esque kids on the horizon. Once again, I don't- Who I'm quote unquote not going to like.

And I like the kids. Yes. This is the thing. I like the kids just fine. Wait, can we just, before the moment has passed completely, can we a moment if not of silence of quiet contemplation for the random extra outside of the Thunderdome

who gets murdered during the fight yes one of my favorite extras just what a way to go and how excited that guy must have been when he was picked

by George Miller to be the guy in the cage who gets killed featured extra man hey also the scepter carrying shoulder pad sca shoulder pad, scarecrow, creepy guy. You mean your uncle?

Yeah. A lot of shoulder pads in this movie. Would you get residuals, Griffin, if you were the extra who's killed outside of Thunderdome? Extras don't get residuals, right? They don't. Featured extras. I think featured extras don't. I think dialogue's the crossover.

You get a harpoon. You get a harpoon. You get a harpoon. You get a harpoon. Dialogue's the crossover because there's like been a – I've been on sets where like people will be improvising lines specifically referencing certain extras, like naming them. And then they'll get to the point where they're like, can we let him say something? And it becomes the debate of do we have the room and the budget to bump him up, to respond to the ad lib and say yes. But what constitutes dialogue? So if I was impaled by something and went, ah, and then fell off, let's say, a Thunderdome.

Right. Would that be enough to constitute dialogue? Possibly. But certainly if it was like, no, it would immediately cross over. I wonder if it has to – I wonder if you have to take out Merriam-Webster's and go like, ah, it's not in here. You know, it has to be – Can I play this word in the New York Times spelling game or not? I guess that's part of the question.

But I think it's usually any sort of clear verbalization that isn't in a crowd. OK. Yeah. Mamax beyond Thunderdome. Sure. He goes beyond Thunderdome. This is actually the point at which he goes beyond Thunderdome. That's when the title starts to make itself funny.

How fucking badass would it be if he went like a Hoshau Shen route and dropped the title card when he left Thunderdome? That would be very cool. That would rule. That would, I mean, I am always a fan of like the 45 minutes in dropping. I believe, what's it called? Long Day's Journey Tonight drops the title card two hours in. And with great purpose.

No, 100%. 100%. But man, that move is always so hot. Alias used to pull that. It would drop the title card like 30 minutes into an episode or whatever. Like there's shows that-

Departed, I think it's 40 minutes. It's not 40. Departed has three full sequences though. And they're long sequences. Last Life in the Universe. A lot of Asian films

over the last 20 years. I feel like there's another big one I'm forgetting that we've covered on this podcast where the title card comes really late. But whatever, I'm not going to

hold us up on it. I do think, once again, I just want to reestablish I feel like it's a hard thing to Google. Yes. It is one of these things.

There's got to be a letterboxd list. There's something. Eternal Sunshine also takes a long time before it gets to the first title card. But this is one of those movies that most of its issues are only a matter of comparison where it's like, A, you're in a franchise where the bar is set so high, where the second movie totally like trumps the first movie.

And then you also have a third movie in which the first 40 minutes are so fucking insanely good that it's almost impossible to live up to them. That I like everything that happens for the rest of this movie. It just doesn't rock my fucking socks to the same extent. Exactly, that's how I feel too. But also, I don't want the dipping quality of the second half to elevate the first half too much.

I mean, I think the first half of this movie is very solid. Yeah. And again, I'm just talking about in terms of the greater Mad Max universe, I think on its own would be even more impressive. But it's not it doesn't quite reach the heights of some of the other movies. OK, he's in the desert.

He's got a dang mask on his head. He's on a horse. Fair point. I'm going to I'm going to say something that's going to incur the wrath of a certain subsect of blankies, but I don't care. We have pissed them off before. I'm going to piss the wrath of a certain subsect of blankies, but I don't care. We have pissed them off before. I'm going to piss them off again.

I stand by it. Oh, my God. From the moment Max comes upon this tribe of kids, I go, this is already superior to Hook. Oh, yeah. This is the exact dynamic Spielberg is trying to achieve with the Lost Boys and Hook that feels so forced to me in that film. So, like, 90s, tubular,

every kid has to be an action figure. Do they skateboard? Am I remembering? They do everything. Of course they do. They do every fucking thing. It's weird because I think... They do the backpack dance.

They do trends that wouldn't exist for another 20 years. They throw down pogs. Yes, I agree with you. I think the problem with Hook, in in general is what you're talking about is that everything's a little too clean. Yeah. You know, the kids feel like they're, you know,

like they've all been cast out of toy commercials. There's too much fucking business. Which Spielberg himself admits. He's the first one to throw this criticism at himself. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. It cannot be a hot take

to say that Hook has some problems. Not a single one of them looks at Rufio and says, he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth. Yeah. Which should have been the first line of dialogue in almost everything. But I also, I think there was genuine chaotic energy to these children.

You know, there's a sense of danger. And I like their dialect. I like how weird they sound. I like their weird way of talking. Ah, future speak. This is like, I think maybe the best sound. I like their weird way of talking. Future Speak. This is like I think maybe the best out of all four. It's up there. It's so good.

And the kids are delivering on it. But yes, the kids are good. This feels like a really direct precursor to the true true of Cloud Atlas. Oh, yes. That is a very good point. Yeah. a very good point. Yeah.

But I do think, you know, there's something to, even if this is the most sort of cute section of any Mad Max film. Sure. This still is the only time I've seen someone build

a society of children like this in a genre film that feels aggressively dangerous. You know? In the way that kids governing other kids would actually. We were dangerous for sure. It's half Lost Boys and it's half like Lord of the Flies.

