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

I would vote in this, a personal first

Return of the Jedi ftw

ahistorical romcoms

Think I'll have to check out a copy of Demolition Man; http://www.avclub.com/articles/demolition-man,69379/

Also if Ronin's not in the top 10 I will cry actual tears

no way ronin isn't in the top ten, i mean come on how many movies have such lovefest threads as this one does? it has a shot at top 5 and maybe even first place i'd say.

otm

It only it were any good.

romcom is a marketing term, not a genre

you're banned from it for using "romcom", TVhead

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/dawndead3.png

#38

DAWN OF THE DEAD

George A. Romero
1978
United States
(288 points, 8 votes)

saw Dawn recently, and have to say, it doesn't hold up very well...part of it is the wooden acting (a staple of Romero flicks, it pains to say), but the vaunted make-up/special effects seemed cheap and obvious...(the undead all had blue skin, but red lips...they couldn't have used blue lipstick?)...

― henry s

i totally get the flaws in dawn but i could probably watch it once a day for the rest of my life

― da croupier

I read an article by Alex Garland where he talked abt how Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead' being an amazingly moving experience for 'boys of a certain age' - ie ME! I really like the way that both DOTD and Knightriders (Romero's other great movie) are abt ways you can build fragile, imperfect 'communities' - it's like a metaphor for ILX, or something...

― Andrew L

the original is so beautiful and so sad and i just know that the new one won't be as beautiful or sad. especially the long version of dawn of the dead which is just so perfect and staggering.i didn't even bother watching the texas chainsaw remake cuz i knew there would be no way they could capture the brilliance of the original. they should have just put the original back in the theatres. Or just remade Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive which is a great creepy movie, but one that could be improved upon with a remake.

― scott seward

I could make a movie where balls-out ridiculously insane people chop up girls in hot pants that scream and stumble everywhere they try to run. It's not scary. I can't imagine people in the 70s thinking it was scary, either. I spend the whole time watching these movies going "well if i was in that situation its obvious that i could get away. All these people are dead because they're idiots dying for the plot." But i can come up with a million scenarios where an average joe protagonist can be pitted against an antagonist they might not be able to overcome and make it as scary as all get out. To me it seems almost like the people who create most horror movies are more students of the genre looking to recreate past cliches rather than pursue anything original with the goal of creeping people out.

― Stuart (Stuart), Wednesday, February 25, 2004 10:36 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why haven't they done a movie of stephen king's "the mist"? it's a great play on that scenario...

― s1ocki

oh they have they have slocki!

Slocki is happier in 2004.

lol u dicks, "The Mist" was fun

Yeah the ending was especially hilarious!

I enjoyed the mist v much

This is another one I wouldn't consider at first glance an "action movie," since so much of it is dedicated to inaction. And rather than "resolving conflicts through action," it's generally the case that taking action makes things monumentally worse for everyone involved. But chacon ses gouts I guess.

okay "fun" != "funny"

i had to throw that one in there

Nah I did enjoy The Mist on the intended level, just until the v last rofflesome sadtrombone.wav scene.

final scene made the movie imo

haha I am pretty sure this convo happened on the thread about The Mist

anyway I don't think it made the movie but I loved the last scene

i watched die hard with a vengeance last night. it had been a while, but i really fucked up by not voting for that. i'd say it's very nearly as good as the original, just not as iconic. jeremy irons doesn't have quite as much fun as rickman did in DH, but he's still awesome as hell (love the callback to rickman putting on an american accent, with irons going 'holy toledo'), same with sam jackson - they could've played that character as a buffoon and it would've been awful, but hes cool and funny and relatable in a way thats similar to mclane. and it has an incredible opening scene:

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

another thing i'd forgotten - it's a fantastic new york movie

yeah i appreciate how DHWAV doesn't waste any time whatsoever, it's like 2 min in and the cops have already yanked mcclane out of bed and are driving to drop him on that corner in harlem w/the sandwich board. btw i feel like that scene is out of the '70s, it's so offensive and amazing!

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

#37

TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.

William Friedkin
1985
United States
(289 points, 10 votes, 1 first place)

Fantastic film, one of my favorites from the 1980s, criminally ignored of course. Maybe the runaway success of CSI will win the movie new fans on video. (Wish the same would happen for Manhunter, despite the Anthony Hopkins conspiracy to make it disappear.

― Phil Freeman

i was just thinking about this movie. shotgun to the face so painful!

― poortheatre

i saw this movie last night on 35mm. when "shotgun to the face" happened at the end, the crowd was silent for a few seconds and then up near the front there was one girl who just quietly said "oh no!"

― omar little

just watched this on canks rec and the car chase is so good, it's like one half if kafka made a car chase, one half video game with endless baddies

you think you lost the tail but then baddies show up everywhere people running around with assault rifles, you start going the wrong way down the highway, your partners in the back seat ready to hurl, questioning his very existence...

