Wonkette Movie Night: Mad Max: Fury Road

"Where must we go... we who wander this wasteland in search of our better selves?"

It's the oil stupid. Oil wars. Killing for guzzoline. The world is actually running out of water. Now there are water wars. Mankind gone rogue terrorizing itself. Thermonuclear skirmish. The Earth is sour. Our bones are poisoned.

Not a speech from the Republican candidate for President. Although it is the description of the Earth at the beginning of the movie. Yet people survive on that planet and some of them still have hope. Hard to believe you could have hope in that kind of life, but they do and it's why they take the journey portrayed in the film.

There are some minor spoilers included here that really won't impact how you see the movie, because at its heart it is very simple. It is an incredibly filmed, thrilling and suspenseful chase of those people that still have hope by those who do not.

My name is Max. My world is fire and blood. Once, I was a cop. A road warrior searching for a righteous cause... As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy... me... or everyone else.

Max and Imperator Furiosa survive separately in this life. One man, Immortan Joe, controls everything in the city known as The Citadel because he controls the water. His devoted followers are the War Boys and they believe he is a god, a being that will allow them to be eternal in Valhalla and they give their lives willingly as that perceived beautiful life is so much better than their current, bleak and hopeless existence.

In The Citadel, Furiosa is the only woman shown as having power, which was not given to but earned by her.  She is descended from a matriarchal tribe called the Vuvalini or the Many Mothers, women on motorbikes who we meet midway through the film. One of the Vuvalini is called the Keeper of the Seeds who protects the future in a small bag she carries. The women live up to their tribe's secondary name, the Many Mothers, in more than just the usual definition of the word. 

"But the Vuvalini had many different ways to be mothers, and Furiosa proves that the most important part of motherhood is not the production of children, but the act of teaching and protecting." from the essay Mad Max and Motherhood. 

The madman dictator Immortan Joe desperately wants a healthy son to follow in his footsteps, after many sickly children he has his hopes pinned on the Five Wives. The women, although forced into this horrible servitude still dream of something else, and are determined to escape so that "our babies will not be warlords". The one person who can help them, Furiosa has her own dream of freedom, the place where she came from, the home where her people are, The Green Place. Which sounds much nicer than The Wasteland.

The women in this future serve as milk producers and child bearers. Even with the terrible treatment of women in the film, it is female centered, though the main character is Max, he is secondary. Writer Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) assisted in giving depth to the female characters and editor Margaret Sixel, having never edited an action movie, did this film "Because if a guy did it, it would look like every other action movie." And it doesn't, the women are at the heart of it and they are not saved by men. Furiosa, the Five Wives and the Vuvalini are the heroes.

The thing that drives these people searching for a better life is the same thing, it is the hope I spoke of in the first paragraph.

Women being pursued by men. The Five Wives, driven by Furiosa who has double crossed Immortan Joe to help them escape and for her to find her own emancipation. They are joined by two men, Max and Nux, who see a chance for their own liberation as they fight personal demons. A small tribe of their own moving across a barren landscape in a War Rig that's hauling mother's milk looking for Eden.

They are chased by Immortan Joe's army of War Boys driving Frankenstein vehicles that are souped up and tricked out. The young men have only half lives and spray their mouths with a paint like substance that is also a euphoric drug to help energize them into fighting and dying for their master. Their cult leader promises them,

To the gates of Valhalla, you will ride eternal, shiny and chrome!

They even have live musical accompaniment. And the cult leader will use up every one of their lives as quickly as they will throw themselves into the grinder of his pursuit. The reason for his insane rage and desperation to catch Furiosa is in his statement "They are my property!" when speaking of the Five Wives who Furiosa has helped to escape from his treatment as chattel.

Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa

You have the option of watching Mad Max: Fury Road Black & Chrome which was director George Miller's dream for the film from the beginning. Miller wanted to do this after he saw an early version of Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior in black and white and felt it brought a primeval feel to the film. With the success of the original, color version of Fury Road, Miller was able to give voice to his creative vision and give us this visually stunning work of art. Not to dismiss the use of color in the first adaption, because it is probably best for a first viewing of this film. The little pops of color against a desert landscape, flames against the sky in reds and yellows has its own draw. And it is a beautiful movie filled with violence, suspense, action, evil and good. 

This black and white appears distinct and unique from the movies of times gone by that were black and white out of necessity. Though there are echoes from cinematic innovators like Fritz Lang, D.W. Griffith and even Buster Keaton as seen in the early chase of Max through the cave by the War Boys.

You can see it in the stunts in this fascinating video of Buster Keaton with his voiceover explaining his early life and career, and how he got the name Buster. 

How The Mad Max: Fury Road Black & Chrome Edition Transforms The Movie -Screen Rant.

Fun bonus, Seth Meyers doing his version with Reasonable Max, I could only find it as a Facebook video.

Mad Max: Fury Road stars Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Zoë Kravitz, Nicholas Hoult and Hugh Keays-Byrne. Directed by George Miller.

It is available with a subscription on Max. For $3.99 on YouTube, Prime, Vudu, Apple TV and Google Play.

Mad Max: Fury Road Black & Chrome is available for $3.79 on Prime.

To make requests, see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.

Fill the snack bowl, grab a beverage and enjoy!

Tonight's cartoon is a Disney silent film from 1923, Alice's Wonderland, the first in the Alice Comedies series of shorts. A combination of live action and early animation.