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

I don't think I voted for NxNW and I have NO IDEA WHY!

The only action movie with Martin Landau playing a homo.

i know T2 is great and epic and all but i just don't think the original shd've been franchised up, i blame T2 for that fucking monstrosity i had to sit thru at the pictures last year or whenever

nxnw is one of the most entertaining movies of all time.

The Thing has pretty great action sequences - helicoptors, flamethrowers, guns, w/e. Is Crank the, er, "purest" action movie on this list?
wrt/Battle Royale, "nasty stuff happening to people in quasi-woodland areas" seems fairly well split between Pred/Rambo-style action flicks and backwoods-US horror films, so it gets a pass.

I mean, it seems pretty likely there'll be no Douglas Fairbanks/Errol Flynn movies (or any OG swashbuckling, or Buster Keaton - the motorcycle sequence in Sherlock Jr is even better than the one in Akira - or etc etc etc) on this list; wringing hands over The Thing seems like the wrong avenue for anguish.

― etc, Friday, February 17, 2012 12:08 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

'sudden bursts of violence' are not the same as action scenes - im sticking with that, because otherwise why not vote for ultraviolent Pulp Fiction

i voted for some keaton, ford, hitchcock and some of that stuff might make it - should've voted for flynn's robin hood too, so that was an oversight, but discussion about what should and shouldnt rank is part of the whole shebang here - if i 'anguish' over one thing it doesn't mean there's no room for talking about anything else

The very first band I was ever in was called North by Northwest. Probably my favorite Hitchcock, or at least a very close tie with Rear Window.

heh north by northwest ranks while i post that - i voted for it, and rightly or wrongly ive always thought of it as the most important ancestor of the 'action film' genre

Hitchcock ballot poll would be huge fun.

The very first porn I was ever in was called Rear Window.

of my top 10, 3 have placed already, 3 i'm certain will, 1's got no chance, and 3 i'm pretty worried will get missed.

Hitchcock ballot poll would be huge fun. meant to add "milo otm" to that.

RW is the best. Yeah, if it hasn't already been done someone do a H poll because then maybe I'll watch the ones i haven't seen like NxNW. :o

Yeah, a ballot one - a reg one has probably already been done.

yeah NxNW probably invents or at least standardises a bunch of action movie tropes, in a similar way to how Psycho wd stake out the slasher movie soon after.

yeah, you know, after thinking about if for a sec, NxNW is totally an action movie! I probably would have mistakenly overlooked it (even though I love it unreservedly - i go back an forth on this, but it might just be my fave Hitchcock) but it def belongs here.. good work!

E, you haven't seen nxnw? :O indeed

wha?

The very first porn I was ever in was called Rear Window.

― CANDY aka JUNK (some dude), Friday, February 17, 2012 12:20 PM (1 minute ago)

good thing it wasn't rope

saw nbnw projected on a summer night in a public park years ago. it was great, especially seeing it with a very large and knowing adult audience

Nope. I know. I should get on that, huh?

E, I wish I were you so I could watch NxNW for the first time!

ha! I just added it on NF.

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

#17 (TIE)

STARSHIP TROOPERS

Paul Verhoeven
1997
United States
(408 points, 12 votes)

I keep wondering what Starship Troopers would be like if it did get all point-serious at the end -- if it was a tragedy, where all the fun jingoism and such wound up with the square-jawed children being universally massacred, or else dominating aliens that we turn out to be sympathetic toward. That would pretty much suck, I think, which reassures me that it really is about the aesthetics -- the aesthetics call for the triumphant ending (with all its attendant hollowness and satire and grotesquerie). Which, ha, means that right now Starship Troopers is like a future-vision of what people wanted to think the Iraq war would be like, at first ("U.S.Earth! U.S.Earth! ... It's frightened!"), whereas a real-world complexity-of-politics turn at the end would make it just a bad future version of what the Iraq war is actually like.

― nabisco

A lot of Starship Troopers is basically the same kind of humor as when South Park did the Braveheart battle against the evil turkeys, except with the added sick twist that the shit in Starship Troopers is kinda stuff some people will still go for in a non-funny way. (This is the other angle of the concept, which involves making this over-the-top camp thing knowing full well that some movie audiences would just swallow it whole.)

