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1:07

It's very difficult to keep the line

1:09

between the past and the present. You

1:12

believe that someone out of the

1:14

past can enter and take possession

1:16

of a living being. We may be

1:19

through with the past, but the past is not through

1:21

with us! Welcome

1:26

to the Next Picture Show, a movie the week

1:28

podcast devoted to a classic film and how it

1:30

shaped our thoughts on a recent release. I'm Scott

1:33

Tobias here with... Kef Epps Tasha

1:35

Robinson and Jenna Bivkowski. Before

1:37

we talk about this week's pairing, I want to

1:39

quickly run through the Australian cinema we've done on

1:42

the podcast within the last year or two. The

1:45

Royal Hotel about two women trying to stay

1:47

safe at a roughneck bar in the outback,

1:51

another film that includes a

1:53

notorious sequence where men gun down kangaroos

1:55

from their car in the

1:57

dry, a thriller that takes place in a town

1:59

that's basically like a a giant tinder box. You

2:02

could say the Fall Guy operates as

2:04

solid fodder for the Australian Tourism Board,

2:07

but our track record here on the

2:09

Next Picture show for Aussie cinema has

2:11

been pretty unflattering lately. But fortunately,

2:13

we're going to set things right in this set

2:15

of episodes, right Tasha? Yeah, not

2:17

exactly. Not this time. I mean, unless

2:19

you're the type that thinks you might

2:21

thrive in the lawless motorized dystopia of

2:24

the near future. George Miller's new film

2:26

Furiosa, a Mad Max saga, is the

2:28

fifth entry in a series that began

2:30

an astonishing 45 years ago

2:32

with 1979's Mad Max, his first

2:34

feature and a groundbreaking moment for

2:37

low budget Australian cinema, also known

2:39

as Asploitation. It's an understatement to

2:41

say the series has evolved between then and now. In

2:44

the original Mad Max, then unknown actor Mel

2:46

Gibson stars as a patrol officer in a

2:48

wasteland where the police have lost control over

2:51

the criminal gangs who rule the highway. But

2:53

Gibson hasn't been in a Mad Max movie

2:56

since the mid 80s, and the Max character

2:58

isn't a focus of Furiosa, a prequel that

3:00

follows a female Avenger through a much more

3:02

expansive version of the wasteland, dominated by monstrous

3:05

men and their ever more elaborate machines. So

3:07

how did we get from there to here?

3:10

That's a question we'll be asking in

3:12

the next two episodes, where we look

3:14

first at the 1979 Mad Max and

3:16

its impact as a high watermark for

3:18

exploitation movies and a future cult classic.

3:20

Then we'll bring in Furiosa, which is

3:22

leagues apart in terms of scale and

3:25

science fiction spectacle, but still ties into

3:27

Miller's original vision of a future where

3:29

wars are waged over a precious and

3:31

dwindling resource. And

3:57

the open road will be controlled by gangs

3:59

of glory. common

6:00

to many exploitation movies you might expect

6:02

to turn up at drive-ins or grind

6:04

houses. The one major difference is

6:06

that the revenge part takes a longer time to

6:08

materialize than usual. In a

6:11

soft-spoken role that takes advantage of its

6:13

physicality, Mel Gibson stars as Max Rakatansky,

6:15

the best pursuit officer in a police

6:18

department that's been decimated by lawless gangs.

6:20

After Max succeeds in tracking down a

6:23

particularly malevolent goon named Knightrider, chasing

6:25

him into a trap that kills him and his girlfriend,

6:28

Knightrider's gang, led by the sadistic

6:30

Toecutter, vow to have the revenge.

6:33

The attacks on his fellow officers lead Max to

6:35

reconsider his life on the force, and he

6:37

heads to the countryside on a retreat with

6:39

his wife and small child. But

6:41

when the Toecutter finds him and goes after

6:43

his family, Max opts to take the law

6:45

into his own hands. If the

6:48

story is pretty straightforward for an Ozploitation

6:50

import, the execution is anything but. There's

6:53

so much raw energy and invention here, and

6:55

so much memorable style under a limited budget.

6:58

Mad Max was shot in 2-3-5-1 in

7:00

every aspect of the production, from the

7:02

costumes and makeup, to the dynamic

7:04

stunt work, to the precision of the camera

7:07

angles and movements, squeezes the most

7:09

out of every dollar. If you're a

7:11

B-movie fiend in 1979 who's

7:13

been fed a gnarly diet of cheap thrills, you'd

7:16

certainly sit up and notice that Miller

7:18

delivers the goods with a technical savvy

7:20

far beyond the norm. It's little wonder

7:22

that the film was a success in

7:24

the United States too, despite notorious dubbing

7:26

issues. And that's to say

7:28

nothing of Mel Gibson, whose presence was

7:31

electric enough to launch a long and,

7:33

well, eventful career. With Mad

7:35

Max, Miller rewrote the rules of the

7:37

Western, imagining a future where outlaws can

7:40

roll in and terrorize one-horse towns like

7:42

they did centuries ago. But he

7:44

also saw how our reliance on a

7:47

dirty and unsustainable resource might manifest itself

7:49

in the future, not by

7:51

humanity seeking alternative sources of energy, but

7:54

by fighting each other over access to gasoline

7:56

until a very last tank runs dry. seemingly

8:00

bleak vision that Miller follows through on

8:02

without compromise, turning his hero into a

8:04

lonely drifter and scavenger who would wander

8:07

in and out of human communities in

8:09

two sequels without quite finding a home

8:11

there. Miller would find

8:13

signs of hope later, but in Mad

8:15

Max, there's only righteous spasms of violence.

8:18

Check the

8:20

last of the V8s. Shuffle

8:23

the gate on this one Max, it's the duck's

8:25

guts. Check the last of the V8s. Duck's

8:28

nitro, face, forehead, queen

8:31

over head, tan, 600 miles through the wheel, foot with

8:34

the power. Firing the music

8:37

in the 50th line, come

8:39

on. He's

8:41

in a coma there. Okay.

8:52

How the hell did you get all

8:54

this together? Just

8:57

happen, Max, you know, piece from here to

9:00

piece from there. So

9:03

easy? Yeah. Come on,

9:06

Max, you've seen it, you've

9:08

heard it, and you're still asking questions.

9:12

When do we go for a ride? So

9:19

George Miller had the

9:21

resources to do much

9:23

bigger things with the

9:25

Mad Max movies in the sequels. Does it

9:28

diminish to some extent the effect

9:30

this first film had on you or does it

9:32

still pack a punch? Oh, I

9:34

like the progression from this, like the sort

9:36

of base level and like adding like ever

9:39

more elaborate, you know,

9:41

visuals and themes and just

9:45

the way the world alters from film to film. I

9:47

like this is like a baseline, like you're good solid.

9:49

And I think as you pointed out in the keynote,

9:51

good solid, but like better than

9:53

solid, 70s revenge story. I

9:55

mean, I think it's kind of like to Ospoitation

9:58

films or even 70s revenge story. like

10:00

kind of what the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is to

10:02

70s horror films. Like, oh, this is someone who

10:04

knows how to squeeze every bit of resources out

10:06

of the budget he's got and really kind of

10:08

has a vision for what a complete vision for

10:10

what this film ought to be. I'm

10:12

not even sure I would call this

10:14

a revenge thriller. I mean, it does

10:16

have the elements of, you know, man

10:18

loses family, man runs

10:21

amok, man gets revenge. But

10:23

when when I hear that title, when

10:26

I hear about that sub genre, I

10:28

always expect it to be a story

10:30

about somebody, you know, Keanu Reeves and

10:32

John Wick character, like somebody who loses

10:35

the thing they value really early.

