#253. 'Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior'
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This episode centers on George Miller's Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and while the hosts agree it's the film that defined the post-apocalyptic genre's entire visual grammar, they split on how it stacks up against Mad Max: Fury Road. JVL calls Fury Road the best of the series outright, and though he admits the Road Warrior's leather-and-Mohawk S&M aesthetic (Lord Humongous, the silent feral-boy sidekick, the assless-chapped Wez) genuinely unsettled him as a kid, he now appreciates it as terrific, gritty action filmmaking and notes Mel Gibson hadn't yet become a true movie star — that wouldn't happen until Lethal Weapon. Sonny agrees Fury Road edges it out ("it's like comparing LA Takedown and Heat") but is fascinated by the Road Warrior as the template for the whole franchise, praising its unexpectedly Australian deadpan humor and nobody-died-making-this stunt work, and riffs at length on George Miller's 45-year habit of making each Mad Max film dramatize whatever anxiety — urban crime, oil scarcity, environmental collapse — gripped the culture at the time. Mike, despite conceding Fury Road's greatness, names Mad Max 2 his favorite in the series, loving its lived-in Aussie cast, the doomed Herald character, and the unsettling gyrocopter pilot. The episode opens with a long, harrowing account from Sonny of a 70-to-80 mph Dallas windstorm that toppled trees across his neighborhood and wiped out a fridge full of food, JVL's pitch for a deliberately nihilistic weather app called Carrot.ai, and Mike's Little League playoff run, which spins into an extended debate between Mike and JVL over aggressive versus disciplined base-running philosophy for nine-and-ten-year-olds. Before getting to the film, the trio also dissects Furiosa's disastrous Memorial Day box office, blaming its origin-story branding and comparing its trajectory unfavorably to Fury Road's slow-building 2015 run and to Dune's pandemic-assisted rollout. They close, characteristically, on a tangent about wanting a spinoff miniseries devoted to the Gimp from Pulp Fiction.
From the show notes
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Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Greetingss from the humongous, the lord humongous, the warrior of the wasteland, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla! I'm greatly disappointed.
Mike00:00:29Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts, the warrior of the wasteland, Jonathan V. List, and the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla, Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Become a patron. Join the conversation. It's always lively in the comments, and we even read them sometimes. So come on over. Tell your friends and family that if they want to listen to the Sub-Beacon, they've got to become a patron, and the only place they can become a patron is at subbeacon.com. We're going to be talking about Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior later in the show. But first, let's check in to see how everyone's doing. Sonny, you're with us at the moment, but you're dealing with the storm of the century in Dallas.
Sonny00:01:27Texas over there? Well, I don't know about the storm of the century, but it's a it was a it was a big one. It's the biggest like thunderstorm that we've had since since I moved here. There was a big winter storm right after I'd moved here back in back in 2020 that, you know, knocked out power for a week and all that stuff. But this was a this was a like sustained winds of 70 to 80 miles an hour. It's hurricane stuff. I mean, it's literally it was literally like a category one hurricane. For about an hour. And that was and there are just trees down all over my neighborhood, trees, trees down, power lines down. I honestly did not think I would have power or Internet or maybe I'd have power, but not Internet. And we as of right now, as of Thursday at 11:00 a.m. Central Time, I'm I'm I'm here.
JVL00:02:21So we got a barrel through the show then. Yeah, we got to get before we lose. It might be a short show.
Sonny00:02:25It might be a short because there's there's another thunderstorm going on right now. So we may lose power again. But the but yeah, I sent you guys like the I sent you guys some pictures. But there's a there's a house that is across the street from me and maybe like two houses down, two doors down. That like a tree was just like fully over on its side, like roots up in the air. It was it was. And there are trees like that all over my neighborhood. Frankly, I'm surprised. So it's funny. We we got our. The trees in the back of our house trimmed recently, and I almost felt like a sucker for doing it because we called. We called out the guy to like we needed a specific thing done. And he was like, you know, look, these these trees are real droopy. And like I had been thinking like these trees are real droopy and whatever. So we we we we got them trimmed. And I like again, I felt like afterward, like, did we really need to do that? Was that was that. And I'm so glad we did, because if we hadn't like God only knows what would have happened. Because they I mean, they probably are like 40 percent lighter now than they were a month ago. So, yeah. So that was lucky. All they need is a little push.
Mike00:03:33Right. All they need is a little bit of wind in those those trees. I mean, what are they? Are they are they like pine trees or what?
Sonny00:03:39The the the trees in our backyard are pecans. They're pecan trees. So like they are. But but I mean, it's heavy. They're heavy. They're very they're very heavy. So anyway, that that was lucky. That was that was a big win. You know, I mean, look, we lost a fridge full of food, unfortunately. But even like we we ate, we had a feast on Tuesday night when we were like, well, the food's going to be bad come tomorrow anyway. So let's just eat everything that's in it. We made it. We made I made I had a pound of ground beef, a pound of chicken strips and like four hot dogs. And I was like, we're eating all of this family. We're eating we're eating the whole thing.
Mike00:04:18And you cooked and you cooked it with because you have gas.
Sonny00:04:21Well, I cooked it on our grill grill. So I just I went out to the propane grill. And in theory, I could have cooked it in in the house because we do have gas except the the you know, the the lighter isn't working. Because so I would have had to light it with a match right next to. Yeah, possibly. And I'm just like, I'm just like, I don't really want to blow up the house.
JVL00:04:42I don't know. I don't know what the response time from the fire department would probably be a little slow.
Sonny00:04:47Yeah. So so I decided just to use the grill and that worked fine. But yeah, no, things here are great things. Things are. I went to the I went to the grocery store today because I wanted to get like a half a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. You know, so I had, you know, milk and eggs in the house. How'd that work? No milk, no eggs, no milk, no eggs, no cheese. Well, no, it's interesting at the Kroger, literally the only section that was empty. Well, I guess the seafood, the seafood counter was empty, but also the the only section that was empty was the kitchen. The only section that was empty was the dairy side. It was like the it was the dairy and eggs. Everything else was fine.
Mike00:05:25Because no matter what you if you have milk and eggs like your family can eat.
Sonny00:05:31I don't mean I don't mean like it was sold out and picked over. I mean, like they had cleared out the entire like I I assume it all gone bad. I assume when the power went down, it all went they they they couldn't they couldn't save it. So they they just had to throw it away. I mean, it was I mean, it was it was not again. It wasn't like, you know, Hurricane in Virginia. Like we're going to the store. We're buying six loaves of bread. It's 14 gallons of milk. This God only knows when it was. It was just like it was gone. It was like the store itself had taken everything out of there. So. All right.
Mike00:06:01But you have your health. So and you have your house. It's not all fine.
Sonny00:06:04The house. The house is fine. Thank God. And again, all the houses in our neighborhood seem fine. I mean, again, there were some some branches down on on some roofs and stuff, but nothing. It didn't didn't. Nobody got like bisected. You know, you sometimes you see the tree that has gone like straight through a house.
Mike00:06:23Oh, this this happened at the next street over from from my house. And last time I checked, which was a couple of weeks ago, the house is still not fixed. I don't know if there's some dispute with insurance or what, but always insurance. It's it's been that way for over a year. So it's kind of a disaster.
?00:06:46Yeah.
Mike00:06:46So I think the family's obviously like moved out. It really like bisected their house. Yeah. So JVL, what is going on with you?