But it's also like this is the language that kids would speak if kids raised each other. But I think he gets a little bit caught up in. He's snagged between wanting to tell a softer story that is a little bit more permeable for the max character to like have that sort of coming out as he's described it towards uh his better the better angels of his nature yeah and also wanting to maintain the savagery of the wasteland right and i actually think that well i well there's truth in what you're saying i feel like max's evolution would have been better served by a more violent society of kids.

Well, he had to help curb through his own sort of reform ways. I think in a much smaller, more focused, but also subtler way, his entire relationship with the feral child gets at all of these ideas better and more economically. Right. And that is a more dangerous, violent child. Right. This feels a little Toy Story 3 where it's like we're going to – it's the same theme as Toy Story 2 but we're just going to hit it harder and let it reach its natural conclusion

rather than introducing a fully new idea. And you have the same ending pretty much, not to jump ahead, but Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome have the same ending where it's like one of the children narrating what their life was like for the years after Max left. And then the Randy Newman song for Thunderdome comes in. You got a Thunderdome. I love the opening song. Yeah. With rules in this movie.

It is, dare I say, better than You Can't Let Yourself You Can't Throw Yourself Away. I think that's a great song and I'm going to fight you on that. It's so much better. It is absolutely insane. It's a great song. I listen to it all the time. I adore Randy Newman. I own multiple

Randy Newman albums. I like a lot of his Pixar songs. He literally got on stage. And I support the man. He should play on the Oscars every year for all I care. But he's literally just got on stage and was like, I'm just going to throw yourself away like 40 times. I was like, what is going on? He should write a formal letter of apology to Mary Steenburgen

for being nominated. No, but that was not the worst song nominated. She should have been nominated. She should have won. Maybe it was. She should have won. That was the most egregious snub all of last year. The breakthrough song is that.

No offense to Diane Warren, but that was the worst. No offense to Diane Warren, who has written the song 12 times for the Oscars before, is really phoning it in even harder than Randy Newman does here. Randy Newman's song

is truly impressive. It's a perfect song. What are you talking about? I listen to it all the time. There's at least craftsmanship in the Diane Warren song, even if it's the same tired craftsmanship.

Can I recite some lyrics for you? I can't let you. I can't let you. recite some lyrics for you? I can't let you. I can't let you. I can't let you. I can't let you. I can't let you throw yourself away. Yeah, I remember.

I seem to remember that. It's a suicide prevention song for a spork. Perfect. Yeah, no, in the movie, it's fine. It's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of my favorite sequences. It's a great sequence. I think, I mean, I was afraid they were going to nominate Ballad of a Lonesome a great sequence. I think, I mean, I was afraid they were going to nominate Ballad of a Lonesome Cowboy, which I think is the more traditionally Oscar baby song,

but is the end credit song. Yeah. I was happy that they nominated the Forky song. Or they could have nominated neither. Could have gone for that. They could have just nominated Glasgow from Wild Rose.

Yeah, that should have won. I agree with you. That's the best record movie seen up there in shallow in years. What won was

the Elton John song? And what sealed the deal was him at the Golden Globes being like, we've never won something together. And everyone in the audience was like, oh. I guess I'll do that one. But also, you have just won something together. That is why

you were on stage at the Golden Globes. There's no need to repeat this all over again. We all know Golden Globes don't count. Those things are only useful. Golden Globes. There's no need to repeat this all over again. We all know Golden Globes don't count. Those things are only useful. Golden Globes are the caucuses of award season. And we need to abolish them. We need to abolish them. Exactly. They're fucking everything up.

Every year, we're always like, these don't matter. And every year, we treat them as if they're life or death. And just because like 40 people in Iowa show up to a gym to run across the room and be like, Tom Steyer. Bombshell. Yeah, bombshell. These 10 people. This is why our democracy is fucked, and I think it starts with ending the Golden Globes.

We got to end the Golden Globes. That's the first thing we got to abolish. Yes, let's do it. I'm a single-issue voter, and my issue is abolish the Hollywood Forum. We got to cancel the millionaires and the billionaires, and of course, the Golden Globes. The foreign gossip journalists. The sags can stay. Yeah.

I do like the whole captain thing. I do like this idea of like even if the story has gotten distorted, of course, if we are to presume that Max has been going through these cycles many times off screen in between the films that we've seen. Right. That eventually he would start to build a reputation. Yeah. You know, he would become a sort of mythic figure, the idea of this savior. I mean, because the painting on the wall is clearly him. No, 100 percent.

Even if he was not an airplane pilot. I do like the idea, though, that like by the time Fury Road comes around again, everyone's just like, who's this guy? Like the world is just so splintered now yeah that uh every little saying he would be infamous but that enough there would be pockets of the world where people would be like i hear this is a guy who comes and saves people well there's something that again i'm just like what just read this one uh really illuminating interview with george miller that i've quoted at every time i've mentioned anything he said in this episode but he talks about the dynamic

between and this is about the children um like the little lost kids but he talks about the dynamic between, and this is about the children, like the little lost kids, he's talking about the dynamic between knowledge and belief, and the faith that they have is a direct sort of negative image of the lack of knowledge that they have, and so it's like all

has to be balanced out to an equilibrium. Oh, that's interesting. And they need to have this sort of religious ideology they have around the mythology they have around the Mad Max character because they have so little hard knowledge about the world around them. There has to be something to justify them

getting out of dirt in the morning. And so if you extrapolate that to an entire wasteland of both kids and adults who are all looking for something to believe in because they have so little concrete reason for hope, it would be so easy for, I mean mean you see how the cult of personalities flourish. But it would be that much easier for an abstract figure to have a place in everyone's hearts and minds. Right. The adults tend to congregate around these power structures that build up very quickly around like titans and tyrants and demagogues

and whatever but these kids are into the abstract notion of we're not going to sign up for what anyone else is selling we believe that there's someone out there who is setting a template for how we should follow. It's because like in my understanding they are the first generation I mean their parents were on that plane which took off

from a runway in the industrialized world this is the first generation of people who know nothing besides the wasteland. But that's what I always like about Mad Max is that it's always kind of like the near-ish future. You know, like they never let it advance. But the idea that you had,

you couldn't find that sort of seed of hope that could excite that sort of meaningful change in people who had lived to see the fall of man and had excite that sort of meaningful change in people who had lived to see the fall of man and had been like that jaded by everything that came from it. You needed people who were born into this and were like, why not hope? Like, why not? Right.

