The B Action Movie Thread - Page 16

I am really hoping that Shoot 'em up fulfills on all its promises. The animatic used to sell the movie to the studios that was up on Latino Review some time ago had me pretty jazzed about what this movie could be.

Thanks for letting my know about V for Vendetta Milkyway, I'll probably wait for the dollar cinema, or I'll rent the dvd.

Miami Vice definitely is looking good. Although it seems to take a page from the Bad Boys II book where they go out of the country, it doesn't matter because this is Mann, so it's going to be awesome, and I liked Bad Boys II.

Well Belly was all style over substance. Every shot tried to look different or have a different color filtered over it. The acting is horrible, especially Nas, and the story is almost non-existent.

I have never even heard of Turn it Up.

From what I gather TURN IT UP was for Ja Rule and Pras what BELLY was for DMX and Nas.

Holy shit, look at what I just wrote there. That's an actual sentence. Anyways, I'm assuming Statham was the generic white bad guy since he has the evil name of "Mr. B."

I seriously hope that it has Jan Hammer's theme, and a kickass synthesizer score worthy of John Carpenter or Tangerine Dream.

Actually went to see V for Vendetta...just one of my many complaints in the original comic, Moore's villians, even the worst were at least recognizably human. In the movie, they've been replaced by spittle and bile emitting, easily hatable, hiss-able, boo-able caricatures constructed from pre-fab parts, as is it's dystopia. The movie is as vapid as any other bloated, big-budget blow-em-up.

In more DTV related news, did anyone see that SpikeTV will be showing Seagal's Today You Die? What's with them getting the new Seagals lately. First Out of Breath (Seagal after climbing a few steps) and now this.

a little trivia re: stallone's cobra.

stallone was gonna star in beverlyhills cop. but he wanted to make a "harder-edged" cop movie, so he went on to make cobra from his own script & eddie murphy got a huge break.
the residues of stallone's involvement in beverlyhills cop include the casting of james russo, who was to play his brother. when murphy was brought in as the replacement lead, the script was tweaked & russo's part was rewritten as foley's best friend. also due to the then (& possibly even now, sadly) taboo subject of inter-racial relationships, the female lead was changed from being the love interest to being a platonic friend.

You left out a bit. When Stallone was attached to Beverly Hills Cop, he rewrote the script to accomodate his vision. The producers hated it, and let him go. That script, with a few revisions, was pretty much what wound up being Cobra.

Sly should have secured the rights to the NEUTRON DANCE before he left.

Maybe that was my problem with COBRA. No fruity performances from Bronson Pinchot or Damon Wayans.

I'm watching Cobra right now, and it strikes me that it has two really great 80's musical montages. The old 80's robots and Brigitte Nielsen dancing with them, while Sly and Reni Santoni ask questions to some freaky people montage to Angel In The City, and the scene where Brian Thompson and his number 2 guy are loading up their guns to Feel The Heat. I like the Feel The Heat one better. It just perfectly encapsulates what 80's action movies are about.

And that scene that wadew1 mentioned where Sly rips that guys shirt and tells him to clean up his act really is weird. Never thought about that until now.

Yeah, nobody does good monatge in action flicks anymore. We need more sequences of people strapping on weaponry and bad guys preparing to bust into nightclubs and shoot up the place and lone wolf heroes who don't play by the rules getting ready to drive their cars through the front doors of villian's HQs set to hair-rock.

what was the first example of the generic 80s montage sequence as we know it? i remember watching miami vice as a kid & thinking phil collins rocked.
i'm better now, thanks for the concern.

That's an excellent question, one which I am not prepared to answer. I will, however, expound on the notion of the montage and point out the two classical types of montage:

1. The time passage montage. As evidenced with the scene in Cobra, this is the montage that vaguely furthers the plot along even though nothing really happens. We think the heroes are doing something useful, but mostly it appears they are violating the civil rights of many, many bar patrons. The blame for this device can firmly be placed on MTV.

2. The training montage. I don't need to say much about this one, just watch Team America or download the montage song and you'll know what I mean. Again, I blame MTV.

I’m gonna say that SCARFACE kicked off the 80’s montage fever. I’m sure there were ones before that but SCARFACE is the first classic montage of that decade. “Push it to the Limit!”

“Vice” had a lot of good ones. The best being in the first season when Crockett and Tubbs are on a speedboat heading to the island home of their nemesis Calderon. It was a lot like the “No Easy Way Out” one in ROCKY IV because as they are on the boat they each reflect on all the shit Calderon put them through. It was one of about 93 times that Tubbs flashes back to when his brother was killed.

If at all possible, a montage should occur while our hero is engaged in some physical activity, like working over a punching bag or the classic "splitting logs on a stump".

