Oz ,'First Date'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
(I hear that Children of Men features a hero who fires a gun never, which adds to the list of reasons I need to see that movie)
I don't think he even touches one. Then again, most bewildered, passive, and confused "hero" evar. Which is also kind of the point. But I wouldn't call it an "action movie" by any stretch of the imagination. You could make the case for its being a dark caper picture, or a roadless and unhinged road movie, but action is kind of incidental.
I can't help liking the Saint but not because of the main characters. I loved the Russians and their interactions with each other.
As much as I don't want to like Val...I do. But not so much in this role. I even love cheese...but this one was chees-tastic.
action is kind of incidental.
Well, for values of incidental that coincide with marvellous. It's not a driver or a tool used by our hero, but shit sure blows up nice.
It's a good thing I have no cred to lose, but I liked many of Jean Claude Van Damme's action heroes. He saved the day in the end, but sometimes didn't get the girl (like in Nowhere To Run where he goes back to jail (after one of the nakedest sex scenes ever)) and is pointedly emotional in many, and not just angry and thirsty for revenge.
I loved the Russians in The Saint, and always love Rade Serbedzija in pretty much everything he's in (most of all as the crazy Russian in Snatch).
But really, The Saint falls apart not because of its actors (though there are plenty of bad performances). It falls apart because of the absolute idocy of everything else in the movie.
I liked many of Jean Claude Van Damme's action heroes. He saved the day in the end, but sometimes didn't get the girl [snip] and is pointedly emotional in many,
Oh no. You did not just bring Jean Claude's "LOOK AT ME, I'M EMOTING" face into this discussion, did you? Really?
I had to! Honestly, his (in)ability to act aside, his characters were interestingly defined and rewarded (or not).
I'll always be grateful to Van Damme for making Sudden Death, the Stanley Cup final-set action movie complete with a fight where he got his ass kicked by a female terrorist in a Penguin costume, and Luc Robitaille as a guest star.
Jean-Claude. Van Damme. Does not compute. I don't care if he can crack nuts with his buttcheeks; he canna act!!
after one of the nakedest sex scenes ever
Spoken like someone who has never seen a Bernardo Bertolucci picture. Let's just say I had The Dreamers out from Netflix, and saw way, way more of Eva Green than the Bond movie showed.
To see more of Eva Green (or any of the principals) than The Dreamers showed, the filmmaker would need to use a sigmoidoscope.
Hee on the Van Damme comments! I've never seen him except inadvertently while channel surfing, but I will say that his closest counterpart when it comes to lack of acting skills is Steven Seagal. The man almost ruins what is in actuality a damn good action film, Under Seige, simply from his very inability to portray anything other than Seagal-ness.