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I haven't watched the Amazon Reacher series yet, but I'm familiar with the character from the books. I know he's basically a giant, and this is a big part of the character and the stories. So when I heard many years back they were casting Tom Cruise for a film, I thought it sounded like a horrible case of miscasting, and never made any effort to see it. But I just watched it, the first movie, and man... that was a great, great action flick, I thought. McQarrie did a great job with the script and he really knows how to direct this kind of film. You need to try and forget about the book Reacher and just go with it, and Cruise was pretty convincing as a badass. Is the second one any good?
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Apr 15, 2022 23:07
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Watching it right now, in fact!
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Apr 16, 2022 02:31
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What's the thread opinions on action movie GOAT? I see there are a lot of Jackie fans here, and that's totally understandable. As someone who became a teenager in the 80s, personally I definitely have to go with Arnold. He's done a lot of stuff, but to me Commando is kind of the Action Movie of Action Movies. Like, it takes everything the genre was about at the time and combines it and amps it up to eleven, and it has fun doing it with this wry, almost tongue in cheek approach. I mean, it's not at all a spoof or a comedy, but it knows what it is, it knows it's over the top, and it loves doing it. Then, Predator is not only a great action film, but a great film overall IMO. Kind of a unique blend of action, sci-fi, and horror. Then you've got The Last Action Hero which a lot of people hate, but I've always loved because it's a great send-up of the whole genre, and it pokes fun at Arnold himself. Plus, you've got Charles Dance as the villain, and that can never be bad. quote:Benedict : I understand you are interested in drug dealers. Arnie of course did a ton of other stuff besides, and he's the one for me. Then, I know he's been a joke for a long time but the very end of the 80s through the very beginning of the 90s, Seagal was really quite a revelation. His early three-word-title films, the first three, are all great action flicks IMO. He doesn't top Arnie or even come close but he really stood out for me, for a few years there. MrMojok fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Apr 16, 2022 |
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Apr 16, 2022 04:39
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MrMojok posted:Watching it right now, in fact! Really enjoying the Amazon Reacher so far. I don't know who this hulking mountain of an actor is or where they found him. I've certainly never seen him before, but he is loving perfect as Reacher. This will come across as an odd thing to fixate on but the use of the Stones "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" over the end credits of episode one kind of took me aback. The Stones are notorious for charging out the rear end for use of their music, along with the Beatles and Zeppelin. I of course have no way of knowing what Amazon paid for this but i would not be surprised if it was in the $200,000-$250,000 range. Seems like an odd use of money for what looks like a low-to-medium budget show, but then again I don't do their budget so what do I know. My ears just always perk up whenever I hear that band in media and it seemed odd. Anyway, the show is great so far. e: the "military police" aspect of the Reacher novels has really never rang true because MPs in the army aren't investigators like this. CID does that, but that's a not a failing of the show, it's just an in accuracy in the source material. MrMojok fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Apr 16, 2022 |
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Apr 16, 2022 06:33
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Mantis42 posted:Arnold in his prime was really good at picking which movies to star in, too. Word. Going from Pumping Iron to a low-budget Hercules movie to a couple of appearances as villains on TV shows, to the Conan-Terminator-Commando phase which was only over a period of like two years, was pure genius. David Morrell's book First Blood is really good, and the film adaptation of it is in many ways faithful to it, except that Rambo dies at the end in the book. But the 1985 Rambo First Blood part two was a completely different kind of film, it was an action hero film, and I recall thinking that turn was inspired by what Arnold was doing at the time. Although I guess Chuck Norris had made a couple by then too. I guess what i'm saying is that prior to 1976 Stallone had done bit roles as cops and heavies and then he became Rocky Balboa, but Arnold paved the way for the man to become an action hero. The 1985 Rambo film was quite a switch. As an aside, the Rambo film that came out in 2008 or so is one of the most insane loving things I have ever seen. I remember walking out of the theater at the time thinking, "Holy loving poo poo" Saving Private Ryan kind of ushered in this "OK here is what real war violence really looks like, here is the reality of the situation" type of thing and it's like the 2008 Rambo was saying "OK, here is what it looks like if we really show it all and pull no punches in an action film" I have that on Blu and I watch it once a year or so, and it amazes me that I can be shocked every time.