Even if it's a hope to go backwards and like backwards to the future of tomorrow, because their life hasn't been such a dramatic set of diminishing returns, having to watch a society collapse. They're just being handed a pile of shit and going, couldn't we have something better than this? Yeah. Explain to me why it's not possible to build something better here. Yeah. I like the kids. I do.

I like them. I just don't like – and I say this as a new father. I just don't know if I like kids in movies anyway. I agree. When is a movie better for having children? Bicycle Thieves. Okay, that's one movie. Yeah, there's good movies with kids, obviously.

Yeah, there's one movie that's good with kids. No, there are good movies with kids, but often, yes, I'm sort of taking a leave on the kids. They just bring all their sticky hands in, and they want to touch things. You can't tell that their hands are sticky. You can see the viscous, the jelly hands, man. And they're just like, ah, and they have these voices that are kind of high-pitched.

They all want things. They all want candy and stuff. Or like I got some tough spoilers for the next couple years of your life. But I do feel like narratively kids have certain demands that can sink a lot of movies. And we always see it in the third part of trilogies, it feels. Like the Ewoks are sort of the kid equivalents who soften things up, tenderize the main characters so they can have that sort of change. And I feel like it backfires a lot because kids are really hard to wrangle in these cases. They're just, you know, I don't, I again,

don't hate it, but like the movie does kind of slow down and I'm just sort of like, this is a little, I'm just kind of staring into space for some of these. But this is also, this is the only Mad Max movie

that suddenly has like a 30 to 40 minute stretch without any action sequences. I know, but I don't like that. I don't either. I don't either. I like the action sequences,

right? But I don't think that's inextricably tied to the kids thing. No, no. I think that's more tied to... Exactly, but that's the problem. That, to me, is the problem. But then you associate the two things.

Exactly, right. Because they are happening in the same movie. I mean, Mad Max is very D&D in that it's sort of like you go from sort of situation to situation. New cast of characters, new mission, new environment. Yeah, and you're like, what's the deal here? Okay. And this is just the least interesting of the locations in all of the Mad Max movies. Wait, what's a good movie about like a roving gang of kids?

Not just like one kid, like to think of a very recent example, Minari, which we saw at Sundance, has one kid, amazing kid, incredible film. What about like a roving gang of kids with a majority of kids? Gummo. Gummo. Okay. kids? Gummo. Gummo. Okay. We got Gummo. Gang of kids. Bugsy Malone.

I feel like this should be my question. Yeah, exactly. And I can't think of one. Because when you were a kid, you stand kid actors because you were sort of like, that could be me, right? I simultaneously stand and reviled them for taking the jobs that I thought I deserved without auditioning.

Sure, sure. I was constantly waiting for someone to notice me on a street corner sucking a lollipop and be like, kid, you got it. Hey, little girl, is your daddy home? A lot of that, yeah. I did, but now I'm trying to think. I mean, we talked about this recently. I forget if it was on mic or off mic with

Emily Ishida, Mother Blankies. Little Rascals movie. Yeah, Little Rascals, right. I mean, they exist. My brain immediately goes to Little Giants. Anything with the word little in the title. But that's when you get like that's teams. I believe they came out the same year.

But yes, yeah. Teams is different than gangs, I feel like. We're talking about like sports league movies. I'm a huge D2 fan. I'm a big Heavyweights fan. Yeah. I liked D2 a lot. D2 is really good.

I mean, despite the fact that it is slanderous towards Iceland, it is, like, paints everyone who lives there as evil, creed, and society. Yeah, they totally just span a globe and were like, who are the villains? Iceland.

But they like Rocky IV, Iceland. Iceland is the loveliest place on Earth. They don't really play hockey that much. I forgot that Iceland was the villain. I guess they were just like, who are the villains? Iceland. But they like Rocky IV, Iceland. Iceland is the loveliest place on earth. They don't really play hockey that much. I forgot that Iceland was the villain. I guess they were just like, Russia is tired. It's the 90s now. We need new sort of, you know, northern European villains. I don't think there's a single Icelandic hockey player in the NHL.

It's not a big country. They say Iceland's very nice. And Greenland is rather cold. Iceland is more green and Greenland is more hot. But Little Giants, I think, is more weighted towards the kids and the dynamics between them. And they're also younger. Whereas Mighty Ducks, soon to be rebooted with Emilio Estevez exhumed and Lauren Graham, is more about like the – it's more of a way back. You got the kids, but really it's about the coach.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you know what's another one I really like? Big Green. Sure. The Big Green. The redheaded kid whose name I never know. Bacall.

Or the larger kid. Lauren Bacall. You don't remember Lauren Bacall plays the goat in the Big Green? It was the 90s. Yes. Yes. No, I know which kid you're talking about. And now I'm forgetting his name.

I feel like he could have been a Judd Apatow superstar if he had come along just a couple years later. Well, Judd Apatow does heavyweights. And it feels like that kid just missed. Right. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway.

