50 Chick Flicks A Man Can Love And Why
Submitted by stooky on Sat, 10/02/2004 - 03:22
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84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
- **Chatty in a clever way. Great perfs. Anne Brancroft has a burly-aesthetist aesthetic that is very entertaining. Sweet ending may lead to...er...a good game of dominoes perhaps?
All About My Mother (1999)
- **Pedro Almodovar as of 1995 is a director who is nothing less than 100% entertaining. The story is really great, the visuals are a delight and the perfs are heavenly. It's not very weepy.
All Of Me (1984)
- **A chick flick that's actually a man's flick masquerading as a chick flick. Yeah baby.
Atalante, L’ (1934)
- **An adorable film that's so sweet you can't help but love it; even while smoking a cigar and holdin' a broosky.
Auntie Mame (1958)
- **It's one of the ten funniest movies I've ever seen. If you can't laugh at most of these scenes you're a flaming sexist.
Bagdad Cafe (1988)
- **A slightly odd film which is always entertaining and the "fat, German Pollyanna" story is a nice change of pace from Arnie blowing up hillsides. Great music as well.
Barefoot Contessa, The (1954)
- **Humphrey Bogart (yeah!) & Ava Gardner (Schwing!).
Beauty And The Beast (1991)
- **It's got a freakin' lot of action for an animated movie about a girl and a beast.
Big (1988)
- **Funny, entertaining and about a man, there ya go.
Big Easy, The (1987)
- **The sex scene is really hot, in fact all your brain can really think about is sex and violence while watching this film. Yet women like it...weird.
Black Stallion, The (1979)
- **While women love horses and sweet stories about horses, men love adventure, action and a big finale. Whadya know, it's got it all.
Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)
- **Audrey Hepburn...for two hours...looking really hot! Do I have to say anymore?
Bull Durham (1988)
- **A movie combining lots of sex, talk about sex, baseball and probably on of the 10 greatest monologues in film (as spoken by Kevin Costner) into a chick flick that feels like a...well...I guess dick-flick would be the word. Plus the fact that Susan Sarandon had really great thighs (schwing!). Thanks again Odysseus.
Camille (1936)
- **Greta Garbo is like a black hole for man lust. And here she's at her most tragic and elegant...and the camera adores her.
Captain Blood (1935)
- **An unusual chick flick in that it's not a chick flick at all, but women will think it is. A blow for heminism.
Charly (1968)
- **The kind of sentimental drivel that usually makes man-arse ache is handled with entertainment in mind. ie. Axe the epostulating about humanity, get with the tragic love and psuedo-funny story.
Clueless (1995)
- **Somehow a film about modern teenage girls reinacting the story of "Emma" is hilarious for a guy. I'm guessing it's the "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" connection.
Cocoon (1985)
- **Ron Howard really keeps this geezer-fest ripping along. Steve Gutenberg's only good performance, and you don't wanna miss that...do you?
Color Purple, The (1985)
- **You know you almost cried, just admit it...your woman'll love you for it.
Cyrano De Bergerac (1990)
- **Fabulous grand guignol speckled with great action scenes and containing the incredible (and mighty burly) Depardieu. When the ending comes you'll be weeping like the little silly man-boy you know you are.
Dangerous Liasons (1988)
- **Great sex scenes, John Malkovich acting really nasty, Michelle Pfeiffer acting very wan (and her boobs get pushed out in a really great way by the corset) all in one place. Plus it's really entertaining and you get to see Keanu Reeves get bitch-slapped actor-wise in every scene he's in.
Eat Drink Man Woman (1993)
- **A wry little nugget of good taste in more ways than one. While not thinking about food, which you 'll do a lot, you can focus with contentment on the gentle comedy. Winding down from endless loud hours of sex and violence will do anyone some good.
Gigi (1958)
- **The most entertaining of the 50's musicals, with great songs and fast-moving pacy direction so good you'll almost forget you're watching a wallop of sappy romance.
Groundhog Day (1993)
- **Phil Connors spends an eternity (literally) in a small town, killing himself Kenny style, manipulating the inhabitants all whilst attempting to woo his true love. Bill Murray is hilarious in this snarky piece of mammary-influenced movie-making. Mucho gracias Odysseus.
Henry & June (1990)
- **Holy crap is there a lot of sex in this movie about Aneis Nin & Henry Miller. But considering it's about the lives of these notorious horn-dogs why should anyone be suprised?
Impromptu (1990)
- **Funny, sweet, intelligent and all that other stuff women like, but directed in a man-approacheable way.
It Happened On Night
- **A fast-moving riot of physical and verbal humour that comes at you fast and often, kinda like bullets...OF LAUGHTER!.
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
- **Hilarious in ways Adam Sandler can only dream of being.
Laura (1944)
- **A murder mystery about a romantic relationship with a dead woman and that's just the first 30 minutes.
Married To The Mob (1988)
- **A movie about a woman trying to make her way in a lonely world. Then there's the stuff about the mob, murders, hit-men, the FBI and a few hardy belly-laughs.
Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek, The (1944)
- **If all action movies were as entertaining I'd be a happy fellah.
Ninotchka (1939)
- **4 words: Entertaining as all heck.
Officer And A Gentleman, An (1982)
- **Somehow a movie about male-bonding on a military base became a chick movie. Let's not question the logic.
Out Of Sight (1998)
- **Somehow a movie about a thief and his partner, a bounty hunting hottie and a double-crossing psycho turns into a chick-flick. I like the pattern that is developing.
Piano, The (1993)
- **Over-blown romantic tragedy of such mammoth proportions that entertainment value for men is achieved. Plus it's got a great sex scene and Harney Keitel. Admit it, Keitel is too ugly to be in an ordinary chick flick. Warning: full-frontal male nudity...have remote handy. (snicker)
Picnic (1955)
- **Imagine The Bugs Bunny And Road Runner Show invaded Peyton Place and you've got some idea of what this film is like.
The Princess Bride (1986)
- **The kind of film that's too busy being a sweet, funny riot to get bogged down with corny wooing sequences. Or as Odysseus puts it, and I quote "Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards... Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair... Have fun storming the castle!".
Queen Margot (1994)
- **A film that crosses the period piece strain of film with ultra-gore, the result is romantic enough for her and so bloody he can't take his eyes off it.
Remains Of The Day (1993)
- **A film of moody, slow intensity that seems to appeal to men (for no reason that can possibly be discerned).
Romancing The Stone (1984)
- **It's a chick flick made for a male audience, what a bizarre and wonderful idea.
Roxanne (1987)
- **same as above.
Say Anything (1989)
- **It's like the instant nookie machine.
Shakespeare In Love (1998)
- **Big grand entertainment like they used to make in the 40's. The story barrels along with a light jovial quality eschewing boring talks by candle-light. Yay.
Shop Around The Corner, The (1940)
- **Mysteriously man and woman oriented romanctic comedy that's simply fabulous. The film never strays into sappy recitations of love and contains a strong (yet kind and intelligent) male character. Something of an oddity.
Starman (1984)
- **What begins as a sappy ode to eternal love and inter-galactic love soon turns into a chase movie in which lots of things blow up. Dude.
Strictly Ballroom (1992)
- **Romantic movie about dancing laced with bizarre humour and a ballistic directorial style courtesy of Baz Luhrman. It's like a rabid love-struck poodle humping your leg.
Thelma & Louise (1991)
- **Movie about female bonding that turns out to be much about the action and Gina Davis's really tight pants. (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
- **How a chick flick can be this funny and cranky is beyond me, but I like it, I like it a lot.