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Apr 16, 2022 07:18
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Darth Maul is a great example of the villain being more proficient, but in the end he is bested by a noobish-Obi Wan who is raging and probably has the force on his side, after its reduced to 1v1 e: Obi-Wan is the true badass of those films. He takes down Maul, Grievous, Anakin, old Darth Vader, and if you count the cartoons, Maul again (and the last duel against Maul he killed him because he saw how Maul killed Qui-Gon and wasn't going to falll for that) MrMojok fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Apr 16, 2022 |
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Apr 16, 2022 08:02
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Gonz posted:My favorite Arnold threat is the following. Right! And then he thumbs through a wardrobe that consist entirely of that same brown leather jacket, and same t-shirt E: “Arnold Brownschweiger. Pleased to meet you.”
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Apr 16, 2022 09:16
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Can’t talk about 80s action movies without talking about Shane Black, I reckon. There had been a a couple of cop-buddy movies prior to Lethal Weapon. There had been the French Connection, maybe one or two others? Beverly Hills Cop, and 48 Hours, I guess? But in 1985 or so freshman screenwriter Shane Black blew things up with a spec script (Lethal Weapon), back in the days when people in this town were looking for spec scripts, and it lit the town on fire. Started a huge bidding war and I believe sold for a million or a bit more, which was huge at that time. The catch is, his script is a hell of a lot darker than the movie we all know. The framework/spine survived, as did a lot of the dialogue and plot beats, but his script was a lot darker than what they ended up filming. Several years later he wrote The Last Action Hero, and this script was most *definitely* much darker than the movie we got, and had huge differences. The basic idea is there, but it’s a whole different film. I think I remember Black kind of disowning the final film, which was rewritten by a few people. I wish I could summarize the differences but I can’t check them right now. I think I have both his original Lethal Weapon script and his original LAH script, or at least very very early versions of both. PM me if you want to read them. e: the LAH scripts I have are by Zack Penn and Adam Leff, not Black. These are the initial changes from what Black wrote, I guess. One is dated Sept 1991 and the other Oct 1992. The Lethal Weapon script I have is by Black, and I am pretty certain this is the one that drove everyone crazy in the mid-80s. Pretty much the same story, just darker. MrMojok fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Apr 16, 2022 |
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Apr 16, 2022 10:02
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Speaking of Seagal, I missed this when it aired live in 1991 and to this day I’ve never seen any footage from it until this tweet. The reply downthread that has a video of Bob Odenkirk is well worth a watch, too https://twitter.com/scottgairdner/status/1515371814632886275?s=21&t=Ruk8U-vKYeykSGqAcP7Jpw
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Apr 16, 2022 23:05
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Payndz posted:I've know I've seen the second Reacher film - I must own the DVD, because I didn't see it in a cinema - and I couldn't tell you anything about it. So that may answer your question. I happened to just catch this on cable. It was in fact, Not Good. It ended thirty minutes ago and I’m already starting to forget things about it.
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Apr 17, 2022 02:09
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Neo Rasa posted:He cut out the robot. LMAO
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May 17, 2022 04:47
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I guess I had never seen Eraser. I thought I had seen all the Arnie films but I guess, somehow I missed this one? Anyway I just flipped over to it a few minutes ago and saw this absolutely ape-poo poo crazy scene where he gets into a shootout on a plane, opens the door, throws a seat into one of the engines, grabs the " emergency parachute" but then loses it, then falls out of the plane and skydives down to the parachute and puts it on in freefall, then while he's hanging from the canopy the crippled jet comes down and makes to ram him but he pulls his pistol and shoots out the windscreen. Just.... holy loving LOL!
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May 17, 2022 08:49
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The Fifth Element is glorious. I mean it is totally over the top from start to finish, in a way that is both aware of how insane it is and at the same time plays it straight. I don't know that I have ever seen a film that made fun of itself, made fun of what it was, while simultaneously telling a serious story, like that one.
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May 21, 2022 07:22
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Dirty Harry has one of the all-time fantastic 70s scores (by Lalo Schifrin) and Andrew Robinson is great as the unhinged Scorpio killer. I love the movie.
