What do you get when you shove Jean Claude Van Damme, Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris into a blender with with a dozen raw eggs and a fifth of jack… You get Singham – The best friggin action movie of all time! Screw The Expendables, that ain’t got anything on Singham.
Now all you gotta do is take a shot of that ass kicking drink you just mixed and get ready to get your mind blown! Bollywood brings you Singham – a story of… well, I don’t know the language they are speaking. So, I have no clue what the movie is about.
If that clip made you crap your pants in excitement, be sure to watch the whole film here. *If you do watch the full thing, be sure to check out 13:40 for a wicked tiger slap and 1:47:50 for a rocking duet with our hero and his lady.
Storm Show’s 2011 ski/ride adrenaline film promises to be its most adventurous undertaking to date. The record books were shattered with over 700 inches of snowfall having blasted the Teton Range of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. As to be expected, big lines go down one after another, guys & girls alike... On display is the deepest of deep that will make your pants soggy, and massive cliff hucking that you can watch safely from your couch.
Highlights include Jeff Leger’s legendary 80 foot swan dives, and Adam Osgood’s 100 foot double-front flips… Also in the running is Derek Depiero’s first un-roped descent of Birdbrain Couloir in the Jackson Hole backcountry, and Travis McAlpine & Darrell Miller’s first descent of the disgustingly exposed Nomad Couloir. Yes, 2011 was one for the record books, and Action Jackson is the ski film that proves it…Epic!
Epic is overused. Heavily, heavily overused. The internet has corrupted a perfectly good word, and now it’s used almost as badly as lol. Anything that’s vaguely humorous gets slapped with the label without any appreciation for what it truly is. You know what’s epic? Hundreds of armed and trained men, slaughtering each other ruthlessly on the field of battle. Blood and death up to your knees, under the chaos of war. That is epic, and these 14 scenes all exemplify the word, as the 14 most epic battles in cinema history.
14. Gladiator, the Germania Battle
The opening battle of Gladiator is perhaps the purest distillation of the epic battle scene that you can imagine. It has all the crucial ingredients, leading to an almost Platonic ideal of a war. You have the general, who is a brilliant tactician and a born leader. You have a clear, and easily identifiable enemy. Interesting military equipment. A rousing speech, and most importantly, a memorable line. “At my signal, unleash hell.” And, of course, blood. Lots and lots of blood, cleaving of people, horrible wounds, and everything else. A fine way to begin our list.
13. Last Samurai, the Final Charge
I had…issues…with the Last Samurai. Mostly just because of the incredibly boring trope of the outsider Westerner suddenly arriving out of nowhere, and becoming the best at something everyone else has trained their entire life for. Plus Tom Cruise’s oddly hairless chest. Even unoriginal plotting can’t take away from the immense power that the final battle had, beautiful in its futility. It’s such an absolutely heart-rending way to show the head-on collision of modernism and tradition, and the forced reforms of Meji era japan. Those chainguns, just cutting through the charging warriors, damn. Plus, Ken Watanabe is amazing in everything.
12. The Patriot, The Battle of Camden
I get it, this battle is meant to show the futility of war, especially 18th Century tactics. Everyone just kind of lines up, and takes turns shooting at each other, and someone loses. A crop of young men, barely teenagers, are cruelly snatched away. Blah, blah, blah. Watching this scene, it’s hard to see it as anything but comedic, and let’s face it, Mel Gibson only signed up for this project because he hates the British. This battle makes this list for one reason, and one reason only. A dude gets decapitated by a cannonball. Enough said.
11. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, The Final Battle
Again with the Russel Crowe. This time, we’re dealing with the ferocity of a sea battle during the Napoleonic Wars. The entire film plays as an elaborate cat and mouse game between the British and the French, as the Surprise and the Acheron chase one another. Naval battles are always a great excuse to show insane amounts of violence in a movie theater. After all, you have archaic weapons, more likely to wound than kill; hundreds of people packed into a small space, more likely to get hit by shrapnel; explosive everywhere; add the constant fear of drowning, and you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for a bloody, brutal, and above all memorable battle scene.