10:37

And it's an excuse for nonstop

10:39

mayhem. In this case,

10:41

the nonstop mayhem starts really early

10:44

for completely different reasons. And there's

10:46

just so much attention put into

10:48

world building here about his relationship

10:50

and about what it means to him and

10:52

about who he is and what the world

10:54

that he he's living in is like where

10:57

it's all coming from. The

10:59

revenge elements seem like like a last

11:01

act edition as opposed to the center

11:03

point of the movie. And like

11:05

the fact that the movie is just so much described

11:08

in those terms makes me think

11:10

that other people are in the

11:12

same boat I'm in where I haven't watched

11:14

this film since college and a

11:16

lot of the elements of it I had forgotten

11:18

a lot of the kind of

11:20

like process and character interaction

11:23

and like the stuff that builds

11:25

up all of the the

11:28

environment that Max is operating

11:30

through to the point where by

11:32

the time he stops caring about any of

11:34

it, it feels a little bit like a

11:37

loss and very much like an understandable thing.

11:39

It's funny too how much of stuff is already

11:42

in place like the really hyper verbal villains

11:44

particularly with that seem to be like be

11:46

operating like some kind of cracked

11:48

view of the world that's nonetheless allowed him to

11:50

thrive in this environment. I mean you get one

11:53

of those at least one of those in each

11:55

movie and it begins here as much as like

11:57

as humble as the beginning of a beginning as an.

12:00

in terms of like production design. I feel

12:02

like the vision for where this was going

12:04

to go, not that Miller just said

12:06

he has sequels in mind, but I think it's sort of

12:08

a complete vision for what this world was, was there from

12:10

the beginning. This is where I have to jump

12:12

in and admit that before we decided to

12:14

do this pairing, I hadn't seen any

12:17

of the pre-Fury Road, Mad Maxis. I

12:19

loved Fury Road, but it just, it

12:21

did not inspire me to go back to the

12:23

originals, perhaps because of a certain

12:26

Mel Gibson version that

12:28

has developed, but. No,

12:30

why would that? Why would that?

12:33

That's a whole other podcast. So

12:35

watching this, to go back to

12:37

like your original question, Scott, about

12:39

like, you know, if the film feels diminished in

12:41

any way, I wouldn't say it feels diminished, but

12:43

I did, having come to it directly

12:45

from Fury Road, being my most recent

12:47

Mad Max experience, it was a little

12:49

distracting just trying to like reverse engineer

12:52

like how we got there from

12:54

here. There's a

12:56

big leap between Mad Max and The Road

12:58

Warrior. Yes, which I know now because I've

13:00

also seen The Road Warrior. But like once

13:02

I got after that initial distraction, it

13:04

was kind of like, oh, well, this is an

13:07

origin story. And to go back to what Tasha

13:09

was saying about it being like considered a

13:11

revenge movie, like I agree,

13:13

it doesn't, you know, follow

13:15

the structure we expect of a

13:18

revenge movie, but I think in terms

13:20

of it being an origin story of

13:22

a franchise where revenge is

13:24

a big theme, you

13:26

know, and a big motivating factor for

13:29

the titular protagonist and also

13:31

a big theme in the movie we are pairing it with for

13:33

that matter, I think it kind of

13:36

functions as like a revenge origin story,

13:38

I guess, but also obviously what

13:41

happens to Max's wife and child is

13:43

sort of like the big incident that

13:45

we're building toward. Like

13:47

revenge is kind of baked into it from

13:49

the beginning because Toe Cutter's

13:51

gang is seeking revenge for

13:54

the Knight Rider. And then what

13:57

happens to Goose kind of drives Max

13:59

on. on a little,

14:01

so they're ping ponging revenge

14:04

back and forth throughout this

14:06

movie. And then, like

14:08

I said, just building to the

14:10

big final act that this wasn't

14:12

known at the time, but we

14:14

know now, just sets in motion

14:16

this whole extended narrative, or at

14:18

least that characterization of the

14:20

title character. So yeah, anyway, I

14:22

didn't find it a diminished experience, but

14:24

just an odd one to reconcile

14:26

it with modern Mad

14:28

Max experiences, but eliminating. To

14:31

be fair, I feel like

14:34

Fury Road is sort of a ramp

14:36

up from every film ever made, kind

14:38

of. So it's like, it

14:40

is, in that sense, crude. Everything is crude.

14:42

But you point out what

14:44

I wanted to point out about revenge being

14:46

a part of this story from the beginning

14:49

with Knight Rider and the toe cutter. And

14:51

in this cycle, being

14:54

understood pretty consistently as

14:57

quite destructive to society on

14:59

top of the other things that society is

15:01

doing to self-immolate in these movies. My

15:04

thing, though, I've been able to revisit Mad

15:06

Max a couple of times recently.

15:09

I did a 40th anniversary thing for

15:11

Guardian, I guess a couple of years ago, well,

15:14

however, five years ago. And then Keith and

15:16

I just did a conversation about the first

15:18

three Mad Max movies for the reveal. And

15:20

I am blown away by how good

15:23

this film is for what it is.

15:25

Keith mentioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre

15:27

sort of setting a bar. I

15:30

think another film this reminds me of

15:32

is Assault on Precinct 13, which was

15:34

the same year, I believe, or close to it, right?

15:37

Was Assault like 79 or 77? Yeah,

15:40

somewhere. One of those years. Maybe. Or maybe not.

15:43

It was before. I don't know. I got the

15:45

dates mixed up. But in any case, it's just

15:47

like, OK, this is somebody who has

15:49

been given roughly the

15:51

same sorts of resources that

15:54

other low-budget directors have

15:56

made exploitation films with. And there's

15:59

a level of that. level of craft

16:01

that is kind of mind blowing

16:03

from the beginning. Just things like,

16:05

you know, camera angles and the

16:07

choreography of the stunt work that

16:10

they do have in the film,

16:12

which is extremely impressive. The investment

16:14

in costume design and,

16:17

you know, and in kind of building up

16:20

the locations that they have to a pretty

16:22

evocative degree. I mean, it's so

16:25

impressive a feat. And I think just,

16:27

I think it does on its, does

16:29

still quite work on its own raw

16:32

terms too. It makes sense to

16:34

me that it was

16:36

a sensation at the time still,

16:39

because I think, because you just

16:41

don't encounter that, this level of

16:43

craft in this arena very

16:46

often. You know, in that

16:48

sense, I do have a harder time

16:50

seeing that, watching this movie when

16:52

comparing it to his more

16:55

recent ones, because so many

16:57

of the ideas in this movie

16:59

he refined, particularly in

17:01

Fury Road. Toe cutter here, the relationship

17:04

between toe cutter and night writer is

17:07

basically Immortan Joe and the

17:09

war boys, you know, toe cutter while

17:12

doing something crazy suicidal keeps going on

17:14

about like, you know, this will make him see me

17:16

like he's going to see me. He's going to know

17:18

me. He's going to remember me like we're going to

17:20

go in style. And they're

17:22

just like all of these other elements.

