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The shootout scene in Nemesis is Pyun's gift to cinema. Just imagine what this man could have done with a 100m dollar budget. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ORRW1qxw8 G-III fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 21:44
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Just saw Stone Cold (1991). Can't believe I'd never heard of it up until now. Just great. Sure, it drags a little in the middle but I think it's up there with a ton of other 80s/90s action films that people consider classics...it just flopped commercially. The last act is just fun action spectacle. Watching Lance Henriksen successfully mow down the entire Mississippi Supreme Court with a submachine gun all while dressed as a priest, well, that's just one of them beautiful things that makes life worth living.
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Nov 29, 2022 03:41
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Action movies didn't really become "90s action movies" until around early '92. Until that point they were pretty much de-facto 80s movies with all the same sensibilities. There are a few exceptions. Predator 2 is a big one.
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Nov 29, 2022 17:28
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Oh yeah for sure, it still feels 80s as gently caress in 1991. Similarly, the 90s ended on 9/11.
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Nov 29, 2022 17:50
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Watched the Long Kiss Goodnight for the first time and it was fun. The cast is stacked and the script is full of jokes. It also predicts 9/11.
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Nov 29, 2022 19:38
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I started watching Ninja Assassin (2009) yesterday and was forced to stop after about 30 minutes. I might not even go back to continue because I absolutely hated the use of CGI in that movie. Not just the CGI blood, even though that all but ruined what would otherwise have been a cool intro sequence. There is also a training scene where the eponymous ninja assassin swings around his knife on a chain weapon, and they used CGI to add an extra whoosh to it. It looks so lovely and ruins the whole training sequence that would otherwise have elicited a child-like joy at watching the ninja man do sick flips and poo poo. I doubt the CGI stops so I am probably not gonna go on with this one.
Grendels Dad fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Nov 29, 2022 |
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Nov 29, 2022 19:45
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Chas McGill posted:Watched the Long Kiss Goodnight for the first time and it was fun. The cast is stacked and the script is full of jokes. It also predicts 9/11. It's so good! If you haven't seen them, do yourself a favor and follow it up with: The Last Boy Scout Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang The Nice Guys All four are Shane Black doing what he does best.
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Nov 29, 2022 19:54
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G-III posted:The shootout scene in Nemesis Pyun's gift to cinema. Just imagine what this man could have done with a 100m dollar budget. drat they just let Brion James do whatever accent he wanted, huh?
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Nov 30, 2022 19:10
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Probably common knowledge around here but remember that The Long Kiss Goodnight is a Christmas movie. So it's the perfect time to watch it.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:16
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Lumbermouth posted:drat they just let Brion James do whatever accent he wanted, huh? Speaking of, this might be of interest to the thread NoneMoreNegative posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQqGCVYlbs Kuvo posted:thank you for brining this to my attention Everyone loves Cyber Action, right? 
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Nov 30, 2022 19:24
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G-III posted:The shootout scene in Nemesis Pyun's gift to cinema. Just imagine what this man could have done with a 100m dollar budget. This has "the juice". That POV shot of crashing through each floor is phenomenal.
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Nov 30, 2022 19:28
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I loved watching Nemesis and i really should give Cyborg and some of pyun's other stuff a chance
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Nov 30, 2022 23:22
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I'm at 20 of his movies watched, should set aside some time to knock out the rest.
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Dec 1, 2022 01:18
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NEMESIS is loving awesome, I'm glad more people are seeing it now. There's two different cuts of it that have a very different last act, I believe only the (better imo) extended version is available on stuff now but worth double checking.Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Action movies didn't really become "90s action movies" until around early '92. Until that point they were pretty much de-facto 80s movies with all the same sensibilities. Overall I would consider Under Siege 2 (1995) to be the last 80s action movie the same way historians will sometimes write about centuries changing in terms of major events that changed human culture (i.e., the "19th century" ended when WWI began, not on the dot when the year 1900 started). Not that there were a lot of 80s action movies that late, but it feels like the last one to me. Rad flick, but definitely pirate it so that there is zero chance of Seagal seeing any money from it. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2022 13:51
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Basebf555 posted:Probably common knowledge around here but remember that The Long Kiss Goodnight is a Christmas movie. So it's the perfect time to watch it. Every Shane Black movie is a Xmas movie
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Dec 1, 2022 15:45
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Everyone loves Cyber Action, right?
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Dec 1, 2022 16:09
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I couldn't even finish Under Siege 1 tbh, watching Stone Cold just made me wish they'd given every Seagal role to Brian Bosworth instead
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Dec 1, 2022 17:44
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Halloween Jack posted:I've seen every Nemesis, Cyber Tracker, Cyber Tracker 2, Mars, TC 2000, Futurekick, and Virtual Combat, but somehow missed Cyberjack. I have to fix that now Future Kick rules. Here's my Letterboxd review: quote:gently caress yeah. This is a very solid Blade Runner/Total Recall hybrid/ripoff with a bit of Robocop mixed in for good measure
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Dec 1, 2022 17:49
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Important note: Future Kick stars Meg Foster's eyes!