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Jun 23, 2022 10:52
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Basebf555 posted:What's the deal with the 90's action movie No Escape, starring Ray Liotta? Why is this like a lost film at this point? It's available nowhere and seems to be out of print for physical media too. I can get a used DVD for like $30 but that's it. I was just thinking about this film the other day, specifically the opening scene or maybe it’s during the opening credits where he’s in a parade and as he marches past the reviewing stand he breaks ranks and marches straight over to the general and shoots him in the head. And at the time I couldn’t remember the name of the film to save my life.
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Jun 24, 2022 19:44
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Plus, in one of my absolute favorite choices, every guard speaks in "guard voice". You know exactly what this voice sounds like, if you've ever played a live action RPG your gamemaster has used guard voice at some point for some mook guard and that's exactly what happened here. I had just seen this tweet a few minutes before reading your post, and couldn’t resist https://twitter.com/rderekp/status/1545359340680388610?s=21&t=pGmq8pLpCLw0OOPSHfKsTg
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Jul 10, 2022 01:59
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Pratt also played a DEVGRU guy, the one with the most lines in Zero Dark Thirty, so the leap to action movie star in a series about Navy Seal Done Wrong isn’t too far.
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Jul 15, 2022 01:17
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Speaking of Netflix, I recently watched Extraction, which was so-so but I was quite struck by the twelve-minute one-shot action scene. Which isn’t really done in a single take of course. But it was done cleverly enough to make me rewind and watch the whole thing like 3x in a row. It goes from car chase with the camera inside and immediately outside the protagonist’s car, to shootout/hand-to-hand to falling off balconies and ending in a car again. Did anyone else see this? I thought it was a nice effort to do something different in an action film. I can’t find the whole twelve minute clip on YouTube but there are a couple of videos about how they did it. This one shows much of it, spoilers obviously https://youtu.be/arJ8ojvmoUg
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Jul 23, 2022 22:28
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B-Rock452 posted:the gunplay had a nice balance between "realistic" and a more "movie friendly" (not sure if I am describing this right) style. Yeah, I think this is a good way to put it.
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Jul 23, 2022 23:21
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Ulio posted:I really got interested in this genre of films after playing Ghost of Tsushima/Sekiro/Nioh but these movies seem really hard to find. I was trying to find Zatoichi The Blind Swordsmen, it's on the Criterion Channel streaming service. I am not sure if anyone has experience with that service? I signed up for the trial to just check this movies out. If you have HBO Max, I *HIGHLY* recommend the Lone Wolf and Cub series. It's no Kurosawa-level great cinema, it's a hyper-violent action series, right up this thread's alley. Samurai, ninja, lots of bright-red 1970s style arterial blood spray. Touching story about the samurai and his son. Quick summary: Ogami Itto holds the post of official Shogun's Executioner, but another clan wants the position for themselves, so they frame him and murder his wife. This results in Itto wandering about Japan with his small son in a cart, contracting himself out as an assassin, and seeking vengeance on the clan that did this to him. If you decide to check these out, the proper order is: Sword of Vengeance Baby Cart at the River Styx Baby Cart in Hades Baby Cart in Peril Baby Cart in the Land of Demons White Heaven in Hell
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Aug 4, 2022 04:09
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It's all pretty ridiculous, and yet all so wonderful. The actor who played Itto was a real one when it came to the swordplay, he'd had some training in stage-fighting of course but also was into kendo and iaido (a form of fencing with wooden swords like katanas, and the latter is the art of fast-drawing and cutting in one motion with a real katana) if I recall, and it comes across onscreen . And he does it all with this Dad-bod. Anyway these films in this series have such a unique style and feel. I bought them all on Blu and watch them about once a year or so. They are so much fun, and they're a unique snapshot of samurai films from this time when they transitioned from the more traditional ones to these pulpy ones with a lot of gore, in a way like the difference between The Wild Bunch and all the westerns that came before.
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Aug 4, 2022 06:32
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Here's a little taste, for anyone interested https://youtu.be/auiXcEy1kmI
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Aug 4, 2022 07:17
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e: nm I’m a dummy
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Nov 9, 2022 20:27
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I think Above the Law, Out for Justice, and Marked for Death are all genuinely great action flicks, despite Seagal basically playing the same character in all three. The aikido, joint lock and throws looked really wild onscreen at that time, and they are all fun in a hammy kind of way. Out for Justice especially is a favorite of mine. The story of the fantastically-named Gino Fellino, Richie Madano, and Bobby Lupo.
