I love that you could honestly advertise "Mad Max: Fury Road" as "from the director of 'Happy Feet' and 'Babe: Pig in the City.'"
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 18, 2015
Jezebel‘s broad-in-every-sense parody MRA review “The New Mad Max Film Is So Feminist My Scrotum Killed Itself” has been garnering well-deserved upvotes, but my personal favorite remains Spencer Hall’s happy rant at SB Nation:
… THERE MIGHT BE SIX PAGES OF DIALOGUE IN THE SCRIPT. MAYBE TEN IF THEY WROTE OUT TOM HARDY’S GRUNTING. IT’S GOOD GRUNTING, DON’T GET ME WRONG BECAUSE MOST OF TOM HARDY’S WORK HERE IS DIALOGUE WITHOUT DIALOGUE. MAX SAWS AT THE BACK OF HIS MASKED HEAD WITH A NAIL FILE SO FAST AND WITH SUCH INSANE ANGER THAT IT BECOMES A LINE. YOU COULD HAVE TOM HARDY COMPLAIN ABOUT HIS FACE BEING STRAPPED INTO A METAL MASK, SURE, BUT IT’S SO MUCH BETTER TO HAVE THIS HEATHEN OUTCAST GRUNTING AND TWITCHING AND PULLING AT EVERYTHING FOR THE FIRST 45 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE LIKE HE’S A STARVING RACCOON LET LOOSE IN A RESTAURANT WALK-IN FREEZER. HE SAYS HIS NAME ONCE AND I CRIED WHEN HE DID EVEN THOUGH I’M PRETTY SURE HE KILLS LIKE 80 PEOPLE FOR JUST DOING THEIR JOBS AS RIPPED ALBINO DEATH RIDERS…
BUT THAT’S NOT EVEN THE MOST BADASS PART OF THE MOVIE. THE FIRST MOST BADASS PART OF THE WHOLE BY-DESIGN SUPREMELY BADASS MOVIE IS CHARLIZE THERON AS FURIOSA THE WAR RIG DRIVER… SHE HITS DUDES IN THE BRAINPAN WITH A SNIPER RIFLE IN ZERO LIGHT FROM EIGHT HUNDRED YARDS AWAY WITH EASE. AT ONE POINT SHE USES MAX AS A RIFLE MOUNT. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW HARD IT WAS NOT TO HOOT OUT LOUD IN THE THEATER WHEN THE MALE PROTAGONIST OF A FILM WHO HAD JUST COME BACK FROM A FRACAS WITH DESERT VILLAINS WAS TOLD TO CHILL FOR A SEC WHILE CHARLIZE THERON USED HIM AS A PIECE OF MILITARY FURNITURE BECAUSE MAX, IT TURNS OUT, IS A LOUSY SHOT WITH A SNIPER RIFLE. CHARLIZE THERON’S EYES ARE EASILY HALF THE DIALOGUE IN THE MOVIE AND MOST OF THE LINES THEY SAY ADD UP TO SOMETHING LIKE “I’M ONLY GOING TO USE ONE BULLET ON THIS SHITPILE OF A WORLD BECAUSE THAT’S ALL IT DESERVES AND ALSO ALL I NEED TO KILL BECAUSE I AM THE MOST LETHAL TWO-HEADED LIZARD PROWLING THIS CURSED EARTH.” SHE SHOULD GET AN OSCAR. I AM NOT KIDDING AT ALL.
OH AND THERE’S ALSO A PACK OF MOTORCYCLE-RIDING GRANNIES WITH SNIPER RIFLES AND PURSES WHO ARE THE GRANDMOTHERS I NEVER KNEW I WANTED. I HAVE INVENTED AN ENTIRE NEW BIO WHERE THEY ARE MY FAMILY. THEY ARE NOW MY FAMILY AND I’M GOING TO GO SEE THE MOVIE AGAIN TO SEE THEM AND SAY HELLO AND MAYBE TEAR UP WHEN I LIST MY TRIBAL AFFILIATION TO THEM…
i would probably watch an isis-vs.-preppers "red dawn" reboot
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) May 18, 2015
(NSFW many noisy explosions)
ruemara
I now plan to be a granny with a motorbike and guns. I blame
ObamaFuriosa. And my car is totally missing a guy playing a flamethrowing axe with a bank of eleventykajillian speakers plus a quartet of kettle drumming warboys. May need to add extra shocks.Waldo
Planning to re-watch all the earlier Mad Max movies before I see this one. You know, so I can follow the, uh, plot.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
SINCE IT’S AN ALL CAPS OPEN THREAD! WITH BAD GRAMMAR! AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!