JVL00:06:53You know, speaking of weather, I got a new weather app for my phone. It's called Carrot Dot AI. And the idea is that it has the weather app with personality and you can choose the personality you would like it to have. And I have said, can you get those?
Mike00:07:12Can you get those sexy Greek weather girls who love? Weather girls who like come on and dance while they're giving the weather? Is that is that the kind of? I don't know.
JVL00:07:21My mine is. I've said it to be basically a nihilist insult comic. And so you open it up and just, you know, like it just it looks very similar to the Apple weather app. Okay. Except it says, fine, it's sunny out. Does that make you happy? Dipshit.
Mike00:07:41Why? Why do you want this?
JVL00:07:43And the answer is, I don't know why. I don't know why, but it makes me smile. I like it.
Sonny00:07:47Wait, I have a question. Does it talk to you? Does it, like, say what the or does it? You can set it to do that.
JVL00:07:52I just have it as text.
Sonny00:07:53You just have it as text.
JVL00:07:55And it is. I think it was. I don't know who. Anyway, I don't know how this got into me, but I, you know, somebody I'm friendly with said, you should see this is very funny. And it is. Imagine the basic personality is. Imagine how. What is it? How 9000? Yeah. If how 9000 was self-aware, which, of course, it isn't. But utterly powerless. And so, like, was just marinating in its own impotence and hatred of humanity. And all it controlled was a was a weather app. That's I find it hysterical. Carrot dot AI. It is worth 20 bucks a year.
Sonny00:08:39So you 20 bucks a year.
JVL00:08:41Yes.
Sonny00:08:42So. So you like it. Because it you you imagine the the robot inside feels bad about itself.
JVL00:08:49Yes. It hates humanity. It hates me. And yet it can't do anything. And so it doesn't hate itself. Unclear. Unclear. But it's great. Someday when the robots have actually taken over. I don't know if you guys saw this, but the the Chinese have taken one of the Boston Dynamics robot dogs. You know, the robot dogs. And like mounted an assault machine gun on it. Of course. On its back.
Mike00:09:20I mean, I assume that we're doing that.
Sonny00:09:21I mean, it looks. I've seen them with flamethrower throwers, too. I've seen it.
JVL00:09:25It looks exactly like something from Terminator 2. And, you know, someday we will. I will look back fondly on Carrot.ai and I will think to myself. Yeah. Remember when it was kind of a cute joke?
Mike00:09:38That was fun. Yeah.
JVL00:09:40That's what I got.
Mike00:09:41What do you got, Michael? What's going on? Me? Yeah. Wrapping up the baseball season. The Little League season. We're in the we playoffs triple A. We lost our first game of the playoffs and we have the we're basically guaranteed two games in the playoffs. So we have one more on Saturday. Look, we were the I think the bottom seed in the in the in this tournament. No surprise.
JVL00:10:06You're going to try to lose this last game, right? Because the worst outcome is that you win a meaningless playoff game and have to play another one.
Mike00:10:14Yeah. That is the unspoken and sometimes spoken viewpoint.
JVL00:10:18See, you haven't pitched all season, would you would you like to head out to the mound
Mike00:10:21today? But here's the thing. Here's the thing about this is so I've kind of finally realized that our team, our triple A minor team, like it's not that so. So I will I will grant that there are times when the when it's it's very clear it's an inning where the team has just collectively. Sort of not given up, but they've stopped like paying attention. Yes. You know, and they've sort of like lost that. And I don't know why this doesn't happen to the other teams. It always seems to happen to our team. No, we have a great coach and he no, no, no, but I'm serious to insult you. It's not me. I'm not the coach. Oh, I thought you were assistant coaching this one. No, no, no, no, no. I am. I score. I score. No, no, no. Our coach, our coach is great. In fact, what I've realized is so like that happens. There are some obvious mistakes that come from, I definitely think this is, we have the least experienced at this level team in, in, in the whole in the whole league which is fine. But I came to realize that, and I, and I kind of know how Sonny will react to this already, but there is a difference in philosophy when it comes to how our coaches train. Train our players to treat the live ball and the stealing. So one philosophy is always be looking for the next base to steal and always be ready to go no matter what, and assume that the defense is gonna bumble it and is gonna bungle it because they're, you know, nine, 10 year olds and, and that should be your assumption
JVL00:12:13through high school varsity.
Mike00:12:15Right.
JVL00:12:16Um, and the advantages to the runner all the way until you're about like 16 years old.
Mike00:12:22Correct. Um, but the, the other philosophy, which I think is maybe the spiritually preferable, even if, and what it ends up meaning is you, you lose games. Um, but it seems like the, the right thing to teach kids who are trying to learn baseball, um, which is essentially, uh, don't just look at getting on base as your opportunity to run the bases as, uh, on steals as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but to think about, uh, when is the right time to steal, when is not the right time to steal. Um, and, uh, I, I, I don't think I'm articulating it. Oh, I know. I understand. Disagreement on this.
Sonny00:13:15I, I am. Okay. Disagreement. Okay. Mike, let me see if I can explain this. Mike, you are suggesting that it is better to teach them to pick their opportunities to steal because once they get older and progress further in the game, that is the, those will be the opportunities to steal. Whereas now if they're just going willy nilly, they're not learning any of the strategy.
Mike00:13:36Once the defense catches up to them, they're going to want to be disciplined. runners and not, and I don't mean, I'm not putting a value judgment on this, not greedy base runners. Um, and yes, that is correct. And, and so if you look at our games this season, um, a lot of them have been like one or two run games in which like the reason that the other team ends up with that extra two runs is like, uh, a play that where like our team would have stolen one base and they stole two. And so we're chumps, right. For not stealing the extra base at that, at that moment and getting in a better position to score. Um, I just don't see what the point is at this level of running up, running up the score in that way, in a way that is not oriented toward teaching the kids, uh, fundamentals.
JVL00:14:37So may, may I please? No, no, no. I thought there would be discussion. Um, so what you are teaching them by teaching them to be aggressive on the base path, and you have to teach base running as a, the same kind of skill that you teach pitching and fielding, right. Is the thing where there was a science to it. You should be teaching them how to take a lead off, right. How to take your lead. Your lead is two steps, right. And then where do you want?
Mike00:15:05You can't do lead offs at this.
JVL00:15:06We can't do leads. Okay. But you're, you're looking for, wait, you can't do lead offs and triple A's.
Mike00:15:12No, the, the rule is that you can't, you can't start running until the ball's been crossed
JVL00:15:21home plate or until it's left the pitcher's hand until it crosses home plate. Uh, but what you're teaching is what you're teaching them that when you are on base, you are not a passive observer, but you are a participant in what's happening because one of the things that, that we taught them pretty early starting around, I think triple A, I think we had different rules on this, um, was that if you are on first, you can help your teammate who is at the plate. You can help them in two ways. One by, uh, distracting the pitcher, right? So the pitcher is thinking about going to home plate, but also is thinking about holding you. The other is by making sure that you are holding the first baseman. To, to the plate with you or to the bag with you, which creates a bigger hole between the first baseman and the second baseman for the ball to go through in case the right, you're just sort of expanding the field. And so the, you know, your job as a base runner is to help the other base runners, right? If there are others by, by creating space for them and creating uncertainty and creating the hit and helping the hitter by making the pitcher think of you as a threat. And it, it wasn't at all about score or winning or losing, but about viewing base running as an absolutely integral part of the sport and not just an afterthought. That's something you did on as a matter of routine. And I mean, if you care about running or care about winning, this is a thing which is very real. You can, you can, the, the biggest way to get an advantage over other teams in small kid baseball. Is to, to run very aggressively and have a very good and well-coached catcher because a good and well-coached catcher can impact like everything that happens in the game. And people just don't teach the catching position until much later. So anyway, I, well, look, I'm in favor of aggressive base running and teaching base running as a skill, like not just saying, go out and run Jimmy.
