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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.
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Aug 2, 2017 04:51
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Scott Adkins sucks I've only seen him in Universal Soldier: Day of Judgment, which is an amazing loving action movie. It's like if David Lynch directed a weird, trippy, dreamlike, yet extremely ultraviolent action movie. It blew me away. For a direct to DVD sequel to an early '90s Van Damme obscurity, it was far better than it had any right to be. There's another Universal Soldier sequel that comes directly before it, Regeneration, which I haven't seen yet, but it's by the same director, so I would suspect it's also worthwhile.
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Aug 10, 2017 06:34
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I'm frustrated that Showtime Anytime is showing Universal Soldier: Day of Judgment (the one I've seen, and well worth seeing for anyone who hasn't), but not Universal Soldier: Regeneration, which I haven't had a chance to see yet. But for some reason, they do have Universal Soldier: The Return, the '90s sequel with Van Damme and Bill Goldberg.
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Nov 5, 2017 15:07
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I apologize if I missed discussion of it earlier, but how was The Villainess? I saw a trailer, and it looked like a badass Korean remake of La Femme Nikita.
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Nov 24, 2017 23:12
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Point of No Return was on TV tonight, John Badham's 1993 U.S. remake of La Femme Nikita, starring Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Anne Bancroft, and Harvey Keitel as the Cleaner. And you know what? I've always preferred it to Besson's original La Femme Nikita.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:38
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Van Damme has also moved to a place in his career where he's in on the joke and fully embraces self-deprecating humor about his previous work and public persona. I can't see Seagal ever cracking the slightest smile about himself or his canon, especially now that he's BFFs with Putin and other former Soviet Bloc dictators. On that note, I watched the first episode of Jean Claude Van Johnson tonight, and it was hilarious, and far more entertaining than I thought it would be. I highly recommend it to the few of you who haven't already seen it.
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Dec 24, 2017 04:30
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And now we know he's also a sexual assaulter and pals with a bunch of corrupt, murderous third world dictators. (And he was also a huge dick to everyone the one time he hosted Saturday Night Live, according to the Live From New York book.)
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Dec 25, 2017 15:42
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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? I have no nostalgia or love for Predator, and wish Shane Black was finally getting around to doing his long-discussed Doc Savage movie instead, or just a new action-crime-neo-noir-buddy comedy. But at this point, I'll enthusiastically watch anything he has written. And Fury Road taught me that you can still get an awesome movie out of a franchise that has never interested me.
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Dec 25, 2017 18:01
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Wheat Loaf posted:I rewatched all four Lethal Weapons yesterday (because I want to make the most of my Christmas break before work starts back next week). While 3 and 4 aren't as good as 1 and 2, I think they maintain a really consistently high level of quality across all four. Is the TV series good? I've got to get into the TV series. The Lethal Weapon TV series is ridiculously fun. My wife and I love it. It's predictable as hell, but the show is gorgeously shot and looks very expensive, and it's hilarious and has a surprising amount of heart. Maybe because we've spent so much more time with them at this point, but I think I like Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans as Riggs and Murtaugh even more than Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Crawford's Riggs seems more soulful, damaged, and self-destructive, while Gibson's Riggs seems more like an unhinged, cocky rear end in a top hat. (Granted, I haven't seen any of the movies in several years, but I intend to rewatch them when they become available on Netflix in January.) Damon Wayans is much older now than Danny Glover was when he filed the movies, but he seems more youthful and exuberant (which flies in the face of him being too old for this poo poo). I prefer TV Trish, Riggs' psychologist, and especially their supportive, long-suffering captain, who are much more developed characters in the show. I even like Thomas Lennon as Leo Getz, from his two appearances so far. And best of all, there is no dated Clapton/Sanborn soundtrack, although they do shoehorn annoying pop songs into the opening montages of L.A. at its most glitzy and beautiful.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:08
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got any sevens posted:How can you dis on the lethal weapon sax soundtrack 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. It's Clapton I dislike more than Sanborn -- just never been a fan. What do Clapton and Starbucks coffee have in common? They're both terrible without Cream. Wheat Loaf posted:Do they set it in the late 80s or is it in the present day? Does it adapt the plots of the movies at all or is it reusing the characters in a different setting? It's set in the present, and they haven't directly adapted anything from the movies.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:28
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That's an issue with the show too, since for the most part, the episodes have been stand-alone stories with very little in the way of overarching plots or recurring villains. Although they introduced one right before the current season's holiday hiatus, and I suspect he'll play an important role in the back half. Almost every show gets better when they establish a recurring villain or threat.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:38
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X-Ray Pecs posted:I love Lethal Weapon, but I’m gonna call Die Hard the greatest action movie ever made. Unless you count Raiders, I have to agree.