The Women (1939)
- **A movie without a single male character that's a wacky, classic hoot of cat-fighting. Fascinating.
Written On The Wind (1956)
- **Pot-boiler of King Kong proportions with so many twists, turns, and agonized male and female characters you're glued to the screen. Like it or hate it, it definately ain't boring.
stooky, stooky, stooky... you're on a ROLL, man!
True Romance could be one
Whut? Are we thinking of the same movie? The ultra-violent blood-bath with one of the most mercilous beatings of a woman ever put on celluloid. I would love to hear an explanation. Seriously.
T'ho
:?)
Rrrr-oxanne. Was going to suggest it if you didn't have it, but you do. Love the scene where he pays to put the paper back.
Fine piece of list-making here, Mr. Stook.
Once again: crispy. very crispy.
I could dispute only some of your selections but what a fab idea for a list [exclamation points] How 'bout we get take away and rent:
The Princess Bride (1987) **Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards... Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair... Have fun storming the castle!
Casablanca (1942) **How can a Bogie movie not be a guy movie?
A Room With A View (1985) **Three words: Helena Bonham Carter. Plus junk bouncing male bonding. Come and have a bathe?
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) **Two hit men, death by pen and Mr. John Cusak. The Sure Thing (1985), High Fidelity (2000)... oh hell almost any of his movies save Con Air.
Shrek (2001) **Ogre. Donkey. Kick Butt Fiona. I saw this for the first time at a women's college where the audience was 5% male and all of them were gonna get a little sumpen' sumpen'.
Bound (1996) **The Mob, snipped fingers, disposing of bodies and hot lesbians. Not my Violet!
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) **How can any Mel Gibson movie not be a guy movie? Plus Sigourney Weaver is hot hot hot in the rain.
Bull Durham (1988) **You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. I believe in the church of baseball. Lollygaggers!
Jerry Maguire (1996) **It had you at "show me the money!"
Groundhog Day (1993) **Bill Murray. Let me repeat: Bill Murray. Plus Andie MacDowell.
I wouldn't call Bound a chick flick, but the rest are great suggestions. Especially Princess Bride, Casablanca, and Groundhog Day.
If you think of Bound (1996) as a "guy movie" let me ask you to reconsider for a moment. It might be framed differently if you picture Corky as a hot looking guy. Violet sees Corky as her prince who will allow her to escape to a better, fairy tale ending kind of life. Corky has been waiting all her life for a woman like Violet
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm trying to seduce you."
"Why?"
"Because I want to. I've wanted to ever since I saw you that day in the elevator. I know you don't believe me, but I can prove it to you. You can't believe what you see but you can believe what you feel. I've been thinking about you all day."
"That's a great tattoo, beautiful labrys. Are you surprised I know what it is?"
"Maybe."
"I have a tattoo. Would you like to see it?"
"You seem uncomfortable. Do I make you nervous, Corky?"
"No."
"Thirsty, maybe?"
"I have this image of you... inside of me... like a part of me."
"For me, stealing's always been a lot like sex. Two people who want the same thing: they get in a room, they talk about it. They start to plan. It's kind of like flirting. It's kind of like foreplay, because the more they talk about it, the wetter they get. The only difference is: I can f*** someone I've just met. But to steal? I need to know someone like I know myself."
"You know what the difference is between you and me, Violet?"
"No."
"Me neither."
"What did she do to you?"
"Everything you couldn't."
Nonetheless, this fairy tale contains quite a bit of blood, some great mob dialogue, and a lesbian sex scene. Granted, the girls screw the guy over, but that alone does not a chick flick make.
And I suppose Die Hard is just a modern fairy tale of Prince Charming Willis wanting to rescue the damsel in distress and whisk her away to a more stable life?
A lesbian sex scene that's pretty hot too. Don't forget that. :?)
:?)
Nah, to leave the backtracking until later: Die Hard isn't about emotional attachment. It's about John McClane and Hans Gruber shooting things up so they can win cash prizes. Bound (1996) is about Violet and Corky finding each other in a hostile world and settling down. It's about being rescued from an abusive relationship, sexual temptation and remaining loyal to each other even when things get toughest. Women characters are portrayed as intelligent, proactive three-dimensional characters with complex motivations. They are not stereotypical door mats in distress, paragons of domestic fantasy or wise-cracking/sexless side kicks.
If you go by this (and I'm not necessarily saying that you should) then Bound (1996) qualifies in 8 out of 12 Chick Flick Indicators and scores a zero in Macho Movie Indicators. The violence done is either off screen or understated (and that actually gives it more emotional resonance.) And the heroines socially manoeuvre themselves (in and) out of trouble. You can see the attraction and redemption that Violet and Corky see in each other and, by the end of the movie, are rooting for them to "make it."
Oh, and does a hot (and tender) love scene driven by feelings add to chickflickness even if it's hot lesbians?
Now for the backtracking: Of course, I might be blinded by my love for this movie. I am certainly willing to settle back down if others don't see the chickflicksity of it all. Do you think that The Color Purple (1985) is a chick flick?
Hmm. I only got 5 on the chick flick score (I didn't remember how many close-ups there were so I gave you the benefit of the doubt; everday villain; everyday worst act; characters respect each other through long talks; and explosion of passion) - I wouldn't call the deaths very emotional, and the characters find love well before the ending, if those were ones you counted. Nonetheless, I think that scale is pretty black-and-white; some movies just feel like guy movies and some just feel like chick flicks.
Maybe the brilliance of Bound is its ability to make women think it's a sweet love story about settling down and make men think it's a taut mob thriller with a hot lesbian sex scene. We've just never realized it before.
Sorry, but I haven't seen The Color Purple.
"...relationship is between a man and woman." - I took this to mean "romantic relationship" (although I wonder how yaya sisters feel about exclusion.)
"...one emotional death." - "Not my Violet." ... "Ceasar, you don't know s***." ( Terms of Endearment it is not.)
"...lead character finds love." - Lesbians drive off into the sunset in their new truck. (Which reminds me of a joke.)
It's not sweet but it is a love story. I definitely agree with you that it is hard to think of a taut mob thriller that takes place in a total of four rooms and one exterior shot.
Don't go near The Color Purple (1985). It is the Dread Spielberg at the height of his maudlin.
I am officially nick-named Mr. Crispy. :?)
Interesting choices as well, I may have to take a few of these and replace the weak links on my list. What was I thinking not putting Bull Durham, Groundhog Day & Princess Bride on this list? Bound is good...but I don't like it that much. (stook covers ears as not to hear the swearing and hissing.)
I do however disagree with 2, Grosse Point Blank. I'm actually wondering what makes this movie a "Chick flick" in your estimation? And Shrek "same as above"?
I have however watched several of these movies with a group of men and seperately with a group (if 2 is a group) of women. With men "Year Of Living Dangerously" and "Jerry Maguire" go over like Led balloons.
Great comments too. :?)
T'ho
:?)
P.S.: Full frontal male nudity in a chick flick is almost certain to clear a room of the hardcore male element.
Your highs are certainly very high. I willingly dub you Sir Crisp-A-Lot.
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) Your true love returns to you after ten years only to win your heart all over again... twice! Plus he gives you an airplane ride, is willing to wait for you no matter how long it takes, will also give up his career for you and settle down AND he saves your beloved father. Then there's the fact that John Cusak is ultra-dreamy.
