Great list. I have seen several movies on your list. Definitely will have to see the ones I haven't seen. I was happy to see "The Warriors" on your list. I think it is a great movie. I really should get a copy of it if I can. Another great one I liked on your list was "Big Trouble in Little China."
You're welcome. It shows that you put a lot of thought and energy into it. It would take me awhile to make such a list as well. T be focused on modern action would be hard. A lot of movies have action, but fit better under other genres.
Great list, Christian! Concur with pretty much all of the entries. I might swap out Point Blank for the The Getaway (1972) which is better IMO, but Point Blank is a good movie, too. And Magnum Force is definitely the BEST Dirty Harry movie - it is head and shoulders above the first one, which suffers a bit (in retrospect) from some very bad acting by almost the entire cast except Eastwood. Magnum Force however, as you rightly point out, has great performances across the board. And it's themes hold up incredibly well - we certainly don't ever have to worry about police death squads in the US, do we? 😑
The Getaway is great and given how much I mentinoned Sam Peckinpah it was a natural fit. That would have meant pushing aside one of the other Walter Hill films since he wrote the screenplay for that one and I couldn't decide whether to drop The Warriors or Streets of Fire.
I wanted to have the connection to the male targeting magazines and fiction and the Parker novels were a good place to start.
Great list! I don't know if you consider Rollerblade an action movie, in case that would be worth to be mentioned. Then, if we talk of Kurt Russell I definitely prefer Escape from NY than Big trouble in little China (but that's a matter of taste I think)!
You mean "Rollerball" right? With James Caan? I guess you would technically call that a science fiction movie because it's set in the future. However, if you need a James Caan movie, you could put "Thief" in there, which is a great fucking movie.
I look back on the critical dismissal of Big Trouble in Little China at the time as a generational flaw in film criticism, and one example among many of young me thinking critics just don't get it, and I needed to be one to set them straight.
That aside, I feel like this list vindicates another point I made in the thread -- that Walter Hill and the Dirty Harry movies were key pivot points from "gritty cop drama" to "modern action."
I was inspired by that comment and rewatched the Dirty Harry saga and a number of Walter Hill films. I've been a big fan of his for a long time, but I was impressed again with how influential his films have been He's not a name a lot of cineastes mention, and yet his films are consistently strong and influential.
The Dirty Harry films are definitely a shift from the procedurals of prior eras. I've been reading Ed McBain's 87th Precinct stories, which are closer to Concrete Jungle, and the difference is striking. Dirty Harry is action, while those are very much about the work. Ironically, or not so ironically, Brooklyn 99 is a solid adaptation (with humor) or what Evan Hunter was aiming for with the series (that's McBain's real name).
My dad understood Walter Hill pretty early on. I think S. Craig Zahler comes close these days, but because audiences have changed and don't like morally compromised heroes as much, there's a tendency to think he endorses everything he depicts. I don't know; maybe he does. but i come away from his films, like Hill's thinking that even those who defend us against the worst of the worst have themselves made metaphorical deals with the devil and sacrifice some of their own humanity.
Zahler's great. He's a bit more brutal (Uwais/Taslim/Roth influence?) than Hill, but Cell Block and Bone Tomahawk were very strong and yeah, I don't think he is arguing that the defenders of humanity remain human. There is a definite sacrifice.
Great list. I have seen several movies on your list. Definitely will have to see the ones I haven't seen. I was happy to see "The Warriors" on your list. I think it is a great movie. I really should get a copy of it if I can. Another great one I liked on your list was "Big Trouble in Little China."
Thanks. I put a lot of work into this one. I started working on it a month ago and then watched a lot of movies.
You're welcome. It shows that you put a lot of thought and energy into it. It would take me awhile to make such a list as well. T be focused on modern action would be hard. A lot of movies have action, but fit better under other genres.
Great list, Christian! Concur with pretty much all of the entries. I might swap out Point Blank for the The Getaway (1972) which is better IMO, but Point Blank is a good movie, too. And Magnum Force is definitely the BEST Dirty Harry movie - it is head and shoulders above the first one, which suffers a bit (in retrospect) from some very bad acting by almost the entire cast except Eastwood. Magnum Force however, as you rightly point out, has great performances across the board. And it's themes hold up incredibly well - we certainly don't ever have to worry about police death squads in the US, do we? 😑
The Getaway is great and given how much I mentinoned Sam Peckinpah it was a natural fit. That would have meant pushing aside one of the other Walter Hill films since he wrote the screenplay for that one and I couldn't decide whether to drop The Warriors or Streets of Fire.
I wanted to have the connection to the male targeting magazines and fiction and the Parker novels were a good place to start.
Well you definitely can't drop "The Warriors" - that is an epic! LOL
Great list! I don't know if you consider Rollerblade an action movie, in case that would be worth to be mentioned. Then, if we talk of Kurt Russell I definitely prefer Escape from NY than Big trouble in little China (but that's a matter of taste I think)!
May the fun be always at your table!
You mean "Rollerball" right? With James Caan? I guess you would technically call that a science fiction movie because it's set in the future. However, if you need a James Caan movie, you could put "Thief" in there, which is a great fucking movie.
I look back on the critical dismissal of Big Trouble in Little China at the time as a generational flaw in film criticism, and one example among many of young me thinking critics just don't get it, and I needed to be one to set them straight.
That aside, I feel like this list vindicates another point I made in the thread -- that Walter Hill and the Dirty Harry movies were key pivot points from "gritty cop drama" to "modern action."
I was inspired by that comment and rewatched the Dirty Harry saga and a number of Walter Hill films. I've been a big fan of his for a long time, but I was impressed again with how influential his films have been He's not a name a lot of cineastes mention, and yet his films are consistently strong and influential.
The Dirty Harry films are definitely a shift from the procedurals of prior eras. I've been reading Ed McBain's 87th Precinct stories, which are closer to Concrete Jungle, and the difference is striking. Dirty Harry is action, while those are very much about the work. Ironically, or not so ironically, Brooklyn 99 is a solid adaptation (with humor) or what Evan Hunter was aiming for with the series (that's McBain's real name).
My dad understood Walter Hill pretty early on. I think S. Craig Zahler comes close these days, but because audiences have changed and don't like morally compromised heroes as much, there's a tendency to think he endorses everything he depicts. I don't know; maybe he does. but i come away from his films, like Hill's thinking that even those who defend us against the worst of the worst have themselves made metaphorical deals with the devil and sacrifice some of their own humanity.
Zahler's great. He's a bit more brutal (Uwais/Taslim/Roth influence?) than Hill, but Cell Block and Bone Tomahawk were very strong and yeah, I don't think he is arguing that the defenders of humanity remain human. There is a definite sacrifice.