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Dec 28, 2017 23:01
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Wheat Loaf posted:Last Crusade is better than Raiders anyway. The first Mummy with Brendan Fraser and the first Pirates of the Caribbean. I still have nothing but love for those, no matter how rotten the sequels got. There aren't nearly enough action-adventure movies like those.
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Dec 28, 2017 23:42
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The Rocketeer is action-adventure, on top of being kind of a proto-superhero movie. And I have nothing but love for it as well.
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Dec 28, 2017 23:45
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Neo Rasa posted:Speaking of adventure movies like that, I never actually saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Does anyone here like that? I remember that article making the rounds here awhile ago about how it was a shame they were first to making a movie with that level of green screen and CG backdrops and stuff since it wasn't popular at the time but that's basically textbook how sci-fi/etc. movies are made today and how they got the cast they did because everyone starring in it was a true believer in the technology. Sky Captain is definitely worth watching for anyone craving more adventure movies. It is certainly uneven, with some pacing problems, but it looks great and captures the feel of a sci-fi pulp adventure serial, just as the director set out to do. I don't think Gwyneth Paltrow or Angelina Jolie have ever looked prettier, either.
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Dec 29, 2017 17:42
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Wheat Loaf posted:The best pulp/adventure movies of the 90s (off the top of my head) were The Rocketeer and The Mask of Zorro. The Mummy was 1999. I've still never seen The Phantom or The Mask of Zorro. Maybe I should do something about that.
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Dec 29, 2017 17:50
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Wheat Loaf posted:Movies in the same wheelhouse from around the same time period that I was super hyped but turned out to be very disappointing: Wild Wild West with Will Smith (which I never got to see in the cinema) and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie (which I did). If you wanted to like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because you like the concept, characters, and setting, but it just wasn't that good of a movie, try watching Penny Dreadful. It's a very similar concept, but done much better, and meant for adults. Wild Wild West is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And I never got around to seeing that second Sherlock Holmes movie.
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Dec 29, 2017 18:05
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I love Streets of Fire too, between batshit Willem Dafoe, sidekick Rick Moranis, gorgeous Diane Lane, the sledgehammer fight, the doo-wop group led by Ellstin Limehouse, the weird '50s-by-way-of-the-'80s aesthetic, and especially those two incredible, epic Jim Steinman songs bookending the movie. The hero reminds me of Captain Mal from Firefly, but just in how he looks -- not charming or roguish at all. That and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension might be my two favorite movies that not enough people have seen.
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Jan 3, 2018 04:58
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Another fun, quirky, weird action movie that falls into the post-apocalyptic genre discussed earlier is Six String Samurai, which came out in the late '90s. Nobody ever talks about it or makes references to it, but I swear it's real. I used to even own a tie-in comic book with cover art by the infamous Rob Liefeld. If you haven't seen it, it's about a bespectacled, taciturn nomad named Buddy (meant to be Buddy Holly) who is traveling through the desert wastelands to the kingdom "Lost Vegas," where the King recently died. He runs afoul of all kinds of creeps and weirdos including a family of cannibals and a Soviet surf-rock band (the Red Elvises, who did the soundtrack and are an amazing live band I've seen twice), and eventually has to face off in a guitar duel against Death himself (who looks an awful lot like Slash). Unfortunately, the movie has the most annoying kid actor ever, who mostly just shrieks and screams. I think the kid brings the whole movie down, and it might have a better reputation as a cult film if not for him. Holy poo poo, I was looking for the trailer, but it looks like the whole movie is on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaPP00uNkNI
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Jan 3, 2018 05:10
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Wheat Loaf posted:Question: is Top Gun an action movie? A while ago I watched a WatchMojo list video ranking the 10 greatest action directors (James Cameron was number one) and Tony Scott was on it, with both Top Gun and True Romance cited (but as far as I can recall, not The Last Boy Scout); I like the latter but it's not an action movie, while I don't think I've ever seen the former the whole way through. The Last Boy Scout and True Romance are my favorite Tony Scott movies, although they have more to do with Shane Black, Tarantino, and the excellent casts in both. I've still never seen Top Gun. No interest in it whatsoever.