10. Return of the Jedi, Battle for Endor
Okay, ignore the Ewoks, their side of things was stupid, but everything else? Absolutely fucking amazing! The perfect trap laid by the Emperor (and Ackbar’s famous line), the huge battle between the Rebels and the Imperials, the landside attempts to disable the shields around the Death Star, the rallying of the Rebels at the last minute, absolutely everything is pitch perfect. This also marks the first and only time an A-Wing was actually useful in a fight. While Jedi wasn’t the best of the original trilogy (that honor goes to Empire), the Battle of Endor really was the best of the space battles across any of the films.
9. Curse of the Golden Flower, The Final Battle
Chinese film Curse of the Golden Flower arrived late in West’s period of fascination with psuedo-historical Wushu epics that was triggered by Crouching Tiger. Curse of the Golden Flower was a sumptuous story of repression and intrigue in the Imperial Court, set in a semi-mythical Chinese past. It was stunningly beautiful, and absolutely filled with cleavage. One of the final scenes of the film was the bloody rebellion between the second son of the Emperor against his father. Hundreds of elaborately outfitted warriors clash in a bloody battle among a field of Chrysanthemums, using tactics pulled straight from a 13-year old boy’s imagination. Black clad assassins fly through the sky, impromptu stairways are made from spears, and human powered walls crush the rebellion. It’s beautiful, artfully choreographed, and utterly pointless.
8. A Bridge Too Far, the Parachute Drop
Back in the day, before computers were powerful enough to allow for CGI stand-ins in battle scenes, you actually had to get enough people to represent the armies properly. For the famous parachute scene in A Bridge Too Far, real people threw themselves from real military planes, just in the name of verisimilitude. Thousands of soldiers rain down on the enemy troops, doomed to die in an overextended assault on Axis forces occupying the Netherlands. This film also had one of the finest ensemble casts ever, with Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, and Maximilian Schell.
7. The Lord of the Rings, Helm’s Deep and Pelennor Fields
The two major battles from The Two Towers and Return of the King share the seventh spot, as do a number of other battles from the trilogy. While #8 on this list showed that sometimes people create the most convincing battles, Lord of the Rings showed just what CGI can do, and for something set in the archetype of fantasy, there’s really no other choice. The siege at Helm’s Deep, with its thousands of orcs, shattering themselves against those walls, and then Pelennor Fields, with rampaging ouliphants, the death of the Witch King, and the Dead of Dunharrow. Both define the term epic, and both kept us rapt watching our screens, having us believe that these incredible events might actually be possible.
6. Apocalypse Now, the Helicopter Attack
The rousing strains of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries play as helicopters drop napalm on a small Vietnamese village. Not so much a battle as a massacre, the intensely one sided fight between the VietCong and American troops came to perfectly symbolise American hubris over Vietnam, and the belief that pure strength of arms would be enough. And who can forget that infamous line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning… The smell, you know that gasoline smell… Smells like, victory.” All to secure a beach for a bit of surfing.
5. Braveheart, the Battle of Stirling
Mel Gibson, again fighting the British. One might even think he holds a bit of a grudge. When I was in High School, we had the Army show up one day, and show us a clip from Braveheart, and the famous speech at the Battle of Stirling by William Wallace, as an example of a “great leader”. The ensuing battle is brutal, bloody, and the stuff of cinema legend. A rag tag bunch of filthy Scots take on the well trained English, and through sheer force of will, manage to win. Sure, the historical accuracy may be a bit on the slim side, but if I wanted, that I’d be watching documentaries. Wallace’s speech, and ensuing victory, are magnificently done, even if it is one of the most wildly inaccurate historical films ever conceived.
