You learn the strangest things sometimes
Posted by bigbearbutt in Blog Community, OfftopicSo, I had the thought, while playing the game and chatting with a guild full of cool people and bloggers, to do a quick straw poll.
The question?
“Name an action or adventure movie that you really loved, that you think most folks never heard of”.
So, I got some great responses.
Dammerung said Ong Bak, the Thai Warrior.
Beowulfa said Man from Snowy River.
Nasirah said Last Action Hero.
Squirrelz (Nas’s husband) said Crank.
Skiffens said The Professional.
Linnaea said Hudson Hawk (bless you Linn, I love that movie too).
Waldorph (Linn’s husband) said Big Trouble in Little China.
Doodle called out La Femme Nikita.
We had some honorable mentions in the discussion that followed, including The Long Kiss Goodnight (one of my personal faves, Geena Davis and Samuel Jackson), and Lucky Number Slevin.
For myself, this is my blog, so I get mroe than one vote.
I’d add;
- The Yakuza with Robert Mitchum.
- Blood of Heroes with Rutger Hauer.
- Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis.
But what was best, was the conversation I had with Cassie shortly thereafter.
B^3 – “Dear, what movie would you pick?”
Cassie – “I don’t know.”
B^3 – “There’s got to be one you liked.”
Cassie – “Well, there was one I really liked in High School.”
B^3 – “Really? What was it?”
Cassie – “Oh, I don’t know the name of it.. it had Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell.”
B^3 – (instant reply) “Tequila Sunrise? Great movie, but surprising you’d love it in High School.”
Cassie – “No, maybe it wasn’t Mel Gibson…”
B^3 – (roots around in memory for movie with Kurt Russell and someone that might be like Mel Gibson, and I know it ain’t Soldier, another great movie)…
B^3 – “What about Sylvester Stallone?”
Cassie – “That’s it!”
B^3 – “So you loved Tango and Cash in High School? I agree, I loved that movie too… “
Cassie – “My biology class named our pig after that movie.”
B^3 – “You named your pig, wait, what? … O.o … after which one, Tango or Cash?”
Cassie – “We named it Fubar.”
B^3 – “….. you’ve gotta be shitting me.”
Cassie – “And after 6 days of the parts being in a ziplock baggie without refridgeration, it really was unrecognisable…”
B^3 – laughs uncontrollably for 5 minutes.
The Man From Snowy River eh?
Holy CRAP that makes me feel old….
I remember watching that movie on Disney with my mom! XD
I love Ong Bak. It’s such a classic but cheesy “kung-fu” flick, which is awesome. Big Trouble in Little China is also a good one.
I would add to the list:
Escape from LA
3,000 Miles to Graceland
Awww, no one mentioned “Caravan of Courage – An Ewok Adventure” – my favourite adventure movie when I was a kid. Sure, the effects are lame, it’s a nasty made for TV spin off, and it has no real story line. But it’s ewoks!!
Crank is an awesome movie as well – absolutely hilarious!
I know about 2/3 of them and have to say that to me “Last Action Hero” does not fit the bill :)
Also, with all due respect to your column – please tell me that your claim that “Soldier” was a great movie was irony. I know of only one action movie that’s worse and that’s the 2nd “Resident Evil”…
Hmmm, I would have to say the Lost Batallion (I can’t even find it to buy) with Rick Schroder. Great movie, and true story.
Sweet, Amazon carries it now http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Battalion-Rick-Schroder/dp/B00005U8F4 in case anyone else is interested =)
I would have to say Demolition Man. “He doesn’t know how to use the three seashells!” Classic :D
No BigRed, I’m not kidding about Soldier.
If you didn’t like it, that’s totally fine. I can appreciate that the things I enjoy about a movie might not appeal to everyone, or even very many people at all.
I also enjoyed Last Action Hero and Hudson Hawk a great deal, and I know that those films were universally reviled as well.
I think that sometimes, the same folks that call Dumb and Dumber the epitome of humor just don’t really have a sense of humor or real fun at all, because I hated Dumb and Dumber, and Black Sheep, and all those kinds of films that seem to get such great reviews, and the movies I think are hilarious get slammed.