Shrek (2001) You get the best of many worlds. A rescue by a brave knight, the lifting of a spell, true love's first kiss and he wants you just the way you are. Even the side kicks hook up romantically and it all ends up with a wedding. *sniff* You shoulda heard the "Awww" when Shrek tells Fiona that she is beautiful to him. There was even snuffling. Yes, snuffling.
I'll admit that in my mind "man can enjoy" had replaced "man can love". Even without that correction I'm willing to surrender Jerry Maguire (1996) . (Perhaps the guys I hang with are using it as a Trojan Horse.) It is harder to let go of The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) although I will admit that it is something that no self-respecting guy will ever admit.
Nudity vs. Social Pomposity and Priggishness is usually cheered especially when connected with sexual awakening. But that may just be me and my merry men. Nekkid men are certainly not allowed to be gay or portrayed as beauteous. I wish some sports movie highjinks lept to mind but memories fade. "Hardcore males" make me think of a different kind of movie. The not-The Color Purple (1985) kind of movie.
Ah...but prince charming turns out to be a psychopath who enjoys killing a little too much and was hired to pop your dad in the first place. Add the whole pen in the neck sequence and you got a film of suspect chick flick credentials. Plus the music is too good to be in a chick flick (snicker).
Shrek is just too little boy oriented in my opinion, it's got the romance but the whole talking donkey, action scenes and snide sense of humour don't exactly jive.
Bound you've got total agreement on my end, may fit into the "chick flick made for men" category.
I'm telling you, Year Of Living Dangerously experience: One of the guys there says "is that a f****n dwarf. C'mon man where's the tits." It just wasn't his cup-o-tea. Although I should qualify that some of my more emotionally aware male friends did like it. Right now I'm teetering on the fence post.
Duly noted, Sir Crisp-A-Little was apparently taken (snicker).
T'ho
:?)
Would you care to do a 50 guy-flicks list, I'd certainly be your 2nd reader. That Jim guy gets there so fast.
T'ho
:?)
I'd happily be the first reader of such a list.
If we keep this going O might actually make a list and then I could comment in bawdy rhyme. Bwahahahahaha.
T'ho
:?)
Okay. Thank you for asking.
But... he's a psychopath with a heart of gold. Besides, Martin has a conscience, a shrink, he's a good boss and he only showed up as "psychopath" on his Army PSATs (Psychiatric Standard Acheivement Test) and nobody trusts those standardized tests.
I did not get "snide" from Shrek (2001) at all. "So where is this fire-breathin' pain in the neck, anyway?" "In the tower, waiting for us to rescue her."
If tits were the threshold for your list you'd be hard pressed to get fifteen flics, let alone fifty. Of course Scandal and Showgirls are chick flicks. Kinda. Sorta.
I'd stay on your side of the fence if I were you. Good neighbors and all that.
"This'll be fun. We'll stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning... I'm making waffles."
A heart of gold...you don't say. :?)
I realize, but he admits that he enjoys it, dude is warped.
Snide is perhaps the wrong word...subversive in a ironic way...um...o who knows, sleepiness has taken my brain away to lala land.
I was mentioning an extreme reaction from an extreme person. I'll post a sign on my side that says "home of Stook (sire of crisp) Come Visit Anytime...Beware Of Bassett Hound." :?)
Showgirls?...Paul Verhoeven hasn't it in him to make a chick flick.
T'ho
:?)
50 Best 'GUY MOVIES' (now with 120 films!)
50. Jaws "We're gonna need a bigger boat."
49. Bad Boys "Don't be alarmed. We're Negroes."
48. STANLEY KUBRICK Full Metal Jacket "What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?" Spartacus "I'm Spartacus!"
47. Office Space "They moved my desk four times already this year and I used to be over by the window and I could see the squirrels and they were merry but then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire."
46. EDDIE MURPHY 48 Hrs. "There's a new sheriff in town and his name is Reggie Hammond. So y'all be cool. Right on." Beverly Hills Cop "This is the cleanest and nicest police car I've ever been in my life. This thing is nicer than my apartment."
45. RICHARD LINKLATER Dazed and Confused "It had the head of Abraham Lincoln, top hat, beard, everything." Slacker "Hell, no! I've got less important things to do."
44. Three Kings "No, not the little cubes you put in hot water to make soup."
43. The Longest Yard "He can get you laid in here... With a woman."
42. Clerks "I'm not supposed to be here today!"
41. PETER WELLER Robocop "I'd buy that for a dollar!" Robocop 2 "Thank you for not smoking." The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension "Bigboo-tay."
40. The Warriors "Warriorrsss, come out and plaaay."
39. Blazing Saddles "Hey! Where the white women at?"
38. Enter the Dragon "Would you look at that? A woman like that could teach you a lot about yourself."
37. The Usual Suspects "Big fat guy. I mean, like, orca fat."
36. Planet of the Apes "Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
35. Bachelor Party "Hi, come on in! Drugs to the right, hookers to the left."
34. Gladiator "At my signal, unleash hell."
33. Old Yeller "Now and then, for no good reason, life will haul off and knock a man flat."
32. This is Spinal Tap "This piece is called 'Lick My Love Pump'."
31. Patton "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
30. Midnight Run "Well if you don't shut up, pretty soon you're gonna suffer from Fistaphobia."
29. STEVE BUSCEMI The Big Lebowski "Hell. I can get you a toe by three o'clock this afternoon... With nail polish." Con Air "Are you with me or do you need me to draw it in crayon like usual?" Airheads "Trick question. Lemmy is God."
28. Diner "Are you gonna eat that?"
27. Easy Rider "This used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it."
26. Swingers "You are so money and you don't even know it!"
25. HARRISON FORD Raiders of the Lost Ark "Throw me the idol. No time to argue. Throw me idol, I'll throw you the whip." Star Wars "That's no moon. It's a space station." Blade Runner "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die."
24. Field of Dreams "If you build it, he will come."
23. SAM PECKINPAH The Wild Bunch "Feathers flew like a turkey shoot! Well, they shouldn't have run; they shouldn't have run." Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid "Well I hope they spell my name right in the paper." Convoy "You want out? We're being chased. You want out? Jump."
22. JIM CARREY Dumb and Dumber "According to the map we've only gone 4 inches." Cable Guy "You might recognize this song as performed by Jefferson Airplane, in a little rockumentary called 'Gimme Shelter', about the Rolling Stones and their nightmare at Altamont. That night the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels had their way. Tonight, it's my turn." Ace Ventura, Pet Detective "If I'm not back in five minutes... just wait longer."
21. BILL MURRAY Caddyshack "This crowd has gone deadly silent, a Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the masters champion." Stripes "You know, one day, Tito Puente will be dead, and you'll say, 'Oh, yes, I've been listening to his work for years and I think he's fabulous.'" Kingpin "Hi... not you... Hi." Ghostbusters "Yes it's true... this man has no dick." Meatballs "It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter!..." Wild Things "Before Medea sailed away on the Helios she killed king Creon and the princess with, what? A: a rock. B: spear-gun or C: a bit of poison."
20. BRUCE WILLIS Die Hard "Yippee-ki-yay..." 12 Monkeys "Wiping out the human race? That's a great idea. That's great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals."
19. Rollerball "Jon-A-Thon Jon-A-Thon Jon-A-Thon..."
18. SEVENS Shichinin No Samurai "What's the use of worrying about your beard when your head's about to be taken?" The Magnificent Seven "The worst! I was aiming at the horse."