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Dec 5, 2022 00:40
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And Alpha Dog!
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Dec 18, 2022 02:11
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Top Gun ‘86 holds up very well. The Tomcat was one of the most photogenic airplanes of all time IMO, and the aerial sequences were pretty groundbreaking at the time.
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Feb 2, 2023 05:10
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Hmmm. IMO it is possible to have just *too much* John Wick in one sitting.
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Feb 14, 2023 01:04
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YOLOsubmarine posted:The John Wick movies have gotten too long and are overstuffed with pointless world building but I’ll keep watching that garbage because it’s got well shot cinematic violence and dogs. *sigh* Yeah, same.
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Feb 16, 2023 07:42
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Speaking of Max, I watched Fury Road last night for the first time in a while. This is a top ten all-time favorite for me, not just my ten favorite action flicks but of all movies, all genres. It’s a masterpiece of “show, don’t tell” It’s got fantastic stuntwork, and I love that all the car stuff was done practically, without cgi enhancement. I love that almost the whole film is just two big chase scenes. What a bold concept. The costuming and makeup, hell the whole visual design of the movie, is just insane. I remember seeing this at the the theater back in 2015, and I was absolutely stunned. I went to see it at the theater six more times before it finally stopped showing 
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Mar 23, 2023 01:15
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I used to read AICN back in the late 90s-early 00’s. Neil Cumpston was seriously Patton Oswalt?
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Mar 24, 2023 02:39
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I wanted to ask why, any version, even the most recent version, of 47 Ronin would ever have a sequel. I mean, one of the most important aspects of the story is that everyone is dead at the end. If not in combat, then dead by their own hand. But then instead I googled it, and read quote:The continued story of ancient Japanese Rōnin warriors set 300 years after 47 Ronin, in a modern-day world where Samurai clans exist in complete secrecy …and it’s apparently about the ancestors of the 47 Ronin. At this point, I was sorry I’d ever read these posts, and even more sorry I had ever seen any version of the film or read about the real story.
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May 22, 2023 09:11
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I noticed all three Expendables films were available on-demand through my cable provider, albeit with commercials that you can fast-forward through. I had only seen the first one, in the theater back when it came out, so over the past couple days I binged them all. They’re silly and over the top, but they know they’re silly and over the top. I thought they were great fun and it was pretty wild to see all of these action movie dudes with major roles (and some cameos) all in the same flick. It was time well spent.
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Jun 12, 2023 01:13
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That long faux-oneshot in Extract 2 was absolutely insane.
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Jun 18, 2023 06:00
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Yeah, I think I badmouthed the first one ITT last year, saying that it didn’t have much to offer but that oneshot. But I have to retract that now. I really like both of them. I must have watched the long sequences from both films a half dozen times each in the last few days. And all I can really say is, holy loving poo poo.
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Jun 19, 2023 11:55
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IMO just create robots to do all the stunts
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Jun 21, 2023 20:52
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Four years ago this avenue was looking pretty good but I haven't seen anything since: Holy poo poo, I was joking and I had no idea about this. That’s amazing.
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Jun 21, 2023 21:40
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Would you believe, I’ve never seen a single Mission: Impossible film. I’ve seen TONS of behind the scenes stuff showing Cruz doing this crazy poo poo, but I’ve never seen one of the movies.
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Jun 21, 2023 23:50
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Well, it looks like Fallout and Rogue Nation are available through my cable’s on-demand. So I’m starting Rogue Nation now. e: and let me add, it’s off to one hell of a start 
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Jun 22, 2023 01:10
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Shageletic posted:awesome! let us know how you like it. It was great! I think my favorite sequence was the opera scene, but I greatly enjoyed the whole thing. Left me wanting more, so I’m going to watch Fallout next. I also see I could start a free trial of Paramount + to watch the rest of them. I’ve always like Philip Seymour Hoffman, but I’ve never seen him play a bad guy, and that sounds really intriguing. I think that one is MI3?
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Jun 22, 2023 06:06
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I remember being in the theater watching Heat when it first came out, and when the big gunfight in front of the bank kicked off, seeing people sitting in front of me putting their hands over their ears. poo poo was LOUD. As an aside, I used to work in that building where the bank was supposed to be, and I never walked around that intersection a single time without thinking about that amazing scene.
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Jun 23, 2023 23:24
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