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

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.

Has anyone put together a reel of all the scenes in Wild Bunch with the bunch just collectively laughing maniacally?

Also: one of the best opening scenes. Kids burning scorpions somehow perfectly encapsulates it.

Deric have you seen Showgirls? I remain convinced that it is one of the best movies of all time, probably in my top 5 ever. I'd watch it multiple times in a row if it weren't so long.

I assume Terminator will be top 3?

There's no way that Spielberg won't be top director. 'Jaws' and 'TOD' have already placed. The other two Indy films will definitely place, with Raiders almost certainly top 3. I'd expected 'Minority Report' to place and posibly 'War of the Worlds' and 'Jurassic Park'.

Tetminator 2? xp

Spielberg sucks

xxp That would be a giant drag.

oh yeah that was your #1 pick, austerity, i meant to note that in the jpg and the info but failed....

Cameron will have a lot, no? Not yet, but soon?

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

#46

THE GREAT ESCAPE

John Sturges
1963
United States
(248 points, 9 votes)

the great escape rules, and the boxer he rides at the end is a highly desirable piece of teutonic engineering (i have a k series meself). actually, on the radio t'other day some dood was talking about the christmas schedules, and said it was a happy ending film; happy ending my hairy left testicle! the way i remember the ending they all get driven off in a lorry and then fucking shot! and he doesn't make the last fence jump!!! happy?
it is also an inspiring motion picture though; me mate got arrested for smoking a quick pipe on brighton seafront, and despite them taking away his shoelaces, belt, etc. he was allowed to take his ball to the cells. just as soon as the door shut...

dhum dhum thuck!

dhum dhum thuck!

dhum dhum thuck!

― another james

Steve McQueen and his motorbike is pretty cool.

― stevo, Monday, December 24, 2001 5:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Damn right he was cool- but why dont we ever get that film at christmas? all we ever get is the sound of music...

― Menelaus Darcy

The Great Escape: Classic or Jurassic (Park)?

T1, T2, Aliens, True Lies (?) ...

yeah i feel bad about 5th element cuz it looked cool and i love bruce forever but CT was jar jar level of annoyance for me.

The Great Escape: classic not-an-action-movie movie

wild bunch was pretty high on my list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDKGMDtrtC0

great escape too, it's one of my all-times

I think I sorta half-watched Showgirls forever ago, but it's on the list now that I'm semi-obsessed with Verhoeven's steez. I'd seen a lot of that stuff before and was kinda 'yeah, decent' about it. Something must've just clicked for me this time around.

Has anyone put together a reel of all the scenes in Wild Bunch with the bunch just collectively laughing maniacally?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:10 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i believe sam peckinpah did, it was called "the end of the movie the wild bunch"

i voted for the great escape. i must have seen that movie 5 million times as a kid. shit i should have done a write-in for errol flynn robin hood. my other boyhood fave.

robocop is going to be top 10 easy btw, this is a very ilx-beloved movie

There's a motorcycle jump in it. Will Bullitt place? It has a car chase.

xpost

i voted for the great escape. i must have seen that movie 5 million times as a kid. shit i should have done a write-in for errol flynn robin hood. my other boyhood fave.

― scott seward, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:15 AM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was always on late-night tv when i was in university. watched it stoned so many times

cameron, mctiernan faves for top spot imo

also one of my greatest hangovers ever involved renting it from a video store in budapest

robocop is going to be top 10 easy btw, this is a very ilx-beloved movie

Great Escape is on two disks/in two parts, right? I've seen the first but never the second because I can't afford to have my heart broek too many times in this life.

it is?

mctiernan- die hards, 13th warrior, predator, hunt for red october, last action hero (surely top 5 ilx contender)and the dark horses thos crown remake and true lies

Deric W. Haircare - did you watch Hollow Man in your Verhoevenfest? I just saw that recently and it was fairly awful and rapey.

IIRC the rapey stuff in Hollow Man was intended to be awful

not that that makes the movie any better, it is pretty bad

Yeah, it was intended to be awful and it totally was.

huge misfire that movie

last action hero (surely top 5 ilx contender)

Would be surprised if it placed at all and gobsmacked it it made top 5.

No complaints, omar. I didn't even notice. Thx for all yr good works!

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

#45

COMMANDO

Mark L. Lester
1985
United States
(253 points, 10 votes)

Arnie escaping from the plane that's just taken off is probably the best thing he ever did in any of his films

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski)

Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last? I lied.

(How awesome that line sounded when I was ten)

― My name is Kenny! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

last time i saw commando, i realised that there's zero sense of a knowing wink when he delivers this line. it's soooo cold. it's like he forgot he wasn't the t-800 for that scene.

― gnarly sceptre

Lines uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger (as John Matrix) in "Commando"

remember when he cuts off the guy's forehead? that was like an all-time childhood moment for me

sweet still!

it is.

mctiernan- die hards, 13th warrior, predator, hunt for red october, last action hero (surely top 5 ilx contender)and the dark horses thos crown remake and true lies

True Lies Jimmy Cameron.

When I was little, I once watched Commando for, like, the 200th time, and actually counted all the dead bodies. This was after I read in the Guinness book that "Red Dawn" was allegedly the most violent film of all time, and I was all, no fucking way, I'm counting the bodies in Commando!

"Where's Sully?"
"I let him go."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLix4QPL3tY

I should have rated Great Escape higher. STEVE MCQUEEN OH DANG