THERE IS ONLY 19 HOURS LEFT TO BE A PART OF THE FUNDING OF THE GREATEST WOMEN’S HOCKEY NOVEL EVER IMAGINED IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY! PLEDGE NOW AND I MIGHT ADD A BENEFIT LEVEL OF GETTING TO WATCH ME EAT A TWO HEADED LIZARD!
Mike J
I liked this review a lot: https://overland.org.au/2015/05/furious-and-furiosa/
Amir Khalid
Hmm. Mad Max: Fury Road or Pitch Perfect 2?
NotMax
Sorry, but automatically scroll on past any paragraphs in all caps.
Assembled the brand spanking new high quality top grain leather desk chair purchased last week as a birthday gift to myself. Reveling in sitting in it now. Simultaneously super comfy and supportive.
Johnny Coelacanth
Caps snobbery deprives you a fun review. That aside, I got to see an advance screening and it was… pretty good? I think I’ll like it more on a second viewing. I don’t really get all the insanely great raves about the movie, except maybe to think that most of these people never bothered to watch The Road Warrior.
fuckwit
I have not seen this film. But I am skeptical of how feminist it really is, after reading this takedown of another blockbuster action hero from a few years ago: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/whats_wrong_with_the_hunger_ga_1.html
David Koch
Beyond Thunderdome is historically underrated, but nevertheless an all time great movie
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@fuckwit: Good lord. That review (of The Hunger Games, for those who don’t read it) is so bad that I can’t tell whether or not it’s intended to be satire of . . . something. I’m not sure what. I could be satire of awful movie reviews. It could be satire of pompously self-important gender theorists. It could be satire of those who are opposed to pompously self-important gender theorists. Shit, maybe it would become clear if I read the whole thing, but I have no intention of doing so, because by the time I made it to the Entertainment Weekly cover, my forehead was bruised from banging it against my desk.
It would have been better in all caps.
Mary G
OK, those reviews were both hilarious. I too would like to join the Granny Gang when I grow up. I still don’t think I will see the movie. Too loud.
raven
The forecast was rain but it looks like it was wrong! Down to the beach for sunrise fishin!
Chet
@David Koch: It is no longer possible for me to think of that movie without being reminded of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEI_udV88i4
Zinsky
My 27 year old son said the movie was “too intense”, which means a likely cardiac arrest for me. Pass.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Tight lines!
kc
People really like ultraviolence, don’t they?
David Koch
@kc: you sound like Lieberman and McCain whining about video games and hollywood.
different-church-lady
This is about one of those “film” things the kids are into, yes?
OzarkHillbilly
@David Koch: So pointing out an obvious fact makes some one shrill?
different-church-lady
@David Koch: When the hell did Lieberman or McCain ever limit themselves to six words?
Valdivia
@Amir Khalid:
I am probably going to be the only person who leans towards Pitch Perfect and loses all credibility with all of you fellow bj people.
ThresherK
@kc: There’s meaningful and meaningless violence.
To paraphrase Roger Ebert, meaningless violence* doesn’t insult my moral sensitivities, but my dramatic sensitivies. Nothing can be better than meaningful, character-based violence which rises above the level of big-boom-Michael-Bay set piece. Few things are easier to lazily make than meaningless violence which repetitively inures my brain’s ability to enjoy it: When the knob is constantly set to 9, turning it to 10 isn’t loud and remarkable any more.
(*And I consider nihilistic mayhemic all-gone-to-hell violence depictions so commonplace now that they’re no longer a statement of anything.)
kc
@David Koch:
Nah, I don’t think so.
Kay
Trade deal isn’t any more popular with Republican voters than it is with Democrats, which Republicans are blaming on (hah!) the inneffectiveness of lobbyists for business interests:
I wonder if it will hurt the GOP Prez candidates in certain states. They’re all backing it.
Aimai
@fuckwit: that review and most of its comments might well be even stupider than jonah goldberg’s new take on fatherhood or rod dreher’s new take on god. Truly, earth shatteringly stupid.
