The breathtaking 'Furiosa'. Plus Taylor vs. Billie and ScarJo vs. AI

The fifth instalment in George Miller's Mad Max franchise drives us back into the wasteland with Anya Taylor Joy at the wheel as Furiosa, alongside Chris Hemsworth.

In this week's episode, Osman, Thomas and Mel discuss the action-packed blockbuster, how it compares to 2015's Fury Road and examine Mad Max's place in Australian cinematic history. Plus, they debate Taylor Swift's chart battle with Billie Eilish and unpack Scarlett Johansson's fight with artificial intelligence.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:07):
Hey, I'm Osman Farooqui and this is the drop a
culture show from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age,
where we dive into the latest in the world of
pop culture and entertainment. The gang's all here. I'm here
with Mel Schembri and Thomas Mitchell. What's up team? How
are we doing?

S2 (00:21):
Good.

S3 (00:22):
Yeah. Very good. Nice to be back. How are you
down there?

S1 (00:24):
Oh, thank you for asking. That's very kind. I'm in.
I'm in better spirits than I have been previously. I
don't know if you guys have seen the news, but, um,
Wayne Bennett, super coach, is back at South Sydney. We're
paying him enormous amounts of money to rescue our failing clubs.
So I got a spring in my step off the
back of that news.

S3 (00:43):
Yes. I mean, he's he's about 200 years old now,
but he's he's still probably the best coach, uh, in
that age bracket.

S1 (00:52):
Yeah. I feel like these sorts of announcements are made
just to reassure kind of players and fans that, look,
we have a plan here. It's unclear whether or not
it's a great plan, but it's just don't freak out.
You know Wayne, he's very good. He works very well
with this cohort of players. Just don't shit yourselves, guys,
we've got this sorted. So I am I'm excited about

(01:15):
getting slightly more reinvested in NRL this year than I
have been for we.

S2 (01:20):
Are famously Thomas and I, the worst NRL tippers in
the office. Every year we sign up for the tipping
comp every year. It turns out that both of us
are being pursued for our tipping funds. Yeah, and then
every year both of us forget to tip and get
expelled from the competition.

S3 (01:35):
I actually opted out this year because I couldn't deal
with the stress.

S1 (01:38):
I also opted out this year because the wonderful Jason,
who manages the tipping comp, had just increasingly threatened to
kill me for not paying. You know, the tipping fees.

S2 (01:46):
I became afraid to come to work because I was like.
And in the end, we were both like, why don't
we just pay it? Something in us resisted. The more
we were chased, the less we wanted to give.

S1 (01:55):
Also, because by the time you're in like round six
and you haven't paid, you know you're not going to win.
So what is the incentive to put money into the
system now?

S3 (02:02):
At first lend a man. He's quite terrifying too. He
walks around with his dragons hat. He's a Dragons fan
and you know, he like he's broken legs before. I
reckon he's his slack.

S1 (02:10):
Emoji is also like he's got a permanent slack emoji.
That is just the Dragons logo is incredible guy.

S2 (02:15):
And he also wears a big scarf. And there's something
about a big scarf on a small man, which is frightening.

S1 (02:20):
This is just us auditioning for our sports podcast that
they won't let us have, so we smuggle it in
to this one. Um, Thomas, it's good to have you back.
How was your adventure to the town or place that
were not allowed to say until you tell us about
it in a piece you're writing for later this year?

S2 (02:36):
Allegedly writing?

S3 (02:37):
Uh, yeah. Northern territory was really good.

S4 (02:39):
Um.

S3 (02:41):
Uh, it was amazing up there. But we'll talk about
that more later. But I would say, um, sadly, I
noticed that in my one week absence, not a single
review missing my nuance.

S1 (02:52):
I was going to bring this up. It is funny
because when I was away earlier this year, there was
some there was some, you know, reviews saying nice things
that they missed me when Mel was away. There was
some reviews saying nice things about people missing her. And
when you were away, no one said anything?

S4 (03:07):
No. Firstly, I was away for one week.

S3 (03:10):
So be careful what you wish for. I will take
an extended break and then I will set up a
bunch of burner accounts like Martha from Baby Reindeer. And
I will be, like, demanding the return of Thomas.

S2 (03:18):
And to be fair, we talked about you so much
on the pod. It was almost like you were in
the room with us. I did actually.

S3 (03:23):
I listened to the pod as well, unlike you. Um,
just purely to hear my own name. Uh, and it
came up a fair bit, but I was it was
a great episode. Uh, obviously it missed that magical element,
but now we're all back together. It's great.

S1 (03:34):
And, Mel, we are recording this episode slightly later than
than usual. Um, part of the reason for that is
you were being very busy and famous, uh, on Wednesday
at the Sydney Writers Festival, which is kicked off this week.
Can you tell us a bit about that and what
the vibes are like this year at the Writers Fest?

S2 (03:52):
Famous definitely feels a bit of a stretch, but the
vibes are great. This was kind of the opening day.
It was at the State Library of New South Wales
in this beautiful new auditorium they've got down there where
the walls all kind of look like wooden books, which
is very fitting. I was interviewing Lauren Groff, who, um,
did wrote The Vaster Wilds, which I talked about a
few a few months ago on the Pod and Matrix

(04:13):
and Fates and Furies, which is probably her most famous one.
She was great. She's very interesting. She's just opened a bookstore,
and she's really campaigning against book banning. And the bookstore
called The Links. It really champions banned books like it's
got a whole wall of them, and it's whole project
is to make sure and to react against the book
banning that's going on in Florida and has obviously kind
of been a topic of discussion here. So she was great.

(04:34):
And then in the afternoon, I spoke to Susan Wyndham,
former literary editor here, about her new book, which is
about Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower, and Gian Jankovic, a
friend of the pod and our colleague here who has
a book out called Just Friends. And Thomas actually was
in the audience for that one. So if you want
any kind of feedback on the session, he is your man.

S3 (04:54):
I do have some things to update you on. I
met yeah, I met Melanie's mother.

S4 (04:59):
Oh, that's.

S1 (05:00):
A good.

S4 (05:01):
Development.

S3 (05:01):
It was amazing.

S2 (05:03):
I tried.

S4 (05:04):
It was so.

S2 (05:05):
Hard to avoid this.

S3 (05:06):
It was so funny. Was it like.

S1 (05:08):
Seeing a second Mel or was it like a very
different experience?

S3 (05:11):
Well, in the most like, I guess, Schembri family esque way.
Mel didn't even know her own mother was turning up.
She surprised her at the Sydney Writers Festival and then
she obviously Mel tried to, like, not let me know
that her mum was there. As soon as she let
it slip, I went over there. Um, we had an
amazing chat. Uh, she loves the pod. She talked about
the podcast. She also told me that I wasn't as
broad as my photo in the paper, so that's something

(05:32):
for me to unpack.

S2 (05:33):
We then had to unpack for a lot. Is that
a good thing or a bad thing?

S4 (05:36):
What am I going.

S1 (05:37):
To have broad in the abdominal region.

S3 (05:39):
And I know I was like, is that a good thing?
Am I gonna like, have I got a vibe with
Mel's mum now I. I know. Um, well then.

S2 (05:44):
Mum followed up immediately after being like that. Tom was
very nice. I was like, what is going on here?

S3 (05:50):
But yes, it was very funny. And you and you're right, Mel, like,
I've been to a few Sydney writers festivals with Mel
and she is like a celebrity there. She's kind of
like the mayor. She's like kissing babies and shaking hands.
I can see that. It's amazing. And the whole it
always reminds me of, like, you know, in like 21
Jump Street when they go back to high school and suddenly, like,
Channing is the uncool one and Jonah Hill is the
cool one. That's what it's like going to like a

(06:12):
writers festival with Mel compared to, like, a normal event.

S2 (06:14):
Yeah, yeah, this is my field. Like when we go
to the movies, you shine at the Writers Festival. I'm.
I'm the one. Yeah.

S1 (06:20):
You guys. Absolutely. The mayors of those respective weird, small
little culture worlds. That's very funny.

S3 (06:26):
Yeah, it is, it's weird, but it was great. Uh,
Mel did a very good job moderating. Um, John was
amazing as well. And, uh. Yeah, all in all, a
fun afternoon out at the Writers Festival.

S2 (06:35):
And I will tell you a bit of trivia just quickly,
I was speaking to Lauren Groff in the green room.
And here's another way to smuggle Taylor into.

S4 (06:41):
Uh, yeah.

S2 (06:42):
Into the green room, which is just like this barren room.
And they had the weirdest, like, little food. It was
like arancini balls, shapes. And then some, like, pastrami. It
was very odd. Is this the.

S4 (06:52):
Green room at.

S1 (06:52):
The State Library or the one at the at Carriageworks?
Like the main green room.

S2 (06:56):
This was at the State Library.

S4 (06:58):
Yeah, because.