Anyway. This section of the movie is not that much fun to talk about. No, and they kind of just world build for you. They tell you about the flight captain, who they think he is. And like, I don't know, their whole story. And it's a lot of them getting ready, them getting closer. This is very bad. It is.

I don't like seeing Max really get close to them. Yeah. He holds one of them during the presentation. Well, technically, this is kind of a paradise lost. Yeah, that's the thing. Don't leave. They have water. It's all good.

They have vegetation. They might even be able to hunt animals. I don't know. That's a good point. It feels like it's one thing if this is where Max ends up at the end of a film. Right, but he shows up and they're like, we want to leave, and he's like, don't leave.

And I'm just like, yeah, Max is right. Don't leave. But kids don't know. This gave me an Ewok vibe. Yes I'm just like, yeah, Max is right. Don't leave. But kids, kids don't know. This gave me an Ewok vibe. Yes, it's very Ewok. And it's a couple years post-Return of the Jedi. Yeah. And you are right that, like, it's like the Ewoks.

It's the, you know, they exist to soften up our characters. We don't really need softened up. I like how Max teaches lessons by shooting a gun. Yeah, that's great. That's fine. He's disciplining him, and he's teaching him important life lessons. It's a cool school. What did you guys think about the moment when one of the kids says,

he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth? I like that part. We haven't discussed that line yet. I thought that was a real pick-me-up. Two things I'd like to bring up, just because I think we haven't discussed them yet in this episode. One, the kids have a little bit of an Ewok-y vibe. And two, there is that line where the kid says, you got words from ass to your mouth.

All right. Goth kid, great design. He's cool. So then Savannah, one of the kids, and a bunch of other kids leave. She's really good. She's kind of a leader kid. She's very good. They have a little tantrum.

And one of them gets stuck in a sinkhole, so Max has to go fucking get him, and then we have to have our final action scene. They don't save that one. No, that one's gone. That one goes down the sinkhole. Another life lesson. Which actually comes up all the time in cartoons.

We're like, stay away from quicksand. Sometimes kids sink. That would be such a bad way to go. Oh, boy. Just slowly suffocating under a nightmare. Can you imagine just getting sucked into quicksand, never getting to tell Rey the thing you want to tell her? That you're also, I'm Force-sensitive.

I don't really know how you think about the Force, but just sort of like a kind of a mental vibe recently. Rey, also, I want to make sure you understand that Palpatine's actually a clone of the- Palpatine's a clone, and Exegol, Sith cultists have built those ships. Don't worry about it. You'll learn about it on a Star Wars tweet. And if you're going to kiss Kylo, I get it.

It's more of a platonic respect thing than a sexual thing. Also, Ray, I strongly recommend that you download the Fortnite DLC. We can thread the needle between... Or not thread the needle. That's probably not the right term here. We can connect the dots between Star Wars and Mad Max

Mad Max what are we talking about on the Wikipedia page for Mad Max Thunderdome which is of course my second resource for information after I've

exhausted the IMDB trivia page of course it says at the end that friend of the pod Chris White oh yes

is cited as having Mad Max Thunderdome and not any other Mad Max, specifically this film, as an inspiration for him. He's cited this as one of his major influences. This one. It's fair. He couldn't have made About a Boy without it. Shout out Chris Weitz. No, he was making in 2014 a show that never got off the ground,

that had something to do with post-apocalyptic children, that would have reversed the curse I am sure about entertainment properties based around roving gangs of kids but yeah he is the one filmmaker cited as being inspired by this movie I'd love to talk to Chris about it

I thought about DMing him last night and then I just clicked a link and it has at length his thoughts about why he mentioned that and I was like well I guess that's what he had to say you know what I'm going to say it right here at this moment let's cut to an audio clip of chris white's sure telling us let's just do it some of his thoughts on beyond thunderdome hi guys uh so i'm gonna be quick because um i might be interrupted by a child at any moment also i thought that thought that my message for the fifth anniversary

thing was probably too long and lugubrious. So I'm going to try to keep this short. So it was probably some bullshit I was saying while I was on tour, on a book tour, trying to get people interested in this series of books that I was writing, which ironically enough was about a virus that killed off everybody except young people um anyway that was a waste of three years of my life but um and everything i can say about um beyond thunderdome has actually been superseded by um fury road which is a much better movie but also brings up some of the things i liked about um beyond thunderdome so here they are quickly uh one of them in terms of movie making is the importance of subsidiary characters

right each person has his own kind of particular kind of swagger or uh attitude to the world i think you know uh another thing would be that i'm really interested in uh temporary cities or cities that are built up from nothing that doesn't not reflect in any movies that i that i've made really um but uh it is sort of reflecting what i'm interested in my life like burning man for instance uh which is sort of a big part of my life where i met my wife is uh is is influenced by uh mad max to a great extent in fact it's in some kind of slightly uh overblown ways like for instance there is a thunderdome there where people actually do fight and they don't kill each other but they kind of generally manage to break somebody's arm or rupture testicles

or things like that um and i think but the most important thing is probably in terms of the stuff that i write which is that i think that um you know barter town has its own uh logic to it its own kind of uh conventions and uh culture culture and modes of power that explain why things are going on. And as I find myself writing, especially some of these Disney things, actually, weirdly, like, you know, Cinderella or what else am I working on? Anyway, I start to think about, like, what is the social economy? What is the cultural economy of this place?

How does it work? What's the political economy of a movie, of the culture in a movie? And I think that that's something that's incredibly well realized, although not overly explained in George Miller's movies. And that's pretty great. Another thing I think they always do really well is to tailor the geography of things to the necessity of the plot without it being too obvious. You know, a lot of the Mad Max movies are kind of there and back again

or in a straight line or, you know, looping around from one place to another and the places are exactly the way that they need to be to make the hero do the things that he needs to do or she needs to do.

