Watching a movie on Netflix called Safe with Jason Statham (which is pretty awesome for what it is). Anything to get the taste of that Pens shitshow out of my mouth. At any rate, I think I have decided Statham is one of my favorite action stars. Any time I see his name in something, I’ll watch it, with the logic being “Ehh, it may not be good, but if he is in it, it will be fun.”
I guess Daniel Craig and Matt Damon as Bourne were my most recent favorites, but I’ll always love Wesley in the first Blade. And of course all the cheesy Bruce Willis vehicles.
You know who else I like a lot- Anthony Starr in Banshee. Would love to see him in an action movie- guy just has dead eyes and a visceral sort of violence in his role in Banshee.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Meanwhile Wesley just got out of jail. When does he get back to work?
Biscuits
Me too!
PsiFighter37
I liked Casino Royale, but I could leave Quantum of Solace and Skyfall (especially the latter) – not impressed with those.
Bourne Identity was a bit slow, but the last 2 movies of that series was like fine wine for action movies. The mano e mano fight with the assassin in Morocco in the last movie? No soundtrack, just pure sweat and punching for 2-3 minutes straight – incredible fight scene. The new movie with Jeremy Renner was incredibly weak and a poor excuse to leverage the franchise name when it had zero to do with Bourne.
If you like action movies with Statham, you have to watch the Crank movies. The first one is absolutely perfect in just how nuts and crazy it is. The second isn’t as good as the first but is still pretty freakin’ nuts on its own.
PsiFighter37
I didn’t have any curse words or anything sexually explicit in that last post…why do the moderating gods hate me?
Ash
OT but any suggestions on how to handle flying? Currently on a plane and trying to think of ways not to freak out.
Allen
My wife certainly likes Statham. ;-)
It didn’t get universally good reviews, or universally bad (though more bad than good), but I *really* liked the reboot of “Death Race” that he was in. The Transporter movies are uniformly good, and the Crank movies are so over-the-top–particularly the second one–that they’re hard not to like for campy fun.
Hungry Joe
I mentioned this in an OT this morning, but I want to get it in again before the end of the day: Today, almost exactly a year after the hardcover, Simon & Schuster is publishing the paperback edition of my middle-grade novel Anyway*.
And that’ll be the last blowing of my own horn for the foreseeable future … and maybe for a while after that.
Mnemosyne
@Ash:
Unfortunately it won’t help you now, but noise-canceling headphones help a lot because you can’t hear all of the strange but completely normal noises the plane makes.
GregB
My favorite Statham flick is The Bank Job. Much more of a subtle acting job and much less bang-bang head beating action.
Good story, good cast.
pseudonymous in nc
You’ve seen The Bank Job, I hope. Not an action film, really — more a homage to British heist capers from the 60s and 70s, but very well done.
Violet
@PsiFighter37: Did you have a word related to an establishment where games of chance are played and money is frequently lost?
Redshirt
Arnold is the best action figure ever. Not a bad movie until the 2000’s. And yes I’m including Junior and Batman & Robin.
Walker
While the 80s (ah, the glory years of Golan Globus) were lousy with B-list action stars, Statham is really the only reliable such star in the past decade. Even the Hong Kong transplants (e.g. Jet Li) have not been in much since the early part of 2000s.
Mnemosyne
I somehow managed to make The Leftovers That Will Not Die. They started as beef-and-bean tacos, but then I had leftovers, so I decided to stir in some rice and salsa and make stuffed peppers. Now I seem to have the exact same volume of food left over after stuffing the peppers as much as I could. WTF?
Now I have to think of something to make with stuffed pepper filling. Preferably not something that requires me to mix in something else, or I’ll be back to square one.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Redshirt: Kindergarten Cop?
Hill Dweller
@Redshirt: I’ve always liked Predator.
jeffreyw
@Mnemosyne: I had the same leftovers from my burritos. I went with quesadillas.
waratah
I am a big fan of Jason Statham, The Bank Job is my favorite.
burnspbesq
So Wigan are in the Europa League for next year, even if they lose the FA Cup final and even if they get relegated. Sheesh. This is an almost Bushian example of failing up.
Svensker
@Ash:
Drink heavily?
It won’t help you now, but a friend of mine had real honest After the treatment, her fear pretty much went away…and before that, she had to dose herself with drugs and alcohol to a horrendous degree to be able to handle a flight.