Just, please, please do me a favor and don’t put it quite so confrontationally.
It kind of makes it feel like I am supposed to defend my reasons for liking Soldier… when I’m more of the opinion that you should defend YOUR reasons for disliking it enough to think people that like it are crazy. I thought it was great. Got it on DVD.
And Lassirra, I agree about 3000 Miles to Graceland. I watched that years ago with Cassie, and laughed my butt off at several points, and never expected to enjoy it nearly that much. I hadn’t thought of that film in years.
I’d have to say that, Escape from New York is a better choice than Escape from LA, but there was something about the cheesiness of the LA one that made me just laugh and laugh. I think it was his finding out he went through all that hell because they gave him a cold that makes that movie end up a win.
Dechion, I’ll have to see if I can get Lost Battalion from netflix. You’ve piqued my interest.
Damn, I was just thinking abuot the three seashells thing from Demolition Man last night… of course, I enjoyed Wesley Snipes and Denis Leary a ton in that film, too.
Hey, Sly intentionally swearing at the ‘PC police’ monitor to get toilet paper was classic.
Let’s be honest though… as fun as that movie was, “Send a maniac to catch a maniac’ is crap dialogue.
Equilibrium
It was completely overshadowed by The Matrix (for good reason), but it stars Christian Bale and Taye Diggs. They practice gunkata, aka kungfu with guns. Read that again. Kung fu WITH GUNS.
First action movie I’ve rewound during the first viewing just to watch the fight scenes again.
Hehe, that was a fun conversation. I brought up Hudson Hawk partly in jest because anything I thought of didn’t really fit the “that you think most folks never heard of” part of the question, given who the crowd was. If I were asked the same question at work, I’d have said either Yojimbo or The Seven Samurai. I suspect that a lot of WoW folks have seen the Kurosawa films though. :) (Ooh, and this has got me thinking — I’ll also recommend My Neighbor Totoro. If you haven’t seen it, do eet! Yes, an adventure movie for kids, but one of my favorites ever. Watch it with your Orclettes and Baby Bear Butts — everyone will get a smile out of it.)
But, I really did enjoy Hudson Hawk. Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard are hilarious, and it’s got the classic, Moonlighting-vintage Bruce Willis. Sure, it got slammed by the critics like some of the other movies coming up in the thread here, but if you enjoy it, who cares? Sometimes I’m in the mood for something really crass and silly. You could call such things ‘guilty pleasures,’ but I think it’s a waste of time feeling guilty, particularly in the name of appearing to have Good Taste. To each his own! :)
I wanted to see Equilibrium, but I have to say, sadly, that when I tried to watch it, it had been overhyped to me, and left me a little cold. Hopefully, enough time has passed I could try to watch it again.
In that same vein, I still have Oldboy to watch, that I am afraid when I do watch it won’t live up to the hype.
And I apologise for pinning Hudson Hawk on you, Ess. :)
As far as The villains in Hudson Hawk, I actually liked everyone in it except Andie MacDowell. But my favorite was James Coburn. Knowing him from other films… his having his thugs kick the shit out of Willis as he lamented the passing of the cold war… ah, pure joy.
I place his performance in that film with other cherished villain performances, such as the Paul Reubens death scene in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Alan Rickman in Quigley Down Under, or Christopher Walken in the Prophecy… or in True Romance… or Suicide Kings… or Last Man Standing…
Okay, I can’t use that one. Christopher Walken is just too awesome in everyhting. One of my favorite movies of his is an old one, Brainstorm.
What the hell was I talking about?
First post on this blob, but I have to echo Jaegor. Equilibrium is farking awesome. Kind of a modern version of A Brave New world, but with the gunkata. Christian Bale is awesome in the movie. I watched it every day for a week after I first saw it…pure win.
fubar. I didn’t make five minutes of uncontrolled, but I’m going to have this silly smile on my face for the rest of the day. Fubar. Thank your better half for me, please.