Valdivia
Have we talked about the rain of spiders yet? Is that in the list of things that happens at end of days? It’s not even in the 10 plagues.
PaulW
Mad Max vs ETHICS IN GAMING JOURNALISM is the Number One movie of the… wait, they lost to Pitch Perfect 2?!
I blame women.
Baud
@Kay:
I thought Huckabee opposed it.
@Valdivia:
I would prefer that to the rain of GOP candidates we have in this country.
WereBear
I don’t understand the President pushing the trade deal, but I do remember the loud cries of “He sold us out!” over a proposed budget that was simply a lever to make, as it turned out, total asses of the Republicans.
So we’ll see how it all turns out. Remember, folks, he’s as Progressive as the rest of us let him be.
You and me and BJ makes three; we are usually outnumbered.
kc
@ThresherK:
I do love a lot of movies that have violent scenes; even though I have to close my eyes during the worst parts. The reviews of Mad Max make me think this one is probably a bit much for me.
WereBear
I am now in love with the Jezebel review. I want to pixel-marry it and have its virtual children.
Valdivia
@Baud:
so true. Also so much less scary and harmful.
Kay
@WereBear:
That doesn’t make sense in this instance though, because the trade deal is a really heavy lift for Democrats. All he’d be doing is angering a lot of people with absolutely no benefit if it fails. I think Obama is way more strategic than that. Feingold is opposing it and so is Strickland (the two Senate candidates from the Great Lakes states).
I’m curious how Clinton handles it. She supported it as SoS but she can (rightly) argue that it was an Administration priority and her job was to promote Administration policy. My bet would be she doesn’t support it publicly- not because she doesn’t think it’s a good idea (I don’t know if she does, but I bet she agrees with Obama) but just because trade is such a touchy issue for the Clintons in certain states.
Maybe in her race it won’t matter because she’ll effectively have no Democratic opponent in the primary and the GOP candidates support it so it ends up “nuetral”. I don’t think it does end up nuetral, I think it;s a net negative for her but SHE could think it’s “nuetral”.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m not good with violence. OTOH, I’m afraid Pitch Perfect 2 will be as bad as most unneeded sequels are. The first PP surprised me with how good it was. I’d like to keep that good feeling.
Matt McIrvin
So this movie turns everyone into Film Crit Hulk?
WereBear
@Kay: I admit I’m not happy with the trade deal, and so I’m mystified that the President, whose judgement I admire, is pushing it.
But even if he’s passionately in favor, he’s allowed, and I’m allowed to disagree. What is the solution to the downsides of globalization? Can you wean a huge chunk of the populace off Wal-Mart?
I never trusted Edwards but thought he made a good point about the textile workers in SC losing their jobs to China while they spent decades shopping at Wal-Mart.
Valdivia
@Iowa Old Lady:
I watched the first one accidentally and really enjoyed it. I read (can’t remember where) that the second one is just as good or even better so maybe worth risking it
Germy Shoemangler
Shows how little I know: when I first heard about the new Mad Max movie, I assumed it was being remade by a twenty-something director with all CGI explosions, etc.
I had no idea the original director created it. Now I sort of want to see it.
My children were small when “Babe” came out, and we saw it. My favorite was the sequel “Pig In The City” with the weird composite city and the hipster chimps and MIckey Rooney. It was bizarre and wonderful.
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear:
But my experience has been that Walmart isn’t really that cheaper. They make a big deal about lower lower lower prices, but often it’s a few pennies different. Literally less than a nickel. And the quality is more often than not absolute crap.
I’d like a return to more locally-owned, smaller places. Neighborhood empowerment. I don’t know if I’ll see that in my lifetime.
ThresherK
@kc: Heehee, same here.
I especially couldn’t get through an entire episode of “House” without averting my eyes, but that’s just more graphic medicine, meaningfully depicted. My mom the nurse, ages ago, would try to explain some medico things to me and my absorption rate was abysmal; maybe this is the tool she needed.
I’d much rather be a bit “overloaded” by something; shows that someone is telling a good story when I’m not yawning or chuckling at it. (And isn’t the whole “self-reflective horror movie” thing played out for awhile?)
Not yet sure if the new Mad Max is for me. But it seems to have succeeded in more than being a gore-fest, slug-fest, or CGI-fest.
