Where's The KABOOM!?

[filkertom]

For those of you who wonder what the heck kinda hardware Bruce Willis or Nick Cage is firing in any given frame, there's the Internet Movie Firearms Database (IMFDB).

What are your favorite shoot-em-up action movies? Die Hard is still at the top of my list.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to a couple of oldies, Serpico and The French Connection, plus the Lethal Weapon series, which is cheesy, but tasty. (And rather than laundry list the next twenty, let's let some more folks weigh in.)

ETA: I'm assuming we can read James Bond movies as either a given or as not fitting fully within the category, and thus not worth enumerating. (They're given, for me, but I could see how "spy flick" != "shoot-em-up" for some folks or some instances.)

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Commando. Absolute mindless ba-boom. And every movie should have a "body counter" as seen in Hot Shots: Part Deux.

And while it's not a 'shoot-em-up,' Big Trouble in Little China is my fave action movie ever.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I like Red Dawn, and am looking forward to when I can see Tomorrow, When the War Began (probably on DVD; it doesn't look like it'll be released theatrically here.) I'm also fond of the "Dirty Harry" franchise.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

Just saw the remake of True Grit and was impressed. It would be nice to know something about the guns they were using, since it looked to me like they were taking pains to be accurate to the period.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

The sound of the guns in True Grit were not quite right--for the real sound of late-19th Century firearms I'd recommend Silverado. Brass shells of that period make an instantly recognizable sound. Some of the weapons in Red Dead Redemption are also correct.

What interested me more than the weapons, though, was the fact that the movie used correct 19th Century English--contractions being something limited to the extreme lower classes (cf the lingo in Huckleberry Finn). Boardwalk Empire also has a proper take on how people spoke in 1920.

Die Hard is still my favorite action movie for two reasons. First of all, Bruce Willis is playing a normal guy who *hurts* when he's hit and, in spite of that, perseveres. In addition, Alan Rickman is that rarity--a highly intelligent villain who takes advantage of any weakness or flaw in the plans of others.

Combine the two and the result is supurb.

Tom Trumpinski

[saganth.livejournal.com]

For me it's Aliens, Predator 2, Terminator 2, Terminator Salvation, True Lies, The Quick and the Dead (by Sam Raimi), The One, and a couple others I'm not sure could be called "action movies", they're borderline.

[juglore.livejournal.com]

Has Nick Cage ever been a shooter in a shoot em up?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ummm... The Rock, Con Air, Red Rock West, Kiss of Death, you could make a case for Snake Eyes and 8MM, and, oh yeah, Face/Off.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Kick Ass

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

"Quigley Down Under".

Elliott Marston: Ah ha. Legendary Sharps.
Matthew Quigley: You know your weapons. It's a lever-action, breech loader. Usual barrel length's thirty inches. This one has an extra four. It's converted to use a special forty-five caliber, hundred and ten grain metal cartridge, with a five-hundred forty grain paper patch bullet. It's fitted with double set triggers, and a Vernier sight. It's marked up to twelve-hundred yards. This one shoots a mite further.
Elliott Marston: An experimental weapon with experimental ammunition.
Matthew Quigley: You could call it that.
Elliott Marston: Let's experiment.

Rickman makes such a good bad guy, and Selleck such a good good guy... and the shooting is impressive even given the Sharps really can shoot that well...

[kengr]

And the bit at the end where Quigley has to use a pistol in a fight. :-)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

And the bit at the end where Quigley has to use a pistol in a fight. :-)

<pedant>Revolver</pedant>. The little clerk at the very end had a pistol. A pistol has a chamber that is fixed relative to the barrel; a revolver's chambers, well, revolve. :)

But that was a good line.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

Do we ever get an equivalent line of dialog lovingly describing a weapon in a science fiction movie? Not remembering one at the moment; Obi-wan Kenobi's comment about the light saber being for a more civilized age just doesn't quite measure up in terms of weapon geekitude.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

The closest that comes to my mind offhand is "I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher."

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Vera.

[wyattkelly.livejournal.com]

Hard Boiled. Hands down some of the most epic gun fights in any film, ever. John Woo's last Hong Kong action flick for nearly 20 years, and truly shows why Chow Yun Fat is one of the biggest stars in the world.

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

Equilibrium; disregard the future dystopian Idiot Plot and bask in the showcase for director Kurt Wimmer's invention Gun Kata (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GunKata). (An example: the climactic showdown between the hero and his antagonist has the combatants blocking and parrying at hand-to-hand range. With gunfire.)

[old-fortissimo.livejournal.com]

Tombstone.

I've been fascinated with Wyatt Earp since childhood, and Val Kilmer is the best John H. Holliday, DDS, ever. Technically the interminably long Wyatt Earp was historically more accurate, and Kevin Costner looked more like the actual Earp, but Kurt Russell's portrayal was light years better....

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Die Hard
Quigly Down Under
Ronin

Any number of other movies already mentioned.