Not sure how “unheard of” these are, but:
– Legend of the Drunken Master
– Rumble in the Bronx
One was Jackie Chan before be became the Popular Jackie Chan, and the other was the one that made him Popular Jackie Chan. The fight scenes were beyond awesome. And you got admit, seeing all the classic Chinese-theatre stereotype characters, as well as the “Evil Westerners” is a fun change of pace from American cinema.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Shoot ‘Em Up…pure violent fun…seriously…they pretty much just decided to make a movie featuring all the cool things you could do with a gun fight. Plus Monica Bellucci is HAWT.
Kirk, I know you’d have to have been there… it was just so totally unexpected…
And Khol… wtf is Shoot Em Up?
scurries off to Netflix…..
Yes to Ong Bak – that’s just great. The second one (called Tom Yum Goong) is just a bit too silly to match up to the first though. I recently rewatched a couple of Jet Li films too. Kiss of the Dragon and Romeo Must Die; thoroughly enjoyed both of them. And that reminds me I have one more of his called either Danny the Dog or Unleashed depending on where it was released.
Have to say that Long Kiss Goodnight is one of my all time favourites too. It’s one of those I can watch again and again.
Have you seen Zatoichi? Great Japanese flick about a blind master-swordsman. Quirky, funny, touching and with some great swordplay moments.
And for great action and one of my favourite acting performances (Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday) – how about Tombstone.
Oh and did anyone mention The Fifth Element? Pure entertainment =)
Manny has long told me to watch Zatoichi… I have it on DVD, haven’t found time to watch it yet.
Tombstone, Val Kilmer, one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. It is on my ‘movies you must watch’ list, but I wasn’t thinking of such a famous film when gong over the ‘obscure or little talked about’ nature of the list.
Same thing with The Fifth Element… a film so incredibly awesome that it’s on my “movies you must watch’ list.
You got some damn good taste in films, sir.
I haven’t seen Kiss of the Dragon, but Manny and I both liked Romeo Must Die. I’ll have to check that out.
No apologies necessary for the Hudson Hawk, BBB! And I’m totally with you on James Coburn (awesome) and Andie MacDowell (horrible), too. Her performances are often a let down, though I do love some of the other films she’s been in. Even she couldn’t ruin Groundhog Day or Four Weddings and Funeral. :)
And speaking of Walken, have you see The Rundown? Entertaining action flick with Walken as a very funny bad guy. Also recommended.
Damn I would have said “Guns of Navarone” or “Curse of Dracula”. War movies and Hammer horror films were the rage in my youth…
Did anyone see Erik the Viking? It was the first time I saw Tim Robbins, I loved that movie so much.
I have seen the Rundown, and did enjoy Walken. That movie, to me, really IS a guilty pleasure, since I kept feeling during the whole thing that I shouldn’t have liked ‘The Rock’ nearly as much as I did, and I thought the plot device sucked. but yeah, Walken = awesome.
this is starting to turn into what I should have expected… a bunch of people recommending awesome movies.
Wait… that’s a good thing, I never freaking heard of Shoot Em Up before. And I’d forgotten I wanted to give Equilibrium another try.
And I loved Groundhog Day… And Guns of Navarone, although I’d have to take Force Ten From Navarone over it, if only because the whole final scene in the depths of the dam just makes me smile even now when I think of it…
I’ve never seen Eric the Viking…
And while Yojimbo and Seven Samurai are held in the highest of esteem in the film lovers’ world, they are NOT my favorite japanese samurai movies.
Let me just let the screams of heretic die down for a minute…
okay, seriously.. I did watch all of them, and I enjoyed them, and I deeply appreciate their history, and the massive impact they have had on cinema worldwide. I was a Japanophile for a long time, and I have actually been priviliged to live in Japan and also Okinawa for a time in the service, so I’ve had a lot of opportunity to see and do things over there. I agree they are awesome.
But in my heart, my personal favorite Japanese samurai films are called, here in the states, Samurai I – Miyamoto Musashi, Samurai II – Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and Samurai III – Duel at Ganryu Island. I saw them on tape in Japan with a friend translating for me, and a while back Criterion put out a Criterion Collection of them in a box set on DVD that is wonderful. Simply wonderful.