17. JOHN BELUSHI The Blues Brothers "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses." Animal House "Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"
16. OLIVER STONE Wall Street "The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of it's forms - greed for life, for money, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you." Platoon "There is a way out of everything, man. Just keep your pecker hard and your powder dry and the world will turn." Natural Born Killers "At birth I was cast into a flaming pit of scum forgotten by God." Any Given Sunday "It's like my ex-wife. 21 different personalities and 7 of them hated me."
15. Monty Python and the Holy Grail "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
14. EVIL DEADS Army of Darkness "Gimme some sugar, baby." The Evil Dead "We can't bury Cheryl. She's our friend." Evil Dead II "Groovy."
13. CHEVY CHASE Vacation "I got laid off when they closed that asbestos factory, and wouldn't you know it, the army cuts my disability pension because they said that the plate in my head wasn't big enough." Fletch "You know, if you shoot me, you're liable to lose a lot of those humanitarian awards." Christmas Vacation "Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?"
12. THE AHNULD Predator "I ain't got time to bleed." The Terminator "I'll be back." Terminator 2: Judgement Day "Come with me if you want to live." Commando "You're a funny man, Sully, I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last." True Lies "I'm beginning to like this guy... Oh, we've still gotta kill him. That's a given." Conan the Barbarian "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women." Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines "She'll be back."
11. Fight Club "The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club."
10. The Shawshank Redemption "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
9. MARTIN SCORSESE Goodfellas "But, I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?..." Raging Bull "Come on, hit me. Harder. Harder." Casino "No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead."
8. CHARLES BRONSON Death Wish "Well, what if the cops can't handle this, Jack?" C'era Una Volta il West "How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants." The Dirty Dozen "Oh, the gentleman from the South had a question about the dining arrangements. He and his comrades are discussing place settings now." The Great Escape "I only drank tea once - in a hospital."
7. MEL GIBSON Lethal Weapon "Let's make like the shepherd and get the flock out of here!" Lethal Weapon 3 "I'm chaos, and he's mayhem. We're a double act." Lethal Weapon 4 "Oh, gunfight, explosions, sharks, you know, the usual." Braveheart "They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freeedumm." Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior "Empty! All this time! That's dishonest! Low!" Lethal Weapon 2 "Where were you man? Are you my partner or what? Why didn't you follow me down?"
6. SYLVESTER STALLONE Rocky "I just want to say hi to my girlfriend, OK? Yo, Adrian! It's me, Rocky." Rocky II "Yo, Adrian! I did it!" Rocky III "No, I don't hate Balboa. I pity the fool." Rambo "Murdock... I'm coming to get you!" Tango & Cash "Rambo? Rambo's a pussy." Cobra "You're the disease, and I'm the cure."
5. PAUL NEWMAN Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid "Who are those guys?" Slapshot "This young man has had a very trying rookie season, with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada and that country's refusal to accept him, I guess that's more than most 21-year-olds can handle. Number six, Ogie Oglethorpe." The Sting "Luther said I could learn some things from you. I already know how to drink." Cool Hand Luke "What we've got here is a... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach... which is the way he wants it... well... he gets it."
4. CLINT EASTWOOD Dirty Harry "I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking, 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" Unforgiven "We all got it comin', kid." The Outlaw Josey Wales "Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?" Per un Pugno di Dollari "My mistake. Four coffins." Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig." Every Which Way But Loose "Well it appears to me that there can't be too many guys driving around this valley with an ape." Escape from Alcatraz "Alcatraz was built to keep all the rotten eggs in one basket, and I was specially chosen to make sure that the stink from the basket does not escape. Since I've been warden, a few people have tried to escape. Most of them have been recaptured; those that haven't have been killed or drowned in the bay. No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz. And no one ever will!"
3. QUENTIN TARANTINO Reservoir Dogs "Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you're Mr. White, you have a cool sounding name. Alright look, if it's no big deal to be Mr. Pink do you wanna trade?" Pulp Fiction "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?" Kill Bill: Vol 1 "It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack; not rationality." I Kill Bill: Vol. 2 "Bitch, you don't have a future."
2. SEAN CONNERY Highlander "There can be only one!" Dr. No "Bond. James Bond." The Untouchables "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send on of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone!" Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade "We named the dog 'Indiana'." The Rock "Welcome to the Rock."
1. AL PACINO The Godfather "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." Scarface "Say 'hello' to my little friend!" The Godfather II "There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Serpico "What's this for? For bein' an honest cop? Hmm? Or for being stupid enough to get shot in the face?" Dog Day Afternoon "Attica! Attica!" Donnie Brasco "When they send for you, you go in alive, you come out dead, and it's your best friend that does it."
Wow, great, thanks for obliging! I was going to quibble over a couple (Old Yeller?), but then I realized I'd seen all of these but a half-dozen or so (like Old Yeller), so I'm thinking you must have hit a vein. And I love how the quotes brought me right back into some of these movies. The Three Kings quote (and the whole exchange it was taken from) in particular was hysterical, and I'd forgotten all about it.
It's just wrong to put Pacino above Eastwood on a "guy movies" list though, and above Newman on any list. :-)
You're very gracious. PACINO being ranked "above" EASTWOOD is merely a device to rank The Godfather #1 (where, hopefully, people would agree that it belongs.) [I actually think that STEVE BUSCEMI is mus macho than CHARLES BRONSON; he actually almost single-handedly de-maternalizes Fargo .] It is also a trick to get The Shawshank Redemption into the Top Ten. What testosterone I've managed to bank demands it. If you look at line count AND number of movies listed then EASTWOOD comes out very well (#1, #1).
The non-italicized movies are listed in order of "rank" and I'm not sure anymore how I did that: there are 120 movies. If you've seen all but six then that means that you've seen 95%... and are a manly man and the list is okay OR that you need some kind of help, perhaps an intervention. I cleverly punted on ranking the italicized movies that trail off of the aggregated rankings.
Old Yeller might get some extra consideration because it was hard to think of old movies that still held any relevance. Many "Guy Movies" do not seem to age particularly well...
...the same can be said for many guys.
But you've seen all of these, right? Maybe instead of an intervention for me we should have a support group. I'll bring the Meatloaf...
Regarding old movies that still have relevance AND are guy movies, there has to be a way to get Gregory Peck on here somewhere. After all, Atticus Finch was the manliest man of them all. Or does that go against the grain of a list that includes Sly, Ahnuld, and the odious Bad Boys (which really should have been called Bickering Boys)?
I have NOT seen all of these... ooh! before I forget again. I think that PAUL NEWMAN suffers from being too good an actor. I can't think of any other chest-thumping performances that aren't actually finely tuned and accessible to most. In the same vein I can't recall a single AL PACINO role where he isn't a tightly wound man's man, no matter what the movie. Hoo-ha! Let's remake Lethal Weapon where both characters are black Mel Gibsons, let's make Bad Boys! [The sequel really shoulda been named "Worse Boys"... or "Save Your Money".]
My interpretation of what a "Guy Movie" is involves the exclusion of Gals. Movies that leave women cold and unmoved. Movies that guys will actually consent to watching together without feminine accompaniment. Movies that aren't porn, that is.
So I've seen fewer of the movies here than you have. I don't feel that this is any reflection upon my character. I do feel that I can parse out a movie if I've seen the trailer ("In a world...") or a commercial for it on TNT... or heard a lot of the lines delivered badly by friends and well-wishers. My claim is that this makes my opinion no less sagacious, it's just ill-founded and ill-gotten. Besides, I'm used to defending positions that I do not believe in and know nothing about. I'm exceedingly capable of intellectual Benedict Arnoldment.
