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I have to see Thor: Ragnarok first.

The one thing that drives me bonkers about the DCU movies is that they have spent so little time putting in the necessary legwork to get to this point. The Marvel movies spent multiple movies with several of their heroes, building towards The Avengers. Here? It's like a hodge-podge rush job to get it out the door. I mean, I could have done with a movie for Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg, thank you very much.

Batman v. Superman does the same thing. Tons of material and they just blow through it, ostensibly to compete with the Marvel universe. But you can't just skip steps, dang it!

I'm still going to see Justice League, of course, but it kills me to see the properties mismanaged for the most part. (Wonder Woman was good, although the final battle was pretty "meh".)

Sarge wrote:I have to see Thor: Ragnarok first.

That one was great. Even more of a comedy than I thought it would be. I don't think it's that hard to nitpick it, or predict that it won't hold up over time as well as some of them...but it was entertaining from beginning to end.

Alien Covenant - Target Exclusive Book with DVD BluRay Combo- $19.99

Too cool, Target usually has the best exclusives and thru the holidays offers free shipping directly to home! I missed out on the opening home release date and had watched a Library checkout copy. Well worth repeat viewing, ordered a set online.

The newest Ridley Scott version has all new characters and done right with gritty actors fitting the parts. This is unlike the newest Pirate Caribbean where Johnny Depp no longer the lead and two Disney chosen young actors take over to continue the franchise. Sorry, without Depp and Rush as the main characters, the movie not the same. Anyways, the Alien movie could almost be an inspired remake of Scott's original with the corridors of the big industrial ship. I do miss the motion trackers though and why does an "underpaid" actor always bites the dust by looking directly into an opening monster egg! Ah well, solid performances with lots of action and suspense.

Various Special Editions - Target with 36 Page Book or Walmart with T Shirt or Best Buy with Steel Case.
https://hd-report.com/2017/07/08/alien-covenant-the-exclusive-blu-ray-retailer-editions/

Wow that book looks really nice. Already own the movie though.

My girlfriend reads The A.V. Club quite often and went over a piece on action movies from 2014 today where the author declared Keanu Reeves one of the greatest if not THE greatest action star of all time. We discussed this assertion, and I put up other names to consider. This led into a discussion about action films and whether other types of genres or subgenres (namely Westerns, War films, Chambara, Kung Fu, etc.) count as action films.

So now I am curious what you guys think. What makes an "Action" film, and who would you posit as the top action stars? Do you think of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the likes of Clint Eastwood, or do you lean towards Bruce Lee, Shintaro Katsu, or Gordon Liu?

I guess it's yet another those things where you kinda go with the gut feeling. You can't really go by amount because there's plenty of non action films that have more than couple scenes with action but still aren't action movies. Also having a extensive action scene doesn't necessarily make film an action movie either if the focus is on elswhere.

I would have very good example of this (samurai film) but just by naming the film in question would kinda be spoiler and i don't want to do that.

You kinda just know.

When it comes to who is the biggest action star i have to really think about it. Lot of people probably would go with Arnold but i don't really care about most of the films hes in so he isn't my pick.

Clint Eastwood tends to be great on westerns but lot of the movies hes in also aren't very good in my opinnion. There is enough highlights though to consider him as an option.

But i don't know. I'm currently watching the Lone Wolf Cub series an i almost want to go with Tomisaburo Wakayama because he is playing such a great character in that series but i don't really recognize the guy outside the series.

I guess i end up this post just by throwing some potential good choices

Kurt Russel
Bruce Willis
Takeshi Kitano
Toshiro Mifune (though i have never really looked him as an action star honestly)

Ack wrote:My girlfriend reads The A.V. Club quite often and went over a piece on action movies from 2014 today where the author declared Keanu Reeves one of the greatest if not THE greatest action star of all time. We discussed this assertion, and I put up other names to consider. This led into a discussion about action films and whether other types of genres or subgenres (namely Westerns, War films, Chambara, Kung Fu, etc.) count as action films.

So now I am curious what you guys think. What makes an "Action" film, and who would you posit as the top action stars? Do you think of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the likes of Clint Eastwood, or do you lean towards Bruce Lee, Shintaro Katsu, or Gordon Liu?

I googled that 2014 date to see which movie inspired the author's pick. I had thought it would be the Matrix series perhaps influence of that and John Wick. There are so many action stars; I do not think one actor or a style of action such as Western, Police or Kung Fu should be considered the best.

I do think a great collaboration of an actor and director along with a good story are important. Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone big three westerns making Eastwood larger then life. The action for me in Good Bad and Ugly in the final shootout with Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach was not the gunplay, but the standoff leading up to it. Oh and for a different take check out Good Bad and Weird Korean uncut version.

Another example, Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa also a perfect matched team. The memorable scene for me (there are so many); Yojimbo where Mifune stalks forward against the bad guys and then a quick pace showing bravery determination. That to me the action vs the sword play that followed.

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EDIT - REPOST ADD ON (Above post from 11/19/2017)

noiseredux wrote:Wow that book looks really nice. Already own the movie though.

The Alien Covenant Special Edition arrived. The exclusive Target book (Creatures Of Alien) is also the two disc holder (both BluRay and DVD versions included!) with a compartment inside each hard cover. Nice art, photos and Alien info inside; the pages pulled from the larger coffee table book.

I made a clear plastic envelope to protect the outer cardboard sleeve. The movie is the same height and thickness as a regular DVD case, but the hard cover book when viewed from the front is about half inch wider. The movie sticks out slightly in the wood "bookshelf" DVD shelving. No big deal, sticks past my shelf only about a 1/4" and the plastic bag keeps the book set protected.

Unlike the picture below, I kept the two shrink wrap info stickers, stuck back on the outer sleeve on the right.

Yeah I finally watched The Room. It was just as hilariously bad as its reputation suggests. However, about 1/3rd the way through, I decided that Tommy Wiseau is a space alien scientist, and as an experiment, attempted to write a story about a complex human social situation, to see if he could understand the way our emotions work, and portray them in a way that was convincing to humans. If this isn't the case, then surely Tommy Wiseau is a brilliant troll. Please let either of these explanations be true. Because the only other explanation; he really is this out of touch with humanity and social constructs, means Wiseau is a serial killer waiting to happen.

You say waiting to happen, but what if he's just really good at hiding the bodies?

MrPopo wrote:You say waiting to happen, but what if he's just really good at hiding the bodies?

He'd have to be a lot better at hiding bodies than making a movie.