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The Rewatchables ·

Mad Max: Fury Road

year 2015decade 10sdirector George Millergenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Micah Petershost Jason Concepcion
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 11:20

The canyon Excitebike sequence

Three sequences are proposed to start, all more sequences than scenes: the War Boys coming after Imperator Furiosa, which introduces the Doof Warrior and Rictus Erectus and culminates in the sandstorm; the Bullet Farmer pursuing the war rig while it is stuck in the mud and the chain-up to the tree, which impressed on second watch; and the return to the Citadel with the pole cats and the Vuvillini's valiant defence; the slower dialogue-laden scenes are deliberately left out, and a joke calls Andres Biedrins the original Doof Warrior.

The canyon sequence, with Furiosa warning she will drop the pod and the signal to go when she yells, is added as the thing to show someone asking what makes the movie special: a director taking a wide-open vista and putting it into a rectangle so you know where everyone is and how long it takes to get there, pure visual filmmaking only ten or eleven people have mastered, and very John Ford-ish as the rig arrives at the canyon surrounded on all sides.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 52:52

"I am the scales of justice"

The Bullet Farmer's lines open the category: 'I am the scales of justice', 'Sing, brother' and 'Conductor of the Choir of Death', called good writing; almost every Immortan Joe line is biblical phraseology, such as 'Do not, my friends, become addicted to water, it will take hold of you and you will resent its absence'.

The film

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Directed by George Miller · Drama

120 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Tom Hardy "Mad Max" Rockatansky , a former police officer
Charlize Theron Imperator Furiosa , a woman with a prosthetic left arm with whom Max allies. Theron shaved her head for her portrayal of Furiosa.
Nicholas Hoult Nux, a sickly War Boy who Max is briefly chained to
Hugh Keays-Byrne Immortan Joe , the ruler of the Citadel
Josh Helman Slit, Nux's lancer
Nathan Jones Rictus Erectus, Joe's muscular, intellectually disabled son
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley The Splendid Angharad, a barefoot woman who is Joe's most "treasured" breeder. Pregnant with his child, she is shown to be strong yet compassionate and protective, and as the de facto leader of the other wives.
Zoë Kravitz Toast the Knowing, a barefoot woman who is another of Joe's wives. She is the most practical and intellectual of the five and is shown to have good knowledge of guns. Kravitz wore a dark pixie wig over her natural hair when portraying Toast.
Riley Keough Capable, a red-haired woman and another of Joe's wives, she appears to be the most level-headed and mature of the five and forms a bond with the War Boy Nux. Keough's hair was dyed red when portraying Capable.
Abbey Lee The Dag, a platinum-haired girl and another of Joe's wives, she has an eccentric and bold personality who is later shown to form a bond with the Keeper of Seeds and is often seen with fellow wife Cheedo the Fragile. Lee wore a platinum wig over her natural hair when portraying the Dag.
Courtney Eaton Cheedo the Fragile, a barefoot teenage girl who is the youngest of Joe's wives. She is portrayed as the meekest and most fearful, and is initially afraid to leave Joe. However, she becomes more courageous later on. She is often seen with her fellow wife The Dag.
John Howard The People Eater, a minion of Joe who rules Gas Town
Richard Carter The Bullet Farmer, a minion of Joe who rules the Bullet Farm
iOTA The Doof Warrior (Coma), the eyeless guitarist who travels with Joe's war convoy and whose guitar doubles as a flamethrower
Angus Sampson The Organic Mechanic, a doctor who works for Joe
Jennifer Hagan Miss Giddy, an old woman who is the caretaker of Joe's wives who aids in their escape.
Megan Gale The Valkyrie, the youngest of the Vuvalini and Furiosa's childhood friend
Melissa Jaffer Keeper of the Seeds, one of the Vuvalini
Jon Iles The Ace, head of security on the War Rig
Quentin Kenihan Corpus Colossus, Joe's older son who has a physical disability that stunted his growth and prevents him from being able to walk
Coco Jack Gillies Glory the Child, the young girl in Max's flashbacks [ a ]
Chris Patton Morsov, a War Boy that was assigned to protect the War Rig when it was en route to the Bullet Farm and Gastown

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

11:20

Most Rewatchable Scene

The canyon Excitebike sequence; the return to the Citadel with the pole cats; the opening 30 minutes through the sand...

