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

calling for fifth element as the winner now

never saw LFN. i did see Point of No Return tho

but 5th element is sciiifiiiiiii

also it's not resolved by action but by a universal gnostic love that pours forth from the universe

I've only seen LFN once but it was badass

Er, 99% of 5thE is Bruce Willis doing action movie type shit?

i was just joking plz dont

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/district9-1.png

#49

DISTRICT 9

Neill Blomkamp
2009
South Africa
(230 points, 8 votes)

I thought this was an above-average episode of Outer Limits. Lead human was horribly grating though - OK I get the Steve Carell/Michael Scott/uber-nebbish but would someone just fucking shoot the guy already. Ditto with father-in-law. Apparently the Lethal Weapon 2 Law is still in force - any white-haired South African in a position of power is automatically evil and not to be trusted.

Would have liked it a lot more if the movie was filmed entirely from P.O.V. of lead alien and son.

― Elvis Telecom

i cannot believe this only cost 30 mil!! i liked it even though it turned into Halo at the end (complete with a fukkin warthog sequence) (with a literal nigerian scammer, who is a cannibal) (and a cute lil alien tyke, who shall henceforth be known as 'little alien pepe'), the dumb action half of it was so well done that I didn't care too much that it decided not to develop all those interesting ideas it throws at u in the beginning. basically the first half is complex and mysterious and interesting and part 2 is 'the kingdom'

― a narwhal done gored my sister nell (cankles)

i kept wondering if chris johnson was supposed to be unusually intelligent for an alien, or if the implication was that all the aliens had the capability to be as smart but had degraded through living on earth in camps. i know they said they were mostly workers not used to thinking for themselves but does this mean chris was one of the leaders who was stranded on earth somehow or that he was just an unusually smart worker or what? basically why was he so different from the other prawns, or was he actually different?

― congratulations (n/a)

I LOVED this movie. The best part is how it shows the aliens as disgusting and annoying and we're never quite sure if they are actually some kind of drone-class and if "Christopher Johnson" (obviously a great detail) is one of the "smarter" ones or if we, like the general populace in the movie, are simply racist. This implication, especially as the movie eventually makes us really care about these extra-terrestrial CGI bugs, is what makes the movie for me.

Also, I suppose this movie could have been made with Rio or Mumbai or The West Bank as a backdrop but South Africa seems like the perfect place to tell this tale because the story is obviously a mirror of apartheid and townships etc etc.

Finally, I love Octavia Butler's work and I think she would have enjoyed this movie a great deal. I don't think this movie is trying to be the sci-fi embodiment of the works of Homi K. Bhabha just as I don't think 'The Matrix' thinks it is Baudrillard. However, as an entertaining lay intro to post-colonialism, I think it's quite effective and actually leaves a positive message for the viewer to internalize.

I suppose my biggest complaint is that the bad guy organization is called "Multi-National United." They might as well have called it Evil Corporation, Inc. It really should have just been the UN.

― Spencer Chow

Anticipate Neill Blomkamp's District 9

i thought LFN was dumb when i saw it, but that was a long time ago, imna give it another shot

District 9 is the rare 'more of an action movie than its rep/initial buzz lead people to believe' movie on the list

i voted for 5th element cause its a sick movie, also leon

district 9 is in my queue to watch

district 9 is p rad

like i went into it expecting 'an offbeat, original vision with political undertones' and came out thinking about the parts that reminded me of Mad Max, which was a disappointment at the time but saying it itt it feels like more of a compliment (xpost)

The weird thing about District 9 is they do make some awkward work of the "fly(!) on the wall documentary", and then just chuck it out the window (not unlike The Offices, I suppose)

The great thing about it is everything else.

i voted for 5th element cause its a sick movie, also leon

― max, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:46 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I would have too - both.

District 9 was pretty good. I liked the little alien dude.

lil alien pepe

huh?

His name was Pepe?

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

#48

TOTAL RECALL

Paul Verhoeven
1990
United States
(237 points, 11 votes)

I think Total Recall have the best twisty Arnold faces in his entire filmography

― latebloomer

total recall is classic, there are many good lines (twwwooooo weeks, anyone?). plus it has sharon stone.

― homosexual II

total recall = almost 100% pure fun + moments of real wonder

― moonship journey to baja

I love how in Total Recall the nasty henchman has his own nasty henchman

― sorry, i'm not that kind of basement dweller (latebloomer)

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=77&threadid=71

Voted for La Femme Nikita, loved how it was so much in the Melville tradition of cool, minimalist French action movies. The protagonist is also marvellously fleshed out by Parillaud and Bresson, that final line of the movie wouldn't hit nearly as hard if she wasn't.

nah, he was just referred to as that on the ilx District 9 thread, although I do not remember why

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

ohhh yeah

xxxxp
"Nice or sleazy? Be honest."
"Sleeeeazy."

http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/HOOKER_TITTIES.jpg

RACKS ON RACKS ON RACKS

I thought this was Pepe
http://www.muppetcentral.com/_images/muppets/pepe.jpg

I have never seen Total Recall! <- hopefully the most shameful character flaw of mine to appear in this thread.

i can't stand the 5th element. chris tucker ruined the entire movie for me. i should have voted for leon though. that movie really is a modern classic. i hope nobody voted for run lola run.

