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

in a way The Matrix and Blade et al are an attempt to take action flicks out of the hands of sweaty middle-aged working stiffs with bad attitudes and hand them over to dungeons and dragons kids. i just like sweaty middle-aged working stiffs a lot better.

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:02 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

heh, well, i hear what you're saying, but i feel like blade is more in the steven seagal tradition. its a surly asshole martial arts movie first and foremost

you have to admit tho that Crank is hilarious

Morbs is going to blow a gasket if all three Bournes place, isn't he?

Morbs is going to blow a gasket no matter what

shamefacedly admit i haven't watched Blade cos i hate non-Transylvanian vampires

iirc the Matrix was the first really big DVD MOVIE. like, it became the thing that huge A/V nerds would put on their systems to show them off, like a Hi-Fi freak playing Sting as a "reference track" or something.

cannot imagine seeing it as a 13-year-old, i think it might have ruined my life

sting ew, floyd all the way

I assume the STATHAM thread has findings on his dbaggery but I'm fine not finding out, def. a poisonous cultural presence though.

also PHIL YOU MUST SEE THE FIRST TWO BLADE MOVIES AND NEVER, EVER, EVER SEE THE THIRD

EVER

basically agree, crank 2 is even worse imo unfortunately. problem i have (possible challop) is that i've come to find statham to be a completely unlikable screen presence, like actively douchey maybe moreso b/c he clearly thinks he's the shit.

― omar little, Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:05 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah thats a borderline challop but i hear what you mean. im not as in love with the guy as some other people. i don't find his screen presence douchey per say, just lackluster and wooden. he's no Bruce, that's for sure. hes a talented physical performer though

cannot imagine seeing it as a 13-year-old, i think it might have ruined my life

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:09 AM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark

lol, howso

iirc the Matrix was the first really big DVD MOVIE. like, it became the thing that huge A/V nerds would put on their systems to show them off, like a Hi-Fi freak playing Sting as a "reference track" or something.

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:09 AM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really true

basically just Daniel Craig minus any kind of charm, isn't he?

re: STATHAM

i think there's STATHAM as a brand now which outweighs his screen charm tbh

Crank 2 was completely unnecessary and made me think less of the first film. Damn them.

Yeah there was a joke that you got a free copy of the Matrix with every DVD player. It was a film that had a fair amount of DVD extras, but then it came out the same year as LOTR I: The Lottering so not so impressive there.

yeah i mean the transporter flix are good times, but still. he's like kate beckinsale or something, this hot physical presence who's kinda charmless a lot of the time.

i saw this terrible brit thriller 'blitz' he was in that kinda reinforced it. his best perf was in the bank job i guess, which wasn't bad but was kinda boring.

The Matrix came out when I was really into PKD and for that reason it seemed like every "this world isn't actually real" movie (of which there were a lot at the time (matrix, existenz, dark city, etc.)) really disappointed me because it wasn't PKDickian enough.

all three indies are gonna place, huh

― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 (dayo), Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:58 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol "all three"

The Bank Job is pretty unSTATHAMy tbh

The Matrix came out when I was really into PKD and for that reason it seemed like every "this world isn't actually real" movie (of which there were a lot at the time (matrix, existenz, dark city, etc.)) really disappointed me because it wasn't PKDickian enough.

then "A Scanner Darkly" came out

x-post Everyone knows the other one doesn't count, duh.

Crank is so over the top that I went into it knowing it was OTT and still left thinking it was OTT.

Coolest thing about the Matrix was when Keanu took his $100 million bonus or whatever and divided it up as gifts between the FX crew. Man is a mensch.

Did you see the video of him giving up his seat on the subway in NY recently? I think he's probably the biggest sweetheart.

yeah i mean the transporter flix are good times, but still. he's like kate beckinsale or something, this hot physical presence who's kinda charmless a lot of the time.

i saw this terrible brit thriller 'blitz' he was in that kinda reinforced it. his best perf was in the bank job i guess, which wasn't bad but was kinda boring.