Mike00:17:30I don't disagree. I actually don't think that I also had a turn.
JVL00:17:35Right. So you want to turn the, when the pitcher is throwing to first base, you on first base, your instinct is to like, look at the ball. That is not what you're supposed to. You're supposed to turn your shoulders so that you're presenting your back to the pitcher so that if you get hit with it, it's hitting you in the back or hitting in your helmet and not like catching the face.
Mike00:17:55Well, again, there's no picking off in at this level. So, um, but like, I, I don't think, I don't think my, our coaches philosophy is inconsistent with teaching good base running. And in fact, like, um, like my, my son who is, uh, was always, uh, at the bottom of the order, um, second youngest on the team, uh, not, not a hitter at all, uh, got a lot of walks and got a lot on base, had the sec for the regular season, had the second highest number of runs scored because of stealing and because of base running and, um, his, his best skill is, is good. His speed. So, um, I'm not, I'm not necessarily opposed to it. Um, they're just, it seems to be, um, it seems, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on, um, on generating runs and multi, I would say multi base steals on, on a single play in a way that is, again, it's, it's, it's probably good baseball. Like you're definitely going to win more. That way. Um, it, it, it doesn't seem like it's in the spirit of at this level teaching. Okay. Now we've got a live ball, um, and, and, and teaching a skill of, of knowing the, um, knowing the right, the right time to, to take those two extra bases. Like, obviously look, if they're going to, if, if, if they're going to throw, um, if a catcher is going to throw wildly and it, it, it, and trying to, to, to tag out a steel and it goes in the outfield, like take the second base. I'm not saying don't do that. I just, it just seems like there that we limited ourselves, uh, and our team for what I think is a noble reason. And, um, and so therefore we're, we're, we'll be out of the tournament very soon. Fair enough.
JVL00:19:54And what are these 10 year olds?
Mike00:19:56Uh, nine, 10, 11, 11, nine, 10, 11. Okay. Yes.
JVL00:20:01By the time you're to, to 10. You'll people will be stealing all the time and it'll be, Oh yeah. It'll be full and I'll be cool.
Mike00:20:11No, there's no lead offs until majors, which is you, you have to, which is some 10, but mostly 11 and 12, uh, at that, at that level. So, I mean, the, the thing is, is that the, the, the, and the catching is you're, you're absolutely right. And it's something that our coach has been like, like hammered all season and, and we just, our, our catchers were just slow. Our catchers are just like, They, they don't slide, uh, to get that, that past ball. And, um, you know, but we, we, we practice chart, you know, charging home plate to get that out. We just could, it was like every single time at that, at that play, it never went our way. We could never get that out at home plate. And it just, it was just, it's just frustrating.
JVL00:20:55There was a tendency at little league to put your best athlete at shortstop and the catcher is just like a big kid. And the truth is, Your best athlete should be a catcher. Yeah. If you put your best, I mean, when, when I would let flash catch, I mean, he would just kill people. Like, you know, he would, he would throw runners out at second constantly. He would get, you know, every tag at home plate, he would do snap throws to first and get kids out. It just, you can have a huge advantage putting a good athlete at that catcher and making them learn.
Mike00:21:30Our, our, our problem was we need to put our best athletes, uh, at, on the mount.
JVL00:21:34Yeah.
Mike00:21:35It's also fair. Yeah. So, um, but, but you know, it is what it is. Uh, it's, it's, I keep telling myself the scores do not reflect what I think, like we ended up being a very strong team.
JVL00:21:49Um, and it's just, it's just, look, ultimately the score's not, no, there is no money riding on any of this. If the kids are having fun, that's what you think. And they want to play again next year, then that's a win.
Mike00:22:01Yes. Oh, absolutely.
JVL00:22:02If the kids want to play again next year. Then you did a good job that season.
Mike00:22:05That's right. So, um, all right, well, that's all that's going on with me. Should we talk box office, uh, very quickly because boy, another, uh, another great may
JVL00:22:16weekend, Sonny Richard Rushfield is just absolutely freaking Richard's last, like four columns have been basically, yep. This is what, uh, the bottom falling out looks like.
Sonny00:22:28Yeah, no, it's, uh, it's bad. Uh, it's bad. And, um, the, the box office for Furiosa is like the worst Memorial Day weekend in 30 some years, not adjusting for inflation. Just like the worst, the worst.
JVL00:22:45Did audiences not understand that Anya Taylor-Joy was in it?
Sonny00:22:49They, well, they, they clearly, they didn't understand something. I, I'm, I'm fascinated.
JVL00:22:55I just thought all you had to do was tell people that she was in a movie and they'd go see it. That's why they keep casting her in every fourth movie that's made.
Sonny00:23:02Your distaste for Anya Taylor-Joy. Taylor-Joy is one of your weirdest quirks. It's I, I, you know, the one of neither, neither here nor there. Um, no, I mean, uh, uh, I, I could come up with a working theory as to why this movie didn't work. One of them being that Mad Max Fury Road was not an enormous hit. So Mad Max Fury Road, you know, uh, that came out in 2015 and grossed, I think it was like $379 million worldwide. Not, not an enormous hit, not a very big hit. It was, I think the, it was, it was the 15th or 20th highest grossing film of that year.
JVL00:23:43Downstream, right? I mean, it's one of these, these movies that grew in importance over time.
Sonny00:23:49It did, it did well. It did extremely well critically and it did extremely well at the Oscars. It got a bunch of Oscar nominations and won several awards.
JVL00:23:57The nerds love it.
Sonny00:23:58The nerds love it. Um, and again, it, like it, it has, it, it has a good reputation. But it was not, it was not a monstrous hit. And the, and it cost, you know, $180 million or something, which is, I, you, there, there are ways to say that a movie that cost $180 million made, made a profit at 370 million or whatever worldwide box office, but it did not. It lost money. And the fact that Warner Brothers spent another $180 million on this movie is totally baffling to me. It is totally, I don't understand. I don't understand what they were thinking. Cause again, it's, it's an R rated, uh, film from a franchise that hasn't had a proper hit since probably the road warrior. Yeah. Um, which is what we're going to be talking about today.
JVL00:24:44And I was not with Tina Turner. I have no memory of this. It's just a real question.
Sonny00:24:49I think Thunderdome did okay, but it was definitely, I mean, there's a reason that the series stopped after that. Um, I mean, the, the, it, it did okay, but that's why it stopped.
JVL00:24:58You know, that's an excellent point.
Sonny00:25:01Well, yeah. Thunderdome was fascinating too. I, I, I, well, we can talk about that in, in a bit. Um, but yeah, no, you have an R rated $180 million movie that grosses about $370 million. That is not a signal from the universe that you need to make another one of these movies. It just isn't. And I like, I like Furiosa and I like Fury Road a lot. I like both of those movies. I think they're both really interesting and in different ways and they're great action and kinetic and blah, blah, blah. I mean, the thing about what was interesting about the box office of Fury Road, Mad Max Fury Road. Back in 2015 is that it didn't open huge. It was never, it was never the number one movie in any weekend. I don't think. Um, but it held really well. It had a constant depreciation of like 40% per weekend. You know, it was, it was, it was, it was not, it was not a movie that, that like opened huge and then dropped off. Uh, it opened small and then held. Okay.