― nabisco

that is to say, i don't know that many directors besides verhoeven could put over the cartoonish elements of this film with such conviction, but also get the tone of the satirical passages just right. i think perhaps a slight confusion or ambivalence on verhoeven's part (concerning the somewhat elaborate meanings of the screenplay) functions nicely here. i also think it's important to remember how much a screenplay can dictate, or at least suggest, ways that a scene can be shot/staged/etc. neumeier's script is very detailed.

― Amateur(ist)

"Starship Troopers" - Verhoeven is a mad genius!

too low maybe

xxxp - would Morbs survive a surprise win by The Birds in a Hitchcock poll?

E, I wish I were you so I could watch NxNW for the first time!

What a thrilling experience.

Starship Troopers sincerely makes me wanna live in a fascist khakistocracy

Love that those two are tied tbh.

Also, if you haven't seen Charade, maybe you should queue that on Netflix as well. xp

The very first porn I was ever in was called Rear Window.

― CANDY aka JUNK (some dude), Friday, February 17, 2012 12:20 PM (1 minute ago)

good thing it wasn't rope

or I Confess.

or The 39 Steps

Point Blank was my #1!!!!!!

im glad ST didnt make the top 10. i love it though! they used models for the spaceships so those effects still look pretty good. one of basil poledouris' best scores, along with robocop and conan.

I can't really get behind The Thing as an action movie, although it's definitely an awesome movie.

Had a totes different experience the last time I saw it, imagining the Thing as the protagonist who's just trying to survive and escape from a hostile environment the only way it knows how. The movie totally works on that level, to the extent that I feel it was somewhat intentional on Carpenter's part to not paint the Thing as pure evil incarnate.

sure there are gonna be 15 films better than ST but it is very pleasurable

http://i.imgur.com/OBk0C.gif

those were some good posts to quote re: ST too

jake busey's neon green violin

would Morbs survive a surprise win by The Birds in a Hitchcock poll?

if you can't kill me with these two films being tied, you've done your worst.

Had a totes different experience the last time I saw it, imagining the Thing as the protagonist who's just trying to survive and escape from a hostile environment the only way it knows how. The movie totally works on that level, to the extent that I feel it was somewhat intentional on Carpenter's part to not paint the Thing as pure evil incarnate.

I like viewing HAL in 2001 the same way, imagine you made a mistake at work so then your colleagues decided to kill you! it was self defense I tell you.

loool morbs

Wow, I can't believe Starship Troopers 2 & 3 are gonna place higher than the original.

i was so fucking disappointed when i saw a bit of ST 2.

and i like all the cheapo japanese Scanners knock-offs

I can deal with someone thinking that The Birds is Hitchcock's best. I can't deal with people thinking Le Samourai and Starship Troopers are the same kind of film.

(or The Lady Eve and Knocked Up)

Serious question, Morbs - does 'fun' or 'enjoyability' have any value in your aesthetic criteria? I mean in the sense that something that's simply fun to watch can be better than a serious, accomplished film that isn't as joyous?

what is this thing called fun you speak of?

final one for awhile, 11-15 later.

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

#16

THE ROAD WARRIOR

George Miller
1981
Australia
(411 points, 13 votes)

The Road Warrior was simply everything a teenage boy could want in a single action movie.

― Alex in NYC

i love these movies. i have to admit that gibson really has a ton of charisma on screen.
i think i prefer The Road Warrior because it's just so relentless.

― ryan

My dad rented Mad Max and the Road Warrior for me when I must have been 8 or 9 and they blew my mind. Before that I was so into the whole slick '80s neon futuristic vision of the world but these movies turned me all cyberpunk.

― walter kranz

i was so fucking disappointed when i saw a bit of ST 2.

― contreatable logorrhea (Noodle Vague), Friday, February 17, 2012 11:39 AM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wasn't disappointed. Going into it knowing it wasn't Verhoeven & obv just exploiting the success of the first movie. As far as I'm concerned, ST has nothing to do at all with 2 & 3. No, I wasn't disappointed, I was just disgusted with myself for being willing to sit through anything that has explosions, guns or blood in it, regardless of how godawful it is.

if you can't kill me with these two films being tied, you've done your worst.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 17, 2012 11:37 AM (4 minutes ago)

you issue the best challenges, srsly