17:25

The actor here, Hugh Keysburne, who plays

17:27

toe cutter, went on to play Immortan

17:29

Joe. Like it's literally the same character

17:32

just refined, made more

17:34

operatic and theatrical with like the

17:36

addition of a ridiculous over the

17:38

top costume, but still

17:40

kind of like a messianic figure.

17:42

Like, as you say, like a

17:44

very verbal one, but also one

17:47

specifically dedicated to a kind

17:49

of destructive cynicism and to

17:52

corrupting younger people into

17:54

embracing this like this air

17:57

of nihilism and destructiveness that

17:59

will speak. that he gives to Johnny the Boy when

18:01

he's trying to get him to set

18:03

the car on fire is just not that

18:05

different from the kind of things Immortan Joe

18:08

says to his followers. And

18:10

between that and like some of

18:12

the specific like road set pieces

18:14

and just like the the overall

18:17

kind of tenor of the the

18:19

gang versus everybody else like philosophy,

18:22

it's not that that makes that that diminishes

18:24

that watching this movie diminishes Fury Road in

18:26

any way, but it does feel a little

18:28

bit like reading a brief history of time

18:30

and then like looking up Stephen

18:32

Hawking's like junior high school math

18:35

notes, you know, you can you can

18:38

see all of these elements kind of being put into

18:40

place apart from the

18:42

the action stuff, which is still

18:44

kind of eye popping. I maybe

18:46

didn't appreciate Oh

18:50

my gosh. Yeah, that's that cut in that

18:52

he keeps doing that's basically just a God,

18:55

is it large March and Yeah,

18:59

that's pretty much what it looks like. It's

19:01

also I never noticed before until I rewatch

19:03

Fury Road and like when Max is having

19:05

those flashes of his haunted past, there's one

19:07

brief flash that basically is a recreation of

19:09

that shot. That's amazing. Yeah, I think he

19:11

just keeps playing in these movies. He keeps

19:13

playing with the same ideas like he's trying

19:15

to get sort of closer and closer to

19:17

some some idealized goal.

19:20

Yeah, that the toe cutter speech also

19:22

doesn't really feel all that different from

19:24

what Dementis tells Furiosa

19:26

and Pretorian Jack in Furiosa. It's like

19:28

he keeps noodling around with these same

19:31

ideas and just like finding different forms

19:33

for them. It's interesting to think of

19:35

Immortan Joe as just sort of like

19:37

an evolution of toe cutter, especially because

19:41

in Mad Max, it kind of sees seems

19:43

like we see a little bit of evolution

19:46

of toe cutter happen as well. And

19:48

this kind of goes back to what

19:51

we've been talking about, like with sort of the like hyper

19:53

verbal kind of, you

19:56

know, almost buffoonish gang members we have.

19:58

And I say

20:00

all this to bring up Bubba Zanetti, who

20:02

is sort of toe cutters other half. It

20:05

doesn't mean it's not even clear to me

20:07

like what the like hierarchy

20:09

there is, but there is that scene

20:11

where like they're all kind of goofing

20:13

around on the beach with the mannequin

20:16

and Bubba Zanetti, who is like very much

20:18

sort of like the more stoic of the

20:20

two of them says to the toe cutter

20:23

like joviality is a game of children. And

20:25

like from that moment on the toe cutter seems

20:28

so much more serious and

20:30

like that's when he drags Johnny the boy

20:32

like out into the water and sticks a

20:34

gun in his mouth and then the speech

20:37

to him happens after that. And so there

20:39

does seem to be this like sort of

20:41

switch over that happens with the toe cutter

20:43

from like this very like flamboyant I guess

20:46

introduction that he gets as

20:48

part of this like goon squad. And

20:51

then by the end, he like kind

20:53

of evolves into a more ominous, threatening

20:55

character, I guess. And then

20:57

kind of to think of Immortan Joe as

20:59

where that eventually goes, because that's another character

21:01

that does not really have that sort of

21:05

goofy layer over him the way a

21:07

lot of villains in this franchise seem

21:09

to that just struck me as

21:11

interesting. But also like we don't I

21:14

never see Bob is Zanetti mentioned,

21:17

you know, as the antagonist of this, but

21:19

it seems like he is pretty

21:21

important. Maybe after watching it,

21:23

I don't know, maybe one those of you with

21:26

more experience of this film have a different opinion.

21:29

You don't. I don't know. I definitely

21:31

don't have a different opinion. It's

21:33

just more that I mean,

21:35

his messianic like apocalyptic villains

21:39

who surround themselves with just like

21:41

very, very specific, very colorful, like

21:43

sub villains who might or might

21:45

not ever actually do anything in

21:47

the movie. Like that's that's a

21:49

theme in Furiosa. You

21:51

know, Octoboss gets his own gigantic

21:54

action sequence. But like what is it?

21:56

The human eater, I think is the

21:58

name of the guy. the suit with

22:01

the bald head who just keeps getting

22:03

weirder and weirder throughout these films. Never

22:05

really amounts to much except for, um,

22:07

except for speechifying. Like, there's

22:10

some of the, some of these,

22:12

uh, kind of like sub bosses step

22:15

up and seem to represent, uh,

22:17

specific things in their own right, kind

22:19

of specific aspects of the

22:21

villain personality. And I, in the original Mad Max,

22:23

I kind of see that going on, you

22:26

know, with different ones of them. Although there

22:28

are elements of this story in particular, why,

22:30

how, why and how Johnny, the boy gets

22:33

left behind. There are,

22:35

there are kind of elements of the storytelling here

22:37

that confuse me in terms of kind of

22:39

how we're supposed to feel about these different characters,

22:42

how we're supposed to feel toe cutter feels

22:44

about them. The amount

22:46

of respect shown for Knight Rider after

22:48

his death might be because

22:51

of his death and because of the way he

22:53

died. It might just be because they're looking for

22:55

an excuse for mayhem, but it certainly doesn't feel

22:57

like toe cutter feels the same way about like

22:59

any of the rest of the gang, including like

23:01

his, his most competent, most present

23:03

minion who may or may not actually

23:05

be his minion. Yeah. I'm glad you,

23:07

you mentioned that about some of the

23:09

storytelling, storytelling being a little, I guess,

23:11

short handed, uh, is,

23:13

is the, uh, a nice way to put it. Cause

23:15

there were definitely a few sequences

23:17

here where I had to rewind and be like, did

23:19

I miss something? Like, why is this happening

23:22

now? I'm thinking of

23:24

when the couple flees the town and they,

23:26

they go after them in the car and

23:28

it's like, wait, why are they chasing after

23:31

them now? And it doesn't really seem like

23:33

there is a reason other than it's just

23:35

like, it's more mayhem. Yeah. Yeah. Basically. I

23:37

think the guy has a very pretty car.