4. Spartacus, The Final Battle
Look, here’s the basic rule for classical epics. Don’t fuck with the Romans. Sure, they may be decadent and oppressive, but they will fuck you up on the battle field. They’re excellent tacticians, better armed, better trained, and just generally better than you. You can heavily outnumber them, and they will still stomp you into the mud. Even if you lead an army of the righteous, slaves rebelling against their masters, you will die horribly. Even if you win a couple of battles along the way, eventually they’ll get you. I don’t think there’s ever been a movie about battles with Rome in which the main character does not die horribly at the end. You have to hand it to Kubrick, the final battle of Spartacus defined the word epic, with hundreds and hundreds of extras gleefully participating in choreographed destruction.
3. 300
The whole thing, okay? Apart from the parts of the film taking place in Sparta, all of 300 is a bloody tribute to the art of the epic battle scene, with glorious beautiful death raining down on everyone. I think attempting to point out a single scene which is particularly of note would be foolhardy, as the entire flick is glorious.
2. Zulu, Battle of Rorke’s Drift
To modern watchers, Zulu is a problematic film. Noble English defending themselves using better technology and tactics against a massive force of “inferior” black dudes? Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of nasty interpretation going on there. That said, the final battle from Zulu is so riveting and amazing, it’s impossible to ignore its power. The Zulu chants at the beginning, which the Welsh battalion tries to counter with a company song. The massive number of attackers charging a small number of defenders, desperately trying to defend makeshift barricades, and the final rally which leads to victory. Peter Jackson has specifically said that Helm’s Deep was patterned on this classic, and Ridley Scott borrowed the Zulu war chant for Gladiator. That’s how influential this scene was.
1. Saving Private Ryan, Omaha Beach
27 minutes long. Half a freaking hour. That’s how long the opening assault is on Omaha beach. A full 1/6 of Saving Private Ryan is devoted to one of the most harrowing, terrifying, inspiring battles ever put on screen. No other movie has ever captured the gut churning terror and chaos of a beach assault the way Private Ryan did, and the death that came with it. More than any other entry on this list, it also showed that it was possible to have historical accuracy at the same time as memorable cinematography and amazing action, without descending into cartoon villains and anachronistic heroes. The D-Day Invasion depicted in Saving Private Ryan is harsh, brutal, and and amazing piece of cinema. It rightly deserves to be at the top of this list.
Being a man isn’t what it used to be. When my grandfather was born ninety years ago, he was pushed into a world which expected certain things from him because of his gender. He was a man, he had to stand on his own two feet. He would be a provider, a fixer, and when it was called for, a fighter. A man had to be independent. A man had to be strong. A man had to be in charge. A man had hair on his chest and even more hair on his balls. He’d take care of women, knowing that they couldn’t take care of themselves. He’d keep his emotions to himself, because there were things to be done and no time for tears. He’d make a living with his hands, he’d grow calluses on his finger tips. A man’s role was certain, you were born knowing what kind of a person you were supposed to be. But even then, the world was changing.
I wonder what the world would look like now, to my grandfather. Could he understand it? Could he comprehend it? Even before he died a decade ago, my grandfather seemed like a stranger lost in a strange land. He stayed trapped inside a cocoon of his own devising because the world had moved on, and there was simply no way he could move on with it. Most of those changes have been for the better. Men have, after a little prodding, willingly sacrificed their dominant place in society and moved over to give women an equal place next to them. In doing so we’ve gradually modified what it means to be a man, and that’s mostly been for the better too. But inside every guy there’s that caveman waiting to get out, that testosterone fueled badass who wants to take charge and grab hold of the universe with his own two hands. For awhile, movies provided an outlet for that. Stallone and Schwarzenegger built their careers on it in the 80s. But then that too, changed. And maybe that wasn’t always for the better.
