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FBG Movie Club - DotM: George Miller (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter KarmaPolice
- Start date
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
Bruh I am so jacked to see Furiosa.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
It would be great to have you in the conversation! You have some catching up to do.
Now also go to the horror countdown thread and let them know about what is and isn't horror...
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
It would be great to have you in the conversation! You have some catching up to do.
Now also go to the horror countdown thread and let them know about what is and isn't horror...
Roger that.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Two sazarecs in, and fired up the original Mad Max. If I’ve never seen any, should I skip over this for one of the sequels?
(About 20 minutes in and these car chases are just boring the heck out of me. Is this what these movies are?)
(About 20 minutes in and these car chases are just boring the heck out of me. Is this what these movies are?)
Eephus
Footballguy
Basically yes with increasingly more elaborate production values and some mythological mumbo jumbo.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Alright. Gave it another 15 minutes or so after my post before flipping on American Fiction. More my speed.
Eephus
Footballguy
Here's a brief interview with Miller where he talks about some of the challenges he faced with Mad Max's minuscule budget.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I think you will enjoy some of next month, August, and Sept a bit more.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Imo Fury Road is one of the best action movies ever. The rest of the series is ok. There’s no doubt Fury Road is the one to start with. You don’t need any backstory at all
Eephus
Footballguy
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
I saw this one during its original theatrical run and I'm pretty sure this is my first viewing since. I remember being disappointed by it back then but couldn't remember exactly why. The only scene that really stuck in my consciousness was the fight in Thunderdome. I was surprised that this took place within the first half hour of the movie; its the first action sequence after Max arrives in Bartertown.
By the high standards of the series, Beyond Thunderdome is the lightest on action and heaviest on mythological mumbo jumbo. The movie bogs down a bit after Max is sent to the wastelands. Max's reaction to being worshiped by the child tribe is fun and in line with the character we've known. But there's a lot of exposition about the Captain Walker legend in the flabby middle of the film, delivered in dialect no less. Miller is an always an inventive visual director so these scenes are still interesting to watch but the pacing suffers. The long-awaited vehicular mayhem doesn't happen until the final half hour. It's typically awesome but the setup is very reminiscent of the climactic chase of MM3 except the tanker is now on rails.
The train chase was mostly worth the wait but I think my favorite parts of the movie took place in Bartertown; I wish Miller would have explored more of it. It's a cool set and it was a shame it had to be blown up but Auntie Tina can rebuild civilization again.
I saw this one during its original theatrical run and I'm pretty sure this is my first viewing since. I remember being disappointed by it back then but couldn't remember exactly why. The only scene that really stuck in my consciousness was the fight in Thunderdome. I was surprised that this took place within the first half hour of the movie; its the first action sequence after Max arrives in Bartertown.
By the high standards of the series, Beyond Thunderdome is the lightest on action and heaviest on mythological mumbo jumbo. The movie bogs down a bit after Max is sent to the wastelands. Max's reaction to being worshiped by the child tribe is fun and in line with the character we've known. But there's a lot of exposition about the Captain Walker legend in the flabby middle of the film, delivered in dialect no less. Miller is an always an inventive visual director so these scenes are still interesting to watch but the pacing suffers. The long-awaited vehicular mayhem doesn't happen until the final half hour. It's typically awesome but the setup is very reminiscent of the climactic chase of MM3 except the tanker is now on rails.
The train chase was mostly worth the wait but I think my favorite parts of the movie took place in Bartertown; I wish Miller would have explored more of it. It's a cool set and it was a shame it had to be blown up but Auntie Tina can rebuild civilization again.
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Eephus
Footballguy
40,000 Years of Dreaming (aka White Fellas Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema) (1997)
MIller wrote and directed this one hour documentary for the British Film Institute as part of their Century of Cinema series. You may remember Scorsese also participated in this series with a four-hour personal history of American film.