― ASPIE Rocky (dayo)

Wang Chung's "To Live and Die In L.A." soundtrack - C/D

The Mist wasn't fun! it was just a bunch of people yelling at each other most of the time!

ok so it's fun by ilx standards

Die Hard with a Vengeance is tremendous, i like it better than the original in many ways tho it's not as taut or iconic. The kinetic camera work is totally engrossing, when most steadicam stuff becomes an annoying tic.

the only think i remember about To Live And Die In L.A. is that i saw the guy from CSI's wang

reagarding my comments on the mist, that was before the movie was made, i wasn't being all sarcastic!

i know that's what i <3ed

OK, so I should put Live & Die in my queue?

I should have voted Die Hard waV. I wanted to cover too much ground and ended up vote splitting via selecting only one of a series.

To Live & Die In L.A. has the best Willem-Dafoe-consorting-with-Eurotrash-mistresses material of any of his movies. Even better than Finding Nemo.

Omar, it'd be nice if you didn't include spoilers for the movies in the quotes you choose; at least not spoilers for the final scene.

friedkin's staging in TLADILA is so bravura. i love the way he tracks the action and establishes geography, giving you a glimpse of something before it happens to build suspense. the sound work on this movie is outta this world too. 2011's Drive really bugged me with its shitty, lazy soundwork in the driving scenes. to live and die in L.A. is a study in how to get it right. love those fucking careening chevys. love this airport foot chase:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLTGV07Gc7E

Die Hard with a Vengeance is tremendous, i like it better than the original in many ways tho it's not as taut or iconic. The kinetic camera work is totally engrossing, when most steadicam stuff becomes an annoying tic.

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:28 AM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

i think it actually might be more taut! or at least it's pretty close. yeah otm re: the camerawork - its hard to describe but mctiernan had this great style at that point which was really intense and in-the-moment with lots of handheld stuff and closeups that filled the frame, but without taking it to an obnoxious tony scott level. it's an incredible, constantly moving thrill ride

oh i don't think those are spoilers, not to someone who hasn't seen it

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#36

THE MATRIX

Andy and Larry Wachowski
1999
United States
(290 points, 11 votes)

Why on earth is the real world preferable to the Matrix to Morpheus? I mean, I'd be like, Morpheus, go fuck yourself, I don't want to play your stupid war and eat gruel and battle robots and live in the world without a sun, I'd rather live in the Matrix. It seems like it's a good thing, and it's not like the alien fiends are really doing anything harmful to the humans. You live in a nice world, they get energy from you. It's a win-win situation!

― Ally

I wonder whether all that robot technology to extract a small wattage of power from each human being is worth the effort. I am troubled by the economy of the matrix idea. Surely windpower would be more efficient? The barren wastelands look pretty windy.

― moley

i never thought the matrix was partic good, but for a summer event movie, it's better than most.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it

if matrix had the swayzer it would be better.

― chaki

The theory of the Matrix (only spoilers if you know nothing about the first film, and if that's true you SUXOR)

ok i guess i need to see diehard.wav again, havent seen it since it came out!

i voted for the matrix almost reluctantly, like, it deserves to be on this list, but i never want to think about it again

Do no recall that helicopter scene at all.

i've softened on my position somewhat, but i feel like one of the few people who really didn't give a shit about The Matrix even when it was new. i don't know how the world didn't have Keanu sci-fi fatigue already by then.

matrix is p lame, f a stupid dreadlock rave at the center of the earth

the matrix sux

i voted for the matrix almost reluctantly, like, it deserves to be on this list, but i never want to think about it again

I chose not to vote it for the same reason. It felt cool and fresh in 1999, but overall its legacy for (action) movies has probably been more negative than positive.

the thing about the matrix is that, for all of its pop culture associations & philosophizing college freshmen douchebags, it's still an amazing film that really changed (probably for the worse) how action films were made from then on out

^^ the bullet time stuff is p classic even if it's been ripped off seven ways till sunday since then.

The Matrix still rules. Lets pretend the sequels dont exist though.

it's like the 1st velvet underground album*, look at how much bad indie that spawned

*if the 1st velvet underground album was actually good and listened to by millions of people

lol JS

Yeah, it's not my thing.

i feel like ive seen the matrix enough times to last me for a long while, but i voted for it anyway. its a wicked cool movie, even if it's hard for it to not seem diminished by the horrible sequels. there's some neat performances in it too! im a big keanu fan but even if you aren't, you have to admit it's an apt role for him.

apparently the original idea was for the machines to be using humans as living processors, which makes way more sense but the studio didnt understand it

ya i understand that the matrix is now the least cool thing in the world and it is very easy to hate it but it was still pretty sick at the time and if the sequels/bad ripoffs didnt exist we'd proabbly all still think it was sick