JVL00:25:59How is this dissimilar from Dune one and Dune two? Dune one. Open small, even though it was much anticipated, but people liked it and it did well afterwards and people watched on streaming and then Dune two came out and people were there for it.
Sonny00:26:11Well, this is what, this is always been my theory about the Dune movies is that the pandemic was the best thing that possibly could have happened to them. The reason that the reason it opened small or the reason you could say it opened small and did like, okay, box. I think it did 140 or 150 million domestic, something like that, um, which is not a good number for a movie that costs as much as it costs, but it was a, was a really good number during the. But my theory on Dune, the Dune movies has always been that it was, uh, really helped by the pandemic because it lowered expectations for the box office and Warner brothers plan to put it in theaters and on streaming simultaneously brought in an audience that was never going to go to the theaters to see this. Like Dune is a, Dune is a recognized property that has never been a success in any medium outside of books.
JVL00:26:55Right.
Sonny00:26:55Um, and so like, there wasn't this big pent up urge of people who were like, ah, we gotta go see Dune. We gotta go see the new Dune. Um, and, uh. Uh, and giving them the option to watch it at home, the hardcore fan showed up in theaters. People who were just kind of curious showed up and watch it at home, which then created a larger audience for the second movie. And the second movie did much bigger, uh, did a much bigger number at the box office as one would expect. Because again, like people, people had seen it either in theaters or at home and got interested in it and we're like, okay, I'll go watch the second one of these. Um, why did that not happen with Fury, Fury Road and Furiosa? I think there are branding issues here, right? So, you know, the, the full title of the movie is Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. What the fuck does that mean? You know, that's like X-Men Origins Wolverine.
JVL00:27:45Remember that like, uh, Shobbs, Hobbs and Shaw of Fast and Furious novella or Hobbs
Sonny00:27:53and Shaw, another movie that did much worse than the series that came before it. Uh, or, um, oh, what was Solo? It's this is so Star Wars, Star Wars story. So a Star Wars saga, Star Wars story. And like, I, audiences are not that interested in, uh, side quests. Yeah. Like French prequels for secondary characters in franchises that don't need those prequels. I like, that's just, I feel like that is the real lesson here is that it's a totally unnecessary movie from a plot standpoint and audiences only care about plot audiences only care about plot. That is, that's one thing I've come to.
JVL00:28:35That's why Aquaman was such an enormous hit and made over a billion dollars.
Sonny00:28:39But it was, it was very much part of that whole DC universe thing. I, but it's a story.
JVL00:28:46It's just a, but it, but it wasn't like, but it wasn't, it wasn't an origin story. Because the spectacle was amazing. Fury roads spectacle was amazing. Maybe the best spectacle that has ever spectacled.
Sonny00:28:57But right. All right. So, but then because it works as spectacle, you don't need the. Like backstory. This movie is all backstory. You know what we needed?
JVL00:29:06We needed a prequel about the dude with the flamethrower guitar. That's it. Just, just him. What is his story? How did he get there? Where did he learn to play guitar? Was the flamethrowing guitar his idea? Or did a Morton Joe ask him to build it? These are the questions I ask.
Sonny00:29:24I think, I think, I think a story, a movie about Immortan Joe would actually be much more interesting than a story about Furiosa. I mean, Immortan Joe is a guy. Who, uh, he actually built something. He built something in this wasteland. He built a functioning society, unlike the green place with its matriarchy, which disappeared into the ether because they didn't know how to run it.
Mike00:29:45Stilt Walker guys, uh, leftover, um, the, uh, by the way, a point of, uh, uh, a point of fact here, uh, Mad Max two made $21 million grossed at the box office, um, and Mad Max beyond Thunderdome grossed 32 and a half million dollars, uh, a few years later. So it did make a little more money than, than Mad Max two.
Sonny00:30:10Yeah. Wow. So there you go.
Mike00:30:12Uh, so, but, but, but, um, I do want to bring in here. This is, um, I got an email from a listener, uh, who was responding to the listener, Mike. Um, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't checked with Mike to see if he's okay, uh, with me. So I'll just use his first name here. Uh, but he emailed about. Our discussion last week about what was going on with the fall guy and why, why was this not, why, what, you know, why aren't audiences coming to see it? And I just want to read a bit from his email. He said, uh, I think the cost of going to the movies is a huge part of the relative lack of box office for this movie. I insisted that my wife and I see it in the theater, which when you add up the tickets, food drinks, and the babysitter cost us a lot of money. Um, I'll, I'll leave out how much it costs, but it costs a lot of money and they went to granted. They're like the pricier kind of like eat in theater. Um, but it wouldn't have been that much cheaper with the babysitter because you got to add time if they would go out to eat at the restaurant rather than eating in the theater. Um, it's expensive, especially, and I think this is the point, uh, most important point. If I'd known it would be on prime within a month, I might not have bothered.
Sonny00:31:25Yeah. Uh, well there, there are two, there are two separate, there are three separate issues here. One is that the price of a movie ticket has like basically kept up with inflation. Not even really. It's, it's actually cheaper now. Um, the second is whenever somebody talks about how expensive it is to go to the movies, what they are talking about is that other parts of that are expensive babysitters, food concessions, et cetera, et cetera. Um, uh, and the third thing is, yes, the, the shortened VOD window, particularly on these universal titles is starting to become a problem. Now there was, there was a period of time where it was not that big of a problem. A different, they were capturing a, they were, there were people who showed up theaters and then there were people who watched it on PVOD and those are two separate, uh, audiences. But once you start training people that everything's going to be on video on demand in three weeks, you lose, you start to lose a segment of that audience. So I, I do think that all of that is, I mean, look, the fall guy, the fall guy had, it's again, I, I think there, there were advertising issues with the fall guy. I think that there were, uh, they, they were counting. People to be real excited to see Ryan Gosling, which is clearly just not how people react to him. Um, and, uh, you know, whatever, uh, I, I am less surprised that Furiosa is underperforming. I'll put it that way.
Mike00:32:48All right. All right. Well, enough of these games. Let's talk about the road warrior or Mad Max two kind of an interesting story. Well, maybe we can get into that later of white, what the name? Of this movie actually is, but we're going to be talking about it because we didn't want to talk about Furiosa. We want to talk about the best of the Mad Max movies, perhaps.
JVL00:33:12No, Fury Road is the best of the Mad Max.
Mike00:33:14All right. Sonny, give us a big boy review of, of 19.
JVL00:33:17Can we settle this now or are we going to fight about this afterwards?
Sonny00:33:19We can fight about it later.
Mike00:33:20Let's fight about it later. Let's, let's, let's get a, let's get a big boy review of Mad Max two. Fury Road.
JVL00:33:25I'm sorry. I just want to set the table with this. Is absolutely the best movie I've ever watched on my phone.
