Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

 "You can shovel ****, can't you?

The critics are wrong. This film is a masterpiece, and easily the best of the original Mad Max trilogy. Yes, as good as the first two are, especially the second, this film is truly great. 

Firstly, not that the previous film didn't, but this film utterly owns the post-apocalyptic aesthetic. It looks bloody brilliant, with the deserts of Australia being as much a star as any of the cast. This is also a profoundly Australian film, as are its predecessors. A nuclear holocaust would wipe out all of Europe, North America, and the Soviet Union near as dammit. Australia would survive, even if its civilisation wouldn't.

Ah, civilisation. That's the core of the film, and it's done without didactricism. Take Auntie and, incidentally, while one may not necessarily expect a singer to be worthy of such a role, Tina Turner gives an admirably nuanced performance as Auntie.

She's framed as the baddie, and is certainly hostile to Max. But is she really bad? After all, she made Bartertown, a genuine holdout of civilisation. Yes, it runs on pig manure, but, well, nice metaphor. And, much as I tend to be very libera in matters of justice and Auntie isn't, she hasn't the luxury of living in a civilised, industrial society. Even the sublime John Stuart Mill made an exception for such things. If Auntie hadn't provided the level of civilisation she has, wouldn't society, if that's the word, be quite Hobbesian?

It's an interesting contrast in post-apocalyptic political systems- back to basics- in that the antithesis of Auntie and her harshly enforced civilisation isa bunch of kids with great, poetic dialogue but basically a cargo cult.They get their plane ride; they get their city. But, somehow, I suspect it will be the Aunties of this wrld who ultimately rebuild civilisation. But, admirably, none of this is in any way didactic.

Profound, looks sperb, exciting, and overall just a bloody brilliant film.

The Professor and the Madman (2019)

"When I read, no one is after me."

This is, while not entirely without verging into sentiment at times, an extraordinary film. The real life events it depicts are themselves extraordinary, of course: Dr James Murray, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, strikes up an extraordinary friendship with Dr William Minor- surgeon, veteran of the Union Army, erudite gentleman, paranoid schizophrenic and murderer- as Minor makes an enormous scholarly contribution.

Those facts alone are remarkable, and remain so in fictionalised form. But the film has more to it than that- the snobbery endured by Murray, of humble origins in the Scottish Borders; the tension between being with one's family and working to provide for them; the treatment of personality disorders; love; justice; friendship. Most of all it deals with the huge theme of redemption, with a sensitively written  and performed subplot in which the widow of the murdered man slowly comes to forgive and indeed love Minor.

The emotional depths, which are profound although excessively sentimental at times, are helped by a nicely structured script and outstanding performances from Sean Penn and Natalie Dormer, That wanker Laurence Fox is sadly in it but, happily, he plays a very hissable baddie.

This is well worth watching and, without a doubt, the finest film featuring a man cutting off his own penis I have ever seen.

Mad Max (1979)

"They say people don't believe in heroes any more!"

I'd never seen Mad Max until now. It's been a film I'd been meaning to see for years, having such an effect in popular culture (referenced in a Rick and Morty episode I saw a couple of weeks ago, for example) and being pretty much the poster kid for post-apocalyptic futures. What I found was a fairly straightforward but rather good revenge action movie, but also very different from what I expected.

The film is quite simple; Max is a cop who tussles with a  motorcycle gang and its charismatic leader, leading ultimately to his wife and son (called "Sproggo", wonderfully!) being murdered (Does Jess survive, though? We aren't told.) and his spending the last twenty minutes exacting his revenge. It's a simple formula, one found in so many action films, but what makes this film stand out is simply that it's well scripted, directed and acted. It gets the basics right.

But the setting- it's clearly set in a future (for 1979) in which civilisation is fragmenting a little, fuel is scarce and technology is a valuable resource, but only up to a point. It's a Wild West type society; justice is a little rough and ready but hardly arbitrary, there are motorbikes instead of horses and the glorious Outback location adds so much. But there is a society, law and order, a functioning economy, private property etc. I'd hardly call it post-apocalyptic.

One more thing; it's been bugging me but really needs an Aussie to pronounce definitively on this, but... Mel Gibson sort of sounds as though he doesn't naturally speak with an Australian accent and is putting one on?

Braveheart (1995)

“The trouble with Scotland is it's full of Scots...”

I’ve seen this film a fair few times but not for many years, and certainly not since, well, Mel Gibson gained a reputation for ultra-conservative religious beliefs and films to match, and somewhat unfortunate comments about Jewish people. So it seems rather pointless for this Englishman to complain about this film being “anti-English”- given the subject matter, which is broadly true even if the chronology is somewhat compressed and William Wallace seems to be both suspiciously older and less upper class than he would have been. But these days it’s far more notable just how pious all the good guys are here.

Still, the film isn’t a bad melodrama and Gibson himself is rather good, and gets some equally good performance out of a cast without a huge amount of star wattage, although I’m kicking myself for not recognising Patrick McGoohan as King Edward I until now. The whole thing looks good and the battle scenes, so often dull and hard to follow, are genuinely dramatic and gripping.

It may play a few tricks with history- Edward I did not die at the same time as William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered, and Robert the Bruce didn’t have much success until years later- but Braveheart is an entertaining and fun, if rather violent, Hollywood treatment of a somewhat neglected historical saga. Still watchable after all these years.