Mad Max: Fury Road (a movie review post)

I think I've decided I don't like Tom Hardy. He seems to like wearing things on his face, which is fine, but it's not acting. Plus, he doesn't seem to ever speak clearly. Or coherently. Basically, he speaks with this guttural mumble which is, more than anything else, completely indecipherable. Fortunately, Max is not the protagonist of this movie, because, if he had been, it would have made even less sense than it did.

But that thing about Max not being the protagonist is an issue. I mean, as a Mad Max movie, we ought to care about the character and his goals, but he doesn't seem to have any goals other than, eventually, the co-opted goal of helping the actual protagonist, Imperator Furiosa.

A lot of people have been going on about Charlize Theron in the role of Furiosa, and, I have to say, I just don't get it. I mean, she was fine, but she wasn't any kind of amazing nor did she do with the part anything that a dozen other actresses couldn't have done.

However, Nicholas Hoult, in a part that, although important, seems a bit of a throwaway was amazing. Of the characters in the movie, Nux was the only one I came to care about enough that I felt compelled to root for. Nicholas Hoult is an actor I am with whom I am increasingly impressed, so he was a nice discovery in this movie (because I had not paid attention enough to know that he was in it before I saw it).

The other surprise was Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as The Splendid Angharad. She's all the more impressive in her role for the simple fact of being impressive in the first place. It's obvious that she, along with the rest of the breeder wives, were thrown in as eye candy, and the other four do nothing more than fulfill that expectation, but Huntington-Whiteley brought a certain amount of attitude to the role that made her stand out. I didn't think much of her after her stint in Transformers, but maybe she's someone to keep an eye on. Considering she's only done two movies so far, I'll guess we'll have to wait and see.

Now, it seems almost wrong to talk about the story, because there's almost no story. There might even be too much story. The story amounts to, "Oh, we need to escape. Oh, we need to go back and take over." It is only there to give a semi-plausible reason to have the various cars chase each other through the desert and have mayhem. That's fine, as far as it goes. Likewise, it seems wrong to point out any stupidity within said think fabric of story, but there was one thing that really bugged me, bugged me through the whole movie: the whole blood transfusion thing. The thing in and of itself was fine, if it had been done correctly. The idea is that blood is being drained from Max into Nux, so the needle in Max should be in an artery going into a vein in Nux. [Also, since there was no way to get blood back to Max, he should have been dead within, oh, minutes, but, not only does he not get weak from blood loss, he seems to be perfectly fine throughout the whole procedure.] At the point when the line is finally cut, blood should have gone spraying everywhere but, not only does that not happen, it doesn't seem that there is any blood leakage at all.

Oh, yeah, the whole thing with the breeder wives down the whole "car wash" scene (without a car) where they're spraying water all over themselves also bothered me. Um, water is the most precious thing in their world, and they're spraying it all over the desert so they can look all sexy in their white bride rags. So, yeah, I get the director was going for the visual stimulus, but it was dumb.

The movie, really, is about the visuals. I think, if he could, he would just have the cars chasing each other and doing their thing without any story at all, and, honestly, that might be better. That's what people who want to see it want to see. It's like... car porn. The story is only there to give an excuse for the rest of it to happen.

And I wish I had liked it. It's not that I didn't like it, but I didn't like it. On the one hand, there was the the vehicle that I'm going to call the "band mobile." The rear was a huge set up of drums, and there was a blind(?) guitar player hanging from the front. Visually, it was cool. The dude playing the guitar in the midst of all of that was really cool. As long as I didn't think about it; if/when I did, my brain would say, "That's dumb," and I'd have to tell it to shut up.

All of that to say:
Visually, it's an amazing movie. If you want to go and just watch the action, this is a great movie to do that with. You have to really go in without any expectations other than car chases and explosions, though. Don't listen to anyone who says anything about the amazing story or how feminist this movie is. Just because it has a powerful female lead does not mean the movie is "feminist," and it certainly doesn't have any kind of story that is empowering to women. Because, well, that would imply that it had a story. Beyond, you know, the very basic one I already explained: "Run away!" Except, in this case, "Drive away!"

Mostly, the movie left wondering if I missed something in the other Mad Max movies or if it's just been too long since I've seen them, because it's been more than 20 years since I've seen them. My new plan is to re-watch the other ones and see if they give me some kind of deeper appreciation for this one, but... well, yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

Lincoln (and an anti-bonus and a bunch of news!)

The days when biographical movies tried to give us the whole picture of what someone was like seem to be behind us, and I can't say that's a bad thing. The only thing that movies like that have ever done is give just information to not matter. You just can't get all of history, not even the significant history, of a person into two hours.

Spielberg's new movie, Lincoln, focuses just on the event of passing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, but, within that event, he manages to capture the essence of who Lincoln was so that we feel we are getting so much more of him. If it doesn't sweep the Oscars this year, it certainly deserves to. The screen writer certainly deserves the credit, as the script, the dialogue, was magnificent (and Tommy Lee Jones in particular took full advantage of his lines, stealing nearly every one of his scenes).

Daniel Day-Lewis also deserves an Oscar, for there was none of him in this movie. The man is amazing and frightening in his ability to assume a character. He completely disappears; only the character remains. This ability is such that he actually had to take a break from acting after his role in The Boxer, because he couldn't find himself again afterward. He spent a year in preparation for his role as Lincoln, and the result of that was that he became Lincoln. He's remarkable.