I think that's about it for now. Thank you guys. In under three minutes. Hooray. Bye-bye. And hey, if he didn't weigh in, that's okay. We still like him. We still like him. Right, if he was busy or something. But hopefully, you just heard him talk about

the influence this movie had on him. I did pretty good as an interviewer, right? I think... And of course, he mentioned that he's going to come on to do, on the Patreon, a live commentary for About a Boy, a masterpiece. Such a good movie. I continue to think of my life in 30-minute units of time. Yeah. No Man is an Island.

That's a big panic attack movie for me. Rachel Weisz. That's a good Warren Beth movie for me. Because it's got the right amount of sadness to it, too. It doesn't feel like hollow placation, you know? Shake your ass. Watch yourself. Show me what you're working with.

Mystical? Yes, correct. That's a Mystical joint. Yes, all right, so come on. The final sequence is a big train. They get this thing on track. Which is really cool. It has some Paddington 2 energy.

It does, but the difference is- And Master, I like seeing Master in this new light, you know, where he's more of a professor type. He's a Paddington 2 energy. It does, but the difference between... And Master, I like seeing Master in this new light, where he's more of a befuddled professor type. He's a little gentleman. There's one key difference, and only one that I can think of, between the third act of Beyond Thunderdome and Paddington 2, which is that everything that happens in the third act of Paddington 2 is brilliantly set up in the first act of Paddington 2.

Whereas in the third act of Beyond Thunderdome, my big problem with it is just it feels like we have sort of shifted rails to another movie entirely. It is funny that they're just like, yeah, there's a train. Yeah. And it's just like I want to be on board with this action sequence. But it's hard to sort of get. It is great.

The choreography of it is great. I love the grace note. And I do want to talk about like the 80s, back when movies, you know, to get to just think about the good old days. Like back when movies like this actually took their time and had moments for like expressions of humanity. That wonderful scene where he's helping, he's standing outside and he's helping the kids play the record player. And it's the lesson recorded, the French lesson. And it sort of blows their minds, expands their worlds, this idea of other languages.

It's great. And it sort of blows their minds, expands their worlds, this idea of other languages. It's great. It's the kind of thing that would be never even conceived of in a movie that was made today, a blockbuster of its kind, written in a writer's room and so on. But it's just like what movie are we in at this point? It's just all over the place. There are kind of three separate movies in this. And they kind of go from one to the other.

They don't feel disconnected, but they're also not. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's pretty cool. The other Mad Max films are so much on the road. Yeah. And the first two-thirds of this movie has almost no vehicular shit. It's true. Right?

I mean, so, like, first act is pretty much the Thunderdome world building. No, you're right. You're right. It is. And it is lacking a little bit. You do, you know, you do like a bit of, you know, high speed. Which, from the moment Jedediah takes his vehicle, that's pretty much out of the equation. Right?

Then act two is Max learns to care again, which is foot off the gas for too long. Yeah. And then act three is, here's the Mad Max vehicle chase that you wanted. Right, only this time. It's on tracks. And I do feel like that shot of the train going straight at the camera

is like the Mad Max shot that everyone thinks of all the time. Now, was it just me, or did you feel like the train was going to come through the screen? Yeah, I jumped off my couch. It was terrifying. It was bad.

Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty cool, and I like that Ante gets a sort of nice ending note you know versus the other Mad Max villains

begrudging respect exactly I wanted to say I feel like Master Blaster is a totally different character when he's got his suit on even just the way he's like

carrying himself I don't know he was like a master of a pig poop factory and now he's all like polished looking I just found that weird

you know it's like that thing where like sometimes, old people who've been married for decades, and then one of them dies, and the other one's like, fuck, I gotta figure out a new personality now, you know? Sure, okay. They were a unit. They were, like, so inextricably tied that, like, he cannot be the same guy without his big body. Semi-sincerely, but do you think that there's kind of a resonance with Master Blaster between Miller and his producing partner? Oh, you know, I mean I think possibly. I think that's part of – I mean because there is the moment where these two characters who at presentation just feel like another element of like chaotic Mad Max world building.

The moment that Blaster, Blaster's the bigger one, Master's the smaller one, right? Blaster is unmasked and everyone sees his vulnerability and Master jumps into the Thunderdome is sort of like the rancor keeper. Right.

Where it's like, this isn't just like a survival thing. Like I care about this person. I protect this person. I am emotionally tied to this person. We are inextricably connected. I wouldn't be surprised if – because Miller always talks about that. He was like they were very much films that were made by the two of us.

The fact that I have the director credit and he does not is kind of extraneous from the reality of how we work. better metaphor or visual expression for the relationship between a director and a producer than a tiny person riding a much bigger person and controlling them. I don't know. And he has to pick himself off the floor, put on a little suit, get in a helicopter, figure out who he is, get in a little plane. And then, I don't know. Well, like, this is kind of, I guess, the last thing I want to try to make sure we talk about before we get on the box office game and what have you is I do think the Mad Max films are such an interesting case study in different ways that you can build a franchise. Whereas I think like the thought of a franchise has become so binary now.

It is so much – most people trying to follow the exact same model. But you saying – or like that thing, like the scene of him playing the front record for the children is something that would never come out of a writer's room. But I also get so bummed out when post Rise of Skywalker, I saw so many people say like, well, the problem is that they didn't strategize

and blueprint out the entire trilogy before they started filming the first one, which I don't necessarily think is the right approach. But now because Marvel has done that, and to be fair, that's an ever-evolving thing. It's not like Kevin Feige had 22 fucking scripts written out. You see those movies adjusting on the fly. He knew in advance exactly how much money

all of those films were going to make in China and what characters were going to be popular. Exactly. He's fucking changing the levels constantly in the edit based on what's working and what isn't. Well, Rian Johnson says time and time again when he was writing and directing Far and Away, I think you can universally agree on without any rancor or dissension whatsoever, the best film in that trilogy. He was really on his own with no guidance from the greater Lucasfilm system. Philosophically, I like the fact that Kathy Kennedy was like, our approach is not Marvel. Our approach is hire the right person, let them tell the story they want to tell.