ETA: Big hugs. It will be over soon and in the words of the saint, “All will be well and it will be well and all will be well.”
Redshirt
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Funny in parts. Watchable. “NOT A TUMOR!”
trollhattan
@waratah:
Going with the majority here that Stratham is great, has true screen presence. Jean Reno in his prime gave similar performances.
Also, too, rotating ad is Billy Graham. If only he knew the neighborhood.
burnspbesq
@Redshirt:
Naah. Ahhhhhnold is a cartoon character. Give me Chow Yun-Fat, an actual actor. The gun battle in the hospital at the end of “Hard-Boiled” is the best 25 minutes in the history of action movies.
Mike in NC
“Parker” got some decent reviews. If you want to see grim WW1 movies, check out Daniel Craig in “The Trench” or the horror flick “Deathwatch” on Netflix.
? Martin
@Ash:
Statistically, more people die annually asking questions on this blog than die in plane crashes.
Oh, wait…
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Redshirt: End of Days, the Last Action Hero, Jingle All the Way.
@burnspbesq: Hard-Boiled is one hell of a movie, really amazing.
some guy
just finished watching Parker, so so, but Statham is always fun to watch.
Redshirt
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Good, Great, and a fun, family friendly Christmas action romp!
I’ve seen Arnold’s very first movie – Hercules in New York. 1969. It’s outstanding. As in, maybe worst movie ever, but that’s the charm!
Billy K.
I don’t always want a stupid action movie, but when I do, I want Jason Statham in it.
jl
More on Cincinnati Amanda Berry kidnap rescue.
Interesting. Not sure whether this has been posted yet. Apologies if it has. Ramsey says he had to make two 911 calls. Says dispatcher did not believe him from the landline, so Ramsey calls back on a cell so he could tell them they had his number and to come on and get his ass if he was lying.
Scroll down to fourth video.
Charles Ramsey Interview
http://www.shabooty.com/2013/05/07/charles-ramsey-interview-hes-a-real-american-hero-autotuned-911-call.php
Local police say only two reports of anything at that house. Neighbors say very different. And the local police have been accused of not taking missing person and domestic abuse reports seriously (like maybe not enough to record them properly). (Edit: must be some indifferent people CYA-ing right now, who that would be, I don’t know)
I guess I am interested because local authorities here in SF Bay Area looked pretty sad after the Dugard kidnapping was solved.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Redshirt: You have found a variety of interesting ways to spell “terrible”.
Steeplejack
@Hungry Joe:
Dude, forget the publisher’s site. You need to point people to the Amazon page.
Publishers’ book pages are usually very stodgy and static; they throw up some marketing verbiage and never touch the page again. The Amazon page for your book has the same information–in a more accessible format–as well as links to reader reviews. And most of your potential readers probably have an Amazon account already.
Good luck with the book!
ETA: Speaking from my experience as a bookseller and a friend of several published authors.
Suffern ACE
@Redshirt: I’m sorry, dear, but you can’t state that Arnold never made a bad movie before 2000 and then state that he was in the worst movie ever made but that it was good anyway because it was so awful. If you like movies because they are awful, then how do we know that Arnold never made any bad movies? Perhaps he made the worst movies and you just like them because of that. That still doesn’t change the fact that his movies were bad.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
Cleveland, not Cincy. Dude should get lifetime Browns tickets, though he deserves much better.
@burnspbesq:
I suspect there will be a lot of bad football teams in the Europa League next year. Seems like all of the top leagues in Europe were down this year. Not exactly a golden age for any of ’em, anyway.
waratah
I just gave myself an early mothers day gift and now have
John Le Carre’s new novel A Delicate Truth on my IPad.
jl
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): oops. Sorry. Somehow I got in my head it was Cincinnati, Thanks.
dance around in your bones
@Ash:This is probably way too late but:
Flying never freaked me out, but I have had family members/friends who were nervous. I would tell them “Imagine you have entered a room that shakes about and wobbles a bit. Once you get off, you will be at your destination! No worries!”
In other words, don’t think about the flying part. Also, on very long flights a Valium and a double shot of Johnny Walker Black did me just fine. Flip up all the seat rests in the back row, grab a couple of pillows and blankies and you’re good to go to Delhi, or wherever.
eta: I will always watch a Jason Statham movie, even if I hate it. Like him.
Steeplejack
@Billy K.:
I agree with this statement. Statham got me to sit all the way through War (2007) last night. Jet Li and a script barely above Steven Seagal material.
