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Hello and welcome back to Thursday Movie Picks, the weekly series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves where you share three movies to fit the theme of the week each Thursday.
Since this week's theme is deserts, both hot and cold qualifies, and people usually are pretty lonely in deserts, like in America's Horse with no name, so I went theme within a theme with the original Mad Max trilogy. Because you don't want to be alone when you meet him. Please, pretend I never said that.
Mad Max (1979)
When his wife and child are killed by a motorcycle gang, Max sets outs in the Australian wastelands in search of revenge. I didn't like this one. The pacing is too fast, especially in the action sequences. It's quite tedious mostly because nothing happens until the last thirty minutes.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
After taking his revenge, Max is now a lone wanderer who cares only for himself. But things are about to change when he meet a small group of honest people. This is my favourite. Although the story is simple and Max's character suffers a little as he becomes more of an ideology than a character, the action is great and the new characters are interesting and pretty unique.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
After stumbling upon the wrong people, Max is forced to fight like a gladiator, he is later banished and decides to rebel against those people with the help of a group of abandoned children. Well, I don't think I need to say more. Not even the action is good in this one.
I like your theme! I chose Mad Max: Fury Road because I've never actually seen the original trilogy.
ReplyDeleteFury Road is a great pick! And my favourite of the series
DeleteI've not seen the original trilogy too, but after Fury Road I want to check out at least one in the trilogy.
DeleteWatch the second, it's the only worth the time. It's very good to be honest.
DeleteI have seen the 1st 2 and I'm not a fan of either but the first one started the whole thing and I remember how many people loved it. When Tina Turner was in the last one, all the Entertainment shows made a field day of her being in this and how great she was. The sweaty sax player made a quick splash as well since he appeared in The Lost Boys also
ReplyDeleteThe third was so weird but I loved Tina Turner
DeleteNice going with the original trilogy. I've only seen Beyond Thunderdome which is why I haven't sought out the other two before now. Love Fury Road which has led me buy all of them. I plan on binging them this summer.
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
DeleteLove a theme within a theme! The original Road Warrior was a spare, tough bare bones little film and I don't think any of the others can touch its pure unrefined propulsiveness. The two sequels were enjoyable but missing that original spark.
ReplyDeleteI thought about doing all Westerns but branched out a bit into other genres, all sandy though.
The Desert Song (1953)-Sometimes a movie is just so wildly miscast that you love it more for its faults than its strengths, that’s the case with this operetta. The basic story goes like so: There’s a civil war between Morocco’s Berber and Arab populations in the early 1900’s. French Foreign Legionnaire Gen. Birabeau arrives with daughter Margot (Kathryn Grayson) in tow to check the war’s progress while Arab Sheik Yousseff schemes to discredit the mysterious opposition leader El Khobar (Margot’s tutor in disguise) while Margot and El Khobar fall in love. Simple enough but what ratchets up the absurdity factor is that the Sheik is played by Raymond Massey, famous for playing Abraham Lincoln!, while El Khobar the Berber rebel leader is Gordon MacRae…that’s right Curley from Oklahoma!! If you can look beyond that the strapping Gordon and the lovely Kathryn are in great voice and the score is terrific but if you’re looking for realism look elsewhere.
Rawhide (1951)-Feisty young Vinnie Holt (Susan Hayward) traveling with her orphaned niece Callie is stranded at the remote stagecoach stop “Rawhide Pass” in the acrid desert of the old West with stationmaster Sam Todd (Edgar Buchanan) and his assistant Tom Owens (Tyrone Power) when the cavalry won’t permit her to proceed through dangerous territory because of a stage robbery. After the soldiers leave, Jim Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) bluffs his way into the station saying he’s a guard but is actually one of the escaped convicts responsible for the robbery. His three fellow escapees quickly appear intent on stealing the gold shipment due in the next day. After killing Sam they must keep Tom and Vinnie, who they mistakenly believe is his wife, alive to carry out their plan. As the four men turn on each other Tom & Vinnie work together to try and escape. Tight suspenseful Western.
Five Graves to Cairo (1943)-British Corporal John Bramble (Franchot Tone) is the lone survivor of a battle against Rommel’s army on the Egyptian border. Wandering through the desert he finds a remote hotel assuming a false identity to elude capture. Arriving shortly after is General Rommel himself (Erich von Stroheim) who takes Bramble for a German spy and lets slip hints of his secret strategy, the 'five graves' to Cairo-hidden excavations of supplies to enable survival across the desert. It’s up to Bramble to find a way to get word of the plan to the Allies and perhaps change the tide of the war.
I haven't seen any of your picks but The Desert Song sounds like a good one.
DeleteI've seen the first two Mad Max movies and didn't bother with the third because of reviews. When I first watched Mad Max I wondered how it garnered a sequel, but the sequel was pretty great.
ReplyDeleteGood call, the third is terrible.
DeleteI havent seen the first one. Loved the second and I could watch Thunderdome again.
ReplyDeleteAre you serious? Thunderdome was hilariously bad!
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