Last movie watched...

[Recrewt]

Cruise has been around for a long time and you don't get that length of career without some sort of talent (although I wish someone would tell Jason Statham that).

You know, I don't really mind Jason Statham either - films like the Transporter and Crank are enjoyable enough.  He's not up there with the likes of Cruise but he's a solid action movie star.  I found it interesting in the recent Expendables movies where he seems a lot better than many of the 'legends'.

[Jim_Campbell]

You know, I don't really mind Jason Statham either - films like the Transporter and Crank are enjoyable enough.

Plus, at this stage, it's not like you don't know what you're going to get going into a Statham movie. (Also, Death Race was substantially more entertaining than it had any right to be...!)

Cheers

Jim

[Recrewt]

Also, Death Race was substantially more entertaining than it had any right to be...!

Jim, get out of my head!  I almost mentioned in my earlier post how he rescued Death Race. 

[shaolin_monkey]

Cruise has been around for a long time and you don't get that length of career without some sort of talent (although I wish someone would tell Jason Statham that).

Oy, leave Statham alone!  It's probably thanks to him (and other sexy bald blokes like Bruce Willis, Patrick Stewart etc) that us follically challenged folk ever get laid!   


I saw the Raid 2 last night.  Bloody hell eh?  Brilliant film!  The fight twoards the end in the kitchen has to be one of the best one-to-one fight scenes I have ever seen.

[Keef Monkey]

I saw the Raid 2 last night.  Bloody hell eh?  Brilliant film!  The fight twoards the end in the kitchen has to be one of the best one-to-one fight scenes I have ever seen.

Got it on Blu-ray yesterday, saw it in the cinema but been desperate to see it again ever since. That fight is stupendous! Indeed, the last 45mins or so are pretty much wall to wall awesome.

[atp]

Watched an oldie, The Running Man, blimey it hasn't  aged to well, but did they  'borrow' MC1 for the cityscape background shots 

[radiator]

I don't understand the Statham thing either. I don't rate him as an actor at all, and unlike the 80s action greats like Schwarzenegger and Stallone he doesn't have any apparent movie star charisma or screen presence. His name on a film poster may as well be a sticker saying 'avoid' as far as I'm concerned. His whole career seems based on a kind of semi-ironic veneration of quite bad films. I don't get it.

I'm curious to see The Raid 2, but was put off by reports of a 2hr+ runtime and excess of story. The great thing about the first film was that it was lean and mean.

[NapalmKev]

I thought Statham was good in 'Revolver'.

Cheers

[Theblazeuk]

I thought Statham was the only good thing in Revolver. That is the 2nd worst movie I have ever gone to see in the cinema (beaten by Battleship, slightly edging out Roadkill and Scorpion King - which I watched in one monumentally misjudged double-bill)

[Daveycandlish]

The one good thing about Jason Statham is that Hollywood decided they didn't need two shaven headed Brit hardmen and discarded Vinnie Jones

[Professor Bear]

Say what you will about Vinnie Jones, his turn in Moby Dick was mesmerising to the point I couldn't believe it was really happening.  And by "Moby Dick", I of course mean "that film where Moby Dick was a dragon and Ahab (Danny Glover) hunted him in a wooden tank".

Movie and culture snobs tend not to understand the simple pleasures of a well-done action movie unless the Guardian has done a write-up about it first, but then it's usually about something like District 13 or the Raid which get a pass for being in a foreign language as this means that they cannot possibly just be lowbrow shite. [spoiler] They are.[/spoiler]

Statham is a bit hit and miss for me - he's shite in a lot of things, but it's often beyond his control like the Expendables movies - which are shite in general and there's not much he can do about that because he's not A-list and doesn't have much creative input.  He's great in the Transporter, mind, willfully playing a complete cypher of a character in the kind of ego-free performance you'll never see from the likes of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, and the closest comparison I can make is to Jackie Chan, who for all his impressive kung fu stuntwork has made a career playing a fool and/or a buffoon rather than a super-competent badass.

[Buttonman]

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - Part of the Steve McQueen extravaganza. I wasn't to taken with it - lots of posing and farting about in dune buddies and looking cool. The insurance investigator was a big slut and her leaps of logic defied belief. Even the song wasn't as good as I remembered - give me the Dusty or Petula version any time!

Bullitt was pretty good too although the car chase was a bit overhyped. I like Robert Vaughn as the slimy senator. My book said he'd the chance to make this a franchise a la 'Dirty Harry' but preferred to make suff like An Enemy of the People which is based on an Ibsen play and sees Steve as a beardy environmentalist in 19th century Norway. Surprisingly not a big hit!

The Magnificent Seven was OK but it seemed like 'The Three Amigos' without the laughs. A lot more deaths than I'd have guessed with [spoiler]only Steve and Yul getting out alive[/spoiler]. Surprised at the reverence in which this is held - looked like a basic cowboy yard to me albeit one with a great cast.

His last film The Hunter is poor and has the look and budget of a TV movie. It starts poorly with a cringe worthy caption and worsens as his quarry is Geordi LaForge. There is no menace and the running joke of him being a shit driver wears thin quick.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Bullitt was pretty good too although the car chase was a bit overhyped.

Nope. Not having that.

Maybe it's not the best ever car chase in film, but by God it's the best car chase ever filmed.

Those cars aren't skidding about because a stunt man knew how to coordinate the pedals and steering wheel in a such a way that the arse of the car swings out. Those cars are skidding about because the actors in the driving seats were actually driving like the maniacs they were portraying. They took their big, stupid, point'n'stamp muscle cars and tried to force them around the steep, tight corners of San Fransisco. It's obvious that several of the cornering shots were cut before the wagon spun-out, and a couple of times you can see hub-caps clipping off then feebly trying to chase the car from whence they were shed. It wasn't really choreographed, they just got two guys to race around Frisco and pointed a camera at it.

Steve McQueen was actually, really chasing the bad guys. That's why I love it so.

[shaolin_monkey]

Buttonman, have you seen The Seven Samurai?

[Buttonman]

Steve McQueen was actually, really chasing the bad guys. That's why I love it so.

He wasn't really -not unless they had a camera crew on every corner! It was pretty good and had a great sense of speed and danger it's just when I read the biography I thought it was going to be longer and more exciting. The end where [spoiler]the baddies drove into an exploding petrol station[/spoiler] was a bit unlikely too.

Buttonman, have you seen The Seven Samurai?

I have as part of my quest to see all the films in the IMDb 250. I gave it a solid 7/10 but can't remember much about it. From the Kurosawa canon I preferred 'Rashomon', 'Throne of Blood' and 'High and Low' which was a contemporary thriller based on an Ed McBain book - the subject of a previous challenge (to read all 50+ 87th Precinct books. I have no life.