There's also the "Getting geared up" montage where we see our hero loading his weapons and equipment, usually getting loaded for bear, with it being capped off by the hero putting on a final touch, like sunglasses, a headband, strapping on an amo bandolier acros his chest or working the pump action on his shotgun or slapping a clip home into his pistol.

My favorite "geared up" montage is when Matrix arrives on the beach in COMMANDO. It's not very long but even when he just ties his shoelaces it looks cool.

Even though it was released in '90 one of the more underrated montages is in HARD TO KILL when Mason Storm finally decides it's time to get back in shape. It has the usual training stuff like lifting weights, running, and hitting a board with his fists. But what makes it stand out is the amount of time devoted to showing Seagal put acupuncture needles in his body.

The montage in Running Scared (1986) is one my favorites. I also love the one where Dafoe counterfeits the money in To Live and Die in LA.

RUNNING SCARED for sure. I can't listen to Michael Macdonald sing "Shine Sweet Freedom" without getting the urge to move to Key West, buy a bar, and ride the streets on matching mopeds with my "partner."

Hey. I'm new to this forum but has anyone mentioned Brian Bosworth . I've only seen two of his films. But the court room scene in Stone Cold is so ridiculous it's priceless

Hey Dessler, lay off Macdonald. He's got the most soulfull voice a white man has ever posessed. Nobody takes it to the street better.

There's some good STONE COLD discussion somewhere in this thread. It is one of the few times where I can like an actor simply for one film. I saw the first few Bosworth did after STONE COLD. ONE MAN'S JUSTICE, BLACKOUT, BACK IN BUSINESS. None of them could match the insane lunacy of STONE COLD.

But I always enjoy seeing the Boz pop up in THREE KINGS.

On the topic of Cobra. I find Stallone really hilarious. The fact that he changed the lead character of Beverly Hills Cop to Marion Cobratti (aka "The Motor City Cobra") and wrote all the comedy out of the script is too funny.

Of all the action stars of that time period, I have a hard time figuring out why this guy ever became a star. It makes me laugh. If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.

I've always been a fan of the closeup shot that showcases the cheap COBRA DECAL on stallone's gun.

I guess it was Cosmotos' way of reaching out to all of the cheap sticker fans in the audience.

And yeah, those deleted scenes are from the RAMBO ULTIMATE EDITION dvds. Don't run out and buy them, they're pretty much a waste of time. A couple of crappy deleted scenes for I and III (none for part II) and a useless 'facts on demand' feature called SURVIVAL MODE.

I have the original rambo trilogy that came out in 2002 with a metal case, a bonus 4th disc, and commentaries for all of the films and this new one is practically the same, except for the deleted scenes in first blood and rambo III, the alternate ending for first blood, a sylvester stallone commentary on first blood, and that extra survival mode.

Whichever ones are cheaper. Basically, the newer se's only have the deleted scenes that I mentioned and the Stallone First Blood Commentary.

I've never listened to the First Blood Commentary, but I heard that he just whines about how cold it was during the shoot the entire time.

The original first blood se release had commentary from the writer.
The Ultimate edition has commentary from stallone.

I've got the most recent version of FIRST BLOOD. I tried listening to the Stallone commentary but I think I only got halfway through it. I don't know if that's Sly's fault. I find I don't go for the commentaries as much as I used to, especially if it's a single person commentary. Of course now that I think about it I don't believe I've tried to listen to the Stallone/Renny Harlin commentary that's on the CLIFFHANGER DVD.

Schwarzennegger has done 2, conan the barbarian, and total recall. I like the total recall one, it has him and paul verhoeven chatting away enthusiastically during the entire movie, revealing all of these great things during the commentary. Total Recall is my favorite Schwarzennegger film, and the commentary just makes it all the more better.

More nostalgia, as I remember the impression Stone Cold had on me when I first saw it as a youth. OK, that impression was "whoa that was frickin awesome" but still. I fondly remember buying a used VHS copy of it some years ago for 75 cents at a corner video store in my then neighborhood. The store oddly enough named Corner Video (I've lost count of how many video joints I've seen with a name like that) was going out of business after almost 8 years of operation, and selling off a lot of their old VHS stock in the meantime (DVD still aways from taking off yet at the time). So I went into this crumbling little red brick building (a former little corner grocery before it's stint as a place with various posters plastered all over the place) and I couldn't stop once I saw what was on sale. I ended up buying Stone Cold, and the then only Punisher movie and Delta Force and Delta Force 2 and Norris' The Hitman, Dolph's Silent Trigger and Men of War and the recently mentioned Live Wire with Brosnan, several b and z action flicks like:

POW-The Escape - Cannon flick with Steve James and David Carradine and Mako sinking his teeth into the role of a North Vietnamese prison camp commander. Not bad, features Carradine blazing away with a belt-fed machine gun in the trenches of said camp, American flag wrapped over his shoulder.