Germy Shoemangler
I have to assume it isn’t as noisy on the film set as it is in the movie theater. I’m sure actors don’t have to sign contracts releasing the producers of any responsibility for deafness and hearing damage?
ThresherK
@Germy Shoemangler: I don’t know if Mad Max is as realistic as other fictions involving firearms.
All kidding aside, who knows how real the weapon sounds without the Foley artist?
Belafon
@Valdivia: The Pitch Perfect Movies are not my kind of movies, but the a cappella version of The Final Countdown in the first movie cracked me up.
Germy Shoemangler
@ThresherK: I know that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both suffered irreversible hearing damage after an explosion. They had to stop filming and send them to a doc.
In real life people wear hearing protection on rifle ranges, but in the movies actors blast away. I’d love to hear how it sounds before the Foley people dub it.
By the way, I was a Foley artist briefly for an independent director. It is fun as hell.
M31
I rented Mad Max on VHS way back when and it was dubbed.
Into English, by the way.
American movie distributors, just how dumb do they think we are? (don’t answer that)
Kay
@WereBear:
There is no solution to globalization and the opponents of the trade deal aren’t asking him for one. Obama has actually been very good on manufacturing, much more so than Bill Clinton but that’s partly a function of what we learned. What we learned is you can’t base a whole economy on health care and finance.
Opponents support Obama’s national plan for “21st century manufacturing” which is a real idea and a good one and happening, and in any event the trade deal doesn’t have that much to do with manufacturing.
They know they’re getting the trade deal, if not under this President then under the next. They think they have leverage because trade deals are a heavy (political) lift for Democrats and they do. They know Democrats have to deal with OH, PA, WI, IL and MI. It’s not like Democrats can write off those states and they’re already limping there because they lost so many governors. Now is the time to push for a better deal. Fast Track effectively means “passage”.
Keith Ellison was sort of refreshingly honest. He said something to the effect of it takes Democrats off their 2016 message, which is middle class economics. That’s true, in my opinion. Obama knows it’s true. I listened to his speech on trade. He uses very precise language. He was trying to make this attenuated case about how small business turn into large businesses- he doesn’t have a “jobs” argument, because there is no jobs argument here.
I think they handed opponents a real weapon by going to Nike. There are so many other places they could have gone that would not have sort of typified low end production. The trade deal will benefit a candymaker here because the US has protections on certain agricultural products that harm US users of those products. Large local employer, union labor, well-run company, have been in business 80 years. Why Nike for God’s sake? It’s like waving a red flag at a bull.
Keith G
@WereBear:
Doesn’t intention have any part in this equation?
Germy Shoemangler
I swear I didn’t understand a word Tom Hardy said when he played Bane.
To me, it sounded like Sean Connery underwater.
Valdivia
@Belafon:
it’s also not my usual fare but I was pleasantly surprised by it. the music in it was fun too.
Matt McIrvin
@M31: I remember vividly where I saw Mad Max and The Road Warrior for the first time.
I was babysitting at a friend’s house. Her son turned out to be this exhausting little hellion who basically wanted to beat on me and throw things as entertainment. Somehow, after hours of struggle, I managed to get him to bed. And I sat down, and got bored, and started watching what was in the VCR. It was Mad Max and The Road Warrior, back to back. Somehow it was just what I needed at the time.
Kay
@Keith G:
As far as I’m concerned his best argument is it’s better if the Democrat negotiates the trade deal than if the Republican negotiates the trade deal because if 60 US corporations want a trade deal we’re getting one, but that isn’t at all inspiring and is also not great politically because it contemplates Clinton losing.
Yes, Obama is “playing politics” which is fine and fair game but he should probably expect his opponents on this to play politics too :)
Tom
@Valdivia: Come and sit by me.
NorthLeft12
While I enjoy watching action movies, I don’t actually like seeing them in the theatres. I find the noise levels ridiculously high for explosions, gunfire, etc. but then virtually unhearable during the few quiet scenes of dialogue. It sounds like there is not much dialogue here outside of grunts, groans, and screams.
I’ll wait until it is available for rental and watch it on my TV. At least I can control the volume. And besides, my wife does not like these movies [although she did like Guardians of the Galaxy].
Germy Shoemangler
@NorthLeft12:
I’ve noticed the same thing. I don’t remember movie theaters being so loud even ten years ago. I think when they upgraded their sound systems, they went for maximum decibel level. But you’re right, the balance is off, because I can’t understand dialogue.
