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

xxp yea def

I always felt a bit of action/western crossover, it's just hats/horses vs no hats/horses, lol. But Rio Bravo figured on a few lists and fuck that's practically a musical.

i want to take a moment commend omar, though i've been working straight through the list reveal and have not really been able to join in the fun.

i also want to take a moment to commend everyone's restraint in not wishing dr. morbius into the cornfield.

I've been trying to but it looks like Suggest Ban is gone? I missed that development stage of nu-nu-ILX.

speaking of which i've never really gotten the "assault on precinct 13 is an uncredited remake of rio bravo" line that so many people repeat. i mean, they have plot points in common i suppose, and one could argue that the "ethos" of the protagonists is vaguely (self-consciously) similar, but in no way is it a remake.

and yes we should hoist omar on our shoulders and parade him around in glory.

i just watched the elite squad movie that netflix added. from brazil. pretty good if you love corrupt cops. and lots of guns.

I've been trying to but it looks like Suggest Ban is gone? I missed that development stage of nu-nu-ILX.

It's been renamed to "Flag Post"

yeah tropa de elite is quite good. made that one song at the beginning quite famous.

so glad city of god didn't make this list.

well it's about as much of an "action" movie as goodfellas is

</tuomas>

Thanks for your hard work, omar. It's greatly appreciated.

However, I would like for you to consider amending the results, as I've just realized that we all allowed a grievous oversight to occur in the nominations process. Presenting the true best action movie ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx7PYAAOwxE

Time will be our judge.

(There's a part of me that's dead serious about this.)

the part that was exposed to too much radiation as a young child

Perhaps the most iconic cinematic image of manhood from the days of the presidency of George Bush 41 (1989-1993) is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular cyborg in the ad for the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, sitting atop a motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket, black T-shirt, and black sunglasses from whose left lens a red point of light glows, an enormous phallus of a gun held in his right hand and pointed aggressively upwards, the entire image darkly swathed in an ominous blue-black neon glow. The image encapsulates the menace and might of Schwarzenegger's newly rearticulated identity as a futuristic killing machine. Always a bit of joke in such films as Stay Hungry (1976) and Conan the Barbarian (1982) and its sequel, Schwarzenegger benefited from James Cameron's innovative use of him as the implacable Terminator in the 1984 film of that name, a sleeper box-office hit and one of the great films of the 80s. But, as Schwarzenegger told talk-show hosts unironically when he campaigned for the 1991 sequel, he was now playing a "kinder, gentler Terminator." This sequel, Schwarzenegger suggested, had been tailored to fit the ideological and rhetorical design of the Bush presidency. In the first film, Schwarzenegger's cyborg, returning from a future in which machines bent on eradicating all the remnants of human life rule the earth, was an unstoppable agent sent to kill the woman, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn child, to be named John, would eventually lead the human resistance against the machines. In contrast, Schwarzenegger's cyborg killer in the sequel is the hero, programmed to save the now teen-aged John Connor. The cyborg, to be sure, retains his uncouth instincts to destroy all in his path, and must be counseled by sarcastic but sensitive John in murder-etiquette. This kinder, gentler Terminator learns not to annihilate the hapless humans who inconvenience him but, with cybernetically enhanced precision, merely to wound them in non-vital areas. The spectacle of crippled, wounded, whimpering, maimed men, lying at the feet of the looming Terminator, is an exact image of its time. As J. Hoberman writes, "Politically, Terminator 2 suggests the merging of Schwarzenegger and Schwarzkopf, techno-war and Technicolor. This is truly the Desert Storm of action flicks" (qtd. in Rushing and Frentz 201). I think that this film's associations with war extend beyond Desert Storm to World War II and its cultural afterlife, specifically its images of fascism and the Nazi. Fusing tropes of Nazism in American popular culture with its homoerotic tableaux, tableaux embedded in the construction of fascism, Terminator 2 is a pivotal text poised between the backward-looking Reagan years, in which a Classic Hollywood star turned national leader presided over the nation, and the era of both postmodern techno-war and postgay articulations of sexual identity.