23:39

I mean, you know, I, what I, what

23:41

I said to my husband in that moment

23:43

was just, are they basically a

23:46

cat? Like they see something running and they're going to

23:48

chase it, but it is a

23:50

very, very pretty lure. What

23:52

confused me maybe a little more was

23:54

the sequence immediately before that where sort

23:56

of with the, with the understanding of

23:59

like, how it all plays out, I

24:01

think what we're seeing is like

24:03

the gang is hanging out and playing with

24:05

a local who kind of thinks he's one

24:07

of them, and then they turn on him

24:09

for fun, and he runs and

24:11

they chase him. But in the moment, what it

24:13

feels like is, you know, the gang is hanging

24:16

out and suddenly they attack one of

24:18

their members and throw him through a window, and

24:20

then suddenly run off after a

24:22

car, and then leave one of

24:24

their members chained up at

24:26

the side of the wreckage of the car

24:29

for some reason. Again, sort of

24:31

the whole process there may

24:33

be like a very specific sequence of

24:35

motivated events in George Miller's mind, but

24:37

I'm not sure that the storytelling makes

24:40

it clear. It's almost as if these

24:42

were half-crazed post-apocalyptic wasteland waters. It may

24:44

not be held accountable to logic in

24:47

many ways. It's good logic. Don't figure

24:49

it out. In a group

24:51

specifically of an apocalyptic leader who wants them

24:53

at all to embrace nihilism. I

24:55

mean, I think I mark it up to sort

24:57

of a Clockwork Orangey type behavior of just like,

24:59

we're just going to visit terror

25:02

and mayhem on the most vulnerable

25:04

people that we can. So

25:07

that accounts for that. But we've

25:09

got a lot more to discuss. I

25:11

kind of wanted to get into what

25:13

Tasha was saying about George Miller's world

25:16

building. So we'll do that after a

25:18

short break. And

25:29

we're back. I wanted to touch

25:32

on something that Tasha mentioned early

25:34

on about the world building in

25:37

Mad Max because it is somewhat

25:39

limited, but it has existed.

25:41

So I want to know, I guess, what

25:44

we know about his

25:46

near future as he

25:49

shows us and whether you found yourself

25:52

wishing that we knew more. So

25:55

much hinges on that dangling, what is it,

25:57

the you in the justice sign? Meanwhile,

26:00

at the halls of justice. Just

26:03

such a very simple but effective

26:05

image in terms of establishing the

26:07

state of law and order in

26:10

this world. Yeah, for sure. The

26:13

other thing that gets me, I mean, obviously

26:15

there's the sign on the highway, noting the

26:18

escalating number of fatalities. And both of

26:20

those things, both of those are signs,

26:23

literal signs that could be put together

26:25

on the cheap and put up. And

26:28

there you have it. And I think just the

26:30

device of knowing that this is happening

26:32

a few years from now is pretty

26:35

amazing in terms of where

26:38

Miller sees things going. I

26:40

think one of my favorite aspects of, in terms

26:43

of world building in this movie,

26:46

is something that happens really, really

26:48

late in the film, which is

26:50

when Max and his family are

26:52

on their retreat and his wife

26:54

and child go off to get

26:57

ice cream. And it's just like,

26:59

when is that going to happen? This is just the last,

27:01

this has got to be, it feels like it's got to

27:03

be the last ice cream stand

27:05

on earth, right? I mean, when

27:08

is such a thing ever going

27:10

to appear in another Mad Max

27:12

movie? And of

27:15

course that is exactly when they are spotted

27:18

and tormented and killed, or at least

27:21

the boy's killed and the wife is, the

27:24

prognosis negative, I guess, for the wife. I

27:29

need to discuss, I need to talk about that for a minute because

27:32

Max gives up real easy on

27:34

his wife who are like, we're

27:36

told like all her signs came back

27:38

overnight. Like, it's still like touch and

27:40

go, but she's not dead yet. But he acts like she's

27:43

dead. And combined

27:45

with the earlier scene of when

27:47

he sees goose in the hospital

27:50

and like he's charred, he's charred husk,

27:52

but he moves, he's alive. And Max

27:54

is like, that's not good. That thing

27:56

isn't goose. And he runs off, you

27:58

know, he is like very. ready to

28:00

give up on his loved ones when something

28:02

bad happens to them. I mean, George Miller

28:04

had a medical degree. He worked as a

28:06

doctor prior to becoming a full member. So

28:08

like, you know, there's a lot of hospital

28:11

scenes in that. Perhaps he knew what he

28:13

was actually doing in depicting those. I

28:15

think there is also maybe a feeling

28:17

that Max is not a person who

28:19

handles adversity well, shall

28:22

we say. I mean, It just makes him so

28:24

mad. It really, it makes him

28:26

angry or furious or something like that.

28:30

Yes. I mean, I think that he

28:33

rejects what's left of Goose as not

28:35

Goose anymore, because admitting that that is

28:37

his friend would mean doing things like,

28:39

you know, sitting by his bedside or

28:41

hanging on to the possibility that he

28:43

might recover and trying to help out

28:45

with that. And he just wants to

28:47

be away. And, you

28:50

know, dealing with the situation with his

28:52

wife and his child, he doesn't want

28:54

to be there to comfort her and face her

28:56

as she is. He wants to

28:58

go get revenge. Like he's got

29:00

his own, you know, he hasn't been getting

29:03

toe cutter speeches, but he's got his own

29:05

nihilistic streak. I think

29:07

to some degree, he just wants to watch

29:09

the world burn or at least the parts of the

29:12

world that hurt him much more

29:14

than he wants to like hang

29:16

on tightly and be there emotionally

29:18

for people. Yeah. And to go back

29:20

to the question about sort of like

29:22

world building and the depiction of

29:24

this, the society and collapse, like

29:26

if I'm being generous and reading

29:29

those couple of scenes, like, you

29:31

know, presumably like there is even

29:33

less hope for those people than

29:35

there would have been if society

29:37

weren't mid collapse. And, you know,

29:39

Max's reaction is just sort of

29:42

an underlining of that fact that

29:44

like, you know, there's there's no

29:46

coming back from this, you know, like they

29:48

are sort of personifications of

29:50

where society is, you know,

29:53

at this point, like not quite

29:55

dead, not quite fallen, but, you

29:57

know, the signs are all there, you

29:59

know, it's not recovering. There is something

30:01

that a couple of points, but one

30:04

is something that Keith pointed out in

30:06

the conversation that we had on the

30:08

reveal over these first three films is

30:10

just how the justice system works as

30:12

we see it. It's very

30:14

common to kind of more

30:17

right wing vigilante films because

30:19

they always start with like justice system

30:21

is soft. People are getting off too

30:23

easy. They're getting lawyered out of the

30:25

charges that they're getting lawyered out of

30:27

what's coming to them and that's actually

30:30

something that Mad Max kind of embraces

30:32

even though I don't think

30:34

on balance you would describe the

30:36

Mad Max films as being particularly

30:38

conservative. Right Keith? I'm

30:40

trying to... No, it's like kind of like I'm going

30:43

to reply to you. I

30:45

don't think this is intentionally trying to

30:47

send a conservative message, but I

30:49

also don't think the story here as we see

30:51

it, I don't think it's totally free of that.

