Podcast Episode 57: What A Lovely Day For MAD MAX FURY ROAD!

What a lovely day indeed!

I don't even know where to start with Mad Max: Fury Road except to say that I wish every blockbuster was so richly detailed, visceral and exciting.  This is pure, uncut, balls-to-the-wall cinema and it is unlike anything else you have ever seen.  Director George Miller has crafted a career best film, which is really saying something considering the career in question.  Seriously, the man is 70 years old (!) and he's crafted the type of film that looks like it was made by an energetic 28 year old and is also better than anything currently being made by such young and hungry filmmakers.

I could go on and on about the incomparable action sequences, the strong pacing and the rich, nuanced performances, but there's something else about Fury Road that sets it apart from every other modern blockbuster and it's the thing that elevates the film from being great to being an outright masterpiece.  That thing is minimalism.  There is an economy of story here to which more films should aspire.  Make no mistake, Miller has created a uniquely detailed world and has considered every possible detail and eventuality.  That crazy guy you've seen in the trailer with the flame-throwing guitar?  His fucking name is The Doof Warrior.  He may not have any dialogue and he may have only a minimal interaction with the story, but The Doof Warrior has a long character history as devised by Miller.  And yet, none of it is on screen.  It's left largely open to interpretation.  This is literally true of every character, vehicle and location in the film.  Everything has been mapped out and connected in Miller's head but he only reveals the absolute bare minimum of information needed to propel the story forward.

By eschewing long expository monologues or overly complex explanations, Miller allows the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.  He makes you work for it.  Go see this movie with a group of friends and I guarantee you will all walk out of the theater not only with a dozen questions, but also with a dozen different answers to each of those questions.  And yet, the film is in no way unsatisfying; you're left wanting more, but in the best way possible.  Fury Road is a film that spurs long and fascinating conversations, whether it be about large scale thematic elements or something as small as "What about those guys on the stilts?"  At the end of the day, there's no greater compliment I can pay a film.

My only regret is that we only got a chance to see the film once before we recorded this week's podcast.  More than any film in recent memory, Fury Road will unquestionably reward repeat viewings.  I could watch it ten times and discover something new every time.  It's going to take me years to fully unpack this movie.  But there's also value in what you come away with after the first show.  Bart, Jamie, Jeff and I all do our best to wrap our heads around this mind-bending film as well as its three predecessors.  We pick our favorite vehicles, we give ourselves warrior wasteland names, and we talk about that one time that George Miller almost made a Justice League movie.

As always, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Soundcoud!

Next Week: Brad Bird's Tomorrowland!

This New MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Trailer Is Everything

The following is the newest trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road.  Watching it practically brought tears to my eyes.  I had one of those slow, inadvertent smiles a mile wide.  At one point, I literally had to remind myself to breathe.

Holyfuckingshit.

Get A Good Look At Tom Hardy As MAD MAX

About a year ago, Entertainment Weekly started showing up at my door despite my never having asked it to do so.  That can't be a good indicator of their current business model if they're just giving that shit away for free.  Poor, poor print media.  Your time is almost up.  Lately I've been getting notices saying that my unsolicited subscription was about to expire and I think last week's issue was the end of the line.  Which of course means that this week's issue actually contains something of interest to me.

George Miller started shooting Mad Max: Fury Road approximately a million years ago.  This was a project that was delayed and derailed more than a few times, but when he finally had a cut to show to Warner Brothers they apparently flipped for it, so much so that they actually gave Miller more money for additional shooting days to flesh out some of the automobile action.  Next May we'll actually get to see the fruits of Miller's labors, with Tom Hardy stepping into the Max Rockatansky role and Charlize Theron as (I believe) the villain Imperator Furiosa.  According to this Entertainment Weekly cover, her character has one arm.  You can tell because of their HILARIOUS caption, oddly floating out in the middle of the image.  Oh EW, you're so witty.

Thankfully this is not a reboot but a direct sequel to the first three Mad Max movies, all of which I finally watched during my year-long movie watching quest and none of which I have written about as of yet.  Because I am a lazy bastard.  I sort of assume that when it comes to the character's history, Miller will be glossing over much of the truly bizarre Beyond Thunderdome, particularly all the stuff with the weird child society and their airplane cult.  Then again, Miller is also the guy responsible for the giant barrel of crazy that is Babe: Pig In The City.  So who fucking knows.

Head over to EW to check out a handful of other photos and storyboard sketches.

Lerman's 14 For '14 Day Eleven - BABE: PIG IN THE CITY. Yes, Really.

"A murderous shadow lies hard across my soul."

