Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonahrd | Hacker News Reader

Mad Max Fury Road?

Also, heavily biased towards the 20s-50s

Edit: more detail, 35/250 films are from the past 25 years, from 1998 to now. Less than 1/7 of films from over 1/5 of the entire history of film?

And then the consistant bias of impact to the industry vs actual filmic value... this isn't supposed to be a list of the 250 most impactful films... I've seen a few of these older films from the 20s or 30s. For sure, they were developing the language of film and are absolutely key to film history. But are you really going to say they stand up to films made in recent years with a fully mature vocabulary?

This is such a common occurrence on lists like this, they might as well be called "250 films you will probably watch in film studies class"

Another edit: I counted 42 films from the 25 year period from 1920-1945

View on HN

Who decides what "filmic value" is? I've seen some of the older films, and I feel they hold up pretty well; The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927, #21 on this list) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, not listed here) are some of my favourite films, and personally I'd say they really do stand up well today.

Some people might also find these finds incredibly boring, and that's fine. In the end this is nothing more than "films the 1,639 people who voted liked the best". I bet everyone can name some films they feel should be on that list, or has seen films on the list that they disliked; for example I felt Citizen Kane was profoundly boring. That's okay as not everyone's movie taste is the same, just as people's tastes in music or food differ.

Years ago I watched The Childhood of a Leader in the theatre with my then-girlfriend. I thought it was pretty good. I could see her shifting in her seat and sighing heavily, and her dislike of it was palpable even in the dark without any words spoken. She hated it and would have walked out if it wasn't for me. My rating would be 8/10 or so; hers 1/10. Average rating: 4.5, which is not too far off the 54% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyhow, my point is: I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss people's tastes.

> But are you really going to say they stand up to films made in recent years with a fully mature vocabulary?

Sure! I've seen 19 of the 42 films you counted as being made between 1920-1945, and I'd say the overwhelming majority of those 19 definitely still hold up. Are you seriously telling me Double Indemnity (1944), City Lights (1931), Duck Soup (1933), and Casablanca (1942) are only fit for consumption by film students? If so, I'd say "lucky film students!"

I am telling you that Metropolis for always being cited as one of the greatest films of all time is not actually that good, although very very influential.

> Edit: more detail, 35/250 films are from the past 25 years, from 1998 to now. Less than 1/7 of films from over 1/5 of the entire history of film?

To be fair, the industry made about a billion superhero movies and 10 fast and furious and 3 (three!!!) hobbit movies in that time.

Fury Road absolutely belongs on the list.

Alright I'll take that comment back, it is pretty good and I see other films of the same tier on this list.

I still think this list lacks recent films.

Explain to me why Fury Road belongs on that list? I personally found it one of the singular worst most disappointing films I have ever seen.

In my opinion Mad Max was a master piece of exploitation cinema and the most realistic of the bunch.

The Road Warrior pushed it a bit further and was at least plausible. I think it's the best of the series and one of my favorite movies of all time.

Beyond the Thunderdome is tough. They destroyed the Interceptor early and Miller seems to not understand the importance of a car as a character. I think reusing the actor from The Road Warrior in a different roll was a confusing mistake and some parts were pushed to the edge of silly. On the other hand, the homage to Lord of the Flies was beautifully done and somewhat made up for the other deficiencies.

Fury Road was a completely implausible comic book that delved into the silly to a ridiculous degree. But even worse, it was not a Mad Max movie other than it copied The Road Warrior in much the same way the 7-9 star wars sequels copied Star Wars.

Edit: I will also say that after seeing the film I was shocked it was Miller. I assumed it had been passed off to some hack and was made purely for the benjamins.

The chase in mad max furry road: your eyes are always where they are supposed to be, even if it the scenes are total confusing. The best example is the part with the motorcycles.

You might rewatch it with this idea in mind. It is not great storywise but it is greatly done in this regard

Mad Max "Furry" Road now lives in my imagination.

I would like it gone.

I think that Fury Road is a great example of purely visual storytelling.

As for the Mad Max franchise, I think of it (I can’t remember where I first saw this idea) as the same legend retold over multiple generations of oral storytellers. So the world gets less and less detailed and the characters change with each retelling.

That’s why I see it differently than I see Star Wars 7 & 9 (I loved 8 though).

You're very much missing the visual artistry of the movie, and focusing too much on literal story telling. You can do that if you like, but the visual aspects are why this movie belongs on this list.

One way to approach film making is to see it as the art of moving objects in 3d space, then using a camera to transpose those objects onto a 2d plane. Take the resultant series of images, and splice / edit them into a feature film. Fury Road is a masterclass in this craft. Every frame a painting and all that. Every edit is perfect.

Random variation is random. It looks like clusters.

If there were an even spread across the decades, you'd be right to suspect selection by other than aesthetic or innovation criteria.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com