The canyon Excitebike sequence; the return to the Citadel with the pole cats; the opening 30 minutes through the sandstorm

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:20Read transcript
  • Three sequences are proposed to start, all more sequences than scenes: the War Boys coming after Imperator Furiosa, which introduces the Doof Warrior and Rictus Erectus and culminates in the sandstorm; the Bullet Farmer pursuing the war rig while it is stuck in the mud and the chain-up to the tree, which impressed on second watch; and the return to the Citadel with the pole cats and the Vuvillini's valiant defence; the slower dialogue-laden scenes are deliberately left out, and a joke calls Andres Biedrins the original Doof Warrior.
  • The canyon sequence, with Furiosa warning she will drop the pod and the signal to go when she yells, is added as the thing to show someone asking what makes the movie special: a director taking a wide-open vista and putting it into a rectangle so you know where everyone is and how long it takes to get there, pure visual filmmaking only ten or eleven people have mastered, and very John Ford-ish as the rig arrives at the canyon surrounded on all sides.
  • Any of the big chase scenes would do, and the Excitebike scene is off the charts. — Jason Concepcion
  • The film's spatial awareness is called underrated: a chaotic film usually leaves you asking where you are, who is doing what to whom and why the camera flipped, but here the cutting from the top of the truck to the cab to the action outside always keeps you oriented with a million things going on.
  • The first meeting of Max and Furiosa is a favourite over many rewatches: Max wakes face down in the sand, has his flashback, tries to bite Nux's hand off to free himself, then instead takes the sawed-off shotgun and carries Nux to the war rig, asks for water and for the chain to be clipped, and the wives yank him around on the chain during his fight with Furiosa; it is called one of the speaker's favourite action sequences ever. — Micah Peters
  • The way that fight begins after the sandstorm is playful Miller: what looks like a mountain in the distance is a close-up of Max buried in the sand, a shot compared to a Charlie Chaplin movie.
  • Picks are split: one goes Excitebike while also liking the crows sequence out in the mud; the return to the Citadel, with the pole cats jumping from vehicle to vehicle, draws 'same, same' from others, which without diarization could be two or three voices and possibly a majority; and another goes the first 30 minutes for the take-your-breath-away feeling that movies rarely accomplish these days.
  • Early on, the 33-minute stretch leading to the sandstorm blackout is flagged as probably the most breakneck sequence in movie history, and any rewatchable scene here is expected to run 18 minutes in what is essentially a six-scene movie.
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17:58

What’s Aged the Best?

The action sequences; Charlize Theron's performance as Furiosa; George Miller's thesis of a near-continuous chase wit...

The action sequences; Charlize Theron's performance as Furiosa; George Miller's thesis of a near-continuous chase with a human MacGuffin

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:58Read transcript
  • The obvious recommendation is the action sequences, pinnacle work only three years after release; the other suggestion is everything Charlize is doing, a classical performance in which she is really the Mad Max of the film, clearly the star and the hero on something like a Joseph Campbell journey.
  • Furiosa is called an iconic action-movie performance by far, a character never seen before and a version of the Mad Max archetype: the lone, complicated but still moral person in a desert moral wasteland.
  • Max's quick flashbacks apparently point to a story set between Thunderdome and Fury Road that mirrors the first film, Max failing to save a woman and her child, but the film never shows it, so the emotional investment lands with Furiosa and the lie at the centre of her journey; her collapse into the sand when hope turns out to be an idea rather than a place is a shot Oscar montages will play for 30 years.
  • The action is the pick, with agreement that Charlize is magnetic: her introduction, a figure striding away from everything as if about to leave this world, the bionic arm, everything about her reads as a badass you cannot take your eyes off. — Jason Concepcion
  • Furiosa kneeing the metal grate on Tom Hardy's face, realising it hurts and doing it again because she needs to put him down is the badass moment singled out. — Micah Peters
  • She is called a great badass action-movie creation; another pick is George Miller's thesis, crafted 10 to 20 years before the film: could a film be an almost continuous chase, how much can the audience apprehend of character, relationships, world and backstory, and the MacGuffin should be human because we are all commodities now; this is one part highfalutin, one part genius, and the film-crit reading finds feminism, ecological collapse and the tolls of war inside a movie about Excitebikes throwing bombs onto a truck full of oil and women.
  • The dialogue works like the Kuleshov effect, cutting between people to convey feeling; watching with closed captions reveals revelations buried under exhaust sounds, such as why Max is so angry.
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22:15

What’s Aged the Worst?

