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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Streets of Fire is another great Walter Hill movie, and surprisingly obscure. Willem Dafoe as a great psychopath, Rick Moranis as a decent sidekick for the hero, Diane Lane at her most gorgeous, musical numbers (including two incredible Jim Steinman songs at the beginning and end), and a sledgehammer fight. I saw this on the big screen last month and I was grinning the whole time, it's so high-energy and fun. The Raven/Cody fight is awesome. Another good Walter Hill joint is Trespass, a movie where Bill Paxton and William Sadler go to an abandoned East St Louis warehouse to find hidden treasure, and end up witnessing a murder by Ice Cube, Ice T, and Argyle from Die Hard, it's awesome as hell and makes great use of the setting. FancyMike posted:Wu Jing was great in Kill Zone 2 and I see him driving a tank in that trailer. I'm down for some propaganda if it's fun and the action is good. Might I recommend Act of Valor, the film that literally started as a recruitment video for the SEALs? It stars active-duty SEALs in a ridiculously video gamey version of Islamophobic conflict, including dozens of headshots and even a dude basically doing the Call of Duty Last Stand perk. It's absolutely mind-melting how openly racist and supportive of US military intervention it is, but it's very well-filmed and exciting.
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Aug 10, 2017 02:08
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Deadly Prey has the most metal ending in film history.
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Aug 10, 2017 02:44
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Predator 2
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Aug 10, 2017 18:07
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Lobok posted:Escape from New York seems like the quintessential movie for that. It takes the grim reality of crime in New York in the 70s and 80s and imagines it becoming a total lost cause. Taps into the fear that the city would continue to decline until reaching the rock-bottom of being exclusively populated by criminals. Filmed in St. Louis, because John Carpenter knew you couldn't fake that level of desolation on a set!! (See also, the previously mentioned Trespass)
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Aug 10, 2017 18:24
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McSpanky posted:East St. Louis, the Flint to St. Louis' Detroit. Was Escape from New York also filmed in East St Louis? I thought it was the city proper.
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Aug 11, 2017 14:46
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Basebf555 posted:Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "nonsense"? I only ask because a lot of people would probably call the plot of John Wick 2 nonsense but I absolutely love the insane world of that movie. Is it along those lines, or more of just a completely nonsensical plot that's impossible to even follow? More of the former, a little of the latter. It's not terribly complex, it's a standard spy plot with a mcguffin chase, but the film doesn't care a whole ton about the story and lets it fall to the wayside in favor of the editing and rhythm of the film.
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Aug 11, 2017 17:09
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FancyMike posted:I think Dredd is a bit better because it has characters. But sometimes it's nice to watch 100 straight minutes of cool stunts and murders and for that The Raid is perfect. The Raid has better action scenes, but I think Dredd's the better film. Its simple, brutal fights compliment the nature of the Judges, their power and iron rule. I also think Dredd's smarter and has more to say about fascism and state violence than The Raid does. I love Dredd and it's probably my favorite movie so far this decade.
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Sep 8, 2017 21:53
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One thing I like which the movie didn't get into is that everyone is breaking the law. If you aren't breaking the law, the Judges become suspicious that you're planning something big. The Judges' rule is so brutal and overbearing, it's basically impossible to not cross them at some point.
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Sep 9, 2017 20:19
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Face/Off is definitely self-aware, especially with Cage and Travolta's performances, but Woo never winks at the camera or jokes about it, everything is played incredibly straight. That's why Face/Off is one of the best.
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Sep 19, 2017 15:21
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Speaking of Peter Hyams, which of his father’s movies are worth watching? Sudden Death is a great Die Hard clone, and The Relic is also a solid Die Hard clone mixed with a goofy 50’s horror movie. I’m also interested in movies where the director is also the DP, you can get som great-looking poo poo from that match-up.
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Nov 5, 2017 16:11
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Dredd is probably my favorite movie of the past 5 years, it’s violent, slick, brutal, and a hell of a lot of fun. The cast is awesome, and Urban is the best possible Judge Dredd.
