Visual Index ~ Mad Max: Fury Road "Best Shots"
Monday, September 7, 2015 at 11:30PM 
For this week's edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, our last until October, we're looking at George Miller's thrilling return to his signature franchise Mad Max: Fury Road. It's the kind of movie that, as we just discussed on the "best of summer podcast," really goes the extra mile. And we're not talking about Imperator Furiosa's detour to "the green place" though that's well out of her way as drives go. George Miller completely outdid himself with this saturated, explosive, delirious, feminist action film.
One shot won't do of course which is why "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" is a communal experience. We each choose one and hopefully it adds up to a survey of a movie's crucial inspired images. My piece will be up late tomorrow before your host heads out for the Toronto International Film Festival and because this movie totally deserves an extra day. If you meant to participate and forgot, you have 24 more hours to get your choice in. I'll add more entries if they come in...
MAD MAX FURY ROAD
Directed by George Miller (Mad Max, Lorenzo's Oil). Cinematography by John Seale (The English Patient, Witness). Starring Charlize Theron & Tom Hardy
Click on the 10 images to read the 12 corresponding articles
Miller has made his subtext text in this image...
-The Entertainment Junkie
Despite being an intensely colorful film, there are actually just two main colors in the film’s palette...
-Magnificent Obsession
I was not prepared to be blown away by the awesomeness...
-Jija
Given the sprawling vistas and circus craziness that are the film's bread and butter, my pick for best shot is almost idiotically off-book:
-Antagony & Ecstacy
For all the images incongruous potency and humor, it's also a rich story point, introducing us to "the stuff" that got stolen and humanizing it.
-The Film Experience
It just hit me so hard in the cinema I legit gasped...
-Cinematic Corner
Movie Motorbreath - VIDEO ENTRY
Throughout Fury Road, character is defined by action; how we react to it and what we do after.
-Zitzelfilm
Anguish never looked so beautiful...
-I Want to Believe
The grand spectacle that Miller created in that vast, unforgiving, and beautiful desert wasteland...
-Sorta That Guy
a palpable sense of the scale of the action...
-Film Actually
The movie is full of scenes that reveal themselves with a remarkable efficiency
-Awards Circuit
AGAIN. You have 24 more hours to get your "best shot" in before we close out this episode late Tuesday night before TIFF travels begin!
Reader Comments (13)
Just wanted to state that even though it wasn't much contest once I remembered the shot I chose, I still really really wanted to give honorable mention to the shot picked by Sorta That Guy & Film Actually. Talk about a Circus Maximus moment!
Also a hell yeah to all the other choices!!! Fucking love this movie.
STinG -me too. and i love your video entries. so fun.
i cannot believe the adrenaline of this movie. just watched it again and was blown away all over. puts everyone but James Cameron to shame in the action department.
STinG - Great video! Your fave shot was actually MY runner up. But then again I also didn't get to re-watch the film. If I did, I probably would've gone into the same enjoyable "rant" you went on in your video:
"Why would you do this to me, Nate? Why would you make me have to choose? It's like choosing one of my favorites kids to not die. Maybe that's a pretty bad analogy... It's like choosing one of my favorite kids to die."
I don't understand, how the shot of Max getting his head out of the sand didn't make the cut. It must be the best shot of the year.
I'm honestly very happy that you guys like the video entries, since - because of the rushed attempted to make videos in my clogged schedule - every time I post one I find a mistake I made and I'm two steps away from erasing it from existence (the biggest cringer in this entry was how I mistakenly said "Teal and Blue" instead of "Teal and Orange". I seriously want to smack me in the face for that!).
Ryan T. - I didn't get to re-watch the film either, but since I bought it on Blu-Ray it's sitting on my watchpile at the ready. I was able to remember enough of the movie though since I saw it twice while it was in theaters...
moviefilm - ... but not enough to realize how hardcore that shot is as a contender.
I subscribe the "We are not things" shot, as probably the best... but it's really difficult to stand out a single one. It's a movie for the ages.
By the way, is it finally cool to vindicate Miller's double "Babe" films (one as producer and the next as director) as a masterful diptic satirizing in quite uncomfortable ways human society? In "Babe: Pig in the City", there are plenty of elements that are now recycled in "Fury Road". It's a good excuse to re-check both Babe films. The original "Babe" is my #2 of the 90's, right after "Trainspotting"... yeah, over Tarantino and Fincher and anyone else.
So befitting that people are picking specifically moving images for Fury Road.
Brian -- that occurred to me too. The film really moves so it feels especially Gify
I love the gif picked by Film Actually and Sorta That Guy, and that might be my favorite shot of the whole movie. But I also remember really loving the shot when Immortan Joe goes to shoot Furiosa, and Anghara (sp?) opens the door and hangs out of the car to block his shot
I haven't seen this movie yet, but I am serious when I say that these shots and Gifs do a better job than the actual trailers/commercials of making me want to see this movie.
Every single frame of this movie is great shot worthy.
Thanks for this. A brilliant line up of images and fantastic commentary. I could never pick "One Shot". My favourite film of the year and I can't see it being topped. I'm hoping this goes the way of Moulin Rouge in that it is so unforgettably awesome, AMPAS voters will remember it's brilliance come nomination time. I mean MR divided critics and still managed 8 noms for 2 wins, while MM-FR has been universally salivated over.
I didn't LOVE the film enough to watch it again in order to cap my Best Shot, but it's what Tim Brayton at Antagony & Ecstasy chose - the flare, slowly going out, at the end of the first action sequence. When we got to that point in the theater, I actually wanted to applaud, something I just don't do in the middle of films outside of impressive numbers in musicals. It's a perfect punctuation point to that first action sequence, and a great reminder that yes, it's okay to breathe just in case you forgot during the past 30 minute-long adrenaline rush. Love reading these articles, which made me wish I got as much out of the film as everyone else did. I really liked it, but I felt at a remove somehow.