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Jan 5, 2018 00:01
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Wheat Loaf posted:I've never bothered to watch the remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three because the original one with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw is basically perfect. Don't think I've even seen Beverly Hills Cop II, come to think of it (don't think I've seen any of the Beverly Hills Cop movies). I've never seen the Taking of Pelham One Two Three remake either, because the original IS perfect. I even remember a Southern Comfort commercial using the iconic jazz theme a few years ago. Also, Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 are fan-loving-tastic. 3 makes me sad, but 2 is very entertaining, and 1 is probably one of my all-time favorite movies, with a moment that makes me smile and laugh uncontrollably just thinking about it. I'm grinning from ear to ear right now, in fact. See 1, and if you like it, see 2. Now that they've added the Lethal Weapon movies to Netflix, I rewatched 1 and 2 for the first time in almost 20 years (basically, since 4 came out). 1 wasn't nearly as good as I remembered, but I recall feeling very mature and even sophisticated seeing it as a kid. I found 2 a lot more entertaining, and thought it had aged a lot better. Having more comic relief and better villains helped 2 immensely.
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Jan 5, 2018 06:27
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Gatts posted:It’s closer to the Fugitive on that line. Solid action and Denzel is pretty cold calculating and efficiently violent. It’s got a bit of smarts in how he goes about it too so I liked it and do recommend it. I didn't even remember The Equalizer coming out, but I saw it on TV recently and agree with all of this. I enjoyed it. Very reminiscent of Man on Fire and the Punisher.
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Jan 17, 2018 14:56
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Fart City posted:Helped out immensely by being directed by Anton Fuqua. Even when he does trash like Olympus Has Fallen, it’s “throw your hands up laughing” trash. David Ayer could learn a lot from his former Training Day collaborater in that regard. Everyone hates Ayer now, probably due to Suicide Squad (which I hated too, mostly as a fan of the original comics) and Bright. But he has written and/or directed some good movies too. I personally love Street Kings, which is more "crime" than "action," but a lot of people slept on it when it came out. It is written by James freakin' Ellroy, maybe the best living crime/mystery novelist, and it has a stacked cast: Keanu Reeves, Hugh Laurie, Forest Whitaker, Chris Evans, Terry Crews.
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Jan 17, 2018 16:14
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Basebf555 posted:It was a bit of both, she was really hot at the time but people were definitely excited to see Lara Croft in a big budget movie. Maybe they'd have been less excited if Jolie didn't seem like such a perfect casting though, so it's hard to separate the two. I've never played a Tomb Raider game or even seen the Jolie movies, but after seeing her in Doomsday, I always thought Rhona Mitra could have been even better casting. I always wondered why she didn't become a big star, after Doomsday and especially Boston Legal.
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Jan 19, 2018 00:01
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Wheat Loaf posted:Rhona Mitra was the model and voice for Lara Croft between 1997 and 1998. Weird! I've never seen any of those Underworld movies either, but I know Michael Sheen best from playing dickhead sex researcher Dr. Masters on Masters of Sex, and Liz Lemon's most obnoxious love interest, Wesley Snipes (his real name), on 30 Rock. Neither role screams "this guy should play an action hero."
