Mad Max should have been best picture rant

My Mad Max should have won best director/ best picture rant. I know many think because the movie is mostly action or a car chase think it has little or no story or character development. That is not true. Just because the storytelling is unconventional. George Miller said he wanted the movie to tell the story so that it could be viewed in Japan without subtitles.

I will point to the scene when the one of the four wives who was pregnant hung out the door to block the gunfire. That moment contains both character and story for the wife, and Joe. There were one hundred moments like that in the film.

Furiosa is a great character with amazing depth, her story is told in subtle strokes but it is a rich and powerful story. Her reaction to the lost of the green place was heartbreaking and it is impossible if she was a cardboard character without depth. She steals the show, but why is that so bad?

Max, Furiosa, Nux and several of the wives all have character arcs (growth and change from start to finish) which is amazing considering how fast pace the movie is. Even the The Vuvalini (Older women of the wasteland) were well drawn characters. It is crazy to say the movie lacked character development when so many characters showed growth. I'll admit the title character had the thinnest arc but really that was true in Road Warrior as well.

A movie can't win 6 technical awards without the vision and leadership of a director overseeing the whole thing. George Miller worked on this film with massive international production and put equal amounts of skill and passion into moments as bat shit crazy as the high speed stunts and down into to the looks of emotional depth in the suffering character's eyes. The movie looked beautiful, bizarro and disturbing all the same time. It created moments of kinetic action that were worth going to the theater, paying 15 bucks for. It was an experience.

Sure maybe Spotlight or the Big Short might be more important. Star Wars might have been more fun, maybe not. Mad Max Fury Road was the best movie last year. It should have been picture.