They star Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi, and I simply love them. If you liked Seven Samurai, I cannot recommend them enough. http://www.criterion.com/asp/boxed_set.asp?id=10024
“Black Mask” – Jet Li flick, super warriors created to feel no pain and to posses incredible strength + kung fu. Not to mention a wonderfully over-dramatic villain. Try not to cringe at the actress playing the silly comedic relief.
“They Live” – Ex-Wrestler Roddy Piper stars in this not-so-epic alien consipracy flick. What this movie does have is an uncut full 5-10 minute slug fest between the main character and his buddy…all because we wouldn’t wear the sunglasses. Favorite line: “I come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass….and I’m all out of bubble gum.”
“Ninja Scroll” – Ew + Ew = Cool. Um gorey anime (adults-only).
“Dead Alive” – Peter Jackson’s movie debut, a horrible horror movie. Cheesy gore and silliness abound. Zombies + lawnmower = wow gore! Nasty lizard monkey to blame for the whole mess and favorite line: “I kick ass for the Lord!” Yes…a brief cameo by a random kung fu Irish priest.
Enjoy reading your Blog bbb! Warrior Tank though I may be. :)
Yeah, sorry I went a bit off topic, it’s just that when you mentioned the ‘Long Liss Goodnight’ all these favourite movies came flooding into my head and I couldn’t help myself =)
Another off topic – obscure but a comedy – ‘Yellowbeard’. Best pirate movie for me. Not that well rated but how wrong can you go with all the Pythons plus, Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Cheech Marin….
How about Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai – Forest Whitaker – not full-on crazy action but a great Jim Jarmusch film.
And that gets me on to gangster movies…….no, stop me……. /moviequit
Okay, Ghost Dog was excellent… had a Christopher Walken feel to the whole thing. I really liked the film.
Yellowbeard… eh. All my geeky friends tried to convince me it was da greatest, but it juet felt too… predictable, frankly. Great performances, but a plot I called a mile off. Life of Brian nailed it better, I thought. that’s only me, maybe I was just in a cranky mood when i saw it.
But let’s back the fu(k up here a second….
I know Blademoun did NOT just throw down the “They Live”….
Greatest fight scene of all time. Like, how peple say Bullett has the best car chase, but i prefer the one with DeNiro in Ronin? Yeah, greatest fight scene, Roddy Piper laying the SERIOUS smackdown in this film. Oh wow, what a 5 star holy shit film.
This is like, the film that should have won an Oscar because it beat the shit out of the judges and TOOK the damn thing from their limp, bleeding hands.
Oh wow, and that reminds me of Raising Arizona, which reminds me of Rutger Hauer in Blind Justice….
Thanks Blademoun, you jacked the thread, but damn, what great memories.
MUSA – The Warrior
Seriously, you have to see MUSA – The Warrior.
Oh! Oh!
I’ve always loved Hudson Hawk, too. Most people seem to hate it, though…
Tremors. The fist one only. Val and Earl are two of the best action/adventure buddies in movies.
I wanted to be like Val and Earl when I grew up, wait I was grown up!.
Nightwatch (et al for the series) – though get the dubbed version. Who ever did the subtitle version has some unintended comedy in his translations.
Captain Blood – And yes if you know it its a classic, but far too many people have never seen it.
The Boondock Saints
(Also, I second My Neighbour Totoro, especially if you have kids, and even if you don’t. I loved that film. Not an action film, though.)
Now I made my bf laugh, though I don’t get the joke not knowing Tango and Cash, yet. I believe I’ll be watching the movie soon.
Man, I know this one might be hard to find, but if you like asian action/martial arts/ridiculous flicks (and/or Andy Lau or Takeshi Kaneshiro), check out Fulltime Killer or The Returner.
I make it all the way down here excited to list my favorite movie ever, only to find I was beaten to the punch by Rohan. I have to second Boondock Saints as it is still my favorite movie (I can quote the movie almost word for word…this is how sad I am). Though my experience with others watching it is you fall into the ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ category.
P.S. If you decide to watch it, being a kitty lover, when they are all sitting at the table drinking and smoking and eating pizza and Rocco gets into his rant, close your eyes.