Miller's contribution is just over an hour in length because there just aren't as many Australian movies as American. He bemoans the fact that the local film industry was virtually inactive during the quarter century after the end of WWII which were also the formative years of Miller's love for the art form. Where Scorsese's film took the now standard auteurist view using his favorite directors, Miller takes an approach equating the medium of film as the white fellas' version of aboriginal songlines and oral history. Rather than focusing on filmmakers or genres, Miller organizes his taxonomy using a set of typically Australian character types such as bushmen and diggers to show how film and culture influenced each other. Some of these categories like black fellas and wogs wouldn't fly today but Miller strives to be inclusive to show how the nation grew from boatloads of convicts to today's multi-cultural society.
It's an interesting thesis but one that's hampered by the unfamiliarity of most of the film clips he uses. I did get a few new films to my never ending queue. Miller is an enthusiastic and engaging guide though, coming off more like a guru than Scorsese's cool professor persona. There are certainly worse ways to spend an hour although this print is a VHS rip.
vimeo.com
MIller wrote and directed this one hour documentary for the British Film Institute as part of their Century of Cinema series. You may remember Scorsese also participated in this series with a four-hour personal history of American film.
Miller's contribution is just over an hour in length because there just aren't as many Australian movies as American. He bemoans the fact that the local film industry was virtually inactive during the quarter century after the end of WWII which were also the formative years of Miller's love for the art form. Where Scorsese's film took the now standard auteurist view using his favorite directors, Miller takes an approach equating the medium of film as the white fellas' version of aboriginal songlines and oral history. Rather than focusing on filmmakers or genres, Miller organizes his taxonomy using a set of typically Australian character types such as bushmen and diggers to show how film and culture influenced each other. Some of these categories like black fellas and wogs wouldn't fly today but Miller strives to be inclusive to show how the nation grew from boatloads of convicts to today's multi-cultural society.
It's an interesting thesis but one that's hampered by the unfamiliarity of most of the film clips he uses. I did get a few new films to my never ending queue. Miller is an enthusiastic and engaging guide though, coming off more like a guru than Scorsese's cool professor persona. There are certainly worse ways to spend an hour although this print is a VHS rip.
40000 Years of Dreaming (White Fellas Dreaming A Century of Australian Cinema)
A Film by George Miller I own nothing, this was shared for education purposes ONLY
vimeo.com
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Not sure if this is covered but Sergio Leone has to be a massive influence on Miller. So let's go to the desert and check out this new 4K restoration of Once Upon a Time in the West. This is a movie that has grown on me over time and I am guessing will continue to with this viewing. I didn't always get it at first but I now love and appreciate Leone's patience.
Right off the bat, this movie is screaming "I love you John Ford" and wow, the story is by "Sergio Leone, Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci". NDB.
Right off the bat, this movie is screaming "I love you John Ford" and wow, the story is by "Sergio Leone, Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci". NDB.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I took a dystopian side step in my viewings, but it fits with the themes and another movie new in the theaters - Planet of the Apes. I might stick with this and watch more in the series. I'm not in the mood for going down the kids movie rabbit hole and I think watching all the Mad Max movies was good coverage for Miller.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Ok, I just read the synopsis for Three Thousand Years of Longing. WTF? I just found what I am watching tonight.
Eephus
Footballguy
It's absolutely gorgeous but the story didn't connect with me at all.
It was good for Miller to try his hand on non-franchise IP for the first time in 30 years.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yep that is next on my watch list. The reviews on it are very mixed. Critics I respect have loved it and others hated it.
