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

Road Warrior is the only Mel movie I can stomach because it really is just so good. not because of him tho, really.

I remember liking Tim way WAY back when, but god nose how it's dated.

when you watch any movie for the first time aren't you judging it? Serious question.

If the story or performances don't suck me in, yeah...I start nitpicking. But I typically don't enter into a film I've not seen before with the intent to analyze it rather than simply watch it.

when you watch any movie for the first time aren't you judging it? Serious question.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 17, 2012 11:50 AM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know this wasn't directed at me, but absolutely I do, I try very hard to immerse the movie or the novel or the play, and at least operate on two levels, one of which is the pleasure of being taken over by the experience itself as it is unfolding.

i can't not analyze something while i'm watching it, it's part of the whole process

no way are there 15 better action movies than The Road Warrior.

I am super curious about the top 10 now

My takeaway of 95% of movies is usually ways they could have been better, tbh. Though that does not preclude my enjoying/appreciating them, typically.

but the level of wit or craft probably doesn't change much across the genres as a whole

By the filmmakers considered to be "at the top" of their genres I sure as fuck can see a couple steep declines....

here I am "having fun" with NxNW! (I might as well get something out of this thread)

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/north-by-northwest/1628

I mean, obv #1 is going to be Time Cop but what will 2-10 be?

there are at least 15 non-English action movies better than RW and it looks like a lot of them aren't gonna make the cut

How many did OL say he was doing today?

lol so Morbs basically spends the entire thread bitching and being pissy, then throws up a link for page views, which I'm certain he will get from many of the ppl he's been bitching about

it's like watching someone run PUA game

I don't know what that means DJP, but it sounds right

btw the levels of the Hitchcock canon are pretty well entrenched by now... if you did a ranking poll the most suspenseful thing for me would be how close I could come to picking the order.

(Individual lists always more interesting than collective, now and forever)

maybe slant "magazine" told him they'd theoretically pay for articles if they get more than 50 hits

there's 2 or 3 of Hitch's 30s films that I'd rate right up there but the problem with the orthodoxy about Hitch is that it's mostly right

they also want you to stifle

xp

this list pretty much IS an 'individual list'

you seem to get the most upset when we swerve away from canon

this is an idiosyncratic weird list on a loosely-defined topic, that is its strength

stop fighting it morbs

I think we're going up to 11 today with the top 10 coming on Monday

many xps

there's 2 or 3 of Hitch's 30s films that I'd rate right up there but the problem with the orthodoxy about Hitch is that it's mostly right

yeah and tbh i can quite easily see two maybe three deliberately non-canonical picks ending up really high in an ilx hitchcock poll simply because thats ilx orthodoxy

look I know this is just a dumb goddamn poll I never should have looked at in the first place but someone using "more important to my childhood" as a decisive criterion... it's inimical to how I approach these things as a cineaste, and the results that alternate world-class auteurist works with cable junk just shows you guys aren't even doing what ya wanna do well.

I like Marnie more than Strangers on a Train or Rebecca

really don't know why anyone cares what morbs thinks about anything anymore. or acknowledges his posts in any way.

(Individual lists always more interesting than collective, now and forever)

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 17, 2012 12:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, which is why you should care less about this thread. I suspect, without knowing you, that you are just enjoying being the cranky foil on this thread, and care very little about what is basically a bunch of kids having fun. And it would be out of earshot, too, if you didn't keep opening the window to shout at us.

there are many ways to look at movies. it's even possible for the same person to enjoy looking at them from different perspectives.

this is a message board poll, not sight & sound. it's possible to appreciate both approaches.

Marnie is a movie made in a universe where Freud is parfaitly correct about everyting; Strangers on a Train and Rebecca are movies that take place in some liminal Jungian space.

if you think you can actually separate personal experiences/associations from the objective quality of something you're reviewing or considering you're kidding yourself. better to acknowledge them.

xpost Which ones split the difference?

don't know why anyone cares what morbs thinks about anything anymore

Theoretically bcz I know what I'm talking about, even though film is the one area on the board where this doesn't mean much.

Freud made a parfait?

lol'n p hard @ 'cineaste' rn

sometimes walnuts are just walnuts.

eric: maybe Spellbound? I'd like to continue this weird metaphor, but I'm stuck with trying to figure what psychoanalytic school influenced Trouble with Harry (much love).

people expecting a clear narrative from poll results is def in my pox ilx pet peeves. it's just a bunch of random people's opinions combined mathematically! there is no interesting story and it's very rarely gonna be surprising or revealing.

part of what makes the road warrior so awesome is the great casting. the gyro pilot, pappagallo, wez, the feral kid. most of them never did anything beyond australian films but even the bit players are distinctive and memorable. I remember spotting the gyro pilot's girlfriend in razorback a few years later, and she's got 5 minutes of screentime in RW.

max is prolly gibson's best role. imagine some other grizzled dude playing him - clint eastwood, or kurt russell - it'd be a totally diff movie. the sandblasted weariness is great, but he's not a robot, the little smile he flashes when he finds the music box, and his scenes with the feral kid are so damn touching.

the final sequence is still the highwater mark of car chases for me, not just cars crashing but the physicality of people trying to storm a big rig en masse.

I think I may have to sneak out of the office and listen to Verhoeven's ST commentary.

Best director commentary ever = Herzog. Interviews, interjections into his own movies--never get tired of it.

sorry for talking about the movies guyz

cable junk is gonna show up cause some people here like cable junk not cause 'that's part of the story this poll is trying to tell'. if you want poll results that don't have cable junk, look at a msg board that doesn't have people who like cable junk.

xp

Predator is the high-water mark and there'll be no Lethal Weapon / Point Break / Top Gun / Under Siege.

I'm starting to think this is 75% happening!

I saw Road Warrior on NYC opening night w/ a theater full of bikers who stomped their boots at the end.

lol'n p hard @ 'cineaste' rn

ok, 'ppl who've reevaluate their faves from pantsweeting days'

really don't know why anyone cares what morbs thinks about anything anymore. or acknowledges his posts in any way.

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, February 17, 2012 1:06 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

his sensibility is totally different from mine, but i do think morbs' role as board crank is sort of important, and i wouldnt want a movie poll where he *didnt* wander in and tell everyone how vulgar and wrong they are

max is prolly gibson's best role. imagine some other grizzled dude playing him - clint eastwood, or kurt russell - it'd be a totally diff movie.

this definitely. he's a total movie star in it.

(pantswetting obv)

OH: I HAD FUN @ ROAD WARRIOR

Morbs, you can't be that far away from pants-wetting days again, can you?

Sorry, it was an easy set-up. At first I read it as pants-sweating, and I was all, huh?

Many x-posts, but I think you're missing that even hardcore stat nerds will start talking about players they loved and experiences they've had with baseball that inform what made them stat nerds to start with. You don't become a baseball nerd without some kind of visceral love for the game (and its history and narratives etc), IMO.

I saw the road warrior a couple times during it's theatrical run, but the most perfect instance had to be at a drive-in double feature w/ mad max

that was my point, eh xp

http://bigstickcombat.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/old-man-with-cane.jpg

xp

think you're missing that even hardcore stat nerds will start talking about players they loved and experiences they've had with baseball that inform what made them stat nerds to start with.[

srsly, how could you miss that this is exactly what I was saying?

VEORC = visceral enjoyment over replacement cineaste

Is your argument against, say, Commando that it fails at what it set out to accomplish? Or can a bodybuilder slaughterfest just never be good?

you know when ppl dub movie clips w/ their favorite songs on youtube? they all suck except this one

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