S1 (06:58):
Because the Carriageworks green room for the Writers Festival. I
got to say, I've been lucky enough in my life
to go to many Writers Festival, Green Rooms, the Carriageworks
one for the Writers Festival. It's pretty top tier. There's
like a barista, there's all sorts of fancy drinks, there's
like fresh food, there's fruit, there's salads. I think they
turned it into like a wine bar after hours. But
this was not quite that level.

S2 (07:19):
It wasn't quite that, but it was, you know, it
did the job of being a little holding room. Um,
but I was chatting to Lauren Groff, and I was.
She lives in Florida, and I was like, wow, how's
how's Florida's rep? Since Taylor and Florence and the Machine's
Florida song came out? Turns out for Florence and the
machine posted on Instagram that the song was based on
Lauren Groffs collection of short stories called Florida. Wow.

S4 (07:42):
Wow, that's actually cool. Apparently that's really cool.

S2 (07:44):
Yeah, and apparently they sold about 200 more copies of
the short story. That's it that week. Yeah, I know,
not heaps, but still whole new audience.

S4 (07:51):
Taylor Taylor could post it.

S1 (07:52):
Come on. If you're inspired by this brilliant work, why
don't you share that? Taylor.

S2 (07:56):
Yeah, I'll credit it. That's what I reckon. But, um. Yeah,
apparently she woke up and her phone was just blowing
up because Florence had posted. That's great editing it. So, um. Yeah.
Very interesting.

S1 (08:04):
We'll actually have more to say about Taylor Swift later
in this episode. The main focus of today's episode is Furiosa,
the latest installment in the mad Max franchise. It's a
follow up to 2015 stunning Fury Road. It's the most
expensive Australian film ever made. It's also one of the
few remaining big ticket event releases on the cinema calendar

(08:26):
this year, so we're going to talk about the relatively
lackluster lineup for the rest of 2024, but there are
a few other newsy bits and pieces in the world
of culture I wanted to talk to you guys about.
Probably the most interesting has been the, uh, war between
Scarlett Johansson and Open Eye, the company that is probably

(08:46):
most well known for releasing ChatGPT, the AI prompt software. Thomas,
you wrote about this stoush for us this week. Can
you give us a bit of a breakdown? Why is
Scarlett fired up at OpenAI?

S3 (09:00):
Yeah, because I guess in a case of, you know,
life imitating, art imitating Scarlett Johansson in the movie, her, uh,
essentially a few weeks ago, OpenAI introduced the voice of Sky.
So this new AI assisted tool, like a conversation tool, um,
and basically the voice sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson. Uh,
people were very quick to pick up on this. And

(09:22):
also the fact that she did famously star in the
Spike Jonze film her, where she lent her voice to a,
you know, an AI, um, starring opposite Joaquin Phoenix. So
people were pretty quick to be like, this is weird.
You know, Scarjo has a very, uh, like, unique and
noticeable voice and, you know, to the point where people
on the internet were like, this is obviously Scarlett Johansson.
Even her boyfriend, Colin Jost made a joke about it

(09:42):
on the SNL finale. Um, so it was all kind
of like, okay, this is odd. On the day of
release as well, the OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just tweeted
one single word her, which everyone you know kind of
knows is a reference to that film. So it was
all kind of there. Uh, and then this week, Scarlett
Johansson came out and basically released a statement saying she
was shocked and angered that this had happened because they

(10:03):
actually approached her. She considered it for a little bit,
but then ultimately said, no, um, you know, and then
she says in her statement, when I heard the release demo,
I was shocked and angered and in disbelief that Mr.
Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar
to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could
not tell the difference. So yeah, very weird. Like we've
had so much chat about, you know, what's happening with

(10:24):
AI and the fact that OpenAI did approach Scarlett. She
said no. And they kind of like went ahead and
did it anyway. So similarly, uh, basically the way they
framed it, they've paused the use of the voice, um,
because she did engage legal counsel. Yeah. It's kind of
like the next step in the AI debate that we've
all been fearing.

S1 (10:41):
Yeah, it's worth pointing out that. And I say that
they used another voice actress who they're not naming for
privacy reasons, but the fact that like a couple of
days before it was released, they went back to Scarlett
and said, hey man, like, just want to let you know,
we still.

S4 (10:56):
Really want to use your.

S1 (10:57):
Voice. What do you think about this? It feels like
one of the main concerns around AI at the moment
is what it could do to the creative industries, whether
that's writing, music, film, art, whatever. And you'd think that
these companies or the people behind them would be a
little bit aware of what it looks like to potentially
just rip off a very famous person's voice.

S2 (11:19):
Yeah. To me, this is so odd. Personally, like, even
approaching Scarlett Johansson in the first place, when she was
one of the actors that's kind of contributing huge amounts
of money to end the strike stalemate and is very
involved in those discussions about the role of AI. To
approach her to be the voice of AI in the
first place feels like an odd decision then to approach her,

(11:41):
because potentially linking the AI voice to the film her
is also maybe missing the point, because that film showed
a lot of the potential dangers that can come from
the role of AI in our life. That's also odd.
And then again, to seek a voice that is has
been called sexy, sultry, very overly feminine also is a

(12:04):
huge misstep. Um, for a company that is trying to
position itself as forward thinking. So I just feel like
this is a, you know, a strange choice on top
of a strange choice, on top of a strange choice.
And it's a kind of worrying sign of who's at
the the helm of this company.

S4 (12:20):
It's almost like.

S1 (12:21):
These tech bros are not very good at, like, very
normal things.

S4 (12:25):
And it's like.

S3 (12:25):
They thought it was a really funny like wink or something.
And everyone was like, you've completely cooked it.

S1 (12:29):
I'm glad you brought up the fact that the movie
her is, is kind of not really a glowing endorsement
of AI. I feel like by the end of the
movie you're like, oh, this is a terrible for the
potential alienation of society. Someone, someone on social media pointed
out that this is now the third movie about tech
or science, that Sam Altman has completely misunderstood the meaning

(12:52):
of in 2023. Sam Altman tweeted, I was hoping that
the Oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to
be physicists, but it really missed the mark on that. Yeah,
no shit. The movie where the guy says at the end,
I think we destroyed the world is not supposed to
inspire people to make nuclear bombs like that. That's the
point of the movie.

S4 (13:11):
Sam Altman Um, yeah. At the end of the.

S2 (13:14):
The point was to question the role of has he.

S3 (13:16):
Not also, has he not seen Young Sheldon? What about
a young physicist?

S4 (13:21):
Um, and at the.

S1 (13:21):
End of that tweet, he said in brackets, I think
the social network managed to do this for startup founders.
So basically he's saying, I think the social network did
encourage people to be startup founders. And that's good. Again,
definitely not the.

S4 (13:36):
Point of the movie. The Social Network.

S2 (13:38):
I love that he watched it and that's why he
is now doing this. It was all because of The
Social Network, though it did make me think. I started
to think about films that probably shouldn't have inspired me.
But then, you know that did. I was thinking about
Black Swan. I was like, that makes the ballet one.
I thought, that makes the ballet world look kind of
like cool, which was not the point of that film.

S4 (13:59):
Yeah, I watched Godzilla.

S1 (14:00):
Godzilla x Kong, and that made me want to be
a podcaster. So that's.

S4 (14:04):
Well, a dream.

S3 (14:05):
I recently saw June 2nd that made me want to
kill myself. I'm not sure if you guys.

S2 (14:09):
Will become like a giant worm.

S3 (14:10):
I wish I could have buried my head in the
sand for the entire we're not.

S4 (14:14):
Relitigating.

S1 (14:14):
June 2nd. It's too early.

S4 (14:16):
But.

S1 (14:18):
Um, um, one of the other things I wanted to
touch on briefly with you guys is the Taylor Swift
versus Billie Eilish war that's kind of been raging. The
pop culture charts, pop culture discourse for the past week.
You guys, you guys across this.

S2 (14:33):
Yeah, you couldn't see. But just so, in an attempt
to let you see, I like physically, I rolled my
whole body when you said verses each other, I don't
know what.

S1 (14:43):
What is this? Your take saying that it's unfair to
pit two women against each other.

S2 (14:47):
Well, maybe we should question the pit.

S4 (14:49):
Okay, I know I think I'm.

S1 (14:50):
Ready for this conversation because Taylor Swift is so actively
doing something that I think is quite like nefarious here,
that I don't think people who comment on it should
be portrayed as evil people. Let's just break this down. Right?
So Billie Eilish released her latest studio album, Hit Me
Hard and Soft, last week on Friday. I actually really

(15:11):
enjoyed the album. I think it's got some real fun
songs on it. It's a bit too short for me.
I think she was like experimenting with some fun new
ideas and musical styles and then it sort of just ends.
But I thought it was pretty good. Did you guys
enjoy it?