Valdivia
@Tom:
yay, not alone :)
WereBear
@Kay: Thank you, that’s a good explanation. I figured it was a kind of “less bad” thing.
Kay
@WereBear:
The stern lectures from pundits on trade are unbearable. I’m categorically opposed to anything these people see fit to lecture me on. Sick of that.
If one more wealthy and secure individual steps up to the mike to encourage people to embrace “disruption” I may throw up. Can they not hear themselves? I mean, Jesus. Don’t take that TONE with us.
RobertB
@NorthLeft12: Action movies aren’t usually hurt by watching them at home, but this one is a lot like the movie Gravity – you really want to see this on the big screen.
shell
Isn’t that a Monty Python skit?
WereBear
@Kay: Yep. Easy for THEM to “embrace disruption.” They can afford a new house pretty easily. Some of us are still working on a FIRST one.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Matt McIrvin:
I hope the imitations don’t make him angry.
ThresherK
@Germy Shoemangler: I couldn’t have made that random remark at an actual Foley artist if I tried!
Now my army and I will slink away to the clip-clopping of a thousand coconuts.
Frankensteinbeck
The movie is violent. There’s actually not much blood, but lots of body horror. I don’t like violent movies, but this one has so much over-the-top style and such cool heroes (Well, heroines. It’s Max, Furiosa, and the Badass Warrior Grannies) that I loved it anyway. It’s Warhammer with Car in the desert.
Furiosa, Max, and the grannies are all so vastly badass that together they take on an army, but they’re definitely not invincible – a fact I liked. Max isn’t as good a shot as Furiosa and the grannies, being merely exceptional. He has a more flexible, cunning, survive-at-any-cost power.
What I wasn’t expecting is a pretty good story with interesting characters, told with a tiny amount of dialog. That’s hard to do, trust me.
Did I mention the Badass Warrior Grannies? The reviewer is not kidding. They are awesome. My favorite part of the movie.
I didn’t notice the movie being especially loud. One cute comment on volume – when Furiosa uses Max as a rifle stand, he goes temporarily deaf.
Oh, and the MRAs can fuck off. You know why Max is a real man? Because if a woman is a better shot than him, he gives her the gun and lets her take the shot. He does what it takes to survive, instead of whining because his precious fee fees are threatened by suggestions he’s not perfect.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (tablet): As others have said better than I have, The Road Warrior is one of those good movies that, however good they are, make you want to go back in time and prevent their release just to keep all the terrible Z-grade knockoffs from happening. Alien is another one.
celticdragonchick
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
My thoughts exactly. It read like a Slate bullshit contrarion satire.
celticdragonchick
@Frankensteinbeck:
Needs more Space Marines and orks. With shootas. Lotsa shootas.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
I guess Miller is in his 70s now, and he revisits the original films with amazing vigor and clarity. And among the impressive things about the movie is the amount of practical effects and stunt work done by real people, not rendered CGI images. CGI has its place, but there is a sense of depth that is often missing when you see obvious computer generated “people” flying around.
There was a lot of ADR and foley work. Essentially, a lot of the dialog and sound was recorded in a studio and added later, because the set was too noisy for some of the dialog to have been recorded on site. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it was super loud (which it may have been), but that there was a lot of extraneous sound that would interfere with the actors speaking their lines while the scenes were being filmed.
But in a way, this is to be expected. One of the great things about “Fury Road” is that it is almost a return to the cinema of the silent era. It’s not just that there is not a lot of dialog, or that Max says practically nothing. It fits. Mad Max is a man who is so out of place with humans and who has been so traumatized, that he is like a feral dog. He not only speaks little, but his reactions to others speaking is off, as though he has been isolated for months or years. And there is an economy to the narrative so that you understand and can figure out the relationships between the characters without having to endure long bouts of exposition.
@Matt McIrvin:
The first Matrix film should be on that list as well.
grrljock
@Amir Khalid: Both! We watched PP2–si many laugh out loud moments, most of them involving Fat Amy. But Mad Max is next on my list!
Jebediah, RBG
@Germy Shoemangler:
I got to do a couple of Foley things for a radio play with Katherine Helmond and Sharon Gless. It is fun! In this case, though, the fun was somewhat tempered by the wrenching sadness of the play (“Night, Mother”.)