30:54

You kind of end up playing into the

30:56

same view of culture and what's destroying

30:58

it in particular. That

31:02

revolving door justice system that just puts all those

31:04

creeps back on the streets, Scott. It's

31:07

just so good. In some ways that was kind of

31:09

by 79, it feels like that was kind of a cliche. And

31:14

I think there's one way to read this film is like

31:17

as we've been kind of talking about is like an escalating

31:19

revenge tale on both sides in

31:22

which one actor revenge leads to

31:24

another. So there might be

31:26

a little bit of critique built into it that way, but

31:28

I do feel like subsequent

31:30

Mad Max films are far more

31:33

explicit in not just

31:35

playing into that vigilante

31:37

mindset that's really...

31:40

That's prominent here. I guess the other thing is

31:42

like it is also very ugly here.

31:45

I mean, the final scene of this movie is so

31:47

chilly. Like the first time I saw this film,

31:49

and let's say the badly dubbed American version

31:52

that was

31:54

the only one you can get here for a long time, it's

31:56

like that was, you know, that bit just

31:58

chilled me to the bone. I mean,

32:00

it's like, this is what it's not like

32:03

Max is necessarily a warm character

32:05

at the beginning of the film. We certainly have the

32:07

stuff, you know, talk where he talks about how hard

32:09

it is for him to communicate, but you'd really get

32:12

this since he loves his wife and child. But, but

32:14

the person we see at the end, seems someone

32:17

very far removed from the warmer

32:19

Max of the, of the opening

32:21

scenes. And I think it's significant.

32:23

He's called on to chase Knight Rider because

32:25

everybody else has failed. But when

32:28

Knight Rider crashes, he leaps

32:30

out of his car and looks kind of appalled.

32:32

Like he, he doesn't like

32:35

throw out some Arnold Schwarzenegger, like, hot note

32:37

for you, kind of quip about

32:39

the guy's death. And it doesn't seem like

32:41

he was trying to, no

32:43

pun intended, drive him to it. It just

32:45

seems like the guy went off the road

32:47

because he was so determined to, to get

32:50

away. He was so determined not to pull

32:52

over and not to give in to the

32:54

cops. But it doesn't feel

32:56

like an assassination. It doesn't feel like a

32:58

dirty Harry, like you're the bad guy, therefore

33:00

I murder you and solve the problem moment.

33:02

Like that's something that he comes to later.

33:05

But in that, that opening chase

33:08

sequence, like he seems genuinely kind

33:10

of horrified how that,

33:13

that chase ends. Maybe not super surprised,

33:16

but not like it was his intention all along

33:18

or like he feels smug at seeing like another

33:20

evil doer get the explosive death that was coming

33:22

to them. I think if you've been on set

33:24

though and throwing the line hot enough for you

33:27

to, to George Miller, he couldn't have turned it

33:29

down. No, I was, I was, I was, I

33:31

have to say, what

33:34

you mentioned that I was like thinking, what

33:36

would be the line for that? But

33:40

I hope not. I hope that that's not

33:42

true. I think that, you

33:44

know, what we're seeing in that moment is a

33:46

man that still has some decency to him about

33:49

other people, which there's not a lot of in

33:51

this world. Well, part of what marks him out

33:53

as a protagonist is not just that he can

33:55

love a wife and child. It's not just that

33:58

he can, you know, say nice things. things

34:00

about his dead father, like while lying

34:02

shirtless in a field, it's

34:04

that he can authentically like still feel

34:06

a little empathy for, you

34:09

know, people who lose their lives. And...

34:12

And by the end, it's all God. Yes.

34:14

This movie is unquestionably about

34:16

him changing to

34:19

the man that we see like

34:21

later in the series. And

34:23

having rewatched this back to back with

34:25

Road Warrior, by the time we get to Road

34:28

Warrior, it's not that he's like

34:30

a murderous monster, it's just that he pushes

34:32

away any kind of human connection. And

34:34

it feels like an extension of what Genevieve

34:36

was talking about in terms of how

34:39

he responds to like goose in

34:41

the hospital or his wife in the hospital.

34:43

Like human connection has hurt him and

34:45

he doesn't want to feel any more of it. And

34:47

it's... He still maybe deep down

34:50

has a little bit of sympathy for

34:52

other people, but if so, he definitely

34:54

quashes it and it's possible to

34:56

read it as no, it's just gone and he's done. I

34:59

mean, he tries to, I mean, but he kind of doesn't

35:01

always succeed. I mean, in both Road Warrior

35:04

and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, he finds

35:07

pockets of humanity that he aligns himself

35:09

with. Not permanently, he kind of goes

35:11

back to being sort of a drifter

35:14

and scavenger. So it's not a redemptive

35:16

experience for him or a rejoining of

35:18

society, but there is something there.

35:21

He's not completely cold. But I would say

35:23

one of the things that's effective about Mad

35:25

Max is that as I think, and

35:28

this is reinforced by what happens to him, but

35:30

also other elements of the film is it feels

35:32

like it's a film about kind

35:34

of the moment where the last sort

35:36

of embers of humanity

35:38

are being stamped out. I

35:40

mean, this moment where the

35:43

police are completely losing control of

35:45

present, but losing control. I mentioned

35:48

the ice cream stand

35:50

thing. The other scene that I

35:52

really love, and this was mentioned

35:54

before, but the scene in the

35:56

town where Toecutter and the gang

35:58

go to retrieve their night

36:01

rider from the train station. Just the conception

36:03

of that, and again, this is done on

36:06

a low budget scale, but it feels like

36:08

a Western. I mean, it's kind of that

36:10

one horse town where when the outlaws come

36:12

to town, the streets are empty. If

36:15

people are there, they're hiding in their homes, and it's

36:17

just like, okay, the society has

36:20

now turned back the clock completely

36:23

to a time where it's unsettled again, where

36:25

lawless people

36:27

are in charge and to be

36:30

feared. And then

36:32

when this couple does, that's sort of

36:34

peering at them, does unfortunately make themselves

36:36

known, they become vulnerable

36:38

and hunted because that's kind of the way

36:41

the world works now. But there's also that

36:43

line about how they're waiting for

36:45

a friend to come in on a train. That's

36:48

just straight up high noon. It's

36:51

very, very specific echoes

36:53

of Westerns among the many other

36:55

things this movie's doing. And just

36:57

the line of motorcycles, like sidling

37:00

up along, I really

37:03

love that shot, just of like

37:05

a line of 30 motorcycles in

37:07

a perfect line. Just

37:11

waiting. Yeah. It's like

37:13

they're horses, is what I'm saying. Western. Yes. Yeah.

37:16

Okay, okay. Making sure that was there.

37:18

Also just waiting for Pee Wee Herman to knock

37:21

them all down. I think Western is definitely a

37:23

genre that influences the most, but I think I'd

37:25

be remiss not point out there's

37:27

also 60s biker films. They had to kind of run their

37:29

course at this point, but the plot of many

37:31

of them is bikers come in and they

37:33

tear up what law remains in some small

37:35

towns. And

37:38

I think it's definitely sort

37:40

of played into this film's world

37:42

as well. For sure. As far

37:45

as that feeling of the last

37:47

vestiges of civilization being snuffed out,

37:49

Scott, you talk about your favorite

37:51

detail of all of this world

37:53

building being the ice cream band.