S2 (15:23):
I loved it. I thought it was such a mature album.
I found it quite shocking that she's only 22. I
thought it was full of surprises and I kind of like,
you know, it does have that old Billie style of
the ballads and the whispers. But then I really loved
like the kind of synth pop songs too, that kind
of moved to the dance floor. I thought it was
a really interesting record, and yeah, I've been listening to

(15:45):
it a lot.

S3 (15:46):
I'll be totally honest. I was in the Northern Territory
last week and I was mostly listening to Troy Cassar-daley. Yeah,
they don't really do Billie Eilish up there.

S4 (15:53):
That's appropriate. I haven't that's appropriate. Yeah.

S1 (15:56):
Um, okay. Well, it's good to know that you like
the album, Mel, because I did also, and I think
you'll be shocked to learn what your number one fave
taylorswift is doing to poor Billie. So in the lead
up to the album's release, Billie talked in interviews about
the tendency of artists now some artists, to release multiple
physical versions of the same album on vinyl to basically

(16:18):
juice their numbers to get their fans to buy 12 copies.
In the case of the Midnights release, rather than just one,
their fans loved them. They'll spend all their pocket money
on it, and the album sales will go through the roof,
helping get that song to the top of the Billboard charts,
she said. It was unethical, and she said it was
really bad for the environment, and everyone basically interpreted that
as a bit of a dig at Taylor Swift, because

(16:40):
she is the person who is the most prominently involved
with this. So anyway, Billie's album comes out on Friday.
On the very same day, Taylor Swift decides to release
three new digital only versions of her most recent album,
The Tortured Poets Department, and these include extra tracks including
First Draft Phone Memos. So basically just a voice recording

(17:02):
of Taylor singing some harmonies and choruses. Her fans obviously
buy these up because they will do anything Taylor tells
them to do. Tortured poets uh album has been number
one for four weeks, the most obvious chance coming up
for it to be knocked out of that position was
Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard and Soft. The chart numbers
at the moment are a little bit too early to tell.

(17:23):
We'll find this out next week. Suggest that Billie is
probably aiming for a number two spot. Gonna get pipped
by Taylor because she chose that same day to release
day of Billie Eilish's album to juice the numbers again. Now,
that's not me saying I'm just going to pit two
random women against each other for the sake of it.
That's Taylor Swift launching a salvo at Billie Eilish keeping

(17:45):
her from the number one spot. Like, quite obviously, isn't it?

S2 (17:48):
Firstly, I'd like to say that I love both these
women and I'm not, I don't. I, as much as
he liked to identify me as Taylor's number one fan girl,
I'm kind of generally just interested in her as a phenomenon.
I don't identify as a swiftae personally. Um, I will
say a few things to this that I.

S4 (18:06):
I will begin.

S2 (18:07):
Saying now that I will begin. It's like the terms
of the debate. Um, no, I think I think there
is an interesting discussion about the release of vinyl albums
and multiple versions of the album, but I will note
that Eilish has released nine vinyl editions of Hit Me
for separate CD options, a cassette and a deluxe album

(18:27):
that is different. So I will say that. And Eilish
herself has acknowledged that she too releases multiple vinyl albums. Um,
and that is, what does that have to.

S1 (18:36):
Do with Taylor Swift doing new releases on the day
of Billy's album?

S2 (18:40):
Well, I think what has pitted them up against each
other in your mind is the story leading up to
this that Billie makes a comment about the vinyl albums.
Taylor is for some reason offended by that, and then
drops her vinyl albums on the same day. Like the
narrative leading up to this release is that it's some
kind of act against Billie, which is what I guess

(19:00):
I'm refuting. I don't think it's an act against Billie.
I think Taylor always releases vinyl albums. I would also
question whether Billie did like, I think this album is
going to do really well, but whether realistically she and
we will find out be number one only for a
number of reasons, because the album track is so small,
it's got ten songs compared to what Taylor's albums have,

(19:21):
so the chances of that album going to number one
are already lower and also like if you look at
a tortured poets department has sold kind of, you know, two,
2.5 million albums. I mean, that's just abroad. It's obviously
album figures are hard to compute, but that's almost like
half of what Billie has sold in her entire career.
So I do wonder whether this story that Taylor has

(19:42):
stopped Billie from getting to number one is really true. Like,
I'm questioning, I guess, Taylor's intent, or the intent that
has been attributed to her, and the reality of whether
that is what's stopping Billie from getting to number one.

S1 (19:54):
All right, true pain over here. Taylor Swift's publicist, I, I,
I don't think that that explains what happened in the
past week, to be honest with you, because Taylor Swift's
album moved a stack of units right in its first
few weeks. We're now into week five of that album,
one of the biggest pop stars in the world, probably

(20:15):
the second biggest female pop star in the world after
Taylor Swift, is Billie Eilish. She has won two Academy
Awards she's won a bunch of Grammys for. Her to
release an extremely anticipated album that is getting pretty good.
Critical response. It would be normal for that to be
considered number one, particularly when the Tortured Poets department is
in its fifth week. The only reason that that would

(20:37):
continue to be number one is if everyone had bought
a whole bunch of new copies of that, which they
have done, because Taylor released new copies with the extra
voice memo stuff on it. I don't think it's a
coincidence that she just managed to do that the week.
Not even the week. The day of the Billie album release.

S4 (20:57):
Okay, so.

S2 (20:58):
Even if even if we take your point that Taylor
is deliberately trying to stay at number one, is that like, what?
Is there something wrong with that? I mean, why are
men allowed to compete all the time or we don't
make them have to, you know, we don't make them
have to stand out of the way to let another
man come to the top. I don't know, like this

(21:19):
is saying, even if we take which I disagree with
your imputation, that Taylor is deliberately trying to sabotage Billie
or to stay ahead of her, why is she not
allowed to have a competitive attitude, but.

S3 (21:30):
At least do it the proper way and start releasing
diss tracks?

S4 (21:32):
I don't know why.

S3 (21:34):
What no, I do, I see this is very fun
for me to watch. Number one, I see the point
you're both making, but I do think I.

S2 (21:41):
Know where you're gonna fall on this. And it does
not surprise me. No.

S3 (21:44):
But like. I would say the same thing. I think, well,
we did, we did.

S1 (21:48):
We did do a whole episode on two men fighting
each other. And so it's fine for two women to
be competitive and want to, like, edge each other out.
But that's kind of the point. Like you're sort of
saying inside of this conversation saying, don't pit these people
against each other. I'm like, oh, of Billy and Taylor
are in an antagonistic relationship of a commercial album sales
right now to get to number one, they're definitely allowed

(22:10):
to do that. I think the tactics and strategy of
Taylor choosing this particular moment. In terms of setting up
a competition with Billy in particular, and doing it not
through the actual release of tortured poets, but through this
modern way of just trying to rinse your fans for
more money. It feels both. It feels crass to me

(22:31):
on a number of levels. It feels crass on the
level of you're just extracting more money from your desperate
fans who have this parasocial relationship with you when you're
already the wealthiest and most successful artist on the planet.
That's one. To me, that feels a little bit weird.
And two, you're doing it at a time where you
know you're stopping another young pop artist who is a
generation below you from receiving the number one, which is

(22:54):
a significant potential achievement. Both of those things, it's valid.
She's allowed to do it. I'm not saying she's not
allowed to do it. She should be sent to jail
for doing it. But it doesn't end with her looking
great in my in my view.

S3 (23:06):
I do kind of agree with that. Shocking. No, I
do kind of agree with that though, because if it
was a case of like, you know, Billy's album and
Taylor's album coming out on the same day, and then
it was just like, it's a it's a fair competition.
But I think given we know how dominant and talented
and just like the saturation levels of Taylor Swift, it
does make it feel. And there is already, I guess,
this like mythology around her that she is, you know,

(23:28):
kind of suffocating the culture with her dominance, which is
not her fault. But then to actively, like, release this
fifth version with extra voice memos, like on the same
day that Billy's releasing her new album, it's like, you
know how this is all going to pan out and
it just doesn't lend itself to, you know, you.

S2 (23:45):
Liking Taylor Swift anymore? Well, look, I think we're going
to have to disagree on this one.

S1 (23:51):
Well, look, Taylor Swift did get another victory literally today
in the Apple Music Top 100 albums of all time. Uh,
this is something that Apple has been doing over ten days.
They released ten albums in the countdown each day. They're
saying that this is not based on like streaming numbers.
It's just an editorial, subjective viewpoint based on this panel

(24:14):
of experts and some musicians that they've got. There's kind
of interesting stuff to talk about with this one, but
I reckon we could start with running through the top
ten countdown of of the top Apple albums of all time,
starting from number ten, working our way to number one,
it's Lemonade by Beyoncé, never mind by Nirvana, back to black,

(24:36):
Amy Winehouse, Good kid, Mad City by Kendrick Lamar. Songs.
In the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Blonde by
Frank ocean. Purple rain, by Prince Abbey. Road, by The Beatles. Thriller,
by Michael Jackson. Number one. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,
by Lauryn Hill.

