Mad Max- Having seen the sequels several times (the second is a personal favorite I’ve seen way too many times, and love it), I finally decided to tackle the original. Unfortunately, both MGM and Shout fucked up and their “original mono” tracks are downmixes. Is there ANY way to get the original mono track outside of digging up old Australian pan-and-scan VHS tape? Anyway, all that aside, it’s a fun, super-iconic Ozploitation film, albiet very slow and dated by today’s standards. Director George Miller, one of the greatest action filmmakers of all-time in the sequels, manages to get a lot of mileage out of a minuscule budget (along with Carpenter’s Halloween, I think that it’s one the most successful independent films of the era). I just wish I could watch it with the original fucking audio track.

Dragonslayer- A rarity, a genuine, proper, serious sword and sorcery fantasy flick. The fist film to use ILM outside of the Star Wars universe. The story of a sorcerer’s apprentice attempting to slay a dragon, as the title states, it’s the coolest movie dragon this side of Smaug. Phil Tippet pulled out all the stops and used every bit of special effect technology available at the time to create the might Vermithrax Pejorative, and man, is it cool. The storyline isn’t fantastic; it’s your fairly standard stuff with the wizard’s apprentice, the girl with whom he falls in love, the town offering sacrifices, etc. The performances are solid, particularly a scene-stealing Ralph Richardson. But it’s the marvelously medieval setting and grim mood that really help the film to stand apart from most knockoff fantasy features, then and now. And that dragon? Wow.