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Nov 5, 2017 22:58
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Historical question: I just rewatched Commando, and I gotta know; what’s the first action movie of this breed? The genesis of what everyone mocks in 80s action movies? Commando’s the earliest I can think of, but there’s gotta be at least a couple before it.
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Nov 9, 2017 04:55
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SimonCat posted:First Blood really pushes the idea of a Special Forces Soldier as a one man army. Going back further than that, Billy Jack also deals with Green Berets as invincible. It just kept building and I think got exponentially more outlandish as time went on. First Blood is a great movie, but not really what I’m looking for. I guess I want to know what the patient zero is for action movies becoming huge, absurd spectacles a la Commando or Rambo: First Blood Part II.
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Nov 9, 2017 15:01
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Basebf555 posted:I think the answer really is Arnold to be honest, and Commando may be the first one where he took on that specific persona. I'm not sure, but I don't think anyone was making that type of action film until Arnold came along. Commando and Rambo: First Blood Part II (the Rambo naming scheme is so dumb I have to use the full name every time) both came out the same year, there must have been something in the water. The funny thing about Commando is that’s the public perception of Arnold, but his most famous role is completely different, the Terminator (especially in the first movie) is loving chilling, while in the rest of Arnold’s famous roles, he’s way goofier.
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Nov 9, 2017 15:29
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Basebf555 posted:Yea his Terminator 2 performance has basically overwritten what he did in Terminator in pop culture, people are always surprised when they go back after many years and watch it again, just how scary he is in that movie. It's really a brutal film. There’s a reason I watched it for the October Challenge thread, it really plays out like a slasher movie, but with action setpieces instead of chase scenes. Arnold’s just so goddamn big, he’s incredibly menacing. I love how much of Commando was obviously written just for Arnold and how big he is, like ripping a seat out of a car, picking up a whole phone booth, breaking chains with his bare hands, it’s awesome.
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Nov 9, 2017 15:39
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I’d argue that in T2, the T-800/T-100 is still scarier than the T-1000, just for that scene where he walks through the tear gas and blasts all the SWAT guys in the kneecaps 
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Nov 9, 2017 15:50
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Basebf555 posted:You're not totally wrong, but those films were always more about a team of heroes all pitching in to win the day, whereas Arnold and Stallone ushered in the whole One Man Army era of over the top action movies. How many people were in Where Eagles Dare? Because iirc it’s about only 3 or 4 people destroying a German castle and village, all without ever reloading their assault rifles. I remember it being fun, and it’s probably where the Wolfenstein games got their cable car fights from. ynohtna posted:The one (good?) man against an army concept possibly has roots in westerns. I'm under-educated in that genre, but the Django films sure taste similar to me. Django pulling a machine gun from his coffin and mowing down an entire attacking force is definitely the blueprint for Commando’s finale.
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Nov 9, 2017 17:10
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I saw La Femme Nikita once, about 10 years ago, but it has at least one awesome stand-out shootout in a restaurant kitchen, and almost definitely inspired the sniper rifle kills in the Max Payne video games.
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Nov 25, 2017 02:27
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So Peter Hyams' career is doing unreasonably good knockoffs, right? I just finished Timecop and it's 100% a studio cashing in on Terminator 2 even down to a man getting partially frozen and broken but it's still pretty awesome. Weirdest thing is that it's probably one of the most 2017 movies possible, outside of The Dead Zone. A White Supremacist party, a President that's going to win through just using TV, closing the borders to make "America for Americans first," JCVD even cracks "maybe he'll calm down after the election." It's weirdly prescient in a little more specific way than a lot of Trump-predicting media has been. JCVD kicked some rear end, the fight scenes are really fun, and I like that Hyams DPs a lot of his own movies, Timecop looks great.
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Dec 2, 2017 18:12
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muscles like this! posted:The one thing that really annoys me with Timecop is the bit where he comes back and everything is changed. So he tells his coworkers and boss about it and they all act like he's crazy, despite the fact that this is their job. To be fair, their entire job is making sure poo poo doesn't change.