S3 (24:54):
Played dual.

S4 (24:56):
Um takes.

S1 (24:58):
On that top ten. Firstly, how how do you guys
feel about it?

S3 (25:01):
Yeah, it's really weird. I mean, Mel and I spoke
about this beforehand. These lists are designed, I guess, for
conversations like this. Um, you know, they are always going
to be controversial. I saw someone post that being like,
was this list designed to exclusively make me angry? And
the answer probably is yes. Like there is absolutely no.
You know, we don't like it isn't based on any
kind of data. It's just like a bunch of nameless

(25:23):
people creating a list that then is released into, you know,
the internet, and then off we go to discuss it, like,
I mean, and the other hard thing is like when
there is no kind of criteria, these are all great albums.
You could possibly make an argument for many of them
to be number one, except I don't know how blonde
got on there, even though I love that album.

S1 (25:40):
Yeah, I want to talk about some of the some
of the things about why that album from that artist
as well.

S3 (25:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's really weird. Um, but yeah, I guess
like and especially starting at the top, I suppose like
Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of my
favorite albums. So great, but I, I don't even know
what my number one album would be, but I don't
know if it would be that I.

S2 (26:02):
Was happy with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as number one,
I could. I'm comfortable. I think that fits quite nicely there.
I don't know the top ten. None of them were
really surprising to me. I think they're all worthy places
in the top ten. Could they have been in the
top 20 and others have been in there? Sure, I
don't know. I do take these lists, as Thomas was saying,
with a with a grain of salt, because obviously they're
hugely subjective and I don't know actually how useful they are.

(26:25):
But yeah, all those albums deserve a place in top ten.
So yeah, I wasn't shocked by any. Yeah, I feel.

S1 (26:31):
Like the list making is sort of partly let's make
some people angry. And partly we just need to, like,
mention every giant act from the past 70 years somewhere
so people don't actually kill us. So there's got to
be a Beatles record. There's got to be a Michael
Jackson record. There's got to be Nirvana. Because, you know,
even though that genre of music is dead, it was

(26:52):
a big album for a bunch of people or on
our platform. So it's almost feels like a little bit
focus grouped now as well. Um, it was interesting doing
the breakdown by genre. Hip hop was the most represented
genre with 21 tracks, uh, rock, uh, then second with
18 and pop, third with 16. That's what it feels,
you know, feels right in terms of what is generally considered,

(27:14):
you know, really iconic albums. Taylor Swift, uh, she with 1989,
Taylor's version was at number 18, Billie Eilish with When
We All Fall Asleep, Where do We go? 30. So
that's another victory for Taylor Swift over Billie this week.

S2 (27:29):
Oh, no. Better take it down a notch.

S3 (27:31):
Weird that there is no John Mayer.

S4 (27:36):
Um, so.

S1 (27:36):
Yeah, let's talk about some of the ones that stood
out to me as being a little bit odd, like blonde.
Fine album, but like it's better than Channel Orange. Since
when did we agree that that was a thing that
that that was that was a thing? Basically. I'm not
crazy for thinking that, right?

S3 (27:51):
No. Definitely not. That was the weirdest edition to me. Um, like, yeah,
I mean, good kid, m.A.A.d city. Fair enough. I don't know,
it's a very strange list, but yeah, definitely Frank ocean
has like, obviously he's got like, nudes of someone at
Apple because he's snuck onto that list.

S2 (28:06):
Yeah, like I could have easily replaced him with like, rumours.
Even Adele's 21 blue Joni Mitchell. I feel like there
were a lot of others that could have been substituted
for that. I was gonna say.

S3 (28:17):
The Chronic Doctor Dre in at 19, I love.

S4 (28:19):
The most.

S1 (28:19):
Um, the most egregious thing on this list, though, genuinely
to me, is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy being 26.
And maybe that's like a Kanye is insane thing, but
it's like, okay, we're gonna have Michael Jackson and like,
various cooked artists in the top ten. What's the argument
for not putting what is widely considered one of the
most groundbreaking albums of history outside the top 25? Like that?

(28:42):
That's strange to me.

S3 (28:43):
Did Eminem make the list?

S1 (28:45):
Don't believe Eminem made the list.

S2 (28:47):
Oh no no no, the.

S4 (28:48):
Marshall are true. Number 80. Yeah, there you go.

S2 (28:51):
Number 80.

S3 (28:52):
So we can cut this. But did John Mayer actually
not make the list at all?

S1 (28:54):
John Mayer why would John May make the list?

S4 (28:56):
John may make the list.

S2 (28:58):
What did he have? One song, my body is a Wonderland.

S4 (29:00):
No, no.

S3 (29:01):
Fucking.

S2 (29:02):
John Mayer deserve to make the list via Taylor. And
that's it.

S3 (29:05):
That's this.

S4 (29:05):
Is I mean, like.

S1 (29:06):
We all of us have been involved, you know, in
making these kinds of lists and that kind of fun. And,
you know, Mel, you did one not that long ago
with all of the Kylie Minogue songs. And and it's
pretty interesting and you know, that it's going to spark
a debate. You know, that's part of the reason it's
about people saying, I love that. I don't love that.
I want that moved around. One of the things I find.
Odd about lists is that they're never going to be objective, right?

(29:30):
You've got different people with different perspectives, and there are
obviously some arguments being had around like why that album? Why?
Why is it 19 and not 17? I find that
conversation more interesting than the end result itself. Like I'd
way rather see the working out of the conversation. I
don't know if Apple is going to release like videos
of the producers or the. I think there's some artists

(29:51):
like Charli XCX and Bad Bunny involved in these conversations.
I'd love to watch those guys arguing and talking through like,
that's interesting. Criticism isn't just a number out of ten,
or isn't just a ranking on a list, but people
justifying why Miseducation of Lauryn Hill deserves to be number
one versus other albums. And when you just get the list,

(30:11):
it feels a bit reductive and pointless at that point.

S2 (30:14):
Yeah, I agree, I think Apple and we should demand
that Apple release the marking scorecards for this so that
we can see how they were graded and judged and
who ranked what where. That's definitely more interesting. But I
do think these lists are fun, aren't they? Because they
do let you kind of see your own musical education
and revisit albums, discover new albums. I haven't listened to
quite a few of these albums, and some I haven't

(30:36):
listened to for some time, so I also find that
they do have a value in that sense.

S3 (30:40):
Well, the blueprint is super high by Jay-Z, so I'm
actually just going through the list officially now.

S1 (30:44):
Why is this the first? You're the one who wanted
to talk about this, and this seems like the first
time you've read the list on there.

S4 (30:49):
Huh?

S3 (30:50):
I didn't look at the full list. But anyway.

S4 (30:52):
Three.

S1 (30:52):
Members of the Knowles-carter family with four albums Beyonce and Jay-Z,
that's that's pretty strong representation. It's like 4% of the list.

S2 (31:01):
Yeah, they're a big deal.

S3 (31:03):
And as far as I can tell, oh only is AC,
DC the only Australian act on the list.

S1 (31:08):
Yeah Australia copping some ls there who the Australian do
would have like to see up there.

S3 (31:13):
Troy Cassar-daley I mean obviously Troy Cassar-daley uh Brad Cox
kid Laroi uh, no, I think like I'm kind of
surprised that I thought like these types of lists especially,
I would have seen like maybe Tame Impala on the
list or something. Oh yeah.

S2 (31:26):
I can see there's a there's a case for that.

S1 (31:36):
All right, let's talk, Furiosa, before we get into this film.
The latest installment in the mad Max franchise. Where are
you guys at with mad Max? You fans of the
earlier films, your fans of Fury Road. How do you
feel about the post-apocalyptic world cooked up by George Miller?

S2 (31:55):
I am a huge mad Max fan. Um, and I
have seen all of them up to the latest one,
and I think it's very easy as much as I mean,
I think the films are good in and of themselves,
but I also think the significance of the film culturally
is what's really interesting. And it's easy to forget so
many decades on from the first mad Max, just how
huge it was for Australian cinema at the time, because

(32:17):
it was during that ozploitation phase of the 70s and
80s these kind of budget films with these shaky cams
and mad Max cut through and it cut through globally,
and it showed that Australia could do action with an
Australian accent on it. And then these films have kind
of been so significant globally and also for filmmaking in Australia.

(32:38):
Pretty much all of them, apart from one has been
shot in Australia. So I think their role in Australia's
cinematic history and relevance globally is often kind of overlooked
only because it was such a gap between the first
films and then kind of Fury Road in 2015, and
this one, now that you kind of forget the original
origin story of where this franchise has grown from. And

(33:00):
I mean, I think like also when it came out
in the 80s, a lot of the kind of desert
stories in Australian fiction and sorry, now I feel like
I'm giving like a Ted talk or something.

