It's the Mesoamerican way

KINGS OF THE SUN (1963)

Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Written by Elliott Arnold and James R. Webb
With Yul Brynner (Chief Black Eagle), George Chakiris (King Balam), and Shirley Anne Field (Ixchel)

APOCALYPTO (2006)

Directed by Mel Gibson
Written by Farhad Sarfinia and Mel Gibson
With Rudy Youngblood (Jaguar Paw), Dalia Hernandez (Seven), Morris Birdyellowhead (Flint Sky), Jonathan Brewer (Blunted), Raoul Trujillo (Zero Wolf), Gerardo Taracena (Middle Eye), and Ricardo Diaz Mendoza (Cut Rock)

Spoiler alert: moderate for Apocalypto, high for Kings of the Sun

The reason for the season

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

Did the militant atheist enjoy spending the afternoon of his last day off watching a right-wing Christian fundamentalist film about humanity's inherent worthlessness in the absence of God?  The answer may surprise you!  Especially if you don't look at the tags!

2004
Directed by Mel Gibson
Written by Benedict Fitzgerald and Mel Gibson (based on the books by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)
With Jim Caviezel (Yeshua), Maya Morgenstern (Maryam), Luca Lionello (Yehudah), Hristo Shopov (Pontius Pilate), Francesco De Vito (Shimon), Christo Jivkov (Yochanan), and Monica Belluci (Magdalen)

Spoiler alert: N/A

Why walk away, when you can ride in style?

THE ROAD WARRIOR

1981

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Terry Hayes, and Brian Hannant

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Bruce Spence (The Gyro Captain), Kjell Nilsson (Lord Humungus), Vernon Wells (Wez), Emil Minty (The Feral Kid), and Harold Baigent (The Narrator)

Only two years out from the phenomenal domestic financial success and worldwide impress that was his (in retrospect) artistically disappointing first film, a new George Miller joint arrived in theaters, first in Australia, and four months afterward in America. For reasons that probably have more to do with history and geography than quality, Mad Max had spawned a sequel. And in the annals of film follow-ups, Mad Max 2, or The Road Warrior, or Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior—whatever you wish to call it—rules the wasteland.

Hey, fella! You're a turkey!

This is Kinemalogue, the cinema blog (it's Greek so that means I'm educated in all the wrong ways).  We will almost certainly discuss things other than movies, from time to time, because there's a lot of things I love and hate that aren't movies and which I will compulsively shout into this vast emptiness about.  But we'll grok that fullness when we come to it.  The primary mission for now is to share thoughts on new, old, and very old movies.

In commemoration of their combined release on Blu Ray, over this troika of virgin posts, I'm gonna tell you what I thought about one of film's most celebrated post-apocalypses, from its humble Ozsploitation beginnings in 1979, through its 1981 breakout into the mainstream and what Roger Ebert (pbuh) infamously declared one of the best movies of 1985, to my hopes for the Mad Maxes to come.

Oh, and: welcome home.  We love you.

MAD MAX

1979
Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, James McCausland, and Byron Kennedy

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Joanne Samuel (Jessie Rockatansky), Steve Bisley (Jim Goose), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Toecutter)

Standing tall amongst the classic films of our childhoods—or adulthoods, or pre-existences, or post-existences, if you can still get Netflix service at the Omega Point—in any event classic films of the late 70s and early 80s—Mad Max has the distinction of being the movie I think I’d most like to see get remade; because despite its enormous importance to its own franchise, to the genre of badass 80s action cinema, and indeed to the culture as a whole (see how Mad Max taught us not to descend into biker barbarism?), it also has the distinction of being only marginally good.

Rest assured, gentle reader, I do not dislike this first outing in Max’ trilogy, and am not unsympathetic to the fact that it is director George Miller's debut effort.  However, to see Max for the first time in perhaps two decades, after dozens of viewings of Road Warrior and Thunderdome, is almost necessarily to be unimpressed by it.

"Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?"