Movies That Were Probably Made By a Spasm of Six Year-Olds on Acid: The Top 75 Action Films Poll Results Thread

Bond films basically ripoffs of Hitchcock's North by Northwest

ok

sadly that movie now just reminds me of the horrible band primal scream. thanks a lot, primal scream. i haven't seen it in years. existential road movies aren't really my thing anymore. though i really did enjoy deadhead miles recently.

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/goldfinger.asp

Regarding the 'painted gold' thing: It's not true.

i'm not a good hipster cuz two lane blacktop always a bit boring to me. though yeah dennis and james look fab in it. the ultimate hipsters.

Vanishing point was my number one pick! I remember talking with a friend about two different movies that had all these different moments that made no sense being in the same film, and then we realized we were both talking about Vanishing Point, and none of the other party goers believed that such a movie existed.

Whenever I think that "TV wasn't actually that good back then", I remember I saw two lane blacktop, Vanishing Point and suchlike on good ol' ITV/BBC back in the days...

i should watch vanishing point again soon. it really has been since i was a teen.

psychomania. that's what they played late at night on t.v. all the time when i was a kid.

Vanishing point was my number one pick!

Are you sure Omar got your ballot? He didn't include # of #1 votes in the results info.

yes, if at the same time u do not breathe through your mouth/nose

it was your #3, AP!

surprised that temple of doom placed so low... also surprised to find myself voting it so high on my ballot. i guess when you have an opening like that the rest of the movie could have feature garfield and i would have voted it high

it was your #3, AP!

― omar little, Monday, February 13, 2012 11:13 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

everyone h8s temple of doom is my understanding

psychomania. that's what they played late at night on t.v. all the time when i was a kid.

And that one, yes!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/dirtyharry.png

#71

DIRTY HARRY

Don Siegel
1971
United States
(165 points, 7 votes)

I have decided I need to see about adopting Inspector Callahan's no-cursing policy of dry sarcasm and cruel disregard for vanity as opposed to my usual sailorstyle shit fuck piss ass bitch banter (starting with muttering "swell" and "marvelous" when receiving, uh, new information).

― El Tomboto

Robinson couldn't fire a gun without screwing his eyes shut and flinching, so they had to stop filming and send him off to a shooting range for a couple of days. Even after that you can still see him blinking whenever he fires. His performance is excellent though, just the simple bit where he's walking across the rooftop tearing up the piece of newspaper does so much to establish that the character is evil.

― snoball

the first "dirty harry" at least is fantastic. i love that shot where the camera just flies back when harry finally confronts scorpio on the football field.

― J.D.

DIRTY HARRY

everyone h8s temple of doom is my understanding

― lag∞n, Monday, February 13, 2012 11:14 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe i was the only one to vote for it

i went to the same school as andrew robinson! for a year. they had a framed picture of him in the school library. he's awesome. now and then.

o damn, its startin already! temple of doom i havent seen since i was a p small kid, but it was real scary to me back then...

i voted for two bond movies, but goldfinger wasnt one of them, but it's a good'un

you're picking great shots for the pics!

i had to check to make sure i didn't vote for all of the first three indiana jones movies but nope no temple, i can breathe easy

surprised that temple of doom placed so low... also surprised to find myself voting it so high on my ballot. i guess when you have an opening like that the rest of the movie could have feature garfield and i would have voted it high

haha this is so OTM

sorry for not voting ;_;

it never clicked with me until now, but looking at that dirty harry pic its clear that harry callahan is the most badass sweater vest-wearer in cinema history

it was your #3, AP!

― omar little, Monday, February 13, 2012 11:13 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha! Just went back and reviewed my list. Wild Bunch & Seven Samurai got top billing, so my votes are less cracked out than I remember.

it never clicked with me until now, but looking at that dirty harry pic its clear that harry callahan is the most badass sweater vest-wearer in cinema history

suddenly Santorum makes sense

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/hurtlocker-1.jpg

#69 (TIE)

THE HURT LOCKER

Kathryn Bigelow
2009
United States
(167 points, 8 votes)

There were a bunch of times that Bigelow's choices in Hurt Locker had me muttering to myself "100% pure adrenaline" or other quotes from Point Break. Especially the drinking scenes. She loves to shoot scenes of dudes hangin' out.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic)

lemme just say that all other merits aside there are some really stunning shots in this pic

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.)