Forgettable Robert Ginty-starring flick called Mission:Kill about the usual shennigans involving an ex-Green Beret who ends up fighting with the rebels in a Latin America nation that might as well be called San Ficcional.

Ruckus - Before Rambo, there was RUCKUS. A rather light-hearted, easy going flick starring Dirk Benedict as a loner Vietnam vet who wanders into a small town and misunderstandings lead to him kicking some butts and some property damage. Ego-bruised locals and the Sherrif (Richard Farnsworth!) stalk him as he hides out in the house of Linda Blair, daughter in law of the local big cheese businessman played by Ben Johnson(!) who just wanted to ask if Benedict happened to have known his MIA son. It's a movie that dosen't take itself seriously and was a pleasent surprise.

Code Name: Zebra - a z-grade howler about a group of elite ex-soldiers who take on organized crime. Biggest star is Frank Sinatra Jr. as a hood named Kozlo. Only good for laughs.

Tripwire - A rather well-done action movie featuring Yaphet Kotto! Viggo Mortenson before people knew him, and Tommy Chong. And Charlotte Lewis and future Homicide Life on the Street player Isabella Hoffman. And David Warner as the alpha villian, a mysterious terrorist named Szabo who plots to hijack a train carrying chemical weapons. Terrence Knox plays the hard bitten goverment agent assigned to stop Szabo and his band of international goons, and then things get personal, what with the death of Szabo's son and Warner swearing revenge. A low-budget but well done effort that I recommend you look into if you come across it.

Arnold is part of the commentary for T3 but it switches off to various members of the production. I haven't listened to it but I've heard a clip where he discusses the scene where the T-X adjusts her breast size which is a riot. I'm not a big CONAN guy so I haven't listened to that one but from what I gather it is classic. I have heard the one he did for TOTAL RECALL and Ecko is right that it is a blast hearing him and Verhoeven.

As for others, a lot of these films don't seem to get the commentary treatment. The UNIVERSAL SOLDIER SE has one but Van Damme, Lundgren, and Emmerich/Devlin are all seperate from each other so there isn't quite the same flow that there would be if they had been watching the flick together. I wish there had been one for THE RUSSIAN SPECIALIST.

It's interesting to see TRIPWIRE brought up. I have always heard that was a good flick and I just ordered a used VHS copy off of Amazon for about $4. I'm a big fan of Knox from "Tour of Duty" so I'm looking forward to seeing how he comes off in this one. How big is Viggo's part?

Ruckus was directed by a stunts guy, Max Kleven who more or less got some of his actor pals together to make a film that never saw a theater. It sat on the shelf for a few years before going straight to cable back in the 80s. The action isn't brutal but it's not Dukes of Hazzard-esque either. Anchor Bay released a decent DVD of it a few years back. It's a light-hearted film, a little goofy at times but it isn't y'know, off the wall goofy.

Another item I remember from that particular haul was a flick called Moving Targets but apparently, I've learned since then was titled Run Chrissie Run in it's orginal Australian release. Former member of one of those radical Eurotrash terror groups from back in the day is forced to go on the run with her teenage daughter, their life in Australia dirupted when the ma's old lover comes looking her up. He's a member of a certain organization in Northen Ireland and he whacked one of his own. They've sent a hit squad after him. Plus, add in biker punks who get taken with the daughter. More of a thriller than an action pic, but still not bad. A bit obscure these days.

The total recall commentary track is BORING compared to Milius and Arnold going at it during Conan the Barbarian. They are just trying to one up each other in ridiculous statements.

I saw this in some blog with the title 'Best fight scene of all time' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxkr4wS7XqY. I don't know if that's the best fight of all time, but I did laugh out loud a couple of times during it.

Wow, that was sweet. Wanna know how sweet that was? I'm pulling this out of mothballs.

This thread brings up some great memories.

Anyone remember a movie called Avenging Force? It starred Michael Dudikoff and it had him being hunted in a swampy by various ridiculously outfitted, human prey hunters ala Hard Target. Though they were nowhere near as badass as Vosloo and Hendrikson, I remember a couple of cool fights. I was a kid when I saw it, but I can't find it anywhere now. I thought netflix or ebay might have it, but no. Is this thing just a figment of my imagination?

If anybody in this thread has not seen Avenging Force, do so now, or face harsh penalties.

Back to the War vet revenge phenomenon, anybody remember The Annihilators, with Christopher "I bagged Dee Wallace" Stone? Haven't seen it in years, but it was a decently brutal revenge flick.

Desslar, define better.