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Jan 19, 2018 00:23
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Wheat Loaf posted:I just started watching the first Mission: Impossible movie. I actually love that, the very rare times the opening credits are designed to look like a TV show, suggesting countless other "episodes" and stories and adventures we only get glimpses of. The Charlie's Angels movie with Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore also did that, but I don't remember if they were opening or closing credits. I know it isn't well regarded, but I thought that movie was lots of fun, and it introduced me to Sam Rockwell. I'm surprised some of the superhero movies haven't done that, hinting at untold, unfilmed stories in some kind of montage.
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Jan 19, 2018 00:59
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After running the Lethal Weapon series with my wife (her first time seeing all of them) and agreeing on ranking them 2 > 4 > 1 > 3, tonight I introduced her to the flawless glory of Die Hard. I'm proud to say she loved it and credited it as one of the best action movies she's ever seen. She also loved our recent binge-watch of Justified, and we just started Banshee together. And when we met back in 2006, she didn't watch action movies and figured they were all stupid and worthless.
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Jan 28, 2018 07:22
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4 was funnier, had a much bigger budget and looked better, and I preferred the action set pieces: the fight in the trailer on the highway with Murtaugh driving behind it, and Riggs and Murtaugh versus Jet Li at the end. Liked those more than Riggs versus Gary Busey on the Murtaughs' lawn in the rain with the entire police department watching. Plus, I like the two of them settled into old patterns as friends and partners, whereas people forgot how much time was spent in 1 with them being pissed at each other. She agreed with all that, plus she preferred centered Riggs with friends and family, rebuilding his life, to suicidal Riggs. Big Bad Voodoo Lou fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jan 28, 2018 |
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Jan 28, 2018 15:28
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Wheat Loaf posted:I wonder if Cage coming off the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and going into movies like The Rock and Con Air was seen as odd by audiences in 1996. For comparison, imagine if Taken had been the next movie Liam Neeson starred in after Schindler's List. Or how Kate Beckinsale was known for being in costume dramas and Shakespeare films for a decade, but is now better known for Underworld movies. I suppose even Charlize Theron counts after Fury Road and Atomic Blonde. I love the idea of action heroes who are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances who rise to the occasion, despite not being natural badasses. John McClane was kind of like this in the first Die Hard -- a good, smart, tough cop, but definitely different from the archetypal, musclebound '80s action heroes like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Johnny Depp was like this too, even moreso, in Nick of Time. I'm a huge fan of Donald Glover. I think the guy can do it all -- writing, acting, stand-up, rapping, singing, production. And I'd love to see him in an action movie as a likable regular guy who is out of his depth. Paul Rudd is Ant-Man now, but I can see him in a similar sort of everyman role, and also Jason Bateman, who excels at playing these perennially put-upon characters. And his time is coming, since he just co-wrote and co-starred in Blindspotting, which sounds like a crime drama with some comedic elements that was a big hit at Sundance and should be out later this year, but be on the lookout for Daveed Diggs. You may have already seen him in the latest season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, but the guy is multi-talented and is going to be a huge star.
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Jan 28, 2018 19:06
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Wheat Loaf posted:Fair enough; I realise that some of my ambivalence to the movie is probably redirected dislike for the book. 2 Days in the Valley Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead Lucky Number Slevin EDIT: Smokin' Aces I still really enjoyed Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, though. Big Bad Voodoo Lou fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jan 28, 2018 |
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Jan 28, 2018 19:42
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The Hannibal TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. It's incredibly beautiful, even when it is showing horrific, gory stuff. Every shot, every scene, every set piece looks like a museum installation. The production design, cinematography, costuming, everything -- some of the best we've ever seen on television, and probably in film too. It's on Amazon Prime, and I highly recommend it, whether you're familiar with the books and movies or not. It certainly gets gory, but as long as you can tolerate that, it's an incredibly rich and rewarding show.
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Jan 29, 2018 06:42
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Mr Shiny Pants posted:I don't think I've seen Lockout mentioned. It is a pretty fun movie about Guy Pearce having to rescue someone from a space jail. Not just someone, but Shannon from LOST! That was a surprisingly good movie, agreed.