My hypothetical ballot. I kinda got tired of assigning points to the last third of the list, so the values are kind of arbitrary, lol.

Road Warrior - 50
Escape From New York - 49
Ronin -48
Hard Boiled -47
Die Hard - 47
To Live and Die in LA - 46
Raiders of the Lost Ark -45
Lethal Weapon - 44
Dirty Harry - 43
Red Dawn -42
Seven Samurai -41
Thief -40
Mad Max - 39
The Killer -38
13 Assassins -37
First Blood -36
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - 35
Robocop - 34
Enter the Dragon - 33
Gallipoli - 32
Heat - 31
Army of Darkness - 30
Bound (write-in vote) -29
Big Trouble In Little China -28
El Mariachi - 27
Wages of Fear -26
Vanishing Point -25
Bullitt -24
Assault on Precinct 13 -23
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -22
Blade Runner -21
Casino Royale -20
Get Carter - 19
Point Break - 18
Ghostbusters - 17
Hot Fuzz -16
Kelly's Heroes -15
Kill Bill Volume 1 -14
Predator -13
Terminator -12
Rocky -11
Stagecoach -10
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -9
Westworld -8
F/X -7
Billy Jack -6
Rio Bravo -5
The Blues Brothers - 4
Conan the Barbarian -3
Drive (2011) -2
3:10 To Yuma -1

01. robocop
02. showdown in little tokyo

after that i'd be splitting hairs

shit did ghostbusters even make the list?!

Conan the Destroyer >>>> the Barbarian anyway

GTFO

holy shit, the reaction to Inception just kicked my ass more than the movie did.

Ballot poll of the IMDB Top 100 would be interesting.

Or the IAFD Top 100

50 the mission (johnnie to)
49 starship troopers
48 hard boiled
47 shoot to kill
46 aliens
45 the road warrior
44 shooter
43 peking opera blues
42 robocop
41 Running Scared (1986)
40 the blues brothers
39 children of men
38 spartan
37 the killer
36 mr majestyk
35 ronin
34 The Chaser
33 ghost in the shell
32 battle royale
31 to live and die in l.a.
30 hurt locker
29 the yakuza
28 NINJA SCROLL
27 the last boy scout
26 52 pick-up
25 three kings
24 predator
23 desperado
22 a better tomorrow 2
21 Punisher: War Zone
20 Extreme Prejudice

forgot about the die hards, and crying freeman.

they just added the 2004 Punisher movie to netflix streaming. I was pleasantly surprised.

my god, this thread is so dauntingly huge

In case it wasn't pointed out above (I'm not opening the whole thread), Yes, Madam! is available on Netflix streaming. Watched like half an hour of it last night as I went to sleep. Insanely fast-paced.

ones that didn't make the results in bold

terminator 2 - 50
sin city
crank
drunken master 2 (ilx fail)
Jaws - 46
Once Upon A Time In The West
the good, the bad and the ugly
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Die Hard
they live
the thing
Point Blank (I have second thoughts about including this, it is not very action-y)
le samourai
dawn of the dead (1978)
the empire strikes back
total recall
Speed
to live and die in l.a.
equilibrium
The Bourne Identity
hero
sword of doom
the dirty dozen
The Hunted
the running man
blade runner
goldfinger
enter the dragon
Raiders of the Lost Ark (again lol)
Kill Bill Volume 1 (Tarantino, 2003)
the dark knight
the seven samurai
Ghostbusters
The Matrix
Batman (Burton, 1989)
the wages of fear
kung fu hustle
army of shadows
on her majesty's secret service
INCEPTION
death race 2000 (only Stallone movie on my list)
pirates of the caribbean
mission: impossible
north by northwest
point break
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
star trek ii: the wrath of khan
the 39 steps
near dark
Ronin - 1