As for Gregory Peck: great guy role model... not so good on the Guy-ness factor. Every woman I've met want to be thought of as Scout. I haven't seen How the West was Won but I'm perfectly willing to nominate it for #121 or something. Cape Fear was a regretful cut and thinking about The Boys from Brazil leads me into regretting the absence of Marathon Man . And who needs that?
Regarding older guy movies, I think the problem is that the old guy movies that really had no appeal to women were the ones with little artistic merit, and hence have been forgotten to the ages, whereas the old guy movies with artistic merit appeal to women because, well, they're classics. And also because they couldn't put as much nudity and violence in them, because they're older.
For example, I could make the argument that The Maltese Falcon is a guy movie. But it's also an established classic, and women like this movie as well. So maybe it's not as much a guy movie as much as, say, Animal House, but I still think it's a guy movie.
That said, many movies on here from the past 40 years have already become classics (The Godfather, for example), and women like those as well. So maybe The Maltese Falcon could find a place on here, along with some other classics I'd probably call guy movies (Double Indemnity, Touch of Evil, Duck Soup, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Paths of Glory, The Searchers, etc.)
Please, "old Guy Movies" lest you make me think of Grumpier Old Men . I think that there are a bunch of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Marion Morrison even John Huston movies that used to be masculine magnetic, remain good/great today and still have little appeal for women. Let's take your example. Out of the commonly recognized Bogart Canon, The Maltese Falcon would race The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to the bottom of the list for the estrogenic. The film is commonly recognized as great but does anyone watch it in their underwear, drinking beer, with their buds, etc.? Sorry to paint a picture of the quadrophonitipical male but if women can have "three hankie movies" then men should have... something snips and snails and puppy-dog tails.
Belches. We'll go with belches. For now. "Three belch movies."
Nobody quotes The Maltese Falcon anymore and most people who quote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre think that they're quoting Blazing Saddles . The emotional bond with Casablanca remains for both sexes. If I had to pick a Bogie movie that retains some of its guy-power it's The Caine Mutiny . But it still doesn't retain much. I think that Guy Movies are fairly ephemeral. Once "You're the disease and I'm the cure" totally fades from memory then Cobra will slither to a well-deserved death. I do think that a majority of the movies made before The Shawshank Redemption can be considered "classics".
So I suppose that I'm saying that old Guy Movies fade rapidly in Guy Esteem ( The Ballad of the Green Berets ? anyone? anyone? Ferris Bueller's Day Off ?) even if they are classics. They virtually never pick up in Gal Esteem. Eventually the wheat is seperated from the chaff but by then both have lost their yeastiness.
I would love to hear your case for The Maltese Falcon and my beloved Bogie. Whatever it is: I'm sure I'll buy into it.
I think the most evidently guyish part of the movie is the ending, so I'll start off with some spoilers: A couple of my female friends have told me that girls have a rule "Chicks before dicks." Guys don't really have that general rule, but if they did, The Maltese Falcon would exemplify it. In the end, Bogart gives up the love of a beautiful woman and sends her to rot in prison because she killed his buddy. If that's not a Monumental Act in Male Bonding, I don't know what is. And we thought he didn't care about Miles based on what seemed like apathy when he initially heard about his death! Nah, Bogart's just like most men - he's unwilling to show his emotions at times like that.
Add that to the fact that, most of the time, Humphrey Bogart just exudes guyness, what with his macho demeanor, his "tough guy" dialogue, and the fact that he was a chick magnet despite not being particularly attractive and certainly not in touch with his feelings. Plus you've got a great portrayal of the criminal underbelly of the area, including a crew of dastardly oddballs like Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. C'mon, where else but in a guy movie could you hear the line, "I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But if you lose a son, it's possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon."
Guys may not sit around drinking beer while admiring Huston's directorial mastery, but The Maltese Falcon will always be a four-belch movie in my book.
So do you feel any compunction to go out and rent any of the six movies missing from your educational upbringing?
Good news! An exhaustive examination has revealed that there are really EIGHT movies on this list I have not seen:
Old Yeller
Airheads
Easy Rider
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Convoy
Rollerball
Christmas Vacation
Serpico
... I'm not particularly eager to see any of these, but feel free to lobby.
Furthermore, there are five I'm sure I've seen, but really don't remember. All likely worthy of a rewatch:
Full Metal Jacket
The Longest Yard
Patton
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Escape from Alcatraz
Warnings and/or exhortations welcome!
Hey! Good Buddy... if you're receptive to seeing a movie based on a three-and-a-half minute song then it's gotta be Convoy . What can I say, mortification loves company.
You are very brave to allow lobbying, considering the amount of unsolicited influence peddling aimed at you. But the illusion of democracy is irresistible. So...
Airheads goes down so easy. A throwback to the comedies of the 80s where everything is usually resolved with a big dance party in the street (in front of the school, next to the radio station, whatever.) The cast is tres fantastique with Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Michael McKean, Judd Nelson, Ernie Hudson, David Arquette, Michael Richards (sucking here) and Joe Mantegna all synchronized by the director of Heathers (yeah!), Hudson Hawk (boo!) and The Truth about Cats and Dogs (umm?) The best synopsis that I've heard calls this movie "Dog Day Afternoon meets Bill & Ted." Don't expect too much and you'll be rewarded.
Rollerball is one of the worst conceived movies ever. It is so glorious when everything in it works. I don't know how they did it... an SF film about roller-derby. That's just not fair.
Serpico is a real movie and I think I really enjoyed it. I used to get it confused with The French Connection and if I could remember why then I wouldn't have confused them in the first place.
Full Metal Jacket is a genuine film. George C. Scott is towering in Patton (you'll remember as soon as you see it.) Escape From Alcatraz is perfectly paced (read: slow) but still an enjoyable watch. Christmas Vacation is a return to form? for Chevy Chase and the Vacation series. Waitaminute! You've missed 2 out of 7 of the Eastwood movies? No Josey Wales: it's The Bridges of Madison County Director's Cut for you, just go limp. Pat Garrett has Bob Dylan. The Longest Yard reminds you how Burt Reynolds became famous enough to have his own dinner theater. Stay away from Old Yeller until you have kids you want to traumatize. And stay away, period, from Easy Rider. It has not aged gracefully. And THAT, in approximate order, is what I'm lobbying for. Bonne chance.
...catch you on the flip-flop.
When you say that's in rough order, that means Airheads is #1 (of the ones I haven't seen), not Convoy, right? In any case, of the movies I haven't seen, it gets the nod ("best Adam Sandler movie", somebody said). For the really-should-rewatchers, it's Full Metal Jacket.
As for kids, I do have a couple (there's a photo of one of 'em around here somewhere), but none that I'm willing to traumatize (yet).
I was going to try Rollerball too, but somehow I was unable to screw my courage to the sticking place.
Stick the knife in.
And get your significant other some Lava.
Do you want a Good movie or a Guy movie?
Good: Full Metal Jacket ( Patton , 1st runnerup)
Guy: Rollerball ( Convoy, 1st runnerup).
Best of Both Worlds: Airheads.
Rollerball
Courage glue: James Caan, Norman Jewison and John Houseman.
Courage solvent: Roller-derby in the year 2018.
Ignore the 2002 remake, full of sound and fury, it signifies nothing.
When your drumming circle has a couple hours to give away I'd break out Convoy.
You'll either hate it or hate loving it.
That's the sweetest type of crazy love.
Did you know that Tolkien was unsatisfied by Shakespeare's treatment of Birnam Wood? The Ents sprung out of his desire to write of trees going off to war.
I didn't know that about Sir JRR; very interesting, thanks!