Nothing substantial after three years; Immortan Joe's unclear plan; the Doof Warrior's nu-metal act

Nothing substantial after three years; Immortan Joe's unclear plan; the Doof Warrior's nu-metal act

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:15Read transcript
  • Only three years old, the film has none of the usual aging problems, nothing like relitigating the comedy of Wedding Crashers; the action sequences are perfect as they were, and the casting, direction and look all hold up.
  • Flagged as more of a nitpick: what was Immortan Joe's plan? He pursues his five or six wives, who exist to help him produce one healthy son, and the question is why he must marshal the whole Citadel for a wild goose chase rather than turn to other women, and whether he is just an avatar of avarice with no logical motivation.
  • A Helen of Troy defence: Joe's so-called brothers are really allied generals, war-mad enough to go fire bullets into the desert over a family squabble; the women pumping mother's milk look past their prime, so these wives are his shot at a male heir who is not Rictus or the man with the telescope.
  • Whether Rictus could lead the Citadel is doubted, since all he does is guzzle breast milk and fire a Gatling gun with no Tony La Russa-level strategy; the hosts perform his 'I had a baby brother' line readings, joke about doing them in the office over blog posts, and one voice answers that Rictus does not realise he is being passed over and does not understand much.
  • Legacy matters to Joe because, with little recorded history or stability, evil royal families have always cared most about continuing their reign through a male heir; the same primal urge to live beyond one's natural life explains podcasts, writing and books, which leads to the joke of what Immortan Joe's podcast would be called, answered with 'The Immortan Joe Budden podcast'.
  • The Doof Warrior, despite winning the Dion Waiters Award, is also nominated as what aged the worst: rock is dead, the Slipknot-style nu-metal is dead, and in a world where energy is scarce and people drink breast milk, two mountainous stacks of 100-watt amps are the most wasteful and ridiculous part of the movie, though still loved; it is odd that English barely survives the wasteland while drop-D guitar and late-aughts metal do.
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26:47

Casting What-Ifs

Mel Gibson was the presumptive Max until he declined around 2003 for The Passion of the Christ; Heath Ledger was cons...

Mel Gibson was the presumptive Max until he declined around 2003 for The Passion of the Christ; Heath Ledger was considered before his death in 2008

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:26:47Read transcript
  • There are few casting what-ifs: conceived in the 80s shortly after Beyond Thunderdome, the film had Mel Gibson as presumptive Max until about 2003, when another round of funding came through and he declined because he had become fascinated by the story that became The Passion of the Christ.
  • Heath Ledger was considered before his death in 2008, which opens the question of whether he would have suited the role better than Tom Hardy.
  • Asked whether anyone else should realistically have played Max, Heath Ledger is raised again as a cool idea, Statham is rejected as too comic-y, and nobody would be picked over Tom Hardy for the role.
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32:43

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

The Doof Warrior (iOTA)

The Doof Warrior (iOTA)

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:43Read transcript
  • Recommendations: Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus, who was really going for it with expert line readings; Zoe Kravitz in a flex performance before the hosts had much of a relationship to her; and Hugh Keaton's Keysburn (as transcribed) as Immortan Joe.
  • The pick is the Doof Warrior, played by iOTA (transcribed 'Oda'), described as a musician, writer and painter from New Zealand who apparently beat Hugh Jackman for a Tony Award; in a landscape of dust, brown, chrome, neutral colours and monotone voices he wears a red pajama suit and plays a flaming double-neck guitar, impossible not to look at, and wakes from a hammock of guitar straps straight into his riff like G.E. Smith coming out of a commercial break.
  • In a Noisy (as transcribed) interview iOTA described being strapped into the harness for eight hours after six-a.m. makeup, noodling ACDC songs to himself and eventually banging out nonsensical riffs because staying animated mattered most; the thinking behind the character is left as a question: is it that an announcement of destruction was needed?
  • Though also nominated as what aged the worst for its wasteful nu-metal excess, the Doof Warrior is loved, and the Dion Waiters Award goes to the Doof Warrior.
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36:26

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Riley Keough, with Zoe Kravitz floated

Riley Keough, with Zoe Kravitz floated

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:36:26Read transcript
  • The award, understood as someone we did not quite know who emerged as someone to remember, like Joey Pantoliano, prompts 'I guess this is Zoe, right?' before the written-down answer: Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis Presley, a year before The Girlfriend Experience and now a pretty well-known actress.
  • The little guy in the basket with the periscope, Corpus Colossus, is asked about but is not in other work and has no Netflix show coming; a side fact is that Immortan Joe has another son in the video game adaptation named Scabrous Scrotus, and the game is called bad.
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37:50

What Is the Thing Bill Would Say on This Podcast That Would Make Us All Uncomfortable?