Actually that reminds me. Has anyone seen the last Punisher movie? (The one with that Ray guy from the Rome tv series?) I had heard it was good, wondering if it's worth a look.

god I sound like my mother in law. "the one with that actor, from that other movie"

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's probably not any good.

are you talking about Punisher: War Zone? Allegedly it is a wholly ridiculous movie

Conan the Destroyer >>>> the Barbarian anyway

― piggyback payoff (NZA), Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:10 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what in sweet fuck

i mean, grace jones in a fur bikini counts for a lot but really now

looking forward to digging into amst's youtubes btw, thx for dropping some ~cineaste science~

and lest it not be said enough

ALL HAIL OMAR LITTLE

yeah plus amz dropping film geek science that is ACTUALLY IN THE SPIRIT of the thread. i really wanna see some of those now.

i posted this 75 list on my facebook and one of the only responses i got was: THAT LIST SUCKS! everyone's a critic... thanks a lot, mom.

punisher war zone is absolutely batshit insane and totally wonderful

he uses a grenade launcher to shoot an rastafarian gangster acrobat (who also has an irish accent), is all i'm saying

re: T2 text "the most iconic cinematic image of manhood from the days of the presidency of George Bush 41," I love that tradition of linking any cultural element with the political administration at the time.
starfighter tropes of the Carter administration
Vulcan rebirth iconography of the Reagan era
etc.

Whatever we do next will not be as awesome as this was.

A ballot submission movie poll poll: where do we go from here? I predict ilxor clusterfuck.

drunken master 2 (ilx fail)

yep. fight scenes in this are increeeeedible. (axe gang! insane finale in the factory!) would be near the top of my list if I had voted.

I guess this is when I'll admit I've never seen die hard. not sure how I avoided that film all this time but there it is.

re: apocalypto, I've never seen it but I toured chichen itza in the 80s and the guides talked a lot about human sacrifice (placing human hearts in the bowl held by chac mool, the well of sacrifice, etc). a quick scan of wiki backs up my memories of the tour. either way mel gibson's a tool.

Die Hard is totally, totally worth it. I probably first saw it in 2002 or so and instantly fell in love, so it's not a "you had to be there" kind of deal. Great cast, great script, some really stylish visuals in places...thoroughly recommended.

Yeah, I hadn't seen Die Hard until that same year when my roommate bought the trilogy DVD set. It's become an old reliable Christmas staple.

Die Hard is great. So many great secondary characters alongside Willis, and Willis is in full smirk. You gotta see it, Edward!

I heard a great interview with the director of Punisher War Zone, on the How Did This Get Made podcast --- she's Swedish, iirc...won a short-film Oscar, and then she couldn't get work so ended up signing on for the Punisher movie to be able to keep working. She researched the hell out of it and read the comics and said she had the blessing of the studio to get back to the violence of the comic books. She even went and asked punisher fans what they wanted from the next movie, stuff you don't see happening that much. But then when the movie came out the studio hosed her by releasing it right before Christmas, so no-one saw it, plus there were all kinds of marketing shenanigans...and the studio backtracked on the violence and she ended up copping a rash of shit for it being 'too over the top'.
She didn't tell it as a sob-story though...I mean she totally owns the movie, is proud of it, and got a lot of love from the comic book fans that did see it. So that made me curious about seeing it. AND McNulty/Dominic West is in it! LOL.

Re-screened T2 last nite. Need to watch it annually from now on.

Wish it had as much Gn'R as it had in my false memory though.

Did Omar ever confirm the number of ballots turned in for this poll? I would hope for 2X in the next one.

in the end 36 ballots were turned in, which was a bit lower than i was hoping for but it's all good. i'm still furious (furious!!) that DJP and jjjusten didn't vote. angry!!

jjjusten would have boosted by death race 2000 vote, but I wonder, would DJP have helped me push Pirates of the Caribbean over the top?