My courage is a small and amorphous thing, and sheds glue readily due to a oily turpentinish sheen. Still, I may try the original Rollerball, if for no other reason than to see what it signifies (which it must, if the condemnation of the '02 version is that it signifies nothing).
Hey, what a great list, but there's mighty stank movies here...Robocop 2 (woofmeister B), Tango & Cash and Rocky III...etc. I hope that's not a slight on man-watching or man-taste.
I have seen these...all of them...down to the last stinker. I'm a MAN. };?]
But why is it here? My evil plan to have you post a list has been foiled by inter-post posting. Ouch. Odysseus yer the man...er...woman.
T'ho
:?)
(I remember liking Robocop 2, especially the scene where they were showing the video of failed next-gen Robocops. C'mon man, directed by Irvin Kershner, still showing those Empire chops! (he says parenthetically, banking on nobody really reading parenthetical statements).)
You the man.
What did Sylvester Stallone ever do to you? Aside from Rhinestone ? And Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot ... and Demolition Man . Also Judge Dredd . Look! this isn't about assessing blame. I totally agree that some of these movies couldn't even be fed to your dog. "Best" in this case does NOT mean "Greatest." NOR, thankfully, does it mean "Favorite." I think it means "the most guy-erific" in appeal. In some cases this is a matter of degree.
With the exception of Sarah Vowell I have never heard a woman reference The Godfather . It may be one of the finer films ever made but chicks just don't dig it. The chick percentage is much higher for The Shawshank Redemption but guys far outstrip them in emotional devotion to this movie. It is the male equivalent of Titanic .
A fair amount of movies get by on their impact upon guy-culture. How can you dis Rocky III when it unleashed the twin evils of Mr. T and Hulk Hogan upon the land? I actually love Clubber Lang. "What's your prediction for the fight?" "My prediction? Pain." The quote I used above should evoke vivid memories of a land far off and a time long ago. People forget that Cobra gave us "You're the disease, and I'm the cure" as well as unleashing Brigitte Nielsen's ...err, twin evils.
I enjoyed Robocop 2 and I refuse to admit that I liked it. The little league team robbing the electronics store, the imitable Weller line (to a huuuge Robocop 2) "You're coming with me, Cain" and the great fight up the elevator shaft. "Guy-ish"? I say "Guy-est"!
Yes, it was an "Evil Plan." I much prefer to have a conversation with you (and anyone else who chooses to drop by) about something that interests you (as well as me.) This is opposed to trying to start up conversations on topics that might not interest anyone but me. It also avoids a lot of the meaningless, post-count-pumping responses like "I agree" that drive me 'round the bend. Keep on scheming.
Well, he did give us The Wachowski Brothers... okay, so that's a mixed bag.
I think it's an interesting indicator to go to the IMDB and, where it says User rating, click on the stars and see the male / female breakdown. That's usually a pretty good indicator of when movies generally appeal more to males or more to females. The Godfather does have a significant difference, but women still seem to love this movie. It may be 13 places lower on the top rated movies by females list than on the top rated movies by males list, but the 14th-greatest movie is still pretty damn good.
Interestingly enough, LOTR: ROTK is the highest-rated film for women, and its user rating is also .3 points higher for women than men. Funny, I never thought of Return of the King as a chick flick.
Nice! Nothing like evidence to help things. Just a cursory glance over your examples (and I will be digging harder later, I hope) and this jumps out at me.
Total # of votes. I assume that on IMDB (as in all things internet) males predominate. I'd love to know the OVERALL ratio of male to female votes. But for your individual movies... M/F:
Dirty Dancing 01.88
Shichinin no Samurai 11.89
The Godfather 07.44
So males outvote females on a chick flick by almost two-to-one, on SnS by almost twelve-to-one and Godfather almost seven-and-a-half-to-one. People vote with their mouse-feet so I think that more study is necessary. I think it is telling that the ratings for Dirty Harry are close (7.7/7.4) but the ratio is an amazing 13.24.
To pick a movie from 50 Chick Flicks etc.:
When Harry Met Sally (7.6/7.9) 03.29
To pick a girlie-girl-girl flic off the top of my head:
Beaches (5.8/7.1) 01.73!
There's a mighty big rabbit in those bushes.
The Shawshank Redemption ratings are virtually identical (8.9/8.8) with a ratio of "only" 06.05 After further review I may have to turn myself around on that. must do more research
Yeah, I'm not sure why so many more men than women are voting on pretty much every movie. I'm also not sure why the women that do vote very frequently are the ones that don't think much of The Seven Samurai.
BTW, calling a film a "chick flick" is definitely a judgement call, but there are some films on stooky's list that have better male ratings than female ratings on the IMDB, sometimes even embarrassingly so (though the ratio is a good 7 and a quarter). Films such as Out of Sight or Groundhog Day are ones I would probably call more non-gender-biased than anything else.
I see nothing embarassing... unless it is crying into your popcorn.
I've thought about it and I'm going to have to refect IMDB's ratings by gender. There's too much male traffic/voting and it swamps the female input. I suspect that this means that the female ratings are too extreme. That is, only women who really love or really hate a movie will vote on it.
There are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics.
I do know that the traffic differential makes the female ratings less stable. 100 votes of ** for Godfather II will drag down the female rating substantially because it will be 2% of the women's vote. 100 male votes of ** would have virtually no effect as it is only .26% of the total male vote.
Remember: 37% of all statistics are wrong.
So I am going to stick with a qualitative analysis and go with my heaving guts. You can't tell me that Commando's ratings of 5.6*s Male and 5.9*s Female are right. If Commando isn't a guy movie than I don't want to be right.
I want to thank you for taking it to the hole with the evidence, I love it when people do that. But,I think that the IMDB *-ratings can be an illuminating tool but are too imprecise/subjective to be a definitive tool.
Yeah, you're right, they're not always precise enough to be reliable. But I think some of it is very telling. The huge chasm between the male and female scores for Dirty Dancing, for example.
I think you're being needlessly modest (or reticent? maybe self-effacing?) about citing IMDB ratings. I think that (almost) all of them do mean/signify something. But it's not always the same something. Because we don't know what kind of voting pool these *star* ratings come out of it is difficult to pin meaning on any individual stat.
Is it ratio of votes/traffic for a film [M/F ratio: Dirty Harry =13.24 - Beaches =01.73]
Could it be the *star* ratings broken down by sex [your citation of L'Atalante (M*/F* is 7.5/6.1)]
Or is it the number of total votes for a film and how recent it is [ L'Atalante (551/76) from 1934 is probably low enough to be statistically dubious while The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (49167/10147) is probably too recent to avoid being overrated]
But then it could be relative rankings [ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is at #8 for women but clocks in at #191! when you combine M+F votes - Pulp Fiction is #9 for men, #14 overall but not even in the Top 50! for women!]
I'd have to break out some of my old mathematics books to figure out what the heck IMDB's true Bayesian estimate means: weighted rank (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C
So I think you're exactly right that this means something. But what it means seems to change on a case-by-case basis... that is, if you can trust any ratings system that doesn't have Casablanca #1.
Most of the same movies show up on both sides. The difference being a serious reduction in blatantly sex oriented films, such as "Pulp Fiction" or "Beaches". Films which inspire hatred in the opposite sex (although, secretly, I kinda like Beaches. I'm a sucker for corny melodrama).
T'ho
:?)
It's Viggo's hair.
:?)
We love good men who are faithful to their women and get the job done in the end, while looking really, really good.
