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

for a sec i was trying to figure out what "Pretty Woman in refrigerators" could mean

I don't recall any sci-fi content in Chain Reaction, but it was so forgettable I can't say. Like JMnemonic, it grossed about $20M domestically, so it's hard to get "fatigue" from something you never saw.

well-oiled machines vs thrill rides vs cinema

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-made_play

when the first Bourne movie came out, my brother called it "a stair-driving tour de force," and that's still the phrase that pops into my head when i think about those movies

i think i've seen them all but they've honestly left zero impression on me, for some reason idgaf about the whole thing

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

#29

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

Paul Greengrass
2004
United States
(325 points, 14 votes)

aside from its untradtional narrative (task rather then charchter based), its short cut, dark colour, murkly light, paranoid pacing and almost manic editing. it also did not have the hollywood endings, the geewhiz spy shit was kept to a bare minimum and the acting was first rate (joan allen and matt damon)
the interesting thing was how much of it was a current meaphor of intellgenice, w. allen tying to find the truth about governments secerts and another, ugly, fat, white, bad suited, (obv. republican) agent got money from russian oil, said things like i am a patroit and wanted to "liquidate" the assisan because he might have know things about said dirty deals.

the actor looked like dick cheney with hair, and the oil company was called pukev (shades of yukov--sp)

the ethical nature of the cia, what they did to bourne and the implications of that was not approached in the movie directly, but hinted at thru the obv. ptsd amensia that bourne had, and julia stiles having a line about the mental health effects of the work.

(speaking of stiles--there was a scene w. him and stiles in a train utility room, which looked standard man beating up standard women, action movie misogyny, until he loses it, on the cusp of sanity, and you have no which way to tell how he will react)

car chase in moscow that ends the movie, catastrophic and true, no fancy balachine with buicks, just a hard death to the end of a hard movie)

― anthony

i luvved it, maybe more than the first (it's been awhile since i've seen the first), no clive owens this time round though so probably not. not an ounce of fat on it, the narrative was trad spyflick 101 - not quite sure what you're on about there anthony - with any deviations from a->b->c being when it focused on character. damon plays it lean, comes a helluva lot closer to being delon here than he did in ripley, joan allen is good, brian cox actually somewhat disappointing - less interesting replay of william stryker, i kept waiting for anna paquin and iceman to pop up during the confrontation scene. julia stiles gorgeous per usual, but when she was terrified (and that scene was kinda harrowing cuz it did seem very possible bourne would off her) she looked like an angry baby. the deaths actually felt like they mattered, i'd rathered it'd ended with him walking away in the snow in moscow after asking the girl to forgive him instead to the relatively glib ending that tacked on, but i guess they felt this made the better dooropener for the sequel (which i will see).

― cinniblount

I'm a total playa-hata when it comes to high-speed editing, and while this could be seen as the case in BS, I think it's more the case of quirky hand-held cinematography and the lack of lengthy scene-setting and lengthy pace-making that makes the film feel as frenetic as it does.

and total props to Damon who's really growing into himself. There're an awful lot of close profiles of Jay Bourne, and the character - and actor - has a face that's at once doe-eyed and hard-edged. As Bourne drives through Berlin at night, the traffic lights refracting off the raindrops on the car's windshield glance against the prep-school impertinancy of his cheekbones, and the shadows gouge deep ruts into his cheeks and offset the funny hardness at the end of his nose. It's easy to imagine Damon evolving into a Cagney-type.

And Brian Cox is, again, absolutely amazing.

― j e r e m y

you need to see the bourne supremecy right now...like right fucking now

the Bourne movies just are really not based on the books, theyre a diff style of thing, the screenwriter has said that he actively dislikes the books fwiw

hah, wow

lol are these really one right after the other? ha.

x-post

kind of surprised that none of the bournes is going to be in the higher reaches of this poll. but lol at coming grouped.

should've been higher

...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.

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:17 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's because you met a woman, right? And not some personality growth or w/e

"the actor looked like dick cheney with hair" resonates w/me

mad at myself for not at least voting giving bourses all the points they deserve better

man i used to drink and post a lot

Yeah, really disappointed Supremacy isn't higher.

It is by far the best of the lot. The fight in the kitchen, the improvised explosion... awesome.

I have a three-pack of them at home and have only watched the first one (and so, have been nursing an uninjured hand for 20 minutes) - I guess I should sort that out.