Eephus
Footballguy
@Ilov80s have you ever expanded before on your Ford-Lean-Leone lineage? I don't understand what you're getting at. Even though they're on the same page of the phone book, there's a gap between Lean and Leone
I think Miller and a bunch of other modern filmmakers (e.g. Tarantino, Carpenter, the Coens) were influenced by Leone's films, both in visual style and their postmodernist twists on genre.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
So much of it is in the use of landscapes. The landscapes often dwarf the people themselves. Movies about people in worlds harsh lanscapes, forced to go to great extremes to survive and find meaning. An incredible patience in their storytelling. Always very deliberate with a way of being technically advanced visually without ever coming off as flashy. They aren't showboats but their films are so technically perfect, so visaully obsessed. Yet never soulless. Tarantino is too showy and too obsessed with pastiche (shout out to Wikkid). Carpenter is more Hawks to me and like QT, he's also very obsessed with genre/B movies. The Coens bring so much humor into their films. To me they are so much Preston Sturges- an truly American sense of humor but like the previous directors, they seemed to want to tap into so many past forms from Busby Berkley to The Big Sleep. Ford, Lean and Leone seem far more singular and foused to me.
Miller brings those landscapes into his films. He sets his characters against impossible menacing natural worlds. But something is different. Perhaps it's just the energy?
Eephus
Footballguy
The New Barbarians aka Warriors of the Wasteland (1983)
The commercial success of the first two Mad Max movies begat a bunch of global knockoffs. The New Barbarians comes from Italian director Enzo Castellari best known for the original version of The Inglorious Bastards. It's a low budget affair but probably still cost more than the USD350K budget of Mad Max.
According to the intertitles, the movie is set in 2019 after the "nuclear holocaust". The script doesn't spend a lot of effort on back story or environmental challenges. The apocalypse is just a convenient excuse for groups of survivors to drive around in modified dune buggies and kill each other. There are a lot of slow moving action sequences that seem to take place in the same two locations: an abandoned motorway and a gravel pit.
The Mad Max figure is named Scorpion here; he's a humorless loner who still manages to find time for a gratuitous sex scene in a neon lit transparent pup tent. Scorpion drives a late 60s Pontiac upgraded with a bubble roof, some random pipes sticking out of the hood and impractical weaponry that pops out from where the engine should be. His sidekick is former AFL and Blaxploitation star Fred "The Hammer" Williamson who is aptly named Nadir and shoots exploding arrows. The third good guy is a kid who fixes Scorpion's Pontiac and whose weapon of choice is a slingslot. They're pitted against The Templars led by a villain called One who goes by the credo of "hate and exterminate". He doesn't have much of a plan other than to kill all the survivors he can find. I may be reading more into the film than intended but there's even more of a Gay subtext to the bad guys than in Mad Max 2.
The New Barbarians is pure dreck but was still an oddly entertaining watch. Castellari goes for shock effects with lots of decapitations and exploding bodies. The special effects are poorly executed and the same vehicles destroyed in early scenes reappear later in the movie. Scorpion is a boring character but One and Nadir get some ridiculous lines and Williamson hams it up big time.
The commercial success of the first two Mad Max movies begat a bunch of global knockoffs. The New Barbarians comes from Italian director Enzo Castellari best known for the original version of The Inglorious Bastards. It's a low budget affair but probably still cost more than the USD350K budget of Mad Max.
According to the intertitles, the movie is set in 2019 after the "nuclear holocaust". The script doesn't spend a lot of effort on back story or environmental challenges. The apocalypse is just a convenient excuse for groups of survivors to drive around in modified dune buggies and kill each other. There are a lot of slow moving action sequences that seem to take place in the same two locations: an abandoned motorway and a gravel pit.
The Mad Max figure is named Scorpion here; he's a humorless loner who still manages to find time for a gratuitous sex scene in a neon lit transparent pup tent. Scorpion drives a late 60s Pontiac upgraded with a bubble roof, some random pipes sticking out of the hood and impractical weaponry that pops out from where the engine should be. His sidekick is former AFL and Blaxploitation star Fred "The Hammer" Williamson who is aptly named Nadir and shoots exploding arrows. The third good guy is a kid who fixes Scorpion's Pontiac and whose weapon of choice is a slingslot. They're pitted against The Templars led by a villain called One who goes by the credo of "hate and exterminate". He doesn't have much of a plan other than to kill all the survivors he can find. I may be reading more into the film than intended but there's even more of a Gay subtext to the bad guys than in Mad Max 2.