But then they hired the wrong person. They hired the wrong person twice. And then the other problem was I think that she was so beholden to this like every other year thing, which is just not enough time to be able to like lick your finger, stick it up to the air and figure out how the public's responded to the thing rather than reacting sort of based solely on immediate fear there's not enough time for the response to settle

but I also just think that sort of writer's room mentality that like a film franchise has to be seen as like a season of television and you look at the Mad Max movies and they're all kind of like the same variations on the same story told over and over again

with one character who's not going through conventional growth and it is just every time like changing the world around him to some degree making a bigger change even in this

even though he wins the kids kind of win him over and he helps him out and then they go find like ruined Sydney and they're going to live in it or whatever he then departs

like the classic Max he's then like alright I'm going to live in it or whatever. He then departs like the classic magazine is then like, all right, I'm going to wander. It's like the trip movies, you know, they go to a different city somewhere, they eat their way through it and then they go the separate ways and they bring the same problems to the right.

There's a cyclical nature to it. And then there are variations every time. And it's interesting to see how they build the things that are standard to the franchise. Interesting to see which things they remove or add. But I just think like not everything needs to be a saga in the way that I think people are conditioned now to believe they need to be. And in a way that bums me out where people have to like act like the whole time we had

this plan and this is the big story we're telling. Mad Max can just kind of be this thing where like you can watch any one of these four movies and they work as a movie on their own as a complete meal. It's really symptomatic I think of like Reddit culture right now and the idea of, I mean Westworld 2, season 2 will always be the nadir of that for me and writing for the mystery of it all and the breadcrumbs and the clues.

But this idea of the, you see with the Pixar unifying theory and all that shit, which may have predated the sort of current Reddit boom of people talking about movies this way, but it is, everything is sort of a puzzle to solve and not a story to enjoy.

But there are, and I'm very guilty over the years in my own writing in particular, talking about being a little sanguine about the way that these sort of larger scale movies used to be and the grace with which they were told. But watching something like this, even at its most mediocre moments, there's such beauty.

The blue of the sky in this movie is so, there's like deep cerulean shade that is just like completely arresting. Even when you're bored by anything else, your eyes can sort of wander through that. There are those quiet moments. The sound is, I mean, there's so many textural things about this movie that would be plastic in a modern conception of this. And also,

just to lay some controversy in the ground for your forthcoming Fury Road episode, which I don't know if you've recorded yet, but one thing I think this movie does that, or does not do, that Fury Road does too much for me is it actually is at peace with the pace of which the action flows

and doesn't speed ramp it. No, I like the speed ramp. Which like 70% of Fury Road is framed ahead. It's a little irritating to me. That's that Chuck Jones energy. But I do think, yes, I mean, you don't find those smaller moments. You don't find that sort of peace

and tone and air to a film if you are so concerned with the sort of franchise building of it about setting up the next film and paying off the things from the last film. And these movies are so much closer to like Charlie Chaplin movies where it's like half of those films he's ostensibly playing the same character, but he is not bothering himself

with having to go like, so is this before or after he makes the blind woman think that he's a rich man? Like none of that matters. There is a growth to this character across four films because he's gotten older, but also it's built in a way where then a different actor can take over the fourth one and it doesn't disrupt the apple cart. And he's not doing an impression, but he's also not doing something totally different. But you wouldn't think that was true. You wouldn't think it was true.

When Fury was coming out, it's not like I was like, they need Gibson. I was more kind of like, you know, isn't that in the past? Why does he need to do more Mad Max? In that same interview I've been citing that Ann Bilson did, he says some kind of, and I don't hold this against him. Listen, it was a different world back then. But he says some rather unenlightened things by modern standards about when she asked if he could ever imagine a Mad Max movie that was really led by a woman. And what, like, the female role is in this kind of story. And he sort of pooh-poohs the idea that it makes sense that you can put a round hole in a square peg there

and obviously came around to that in a big way. But it's really interesting just to chart that progression to see how just sitting on that idea and drinking in the world for 20 some odd years, 30 years at that point, would have changed his mind. Yeah, it's a benefit to the fact that, I mean, you know, there were earlier attempts where he wanted the film to get made and it didn't work out and that was to his benefit, but also the fact that he didn't immediately go, well, I need a fourth one. I think

this film, you know, disappointed a little bit at the box office only in relation to the budget was so much bigger than two. But it still was a good performer and Mel Gibson only got bigger and you have to imagine if 3 years later after Lethal Weapon 2 or whatever he had said

I have a Mad Max 4 script, it'd go right away, anything you want, we want to keep Mel in house, but he didn't, he grew as a person, he explored other things, he came back to it when the time was right and he also came back to it with a very non-literal mind towards how to continue a franchise. Because it's just like, this is just sort of a continuum.

This is a world. It's a story dynamic. It's kind of a Bond logic in that sense, where it's just like, you know, you have the circumstances that you need. It doesn't really need to. But now Bond has fallen prey to every movie has to explain why the past movies were connected to everything else. By the time this episode comes out, we will

know if they have rectified the damage done by Spectre. We'll know whether or not he had enough time to die. But, you know, just to balance out the cost of this movie, George Miller does get five cents every time someone mentions the word Thunderdome in any context. Yeah, he's getting rich off this.