37:56

One of my favorite details is the

37:58

head of the police force. realizing

38:01

he really needs to retain Max because

38:03

he's his best chase guy and his

38:06

way of doing that is to have

38:09

the the motor pool assemble him a

38:11

really cool car and then claim

38:13

I you know it just no big deal we did

38:15

not do this for you it just sort of happened

38:17

but you you won't get to drive it unless you

38:19

stay with the police force and continue driving this car

38:22

and like the the idea of like this

38:24

this is a dead-end job there is no

38:27

future in it there's nothing to hold on

38:29

for in terms of you

38:31

know promotion or pension

38:33

retirement anything like that like

38:36

teaching a cadre of like

38:38

young recruits the only thing

38:41

to hold on to it for is you

38:43

know getting getting a little bit of like pleasure out

38:45

of being in a cool car

38:48

and the idea that that's what you

38:50

dangle in son or in front of

38:52

somebody as a retention bonus I

38:54

just I find really striking it also kind of

38:56

shows how thin the line is between Max and

38:59

the police and the people they're chasing because they're

39:01

kind of in it for the thrill of cars

39:03

too right oh cycles

39:05

cycles I mean when they when they

39:07

run down and smash that that very

39:10

pretty car to bits maybe it's because

39:12

they they're just engaging in a motorcycle

39:14

supremacy they just can't stand that somebody

39:16

else's cars shinier than I did when

39:18

I was watching I did wonder like

39:21

is there some sort of like motorcycle

39:23

car gang division here that this is

39:25

supposed to indicate clearly not but you

39:28

know it could have been part of the

39:30

world building I suppose like gangs divvied up

39:32

by their wheels such as it is and

39:35

see by the time road warrior runs around

39:37

like they they've resolved that war and you've

39:39

got like cycles and and

39:42

cars and trucks like all operating in

39:44

peaceful harmony because they've realized they've got

39:46

a you know gang up against everybody

39:48

else but I I think

39:51

there might be a rivalry here in

39:53

this moment well there is like during

39:55

the big climactic chase there is sort

39:57

of a two wheels versus four moment

39:59

when the bikes are able to go

40:01

around the semi and Max in his

40:03

car is not, and that's what sort

40:05

of facilitates the trap that

40:07

gets him. So yeah,

40:09

more motorcycle supremacy, I guess, although I guess

40:12

it doesn't work out for them in the

40:14

end. Well,

40:17

I guess one thing, one question I

40:19

have is just, you know, we've certainly

40:21

seen plenty of dystopic visions of the

40:24

future in movies, and we would

40:26

see, of course, Miller continue

40:28

to expand on oil

40:30

shortages and give us

40:32

these somewhere more ever more elaborate

40:35

vehicles. But any thoughts on just

40:37

his idea that motorized vehicles were

40:39

going to be so central to

40:41

the future as he

40:43

sees it? I mean, that feels like

40:46

a very Australian thing to me. Yeah.

40:48

I think maybe like Australian and US

40:50

kind of share this in terms of

40:52

the centrality of driving

40:54

to our culture because we are very, uh,

40:57

like Australia is even more so a

40:59

very like spread out and remote country

41:02

long distances between places to

41:04

go, you know? And so

41:06

being able to traverse that

41:08

expanse is a premium,

41:10

you know, Genevieve, how would you know about

41:12

this? What

41:15

I can't hear you over the cars on eight mile

41:17

here in the motor city. Oh,

41:20

I'm afraid. How would you know so much about

41:22

Australia? Oh, oh, oh, I've been to Australia. Is

41:24

that what you're saying? Really? This

41:27

place first hand. Yes. Although

41:30

nothing of the sort that

41:32

is seen here. I was, I remained

41:34

in civilization when I

41:36

was in Australia. So if you can call Australia

41:38

civilization, don't send your email. So

41:42

you were not approached at any time

41:44

by a messianic, like cult leader who

41:46

wanted you to, I don't know, maybe

41:49

die to to like preserve your memory

41:51

for all time. I mean, I held

41:53

a koala and it was very charismatic.

41:55

So, you know, if that had lasted

41:57

much longer, I might have joined his

42:00

but no, not that good.

42:02

That sounds so much more pleasant than

42:04

my Wolf Creek movie tour that I

42:06

went on. But

42:10

yeah, that is a very good

42:12

point about just kind of the

42:14

vastness of the country. It's something

42:17

that's of course reinforced in

42:19

the Road Warrior itself, which

42:22

is about this community that is

42:24

trying to get to some

42:26

sort of Eden or some sort of oasis that

42:28

theoretically exists and is 2,000 miles

42:30

away. So

42:34

you kind of need a

42:36

car to get there. But I also think there's

42:38

kind of that association with

42:40

masculinity, these vehicles,

42:44

cars and motorcycles and vroom

42:46

vroom and that sort of deal. And

42:48

the size and the power of

42:50

these vehicles is obviously becomes

42:53

incredibly important for both

42:55

practical and symbolic reasons. But there's

42:58

also just the association between mobility

43:00

and freedom. In an environment where

43:02

there's fewer and fewer resources, you

43:05

need to roam further and further to

43:07

find those resources. And

43:09

in Furiosa in particular, we see how

43:12

far you have to go to find

43:14

someplace green and how important

43:16

it is to travel long distances if

43:18

you want to actually find something new

43:21

or find something that hasn't been exploited

43:23

or find a place that isn't already

43:25

owned. So just having the mobility on

43:28

one hand to escape your circumstances

43:30

or go looking for new resources

43:33

is important. And for the bad

43:35

guys, having the mobility to chase down

43:37

anybody that's trying to get above their

43:39

station by doing any of these things

43:42

or even just escape with the current

43:44

situation is equally important. Just

43:46

throughout this film series, we see people

43:48

who don't have vehicles like are

43:51

living in holes in the ground or just

43:53

sort of like depressed places

43:55

full of mud. If

43:57

you don't have a vehicle, if you're not...

43:59

capable of picking up stakes and moving on,

44:02

or at least getting out of dodge when the

44:05

gangs show up. You're probably in

44:08

trouble. I think probably maybe an

44:10

even more simple explanation, and I

44:12

haven't looked to see if Miller

44:14

spoke on this, but this

44:16

is the tail end of the

44:18

gas crisis of the 1970s, which

44:22

kind of crippled a lot of

44:25

economies worldwide. And

44:28

obviously gas petroleum was

44:30

a big part of that. So it

44:32

could just be as simple as this

44:35

was kind of the crisis of

44:37

the moment, and he extrapolated outward from

44:39

there. That does make a lot of

44:41

sense. Yeah. And it also speaks so

44:43

much to the way something like that

44:46

ends up having massive political implications. I

44:48

mean, it certainly did in the United

44:50

States. And it's something I always think

44:52

about whenever an election rolls around. It's

44:56

like gas prices are high. Does that mean democracy

44:58

is going to be over? It's

45:00

like those are the considerations that people have.

45:03

So these sorts of things end

45:05

up being very important, to say the least. We

45:07

should just consider the option that all of

45:10

these movies revolve around vehicles, because George Miller

45:12

just really likes a chase sequence. It's

45:15

very hard to have a 20-minute

45:17

explosive chase sequence atop a vehicle.