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Jan 31, 2018 12:54
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there a precise juncture in his career where Bruce Willis largely stopped playing scrappy underdogs who get the crap beaten out of them (the first three Die Hards, The Last Boy Scout, Pulp Fiction, The Fifth Element to some degree) in his action movie roles in favour of being all gruff and stern and scowly all the time? 16 Blocks was another Bruce Willis underdog movie, and feels more like Die Hard than Live Free... did. That said, I need to revisit Live Free... again, now that I'm a big fan of Timothy Olyphant from Justified and Deadwood, Maggie Q from Nikita, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead from Scott Pilgrim, Fargo, and her Got a Girl album.
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Jan 31, 2018 23:04
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MrBling posted:ok, action movie thread. I'm starting my Bruce Willis weekend. You have the best ones. Die Hard is obviously one of the greatest action movies of all time, and probably one of the greatest American films, period. I've always been a huge fan of Last Boy Scout and Last Man Standing. As the posted above me noted, 16 Blocks feels more like a Die Hard movie than Live Free or Die Hard did (I've never seen the fifth one). And the only movie I can think of adding is Sin City, which I loved when it came out, but I don't think it has aged well (or more likely, I've just outgrown it).
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Feb 3, 2018 20:16
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MrBling posted:is Live Free or Die Hard the one with Justin Long as some sort of hacker and there's a scene where Bruce kills a helicopter with a car? I owe it a rewatch. Timothy Olyphant and Maggie Q were the villains, and I like them so much now from their own shows, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead played McClane's daughter, and of course she's awesome. Kevin Smith was in it too, but oh well.
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Feb 3, 2018 20:22
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Yaws posted:Are the Fast and Furious movies worth watching? I saw the first one in like 2002 and hated it but everyone is constantly singing the praises of the series. I'm with you. I know people sing their praises now, but I never went back to the series after hating the first one so much in the theater.
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Feb 4, 2018 23:37
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I was a huge G.I. Joe fan as an '80s kid, and they could have been amazing action movies instead of whatever we got. Both movies had potential, but were deeply flawed. G.I. Joe should have been able to blend war movie action, cool vehicles, tank battles, aerial dogfights, sci-fi weapons and technology, martial arts and ninja combat, Mission Impossible-style espionage, teams of characters with their own specialties, all fighting supervillain-like terrorists. And it seems like they were made by people who thought all that stuff together would have been stupid. It was never completely clear whether G.I. Joe was the ultimate Reagan-era jingoism or almost a satire of the same. The cartoon was much more straight-faced, but there were more subversive elements in the Marvel comic, written by creator Larry Hama. Regardless, they established a surprisingly deep mythology that would have been enough for a series of movies, but everyone involved dropped the ball, thinking the source material was too juvenile or dated or silly. I think they could have been late-period Fast and the Furious-level hits if they were just better movies that got as crazy as they should have been.
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Feb 5, 2018 15:10
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Whoa, I enjoy a good fighting movie as much as anyone, or a noir story where the protagonist is constantly out of his element as the system grinds him down, or a story about a criminal trying to reform and do his time, but his violent past keeps coming back to haunt him. But based on all that, I don't even want to see it. Just removed it from my Amazon watchlist, and I appreciate the warnings.
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Feb 10, 2018 07:25
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MrBling posted:Finally got around to re-watching The Last Boy Scout. Where did you read all this? I'm a Shane Black mark, and I've loved The Last Boy Scout ever since I was a young teenager. I wouldn't mind reading the behind-the-scenes stuff. I also loved True Romance, so I assumed the Lee Donowitz character was Tarantino taking the piss out of rear end in a top hat Hollywood executives he dealt with early in his career (maybe even Weinstein), without realizing it could ever be Tony Scott with a grudge against Joel Silver. Could Kevin Spacey's character in Swimming With Sharks also be based on Silver, then? Or was that revealed to be someone else?
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Feb 10, 2018 20:01
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MrBling posted:All that is from the wikipedia entry. You can follow the source links down a few rabbit holes from there. Thank you!
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Feb 10, 2018 20:25
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