The New Barbarians is pure dreck but was still an oddly entertaining watch. Castellari goes for shock effects with lots of decapitations and exploding bodies. The special effects are poorly executed and the same vehicles destroyed in early scenes reappear later in the movie. Scorpion is a boring character but One and Nadir get some ridiculous lines and Williamson hams it up big time.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Can't wait to hear backHave tickets to Furiosa at the local iMax for Friday.
nightmare
Footballguy
Furiosa. The good- Chris Hemsworth, the deranged bad guy(what else would you expect?). Leads his gang with a lot of charisma and not much
else. The not so good-you've seen Fury road soooo this movie is supposed to/maybe add something compelling? Doesn't happen. The Mad Max
series has moments of some human decency in a mad world. This one has one scene. Most of the movie is showing you bad things happening
in a bad world. The problem is you might not care enough about Furiosa to sit through action scenes that have been done and have been done
a lot better.
The really bad- A lot of CGI with a small amount of real action and the action is not the main part of this movie. I didn't hang around for all of the credits as
it did not hook me.
I did not find any kind of fun in this movie. It's rated 8.0 at IMDB.com (8.1 yesterday) and I would like to think that when real people start to rate this it will
get to whatever the "real" rating is.
I don't like being the guy that drags expectations down for any movie but it did not hit me at any level for entertainment.
else. The not so good-you've seen Fury road soooo this movie is supposed to/maybe add something compelling? Doesn't happen. The Mad Max
series has moments of some human decency in a mad world. This one has one scene. Most of the movie is showing you bad things happening
in a bad world. The problem is you might not care enough about Furiosa to sit through action scenes that have been done and have been done
a lot better.
The really bad- A lot of CGI with a small amount of real action and the action is not the main part of this movie. I didn't hang around for all of the credits as
it did not hook me.
I did not find any kind of fun in this movie. It's rated 8.0 at IMDB.com (8.1 yesterday) and I would like to think that when real people start to rate this it will
get to whatever the "real" rating is.
I don't like being the guy that drags expectations down for any movie but it did not hit me at any level for entertainment.
Psychopav
Help us, Joebi-Wan Brynobi, you're our only ho
This review is spot on. I think Fury Road is a masterpiece and I put this somewhere around Thunderdome in the series. Probably a bit below it tbh.
Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
THE NEW BARBARIANS ðï¸ 1983 - 1080P (FULL MOVIE) post-apocalyptic
PLEASE CONSIDER SUBSCRIBING: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNkOIhDd3aC3IX3DBRdbfKAâ TEE SHIRTS & MORE ⺠https://society6.com/atthedriveinâ FACEBOOK ⺠http...
www.youtube.com
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yikes because Thunder Dome was a kids movie
Dan Lambskin
Footballguy
Are you not counting Spaceballs as a desert movie?
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
I would consider that a space movie first, desert movie second and probably a balls movie third
The Gator
Footballguy
Was a little underwhelmedCan't wait to hear backHave tickets to Furiosa at the local iMax for Friday.
I thought some of the trailer cgi looked iffy and it sure did on the big screen. Not sure what that was about, but it was kinda distracting. Second half of the movie was better and had more live action stunts in it. Rictus was laughable, looked very old for a prequel, they didn't even care. Definitely not as good as the first one
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
How're you guys ranking Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2?
edit: I've got them 1, 2.
edit: I've got them 1, 2.
Eephus
Footballguy
I would have definitely watched both this month if I could find a free stream but alas.
It's funny with kids movies--I'm overly familiar with the ones that fell within my children's age window but don't know a thing about the ones that came afterwards. My son was 10 when Happy Feet came out and was closer to Mad Max than singing penguins.