Finally saw the Hurt Locker, which I really liked.

I do wonder if Jeremy Renner's character ended up leaving his family again because the way his wife cleaned mushrooms was beyond the pale. Who soaks them in a tub of water?

― ô_o (Nicole)

kathryn bigelow

finally, someone running away from an explosion

not my bigelow of choice, but def a dope, tight little movie. also, a really cool title

I voted Raiders and left out Temple. I found myself selecting the best and only voting for one of any series.

hurt locker is one of those movies that i think of as not very good but also the rare intersection of oscar bait and ilx bait

i cant pick only one when it comes to like indiana jones and og star wars cuz when they are literally the best-directed action movies of all time it would be silly to just pick a token choice

I agree with you, slocki. In retrospect it was a weird choice.

are you saying you voted for jedi and crystal skulls?

is it really oscar bait? i still find its win kinda mystifying, only past winner i'd really compare it to is like The French Connection (or i guess Platoon)

the irl guy who it was based off of is apparently even more unhinged in reality, and is really notorious in the EOD community

are you saying you voted for jedi and crystal skulls?

― some dude, Monday, February 13, 2012 10:33 AM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

obv I voted for phantom menace

are you saying you voted for jedi and crystal skulls?

― some dude, Monday, February 13, 2012 11:33 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i did vote for jedi! (but rather lower on the list)
i didnt vote for crystal skulls though, it's not as bad as the star wars prequels but not nearly the level of the others. i'm not saying you HAVE to vote for ALL of them, but there's no reason not to vote for more than one in a series if multiple entries are dope

yeah i guess it's not fair to call any oscar winner an oscar bait although there are some ways that i think it's reasonable to call it that

there is a reason! to make room for other flicks!

hurt locker is SO not oscar bait

oscar bait is like, expensive studio bought & paid for shit like "chocolat"

yeah i feel you s1ocks -- i meant to vote for all three o.g. SW movies but somehow i left out SW itself

go away, baitin'

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/diehard3.jpg

#69 (TIE)

DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE

John McTiernan
1995
United States
(167 points, 6 votes)

Die Hard With A Vengeance is a blast. It's too damn long and episodic - they clearly hadn't worked out how to end the thing - but it's got too many classic Die Hard lines to be discounted. OK, it was a weird move for the series to become a chase all around town instead of a confined-space thing, but there are other ways in which it fits into the lineage - mainly the great fake-out by the bad guy. And possibly my favorite line ever by John McClane, over a truck CB: Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, fuck-head!

― Doctor Casino

did you guys know Die Hard With A Vengeance is kind of an amazing, amazing movie?

― TOMBOT

the "annoying criminal mastermind" thing is the only reason that Die Hard With A Vengeance was even remotely watchable

― bernard snowy

i struggled with the jedi question but i still think it, like temple of doom, has some pretty all-time stuff in it

haha of all the movies i'd cite as archetypical oscar bait i wouldn't have gone for 'that chick flick about the chocolaterie'

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/03/04/PK146052.DTL&ao=all

juliette binoche, judi dench, general faux-foreignness, miramax...

but you can pretend i said 'the shipping news' or any other lasse hallstrom movie instead haha

Still bothered (from a realism standpoint and just because it didn't fit into the narrative) by the scene in The Hurt Locker where an EOD team turns into a sniper team.