S4 (33:09):
Keep going. You're cooking.

S2 (33:10):
In. Yeah. Well, a lot of the, you know, the
films leading up, when you had films and stories about
going into the desert, the desert was often this kind
of unknown place. It was this real colonial lands. And
then mad Max came along, and the desert is wild
and barren, but it's because of what humans have done
to it. It's because of what white people have done

(33:30):
to it. They've overfarmed it. They've exploited it for oil.
So I always thought that was really interesting about the
films as well. And it was a very early example
of like climate fiction too. And like, you know, water
and drought have have always been central to these films. So, uh, yeah,
for that reason, I really do like mad Max.

S4 (33:48):
Great. That was a very it.

S2 (33:50):
Was that was an that's an extensive relationship.

S1 (33:53):
Said great. Great explanation.

S3 (33:55):
Yeah. As above, I agree. I know I like my
mum and dad were really into them growing up. I
hadn't actually watched the original three until like maybe 4
or 5 years ago, kind of maybe around the time that, um,
Fury Road came out. But yeah, I've like I mean, look,
as we've discussed previously and today on this pod, I'm
not a big fan of like, sand related epic films,
but this I will make an exception. Uh, and yeah,

(34:17):
I mean, I thought Furiosa was amazing. We'll obviously get
into it, but yeah, I've always been here for the
mad Max universe. Um, and I guess, like it was
really the making of Mel Gibson. He's obviously become a
strange figure for like, people to process now, especially Australians.
But that early era Mel Gibson like man, he was
on one with some of those films and it all
really started with mad Max.

S2 (34:37):
I love that Taylor gets demon in a mel Gibson
gets strange.

S4 (34:40):
I mean.

S3 (34:42):
That's just a demon.

S4 (34:44):
He definitely didn't say that.

S1 (34:47):
Um, I went through our archives with the help of
our wonderful library staff here at the Herald, and asked
them to dig up, like, our coverage of mad Max
when it was first released. And interestingly, the first reference
is in 77. So a couple of years before the
movie came out, and it's like this doctor from Queensland,
George Miller, has managed to get together $350,000 to make this,

(35:08):
you know, weird apocalyptic movie that's about cars. And then
a few months after that, it's like two nighter graduates
cast in their first film, Mel Gibson and Steve Bisley.
They're ready to give real acting a go. It's so
odd to think that is the genesis of what became
the biggest Australian film franchise in history. And funnily enough,
I also looked up our first review of mad Max

(35:31):
in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was not good.

S4 (35:34):
Um, did Mel Ryder.

S1 (35:37):
The reviewer? Uh meled. Dubois, who wrote, reviewed a lot
of movies for the Herald I think in the 70s,
said the movie was brutal but lacked social value. She
was not into, I guess, some of the violence, and
I have to say, I don't know when the last
time you watched, like the first mad Max was, but
I rewatched it in anticipation for Furiosa. It is way

(35:59):
more depraved and violent than I remember, like a brilliant movie.
But there is some very, very intense stuff, and I think,
you know, it's in service of the plot. It's not
just there for the sake of it, but it's kind
of crazy to think that this, you know, this, this
kind of Australian exploitation movie, as you said, Mel, influenced
by George Miller's work as a doctor in Queensland treating

(36:19):
car crash victims, became this huge franchise and what is
now the most expensive Australian film ever. It's such a
fascinating journey from that film to where we are now.

S2 (36:29):
Yeah, totally. And like the aesthetics are so completely different.
As you said, it's such a dark, kind of austere
film in a way. Real revenge narrative. After his family
is killed to the kind of hyper saturation that Fury
Road and Furiosa are known for. It has been a
really interesting journey, but I think that's also part of
why I like it. Like, you know, even the shift
towards different gender roles in the characters, with Furiosa essentially

(36:53):
replacing mad Max, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Is
is an interesting like how that franchise is adapting and
reflecting what George Miller.

S4 (37:00):
Mad Max has gone.

S1 (37:01):
Woke is what you're saying.

S4 (37:02):
Yeah.

S2 (37:03):
I don't think that's quite what I'm saying. But yeah,
I do think that I actually think, to be fair,
they have done those changes in a good way, like
in an interesting way. Like I actually don't think it
comes across as overly woke.

S4 (37:15):
Do you know? Sorry, I didn't mean to. I think
it's just more.

S1 (37:18):
And we'll talk about this when we get into furious.
I think he's yeah. More explicit engagement with very contemporary
political themes is much more noticeable in the last couple
of films. His his filmography is crazy. He makes the
three mad Max films, then he goes on a detour
with like Babe and Babe, Pig in the city, Happy
Feet one and Happy Feet two, and he's like, you
know what I'm doing Fury Road, man, we got we

(37:40):
got to.

S4 (37:40):
Go back to mad.

S1 (37:41):
Max. It is such a strange, um, strange journey for
a director who started in Oz exploitation land. Mel, you
unfortunately weren't able to see Furiosa this week. You were unwell. Um, so.
So Thomas and I will probably, uh, do most of
the chatting in this one, but but, you know, jump
in at any moment with your thoughts or questions. All right.
So Furiosa, prequel to Fury Road, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as

(38:05):
a younger version of the character played by Charlize Theron
in Fury Road, and Chris Hemsworth as her key antagonist.
He's a kind of nomadic warlord called Dementors. The movie
opens with a young Furiosa played in the first section
of the film, actually by a young Australian actress, uh,
Leila Brown. Uh, being snatched from the Green Place is
kind of idyllic Paradise in this otherwise post-apocalyptic hellscape by

(38:29):
a group of bikers who take her to Hemsworth's Dementors.
She tries unsuccessfully to escape before being traded to Immortan Joe,
who rules over the Citadel, which is the key location
for most of the action in Fury Road took place.
She eventually does escape. She blends into the world of
the Citadel. She plots her eventual escape back to the
Green Place and revenge on Dementors. Uh, in this movie,

(38:51):
there's significantly more world building than we got in Fury Road,
which was kind of just like a straightforward road movie
and a chase film. Other than The Citadel, we got
hints of this broader world in this, in this landscape,
but we didn't see them. But in Furiosa, places like
Gas Town and The Bullet Farm, which were alluded to,
I kind of fully realized, and the action takes place

(39:12):
in and around a kind of universe that is more
fleshed out. I think there's also a really interesting stretch
of the film where Furiosa teams up with a very
mad Max like character. Uh, this guy called Praetorian Jack,
played by Tom Burke. I really enjoyed that element of
it as well. It's kind of like we've got a
story that is very different. It's about a different character,
but we know that people also want to see a

(39:33):
guy in a leather jacket driving cars around. So let's
include him in this too. I think the biggest challenge
the film faced is the obvious comparison to Fury Road.
Largely considered widely considered to be one of the best
action films of this century. I think when you get
over that and you realize that, yes, this movie is
obviously a prequel, it's set in the same universe. It's

(39:54):
not trying to tell the same kind of story. It's
trying to do something a little bit different and and
something with a bit more scope, more history, I think
some more broader political scope as well. Like, I think
Fury Road focused on feminism and environmental destruction here. There's
a lot of that. There's also a lot of talk
about humanity's just inability to stop going to war with

(40:15):
one another, and the damage that is doing on both
a personal and community level. And I think there's some
playing around with, like, interesting ideas around class as well.
I watch this movie in Imax. It looked and sounded
awesome for me. The real highlight is Chris Hemsworth as Dementors.
He's brilliant. He's having a lot of fun. He's bringing
this kind of Shakespearean lunatic presence to the stage. I

(40:37):
think he kind of outshined Anya in a lot of scenes,
but I think she did a really great job as well,
channeling that kind of quiet fury that Charlize, uh, really,
really displayed in Fury Road. I had an awesome time
with this movie overall. Thomas, what did you think?

S3 (40:54):
Yeah, I really liked it. Um, I agree that I,
we actually having this conversation not too long ago where
it was like, Is Chris Hemsworth a good actor? Like,
we all know, he's really famous and like jacked and
he's in Marvel movies and stuff, but like, has he
ever done anything where you're like, wow, that was like
Chris Hemsworth, like kind of owned that. And this I

(41:15):
think is that movie, um, kind of from the first
time you meet Dementors, it's like, wow, he's got, you know,
kind of some prosthetics. They've made him like, it still
looks like Chris Hemsworth in prosthetics, but he looks a
bit weird. And pretty quickly I was like, okay, like,
he's going for this. Almost like Jack Sparrow meets like,
Heath ledger as the Joker. He's kind of like, almost
a bit camp. And he the way he speaks is
really interesting. I don't know, the whole thing. I was like, okay,

(41:35):
I'm here for this. And I did think he kind
of stole the movie. Um, yeah. Like visually it was
like I also saw it in Imax. I almost think
you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't see this
in Imax. Um, and like even the way the movie sounds,
everything about it was like, it's such a movie going experience.
And it was funny, like looking in it was like
Imax was packed. And you could see people, like, actively

(41:57):
like sitting back in their chairs as if they were being, like,
forced back by the actual, like, weight of the film. Um, yeah.
It was it was incredible. It did definitely feel like,
as you said, I feel like Fury Road is widely
accepted now as this like, wow, that is, you know,
the kind of benchmark for a modern action film. And
this felt a little bit more like drifting into the

(42:17):
Marvel territory of, like, are we being set up for
the mad Max universe completely now? Because we did, you know,
see a lot more of the wasteland universe? And will
there be like, like, will it be another eight years
before we get another mad Max, or will it be
like two or something like, Will we.