Both Babe movies are wonderful. Pig in the City is my favorite Miller film I've seen but has some very dark parts for kids.
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
I watched Happy Feet with my son many times and loved it. For better or worse, by the time Happy Feet 2 came out he had aged out of it and our daughter was too young so I've never seen it.
Eephus
Footballguy
Just be thankful it's not 3000 years long.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yeah I think sometime this week I will make it even with the disappointing word of mouthWe were planning on hitting the Tuesday bargain matinee of Furiosa but didn't make it out. Maybe next week
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I had to stop if halfway through. I was doing nothing for me.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Hint: It really doesn't.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2009)
Another documentary, this time about low budget Australian exploitation films of the 70s and 80s. It's the usual clips and talking heads format but it's very entertaining in spite of most of the movies discussed being unfamiliar to American audiences. Director/writer Mark Hartley assembled an impressive lineup of people involved in the original movies to tell their stories and what stories they are. There are lots of wild tales of gonzo filmmakers shooting on shoestring budgets with little regard to on-set safety and propriety, along with clips featuring cheesy special effects and lots of T&A.
Not Quite Holllywood is roughly divided by genre (sexploitation, horror, action). Miller appears throughout but his main contribution is to talk about the making of Mad Max. The way the documentary slots Mad Max alongside other Australian films of the era provides useful context. It's also cool to see actors from the Mad Max series (e.g. Gyro Captain, Toecutter) appear in clips from other movies.
Another documentary, this time about low budget Australian exploitation films of the 70s and 80s. It's the usual clips and talking heads format but it's very entertaining in spite of most of the movies discussed being unfamiliar to American audiences. Director/writer Mark Hartley assembled an impressive lineup of people involved in the original movies to tell their stories and what stories they are. There are lots of wild tales of gonzo filmmakers shooting on shoestring budgets with little regard to on-set safety and propriety, along with clips featuring cheesy special effects and lots of T&A.
Not Quite Holllywood is roughly divided by genre (sexploitation, horror, action). Miller appears throughout but his main contribution is to talk about the making of Mad Max. The way the documentary slots Mad Max alongside other Australian films of the era provides useful context. It's also cool to see actors from the Mad Max series (e.g. Gyro Captain, Toecutter) appear in clips from other movies.
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Eephus
Footballguy
Lorenzo's Oil (1992)
Miller was a doctor before turning to film but a medical melodrama is still an unusual genre choice for the director of Mad Max. Lorenzo's Oil was his last American film and a rare example of Miller telling a non-franchise story. It's based on the true story of the family of a boy afflicted with a rare congenital neuromuscular disease. It features magnificent performances from Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte as the boy's parents, who are relentless in their search for a cure. Nolte's Italian accent is occasionally distracting/inaudible but it typifies the authenticity Miller is aiming for. He also casts the actual chemist who synthesized Lorenzo's oil as himself.
Miller films the story like a thriller with constant reminders of the passage of time and the progression of the disease. Many of the scenes with Sarandon and Nolte are filmed in long takes that are breathtaking in their power. The movie is unsparing in its depiction of Lorenzo's suffering and the effects on those who love and care for him. It's a difficult watch--I had to switch to the Ozploitation documentary last night because I was emotionally drained by Lorenzo's Oil. Alternative medical treatments and scientific skepticism are more politically charged than when this film was made but there are no villains here. The antagonists of Lorenzo's parents are presented as generally decent people working on a different timeline to be of assistance to Lorenzo.
It's an exceptional film that I'd rank alongside Pig in the City and MM2 as Miller's finest but at the same time, it's also a movie I'll probably never choose to watch again.