Statham started off strong in ensemble pieces—Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch—and has made some good movies, but, man, he has also been in a lot of clunkers. Amazing that the junk hasn’t soiled his “brand.”
ETA: Damn it, the FYWP editor is screwing with two-hyphen dashes, converting them to en dashes rather than em dashes. Curses.
Origuy
@Violet:
No, he didn’t say anything about stock exchanges.
Ash
@Mnemosyne:
Actually it might be because takeoff has been stalled multiple times due technical difficulties/checks! Thanks, Air France! This is really not helping!
Ash
Just finished reading all the replies. Thank you all for being so helpful to some random guy on the net!
Mnemosyne
@Ash:
If it helps, 99 percent of the time “technical difficulties” means the air conditioning doesn’t work or the in-seat entertainment system is on the fritz.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Heh-heh, yeah, let him believe that.
YellowJournalism
Statham is one of the few true action movie stars out there under the age of 50.
Tried watching the Transporter TV series with hubby. Does not work. At. All. The lead actor does not have the charisma or reserve o Statham, let alone the sex appeal. I woul say that he comes off as more of a low-rent Daniel Craig, and that’s being generous.
Ash
This is turning into that Simpsons ep on Marges fear of flying.
Origuy
Air France? It’s probably due to the wine being chilled to the wrong temperature.
patrick II
This probably sounds strange, but Angeline Jolie is among my favorite action stars. Her action movies include “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”, “Tomb Raiders I and II”, “Wanted”, and my favorite of hers — “Salt.” “Salt 2” has been announced. She is a fine actress with a surprising physicality.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
True story from quite some years back.
Nighttime flight from Maui to somewhere on the mainland (1st leg of a trip to NY).
Upgrade to First Class.
Board the plane and get settled in. Notice the reading light over my seat isn’t working. Probably a burnt out bulb. Call over stewardess.
She rushes to the cockpit. Five minutes pass. Ten.
Returns to me, along with a member of the cockpit crew. Much bowing, scraping and apologizing later, given two offers:
(a) Taxi back to terminal, have the pilot call the airline office and request an engineer be rousted and flown over to Maui from Honolulu to work on it.
(b) Live with it and take off.
Preferring not to be lynched by the other passengers, opted for (b).
Ivan X
@PsiFighter37:
Beg to differ. To me, Crank: High Voltage is like Evil Dead 2. The original is awesome, but then the second one is the movie they remade really the way wanted now that they’d figured it out. It’s a freaking work of gutter art. It’s a vision.
The original is bonkers but still has some semblance of an action movie, and the second just dispenses with that entirely in favor of the most unrestrained excess imaginable. It blows the roof off. Maybe because I saw it before I saw the first one, and with knowing nothing anything about it (and more or less expecting a typical dumb action movie), that I love it more. If there’s any doubt, Mike Patton’s score in the second one seals the deal. Any movie that has a title card that says “9 seconds later” during a chase sequence, because it’s that ADD, is going to be my favorite movie.
? Martin
@NotMax: It’s the 1%’s world, we just live in it.
Baron Elmo
Soon as I read you were watching Safe, my immediate assumption was that you meant the 1995 Todd Haynes film that starred Julianne Moore as a meek, pampered rich wife who develops environmental illness… or does she? The Village Voice, if I recall correctly, tapped this for the best film of its decade in their critics’ poll. Easily one of the most subtly disturbing (and quietest) horror movies ever made, and currently out of print.
Then I saw Jason Statham was in the movie you saw and said “Oh, never mind.”
cosima
I’d say that cheesy action movies are his “brand” — and I like it. Much more than the action movies that try to be legit but end up trying too hard.
I’d watch Jason Statham in anything. Anything. Some of my best dreams feature Statham… hate it when I wake up from those.
The Mechanic is really good. Less of the cheese factor, more serious, still great. We own them all, as my husband is an action film addict, and I’m a JS addict, so his are okayed for purchase.
I’d recommend the Cinemax series Strike Back to JS lovers — one of the leads sort of has that JS aura about him, minus the cheese. Loads of action & violence.
DPS
Jesus, now that I reflect on this question for the first time, there hasn’t really been a better action hero than Arnold. Sigourney Weaver in Aliens is probably my favorite single movie action hero, and then I guess Bruce Willis in Die Hard, but Conan, Terminator, Terminator 2, Predator, Running Man, and Total Recall is a hell of a record, especially in light of the ridiculous, always unexplained accent and the inability to do any sort of acting apart from yelling and getting wild-eyed.