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Dec 1, 2022 17:58
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Punkin Spunkin posted:I couldn't even finish Under Siege 1 tbh, watching Stone Cold just made me wish they'd given every Seagal role to Brian Bosworth instead Fun fact about bosworth, he went on to make a dozen direct to video movies after stone cold that nobody watched, and all of them were irredeemable trash. Im not sure swapping the two actors would have improved anything.
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Dec 1, 2022 18:11
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Ah but dokmo, he got to work with KURT WIMMER.
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Dec 1, 2022 19:12
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Halloween Jack posted:I've seen every Nemesis, Cyber Tracker, Cyber Tracker 2, Mars, TC 2000, Futurekick, and Virtual Combat, but somehow missed Cyberjack. I have to fix that now I apologise in advance.
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Dec 1, 2022 23:01
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Punkin Spunkin posted:I couldn't even finish Under Siege 1 tbh, watching Stone Cold just made me wish they'd given every Seagal role to Brian Bosworth instead Under Siege works because of Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones chewing scenery. Seagal is bearable in it because of those two.
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Dec 2, 2022 01:32
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Andrew Davis directed Under Siege and Above the Law, which I think are seagal's best performances. Which I guess isn't saying much.
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Dec 2, 2022 02:19
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dokmo posted:Andrew Davis directed Under Siege and Above the Law, which I think are seagal's best performances. Which I guess isn't saying much. You forgot Out For Limbs and/or Justice (which, admittedly, is held up by all the amazing ancillary performances)
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Dec 2, 2022 02:23
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Justin Godscock posted:Under Siege works because of Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones chewing scenery. Seagal is bearable in it because of those two. BTW, I was today old when I learned that Matt Reeves was one of the writers on Under Siege 2. (I also hadn't twigged until now that director Geoff Murphy made the cult New Zealand road/chase movie Goodbye Pork Pie, and that he took on several what he considered audience-insulting Hollywood actioners like Freejack and Young Guns 2 purely to pay off a tax bill.)
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Dec 2, 2022 11:14
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I remember liking Freejack when I saw it 30 years ago so that worked out OK.
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Dec 2, 2022 11:30
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Payndz posted:Both Under Siege movies work almost despite Seagal, because they play to his strengths at the time (being physically imposing, doing fast and brutal martial arts moves) and let the supporting cast ramp up their performances to 110% to carry everything else. Watching the last fight in Under Siege 1, Seagal absolutely refuses to get hit, and he's also terrible at the fight choreography so the foley man is desperately trying to make Seagal's "aikido" sound impactful while they look like they're just playing patty cake. Tommy Lee Jones does his best but it's kinda brutal once you look for it. Under Siege 2's last fight is even more comical because it makes Everett McGill's character look like an absolute doofus. Seagal refused again to ever get hit during the fight so there's absolutely no back and forth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf206nMfkJI&t=139s
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Dec 2, 2022 11:34
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I never understood Seagal's appeal. No charisma, can't act, can't sell a joke, not ripped (even his arms looked weak), can't run. And even his martial arts poo poo looked lame (see clip above).
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Dec 2, 2022 12:19
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As someone old enough to have seen seagal movies in the theater, his appeal was the fights. Hollywood fights were still in the era of wild haymakers and if you were lucky maybe a high round kick. Then comes this guy who puts his man down in 2 seconds with cool throws and joint locks, and I'd never seen that awesome poo poo before.
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Dec 2, 2022 12:31
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dokmo posted:As someone old enough to have seen seagal movies in the theater, his appeal was the fights. Hollywood fights were still in the era of wild haymakers and if you were lucky maybe a high round kick. Then comes this guy who puts his man down in 2 seconds with cool throws and joint locks, and I'd never seen that awesome poo poo before. It does work a lot better when he's beating up mooks- aikidoing through random goon #2 actually works pretty well. Doing the same thing against the big bad at the end of the movie does not.
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Dec 2, 2022 13:18
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Seagal was just different when he debuted. His martial arts style was different from the karate/taekwondo people were used to in Hollywood martial arts movies. In Above the Law, his inability to act came across as more subdued and serious than, say, Ahnold or Van Damme; it wasn't yet apparent that he just had no range. His overall persona was "no nonsense," and it helped that a lot of reporters swallowed his ridiculous lies about being a special forces commando assassin. Regarding the fights, in his early movies he usually either had an opponent who could at least land a hit on him, or faced overwhelming odds. (That's why, in my opinion, his best pure action movie is Marked for Death, which is still not well-paced when it comes to the action scenes.) Once he started producing his own movies, starting with On Deadly Ground, everything immediately went down the loving toilet. After that, not only does he never face a competent enemy, he never gets hit or appears to be in trouble for even a second.