Speculation about the War Boys' sex lives and the spray paint; whether the Nux and Riley Keough romance could last; w...

Speculation about the War Boys' sex lives and the spray paint; whether the Nux and Riley Keough romance could last; whether Immortan Joe's mask lets him breathe enough for intimacy

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:50Read transcript
  • With Bill absent, a new category asks what he would have said to make everyone uncomfortable, placed in the lineage of his Forrest Gump impression and his five-minute Wedding Crashers sex-scene discussion while locking eyes with Chris.
  • The reluctant guess is that Bill would have asked about the virility of the War Boys, whether they have sex lives, whether the spray paint is like a nitrous hit, and whether the romance between Riley Keough and Nicholas Holt is a long-term viable thing. — Chris Ryan
  • The romance question is judged not uncomfortable but the War Boys question is called a good headline and something Mal would also say; another adds whether Immortan Joe's gas mask gets enough oxygen to him for intimacy, and Mike (as transcribed) is told not to speak for the sake of the company's future.
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40:42

Half-Assed Internet Research

Pre-production began as early as 1997 and 2001 and 2003 shoots were delayed by September 11th and the Iraq War; Mille...

Pre-production began as early as 1997 and 2001 and 2003 shoots were delayed by September 11th and the Iraq War; Miller briefly considered a computer-animated version in 2007; iOTA's guitar weighed 132 pounds and shot real flames; the film was shot in sequence; a 120-day shoot in Namibia and Western Sydney wrapped 17 December 2012; Miller demanded colourful cinematography and beautiful art direction; John Seale came out of retirement; Eve Ensler consulted on the female characters

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:42Read transcript
  • Fury Road sat in development hell with pre-production as early as 1997; attempts to shoot in 2001 and 2003 were delayed by the September 11th attacks and the Iraq War; Miller returned to it in 2007 after Happy Feet, briefly considered a computer-animated film, then went live action, which everyone agrees was the right choice; his filmography of Happy Feet, Babe, Babe Pig in the City and Lorenzo's Oil is called incredible, one of the most fascinating in movies.
  • iOTA, the Australian artist whose real name is given as Sean Hape, told Vice the guitar weighed 132 pounds and shot real gas-powered flames controlled by the whammy bar, which the hosts half doubt was verified; the movie was shot in sequence, from page one straight through, surprising given the complexity, and Charlize appears 15 or 20 minutes in after Max is captured and escapes.
  • Principal photography began on 26 June in Namibia, with work at Potts Hill and Penrith Lakes in Western Sydney; in October 2012 The Hollywood Reporter reported that Warner Brothers sent an executive to keep the production on track, and filming wrapped on 17 December 2012 after 120 days, a long shoot.
  • Miller's two stipulations were cinematography as colourful as possible to set the film apart from desaturated post-apocalyptic movies, after producers talked him out of an initial black-and-white concept, and art direction as beautiful as possible; the hosts doubt the second was achieved, calling it not a beautiful movie nor one rich in interior design, with only the 'Rose of Cabbage' (as transcribed) and the stilt-walkers at the now-defunct Green Place standing out.
  • The untreated YouTube clips of the car sequences show overcast days, off-white skies and light-brown rocks in shabby deserts, with the computer grade supplying the contrast; John Seale, who shot many of Miller's films plus The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, came out of retirement in his 70s at Miller's behest; and Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues, was consulted to enhance the portrayal of the female characters.
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44:38

Apex Mountain

The Doof Warrior (iOTA); George Miller (one host, vs. The Road Warrior); Charlize Theron (1 yes, 2 no)

The Doof Warrior (iOTA); George Miller (one host, vs. The Road Warrior); Charlize Theron (1 yes, 2 no)