Narcissus
How do you fine folks feel about Predator 2?
DPS
@Narcissus:
I feel that if Danny Glover was going to be an action star, he should not have battled an alien. Also I would not be comfortable seeing him battle monsters or the undead. Danny Glover should battle evil humans and should use his wits, resilience, resourcefulness, and sense of humor in doing so. More of a Die Hard situation would have been good. I can’t believe I have an opinion about this.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Baron Elmo:
Great movie. Can’t believe it’s out of print.
DPS
@DPS:
Sorry, this needs to be amended. Not that this is likely to be a matter of widespread public concern, but I can’t just let it sit there. Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark is best, obviously.
Bruce Baugh
The Crank movies are live-action Looney Tunes. Utterly boggling goofy fun.
Let’s see, actors I will watch more or less regardless of the rest of the movie…
Michael Wincott. As long as he gets some good dialogue so I can bask in that wonderful rasp.
Linda Hunt. Silverado didn’t need the help to be a delight, but she got maybe the best single line in the movie. More, please.
Al Leong makes every rumble better.
Michelle Yeoh. She makes everything feel classy regardless of what it is.
Clancy Brown. Since I first saw him in Buckaroo Banzai, it took me a while to realize that playing villains is his usual thing. But he does delightfully well as both good guys and bad guys.
NotMax
@DPS
Late 80s or so, there was lot of Hollywood buzz about making a movie of the comics’ hard-bitten all-American WWII character Sgt. Rock.
#1 name floated to play him?
Ah-nuld.
Bruce Baugh
College friends and I were really hoping to get to hear Arnold say “OK, Easy Company, let’s kill some Krauts.”
NotMax
@Bruce Baugh
Similar experience, with slight variation.
“Up da heel, Eezy. Keel da Hun.”
TR
My favorite comic actors are the Democrats & Republicans in Washington D.C.
NobodySpecial
For ‘over the top’ action, it’s hard to beat Clive Owen in Shoot ‘Em Up. Plus, Paul Giamatti is priceless in it.
Aimai
@Ivan X: I love the scene in crank one where statham’s girlfriend makes him stagger about in the background with her broken microwave while he is trying to rescue her unknowing self from the evil killers. I also love “safe” so much I’ve seen it five times.
Redshirt
@Bruce Baugh: “Stick around”.
Not just the best action hero ever, but the best one liners.
lojasmo
@Ash:
Just learn to love flying. Simple!
Seriously, though. Buy some noise cancelling headphones before your next trip.
Also, 25 Mg of benadryl, and two glasses of wine are good.
schrodinger's cat
Matt Damon is over rated. He is like the male version of Helen Hunt. Plus he is pretentious and a firebagger. His so called serious movies are so boring. Syriana and A good Shepherd come to mind. Although to be fair, it was Robert De Niro’s direction to blame for the meandering and soporific fare.
mrmobi
I completely agree on your list of action stars. Statham played “Turkish” in the hilarious “Snatch,” as well.
Aside from too many totally over the top fight scenes, Banshee had a pretty good first season, and you have to love an ex-amish as the bad guy, no?
MC Simon Milligan
Statham was awesome in Snatch. I was surprised at how impressed I was with Ryan Gosling in Drive. He did the quiet, repressed rage thing quite well.
Speaking of quiet, how about Brigitte Lin in The Bride With White Hair or (as the male villain) in The Legend of the Swordsman?
aalto
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Dwayne Johnson (aka “The Rock”). Lots of junky movies, but he always brings a charm and sense of fun to his roles. For one thing, he always seems to be enjoying himself immensely and that’s contagious. I also appreciate actors who know their limitations and aren’t egotistical about their “acting” ability or fame. Vin Diesel has a similarly warm on-screen presence. I haven’t seen to many movies by the above two, but what I have seen I’ve enjoyed (in a campy action way). Compare them to Steven Seagal, who I enjoy because he’s so ridiculously full of himself at all times (and has only one emotion: puzzled annoyance). Too bad his movies are so bad…
BruceJ
@Allen: I even liked him in the remake of ‘Mechanic’.
Sondra
@Biscuits:
Me 3 – he is always great to watch and like you, if he’s in a film I’ll watch it just to get to see him do his thing.