District 9 has some of the best FX since Starship Troopers (which better make the list). Total Recall is total fun, and also incredible FX (Bottin!).

I'm sure Starship Troopers will place.

x-post - I am surprised you don't like the 5th element tbh tho I could see CT being a turn-off for some. I doubt Run Lola Run got any votes but I would have voted for it. I love that movie. :/

x-posts OIC - I don't remember that. Anyway, it was good in general, I thought.

Omar, that's a 77 thread you linked to, so it won't be available to everybody.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/1JohanssonWENN_468x256.jpg

My office is really, really big on Kuato jokes. I can reduce one guy to tears of laughter just by saying, "Quaid . . . start the reactor . . ."

La Femme Nikita! I voted for it even though it is obv a comedy of manners. It's basically My Fair lady, but Anne Parillaud actually sings all her own parts.

Verhoeven to win most-points-for-a-director?

Total Recall is a blast and like 'Robocop' is whip-smart. Plus it has Sharon Stone at her most um, charming.

http://www.horror-asylum.com/news/pics/sharon-stone-gets-hot-and-sweaty-in-total-recall.jpg

yeah if TR placed then SST is definitely, definitely gonna place

And Robocop, yeah. So three for him. Will John McTiernan beat three?

Die Hard, Die Hard 3 (right?), and Predator?

ha i never saw that quato snl skit

Don't worry, Scott--I voted for Leon for you.

spielberg presumably will have the most

Just everything about Total Recall is so, so great. The transmitter removal through the nose. "Two weeks." Schwarzenegger using an innocent dude as a human shield. Michael Ironside. Kuato. Benny the cab driver and his five kids and mutant hand. Bug-eyes Arnie and Ronny Cox.

I want to watch it right now.

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

#47

THE WILD BUNCH

Sam Peckinpah
1969
United States
(242 points, 7 votes)

To me, the great thing about Peckinpah is his realization that good or at least loyal and comptent men get forced into situations that aren't black-and-white. Certainly the Wild Bunch are mercenaries, killers, but they remain loyal to each other and the real test in Peckinpah is how you do those admittedly compromised things and how you treat your friends. And it's a rough not a genteel world they move in, so although I'm no proponent of "machismo" I do think to apply certain standards to that world is just plain foolish--which Peckinpah makes clear, I think. I don't know about anyone else, but I've had jobs where I had to make concessions to my so-called "morality" and have been forced to really think hard about what morality I'm actually adhering to, and at the end of it my co-workers and I have taken a cold-eyed view of the situation, have kept our mouths shut when we need to, have spoken up when it's become intolerable or a line has been crossed, have walked away from jobs/situations that don't smell right, that don't deliver the necessary payoff in return for our "compromises." Which seems, to me, a sane way to look at the world; none of us could've done it without the loyalty we felt toward each other, the collective sense we're going to weather this and keep our integrity. What makes the world Peckinpah attractive to me is that he explores all this, and he tempts you into not feeling anything. As in the famous opening sequence of "Wild Bunch" when they shoot up the town in the midst of a temperance meeting. Temperance, feh, unrealistic idealism that needs to be questioned...but of course, maybe not shot up. Yet you feel a pleasure in the violence. It ain't simple and I for one don't want it to be.

― es hurt (ddduncan)

I wasn't arguing that Peckinpah doesn't (at least in some of films) attempt to confront these issues (and I like to think that at times he does--but perhaps that's just me justifying my love for them) but I think one of the problems with Peckinpah is that there is always the far simpler reading to be made and that easier reading (that this is not a complicated film, not a real critique/engagement of machismo/honor/etc, but instead a far simple celebration of maleness, a swansong for an era when men were allowed to be men, a rumination of the emasculation of the post-modern man, etc. . .) is the one's most people tend to make. Subtlety is not most peoples' strong suit and when a film like The Wild Bunch or Fuller's The Big Red One comes along it's always easy for critics (or film students or Pauline Kael haha) to point out all the minor ways it may attempt to subvert whatever classic notions of masculinity it does and ya know ignore the fact that those are the exceptions to the rule, that but for those few sequences and maybe the film's production values it could for all intensive purposes be another John Wayne picture. So I agree with you Es, but a lot of Peckinpah's films make me uncomfortable none-the-less.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF)

Peckinpah!

I assume that Leon will place really well.

I assume Robocop will place high.

Wild Bunch was my (for real) #1 pick. FUCK YEAH PECKINPAH

After a Verhoeven fest at the beginning of the year, I became convinced that his action films are not only the best action films but maybe some of the best movies of all time. I kinda became obsessed with Robocop in particular and watched it, like, three times in a row. I may have been mildly under the influence of something or other. But still.