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:38Read transcript
  • George Miller is weighed first, with a joke that Happy Feet was easily better and Babe and Babe 2 called excellent; The Road Warrior is named his best film, the one that laid the carpet for him to become a Spielbergian director who could do action and drama, and Lorenzo's Oil, about Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte trying to cure their child and drawn from Miller's experience as a doctor, a fine tearjerker; because he never worked at the volume needed to stay in the mix, one host answers no for this film and names Road Warrior as Miller's apex.
  • Tom Hardy is called really complicated: Inception, with the Ames (as transcribed) character, is rated higher than Fury Road, Dunkirk and The Revenant come up, and Warrior is picked as the best he has ever been as a performer if not in fame, Tommy Conlon being a better version of Max in a largely silent physical performance.
  • Charlize is put to the table: two voices say no, then one says yes, placing this over the Oscar win for Monster, the Jason Reitman collaborations and A Million Ways to Die in the West; her shaved head meant she wore a wig in the Seth MacFarlane western comedy.
  • The dissent on Charlize is that Monster is her Apex Mountain, so her yes does not carry the table.
  • For Miller, a second host answers yes, this is Apex Mountain, even while agreeing The Road Warrior is the better film in story, characters and pacing: as an achievement it is almost unparalleled, a movie where you feel the physics in a near-fully-CG era, made from non-Marvel IP after all the struggles to get it made, a top-five action film that, like The Fugitive, grabs you and cannot be switched off once it starts; this yes stands against the earlier Road Warrior answer and is not resolved.
  • The Doof Warrior is easily at Apex Mountain, agreed with several 'easily's.
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49:44

Is This Movie Better With…?

Michael K. Williams

Michael K. Williams

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:44Read transcript
  • Michael K. Williams, because besides Zoe Kravitz it would have been nice to see somebody else of colour. — Micah Peters
  • The observation follows that there are no War Boys of colour; Buscemi as Immortan Joe is floated, since without the voice modulator Joe might sound like Buscemi, especially his Fargo character after being shot in the face, which would echo the Toe Cutter from the original Mad Max, also played by Hugh Keyes Byrne (as transcribed), with an Australian accent.
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49:44

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus

Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:44Read transcript
  • Everyone was written down, but the pick is Rictus, with the 'I had a baby brother, he's perfect in every way' reading recalled as so good; the wives in the back seat after Rosie Huntington Whitley's character dies are also cited, where the direction could only have been to act really sad.
  • Rictus Erectus is played by Nathan Jones, named earlier among the Dion Waiters nominations as really going for it.
  • A further nomination, offered without full conviction: the moment late in the film when the Gastown general runs over the sniper Vuvillini and makes a strange face that is the visual representation of 'they knew', first misattributed to the Bullet Farmer, who had been blinded; the same character is regularly touching his nipples throughout his screen time, prompting the remark that Bill should have been on this podcast.
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52:52

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"I am the scales of justice"; "Conductor of the Choir of Death"; "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water"; "Oh,...

"I am the scales of justice"; "Conductor of the Choir of Death"; "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water"; "Oh, what a day. What a lovely day"; "I live, I die, I live again"; "That's bait"; "I am awaited in Valhalla"; "Who killed the world"; "Out here everything hurts"

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:52Read transcript
  • The Bullet Farmer's lines open the category: 'I am the scales of justice', 'Sing, brother' and 'Conductor of the Choir of Death', called good writing; almost every Immortan Joe line is biblical phraseology, such as 'Do not, my friends, become addicted to water, it will take hold of you and you will resent its absence'.
  • The money line is Nux's 'Oh, what a day', the one everybody started saying after the trailer, and 'I live, I die, I live again' is his other signature phrase.
  • A subversive pick is Max's 'that's bait' as they roll toward the supposed Green Place and see the naked woman on 'the thing', with the wish that Max were jokier throughout; the Nux and Slit exchange on first seeing Immortan Joe, Nux insisting 'he looked at me' and 'he looked me straight in the eye', Slit answering 'he looked at your blood bag' and 'he was scanning the horizon', and Nux concluding 'I am awaited in Valhalla', is praised as good character building for the weird obsessive cult Joe has created.
  • Another favourite is not an Aaron Sorkin line: with four bullets left, Max fires a couple, then Furiosa takes the rifle, braces on his shoulder and says 'don't breathe', and the look he gives back is loved; 'Who killed the world' is a hammer line underlining the film's theme, and Furiosa's 'out here everything hurts' is one of several apocalyptic lines.
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56:42

Picking Nits

Did Immortan Joe have a point?; Tom Hardy's voice is dubbed throughout; if the Green Place were real, why did more pe...