Movies are, to those funding them, an investment. You put money in and you hope that, if the people you’ve given the money to use it right, you’ll get even more money back out. At some point, someone in Hollywood figured out that the best way to make the most money was by filming something which catered to the widest range of tastes possible. You can make an action movie, and a lot of men will want to see it. But action movies, more than any other type of movie, cost a lot of money to make. If you’re going to spend that much on a film, then you want to make sure you get as many people as possible buying a ticket. So you take that action movie, add a female character, give her a romantic subplot, and then maybe women will want to see it too. Or if you really want to get the girls battering down the box office, you make your male characters softer, weaker, better looking, better dressers, chiseled chins, smaller muscles, and more relatable to more types of audience members. Make your male lead a pale, frail-looking, well-mannered, tortured vampire. Make your male lead someone even your mother could love. Sensitive is sexy, isn’t it?
These days Hollywood has all but done away with the male-centric action movie. Guys looking for a place to refuel their testosterone tank have nowhere to go, and they probably haven’t even noticed. They haven’t noticed because the explosions and violence are still there, but movies aren’t really made for men anymore, they’re made for everyone. An action movie without romance is unheard of and our action heroes look increasingly like they could at any moment be cast in the next Twilight film. Adrien Brody, yeah that skinny, sensitive guy from The Pianist, just starred in a Predators movie. The Rock spends his days dressed up like the Tooth Fairy and there’s no one else to fill the void. That means this weekend when The Expendables opens, it may well be the last ever Man Movie.
The stars of The Expendables are not pretty, and the movie doesn’t try to clean them up. It tells the story of men who are old, and worn, and wrinkled, and meaty. The film’s heroes are balding and calloused, their faces made of leather and stone. Their idea of fashion sense is wearing Kevlar vests over Hawaiian shirts. The Expendables contains no romantic subplot. The closest it gets to romance is in the decision to help a girl because she’s pretty, and even then it’s only because protecting girls is what real Men do. When one of the Expendables wants to say I love you, he does it by beating up a bunch of other dudes. Expendables is a movie for men. There’s a plot, but they don’t pay much attention to it. There are characters, but more often than not The Expendables is happy to ignore names and simply refer to its major players as “Men”. When Eric Roberts calls Steve Austin “this man” he says it in a way that you know MAN was written on his script in all capital letters.
The Expendables is a manly movie in every sense of the word. It’s a film about Men taking action, Men blowing things up, and Men punching what’s wrong. It’s the kind of movie you just don’t see anymore. The explosions and gunfire are still there in our modern, action-movie world, but the guys are always secretly sensitive and there’s always a girl. He’s socially responsible, maybe he even recycles. I bet he’s a good dancer. Not the Expendables.
Every second of The Expendables howls caveman; it screams muscles, and sweat, and grit. You’ll never see any of the Men in this movie in a Toyota Prius. They ride motorcycles whenever possible. If one of these Men needs drive a four-wheeled vehicle, then that vehicle must be a vintage pickup which growls with unseen power as it prowls down the road. Their guns blaze across the screen with a throaty, manly noise. Every bullet fired is like the roar of a lion, echoing across the savanna. But technology is never used, by anyone, when muscles will do. Why fire off a rocket, when you can hurl missles at your enemies using only the power of your bulging forearm? Characters grunt their lines at the screen, they wear their manhood on their sleeve. If someone gets a tattoo, they get it while sitting on a motorcycle, because while tattoos are manly chairs are for sissies. When the Expendables need to relax, they don’t rent a movie. They drink beer and hurl sharp objects at a wall, because that’s what a Man would do. When one of the Expendables screws up these Men fight it out, these Men may even try to kill each other, and then these Men forget about it, drink up, and move on. Emotion is as irrelevant as pain. They know the code. Men stick together. It’s not a façade, it’s not some act, these are simply Men, and the Expendables behave the way they do because that’s what a Man would do.
