Tag Archives: Australia

Road Games (1981) | Richard Franklin

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Road Games (aka Roadgames) is a Hitchcockian suspense-thriller set primarily out on the open roads running through the Australian outback. Jamie Lee Curtis is Pamela, who, along with independent truck driver Pat Quid (Stacy Keach) and his pet dingo Boswell, tries to get to the bottom of a story which might connect a series of killings which have surfaced around Australia to a mysterious driver of a creepy looking van that’s on the road with them, as Quid attempts to deliver a rig full of pork to Perth, which is undergoing a meat shortage at the time due to butchers going on strike. As the trucker drives on toward his destination, he gets into greater danger, including stirring up the locals into thinking the serial killer they’ve been hearing about on the radio might be Quid himself. A self-described student of Hitchcock, Richard Franklin, directs, from a script by Everett De Roche. Quentin Tarantino claims it is one of his all-time favorite Australian films.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) | George Miller

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Max’s wanderings through the now lawless Wasteland formerly known as Australia take him to a fortified oil refinery where there’s plenty of precious fuel, but a vicious gang of murdering marauders, led by a hockey-masked and muscle-bound leader named Lord Humungus, wants to get their hands on it, giving the residents an ultimatum of imminent death should they not comply with their demands.  The colony living there needs to escape in a hurry but wants their fuel. Max strikes a bargain — he’ll secure an abandoned big rig for them to haul their fuel in exchange for as much gas as he can carry away in his car.  The problem is that the Marauders aren’t going to let anyone escape without a fight. Mel Gibson stars in this phenomenal action-packed follow-up to Mad Max.  George Miller returns to direct this iconic entry in the series.

Mad Max (1979) | George Miller

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Set in the near future, Mel Gibson stars as the titular Max, one of the best police officers working for the MFP fighting against the increasingly hostile lands, full of marauding car and biker gangs who have no regard for life, or for laws, and especially not for law officers.  One such gang of bikers, led by a psychopath named Toecutter, is on the rampage and is targeting MFP officers who’ve messed with their way of doing things, putting them all in potential harm’s way.  A family man, Max doesn’t know if he’s really cut out to put his neck on the line in a losing battle against anarchy.  He soon discovers there is not much escape from the criminal element that has permeated everywhere, and it’s kill or be killed in the lawless and bloodthirsty territories.  George Miller directs in this wildly successful action vehicle that propelled Mel Gibson, and Australian cinema itself, to even greater success.