45:19

If everybody's on foot, it

45:22

really changes the tenor of everything. But

45:24

there's a point that I kind of wanted

45:26

to make that stood

45:29

out for me, I think, more than

45:31

anything else in Mad Max. And that's

45:33

the moment where Max's police superior tries to

45:35

reel him back in, and he says, no, he's

45:37

out. And the line is, any longer

45:40

out there on that road, and I'm one

45:42

of them, a terminal crazy. And

45:45

we all know where that goes. He's

45:47

describing a 45-year future

45:49

that Miller probably didn't

45:51

know was coming, that he wouldn't

45:54

necessarily have the opportunity to build.

45:57

But he is basically describing both where he's going

45:59

to go. in this movie and where

46:01

he's going to go in every subsequent movie.

46:03

He really is a distinctive character, a protagonist,

46:06

a guy who kind of tries to make

46:08

his own role and make his own way

46:10

in the world. But at the same time,

46:12

he's out there with the rest of them.

46:14

He is just another terminal crazy. Well,

46:17

yes. And as you say, George Miller

46:19

himself, also a terminal crazy, since he's

46:21

been doing this for 45 years. So

46:24

we will have a chance to to revisit

46:27

Mad Max in our next episode

46:29

when we talk about Furiosa, a Mad

46:31

Max saga. Until then, we'll pause and come

46:34

back with a little bit of feedback. Now

46:46

it's time for feedback. But before we get

46:49

to it, we want to shout out Film

46:51

Spotting, the next picture shows, Mothership Podcast, hosted

46:53

by Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larson. As

46:55

we record this, Adam and Josh dropped

46:57

a mega episode where they talked to

47:00

Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips about Furiosa

47:02

and dropped a follow up to their

47:04

personal list from a couple of years

47:06

ago about movies for graduates because they

47:08

got they got some kids who

47:10

are getting older. As for feedback,

47:13

this week, we have a couple of voicemails

47:16

to share, which is exciting. It's also a

47:18

reminder that if you want to make an

47:20

audio contribution to our audio medium, you

47:22

can leave your own voicemail at 773-234-9730 or

47:27

create a voice memo and send

47:29

it to comments at nextpershow.net. Not

47:33

everyone can lay down audio and one

47:35

smooth take like me. So

47:38

it's good to have that second option, in my

47:40

opinion. Our first voicemail

47:42

is from Bill Shun, who's a

47:44

friend of the pod and a

47:47

friend of the reveal and also

47:49

the creator of Spelling Me, Solver,

47:51

SB solver.com if you need help

47:53

with spelling me. Anyway, he has

47:55

a correction on the fall guy

47:57

and a little bit more. Greetings,

48:00

next picture show. This is Bill Shunn

48:02

calling from New York City. I

48:04

really enjoyed your episode on the Fall Guy, almost

48:06

as much as I enjoyed the movie itself, but

48:09

I just wanted to speak up in defense

48:12

of Dan Tucker, the stunt coordinator played by

48:14

Winston Duke. Tasha wondered

48:16

how it was that Dan didn't have a

48:18

stuntman lined up to shoot the big car-roll

48:20

scene on the beach. I

48:22

think it was pretty clear that he did. It

48:25

seemed to me that Dan was expecting Colt Severs

48:27

to show up, because Gail, the

48:29

producer, had told him she was bringing him

48:31

in. I think Jodie, the director, was the

48:33

only one who didn't know. At least that's

48:35

how I took it. The

48:38

script overall had more holes in it than

48:40

Tom Ryder's apartment after a gunfight, but for

48:42

me, that wasn't one of them. As

48:45

long as we're on the topic, I also wanted

48:47

to shout out one of my all-time favorite stuntman

48:49

characters, Bear from Get Shorty,

48:52

played by the late James Gandolfini.

48:55

He's pure menace until Chilly Palmer

48:57

puts the beat down on him,

48:59

then wins Bear over with his

49:01

genuine curiosity about what it's

49:03

like to do stunt work in the movies. The

49:06

sure way to a stuntman's heart. Love

49:09

the show. Yeah, I'm carrying

49:11

a little guilt around that one,

49:13

because literally about an hour

49:15

after we recorded that podcast, I thought,

49:18

wait a minute, Winston Duke

49:21

hadn't neglected to line up a

49:23

stuntman. Winston Duke had a stuntman,

49:26

and something happened to that stuntman. That's

49:29

kind of the big central point

49:31

of the movie. He doesn't

49:33

necessarily know what happened to him at that point in

49:35

time. We don't know how much he knows, but

49:38

Gail might have told him that that stuntman isn't coming back,

49:40

or it might just be that he's standing on the beach

49:42

and the guy didn't show up and he doesn't know what

49:44

to do. So that was

49:46

just a massive oversight on my part,

49:48

and thanks, Bill. I appreciate the poke

49:51

about it. I'm a little bit embarrassed

49:53

how quickly I forgot that part of

49:55

the story. You know, Tasha, don't feel

49:57

too embarrassed, because I'm also grateful. the

50:00

bill called in about this because

50:02

when we were recording that, like I could

50:04

feel like it was tickling the back of

50:06

my brain. Like I know there was a

50:08

reason. I know there was a reason, but

50:10

I cannot read the notes I take in

50:12

a movie theater. I don't know why I

50:14

bother and I just like couldn't pull it

50:16

at that moment. So, you know, better late

50:18

than never, we correct the record, but yeah.

50:20

And to be, and to be clear about

50:22

this, and I don't know about the way

50:24

the rest of you feel about this as

50:27

journalists, I'm always kind of great. I'm grateful when

50:29

people kind of point out mistakes that I've made.

50:31

I'm not, I'm not the sort of be like,

50:33

damn you pedantic. As long as they're cool about

50:35

it. Exactly. I'm grateful when there are small mistakes,

50:37

but when they're big ones that make me feel

50:39

stupid, just let me live it in your head.

50:44

There's also, yeah, there's a lot to be said

50:46

for, uh, you know, the tone of like, Hey,

50:48

I want to take you to task as opposed

50:50

to like, look idiots. Yeah. Bill comes in peace,

50:52

I think. So next

50:54

we have a voicemail from our

50:56

good friend, Bob, uh, who dives

50:58

into the thicket of Donnie Darko

51:01

interpretations. Uh, let's hear it, Bob.

51:04

Hey, next picture show. This is Bob calling

51:06

with two responses to your Donnie Darko episode.

51:09

The first is a film that is better

51:11

if the crazy parts are all in the

51:13

protagonist's mind for which I nominate American psycho.

51:16

If it's all literally true, it's a metaphor for 80s

51:19

character that starts interesting and playful, but gets so

51:21

divorced from realities. It goes along that it

51:23

loses both the bite and the fun. But

51:26

if it's in Patrick's head, the early

51:28

parts are just as good and the latter gain

51:30

the pathos of a person who thinks he's more

51:32

important than he really is confronting his own insignificance.