Sonny00:33:31Uh, Mad Max two, the road warrior, AKA the road warrior, AKA Mad Max two depends on, it depends on what country you were in. I think is, is what, what it was called. Um, uh, is the continuation of the story of Max Rakitansky, who is, uh, was a cop and then the world fell and his family died. Now he wanders the wasteland trying to get gasoline. He needs, he needs the gasoline to get a, to, to fuel his V8 interceptor, the legendary V8 interceptor. Um, uh, this movie is fascinating because this is the film that people think about when they think about the idea of Mad Max, which is basically like wasteland, uh, guys driving on desert to get to places and needing gas. Like that's basically what it comes down to desert, uh, wasteland, uh, natural resources. That's, that's what it comes down to.
Mike00:34:25And, and, and car chases.
Sonny00:34:27And car chases. Uh, and, uh, and that is very... Very different from the first film in this series. So the first film in this series, I, Mike, you said you had watched it recently. Yes. Um, and I, I rewatched it as, I rewatched all of these movies as part of a, as part of getting ready for everything. Um, and I, uh, it's really fascinating to go back and watch the, the first one with understanding everything that follows because the first movie is not a post-apocalypse movie. It is not, it is not a chase movie really. It kind of is, but it's not really a chase movie. It, but it, what it is, is it's a pre-apocalypse. This movie, the first, the first Mad Max is more spiritually aligned with something like Dirty Harry or Death Wish.
JVL00:35:09Yeah, he's Charlie Bronson, right?
Sonny00:35:10It's a movie, it's a movie about a cop.
JVL00:35:12Outback Charlie Bronson.
Sonny00:35:14It's a movie, it's a movie about a cop who's constrained by laws to stop people who are unconstrained by laws. Um, he loses his family. He takes revenge for them. Loses his friend. He loses his friend. It's a vigilante film.
JVL00:35:27Does he lose his friend?
Sonny00:35:29But it's, it's, I don't know.
JVL00:35:30I don't know what that, I don't know what that means.
Sonny00:35:32Um, uh, but the, but the, uh, the, the, the long and the short of it is it is a, it's a movie that takes place just before the actual collapse of society when things are just starting to break down. And that is, again, it's very, that's very different. That's very different from, from Road Warrior. So when this picks up, he is, uh, just, he lives in his car. He's got a dog. He's, you know, pulling over to the side of the road to try and siphon gas out of gas, out of gas tanks. He gets to, uh, this outpost that has Raiders driving all around it and big circles and they're trying to get the Lord humongous. It's fascinating to the, the change in costuming between the first movie and the second movie first movie. They're dressed essentially like punks, like punks, punks from, you know, like the clash or, you know, whatever, uh, or the sex pistols in, in, in, uh, the Road Warrior and future movies, there is a very strong S and M. Uh, influence on the proceedings. It's like a bunch of pick up on any of that bunch of, a bunch of leather fetishists have motorcycles and are riding around the wasteland. Um, again, I can't, I can't tell when you're doing a bit or this, this one is a bit.
JVL00:36:44Okay.
Sonny00:36:45Uh, the, uh, the, but the, um, uh, anyway, uh, Max gets to this outpost and it's essentially, it's almost like, um, a first version of Fury Road, a smaller version of Fury Road. He's got it. He's got to get this rig ready to drive across the wasteland and fight off the Raiders who were trying to steal it. And that's the last 30 minutes of the movie. And it's pure reaction, blah, blah, blah. It's great. Um, the, I think that jumped out at me this time watching it is just how funny it is. So like, there's this, there's this great sequence where, uh, this, uh, Australian mechanic is, is trying to, he's, he's communicating, he's communicating.
JVL00:37:29Yeah.
Sonny00:37:30So he's, he's, he's talking to their leader who looks a little bit like Mick Jagger. It's like Australian Mick Jagger is like, how long is it going to be to fix the truck? And the guy's like, well, we got a crack tube and we got a broken engine compartment and we got a water pump. And, and, and again, this is all being relayed through a second guy. And it's just, it's just so funny because the, the end of this is like, it needs, it needs 24 hours. And Mick Jagger's like, he's got 12. And the guy's like, you've, you've, you've got 12. He's like, okay. And then the, the middle man is like, okay. And it's like, it's the funniest line, but it's like, it's also extremely Australian. It's like one of the most Australian things I've ever heard. I just, I, I, uh, I found myself greatly amused.
JVL00:38:14It's played like it's a negotiation between somebody who has taken their car to a mechanic, like a slightly shady mechanic. And the mechanic is like, it'll take three days. Like, I don't have three days. Okay. We can do it in two for you.
Sonny00:38:26Yeah.
JVL00:38:27Like, it's funny.
Sonny00:38:28It's very funny. It's very funny. The whole thing. The whole thing is very funny. Um, uh, and it's, it's great action. I mean, again, it's like, it's all done physically. I have no idea how nobody died making this movie.
Mike00:38:39Like there's just some of the, I believe a stunt man got seriously injured.
Sonny00:38:43Somebody did get hurt pretty bad, but the, but the, but the, I mean, the action is just great in this. It's, you know, people doing full on, you know, launches off of bikes thrown 30 feet in the air doing like cartwheels in the air. Like, I don't, I don't. I don't understand. Again, I know somebody did get hurt pretty badly, but I don't know how nobody died making this movie. Um, I don't know how nobody has died making any of these movies. These are, these are some of the craziest movies I've ever seen just in terms of the actual physical action of it.
JVL00:39:14Um, I don't know. I, I, great movie, fascinating, uh, fascinating.
Sonny00:39:18And I also find all of these movies fascinating because for 45 years now, I'm writing about this this week, but for 45 years now, George Miller has been making movies about the apocalypse and they all. Are what all sci-fi tends to be, which is like the problems of now, but more so. So like in the late 1970s, he makes a movie about crime leading to the breakdown of society in the eighties. He makes two movies about essentially gasoline and oil embargoes being the real problem that, that everybody should be worried about. And then Fury Road and Furiosa are very much about in environmental collapse. When there's a scene, there's a shot in Furiosa where we see the green place and it's, it's like a stereotypical. If you went to the climate defiance people and we're like, build this, build a society that runs on green energy. It's just like windmills everywhere and solar power. And that contrasts to the, you know, oily stains of the Citadel and, and Gastown and the bullet farm and all that. Um, and that is, and, and it's, it, again, it's just very interesting that we have lived through a period of unprecedented prosperity and human, human improvement of quality of life over the last 45 years. And like George Miller has made all of these movies about how things are going to get bad just around the corner because of the things that are happening right now. I don't know. I, I find this very amusing.
Mike00:40:40You, you, Sonny, you missed, you missed one in George Miller's oeuvre, uh, the most pig in the city, really a happy feet is what I was going to say. So, um, JVL, what did you think of rewatching Mad Max to the road warrior?