Did Immortan Joe have a point?; Tom Hardy's voice is dubbed throughout; if the Green Place were real, why did more people not know about it?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:42Read transcript
  • 'Did Immortan Joe have a point?' was written down as a nit, which the host says Chris already raised earlier as a joke; the other nit is that Tom Hardy's voice is completely, or at least many times, dubbed, compared to the lossy sound of taping over an old radio mixtape.
  • Dubbed lines are pointed out: 'that's my head' at the beginning, when the harpoon is shot past him on the hood of the car, and 'that's mine' when he sees Slit driving his car on the way back to the Citadel are somebody else's voice, and many more can be picked out.
  • If the Green Place were real, why would more people not know about it? There are no podcasts or smartphones in the wasteland, the Outback setting holds maybe a thousand people with little information sharing, yet it is only a hard night's drive away and someone would have scouted it; if there were a place of salvation, people would try to go and word would get around.
  • Earlier, during what aged the worst, Immortan Joe's plan was flagged as more of a nitpick: why marshal the whole Citadel to chase five or six wives when there should be other women to turn to.
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58:49

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Will there be a sequel?; Who could direct one other than George Miller?; Did Max leave the Citadel at the end?

Will there be a sequel?; Who could direct one other than George Miller?; Did Max leave the Citadel at the end?

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:49Read transcript
  • A sequel was supposed to happen, with Charlize and Tom Hardy believed signed up, but George Miller was in litigation with Warner Brothers over an undisclosed sum and is 73, so it is doubted; asked directly, one host would absolutely love one, and IP lives forever.
  • Letting someone else direct seems inevitable but could not possibly be as good; names floated are Michaud (as transcribed), Jeremy Saulnier, David McKenzie and Michelle McLaren (as transcribed), since the first three films lacked Fury Road's frenetic pace and editing, yet nobody else speaks this cinematic language of frame rate, quick cutting and practical explosions, and Miller, like Martin or Tolkien, has been thinking about this mythology for most of his adult life since his first feature, Mad Max.
  • Did Max leave the Citadel? He shrinks into the crowd at the end, perhaps to become anonymous again or to find something elsewhere; he has never gotten over the tragic-hero curse that everything attached to him dies, so he likely wanders the wasteland again like Ethan in The Searchers, not right for society or capable of normal life, 'more of a bullet farmer' in the joke.
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1:03:21

Who Won the Movie?

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:21Read transcript
Podcast choices
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More from the conversation