Except in the real world, Men don’t exist anymore. We’ve scrubbed them from our society. Those that are left, we mock and ignore. Sensitive is sexy and modern men are probably more like Patrick Dempsey than they are like Sylvester Stallone. I know I am, and I like it that way. But even a weakling nerd like me has a little Stallone inside him somewhere, and I need him. It’s the caveman inside a man that gives him the strength to stand up and do what’s right, when it isn’t easy. It’s the caveman inside that gives a man the endurance get up every morning and go to a job he hates, just to make enough money to put his kid through college. It’s the caveman who propels our soldiers, bravely off to war, defending their country in the face of certain death. Women do those things too and since I’m not one, I won’t pretend to know what it is that pushes them to be better people; but for men, I think a lot of what keeps us going, what keeps pushing us to achieve, is that inner caveman.
I’ve still got a little of that buried somewhere inside me, maybe in part because I’m over thirty, and old enough to remember the glory days of barbarians and badasses in my movies. But where are our sons going to find their inner caveman? How will your boy know what being a Man is all about? He won’t get it by shaving off all his body hair, oiling up, and watching So I Think You Can Dance. The Expendables is not a great movie, maybe it’s not even a good movie, but it’s a MAN movie in all capital letters. For fathers, The Expendables is a rare opportunity to share a little bit of the manly movie magic they shared with their dads, with their own sons.
It’s violent and gory and utterly reprehensible, there’s no denying it. And it’s true that the story’s a mess and the characters are two-dimensional. Everything Cinema Blend’s Katey Rich wrote in her negative review of the film is absolutely true. She’s dead on. Yet I’m not sure I’d want it made any other way. The Expendables should be like this. It must be this way. Cavemen are two-dimensional, black and white, on or off. From that dogged, admittedly dumb, often careless simplicity comes their power. So it is with The Expendables.
You could take your son to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and let him live in a world of hipster dufus imagination, and that’ll be a lot of fun. But there’s plenty of time for fantasy. This weekend, for one weekend, maybe even for the last weekend ever, it’s the weekend of Men. Don’t let your son grow up without a little bit of The Expendables swinging a club somewhere deep down inside him. He’ll need that inner caveman. The world is changing and that’s a good thing, as long as we hang on to a little piece of whatever it was that made us men to begin with. This may be your last chance to share what that is, with your kid. Leave the women at home and growl your way into a theater with your son. Be Men.
Thanks to astronomic word-of-mouth, inflated 3-D ticket prices, and consecutive holiday weekends that began on a Friday,Avatarcontinued its seemingly unstoppable climb to theHallelujah Mountainsof U.S. and global box office. According to estimates from Hollywood.com Box Office, James Cameron’s sci-fi opus grossed $68.3 million over New Years weekend, a tiny 10 percent drop from Christmas weekend for a $352.1 million domestic total — easily the biggest third weekend in the U.S. ever (2002’s Spider-Manhad held the record with $45 million). Much more impressively, in just 17 days, Avatarhas surpassed $1 billion in global box office. To put that in perspective, it took The Dark Knightpretty much its entire theatrical run just to make it to that milestone. (Another landmark: $66.4 million ofAvatar’s worldwide total is from IMAX theaters, a record for the mega-screen format.)
Avatarwasn’t the only film to ring in the new year with serious box-office bounty, either. Sherlock Holmessleuthed out an elementary $38.4 million for second place, a 41 percent drop for $140 million total. Hot on its heels,Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquelchirped to $36.6 million, dropping just 25 percent for $157 million total and third place. (So what will the inevitable third film be called?The Second Squeakquel? The Threakquel?)It’s Complicatedfell a bite-sized 15 percent, cooking up $18.7 million for fourth place and $59.1 million total. And in fifth place, The Blind Sideactually improved upon its total last week, rising 8 percent for $12.7 million and $209.1 million total. (As EW noted yesterday, this means star Sandra Bullock is the only actress ever to have a film marketed on her star power alone pass $200 million in U.S. box office.)
In fact, with no major debuts to steal away fresh audiences, it was simply a fabulous weekend to be in movie theaters, period.Up in the Airpitcheddown an imperceptible 3 percent with $11.3 million and $45 million total. The Princess and the Froghopped up 11 percent with $10 million and $86 million total. Even certified turkey Did You Hear About the Morgans?was up 4 percent, bringing in $5.2 million for a (still woeful) $25.6 million total.