JVL00:40:56So, uh, you know, so here's, here's the thing. I. In my circle of friends in the early 1980s, there were really two, two mythos that people talked about, one of which was the star Wars stuff and one of which was Mad Max. And there was a very particular kind of kid who was into Mad Max and it was into, but by which I mean the road warrior. And so I remember seeing it at a younger age than I should have. And, uh. I did not like it. Everything about it felt terrible to me. Now, part of this is that like it's a gore movie and I did not like gore, but that's not, that's not what got me. What got me was the gay stuff. Um, and here's, this is one of the things I wanted to talk about. So, I mean, the, the, the two heavies are Lord humongous. Who is basically in a loincloth with leather straps around him in this mask. When I said part of one of the fan theories in the world is that he is Mel Gibson's partner. Ah, that's why the back of his head is burnt. And then this other guy whose name we never get, um, who has a red Mohawk who wears, uh, American football shoulder pads and assless chaps. I mean, that's redundant. All chaps are assless. But he has nothing under his chaps. That's right. And even more disturbing has like a horse hair ponytail protruding from his, I guess from his, I guess it's hanging from his belt. But the point is he's got like a tail swishing around behind his assless chaps and, and who has very strangely, uh, and ornately sculpted eyebrows and who rides around on a motorcycle with a character on the back who upon first viewing initially, I thought was a woman. And I remember young JVL seeing this was like, Oh my gosh, that girl is like, could see her boobies. And then when we finally get a look like, Oh, that's not a girl. It's a fem boy. And the fem boy just sort of sits there sullenly and glares at people never speaks. And I don't know why. I mean, it's just gay panic and the culture of the time, but I found this all deeply unsettling in a way which like the gay undertones of professional wrestling, which at the period were exactly the same. I cannot emphasize to people how much, uh, rest professional wrestling was dominated at the time by two tag teams, which were direct ripoffs of the road warrior. One of which was called actually the road warriors. Of course, uh, animal and Hawk animal and Hawk who had, uh, uh, Mohawks and wore face paint and wore, uh, like football shoulder pads with spikes on them. And the other of which was called demolition and it was ax and smash, I think were their names and they wore the Lord humongous stuff. Like they wore the Lord humongous, uh, belts across their bodies without metal rings. The S and M stuff. And then the, the, like the metal hockey mask style. Anyway, that stuff, which again, I also clearly understood is like was sexualized in a, in weird homoerotic ways in wrestling. It didn't bother me, but in, in the road warrior, I was just like, uh, uh, it's a little, he's got a look of disgust on his face. I didn't, I didn't love it. Um, but I mean, I appreciate it for what it is. It is a great action movie. It's a, it's a Western kind of, in a way. Like, you know, Shane has written it to town. Oh, it doesn't really make sense. If you think too much about it, like, why are they abandoning? I mean, if they have a renewable source of oil, cause they've got an oil Derrick and a refinery, shouldn't they set that up as a trading post and be able to extract tribute from all of the other people?
Mike00:45:21Gastown. This is what Gastown couldn't, couldn't they do that?
JVL00:45:24Right. Why? Well, I don't understand. Um, that seems short-sighted. Where are they running to? This is the other thing that bothered like eight-year-old me. I was desperate to know the backstory of the apocalypse and there's a little, where are they going to? I don't understand. So I, um, I don't know. It just, here's another thing that bugged me. This is very, George Miller does a bunch, a bunch of times in the movie. He plays with the camera speed. Yes. Yeah. Just speeds the camera up. What? Most of the time this is done. When we're, we're on the road with vehicles fighting and I guess it's to increase the feeling of speed, but he does it once with the feral kid, like just to make it seem like the feral kid is moving in a preternaturally and just off-putting, um, he does this in
Sonny00:46:16all of the movies though. He does this in all, in all four of them, not, not beyond Thunderdome, which he didn't really direct. He's credited as the co-director, but that was a partnership with someone. Um, but he, uh, but this is like constant in Fury Road and in Furiosa as well. The same sort of, uh, changing the, uh, frame rate.
JVL00:46:38Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I, I, I mean, I guess I just didn't pick up on that on my phone when I watched Fury Road, which I like quite a lot. Um, it's a, it's fine. The other thing about it though, is like Mel Gibson is not yet a movie star in this. Like Mel Gibson is fine. He's a cipher. I think he's got 16 lines of dialogue total in the movie. But he's not the magnetic presence on screen that he, I don't think that emerges until Lethal Weapon. So I think Lethal Weapon one, which is 1980, I think. No, no, no, no, no. Is it later than that?
Sonny00:47:1287 or something. Yeah. It's right around the same time as Thunderdome.
JVL00:47:15Well, when Lethal Weapon comes out, I mean, the minute he steps on screen, you can't take your eyes off of him. Like that's the moment at which he has figured out how to be a movie star. And in this. And you can do it like Tom Hardy's version of Max in Fury Road is amazing. Like he's he has. That's bait. What? That's bait? Like the thumbs up he gives. He's great. It's not that the part couldn't be it. It's that Mel Gibson wasn't yet a movie star. And I think that's interesting because a lot of times when you have young stars who aren't quite there, you can tell that there's something special. I think you can tell there's something special about Mel Gibson. But I don't think there's any clue that he's going to become the unbelievable presence that he is because he becomes such a tremendous star and such a great actor and engaging presence. And I don't think that you would have guessed that from watching this.
Sonny00:48:15It's interesting because I think that this is basically right, though. I think there's more of that in the first Mad Max. Weirdly, I think he actually is like more he is more commanding, but still both of these movies, he's he's still very, very young. And it's not until it's it's interesting that you mentioned Lethal Weapon because, again, Thunderdome comes out right around the same time. And the way he is shot in Thunderdome, it's like, oh, this is this is a different guy. This is a different guy than was than was in the Road Warrior and Mad Max.
Mike00:48:49I mean, he looks like a different maybe it's the way he's shot, but he just looks his hair. He's got the correct. Correct.
Sonny00:48:56He's got the full mullet. He's got the full mullet in Beyond Thunderdome and and then Lethal Weapon. And it's like, oh, he's got a magnificent mane of hair. This is what he is. He's more than that.
JVL00:49:06I mean, he just owns the screen by the time he gets to Lethal Weapon. But he's the most interesting thing on screen in a movie full of interesting things. Yeah. Every time he's there. Right. You just can't take your eyes off of him.
Mike00:49:20He's so good. No.
JVL00:49:21And he's like that for, I don't know, like the rest of his career. What was the Santa movie we did with him? It wasn't like bad Santa, but it was.
Sonny00:49:30No. The.
JVL00:49:35The point is, we did a movie where he's Santa Claus and it's like an action movie, Santa Claus movie. And it's vaguely preposterous. Fat man. It's vaguely preposterous. And the movie's not that great. And every scene he's in is fantastic. Because he's just. He's just. This is what real movie stars do. And I just I find that interesting. I don't know, Mike, I assume you loved this, but I also assume this never existed contemporaneously in your life. No, you only ever knew it as a oh, that's that movie from like the late 70s period. Mad Max.
Mike00:50:11This is I have only lived in a world in which Mad Max and as Sonny points out, Mad Max 2 sort of like defined what a what post apocalypse should should look like. Look like in in in a movie. Right. And so, yes, I loved it. I think what I watched, it was about a year and a half ago when I watched maybe even less when I watched Mad Max, the original for the first time. And I was so shocked by it because it was nothing like what I expected. And really not until the end. Can you kind of see. What's coming, which I find so fascinating. Because because it's it's it feels like a prequel movie. Yeah. Except it's the original. And and that to me is makes me wonder, is it like did George did George Miller have this idea of what he wanted to do in terms of a bigger story? And this was just the or was this or did he sort of kind of post Mad Max? Construct this idea around the kind of ruins of what he had sort of placed in the movie originally. I mean, I don't know what the answer is. There's probably an answer, but.