51:35

Plus Chloe seven years plot line becomes much

51:37

more meaningful on several levels. Anybody

51:39

with me? Second, in

51:42

response to Tasha Robinson's indictment of Darko

51:44

for what she calls teen horniness, I'm

51:47

compelled to point out that in Richard Kelly's

51:49

Southland tales singer, Kristo now

51:51

taught us that teen horniness is not

51:53

a crime. Okay. Well, first of

51:56

all, I would like to clarify that I

51:58

never said teen horniness was a crime. And

52:00

in fact, when I called him on it, he went back

52:03

in and scrubbed through the audio and said that I

52:05

just talked about horniness, not specifically about teen horniness. Yeah,

52:08

Batasha, I think the way you talked about

52:10

it implied it was, if not criminal, highly

52:13

distasteful. So I get where he's

52:15

coming from. I mean, I think it's

52:17

a good idea for adults our age

52:19

to be to consider teen horniness

52:21

distasteful because we definitely shouldn't be getting involved

52:23

in it in any way whatsoever. Yeah.

52:26

So what about the American psycho

52:29

comparison here? As the person who

52:31

asked the question, I'm just going to go out and

52:33

say, I think that's a great example and not just

52:35

because of my pro-Baba bias. I

52:38

do think that that is a story that

52:40

if we try to take it on face

52:42

value, it kind of stops making

52:45

sense that it really is one

52:47

that makes a lot more sense

52:49

as a subjective

52:51

experience. I also threw this

52:53

question out on Blue Sky and got a

52:55

bunch of answers that I thought were pretty

52:58

interesting that we could possibly look at. But

53:03

one person said, American Psycho is probably the

53:05

most wrong answer possible to this question, but

53:07

I think it's an interesting one to include

53:09

in this conversation. I'm like, no,

53:12

it really does land for me

53:14

better as an imaginary story, not

53:16

an imaginary story, as a subjective

53:18

story where a lot of the elements are

53:20

in his mind. I just thought of one. You

53:22

ready? Yeah. Vampire's kiss. Oh,

53:25

I have to admit, I still haven't seen that. Legatroy

53:28

Nicholas Cage reference. Yeah. Well, I

53:31

think it works. You know, that movie kind of works

53:33

either way, but I think it's kind of more. I

53:35

don't want to spoil it actually. So, but

53:37

you know, readers, let me know my writer or my wrong. Can you spoil

53:39

the alphabet monologue? Well, I

53:42

mean, if you know what the alphabet, how the

53:44

alphabet works, all 26 letters of it, you kind

53:46

of already have everything you need to know to

53:48

have that spoiled for you. Oh,

53:51

what an amazing movie that is.

53:53

But I think it's a good comparison that

53:56

Bob is making here and the American Psycho

53:58

and the Where. ends up as

54:01

something that has confused me and

54:03

intrigued me over the years because it

54:05

does at a certain point break from

54:08

reality or break from into

54:10

something, as you say, like

54:12

more subjective and a

54:15

little harder to track. But I think the more

54:17

I watch the film, the more I

54:19

kind of appreciate where they

54:21

went with it. And I think it

54:23

still works as potent.

54:26

I don't think it loses any of its potency for that reason.

54:29

So it's pretty good. And I think

54:31

we also we also agree just generally with

54:34

with Donnie Darko that the less

54:36

we know about it, mystery-wise, the less clear

54:38

it is, the better. I

54:41

think that was kind of the consensus on that,

54:43

like wanting to tie together every

54:46

loose thread. That's not really

54:48

a great idea. And the

54:50

director's cut was something that I understand I

54:52

haven't seen suffer as a result of trying

54:55

to do that. A couple of the

54:57

other examples that people brought up that did

54:59

land with me, Black Swan, I

55:01

think is a good one, and The Innocence

55:04

also, I would make a strong argument for

55:06

that. And then there are other things that people

55:08

brought up that I personally don't necessarily agree

55:10

with. But for instance,

55:12

there's Dan Cois' big, you

55:14

know, a viral explosion piece about tar

55:17

and how nothing in tar really happens. I

55:20

don't personally like that interpretation. But your

55:22

mileage may very much vary. And

55:25

I know it did land with a lot of people. I

55:28

don't want to just start that whole tar

55:30

thing over again, but I was like, I

55:34

it's a movie can do that. A movie can exist in this

55:36

world that's not quite real. I

55:38

was reminded of tar when I was rewatching Once

55:40

Upon a Time in America recently, where that whole

55:42

last third has a dreamlike quality that maybe, you

55:44

know, one way to read it is that, you

55:46

know, it is happening in his head. But

55:50

I don't think that's the most interesting reading. I think it's

55:52

just like the movies can go there. Movies can be

55:54

odd and off, you know, just sort of

55:57

two steps away from reality. And it can

55:59

be all that. all the more interesting for

56:01

that. Yeah. Several people

56:03

also cited Total Recall, which

56:06

on some level I think that is funnier if

56:08

it's all in his head. I'm not sure that

56:10

it's more interesting per se. Yeah,

56:13

I mean all interesting examples for

56:15

sure. Before we close out

56:17

of feedback, we did get an

56:19

email from listener Sarah and Albany pointing out

56:22

that she was able to watch Tarsum's The

56:24

Fall from her library system and she encourages

56:26

others to seek it and other hard to

56:28

stream films through their libraries too. Great

56:31

suggestion. However, she also chides

56:33

me for teasing Tasha about

56:36

The Fall being impossible to watch. So I

56:38

wanna clarify that me interrupting Tasha was a

56:40

bit, it was a pre-planned bit. Now

56:42

I have been cast here

56:45

as the anti-hero, or

56:47

just the villain here and I

56:50

will say I have been authentically

56:52

rude in the past

56:54

and will be again in the future

56:56

I'm sure. But on this specific exchange,

56:58

Tasha, you would, I'm

57:00

innocent, am I not here? Am I innocent? If

57:03

as I recall it, Scott, you did not want

57:05

to do it. Tasha egged you

57:07

into it. I like that

57:09

even better. I don't know what anybody's talking about.

57:12

What I like out of all of this is

57:14

that Scott is now going to be like uncomfortable

57:16

with interrupting me and kind of afraid to. So

57:19

let me just lay out my 15 point

57:21

reasons that The Fall is a really great

57:23

movie. Okay, Scott, so let's. Don't

57:25

do this to me again. Don't do this

57:27

to me again. Now I'm gonna have to be, Tasha,

57:30

I'm gonna have to cut you off right there. You

57:32

can't talk about this film anymore. Sorry. Oh

57:36

my God, anyway, I'm really less, in

57:38

this case, less terrible than you think

57:41

I am. We

57:43

always appreciate when our listeners share their thoughts

57:45

and their recommendations. If you feel so inclined,

57:47

we can feature your response on a future

57:49

episode to reach us. You can leave a

57:51

short voicemail at 773-234-9730 or

57:56

send us a voice memo or

57:58

email us at comments at. nextpictureshow.net.

58:07

That's it for this episode of The

58:10

Next Picture Show. In our next episode,

58:12

we'll talk about Furiosa, a Mad Max

58:14

saga, before bringing Mad Max back into

58:16

the discussion. Look for that

58:18

episode next Tuesday on your Podcatcher of Choice.

58:21

For ad-free versions of the podcast and extra

58:23

content, find us on patreon at patreon.com slash

58:27

nextpictureshow. You can find us

58:29

at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The

58:31

Next Picture Show if you want to keep

58:33

track of when new episodes drop. Until

58:35

next week, when you look up at the night

58:38

sky, take your hat off and

58:40

remember the Night Rider.