How succinct you are Rosie. Well put.
T'ho
:?)
They don't even have to look that good, either. For example, the character Andy Sipowicz, on NYPD Blue, played by Dennis Franz, is not a hottie in the traditional sense of the word, but women love him.
The man looks almost like a mole, just stating a personal opinion here.
I remember that year that Dennis made the top 50 sexiest men...talk about a shocker.
Working men are sexy thangs! :?)
T'ho
:?)
I agree. (snicker snicker snicker)
Good points indeed, the "guy-est" thingamajibly alerts me to the fact that you aren't calling these films stellar when you say "Best". Which begs the question; WHY NO RAMBO II? Certainly the guyest guyfest ever to see the light of day. It's sickening how man-manipulative that movie is...yet I like it...or should I say that my id likes it.
My sister likes "The Godfather". Titanic is an adrogynous mustarpiece of dual-sex advertising.
Robocop 2, let me type this only once and then never again, is stupider than a can o yams, more blatantly violent that any movie need be and more monotonously dorky than both the Revenge Of The Nerds films together...or was there 3. It's a crass, soulless, hyper-dumb cinematic crap...and I don't like the smell o poop!
T'ho
:?)
Would you leave poor Sly alone? What'll it take? A walk-on in Rocky VI? Director's Cut of The Specialist ? Rambo is up there. If I wasn't so lazy I woulda referred to it as Rambo: First Blood Part II . Then there was "Rambo III" where Rambo goes to Afghanistan even though he's a Buddhist now...? That can't be right. I actually thought that First Blood was a passable movie. Passable like a kidney stone at some times, but passable. Then Jim Cameron got his hands on the Rambo script and Sly got some free passes to Bally's.
I believe I agree with you about Robocop 2 , you've summed up its quaint attraction for boys quite succinctly. Revenge of the Nerdses! How could I have forgotten? I'm not sure either of them woulda made it but they never even crossed my mind. Lucky, lucky mind. And now I'm ruminating upon Real Genius and Weird Science ... bad mind! Bad, bad mind!
I am certainly NOT calling these films stellar, although some of them obviously are. But c'mon: Convoy ? I like to think that I have better taste than that and I've seen the movie five times so I should know just how awful it is.
Now I have one thing on my mind...what in all perdition would cause someone to watch Convoy 5 times?
(Stook thinks up plausible reasons could be: I had a momentary loss of bodily function and had the DVD on repeat/ Somebody thought it would be fun to play a little Clockwork Orange type prank/ A deep abiding sexual attraction to Kris Kristofferson (huh?))
Rambo III also had the pro-talibanisms, don't forget that (although Sly probably is).
I llooooooooooooooooooooooove Real Genius (seen it 10 times and proud of it), Some people say I look like Val Kilmer. Generally right after I tell them to.
I saw a man buy 5 Sly Stallone DVD's for 117.00 at A&B Sound a week ago. I couldn't help thinking, what a waste of brain cells, not to mention money. I only say this because Rumbo Dew was one of these.
They should release the rambo DVD's speacially scented with Sly's BO.
I'm glad you agree with Robomop Too. Now on to the next subject, why no Troma movies...not even The Toxic Avenger?
T'ho
:?)
It was the song, man, the song! If only they coulda worked some ninjas into the plot and some Carl Douglas on the soundtrack... mint. So trust me, after the first three times the next couple of viewings are easy. As for why no Troma? -- There's no room for irony in Guy Movies, not even the cheap alanis-type. These movies should all be pretty earnest in their filmaking. Besides, I think of Troma movies as being targetted at intelligent nouveau nerds, not "Guys."
Who would have thought? It figures...
"intelligent nouveau nerds" aren't guys?
"no room for Irony in guy movies"
I'm starting to feel insulted. ;?)
It's tough being a guy in this day and age.
The song? my goodness Id've never thought it would be "We're gonna get this little convoy across the country...tonight...CONVOY CONVOY CONVOY CONVOY". Oh my hurtin' head.
I used to watch "Hackers" a lot just to see Jolie do her funky stuff (she can really use them joysticks (snicker)), so you're not alone.
T'ho
:?)
Mercy sakes alive! Looks like we got us a convoy...
According to my Venn diagram all "intelligent nouveau nerds" are "Guys" but not all "Guys" are "intelligent nouveau nerds."
Earnestness Goes to Camp Ness, cynicism, sarcasm, sexism (oh lord, the rampant sexism), brainlessism and so on all have their place in Guy Town, USA. I have trouble thinking of macho movies that employ irony no matter how many times they are quoted ironically. Yo? Adrian?
Keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your... tail.
Sorry about the late reply I've been "manning it up". :?)
Sure, use the old "you can fool some of the people"... But have you ever considered that men could just be hiding their spongy and soft underbelly. Kinda like Arnie in "Twins" a androginous chickman-flick with an ironic visual joke.
I only have to point out Woody Allen, women generally hate his films and they contain all the above...cynicism, sarcasm, sexism, dumb humour. Now a case could be made that men hate Woody Allen films too but that would just be argueing a futile point since most people hate Woody, the larger group of non-haters would be men.
But also and more imporantly is Mel Brooks, bastion of all things ironic in man-film. Blazing Saddles being the perfect example...every guy loves it and it has all of 'em with a little bit of racial stereotyping thrown in to boot.
And what about "The Matrix", the ironic part being that Keanu Reeves is a digital messiah named Neo. (that's a gut-buster right there)
Then there are chick-flicks that no woman will like such as W.R.: Mysteries Of The Organism (1971) which features all the above listed attributes (sexism, etc.) but is definately geared towards women.
It's a complicated movie universe out there.
This post is a free-ranger. (snicker)
T'ho
:?)
Okay, you lost me.
My conception of "Guy-ness" ("Guy-nicity"?) in popular culture excludes traditional feminine values. Actively excludes or benignly neglects womanly themes. I didn't mean to say that being earnest, cynical, sarcastic, sexist or brainless are threshold conditions for a "Guy Movie". I think that you're saying the same thing when you cite Woody Allen's work which has many of those ingredients and would never be considered a "Guy Movie". Unless you are over sixty, narcassistic, urban, Jewish and have Walter Mitty fantasies about women less than half your age.
I don't understand how Mel Brooks is "ironic". I think that for a movie to be ironic there must be at least one character with some self-awareness to recognize irony. His movies strike me as warm-heartedly straightforward. [what a horrible turn of phrase that was] There is nothing ironic in the campfire scene of Blazing Saddles and the rest of his stuff is a variation on similar themes.
I had never heard of W.R. - Misterije organizma before but, having looked it up on IMDB, I can't imagine anyone liking it... Guy or Gal.
It is a complicated movie universe...
I must appologize for the thunderous brain-fart I unleashed on listology yesterday. It was a massive vortex of confusing posts.
My badly made points aside (and the possibility that I answered a question not even posed) I was talking about Blazing Saddles. Irony as explained by Dic.com is "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs", or at least that's 1 of 5 covering all facets of the eplanation.
Ponder for a second the ending:
The film ends with an absurd brawl between the good guys and the bad guys. The film parodies itself when the camera pulls back to show that the film is being shot on a present-day Hollywood set in the middle of Los Angeles. In an adjoining soundstage on the lot, a pseudo-Busby Berkeley musical number ("The French Mistake") with an all-gay cast of men in black tuxedos and top hats is being directed by an effeminate choreographer named Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise). The song they sing is overtly gay, and hints at anal sex:
Throw out your hands
Stick out your tush
Hands on your hips
Give 'em a push
You'll be surprised
You're doing the French Mistake!
