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!

Podcast Episode 56: This Just In! CITIZEN KANE Is Still Amazing

Last week was the 100th birthday of Orson Welles, so it only seemed appropriate that, with a dearth of compelling new releases at the box office, we should take this opportunity to re-evaluate Welles' greatest cinematic work, Citizen Kane.  Spoilers: it still totally holds up.

If you've never seen Citizen Kane, you'd be forgiven for expecting it to be kind of overrated.  It's been at the top of every "Greatest Movie Of All Time" list for decades now.  How can one movie really be THAT good?  But then you watch it and you have to keep reminding yourself that not only was it shot over 70 years ago, but that Orson Welles wrote, directed and starred in the film at the ripe old age of 25.  It's one of those facts that instantly forces you to question all of your life choices.  Kane is astoundingly ahead of its time and it continues to influence countless modern day features, everything from Pulp Fiction to Birdman.  There's one scene in particular that is now impossible to watch without immediately recalling The Wolf Of Wall Street.  Bart and I even found a number of things that reminded us of our own film projects over the years.  Looking back it seems like we're doing direct homages, but we hadn't actually seen Kane at the time.  But Welles' contribution to the visual language of cinema have become so ubiquitous that film fans like us have been internalizing them for years without even knowing it.

I'm rather proud of this episode.  It's relatively short and we spent a lot more time discussing theme and subtext than the actual plotting of the film.  I'd like more of our podcasts to be like this.  We also attempted a new method of podcasting remotely, as Bart could not actually be on the premises at the time.  The audio quality suffers a bit for it, (for some reason I can't explain, Bart actually sounds louder and clearer than Jeff and I do) but we'll perfect the process eventually.  At the end we also get revved up for Mad Max: Fury Road and start to take stock of the string of summer blockbusters peeking out over the horizon.

As always, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud!

Next Week: The whole damn Mad Max franchise!

Podcast Episode 43: Newsbusters Spinoff Pilot

I mentioned in last week's podcast (at the suggestion of my much wiser counterpart Jamie) that it might be time to shake up the format of the podcast a bit.  I recognize that a 90+ minute podcast might be a bit much for some people, so we're trying something different this week.  A bit more digestible.

So Episode 43 is just shy of 50 minutes and deals only with the movie news of the previous week.  Bart and I discuss the new Mad Max trailer, the fallout of the Sony leak, Ghostbusters casting rumors, Star Trek director departures, Star Wars character names and Godzilla's return to Japan.  We also dig into Marvel's Agents Of Shield, which Bart just recently finished binge watching.

I'm hoping to also lay down a movie-only podcast with Jamie in the next few days covering The Imitation Game, although scheduling may get in the way.  We're still working on a name for this new podcast spinoff show, tentatively titled Newsbusters.  I'm open to suggestions.

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.

Podcast Episode 24: HERCULES and LUCY Raise The Bar For Stupid

If you like dumb action, then have I got a podcast for you.

This week Bart and I tackled not one, but TWO action movies that sound great on paper but ultimately fall short of their own massive potential.  I had very high hopes for each of these movies to clear a very low bar.  Instead they both managed to trip over it.

First you've got Lucy, the latest film from Luc Besson starring Scarlet Johansson as a party girl who gets accidentally dosed with a new synthetic drug that gives her superpowers.  In fact, the entire premise is built upon the patently untrue assertion that humans only use 10% of their brains, so as the drugs activate more and more of Lucy's mental capacity (illustrated by towering percentage title cards interspersed throughout the film) her ability to control matter, energy, time and space all increase exponentially.  Now that sounds pretty fucking stupid, but it's the kind of stupid that I kind of adore.  And Johansson's flat, emotionless persona (this makes her performance in Under The Skin look downright bubbly) only makes her delivery of such dialogue as "I can feel my brain" all the more entertaining.  Throw in scene after scene of Morgan Freeman either soliloquizing idiocy in the guise of hard science or staring at Johansson in abject befuddlement and we could have had an all-time classic on our hands.  If only Besson had used all that brain percentage nonsense as the starting point for any kind of compelling story or character trajectory.  Instead the movie wanders aimlessly while Lucy does and says non-specific cosmic shit and Korean gangsters, led by a criminally underutilized Choi Min-sik, shoot up French hospital seemingly just because.  That's what's most frustrating about Lucy: while there's plenty of entertaining action and slick special effects, it's all completely unmotivated by anything at all.  Shit just occurs.  It's exhausting.

On the other hand there's Hercules, starring The Rock wearing a lion for a hat.  Actually, it's more of a hoodie, since he literally flips the lion head back and forth depending on his particular mood.  At one point he tosses a horse across a battlefield.  Yes, that's right, HE THROWS A GODDAMN HORSE.  How is this not the best movie of all time?  Part of the fault lies in the script and part of it lies in the marketing.  None of it lies in The Rock.*

I'm honestly not sure if Paramount's marketing department was trying to do some kind of cute subversion-of-expectations thing or if they just didn't know how to sell the movie they had and settled on a deceptive bait & switch routine instead.  Seriously, just watch this trailer:

That looks like an epic tale of a Greek demi-god battling a host of weird creatures while defending an oppressed people from an army of demons sent from the underworld, right?  That is not the case.  In fact, not only is Hercules not that kind of movie, it actively mocks and berates those movies.  This Hercules is just a really strong dude with a mind for military tactics.  He's not even really a soldier, he's the leader of a band of mercenaries.  They play into Hercules' own mythology and even employ his nephew as a storyteller who bolsters his allies' confidence or weakens his enemies' resolve, depending on the situation.  Herc, along with his merry band of badasses, wanders the countryside from job to job, hoping to retire and live out his days in solitude after maybe causing the death of his wife and children.  And here's the thing: that doesn't sound bad!  A grizzled, guilt-ridden Hercules who outsmarts his enemies a travels with a group of hired guns?  Sign me up!

But you lied to me, Paramount.  You got me all hot and bothered to see The Rock fight mythological monsters and then five minutes into the movie you basically spat in my face.  All that business with the Hydra and Nimean Lion and Cerberus the three-headed dog?  It's all bullshit.  What's in that trailer is essentially the sum total of what's in the movie and none of it turns out to be real.  That cool fire whip that grabs Hercules by the neck?  In the actual movie that's a whip made of bones and those fire effects are nowhere to be seen.  All John Hurt's talk of "an army descended from Hades"?  I don't even think that line is ever spoken.  That's some trailer-only ADR right there.  It's such a shame.  When it comes right down to it, what I really want is to watch a Hercules movie where The Rock kills a guy with one punch to the face, not one where he sneakily hides arrowheads in his fist to make himself look cooler.  Still, I probably would've enjoyed this movie so much more if only I didn't feel like I had been tricked into seeing it.

Bart and I cover all this and plenty more in Episode 24 of the podcast before delving into some of the news that came out of San Diego Comic Con and then drooling over that Mad Max: Fury Road footage.  I'm happy to say that this is easily the best sounding episode of the podcast to date thanks to some newly  acquired microphones.  (Thanks, eBay!)  Also, there's a silly little easter egg for those of you who listen all the way to the end.

Next week we're talking Guardians Of The Motherfucking Galaxy.  I can't wait.


*How do you know when to refer to him as Dwayne Johnson and when to refer to him as The Rock?  I've chosen to employ Justice Potter Stewart's approach to pornography: I know it when I see it.

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