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

wait a second, who gave con air a first place vote. i just noticed that!

equilibrium got on my shortlist but not the 50 but i think i regret that

If Con air is on, I will keep watching. Gathering of crudely individuated villains, always like that; quite thoroughly cast, there are actors I can watch everywhere; absurd huge crashy sequences. It's no Rock, though, no.

Con Air is packed with so many women/children in jeopardy gags. Will she get raped by the rapist? Will she get molested by the molester? Tune in and find out!

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

#67 (TIE)

BRANDED TO KILL

Seijun Suzuki
1967
Japan
(170 points, 4 votes)

I just watched Branded to Kill last night and, jesus. I mean, hallucinatory. Crazy. I can't think of another movie I've seen recently -- and I've seen a lot of good movies recently -- where past a point I had no earthly idea what was going to happen next, and then what happened next always blew my brain apart. There are so many individual genius sequences in there, and they all kind of pile on top of each other. Goddam. I've heard about him for a while, but I guess I didn't really know wtf he was up to.

-- gypsy mothra

Branded to Kill is utterly great -- picked it up several years back and Sean from SF (who's doing well, last I checked) and I had a good time watching it and playing 'spot the moments where Tarantino bugged out.'

-- Ned Raggett

i love die hard 3 and only just now read this which sounds amazing:

An alternative ending to the one shown in the final movie was filmed with Jeremy Irons and Bruce Willis, set some time after the events in New York. It can be found on the special edition DVD. In this version it is presumed that the robbery succeeds, and that McClane was used as the scapegoat for everything that went wrong. He is fired from the NYPD after more than 20 years on the force and the FBI has even taken away his pension. Nevertheless he still manages to track Simon using the batch number on the bottle of aspirins and they meet in a cafe in Hungary.

In this version, Simon has double-crossed most of his accomplices, gotten the loot to a safe hiding place in Nova Scotia, and has the gold turned into statuettes of the Empire State Building in order to smuggle it out of the country; but he is still tracked down to his foreign hideaway (this version is very similar to Alec Guinness's situation in the British heist movie The Lavender Hill Mob made some 45 years earlier in which the stolen gold was turned into Eiffel Tower paperweights).

McClane is keen to take his problems out on Simon whom he invites to play a game called "McClane Says". This involves a form of Russian Roulette with a small Chinese rocket launcher that has had the sights removed, meaning it is impossible to determine which end is which. McClane then asks Simon some riddles similar to the ones he played in New York. When Simon gets a riddle wrong, McClane forces him at gunpoint to fire the launcher, which fires the rocket through Simon, killing him. Of course, McClane had been wearing a flak jacket (which was the answer to the final riddle: "What could he have brought to the meeting to save his life?"), so even if Simon had pointed the launcher the right way, it is likely that the relatively low-velocity rocket would not have caused McClane enough injury to prevent him from shooting Simon.

People who hate Con Air hate action movies.

maybe they just like good ones!

People who love Con Air will watch anything if it is on.

branded to kill's been on my need-to-see list for more than a decade, wtf am i waiting for

is Con Air the Dirty Dancing of action movies?

I don't...know. I genuinely like Dirty Dancing, so I want to say that it's not.

People who love Con Air will watch anything if it is on.

no wai, i will not watch eg armageddon or independence day

(Con Air my 24)

Independence Day is exactly the same type of movie as Con Air!

this next one will be the last one for at least awhile, gotta head in to work. will try to get 61-65 out around midday if i can.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/assault13.jpg

#66

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13

John Carpenter
1976
United States
(172 points, 7 votes)

the music, the creepy "silenced" bullets, the totally shocking ice cream scene, the fact that the plot is straightforward & scary (as opposed to the shitty twist the remake has--also the remake opening is so zzzzz, it's exactly the first 10 minutes of bruce willis's "hostage"! EXACTLY)... the weirdly unpretty '70s actors... the genuine tension... the fact that it's awesome!

― s1ocki (slutsky)

i don't hate the carpenter versh, but it's very 'film buff' in that it has zero 'content', kind of. i *like* that the new one has a (very stock) 'police corruption' story. i've thought about the remake a bit, and i've decided it's more hawksian, or explores the hawksian problematic(!), much more thoroughly than the '76. it's about the possibility of moral action. the central conflict: why should hawke protect the crims when the cops are in cahoots with them -- is sharp. i don't think carpenter aims for that.

but otoh i thought the first 10mins of the '05 one were skill. i haven't seen 'hostage'.

― N_RQ

Love it. Like "Night of the Living Dead" with a sense of humor.

Con Air was totally fun and watchable. Not sure why it didn't make my list.

Omar needs to do all film polls -- he picks great stills.

Stills in this thread are perfect so far.

(Though fittingly they should all be gifs)

Independence Day is exactly the same type of movie as Con Air!

nah! the cast is thinner, and there's less human-scale business.

or rather yes, it's the same type, but…

i omitted precinct cuz i havent seen it since i was like 13 and i tried to keep it to movies ive watched in the last 10 years, but there's a few other carpenters on my list.

wmc otm

One of the best things about Assault on Precinct 13 was the fact that there was just this faceless brutality coming down on these dudes. It was just this is happening and it is horrible.

con air is eh okay. doesn't need to be on any best-of list though. i never saw hurt locker. assault is the first one i voted for!

oh and i never saw branded to kill. i'll write that one down.

bum bum ba bah bum ...
bum bum ba BAH bum ...
buh buh buh buh buh ...
bum bum ba bah bum ...

oh and i didn't vote for any die hrds but yeah you gotta give props there.

I like that I don't really know anyone in Assault - slightly awkward, likeable non-stars.

Also the absurd gang bodycount - goes from 'hmmm I am interested in these revolutionary looking dudes' to oh ok they are a zombie army (with the capacity to carry their corpses away).

And the music of course. Yeah, the ice-cream scene too. Maybe should have put this higher.

No die hards? But this franchise is king of the late 80s/early 90s big-budget action movie.

i dig the die hards a bunch, but i guess i don't love them. as in i don't want to marry them. i voted only for movies that i would marry.

scott, this is a "top" list, that it has nothing to do w/ the word "best" is pretty obv

<3 scott

i hate everything fuck tha world

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Monday, February 13, 2012 12:36 PM

it was the 'best' in the noms stage!

I wd marry Time & Tide. I think it would marry me back, it's a marrying kind of movie.

I'm looking back at my list and finding some curious and disappointing omissions. I have several RC movies, but no AP13. This one should have been at least midway up my list.

the hurt locker and jarheads just jumble together in my mind to make one overloooong 7/10 movie where not much happens but soldiery lyfe is just so ~deep man~

Fuck why did I not vote for precinct 13 after my brilliant defense of it above

THL is way more fun than jarhead!

"... the fact that it's awesome!" is such a great way to describe all of carpenter's best flicks

^otm

Also lol at "hostage" and its opening scene, literally have no memory of that and the precinct remake now

its cool how i saw both of those movies only, like, 5-6 years ago, and can barely remember them in any way

I wd marry Time & Tide. I think it would marry me back, it's a marrying kind of movie.

― one little aioli (Laurel), Monday, February 13, 2012 12:39 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

i really fucked up by not voting for any tsui hark.

MORE, GIVE US MORE.

That was to omar.

He said he had to go to work!

I wish I had voted. I never vote in any of these things and then always regret it.

Dirty Harry at 71???? Fuck all y'all