David J. Williams » road warrior http://autumnrain2110.com/blog Autumn Rain 2110 Wed, 05 May 2021 07:38:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 Mad Max http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/2009/09/14/mad-max/ http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/2009/09/14/mad-max/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:21:02 +0000 http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/?p=1535 Ah, the Mad Max movies. Did you know that until Blair Witch Project, the first Mad Max flick had the highest profit-to-cost ratio in cinema history? They shot it for 400K, and it made them over 100 million. The crazy part is that (at least initially) most of this came from non-U.S. markets; this might have had more than a little to do with the fact that the U.S. got a version in which Mel (and everybody else’s) voices had been dubbed over by Yanks.  Something about how the U.S. public wouldn’t have known what to do with a movie in which Australians were yammering on the entire time.  In fact, it was only with the release of the Mad Max DVD a few years back that we watch the movie without it sounding like a bad Hong Kong martial arts flick.

At any rate, we open with has to be one of the greatest auto chases in cinema history—“I am a fuel injected suicide machine!”—in which we see Max go head to head with the Night Rider, in a move that presaged the ending of Road Warrior where he collides full-on with the Humungous’ vehicle.  I love the way throughout most of the chase sequence Max just SITS THERE, listening on the radio as the chaos draws closer and the good guys get run off the road. #$# genius.   Spruce up your Monday by reliving the magic:

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