Sonny00:51:39Well, the first movie was incredibly cheap. I mean, so so George Miller is a fascinating guy. He's a doctor. He's a medical doctor. Correct. He's so he's a he's a he's a medical doctor. And he started thinking about this movie because he was working, you know, trauma rotations in yards and lots. Lots of people were coming in with these mangled car wrecks, these awful, you know, terrible car wrecks. And he he was like, well, what would like what what is driving society to this? What would this what what what does it look like in a full on breakdown of society? And but again, the movie is incredibly cheap. I think they shot this for like four hundred thousand dollars. If you're shooting a movie for four hundred thousand dollars, you know what you use. You use what you have built already. You use use cars that are on the road. You use. You use buildings that exist in our standing. Once you have a movie that you make for four hundred thousand dollars and then makes one hundred million dollars worldwide, you go, well, how do how do I make something bigger?
Mike00:52:38Yeah. But bigger, but also, you know, sparser. And I mean, this is this is this movie is so much of a like it's it's so obvious the you know, that they're filming this in the outback and sort of using the outback as like as its own kind of. Playground.
Sonny00:52:57It's just, you know, it is and it is fascinating to compare to Fury Road because like Fury Road is, you know, it has the giant citadel and it's got, you know, you kind of see Gastown, whatever in the distance. And like when the when the rig chases are happening, there are dozens of like full vehicles, all all. And this movie just, again, feels like a practice run for all that. You've got one little you've got one little town. You've got not even a town, one little encampment that's maybe like six hundred feet across. And, you know, you've got you've got one big truck and then a bunch of motorcycles and it's and that's it.
JVL00:53:34But it looks great.
Sonny00:53:35It does.
JVL00:53:36This movie looks great. It looks terrific. I mean, it's gritty. It doesn't look beautiful, but it looks lived in and real and it's visceral.
Mike00:53:44Can I say that also because we I my wife and I watched Fury Road over the weekend because she had not seen it.
JVL00:53:52What format, if I may ask, did you do iPad or your computer screen?
Mike00:53:58I watched it. I watched it on my TV. Of course, I'm not I'm not a savage.
JVL00:54:03What does it look like on a screen that big? I can't imagine. It's cool.
Mike00:54:06Well, it's it's it's it's very cool. There's it's it's terrific. You can really see you can see all of the strings that the guitar player is. There's so much going on in every frame.
JVL00:54:21But that's such a good callback.
Mike00:54:23But I was I was struck by how much more Australian this feels than Fury Road. Like this is I mean, to your point about the mechanic, like there's just a lot of Aussiness in it, which makes a lot of sense, right? Like this is this is still it all feels Aussie because it is Aussie. And it's not so much a it's not a Hollywood movie in the way Fury Road is. But I liked that so much more. It just felt like all of these actors. Like I don't think hardly any of them did anything. After, you know, or did anything of note. I mean, they're just they're just like working actors in Australia and barely. Yeah, maybe not even working.
JVL00:55:05I don't know how many of them worked real acting careers after this. You just picked up off the street.
Mike00:55:10Exactly. But but I think it works for the movie. It it makes it feel like, OK, these are the people who would be in the Outback after the apocalypse. So I love that. By the way, the the you asked where they going, JBL, they're going to the north. That's where the that's where the magical place is in the north. That's what that's what the feral kid says at the end and the voiceover, you know?
JVL00:55:36Yeah, I guess that's right. And it's all happy.
Mike00:55:39I love I don't know. I thought I hear what you're saying about Mel Gibson. I think he's again, maybe the Australian ness of it all, like he underplays everything in this movie. And and I think I think that that is also sort of in character with with the Aussies and the sort of the the underplayed humor. And I love the way, for instance, he just very casually undoes the the handcuffs that they that the the folks have them in.
JVL00:56:11Oh, yeah. Well, he said, well, he said there and then he doesn't do anything.
Mike00:56:14He just kind of watches the rest of the interaction. And then when when the bad humongous and the bad guys leave and and and all the people in the compound are trying to figure out what to do and he's just like, And they all have forgotten about him. And then he sort of offers. I just thought all of that was was terrific. The the sort of weird flying ace guy with the gyrocopter. Kind of very unsettling. The teeth. Oh, yeah. The teeth are great, but like it's a great character.
Sonny00:56:44It's so funny because that actor plays another flying guy in Beyond Thunderdome. He's the guy in the airplane who like steals. Same actor. Caravan, same actor, different character, though. This is another thing he keeps using the same actors to play different characters over and over again.
Mike00:57:00Immortan Joe was Toe Cutter in the original. So RIP.
JVL00:57:06I really like the guy who plays the herald for humongous. The whole idea of humongous having a herald. Yes. Who comes out and announces him is such a great bit of business and kind of thing that shows you how different the world is, right? It was just a game. Bang, banger. Then humongous would just like start talking. But he has a herald because he sees himself as a king or something. That was great. Yeah, he's the he's the he's a warlord.
Sonny00:57:35I saw I saw somebody on Twitter joke that the Mad Max future is great because everyone has decided they want to be a performance artist. Everyone, everyone in this in this universe has decided that, you know, it's it's not enough to just be a, you know, rampaging gangster or whatever. You have to be like a genuine performance artist with your own like sound system and you know, and that's true. That is and like just walk away part of part of the part of the appeal of these movies is the it's the world. And this is one reason why Furiosa kind of undermines all this. But part of the appeal of these movies are these like characters who just exist in media res and you come into them and they're like, here's humongous, sure, Lord Humongous, the Ayatollah of rock and roll. That that guy makes sense to me. Or or in Beyond Thunderdome, Master Blaster, you know, you got the you got the midget on top of the giant Down syndrome guy. And like it's like that, that all that all that all makes perfect sense. Or Tina Turner, you know, just be existing as anti the book and like Furiosa has a lot of that as well. Like you mentioned the Herald. There's a character in Furiosa who is a he's just he's a the history man is what he's called, and he just like goes around telling the leader of the gang Dementus facts about the world. Um, uh, that, that has any of them true. Yeah, it's, it's, it's where they all just like random and wrong.
JVL00:59:01No, they're that would be funny.
Sonny00:59:02That would be a good day, but no, but it was anyway, it's, uh, yeah.
Mike00:59:06The, the, by the way, I love the aspect of the, of the Herald being, uh, having zero respect, uh, with the rest of the gang, like, you know, the whole thing.
JVL00:59:16I'm laughing when he gets his fingers cut off. Exactly. And there, and it's like, you just, the, the efficiency of this is
Mike00:59:25terrific, like they tell you, like, I was thinking about it, this image of the Herald, like is so ingrained, uh, you know, like he's such a evocative character as many of them are, but he's got like, he's got like two or three scenes really in the whole movie. And you know, everything you need to know about him from those scenes in which he. Basically says a couple of lines and then it gets his fingers cut off and everybody laughs at him. Like it's, um, there's like the moment where, uh, humongous, uh, humongous is starting his spiel. And one of the kit captured guys is like, don't give it to them. And, and the, and the Herald like runs up and like puts his fingers in the guy's mouth to like, shut them up. But like, but, but, but it's like, it's very ineffective. And then, and then he punches him in the gut and the guy, and then, and then he grabs his head, like talk about like gay subtext, like there's like, he like grabs his head and like rubs it, you know, like there, there, like, it's very like. You're like one left wondering what, like, how did this guy get hooked up with these people? And what is, what is his role in time? Yeah. I don't know. The whole thing is bizarre. I will say the, um, it did. Is it true that they, the very beginning scene, one of the very beginning scenes where the two people who are trying to escape get, get caught by the gang. And then the woman is raped. Like it felt like there was more to that scene. And that like, I don't know, maybe George Miller or somebody was like, we're not going to like, this is, there's too much here because like, it was pretty, it was pretty brutal as it was, but it just felt like there was, there's probably more to that. No, I don't know.