Only Lerman would send me from juvenile detention rape and riots directly to a children's movie about a talking pig.  That's the thing about Lerman, he can find genius in the most unexpected of places.

I was old enough that I had aged out of most overtly little kid movies when Babe was released.  I know the first one is beloved by many, but the sequel seemed to fill most fans with disappointment or indifference and I suppose I can understand that reaction.  I still haven't watched Babe, but I'm familiar with the premise: Babe is a pig who lives on a farm and dreams of being a sheepdog.  All the animals can talk (to each other, not to the humans) and the other residents of the farm warn him to give up his foolish goal, but eventually Babe overcomes their doubts and becomes a champion sheep-pig.  I'm sure kids and parents alike were expecting a similarly sweet and charming story in Babe's second adventure.

They weren't counting on George Fucking Miller.

Yes, that's right, Babe: Pig In The City was directed by the same man responsible for Mad Max.    Miller gleefully eschews everything that people loved about that first installment and instead throws that endearing little pork chop into a gothic, subversive alternate reality.  AND IT'S AWESOME.  It becomes clear that something is askew right from the film's opening moments.  James Cromwell's lovable Farmer Hoggett is only present long enough for Babe to accidentally cause a pump motor to fall on him while he's stranded at the bottom of a well.  (I legit thought that Miller was going to violently kill him off five minutes into the movie AND make it all the pig's fault)  Cromwell's crippling creates a financial crisis when the farmer's wife is not able to take care of the property all on her own, so she immediately grabs the pig and heads off to attend a state fair that has promised a generous appearance fee for a demonstration of champion sheep-pigging.  But the pair is detained by DEA agents during an airport layover when Babe chats up a drug-sniffing dog who ends up falsely implicating the farmer's wife as a drug mule.

Again, this is a movie for children.

Babe and Mrs. Hoggett miss their connecting flight and are stranded in The City, whose skyline includes the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the World Trade Center, the Sydney Opera House and the Hollywood sign.  While The City is never explicitly referred to by name, some onscreen signage suggests that the city is called Metropolis, which almost implies that this whole thing is some kind of insane Superman spin-off.  (I like to think this is the version of Metropolis where Nicolas Cage's aborted version of Kal-El would have lived.)  After some helpful advice from a janitor that appears to be some kind of pig mutant, Babe and Mrs. Hoggett end up staying in a bizarre hotel that is largely populated by animals, including a choir of cats, a paraplegic dog in a sweater, and a family of circus chimps who perform for sick children alongside elder clown Uncle Fugly who is played by a drooling and sputtering Mickey Rooney.  (!!!!)  Mrs Hoggett accidentally causes a ruckus on the boardwalk, gets doused with billboard glue and hauled off to jail while Babe gets recruited into the circus act, which includes a lady chimp dressed like a hooker and voiced by Glenne Headley along with her husband who's dressed like a 50's greaser and voiced by, of all people, Stephen Wright.  Babe promptly sets the hospital on fire in his first performance.

I swear to god, I'm not making this shit up.

The humans are largely absent for most of the remainder of the film, in which the chimps try to turn Babe into a patsy while they steal food, only to see Babe save the life of a vicious street dog who looks like Spuds MacKenzie and sounds like Don Corleone.  The Dogfather then instills the pig as the head of the hotel, taking in all the neighborhood strays who are thus forced to give fealty to Babe.  Eventually the Animal Control guys show up and haul most of the animals off, leading to a daring rescue and a wacky climax of destruction in which Mrs. Hoggett, released from jail thanks to a sympathetic judge who is also a pig mutant, ends up bungee jumping from the chandelier of a fancy charity ball while wearing Mickey Rooney's clown pants.

AND THEN IT JUST FUCKING ENDS.

The hotel owner, a woman who looks like an ostrich (were all of these people grown in a lab?) decides to to sell the hotel and take all her animals to the Hoggett's farm, giving them the profits from the sale in order to save the farm from foreclosure.  A now-healthy James Cromwell returns to say "That'll do, pig" and collect his paycheck, and that's the whole shebang.

What.  The.  Fuck.

This thing is dark.  This thing is weird.  This thing is twisted.

I can't wait to show it to my kids.


What's The Connection?  Babe is far less rapey than Dog Pound, but he does end up as the head of a prison-like hierarchy over the neighborhood strays.  But much like Butch and Davis, the good times eventually come crashing down.

Up Next: Little Shop Of Horrors: The Director's Cut


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Title: Babe: Pig In The City
Director: George Miller
Starring: Madga Szubanski, James Cromwell, Mary Stein, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Daily, Glenne Headley, Stephen Wright, Adam Goldberg
Year Of Release: 1998
Viewing Method: Netflix DVD