― omar little, Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:13 AM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

lol the beckinsale comp is fantastic. speaking of the transporter, i'll always think of statham as the guy wearing a comically tight polo shirt for most of the first transporter. i still crack up thinking of that thing, it looked like it was painted on

lol, howso

13 years old just seems like the ultimate sweet spot for a movie like the Matrix and i can have a kind of obsessive personality w/r/t certain cultural artifacts. it was a simple twist of fate that i'm not dressing up in Neo suits at every Comic-Con in the western hemisphere right now.

lol

Statham = the male Beckinsale is a brilliant comparison, particularly since I love both of their action films

x-post - I sort of wish you were tbh.

there's something satisfying about writing 'irvin kershner' there and not 'george lucas'.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/empirestrikes2.png

#33

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Irvin Kershner
1980
United States
(301 points, 8 votes)

I recently had the experience of watching Empire with my 28 year old friend who had never seen it before. He'd only watched Star Wars for the first time a few days previously. He was mildly enthusiastic, I'd say he rated it about 6/10 by his reaction. He thought there was too much white plastic in it though.

― A brownish area with points (chap)

i rewatched the un-messed-with empire the other day. one of the great romcoms.

― difficult listening hour

Rather amazing that the series' only claim to greatness -- the only reason it has any resonance -- rests on one movie (The Empire Strikes Back) directed by someone not its creator.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Star Wars - Classic or Dud?

yeah if ever there was a right age for it to come along, that was it. xxp

also PHIL YOU MUST SEE THE FIRST TWO BLADE MOVIES AND NEVER, EVER, EVER SEE THE THIRD

But only the third one had a pivotal female character! I liked it.

lol the beckinsale comp is fantastic. speaking of the transporter, i'll always think of statham as the guy wearing a comically tight polo shirt for most of the first transporter. i still crack up thinking of that thing, it looked like it was painted on

This is a style thing ime. I happen to like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEdDMQZaCU

Rather amazing that the series' only claim to greatness -- the only reason it has any resonance -- rests on one movie

such a challop, i mean forget arguing about which of the two is best but star wars has no resonance? c'mon.

I never forgave the matrix for starting out with a rich, intriguing cronenberg/PKD premise and then devolving into the dumbest "shoot guns is cool" denouement

This, basically. The Wachowskis wanted to have their reality tweak and eat a kill-em-all action fest, too. The gunplay didn't feel earned. Also: y'know what, Neo? I'll take sleeping in my goo tank 4evs over taking a chance on you 'liberating' me with a bullet to my computer face, thanks.

empire owns. i always liked it best but at the same time never necessarily saw it as head n shoulders above the rest of the trilogy, but then again i havent seen it as an adult.

Yeah also at this point I just like seeing Keanu! Hey, it's Keanu, how're you? How you're doing well!

This does mean that I enjoyed Much Ado About Nothing more than everyone else.

Yep, Best Picture nominee Star Wars has no cultural resonance whatsoever.

i think the other two flix in the original trilogy are on par but empire goes 'dark' so i think it gets the resonance rep. jedi isn't a barrel of laughs though, an ewok near-holocaust by stormtrooper!

That still from Empire highlights everything great about it. Just about any scene from any of the other two (OK, five) would make me say no, but that one makes me want to watch it now.

But only the third one had a pivotal female character! I liked it.

All of the acting by everyone is beyond terrible in Blade III, though! Jessica Biehl is basically personality-free cipher, Ryan Renolds has no personality beyond "wisecracker" Snipes was too old to do any of the stunts, and Parker Posey consistently felt like she was operating in a totally different, campier movie.

Yeah, it's pretty awful.

man crank... i saw it without knowing a thing about it. i was at uni had loads of freetime on my hands and one day, i was looking for a film to go watch. on the cinema guide, there was just one line about this movie but man, that was more than enough to get me to go see it: "it's like speed, except instead of a bus, it's a killer who can never slow down".

ya i would love to watch empire again too bad you can only watch the shitted-up version

x-post - And I generally like all those people too - even Renolds who most people seem to hate on a lot.

i dont think snipes was too old, just too insane.

http://snipeseyes.ytmnd.com/

tbh the only thing I liked about that film was Parker Posey camping it up

Supposedly Ryan Reynolds likes to ad lib "jokes" and in this case the director left them in? I find him about 0% funny, though.

xp to Blade 3 comments