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Dec 2, 2022 18:25
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Payndz posted:Freejack and Young Guns 2
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Dec 2, 2022 19:04
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One good side effect of how Seagal's movies play out is that the direction his character goes in in Executive Decision was legit genuinely shocking, it ruled.
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Dec 2, 2022 19:14
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Justin Godscock posted:Under Siege works because of Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones chewing scenery. Seagal is bearable in it because of those two. It also has the most awkward ending kiss of any action movie ever. It used to be funny but since Seagal moved from 'creepy' to 'complete monster' it's just extraordinarily uncomfortable. Grendels Dad posted:I started watching Ninja Assassin (2009) yesterday and was forced to stop after about 30 minutes. I might not even go back to continue because I absolutely hated the use of CGI in that movie. Not just the CGI blood, even though that all but ruined what would otherwise have been a cool intro sequence. There is also a training scene where the eponymous ninja assassin swings around his knife on a chain weapon, and they used CGI to add an extra whoosh to it. It looks so lovely and ruins the whole training sequence that would otherwise have elicited a child-like joy at watching the ninja man do sick flips and poo poo. I doubt the CGI stops so I am probably not gonna go on with this one. That movie had no idea what it wanted to be. The parts where she's tracking the ninjas through history or spotting their activity because of a bank transfer that is the exact value of 100 pounds of gold were cool in a 'Da Vinci Code' kind of way. The parts where the ninjas operated like Aliens in 'Aliens' were cool in a completely over the top "A child wrote this scene" kind of way. There were also some legit good martial arts in there, but these all clashed in a really ugly and kind of boring way. Punkin Spunkin posted:I couldn't even finish Under Siege 1 tbh, watching Stone Cold just made me wish they'd given every Seagal role to Brian Bosworth instead Bosworth is great. There's a terrific 30 for 30 documentary on him and he's a pretty interesting and self aware guy. He also cameoed as 'Hollywood action star' in the ending montage of Three Kings. Gargamel Gibson posted:I never understood Seagal's appeal. No charisma, can't act, can't sell a joke, not ripped (even his arms looked weak), can't run. And even his martial arts poo poo looked lame (see clip above). Stephen Tobolowsky's story about working with him is great though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cUNU8GkMso Neo Rasa posted:One good side effect of how Seagal's movies play out is that the direction his character goes in in Executive Decision was legit genuinely shocking, it ruled. Apparently up to the day they shot it they weren't sure if he was going to do it. He wanted to come back at the end, like he'd been holding on to the outside of the plane or something.
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Dec 3, 2022 01:13
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Remulak posted:At the time i thought Young Guns 2 was better than the original, and genuinely affecting due to the wraparound structure, but gently caress if I’ll spend hours confirming this. Free Jack was good too IIRC. Yeah i think both of those movies are fine.
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Dec 3, 2022 15:36
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Ninja Assassin had tons of potential. The opening is really fun, then it does lose focus like you're saying I liked how they would literally disappear into shadows, but the concept needed better locations than what we were given. It happens in a small apartment living room and inside of a dojo in the end. The apartment scene is from the POV of the investigator so there is motivation for the incoherence, but it's too heavy handed. And the 3D hero frames were a little too much, it's very much of it's time. I can't imagine how dark it would have been in theatres in 3D back then
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Dec 3, 2022 16:54
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CeeJee posted:Xtremo was good fun, great soundtrack too. Just caught this one, was good fun even though the camera work wasn't as confident as it should have been - the lead and all the bads were all great. Especially Finito. Did he look a lot like younger Mickey Rourke? I kept feeling he looked familiar for some reason. The best part of xtreme is that despite being a Wick ripoff, the final act is a ton better since wick 1s villain showdown falls completely flat And yes, ninja assassin sucked. Since I got back into action movies a few years back it's probably one of the worst I've seen.
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Dec 3, 2022 18:23
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Halloween Jack posted:Seagal was just different when he debuted. His martial arts style was different from the karate/taekwondo people were used to in Hollywood martial arts movies. In Above the Law, his inability to act came across as more subdued and serious than, say, Ahnold or Van Damme; it wasn't yet apparent that he just had no range. His overall persona was "no nonsense," and it helped that a lot of reporters swallowed his ridiculous lies about being a special forces commando assassin. He also came at a point in time where Hollywood was throwing their marketing muscle behind big action stars so the sheer inertia of that helped him early on. Every studio wanted to be the one to find the next Arnold (just in terms of action blockbuster box office success not anything else) and say he was theirs.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:34
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An underreported aspect of Seagal's career is that he was the result of a bet. A producer bet a casting agent that he could make anyone a star and they picked this wooden, impressively unathletic guy who was running a martial arts school in LA.
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Dec 4, 2022 02:02
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