best movie directed by George Miller

btw his next movie is supposed to be "Three Thousand Years of Longing"

Premise

A lonely and bitter British woman discovers an ancient bottle while on a trip to Istanbul and unleashes a Djinn who offers her three wishes. Filled with apathy, she is unable to come up with one until his stories spark in her a desire to be loved.[1]

Cast

Idris Elba
Tilda Swinton

Does it make me a bad person if I vote Pig in the City? Because I think I might.

a very respectable vote!

It's the only one that I feel I should watch before voting.

Its no babe

My Pig in the City story: It was iirc a Christmas movie, or around that time, or some other big holiday, and my wife and I went to see an afternoon screening of it. There were I think 6-ish people in the theatre. Me and my wife, a pair of dudes that laughed like maniacs the entire time, and a pair of parents with a kid that cried through the whole thing. Pretty much sums it up.

But as far as wacky filmographies go, this poll comes days after Apted died. What an insane resume he had.

i haven't seen the happy feet, lorenzo's oil, and witches of eastwick. the latter is the main one i want to see. lorenzo's oil sounds interesting but too heavy for me right now.

my recent george miller obsession comes from listening to the george miller miniseries of the blank check podcast, and they agreed that the first happy feet is his only movie that is not good. and even that one sounds like it's more generic than actively bad.

Voting for Pig in the City obv, but Lorenzo's Oil is pretty good for what looks like a Disease of the Week movie. The only hurdle is Nick Nolte's Italian accent.

Nick Nolte's Italian accent

Don't threaten me with a good time...

This is fury road

Watched witches lately, boy its a mood piece and a half

Love the fact that the director who made The Man From Snowy River and Les Patterson Saves the World is a different George Miller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_T._Miller

And the guy that did the music for Mad Max II is a different Brian May

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

FINALLY I CAN VOTE FOR THIS MASTERPIECE

even though the answer is fury road yes

then again i can't say which movie's stuntwork impresses me more

I had no idea he directed Eastwick!

Fury Road. Everything else is either a solid movie or genre exploration. Fury Road is the best action film to come out in the last 20+ years imo and one of the few to get everything right.

torn between Babe 2 and Mad Max 4, which are sorta the same movie

Mickey Rooney w/ oxygen mask = Immortan Joe
Mrs. Hoggett bungeeing around ballroom & kitchen = flamethrower guitar guy
dog on wheels tied to truck = war boy attacking the rig
bull terrier dangling in chains = Max dangling in chains

My Pig in the City story: It was iirc a Christmas movie, or around that time, or some other big holiday, and my wife and I went to see an afternoon screening of it. There were I think 6-ish people in the theatre. Me and my wife, a pair of dudes that laughed like maniacs the entire time, and a pair of parents with a kid that cried through the whole thing. Pretty much sums it up.

Yes, it seems like a movie ostensibly made for young children but which might also be ostensibly traumatizing for young children. Which is the best kind of children's movie, obvs.

voted Max 2 in the other poll, would prob vote Fury Road slightly above Pig In The City here

I've only seen Pig in the City, which is also the only film I've seen with obvious CGI that works.

Witches of Eastwick is a trip. It's a John Updike adaptation but by the end it makes perfect sense that they got the Mad Max guy to direct it. Also strongly RIYL Beetlejuice (which came out the following year).

i think i'll watch it tonight.

Eastwick / Death Becomes Her / Beetlejuice for the triple feature.

I fell asleep during Fury Road, in fact I've fallen asleep during every Mad Max film I've tried to watch.

I love long, boring art films, and don't fall asleep while watching them.

It is this fact, more than any others, that makes me believe that I am damaged in some way.

As a kid, the scene where the one witch of Eastwick (Cher?) wakes up in a bed full of snakes scared me more than any Freddy, Jason or Halloween movie I saw (which was most of them).

I like Pig in the City, his Twilight Zone segment, and the first Happy Feet in about that order. Still have never seen a Mad Max movie; am probably most inclined towards being interested in the Tina Turner one, but I should probably just give them all a shot some time.

Miller only directed a couple of action sequences in the Tina Turner one FYI.

I probably should vote for The Road Warrior because it permanently altered my brain when I saw it in theaters at...11 maybe? No older than 12. But I'm voting for Mad Max because it's his darkest and scariest movie. The Toecutter was an actual horror movie monster of a villain. Plus the car crashes were a lot less cartoonish than in the later movies - he was almost making a road safety/driver's ed movie in some ways.

Went with “Nightmare...”

Objectively Fury Road is the most deserving choice, and I remember Witches fondly. Pretty sure I saw a few of the other Mad Max movies when I was a kid but I barely remember them, it all blends together.

As a kid, the scene where the one witch of Eastwick (Cher?) wakes up in a bed full of snakes scared me more than any Freddy, Jason or Halloween movie I saw (which was most of them).

Yeah, I think Eastwick was making the pay cable rounds about the time when my horror fandom was first blooming and I absolutely could not handle the vomiting scenes.