All of the acting was excellent. I already mentioned Tommy Lee Jones and how he had some of the best lines in the movie, but, really, everyone performed admirably. The performances given are a testament to the quality of director Spielberg is. I have to also specifically mention David Strathairn. He outdid himself as Secretary of State Seward. I like Strathairn, but I've never thought he was particularly great or anything, but he was great in Lincoln. As was James Spader. But I could just keep going on about the spectacular performances, so I'm going to stop. You'll have to trust me. Or go see the movie, which you should do anyway.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie, though, has to be one that was unplanned, because I don't see how you could plan for something like this unless you can see the future. The focus of the movie is the political landscape of the time, and, if you think things are bad now, and I'm not saying they're not, you should do some research about how things used to be. If you think our politicians take part in name calling, you haven't seen anything. Heck, they used to beat each other up or even have duels over their political positions. Anyway, the interesting bit is how the parties have changed. Abraham Lincoln made the Republican party into a viable entity, which they had not been before his election, and they were at the forefront of social justice. The Democrats were pro-slavery, anti-equality, everything the Republicans have come to be. It was interesting to see how the roles of those two parties have changed over time with, now, the Democrats at the forefront of social justice. However, it is still mostly the south that is anti-social justice. Yes, I can say that, because I came from there. I know how it is and what it's like. At any rate, it's interesting that we just had so many of the themes from the movie played out on the political stage during this past election, and it shows just how much more work we have to do as a civilization before we actually achieve social equality for all members of society.

This is a must see movie if there ever was one. It highlights just exactly why we consider Lincoln to have been our greatest president and the tragedy of his death. Go see it.

As an added bonus, I'm gonna toss in a second review, but this one is more of a warning.

I finally watched Prometheus (as a result of not having a computer), and, boy, am I glad I did not pay money to go see that in the theater. It might actually qualify as one of the 10 worst movies I've ever seen. What an incredibly lousy piece of film making, and I feel bad for some of the actors... okay, I feel bad for Fassbender and Theron for being in it. Fassbender had the only role, as David, that was worth anything, and he did a good job in the role; it's just too bad the movie was a total waste. And Theron was just there for her name in a completely worthless part.

The movie starts with a series of disjointed scenes that, in the end, have nothing to do with the movie. They're supposed to supply background, but each of them is completely useless. 15-20 minutes of movie that could have been replaced with something that actually made sense. Then, once the movie really starts, we're subjected to just about every sci-fi cliche in the book. Too many characters that have no purpose other than to be there to get killed. The scared crew members that get lost on the alien ship. The guy who is just plain stupid and tries to touch the cute little alien. The sudden storm that causes a disruption to what's going on. The dropped object while running from the storm that causes someone to almost lose her life. It was predictable and stupid. Every single bit of it.

In fact, it was so predictable and stupid that it made me not be able to stop watching it, because I kept thinking "surely, there must be something more to this." I mean, this was a big movie. It's Ridley Scott. There must be something more, right? No, there's not. The characters do things for absolutely no discernible reason and things happen because they are the things that happen in these kinds of movies. What a waste of two hours of my life.

And now for the news:

Item #1: Part 9 of Shadow Spinner will be available for FREE! on Friday, November 23.

Because it's Black Friday, I've decided to make the entire series so far also available for FREE! This is a great opportunity for you if you don't have it or if you are missing pieces (like that pesky jigsaw puzzle with the three pieces missing right from the middle) or if you have a friend that doesn't have it. That's all nine parts of Shadow Spinner available on one day for FREE! And, as an added bonus, "The Evil That Men Do" will also be available for FREE! Don't miss out, and don't let any of your friends miss out either! Deals like this don't just come along everyday! No sir! In fact, I can say that they only happen once or twice every 90 days, because that's how often Amazon let's me do it. Merry Christmas! Or, um, Happy Thanksgiving! Trust me, you'll be thankful to have gotten all 10 FREE! parts!

Item #2: Happy Thanksgiving! Save me a piece of pie!

Item #3: The Merry Christmas To All (e)Book A Day

Traveling Blogathon

(of Doom!)

Did I get all the words in there? I think I did... Yeah, okay, they're all there. Mr. Briane Pagel is hosting a blogathon where he convinces us all to give away books. "But," I said, "I'm already giving away a bunch of FREE! stuff on Black Friday; isn't that good enough?"
"No!" he said, "You must give away more! Where's your Christmas Spirit?"
So I looked for my Christmas Spirit, and I couldn't find it. It's always crawling off and hiding, so I sent the cat off to look for it, because the cat likes to get into strange places. Like this:

It wasn't in there, but there is a story behind that that will come later. Eventually, after much looking, we found my Christmas Spirit hiding under my bed. Well, maybe it wasn't hiding. I think there was something going on with the dust bunnies, but we didn't look too closely.

At any rate, Briane is hosting this blogathon thing that is all about Christmas and giving stuff away, so you should all follow this link and go read about it and, maybe, get signed up. I think it's probably even okay if you don't have a book of your own to give away, because you could always give away someone else's book, and what a great Christmas type thing that would be, because you's be supporting one writer by giving his/her book to one reader. That's like Double Christmas!

I'll be hosting on November 26, December 10, and December 17, so make sure you drop by on those days, but, also, go check out the complete list of participants at that link and make notes to stop by. I already have Monday's post ready to go, and I think it's something you won't want to miss.