The host opens with film dialogue, introduces himself and bills Chris Ryan, Jason Concepcion and Micah Peters as guests, framing Fury Road as maybe the best action movie of the decade.
Approx. transcript time · 00:00:00Read transcript
Facts recited: Fury Road is the fourth installment in the then-70-year-old Miller's series, launched 36 years earlier with Mel Gibson; released summer 2015, 30 years after Beyond Thunderdome; Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Nicholas Holt star, with Hugh Keyes Byrne returning as Immortan Joe; 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, $378 million worldwide, 10 Oscar nominations and six wins in the technical categories, the only Best Picture nominee without an acting nomination; A.O. Scott's review praises the dialogue whittled clean of exposition, Theron as a silent-movie heroine and Junkie XL's score.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:04Read transcript
Two words describe the movie: a chase, and primal; you need no knowledge of the wasteland mythology, and it sits with French Connection and Ronin as a favourite car-chase movie, a pleasure that cannot quite be articulated.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:54Read transcript
This was a first chase movie for one guest, who has not watched any of the earlier films; everything blows up, the plot is inessential, and the movie can be watched any number of times without tiring.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:38Read transcript
First viewing meant being blown back in the seat: after the ride into the sandstorm, the car pinwheeling into the air and the screen going black, the theatre let out an audible exhalation, a life-affirming spectacle only a cinema can give.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:12Read transcript
The film is still at the pinnacle of visual effects, a dissertation combining 80s practical tricks with digital post-production; untreated YouTube footage shows real cars really driving fast, hitting and flipping, and bikes riding off mounds; the seven-month shoot wrapped in December 2012 with 470 hours of footage, a $250 million budget, two-plus years of editing and more than 1,200 effects shots, making it one of the most difficult movies ever made.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:07Read transcript
On Mad Max fandom: The Road Warrior was a formative shock, mythology torn from whole cloth at the edge where exploitation becomes prestige; the first film is a cult midnight movie like Vanishing Point in which Gibson's character chases people across Australia after his cape is run over, while Road Warrior becomes an epic of post-apocalyptic, gas-guzzling, Metal Gear Solid craziness with a cynical turn where Max finally helps others and gets screwed; Beyond Thunderdome was seen in the Philippines with a man who spoke no English and still understood it, laughing at the middle finger rising from the sand.
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:41Read transcript
Without having seen the earlier films you still get the gist: resource depletion, general hopelessness, what happens when there are no heroes; the first 30 minutes of Fury Road are hastily rendered and thrown at you, yet you understand what is happening and some of Max's motivations.
Approx. transcript time · 00:09:06Read transcript
These movies came before The Terminator, 12 Monkeys and The Matrix and built the template for the post-apocalyptic science-fiction action wave of the 80s and 90s even though they do not look like the others.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:03Read transcript
The films take dystopia and make it look like the present day: football pads, Dodge Chargers with super engines, big rigs with grates, everything modded from what would remain in the desert rather than a hyperspace drive or DeLorean, and everyday symbols like a hockey mask turned into icons of a fallen future.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:18Read transcript
The story is hard to follow and only loosely connected to the previous three; the History Men epilogue, a wizened group telling the story of Immortan Joe's fall, makes sense only via the internet or the graphic novel that renders the backstory; the decades-long game of ideological telephone makes language infantile, parodied in Rick and Morty's Thunderdome episode, which is said to be exactly what Thunderdome is like; the dialogue is crypto-biblical and crypto-troglodyte, and Tom Hardy's choices are monosyllabic.
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:49Read transcript
Tom Hardy's performance is disliked by one host, who does not get what he was going for and thinks half or more is dubbed; George Miller and Charlize Theron famously hated working with him and he made amends after release; many left the set expecting an all-time disaster, a Coppola-up-the-river situation, until Miller returned from more than a year of cutting with a masterpiece.
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:31Read transcript
Miller did an incredible job making the taciturn nature of his lead no hindrance; Hardy's performance does not take away from the movie but it is the weirdest half-assing on a movie this good, as if sleepwalking through much of it.
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:37Read transcript
On rewatch Hardy clearly has about five different voices because of the after-the-fact dubbing, but his grunting in the affirmative and negative suits the role; the defining moment is Max falling asleep in the war rig's passenger seat, having a nightmare and waking up swinging, one of many small moments remembered vividly and loved.
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:52Read transcript
Hardy gets the physicality right and only had to not screw up the dialogue scenes, which is the devil's bargain with him: a combination of Sean Connery and Lawrence Olivier who wants to act like Jim Carrey with Daffy Duck voices, as in the Al Capone project; playing Bane broke him and the voice now defines him, though Inception promised a 25-year movie star; a 2014 piece on his accents covered Gangster Squad (a cartoon cat), The Drop (a Brooklyn pork-store guy) and Locke (an Eastern European immigrant long in London, or Luka Modric).
Approx. transcript time · 00:30:21Read transcript
The movie is not all shot at 24 frames per second; it is sped up so it often feels like a 1930s film, like listening to a podcast at 2x, which makes the performances more cartoony but helps the pacing and constant adrenaline; Charlize alone seems unaffected, languid and graceful, while Tom Hardy looks like a Three Stooges character or Buster Keaton.
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:44Read transcript
Nicholas Holt (as transcribed) was a child-actor prodigy in About a Boy and since then, through the X-Men films and Drake Doremus movies, has had a remove, something vacant behind the eyes, but here he goes for it: physical, emotional, screaming through the movie as an emotional infant who moves from suicidal Valhalla-seeking to finding something bigger to live for, and as a pretty boy he uglifies himself without vanity.
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:21Read transcript
Asked for the best action movie of the decade, nominations are Fury Road, Edge of Tomorrow, John Wick and the Raid movies; the first Raid is a brutal nonstop adrenaline rush with an anabasis structure, but its purity level is too high for non-addicts and it is not a party drug, as is the first Wick; one vote goes to Wick; the Rogue Nation and Fallout pair and Skyfall are added, Skyfall dismissed as lifestyle porn apart from Javier Bardem's long take; a Fury Road versus Wick social-media poll is proposed, and the Raid is called what Wick wants to be.
Approx. transcript time · 01:01:27Read transcript
Sign-off: the film is called one of the greatest action movies of all time and the guests are thanked.
Approx. transcript time · 01:04:05Read transcript