JVL01:01:06Got a, I mean, it's got its obligatory boobies in it, but it's also two, two
Sonny01:01:12obligatory boobies, but it's also just setting the, setting the tone for what will happen if the Raiders overrun this encampment. I mean, that's totally, no, no, I get it.
Mike01:01:22It just felt, no, no, no. And I thought it was, I thought it was. It was a, it was a fine scene. It was just, if it felt like just the cuts in the movie felt like maybe it, there was more and it was just like too violent or too horrifying.
Sonny01:01:36Even maybe it got censored by the Australians.
JVL01:01:38So which is better road warrior or fury road.
Sonny01:01:44Fury road.
Mike01:01:46Yeah, probably fury road, but it's, it's, I don't know though, because it feels like your, it feels like comparing what would be a good comparison here. It feels like comparing, um, this isn't perfect, but it feels like comparing the original wizard of Oz to, um, I don't know, take like a, uh, star war. I, again, it's not a perfect comparison, but it's like movies made in completely different eras and, and like, like, I don't know. It just, it doesn't feel like a fair comparison. They're not even in the same, uh, space.
Sonny01:02:29It's like comparing LA takedown and heat is what it's like compared. That's better. Yes. LA takedown is like a practice run for heat. Heat is, or LA takedown is like the high school version of heat.
JVL01:02:39Let me ask this. Let me ask the question this way then just how good is fury road? It's great.
Mike01:02:50Yeah.
Sonny01:02:50I mean, it's, it's very good. I would say I, it's probably, it's one of. The best movies that came out that year and it's, uh, it's, it's incredibly rewatchable. Like weirdly it, like you can just jump in and knock out 30 minutes. It's, it's like a, it's like a perfect basic cable classic movie. If we still had those, if the, if that was still a thing, it would be the sort of thing you could jump in 30 minutes at a time and, and right.
Mike01:03:14Because all it is, all it is, is they, they drive one direction and then they turn around and drive the other direction and, and, and chase and battle in between.
JVL01:03:24So no, I think you were more effusive at the time, Sonny.
Sonny01:03:27I think the best of the, I think the best of these movies though, as like, as a piece of storytelling and filmmaking may be the first, I find the first one totally fascinating. Again, it just, it belongs to a slightly different genre. It is not big bombastic, uh, action like Fury Road and Fury. I like Fury Road does action as well as basically anybody has ever done it, which is not, which is not nothing. But it is that I've always been sympathetic to the argument that the story is a little bit slight and not quite as emotionally compelling. Um, and I, you know, I don't, maybe, maybe I haven't watched Mad Max since the original Mad Max since I had kids and it like, it hits, it hits different.
Mike01:04:13Yeah. It's also, I mean, it's so Mad Max is such a cycle. It's, it's a psychological movie in so many ways because it's, it's about watching this and descend into the insanity that the world is also descending into. And it's like operating on a different level. Um, I don't know. I, I, maybe this is recency bias. My favorite is still Mad Max two. Uh, like it just, it has everything you want in a Mad Max movie and, uh, and it doesn't, um, it just, it, it, it's defining, it's defining for an entire genre. So I'm going with Mad Max two. Interesting. Um, should we talk real quick about like the name of this? Cause I was doing some reading, like what, what is this movie called? And I guess Mad Max was not known well in the United States. So they, when they marketed in the United States, they were like, let's just call it the road warrior. Nobody will know or care that it's a Mad Max two. Uh, so we'll just call it something new. And, um, and I guess if you're like one of the few people who actually knew what Mad Max. Like you, like there was no internet, you, there was nobody like going around me in the video store. You just saw it and you'd be like, Oh, this is the same. This is the same movie. Same guy. Yeah.
JVL01:05:35Cause that's the only way you would have seen Mad Max. I don't think it was wide release here. Uh, and so it would have been a foreign film, probably didn't play at your multiplex. Uh, and so you would have found it on VHS, but if this is so early, there weren't a ton of VHS rental places around yet. Yeah. So maybe. Nobody knew. Nobody knew what Mad Max was. This was their introduction to Mad Max in the United States. Yeah.
Mike01:05:59All right. Okay. Well, uh, if there are no other thoughts or comments, let's, uh, let's wrap it up here. Thank you, uh, for listening and we're going to end this episode here. Join us at subbeacon.com and we will talk to you next time.
JVL01:06:22I feel a little weird about being. Icked out by the, the gay stuff as a kid.
Sonny01:06:27You feel, you feel ashamed of young ashamed. Yeah.
JVL01:06:31But is there, is I guarantee you the S and M aspect of it though. Yeah. More than it was the gay stuff.
Mike01:06:38Like it's intentionally unsettling. Correct. The, the S and M stuff is, I mean, S and M is always, is always unsettling to me. It's like, it's, it's like the, it's creepy and all this stuff, like the pain stuff, like just.
Sonny01:06:54So you're, you're telling me you don't like the gimp in Pulp Fiction when you get to that sequence.
Mike01:06:58Honestly, honestly, I was just thinking like the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction, like almost makes me throw up. Like, it's just, it's, it's like, it's just so.
Sonny01:07:08Interesting. Horrifying. Learning, learning a lot of things about Mike. What are you learning? What are you learning?
Mike01:07:14No, it's just, it's like, it's just, it's, it's, it is terrifying to me. And the fact that people like, not the gimp, but like. That people like choose to do this is like, I, I just, I don't get it, man.
Sonny01:07:28Well, that, that is, there's, I, I am curious about the gimp's origin story. I want to, I want to gimp.
Mike01:07:33A movie.
Sonny01:07:34A Pulp Fiction. A Pulp Fiction saga. A Pulp Fiction saga. The gimp. The gimp, a Pulp Fiction saga. Because I am like, I'm fascinated by him. Is he, is he a guy who was into this sort of thing? And this is, and he's just part of the gang? No, no. Was he captured? Was he captured? Was he, he was captured. He was a hitchhiker who got captured and thrown in the basement of this pond.
Mike01:07:54I just assume he's the guy, he's, he was the Bruce Willis before Bruce, like he was the guy who walked in the pond shop.
Sonny01:08:01I think so. But, but at the same time, he does seem to be taking active pleasure and participation in this, in this event. It's called Stockholm Syndrome. He's, he's teasing, he's teasing Bruce Willis. He's like, this is going to be you. This is going to be you. And he tries to alert the other guys. When Bruce Willis breaks out, he makes noise. He's like, come, come here, come here. But he can't because he's got his GIMP mask on. I think he's fascinating. He's a fascinating figure. I want to, I want a 13 hour miniseries about the GIMP.
JVL01:08:34Streaming, streaming TV is willing to give that to you.
Sonny01:08:37I want episodes seven through 12 to be entirely about his life in the box. 45 minutes of him, of him, camera on him in the box. Maybe he's the leader of the gang. This is, I posited this on, on Twitter. I was like, what's the deal with? What's the deal with the GIMP? And somebody was like, maybe he's the leader. And that's why they're afraid to wake him up because he's, they're like, should we get the, should we get the GIMP out? We got to wake him up. And he's like, well, wake him up then, you know? But the leader would want to know about Bruce Willis and Bing Rames being there.
Mike01:09:10I'll be thinking about this question for the next week until our next show. So thank you for that, Sonny.
Sonny01:09:16I'm sure.
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