So he's doing fine. Let's play the box office game. I just want to very quickly say, and I've said this before, the other approach to franchising that I love, that I wish someone would steal today, is the original Planet of the Apes where every movie has a different lead character, and that's the way that they grow rather than putting the same character through the same nerd trials over and over again. We got you. The box office game. Let's play the box office game.

July 12th, 1985. Number one movie at the box office. Young Thunderdome? No. It was number two. Number one is, I have to imagine, one of the biggest movies of the year? Very big. Enduring hit.

Of 1985. Yes. Number one. The number one film of 1985. The number one film. Temple of Doom? No. Is that 1985?

Or am I way off? I don't know. It wasn't 1985, so I can't remember. I think it's 84. But is it Spielberg? No. Is that 1985 or am I way off? I don't know. It wasn't 1985, so I can't remember. I think it's 84. But is it Spielberg? No. Interesting. It is 84.

It is 84. Temple of Doom. Is it a franchise film at all? It launches a three-part series. Oh, a Beverly Hills Cop. Nope. Because that's 84? 84.

That is number 15 at the box office, having done very well. Wow. Okay. So it launches a little franchise. Yeah. A little. You know, it has two sequels. And I suppose people occasionally have floated more, but it's never come to pass.

It's never come to pass. Ben, you look like you're burning. We've never discussed it, but it's highly likely that we will. It's a major, like major cultural sort of property. Three movies. Three movies and they're major cultural properties. And tell me about the movie star situation in this. Of course.

What a dummy I am. Sure. What a dummy you are. What a dummy I am. Number one, Back to the Future. Two weeks in, it's made $32 million, but on its way to $212 million. Yeah, humongous fucking movie. Humongous movie.

Number two is Thunderdome, which opens to $10 million. Pretty good. Yeah. It's not Thunderdome. And tops out at $36 million. Yeah. It's like triple its budget. Yeah.

It did fine. It did fine. It just didn't do that kind of Mad Max, like most profitable small budget movie ever. The other two were notorious for how much fucking profit. I think it also was not as big a hit in Australia as the other one. The Thunderdome

should have left standing as like a children's playground. Yeah, sure. Kids love geodesic things. Yeah. Remember when we were kids, like everything was fucking geodesic. You can slap geodesic

on anything and I'm just like, give me it. But like the Popeye town in Malta, you know this, that the Popeye set is still standing

and you can just go visit it? It's in Malta? Malta. Yeah, right. Oh, I was going to say, you know, the last the Popeye set is still standing and you can just go visit it? It's in Malta? Malta. Yeah, right. Oh, I was going to say, you know, the last time I was here, the Matrix 4 news broke in the middle of this episode. And I thought that it was, I had fingers crossed that it was going to be Brewster McCloud too was going to be announced in the middle of this.

Robert Altman back to direct. That would be fun. Number three. I'm going to make you refresh deadline at the end of this episode. Number three at the box office. Okay. Is how to define a sort of a sci-fi family comedy. Like sort of like a kind of like a movie you could watch at school, right?

Is it a Joe Dante movie? No, it's not. But that kind of energy? I would have loved to have seen him make this movie. I feel like he'd make a better version of this movie. This movie was a big hit. If this movie was on TV and a commercial came on, it'd be a hearing aid commercial. Oh, Cocoon.

Well done. Good clue. Ron Howard's Cocoon. Spawns a sequel. Which does spawn a sequel. It does win an Oscar. For visual effects and supporting actors. Yeah, two Oscars, right. Put Don Amici and best visual effects. Kind of a weird win in my mind.

I don't think he's the best performance in that movie by any stretch. No, it's a very weird win. And of course, also notoriously got a DGA nomination. It was one of those when, yeah, it was weird. That movie does not hold up great. Great score, though. Score slaps. Lovely James Horner score.

Listen to it all the time. And if you think about it, they kind of are just like big egg people. Yes. Sure. Which is cool. I love that. You don't even have to think that hard. It's pretty much that is what is going on.

Now, number four at the box office is the second most successful film of 1985. It's a sequel. It's an action film. First Blood? Rambo 2 First Blood? Rambo colon First Blood Part 2. Right. Yeah. That's how action film. First Blood? Rambo 2 First Blood? Rambo colon First Blood Part 2. Right. Yeah.

That's how it goes. Yeah, sorry. In which they were like, let's take this pretty sensitive dark thriller and just turn it into a movie where Stallone just pumps people full of bullets while so shirtless. It's First Blood, then Rambo colon First Blood Blood Part 2 and then it's Rambo 3. We've been over this. And then Rambo and then John Rambo? I believe that's right. I can't remember the fifth one but yeah. I think they're

called Rambo and then John Rambo. Have you seen Rambo First Blood Part 2? Sure. I would watch it on TV when I was homeschooling right next to Thunderdome. No, the last one's called Rambo Last Blood isn't it? I don't... Whatever. It must be though. Number five is it's a western. The last one's called Rambo Last Blood, isn't it? I don't... Whatever. Yes, I think you're right. Yes.

All right, number five is... It's a Western. It's a good movie. Good movie from a great director. Relatively early in his directing career. Is Walter Hell? No. I guess it's not that.

It's like 10 years into his directing career. He's just had a long directing career. It's a Western. It's not Silverado? No. But Am I Close is's not Silverado? No. But Am I Close? Is it that kind of thing? No.

Not at all? Not really. Not close at all. This is more of like a slightly dark, revisionist-y Western, master of the genre. So he's a master of Westerns. I would say. He does a lot of Westerns? He's done several.

It's not Cuss. Oh, A Million Ways to Die in the West? No. You said master of the genre, though. Yeah. That's how I got there. Ben's not a cuss. Oh, A Million Ways to Die in the West? No. You said master of the genre, though. Yeah. That's how I got there. Ben's not going to know it. I like this movie.