Overall, the top ten box office was up 70 percent from last year, whenMarley and Mewas barking its way into filmgoers’ hearts.
We are huge fans of 80's Action Movies....HUGE fans. Over the years, we've noticed that most 80's Action Movies follow a certain recipe, and contain specific elements that really seem to make them work. By following these simple steps, you too can create your own 80's Action Movie:
Step 1: Explosions
Any 80's Action Movie that's worth its weight in cocaine and lengthy vaginal pubic hair has to have explosions...LOTS of explosions. An 80's movie without explosions is like a sorority girl wearing a sweater: after a few minutes, you realize how stupid they are, because there's nothing there to distract you from it. Explosions are key, and when it comes to 80's Action Movies, it's impossible to use too many.
Step 2: The Hero
You have two options for The Hero: he can either be a white dude with a mustache, awesome 80's hair, and a vest, or a super-buff black dude who's not wearing a shirt. If you choose the black dude, he can't be too outrageously buff, because then he starts to leave the "Hero" territory and venture into the "Bad Guy's Number One Henchman" zone. The Hero will be a little bit rough around the edges, but good-natured and pure, and somehow he'll have learned how to kick major ass. They'll explain that he's an ex-Green Beret or something, and because he's selfless, he'll be happy to put his life on the line to defend the innocent, even if it's for no clear reason at all.
Step 3: The Boobies
80's Action Movies are all about a good set of big ol' boobies. You're going to see those boobies several times, and they're going to be real and natural. They'll also probably be wet, due to a shower or the ocean. At some point, the owner of these boobies will be kidnapped by the bad guy, and one of his henchmen will try to gently touch her boobies, and she'll inflict pain on his crotch, even though, two scenes ago, The Hero was squeezing her boobies like he was using a hand pump to inflate an air mattress on a camping trip.
Step 4: The Badass Car
No hero is just gonna walk around with his hot chick by his side, trying to defend justice on foot. He's gonna need a sweet ride. The rules regarding cars in action movies haven't really changed much since the 80's. Our hero is either going to drive the newest, sweetest, real-life sports car on the market, or he's going to drive some kind of futuristic, fictional car that doesn't really exist. He'll probably only drive the sweet car for a few scenes before he crashes it through something and uses it to trigger a huge, catalytic explosion that gets the final action sequence started.
Step 5: The Bad Guy
Since this is an 80's movie, there's going to be karate involved, even when it clearly doesn't belong. Whether the movie takes place in modern-day Harlem, or Dark-Ages England, somebody is going to get jump-kicked in the neck in slow motion. The main bad guy is going to be a sleazy businessman-type, who's trying to get money by taking advantage of some social system that's going to rip everyone else off while he gets filthy rich. Obviously, like any nefarious 80's businessman, he'll have an army of ninjas defending his fortress hideout.
Step 6: The Title
This is incredibly important: 80's movie titles, much like a Tijuana hooker, have to make you think that, for $10, you're going to have two hours of complete and utter awesomeness. To create the proper 80's Action Movie title, you'll need one word that's the name of the main character, but also the name of an object that's considered super badass, like a razor, or a chainsaw. Then, the second word in the title has to be a synonym for ass-kicking revenge. It's as simple as that.
Step 7: The Tagline
The last crucial element of the Awesome 80's Movie is the tagline. This is of utmost importance, because it needs to tell the audience what the movie is sort of about, and it also needs to be really cool. It should contain at least one pun and one ellipses, and it should end with an exclamation point, to further emphasize the action that this movie contains.
STEEL JUSTICE: Coming 25 Years Ago to a Theater Near You!
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
Thanks to astronomic word-of-mouth, inflated 3-D ticket prices, and consecutive holiday weekends that began on a Friday,
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