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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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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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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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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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