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Dec 2, 2017 18:46
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McSpanky posted:And let's not forget his previous phase of "I'm a REAL LIFE BADASS, see?!" where he rode with some LA parish sheriff's department and had a lovely reality show about it. Wasn’t he with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department? I swear he was in with Joe Arpaio. He did at least participate in a drug bust where a tank bust through a wall and killed a dog. Wandle Cax posted:Let's not forget about the story of Seagal trying to impress people by fighting a stunt man on set and ending up literally making GBS threads himself Wasn’t there a story about him talking poo poo on JCVD at a party, and when Van Damme challenged him to a fight, Seagal ran? Wheat Loaf posted:Does anyone have any expectations at all for a) James Cameron returning to the Terminator franchise in some capacity; and b) Shane Black doing a new Predator movie next year? Isn’t Cameron just writing stories? I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing in a post-Avatar world.
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Dec 27, 2017 21:21
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Oh poo poo how could I forget about that bit from Demolition Man? I loving love that movie, but I haven’t seen it in ages.
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Dec 28, 2017 16:56
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It’s that very specific balance where the good Indys and Lethal Weapon 1 (haven’t seen the rest so I can’t comment) are chock full of jokes, but they’re written and edited in such a way that it never feels like the jokes are slowing down the action scenes, and instead add to the rhythm and conflict of the scenes.
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Dec 28, 2017 17:31
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:I'm even a sax player, so I can't hate it, but it just sounds so '80s to me, and not in a good way, like the '80s-sounding synths in The Guest, Drive, and Stranger Things. To me, it just dates the movies even though they're otherwise pretty timeless. hosed up that a movie from the 80s has a soundtrack that makes it actually sound like it’s from the 80s and not like a show or movie that’s pretending to be an idealized version of the 80s.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:33
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I love Lethal Weapon, but I’m gonna call Die Hard the greatest action movie ever made.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:58
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Wheat Loaf posted:Last Crusade is better than Raiders anyway. The Adventures of Tintin is a loving blast, and it’s even directed by Spielberg!
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Dec 29, 2017 15:17
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Tintin has a scene that’s basically the truck hijacking from Raiders as one long take, Spielberg took Zemeckis’ motion capture CGI and thoroughly embarrassed him with how much you can do with it.
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Dec 29, 2017 15:34
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Neo Rasa posted:I have to admit I want to see a timeline where Tom Hanks plays everyone in that Beowfulf movie. Nope, Mars Needs Moms was the fourth, the third was the Jim Carrey version of A Christmas Carol. Wheat Loaf posted:He also appeared as Willard Decker in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and is best known as the dad from 7th Heaven. He’s presented as the good dad of Dennis and Dee in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
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Dec 29, 2017 17:54
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wasn't the third of the flicks made from that deal Mars Needs Moms?
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Snowman_McK posted:The overuse of slo-mo is a hallowed tradition. I swear ninety percent of 'A Better Tomorrow 3" is in slo-mo Oh god the king of overused awful slow-mo is The Boondock Saints. Every action scene is the exact same and it get extremely tedious towards the end, to the point where I cheered when they just shot a guy regularly. God what an awful movie. LesterGroans posted:I didn't even care for the first Machete and it's still miles ahead of that lovely sequel. Lookin forward to Alita: Battle Angel! Fart City posted:Hell Comes To Frogtown. Hell Comes To Frogtown has like one good scene right in the very beginning, and about 3 other lines of dialogue, but otherwise it’s an interminable slog. Halloween Jack posted:Hey guys, I'm assembling a watchlist of the B-movies from the sub-subgenre that overlaps The Warriors and Escape from New York. Anything I'm missing that's worth watching? Streets of Fire, if you’re good with a lighter-toned movie about rock music. Great Willem Dafoe performance, and Rick Moranis, Diane Lane, and Lee Ving are fun.