2 > 3 > 1

2>1>3

tbf, they're all excellent and it's probably more like 2 > 3/1

1

2-3-1, I think, but they're all pretty close

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

#28

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Sergio Leone
1968
Italy/United States
(346 points, 10 votes)

The score sets it all off perfectly Julio - you do know that Morricone and Leone worked in tandem and the score was meticulously composed scene by scene, and was built around the complex plans that Leone had in his head, down to the personalities of the characters and the events that take place in the movie. Even Harmonica’s blowing is deliciously well conceived – I mean who plays a harmonica like that – nobody right, because it’s the sound of a dying man’s last breaths.

― @lex K

Harmonica's origin scene tho, that's some awe-inspiring superhero type shit.

― Daniel_Rf

Not a word on Jason Robards yet? A legend for his stage work, this is likely his best movie perf. Can you believe Paramount cut his last scene in '69??

I go back and forth between this and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as SL's best, but I always choke up at the water-carrying finale.

Also, seeing at least a couple Ford films where Fonda is the hero should be a prerequisite for enjoying him fully in this; it was considered shocking casting.

"Keep yer lovin' brother happy."

― Dr Morbius

Enthuse over Once Upon A Time In The West please

why would you nurse an uninjured hand

Glad someone asked.

it's a euphemism

for milk

like when i told my wife i needed to unveil my poll

think that might just be european for "sucking my thumb" ?

Watching "Die Hard 3," and it's much better than I remembered. Thanks, ILX!

Oh, also, Leone rules.

OMAR!

man i fucking love the bourne supremacy. i gave it 44 points.

the chases in this movie are so good. i mentioned the american embassy scene from identity as being representative of the series, but for me the iconic bourne chase has always been the berlin hotel escape in supremacy. the way it refuses to arrive at a throw-up-its-hands-and-hit-the-'the hero wins'-button moment is stunning to me. the GSG chase bourne down like a ragged dog and he has to do everything he can think of just to stay a few inches ahead of them. it's not a movie that's satisfied with doing something ordinary, and as a viewer i have to appreciate that

i saw it with my dad when it came out, and afterwards he uncharacteristically commented that the moscow climax was one of the best car chases he'd ever seen. he's a pretty taciturn guy and also not necessarily into whiz-bang stuff, so i was surprised. but i tend to agree. amateurist pointed out at the time that every impact is shot within the car, which is cool. i love the lead-up to the chase too, lots of in-the-moment over the shoulder photography of bourne limping through russian supermarkets and scrapping to survive.

politically the movie still impresses me. as blount pointed out back then, how many american spy movies end with their cia trained killer apologizing to the family (played by the girl from moodysons Lilya 4-ever) of one of his hits? that scene always floors me.

and right after it is one of the most remarkable shots of greengrass' career - bourne exiting her apartment building, shot from above, the camera pans up to the building across the lot, and keeps panning up and up and it seems like the building never ends. the audience i was with collectively muttered 'damn' at that shot. the mise-en-scene of the russian sections is great, and with very little explanation you pick up so much about the hypercapitalist dystopia russia had become

2>1>3

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:17 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ay omar just a suggest but I wouldnt mind seeing the dates on the pull quotes

once upon a time ranked high for me, though not as high as TGTBTU which is just more fun. but it's some pretty sick epic filmmaking

why would you nurse an uninjured hand

Oh, because I rewatched the first one quite recently, and the use of a ballpoint pen in the scene with the first assassin made me wince even when I knew it was coming, and is still making me wince.

i like everything about the bourne movies other than the fact that julia stiles is horrible and should be shot into the sun

Julia Stiles is generally horrible yes, but is quite tolerable in this series imo.

i didn't place Once Upon a Time which i think was one of those "haven't seen it recently enough" arbitrary decisions i made to get the list down to 50. i wish i'd placed it now i think.

25-27 a bit later, folks

btw I watched dirty Harry last night

jeez omar, why didn't you use some of your vacation days to post these results? ;)

xp did you enjoy it y/n?

I did! and I have some things to say abt it, l8r

Annoyed that Netflix is streaming cropped Dirty Harry.

one more thing on bourne supremacy... the moment at the end where he lets karl urban live is legit powerful to me. to me this is a sick movie and not just a great action flick, which is why i was so gravely disappointed by the failings of ultimatum.

what'd you think of DH lagoon.

The Matrix should have been higher, and anyone dissing it is either projecting their feelings about the sequels on to the original or just plain doesn't like awesomeness. Such an amazing experience to see that in the cinema not knowing much about it beforehand, just sitting there open-mouthed for the whole second half of the film. I mean the lobby sequence alone...

matrix is awful gtfo