S1 (42:31):
Get, you know, the mad Max TV show spin offs,
exploring certain characters? I think that's potentially something that could
happen here.

S3 (42:37):
Yeah, it does feel a little bit like that. Or
maybe George Miller, like, hands the IP over to someone
else and they do make a, you know, ten part
Disney show out of it or whatever. And then I did,
even though I like enjoyed the film, I walked away
thinking like, oh, it does feel perhaps like Hollywood has
kind of got its claws in the mad Max franchise
now and are we going to get like an Immortan
Joe ten parter? Or, you know, like, are we going

(42:58):
to start to see it diluted and broken down and
like basically sold off for parts?

S1 (43:02):
Yeah, I mean, George Miller is 79 now. People said
that when Fury Road came out, it was that was
going to be the last one. I think it's amazing
that he's come back with this one and it is
as good as it is. But, you know, the IP
of the film, I think it's owned by Warner Brothers,
or at least Warner Brothers is the company behind this.
Warner Brothers is now a part of Warner Brothers Discovery,
which owns HBO and all these sorts of things. And

(43:24):
you're seeing this happen with Dune, right? Well, we've got
the Dune films, and simultaneously to the Dune films, we've
got the Dune TV series trailer dropped for Dune Prophecy,
which is about the history of the Bene Gesserit. You know,
the kind of nuns in that I feel like. And
I don't begrudge George for this at this stage of
his life, his career. If he's just like, give me
$1 billion, I will retire happy. My family will never

(43:46):
have to work again. And you can make whatever mad
Max films or shows you want. I don't really begrudge
him for that. I don't think the movie is like
the movie isn't bad because of the world building he's done.
It kind of all works. But your spot on, Thomas,
you can see. Cool. Let's get the history of the
Green Place. Let's get a drama set in. What's going
on in Bullet Town? Mad Max has always done that

(44:08):
in a really interesting way, where, you know, through in
Fury Road, there were those guys on stilts just kind
of walking in the wasteland in this sort of marsh,
and it's never explained. And there's been stuff like that
throughout the franchise's history. You don't have this overriding, this dialogue,
this exposition, you just kind of thrown into it. This
one had a bit more of that. Even at the

(44:28):
start of this film. You have this montage of news
clips that allude to how we ended up in this
apocalyptic hell space. Things like pandemic, nuclear war, environmental destruction.
It felt a little bit more like George linking very
current things going on to what's happened. I think, Mel,

(44:49):
you mentioned that the first mad Max films always had
a little bit of that going on, but it was
never laid out for us explicitly. Manohla Dargis in The
New York Times review of this film made the point that,
you know, we never really talked about George Miller being
a prophet, but as like, time has gone on and
the world is edged closer to the kinds of battles
over resources that he first talked about in the 70s

(45:12):
and this movie kind of shrinking that gap between reality
and fiction even more. It has become like a more
prophetic franchise.

S2 (45:21):
And did you feel that that kind of world building
slowed it down? Because definitely the original two, and the
third one is a bit of an interesting outlier of
a film, but the first two and even Fury Road
are quite simple stories of revenge, like it's a very
clear pattern, almost like a fable, which then, you know,
allows him to do spectacular stuff elsewhere. But did you

(45:41):
feel that it slowed it down, that they were developing
too much of the world?

S4 (45:44):
It's a really.

S2 (45:44):
Attracted.

S1 (45:45):
It's a really interesting question. I enjoyed a lot of it,
and there is a lot of great action set pieces,
but at certain points I was wondering, and I don't
often feel this about movies. I was like, just give
me more crazy scenes of them on the road doing
crazy stuff, like there's a bit where they get to
this big conflict and instead of showing it, it's just

(46:05):
like a narration and a montage. And I'm like, what?
This what these movies do so well, particularly since Fury
Road are stunts that you're just like, they take your
breath away. You know, my guy Steven Soderbergh has that
famous quote about Fury Road. He's like, every time I
watch it, I don't understand how there aren't, like, dead
bodies here on the set and some of the set pieces.
I mean, most of them are astonishing. There's one in

(46:26):
particular which is like the big iconic war rig scene
from Fury Road, and they take it to another level
and I'm like, that is amazing. And it's interesting that
when the trailer for this film came out, I wasn't
particularly excited. A lot of people seemed to react a
bit negatively because it looked very CGI focused, not a
lot of practical effects, and the CGI didn't look great.
Sometimes we forget that trailers are released before all the

(46:49):
work has been done on the visual effects. This looked
really good, like it felt very practical. I. And think
the CGI looked bad. What did you think about that, Thomas?

S3 (46:58):
Yeah, no, I think like it didn't didn't really bother
me at all. And I just think the scope of
some of those set pieces is, like, so amazing. And like,
you know, we spoke earlier before about how the rest
of them have kind of been filmed in Australia. Mad
Max Fury Road was like a lot in Namibia, but
it was so nice to be. It was so obviously
Australia again, having just recently returned from the Northern Territory
for undisclosed reasons. But like, you know, like that, that

(47:20):
sense of the, you know, when you do get into
those parts of Australia that feel like so barren and
you're the only person in the world like it's nice
to see that back on screen. And I just thought
it looked incredible. It's been funny, you know, like the
last week, I think George Miller has done a sit down.
And he spoke again about the strange relationship between Tom
Hardy and Charlize Theron on Fury Road. And then inevitably, like,

(47:42):
you know, it comes up as this movie comes out.
But I thought the actual chemistry between Chris Hemsworth and
Anya Taylor-Joy, they have some really intense scenes towards the end.
And just like from a physical standpoint, like he is
so imposing and she is quite like a little person. She's,
you know, she's like slender and but like, they feel
like such a great match. And again, you know, like

(48:03):
these are not dialogue heavy films, although Chris Hemsworth does
have some long speeches. But I reckon Anya Taylor-Joy, like,
as Furiosa says, like, I don't know, 40 words in
the whole film. Yeah, not a lot.

S1 (48:13):
And it's a hard role because Charlize played that so well,
and I've not historically been like, I've never really gotten
the Anya Taylor-Joy thing. I didn't love Queen's Gambit. I
think she did The Northman. She's pretty cool, but I
was really impressed with her. And this I think there
is like that, you know, it's a bad pun, but
a quiet fury of rage, like what her motivations are,
how she feels within each scene, what her what her

(48:35):
goal is like, what the kind of struggles that she
has about trying to make peace with where she's at
whilst not losing sight of where she came from. She
really does that very well through her face and her
acting more so than through dialogue. So I thought she
was wonderful in this film, and it.

S2 (48:48):
Is interesting that she's going for these kind of quite
big epic films. She was flagged at the end of June,
and there's a lot of rumors that she will kind
of be a main character in Dune Part three. She's
got a quite interesting career trajectory, and at this point,
she's kind of seems to be moving away from character
roles and doing a lot more of these huge franchise acting, um,
huge franchise action roles.

S3 (49:09):
Do you think like this? I know that Fury Road,
you know, obviously it was like made over 400 million
at the box office. It was nominated for like eight
Academy Awards. Um, it's like swept the technical categories. No
acting awards. Do you suspect? Obviously. Well, you haven't seen it,
but do you suspect that it will be similar this
time around? Do you think Chris could get a nom?

S1 (49:27):
I think there's a there's a chance Chris gets a nod.
I might depend on what category he's in. He's he's
probably a bit too much for Best Supporting Actor. And
it's probably not a good enough or big enough performance
or kind of Oscar worthy performance for best actor. But yeah, I,
I think this will do very well in the technical categories.
It'd be awesome if Chris got some sort of acknowledgement,

(49:48):
because I think he's really trying and he's showing off
the acting that he can do, and it's such a
reversal of the Marvel stuff where he's the good guy
in this. He's playing the bad guy. His character's name
is literally Dementors, you know? I mean, the character names
in this movie. Thomas, you mentioned the Australian landscape. The
sheer australianness of these movies is I love them. Like

(50:09):
every Australian, that guy actor like pops up in these movies.
Some of the names he gave Immortan Joe, he got
Praetorian Jack.

S4 (50:18):
It's just.

