saw Furiosa on Sunday. i think that Fury Road is probably a better movie, overall, since this one can’t escape the curse of prequels, in that it’s a lot of filling in of blanks that we didn’t really need to have filled in for us. my wife did think the action and production was really great, but thought the story was kind of dumb. i can’t really argue with that, but i think that it’s the kind of thing that is ultimately “for the fans.” like, if you wanted more George Miller and high-intensity Mad Max action, here is more for you. it’s like DLC for Fury Road or something. i would watch it again, and i think the acting is great, too, but if i compare it to its direct predecessor, i have to stick with the original.
on its own, i had a good time and it’s just such a great spectacle.
HAT was one of my favorites from last year! I guess I just have a type.
Also if anyone liked that movie you should also check out Game Night by the same director team. Another movie that was deeply under appreciated imo, that in another era would have been on TBS or the CW every Saturday afternoon for like 12 straight years, building up a following.
I haven’t seen Furiosa yet but I have rewatched the others.
Mad Max > Road Warrior > Fury Road > Thunderdome
Mad Max is tops, without a doubt. Multiple iconic shots that will stick in your head forever.
I always liked Thunderdome, but watching them in order and within a few days of each other doesn’t do the movie any favors. The tone is just so different. More slapstick than suspenseful. I love Tina Turner and everything about the actual Thunderdome though.
Fury Road is good as an action film, but I found the vfx offputting in a couple of places whereas the older films are timeless.
I think I was able to accept Furiosa on its own terms because early on I felt it becomes apparent that it’s going for something very different than Fury Road. Which is maybe for the best, because Fury Road’s structure is part of what makes it so propulsive and trying to recreate it would have placed Furiosa even more in its shadow. And that’s even outside of the idea of it trying to be even better than Fury Road at its own game.
I was one of those people that felt confused when Furiosa was announced because it felt like her story was closed and I wasn’t sure what the value was in re-opening it. But what makes Furiosa work so well to me is that it’s not just her story; Furiosa is the conduit through which the movie is telling the story of this region of the wasteland- the people, the society, the power structures, and how those have bent and re-shaped through time. It had the feeling of an actual epic (the subtitle “A Mad Max Saga” feels apt).
And to that point, I actually felt Furiosa was overshadowed a bit too much in the second half, where her story is maybe too reactive and she doesn’t have enough going on that feels proactive through her own motivations, showcasing her own agency. But in that first half, with the child actor, she’s incredible. And that entire opening 20-minute scene is phenomenal and stands toe to toe with anything in Fury Road, even if it’s very different from Fury Road.
I thought it was one of the few movies that earned it’s 2.5 hour runtime.
I can’t remember if I ever posted about it here, but last August 2023 I saw “The First Slam Dunk” when it had its short theatrical run in the US. It was just me and three other guys in the theater. I had never watched Slam Dunk before and knew almost nothing of the actual plot, and I came out thinking it might have been the best movie I’d ever seen in my life. Really looking forward to revisiting it when it comes out on blu-ray next month.
I also loved this movie, but Slam Dunk is my all time favorite manga (maybe my all time favorite Japanese media thing period), so I’m really happy that it was able to hit even without that background! Also someone finally released good quality scans of the official translation on Nyaa late last year. The movie is basically just the last handful of issues of the manga but even within that story everything is more fleshed out in the Manga, it’s all really good and I recommend reading it (and posting about it, I’ve wanted to make a slam dunk thread for years) if you dug the movie.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to check out the manga at some point since it’s such a seminal piece. I also considered making a Slam Dunk thread here a few years ago, but that was going to be about trying to catalogue every Slam Dunk live action fan parody on youtube. Because boy are there a lot of them I spent a weekend just going through and watching them for some reason despite never seeing the show.
The film is a distillation of everything that makes sports manga great. I’m sure having some familiarity with the tropes helped carry some of characters’ stories for me. But it’s unbelievable Takehiko Inoue himself directed this thing. During that one scene- there were only four of us in the whole theater, but it was absolutely silent and you could tell we were all legitimately, literally holding our breaths. One of them eventually slightly broke and tried to stifle a laugh of excitement because it was just such a god dang amazing moment.
I remember when the movie was first announced, for some reason I couldn’t stop rewatching the announcement trailer. There was just something so captivating about it, despite it just being a list of staff. The rhythm, the growing intensity that eventually explodes with all the staff rapidly splashing on screen, emphasizing the same kind of teamwork as the story itself. And it somehow conveyed exactly what the actual movie felt like. How is the movie’s soundtrack and music direction so good?
Oh hell yeah. When I saw it the theater was probably 60% full and the crowd was into it. That silent sequence hit in my theater in exactly the same was as you described, haha.
Speaking of music design, I’ve rewatched the opening sketch thing like 100 times at this point. When the guitar kicked in the energy in the theater started absolutely buzzing, it was awesome.
I feel like the only times I’m in game, filled crowds lately are seeing idiot anime movies
the last time I saw a movie with a crowd that was into it was the Konosuba movie
I’m sure the experience will be replicated when an American distributor goes crazy and picks up the horse movie and I see it in a theater with 2 or 3 other weirdos
I watched Fury Road directly after Furiosa and I’m more in love with the details in Furiosa. Maybe it’s just because it’s newer, but the folktale story telling feels more vibrant. I was actually reminded that 3,000 Years of Longing came out in between.
re: having more independent theaters is a net good: the two closest movie theaters to me are an ipic and a landmark, and I’m like a 10-15 minute drive from vidiots in eagle rock. life can be so sweet
I saw a poster for Inside Out 2 the other day. I guess they’re making a second one. I don’t know what it’s about at all, so I’m gonna call my shot: The movie introduces a new “emotion” character named Saudade who’s played by a Brazilian actor, and it’s all about the little girl from the first movie studying abroad in Brazil and learning to feel saudade, and all the characters sing bad samba and bossa nova songs written by Lin Manuel Miranda.