Rewatched Eastwick last year for the first time in decades and had forgotten about all the vomiting, also the ending where jack turns into a giant monster-baby? Some truly WTF special effects in that bit. Thought it had some great scenes and moments, but kept thinking it would have been a lot better if Nicholson was about 10 years younger and 50lbs slimmer

i watched most of witches of eastwick last night (i'll finish it later this week) and that movie is bananas. it is kind of like beetlejuice if beetlejuice was more overtly about fucking

'more overtly', lol

Would argue grotesque jack is in fact the better option tbh

Its the dialogue that sways our leads into the sex that needs slimming down

amazing to think a movie starring Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jack Nicholson was one of the year's highest-grossing pictures.

And grossest, highest pictures

jack is having the time of his life in that movie

Pfeiffer is excellent also

Jack's non-youth, non-slimness is essential; if he was young and 1980s hot then there wouldn't be anything inherently unusual about all three women wanting to fuck him. Nicholson's IRL sleaze/charisma combo sells each woman being intrigued by him, but wouldn't account for all members of a tight replacement-family circle going through with it. And he plays up the grotesqueness, without putting much into seduction!

yeah i get that, but i think that theres also an element of those choices being driven by the fact that jack nicholson the performer was an overweight 50-going-on-70. He just seems old and tired in a lot of it, he's going for it but his timing is a little off, idk. It seems like he's forced to kind of play it both ways, sometimes leaning into the grotesqueness, other times playing as if he's got sexy charisma, which imho he does not there. I feel like it would have worked better if that character was maybe slightly more physically attractive, but just a horrible person - the three leads are all smart and mature enough that it would still be surprising for them to go to bed with someone who was easy on the eyes but still an unbearable asshole. The whole thing is wacky enough that I can still suspend my disbelief though.

I watched the two jakes recently and had the same thoughts - the way Nicholson moved he seemed downright elderly even though i think he was only like 52 or something. I guess his lifestyle in the 70s must have aged him pretty quick. I feel like once his physical presence started to change during that era, it seems like he had trouble figuring out how to adjust his acting (and/or what roles were a good fit.)

I feel like it would have worked better if that character was maybe slightly more physically attractive,

It worked fine. Feels like your real issue is that someone put some weight on.

Voted Fury Road as it's the best.

I thought a lot of people still found him attractive at that time?

Idk yeah maybe I’m seeing it through a different lens than it must have read in 1987, watching it in 2020 he just seemed like a weird gross old guy in a part that required women 10-15 years younger than him to find him sexually irresistible. And I get that he has mysterious charismatic devil powers, but still it just doesnt quite click for me, idk I guess I’m getting into dodgy territory, let’s forget I ever said anything about whether or not 1987 jack nicholson is hot

It

Again

It works better that he is half disgusting, fully charming

Its somewhat the entire basis of his character like

let’s forget I ever said anything about whether or not 1987 jack nicholson is hot

This is the key thing we're missing. The movie played on audience notions of his sex appeal. So did Terms of Endearment and even Prizzi's Honor. Jack Nicholson was considered sexy well into the '90s.

and, also, considered a devil

dabbled in wintertime hotel management iirc

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

truly unpredictable poll results

Mad Max got ONE vote??
It wasn't mine, but still

Trailer online Friday. #3000YearsOfLonging pic.twitter.com/zo2LpSVjsp

— Three Thousand Years Of Longing (@3000yearsmovie) May 18, 2022

dang, color me intrigued

And the trailer!

What would you wish for? From director George Miller, watch the official trailer for #3000YearsOfLonging now. Only in theaters this Summer. pic.twitter.com/JAsJD4q0mb

— Three Thousand Years Of Longing (@3000yearsmovie) May 20, 2022

Looks like a lot of fun.

Wow, I'm excited.

looks intersting

Really enjoyed this, the ending wasn't amazing but I'm mostly happy about it

I guess it's going to flop big time

Had not realized this was a George Miller film!

Three Thousand Years of Longing is marvelous.

It is quite good. You can sense the limitations of the source material but even so.

When I saw the CGI effects, I rolled my eyes at first. So few films of this ilk have depended so fully on the casting and the person directing it.

Everything that wasn't Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton having a conversation in a hotel was 👎

The second story was the hem one. I enjoyed the staging of the third and the self-playing lyre in the first.

*meh one

They were all stupid because they told the story while Idris Elba told the story in voice over

i was heavily into this movie until it moved to london, that last chunk of it was not great. still appreciate that george miller got to make it and it's playing mainstream theaters

The racist old biddies were a bit much.

I liked most of the backstory stuff, very lush

Oh yeah, "Did you guys know about BREXIT" like 85% of the way through the movie.

I would have seriously enjoyed this as a one-act play that never left the hotel room

i acknowledge everyone’s criticisms but i adored this open-hearted simultaneously psychedelic and meditative film

I liked the large amount of untranslated dialogue (and everything else)

Yeah, it keeps growing in my mind. It might've been a Studio Ghibli film.

Only a 2-hour Blank Check ep, oddly enough

https://audioboom.com/posts/8155631-three-thousand-years-of-longing

I saw this this weekend. I thought it was pretty good at first, but as mentioned above, I keep thinking about it, feels like the kind of movie that will become better over time.

And contrary to many I liked the ending, really like the way the 3 wishes played out.

I appreciate all the praise from you folks, because even as a Miller fan this is kind of the last thing I feel like watching. But I should give it a shot.