Voila!
Bizarre yells "Cut" and "Wrong!" He criticizes the dancers and demands that they watch his own flawed demonstration: "Just watch me. It's so simple, you sissy Marys! Give me the playback! And watch me, faggots." The cast responds with a lisp: "Yessssssssssssssssss!" to which Buddy replies: "Sounds like steam escaping."
The chaotic fighting from the Blazing Saddles set bursts through the wall, bringing two conflicting film genres together. Buddy Bizarre yells for the action to stop:
Bizarre: Cut! What in the hell do you think you're doing here? This is a closed set!
Taggart: Piss on you. I'm workin' for Mel Brooks. [He cocks his fist back.]
Bizarre: Not in the face! [Taggart punches him in the stomach.]
The fighting degenerates with both casts getting into the act. The brawl is about to spill over into the studio's commissary where bikini clad actresses, a Hitler-look-alike (Ralph Manza), and others are eating. The Adolph Hitler character responds to a question about how many days he has left: "They lose me right after the bunker scene." As the place erupts in fighting (sped-up frantically), every actor and extra at the studios soon joins in the 'great pie fight' - a massive food fight [pie fights were typical of the classic slapstick comedies of early cinema]. When Taggart is slid down the commissary food counter, he becomes covered in food - and is charged by the cashier for everything splattered on him:
Yankee bean soup, cole slaw, and tuna surprise.
The mob of brawlers at the studios of Warner Bros. Pictures empties into the streets of Los Angeles. Still dressed as Hedley Lamarr, Harvey Korman (with a white-face of pie cream) hails a yellow taxi to escape the mob of fighting cowboys. As he jumps in, he asks the cabbie: "Drive me off this picture." Cleavon Little, still dressed as Bart, follows close behind in pursuit on horseback.
Lamarr is driven to Grauman's Chinese Theatre [in downtown Hollywood - famous for the cement footprints of film celebrities] where the marquee flashes the current film Blazing Saddles. To hide and escape from Bart, he pays for one full admission to the film after failing to convince the attendant that he is a student. A female tourist remarks to her husband as she tries out the footprints of actress Hedy Lamarr: "Look, Herman, I'm in Hedy Lamarr's shoes!" Hedley corrects her as he passes by: "Hedley." In the lobby of the theatre are noisy, bleating cattle as he purchases Raisinettes at the candy counter.
As the film begins to play with the familiar opening song, Lamarr suddenly realizes that he is going to be viewing Blazing Saddles and he exits in disgust. Outside, he is outdrawn in a gunfight with Bart and shot in the groin. As Lamarr falls and dies in front of the theatre, he studies the cement imprints (hand and feet) of Douglas Fairbanks:
How did he do such fantastic stunts with such little feet?
He lands in fresh cement - before he expires, he scratches out his own name followed by a dollar sign in the wet cement for his own epitaph. Bart and the Waco Kid enter the theatre to see the end of the film, both wishing for a happy ending.
A parody of a film genre is generally expected to gently (or harshly) mock the films it parodies. The film however makes a 180 degree turn and goes into Felliniesque territory. It's just plain weird.
I'm thinking there's a middle ground between guy and girl movie populated by the semi-adroginous weirdos. I think that was the point I was trying to make.
Liking WR may be hard to do, although it had a certain bizzaro entertainment value. I would be inclined to say it was made more for a female audience. It's not actually as repugnant as it sounds, just very VERY weird.
T'ho
:?)
i'm sorry... i can never accept or entertain the idea that bull durham is a chick flick... big doesn't really make sense as a chick flick either but at least i see your reasoning... bull durham always will be and is about the church of baseball... not exactly chick flick.
Chickus Flicicus to be more precise.
I a mere manly mortal but even I wouldn't say "Big" was manly, it's all emotionally cloying and dripping with everything women find engorgingly fascinating.
And isn't that the pleasure of Bull Durham...it's got all the aspects of a good chick flick. Emotionally reticent man saved by woman's loins, Young stud given experience by woman's loins, Strong men faltering and eventually succumbing to woman's loins. It's all about the loin-whipping, hence women love it. But there's an undercurrent of manly odour in which male bonding, swearing, spitting, talking about sex...a lot and possibly the longest compound swear word in history add tang to the feminine gumbo. But I have to ere on the side of chick since nothing blows up and people are not shot many times while flimsy objects block the return fire.
The church of baseball has become a womanly thing, just look at Roberto Alomar. (snicker snicker) (stook fishes for more discussion in order to hit the 70 post mark)
T'ho
:?)
I love the list. After all, you're only a man.
As for Bull Durham, forget "Church of Baseball... a guy will listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay." What did it for me was the "long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." As for men, I think that any baseball movie has some appeal. Yes, even A League of Their Own .
But "engorgingly", "loins", "feminine gumbo"? These do not strike me as chick qualities. (Besides which, we refer to it as "womanly bisque".) Do you divide all movies into either Chick Flick or Guy Movie categories? Is it the binary choice EXPLOSIONS/NOT EXPLOSIONS? Or it might just be that my middle ground is much wider than yours (but my hips are narrow.) This could account for your take on W.R. - Misterije organizma (which I don't understand but also refuse to see.) "Dripping," yes. "Cloying," no.
Dude, you got a great thing going. If you love it, set it free, it will come back to you, don't post fish if it doesn't. I have to say that I love the quality of the discourse above. It's quality AND quantity (and the motion of the ocean, not the line count tally.) "You're so money and you don't even know it!"
I have to say that "loin-whipping" evokes very unpleasant images including that of a dyslexic Siegfried & Roy... perhaps that should be "Sigerfied & Ory." Speaking of dyslexia: I thought you were making the case for womanly baseball by citing Pedro Almodóvar. That would certainly make me cry, only, "There's no crying in baseball!"
Wait, you've given me a bizarre idea that goes something like this...
Hey, engorgingly is a great word meaning to devour greedily...amongst other things.
"Womanly bisque" will replace "feminine gumbo" in any future posts. :?)
When it comes right down to it, I see three genres: Manly, Womanly, and Androginous. That's how the it crumbles for me, cookie wise. Don't judge WR solely (and yes that is the extension of "sole" no matter how strange it looks) on the speaking, decapitated woman's head. :?)
You're advocating catch and release and I tend to agree, but it's so hard not to shoot for the moon when the stars seem so close. (sappy stook, woohoo)
much appreciated. Pedro Almodovar? which for some reason reminds me of "Jamon Jamon", a movie about the size of ham...among other things. :?)
T'ho
:?)
P.S.: Link in above post deleted as the idea, after some thought, wasn't that great. :?)
alright i guess the difference in opinion is that you think if it's not a guy movie it's a chick flick, and i think that there are guy movies, chick flicks, and movies that are niether. as you can recall i never said bull durham was a guy movie... but i said it just wasn't a chick flick... and i think of big more as a kid movie for grownups than a chick flick
I would say it was a kid flick, but it's got that whole romantic relationship thing right in the middle. Obviously not for the little people (unless they are little because of genetics), my opinion only. Somebody needs to make a good kid flick list.
:?" <--- pondering stook
so many posts it may have been mentioned... but no "as good as it gets"... definitly chick flick and nicholson is still entertaining.
Good point, and it almost made the list...except for the reaction of most men to the end of the film. A case could be made, but I'm excluding it for "fidgeting men" reasons.
T'ho
:?)
understandable
I propose a subtitle:
Or How I Learned to Come to Terms With My Latent Homosexuality