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Jan 2, 2018 20:57
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Halloween Jack posted:The real lovely part about this isn't even the slo-mo per se, it's that almost all of the action is filmed as shot reverse shot. I just rewatched Bronx Warriors 2 and it's not that cheap. The Boondock Saints is a matryoshka doll of “the real lovely part”s, it’s easily in the top 5 worst movies I’ve ever seen. The only good things about it were a paycheck for Willem Dafoe, and Overnight, the documentary about making it (although I have no idea how it’s aged with what we know about Harvey Weinstein). SleepCousinDeath posted:Kurt Wimmer should remake Boondock Saints. He already did with Equilibrium, which is just as “cool” and just as stupid. while actually having some style to its action scenes and being massively entertaining. I loving love Equilibrium.
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Jan 2, 2018 21:40
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Fart City posted:We should all thank Boondock Saints for making it so easy to quickly find out who you will hate at a house party. I watched it because at least 5 or so people I met my freshman year of college said it was one of the best movies ever made, and it’s since been a guidepost to who to distrust. Wheat Loaf posted:It's in the quippy hitmen / heist gone wrong genre that was all the rage after Tarantino broke through, isn't it? It’s 100% a Tarantino clone, even down to making his own version of Marvin’s death from Pulp Fiction, with a little bit of Gary Oldman from Leon: The Professional sprinkled in.
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Jan 2, 2018 22:05
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One of the characters in The Boondock Saints is a Priest with Tourette’s Syndrome, and I think that’s about as good a summation as I can give about it.
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Jan 2, 2018 22:06
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I feel the same way, action films celebrate and glorify violence for the entertainment of the audience. Applying that same genre descriptor to something like Saving Private Ryan’s Omaha Beach scene weirds me out. Now something ahistorical and cartoony as Where Eagles Dare, I have no problem calling that an action movie, but a film based on real events where people actually died can’t really glorify that death for me.
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Jan 4, 2018 15:33
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I really think you should try to be respectful in whatever way you see fit, because you can never make something that 100% of people will understand. No matter how unnerving a war movie, someone will always enjoy the violent aspects of it. Some part of the population will always misinterpret films, no matter how obvious you make your point (see also: people complaining Starship Troopers promotes fascism)
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Jan 4, 2018 16:17
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Payndz posted:I'm honestly surprised that there hasn't been a remake of Where Eagles Dare yet. (Although it'd annoy me if they did, because it's one of my favourite movies and I have no doubts they'd screw it up.) I need to rewatch it, but it feels like the era we’re in couldn’t support a film like Where Eagles Dare; epic in scope and completely earnest, while making basically a cartoonish parody of war movies that doesn’t realize how ludicrous it is. Clint Eastwood would be played by Christ Pratt and he’d mug to the camera after an explosion, and someone would quip about how they never run out of bullets, and all the ridiculous joy of the original would be sapped out.
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Jan 4, 2018 17:48
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Wheat Loaf posted:What are the big "touchstone" action movies? Enter The Dragon
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Jan 5, 2018 00:46
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Raiders of the Lost Ark is a touchstone of action cinema, and I’m disappointed I didn’t think of it earlier.Venuz Patrol posted:To be fair, this was definitely a deliberate stylistic choice to imply the brothers had divine intervention on their side, similar to Blues Brothers. I think it's a cool concept to have a realistic setting but then add a personification of luck or divine will that goes well beyond what could ever happen in real life, it's just a shame that it happened to be attached to the rest of that movie. The idea they had god on their side makes the vox pop bit over the credits that much more obnoxious.
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Jan 5, 2018 15:33
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You know what, gently caress, we didn’t mention either Mad Max or Road Warrior as action touchstones, almost every cinematic car chase since has tried to copy those movies.
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Jan 5, 2018 16:17
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Basebf555 posted:Funny because I mentioned Fury Road, I guess I just wasn't a Mad Max guy so they didn't come to mind. But yes they really were extremely influential. Fury Road isn’t quite a touchstone yet, but Dunkirk showed that directors could be taking lesson from Fury Road for years to come. It has strong potential to be the action movie of a whole generation.
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Jan 5, 2018 16:22
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No discussion of awful re-release DVD/Blu-Ray cover’s is complete without the champ
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Jan 5, 2018 19:17
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