Miller was a doctor before turning to film but a medical melodrama is still an unusual genre choice for the director of Mad Max. Lorenzo's Oil was his last American film and a rare example of Miller telling a non-franchise story. It's based on the true story of the family of a boy afflicted with a rare congenital neuromuscular disease. It features magnificent performances from Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte as the boy's parents, who are relentless in their search for a cure. Nolte's Italian accent is occasionally distracting/inaudible but it typifies the authenticity Miller is aiming for. He also casts the actual chemist who synthesized Lorenzo's oil as himself.
Miller films the story like a thriller with constant reminders of the passage of time and the progression of the disease. Many of the scenes with Sarandon and Nolte are filmed in long takes that are breathtaking in their power. The movie is unsparing in its depiction of Lorenzo's suffering and the effects on those who love and care for him. It's a difficult watch--I had to switch to the Ozploitation documentary last night because I was emotionally drained by Lorenzo's Oil. Alternative medical treatments and scientific skepticism are more politically charged than when this film was made but there are no villains here. The antagonists of Lorenzo's parents are presented as generally decent people working on a different timeline to be of assistance to Lorenzo.
It's an exceptional film that I'd rank alongside Pig in the City and MM2 as Miller's finest but at the same time, it's also a movie I'll probably never choose to watch again.
Eephus
Footballguy
ditkaburgers bought us tickets to see Furiosa on Sunday afternoon. It's no longer the month of Miller but it'll have to do.
I'm done with George until then. He's a fascinating bloke and a talented director but I'd use one of my genie's wish to make Miller a bit more prolific. I know it's his career and legacy but he basically spent fifteen prime years on four kids movies. He also expended a lot of energy trying unsuccessfully to build up the Australian film industry. It's hard to imagine someone like Spielberg or Scorsese being so inactive. Steven Soderbergh has released more projects this decade than Miller has this century.
If you watch Miller's documentary about Australian cinema, you can tell how passionate he is about making movies. It's kind of a shame for everyone that he hasn't done more of them.
I'm done with George until then. He's a fascinating bloke and a talented director but I'd use one of my genie's wish to make Miller a bit more prolific. I know it's his career and legacy but he basically spent fifteen prime years on four kids movies. He also expended a lot of energy trying unsuccessfully to build up the Australian film industry. It's hard to imagine someone like Spielberg or Scorsese being so inactive. Steven Soderbergh has released more projects this decade than Miller has this century.
If you watch Miller's documentary about Australian cinema, you can tell how passionate he is about making movies. It's kind of a shame for everyone that he hasn't done more of them.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I think we have one more movie for Miller month in us. I asked my daughter last night and she will try Babe with me (and maybe Babe 2 if she likes it). I think we will do that tonight, otherwise this weekend sometime. I don't often watch kids movies on my own time, which is why I didn't want to start down that tangent after knocking out the Mad Max movies.
Eephus' post summed up my final thoughts well. In the end I am glad we chose him, because I did enjoy watching the Mad Max movies. No, they still aren't my favorites but learning more about Miller, his background, and what they went through to finish those I have a much greater appreciation for him and those titles - especially Fury Road.
Eephus' post summed up my final thoughts well. In the end I am glad we chose him, because I did enjoy watching the Mad Max movies. No, they still aren't my favorites but learning more about Miller, his background, and what they went through to finish those I have a much greater appreciation for him and those titles - especially Fury Road.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
We have a busy day tomorrow, so the plan is to start up the new director thread a day early when I get home from work today.
June is @Ilov80s birthday month and the rule was we get to pick the director no questions asked from the other for those 2 months. What I found interesting is that both of us chose directors we aren't that familiar with. He can speak up more, but I'm pretty sure he's only seen 2 of 20+ movies, which means he has seen 0 movies in what might be the best movie trilogy of all time.
June is @Ilov80s birthday month and the rule was we get to pick the director no questions asked from the other for those 2 months. What I found interesting is that both of us chose directors we aren't that familiar with. He can speak up more, but I'm pretty sure he's only seen 2 of 20+ movies, which means he has seen 0 movies in what might be the best movie trilogy of all time.