S1 (50:18):
Ridiculous. My personal favorite is, uh, So Lucky, whom plays
two characters. He plays Immortan Joe, and he plays this
one eyed sort of consiglieri to, uh, Dementors. This character's
name is Ridsdale Pell, right. George Ridsdale, one of the
most notorious pedophile priests in Ballarat. And George Pell.

S4 (50:38):
What is George Miller doing? That's that's so weird.

S3 (50:43):
I did not I did not know that that is. Yeah, right.
That's layered that's a layered drive by from George. And there.

S4 (50:48):
Is some, you.

S1 (50:48):
Know, pedophile stuff in this film. So that's just coming
out of nowhere. But you know, there are some pretty
like dark characters and dark moments in this film.

S2 (50:57):
Wow. And fun fact that I was reading that, um,
apparently Bathurst where they were filming around was too green.
So like in post-production they had to remove all the
greenery to make it have that arid look, which I
thought was kind of interesting, but also the case for
Australian government supporting filmmaking here, because it was because of
the rebates and incentives that they kept it in Australia, really,

(51:19):
versus 2015 when those rebates weren't here and they took
Fury Road elsewhere.

S1 (51:23):
But one of the good things about Fury Road being
in Namibia is that Mel Gibson didn't want to go there.
There's like some quotes from him and his wife sort
of not really wanting to be in Africa, you know,
make of that what you will. Um, and I do
think that movie is better without like contemporary Mel Gibson
in there.

S2 (51:38):
So yeah, I'm that's a that was a great decision
on behalf of everyone.

S4 (51:42):
I wonder I wonder if Miller was like.

S1 (51:44):
How do I get rid of Mel from this franchise.

S3 (51:47):
Given that the first set of films was a trilogy,
we're now on two of the newest Mad Max's, but
Happy Feet and Babe are both. Also arrested on two.
What does George Miller do next? Are we going to
see babe three Pig Piggy Road, or are we going
to see some kind of happy feet? I would love
to see another babe get James Cromwell Magda Szubanski back together.

(52:07):
It's like this. I mean, there's so much to do there.

S4 (52:09):
Give us.

S1 (52:10):
The babe. Expanded universe. I think he's like, he's nearly 80.
I don't know if he's going to make another movie.

S3 (52:15):
He'll probably end up coaching South.

S4 (52:16):
Yeah, I wouldn't mind.

S2 (52:19):
Him seeing taking like, another animal franchise. And like, what
if he did like, a Winnie the Pooh or something? Like,
I wouldn't mind another animal franchise.

S4 (52:26):
Well, that IP is up.

S3 (52:27):
For the taking, aren't they? They're making it. It is.

S4 (52:29):
Winnie the Pooh is out of copyright.

S1 (52:30):
Um, one of the conversations around films in 2024 has
been that they're not performing at the box office as
well as anticipated. The fall guy did okay, but, you know,
didn't do amazingly. There's not a lot of big tentpole releases,
big event movies on the calendar. This is one. After this,
it's the new Marvel one. Deadpool versus Wolverine. There's the

(52:52):
Joker sequel. There's not much else, I think. I mean,
I think this could do very well. It's being released
in Imax around the world. You know that that costs
a bit more. It's good for box office results. It's
a pretty bare like cinema listings at the moment. I
don't know if you guys have looked at what's on,
but people messaged me. They're like, you know what, what
do I see? I'm like, there's not it's not a

(53:12):
heap on there's actually a pretty great film. It's a
bit violent. We're not a family friendly movie, but I
wonder whether this could break the drought and do do
quite well. Maybe get to that four, $500 million mark
at the box office.

S3 (53:24):
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, it is funny
that like, I read read that kind of similar articles
about fall guy, like not really doing what it was
supposed to do. And, you know, like there was such a,
I guess, a thought from the studio of like, we'll
pluck Ryan Gosling from the biggest film of last year
and Emily Blunt from the other biggest film of last
year and put them together. And we can't lose in this,
you know, with like kind of semi existing IP and

(53:45):
you know, it'll be funny and look amazing. And then
it did okay. But it didn't like Set the World
on fire. The fall guy. And then yeah it is
it is strange looking at the rest of the year.
Like I think Deadpool versus Wolverine will be fucking enormous.
Like I reckon that will go bonkers. Um, everyone loves,
you know, the Deadpool character. Then we're bringing back in,
you know, Wolverine and the popularity of Hugh Jackman. I

(54:05):
reckon that'll go crazy. But the rest of the year
is kind of like, you know, lacking in things to
look forward to in terms of, like, big box office hits.
So yeah, I suspect that mad Max will do really well.
And we've already seen like, you know, what did Dune
two do, like crazy numbers.

S1 (54:19):
800 million or so. Maybe got close to a billion.
I mean, it it's interesting. The Australian Australia is punching
above its weight when it comes to bringing in box
office results this year. Anyone but you big hit into the, uh,
start of this year. Filmed in Sydney. The fall guy
you know didn't do enormously still is making quite a
lot of money. Filmed in Australia. Mad Max Furiosa filmed

(54:40):
in Australia. Largely Australian cast and director. Deadpool versus Wolverine. Wolverine.
He's Australian. Australia. What? Like that's cool.

S3 (54:48):
Yeah, Australians are cool. I've been saying it for ages.

S4 (54:51):
Yeah.

S2 (54:52):
Yeah that's great. It's our it's our year and hopefully
it'll be a showing at the uh at some of
the awards ceremonies too.

S3 (54:58):
That being said, one of my other I mean, I
know we're about to get on to this, but one
of my other most anticipated films of the year is
also shot in Australia. Uh, and that is Nicolas Cage.

S2 (55:06):
Ah. The surfer.

S4 (55:07):
Yeah. So I wanted I wanted to.

S1 (55:08):
Talk to you guys a bit about, uh, a bit
about Khan, which has been happening over the last week,
and this has been a particularly interesting one to watch
because of the fact that the big studio films, you know,
like we've said, there's not there's not a heap to
get excited about. So what is playing at Khan and
what is reacting? Getting good reactions and uh, being highly
anticipated could give us a slightly more fleshed out, you know,

(55:31):
second half of the year of these films get picked
up and distributed in Australia. One of those that got
a really great reception was the Surfer, the Nick cage
film Thomas.

S3 (55:40):
Yeah. So that's like was shot up in WA. I think, uh,
Nicolas Cage plays, I think he's like on the run
or something and he plays and then he kind of
gets into surf, falls in with a surf gang. It
feels like kind of an exploitation, like B movie vibe. Um,
like I did want to say before we get into this, like,
do we think at this point the standing ovation thing
at Cannes is getting like, ridiculous?

S1 (56:03):
It is. It's now become like a complete joke, right?
Where for people who don't know, different media outlets are
now recording the length of standing ovations, different films get.
Some of them are seven minutes, some of them are
11 minutes, some of them 17 minutes. It's always been
like a very Khan specific thing, and I think now
it's become a bit of a joke. People are making
kind of memes about it, you know? Hans Moleman man

(56:23):
gets hit in the head by football. 17 minutes standing ovation.
I can't like it's funny stuff. It seems completely ridiculous
because it often has nothing to do with the quality
of the film. It's just this director's back. Let's just
stand up and clap. Honestly, I could not imagine anything
worse than being forced to clap for like seven minutes,
let alone 17.

S2 (56:42):
I can imagine being the person who has to receive the.

S4 (56:45):
Clapping for.

S2 (56:46):
That long. Like, what do you do? I hate when
I would be.

S4 (56:49):
Fine with that. Honestly, I.

S5 (56:51):
Hate when people sing.

S2 (56:52):
Happy Birthday for 30s. What do you do for seven
minutes of like I just every time I see the
footage of people having to like, smile and say thank
you for seven, 13, 15 minutes, I just internally shrivel
up and die.

S3 (57:04):
A few years ago, Adam Driver got one for. And
I mean, it can't have been for that weird Italian movie.
But anyway, he got one one. It was like the
sixth minute and he lit up a cigarette and.

S4 (57:15):
Just started smoking it. Well, that's boss, which I think.

S3 (57:17):
Is kind of great, but like, yeah, you know, like
there's this weird new, like, not Yellowstone movie by Kevin
Costner and that got like a 12 minute standing ovation, like,
are you fucking kidding me? Like two minutes is a
long time. I don't know, I just find that whole
thing weird. And then it does become this. Like, it's
almost like a calling card, like, oh, they got a,
you know, ten minute standing ovation. It must be amazing.

S2 (57:35):
It's like the new star ranking.

S3 (57:36):
Yeah, exactly. So that that is very weird. But yeah,
Nicolas Cage, as we all know, we know and love
Nicolas Cage. He's got this. Probably the strangest IMDb besides
George Miller, I suppose. Um, he does like horror movies,
amazing movies, Oscar movies, insane movies, B movies, action movies. Uh,
and it sounds like the surfer might tick a lot
of those boxes. So, yeah, I'm very excited about that one.