You like this movie? Yeah. I like a lot of movies this guy made. You like a lot of movies this guy made. I do. I do. Okay. Revisionist, early in the career.

But it's like early, but like later in... It's not a Clint. It is a Clint. It is a Clint. Horses are involved. Uh, it's a pale rider. There we go. It's a, it's a good one.

Have you seen that one? I've not seen it. He's a preacher. Yeah. It's cool. But it's just one of those very like classic stripped down Clint, um, sort of slightly neo-Westerns pre under, um, um unforgiven where like for some reason even though they would do okay and i think critics would kind of say like yeah good job like there just wasn't

that like swell of like here it is he's made his like western the like definitive western can i ask you two questions sure do they in this film railroad him um or is it the other i would say it's more that there's a mining... It's like there's a sweet town, a little town, and greedy miners are trying to take it over, and he protects them. Sounds like maybe they're

trying to railroad him. Or they're trying to mine cart him. Well, and five comedy films. Because you're right. It's like Pale Rider Wright. That's a little more of like, you know, these poor guys are trying to get, they're going to get taken over by the greedy people. And like High Plains Drifter or something like that. It's more like where he's like, I'm a monster.

Right. You shouldn't be near me. When people are like, I like you. And he's like, no, I suck. Fuck me. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's often he'll combine them. Yes. Like, you know, if he's in the movie even if he's trying to help people and they're like well thanks and he's like

don't thank me I suck goodbye please punish me hail rider but you know what it's funny that you mentioned Silverado

because that is debuting at number seven not a hit wow you've also got Explorers with Ethan Hawke

right which is a Joe Dante film kids movie yeah interesting you also have St. Elmo's Fire the sort of like You've also got Explorers with Ethan Hawke, right? Which is a Joe Dante film. Kids movie, yeah. Interesting. You also have St. Elmo's Fire, the sort of like,

which is, right, it's sort of the idea where they're just like, let's just do another breakfast club, but like, it's not a sequel. It just kind of sort of has like a lot of the same cast. And they're older. And they're older now. But you know what I mean like it is that weird

sort of like spiritual sequel that has no actual relation that brad pack shit was strong yes uh and then also another movie we mentioned some other movies uh the goonies is at number 10 the goonies fletch at number 11 oh my boy uh and uh beverly hills cop number 15 yeah you know there's this line in fletch where he goes goes he's like scammed his way into like a country club and the guy takes his order and he goes, I'll have a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich. I've never mentioned that before.

Like to drink? He's going to get a steak sandwich but then he's going to get two. I'm going to get one blended. Ehrlich, thank you for being here. My pleasure. Thank you for going beyond the Thunderdome. thank you for going beyond the Thunderdome. Thank you for going beyond the Thunderdome. Thank you for going beyond.

I needed, I needed a good reason. Would you say that becoming a new dad is going beyond the Thunderdome? I feel like I've been in the Thunderdome for the last three months, but I'm waiting to go beyond. Is there anything you want to plug, like starting a family? Uh, starting a family, it's a great idea if you're looking for purpose and lost and have little money and just want to ensure that you will be panicked about everything beyond the power of your control for the rest of your time on this mortal coil. Starting a family.

Yeah. Recommended. But does it take away from existential crisis? It compounds them exponentially, in fact. Yeah. I've been feeling a little too chill recently. I've been feeling a little too chill recently. It's hard to thread the needle between wanting to care about something other than yourself,

but not wanting to care about something so much that it drives you into early insanity. And I've definitely fallen on the latter side of the fence. So that's starting a family. Starting a family. Your baby is so beautiful and cute. I love my bun. He's a little bun. He's a little bun. He's a little bun.

Mr. Bun. He's a little bun. I wrote a song this morning that was called Echo's Fuck. It was really good. I write a song every morning for him. You write a new one every morning? Yeah, every morning at 6 a.m. when he wakes me up screaming in my face. And it was like, you just peed, but I thought it was a poop. But I thought it was a poop.

I like the refrain. Yeah. I thought you just peed. It goes something like that. Yeah, I like that a lot. Well, thank you for being here. Yeah, plug my baby. Plug your baby.

Fighting in the war. Yeah, whatever. It's also reviews. IndieWire. IndieWire IndieWire I always have to do his plugs for him Blank Check with Griffin and David

that's Plugging Blank Check thank you for joining the Five Timers Club and thank all of you for listening of course please remember to rate, review, subscribe thanks to Andrew Guto

Lee Montgomery for our theme song Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork tune in next week for The Witches of Eastwick that's right fantastic

and on that's right so let's get those witches my name's Daryl Van Horn never rub another man's witches we're gonna have fun and And horn. Never rub another man's witches. We're going to have fun. And go to patreon.com backslash blank check for some real nerdy shit.

Or if you want to say some real nerdy shit, go to blankies.red.com. And as always, David, I want you to load up Deadline. And let's hope that we're getting the Ehrlich good luck tell me what the top headline is on deadline super tuesday slugfest ex-dnc chair donna brazil tells rnc boss to quote go to hell on fox news blames russia ronald mcdaniel calls dems quote hopelessly divided why does deadline write like cable news recap, this fucking sucks. I will say the first bit of movie news is, that's a podcast. Bruce McCloud 2, Bruce McCloud 2, Bruce McCloud 2, Bruce McCloud 2, Beyond Thundercloud. Business film. Exclusive, A Quiet Place 2's Andrew Foreman, Brad Fuller, team with Chad Chahelski for Paramount Fast Car Vehicle.

So they're going to make a car movie, I guess? Okay, fuck everything.