Bummed I didn't vote - would have voted for the first three Indy movies and all three Bournes no doubt.

thing about hurt locker is, when the movie showed at toronto the year before it came out, they weren't even sure it was gonna get a theatrical release!

pour one out for William Friedkin #14 and #37 in our action poll, #1 in our uh hearts?
or cars, maybe.

https://imgur.com/dKJr4NV

https://64.media.tumblr.com/848c880abe408d43287347f7fa586e82/tumblr_miwmsaYV5p1qg4blro1_500.gif

i think one question i'd marinate in my mind juices while awaiting results and smoking a cigarette lit by a counterfeit $100 bill, if running this poll again, is would all of the John Wicks place, or just a single representative?

also my top twenty or perhaps even top ten at this point might include Furiosa.

if i’m limited to 20 votes i’d only give 1 to john wick and have it be reprentative, also as fun as they are its a liiiiitle bit diminishing returns after a while idk

but hey if given 50 votes, maybe i’d throw in one or two more

he fell down those steps twice for you!!

and i’m grateful. that might be one i’d vote for!

i appreciate the Wicks even more now, though the one i tend to remember the least is JW3. JW2 feels to some extent like the peak maybe, though the purity of the first one makes it so appealing as a constant rewatch candidate.

it's hard to look past the sheer ambition and scale of JW4 obv.

I'm educating myself in the filmography of Andy Sidaris this summer, and I'm a little surprised that none of his films even made the noms thread for this poll. Their formula for action sequences seem like mad libs devised to be populated by the titular spasm of six-year-olds: Good guy (mostly hot girls) vs pick a bad guy (spies, drug smugglers, gun smugglers, treasure hunters) + pick any vehicle (jeep, race car, motorcycle, hovercraft, airplane, skateboard) + pick any weapon (pistol, bomb, spear, switchblade, machine gun, rocket launcher) + choose one of the following locations (Hawaii, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, but mostly Hawaii).

If you don't confuse yourself by trying to remember the actual plot halfway through, they are immense fun.

I've only seen Hard Ticket To Hawaii, which I remember as a really delightful watch with a big rowdy crowd of genre-schlock lovers. Definitely would love to see more.

In terms of this thread, I think maybe his moment hadn't quite come? I saw HTtH in 2016 and the host was definitely "introducing" us to this guy and his aesthetic, like maybe these had just gotten reissued on DVD within the recent past or something. I know some or all of them got *some* kind of theatrical release back in the day, but they're not major-studio releases, and even today I think he's someone you'd only learn about in certain circles, or if you're making a committed dive into the subgenre.

Interestingly, because I've done my ilx digging, there was discussion about a recently-released Sidaris boxset in January 2012, which would have been while the noms thread for this poll was still open. So there was simmering interest but probably not a real familiarity. But also, to be fair, Predator and Commando these movies ain't.

Damage ContrLOLz

(holy jesus, was this a dozen years ago? I had forgotten The Matrix at 36 and hope (possibly foolishly) that it would do better now. The Inception Inception is absolute poetry, omar one of the best to ever do it)

🫡

I guess it has been awhile. It’s interesting to think how many great action movies have come out in the ensuing decade plus. I wonder if it’s time to run another one of these. Every great action movie has a sequel…

Omg I would love an Action Poll Part Deux!!

we need to assemble the crew for one last score

LET’S GO BACK TO SUMMER CAMP

would be good timing with the furious leveling things and playing with the legacy of the raid (which is pretty old at this point, ugh)

ok so I think I'll be doing another one of these, just to account for the new wave of incredible action movies we've seen in recent years (both mainstream and B-movie, and the global explosion of this type of cinema), plus it'll be interesting to see what films have completely fallen out of favor and which ones which finished lower or completely out of the running will make it this time.

my dream would be for gr80, max, s1ocki, and some others to come back to participate, to take it to the limit one more time if you will, but we'll see.

i've got a busy few weeks ahead but i'm sure i can at least start a nominations thread next week and try to keep it updated.

wahoo!

I'll definitely vote in this. Iko Uwais for the win!

^^^^^^

Finally a chance to be snarky to people when The Night Comes For Us doesn't win

please let’s do this so i can make everyone mad by putting rush hour 2 as my #1

id be down