S1 (57:58):
Um, the other you mentioned Kevin Costner in the horizon film.
I'm sort of excited by that. Like, I like Yellowstone
and this is Kevin Costner kind of ditching Yellowstone and
putting all of his money into, uh, you know, horizon,
Udorn and American sort of Western frontier film. Apparently it's
not great. It just basically looks like a TV show,
and he's doing part one, and then he's doing six
weeks later in cinemas, part two. That's kind of wacky,

(58:19):
but I guess I applaud lunatic people in the film
industry putting all their money into their passion projects. Which
brings me to what looks like one of the craziest
films ever made. And we've talked about this, uh, earlier
in the year when we were previewing upcoming, upcoming, when
we were previewing upcoming movies, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, starring
Adam Driver. Uh, this is crazy. I mean, the reviews

(58:42):
on this one are just wacky. Some people are convinced it's,
you know, brilliant or tourist cinema at its best. Other
people say it's a total mess. It makes no sense.
It has now just received an Australian distributor in Mad Men,
so it will be coming to Australian cinemas hopefully later
this year. I'm very excited to watch it. Like I'm
famously one of the three people in the world that

(59:03):
thought Babylon, Damien Chazelle's very messy, strange movie about Hollywood,
was great. I like Coppola, I feel like even if
it's a bit of a weird movie again, I back
the fact that he sold off his entire, like estate
to make this film, which seems to be a statement
on the death and decay of American Empire. Like, you know,
he's a great artist making a crazy movie about ideas

(59:24):
he cares about. Let's watch.

S4 (59:25):
It.

S2 (59:25):
Yes, I'm very excited for this film, whether or not
it was filmed in Australia. Uh, yeah. Just that he
has staked so much on it and that he sees
it as the kind of epitome of his career and
how it's going to throw all his other films in
a different light. I can't wait.

S1 (59:41):
For the other film that made some headlines this week, uh,
The Apprentice, Ali Abbas Iranian director's new film about Donald Trump, uh,
starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and starring Jeremy Strong as, uh,
Trump's lawyer during this era. It's it's pretty interesting. It's

(01:00:01):
got some controversy for a seemingly quite explicit scene of
sexual assault that, uh, you know, Trump allegedly perpetrates based
on some divorce documents, I think, with with his ex-wife.
That was sort of the main story coming out of Cannes.
I mean, we loved Jeremy Strong. Sebastian Stan certainly looks
a lot like Donald Trump. I'm pretty interested in this one.

S2 (01:00:23):
Yeah, I'm kind of keen to check in on Jeremy Strong,
to see that he's back on his feet into a
new character. Yeah, I miss Jeremy from our screens.

S3 (01:00:32):
Yeah, I'm very excited for this one. Um, and we've
already seen Trump tweeting madly about it. Uh, rubbish movie garbage. Uh,
probably hasn't seen it, but yeah, it looks great. You know,
like you got those, like leaked photos from set and
it was just like Sebastian Stan as Trump sitting on
a bench eating a sandwich. I was like, yeah, I
am in for this. I actually reckon that could also

(01:00:52):
be one that maybe is a like a bit of
a surprise hit at the box office. Like we're going
to be deep in, you know, Trump content for the
next like few months as the election heats up and
the debates and everything. So yeah, it's interesting timing and
I suspect that might do quite well. Plus all the
succession heads will be so keen to see number one
son back on screens.

S1 (01:01:10):
Shall we go to Cannes?

S3 (01:01:11):
Yes we should.

S2 (01:01:12):
Yes we absolutely. How do we get there?

S1 (01:01:14):
Um, which hopefully someone listening to this podcast, either one
of our bosses or someone more, you know, wealthier and
some sort of patron just wants to send us there
to do podcasts for two weeks.

S4 (01:01:24):
Man, I.

S2 (01:01:25):
Would love a patron. I think about kind of back
in the day, the Renaissance and having a patron. We
all need one like we should all individually kind of
acquire a patron.

S4 (01:01:33):
I'm surprised you don't have one.

S3 (01:01:34):
You seem like the patron type. I thought.

S4 (01:01:36):
The Nine.

S1 (01:01:37):
Entertainment company is our patron. What are you talking about? Um, let's, uh,
move on to our Impress Your Friends segment where we
share something we watched, listened to, read. Otherwise, enjoy consuming
this week. Mine's pretty quick. TV is in a bit
of a lull, I reckon. I'm hoping that one of
you has a great show to recommend, but I went
a bit sideways. Talk about music. Chief Keef has a

(01:01:58):
new album Almighty. So two back on my hip hop
thing after the Kendrick Drake beef. I'm like, you know
what country's over, man? Hip hop is where it's. At
a caf is like the godfather of Chicago drill. It's
probably been one of the most interesting and influential genres
in hip hop over the past decade. This is a
really great album. It's like a full return to the

(01:02:19):
drill roots he had, but it feels like contemporary and
progressive and fun to really, really good album. It's really hard.
Go listen to it. That's my recommendation.

S2 (01:02:27):
Nice, I will. Well, I am this this week recommending
the Sydney Morning Herald 2024 Best young Australian Novelists.

S3 (01:02:36):
Either of us on the.

S4 (01:02:37):
List, you.

S2 (01:02:38):
Are absolutely not, but famously has written a book. Yes. Um,
these we announce these every year. The prize is in
its 28th year, which is kind of insane. Um, and
the winners get $5,000 thanks to the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. Um,
they have to be under 35 or 35 at the
time of publication. So there you go. You've both got
a few more years. Um, the winners this year were

(01:03:00):
Andre Dao, who wrote Anam, which is this kind of
sweeping story based on his own family history. John Morrissey,
who has written a really great, fun, interesting short story collection,
kind of speculative fiction, and Emily O'Grady, whose novel feast
is really dark and full of tension. And she said
it was inspired by this dream she had about Nick

(01:03:20):
Cave and Tilda Swinton being in love, stuck in a gothic, um,
stuck in a gothic castle. So three really different books,
three really interesting books, and kind of, you know, I read,
I think about there were more than 30 or so
young novelists entered in the prize. So it's a really
good way to get a temperature check about what's coming
out of emerging writers in, in the country. And I
think these three really kind of, you know, cream of

(01:03:43):
the crop and a and a good sign of what
is being written in Australia now. So, um, yeah, I'd
recommend each of their books and all three because they're
all so different.

S3 (01:03:51):
They all sound very good. I'm keen, especially feast, I think.
I want to check that out. I think you would.

S2 (01:03:55):
Really like that.

S3 (01:03:56):
I also have a book this week actually, also by
an Australian author.

S4 (01:03:59):
Great.

S3 (01:04:00):
Are you proud of me? Uh, this is Thunderhead by Miranda, darling.
I'm not sure if either of you have read this.
I have read.

S2 (01:04:06):
This. Yes. I knew you would like this book.

S4 (01:04:08):
Really? Yeah.

S3 (01:04:09):
Yeah, it's really good. Uh, it's like it's a funny one.
Like it, I guess. I hate to be this person, but, like,
for fans of Rachel Cusk, it does feel very, uh,
in that space, right down to actually the cover art,
which looks basically like a Rachel Cusk book. But this
is Thunderhead by Miranda Darling. She's an Australian author. Um,
it's basically set over the course of one day when

(01:04:29):
we meet Winona Dalloway. And basically she's a mother of
two who we learn is in this very strange relationship.
It's kind of like a stream of consciousness book. Um,
but there are multiple voices that are kind of talking
to each other as she, you know, prepares for this
dinner party. We kind of learn that she's in this
coercive relationship. Her husband, who only is referred to as
him or he, uh, is, you know, not a very

(01:04:50):
nice person. Um, it's like this kind of, like, snapshot
of suburbia and motherhood and crushed dreams and all these
different things. There's a lot going on, but it's very tense. Um,
it's a short book. You can read it basically in
1 or 2 sittings, but I've been really enjoying it. Plus,
there are the occasional side references to Sydney and Taronga Zoo.
But yeah, it's great, it's gripping and it feels very
like contemporary. So if you're into that type of thing, uh,

(01:05:12):
that is Thunderhead by Miranda Darling, and the cover does
look great. So if you chuck it on your grid,
Osman and I will probably like it. So that's what's up.

S4 (01:05:19):
Your ability to.

S1 (01:05:20):
Turn every book review into a comment about the cover
and Instagram is very funny to me. Um, no. Really
good Rex books and music to listen to while we
wait for like good TV to come back. But there
are a couple of exciting things on that front that
I hope we will get to talk about in the
next couple of weeks. Thomas and Mel, thanks so much, Tim.

S4 (01:05:36):
Thank you. That'll do pig.

S1 (01:05:46):
This episode of The Drop was produced by Kai Wong.
If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of The Drop,
make sure to follow us in your favorite podcast app.
Leave us a review or better yet, share it with
a friend! I'm Usman Farooqi, see you next week.