The Wordforge Manly Man's Movie List...

The A-Team
Star Trek (hello!)
nuBSG

 

usually, when someone tells me thatthey thought 300 was lame, I assume that it is because they are overlooking a few things or distracted by something else. Why do you think it's lame?


Zack Snyder is the best there is when adapting comics into movies.... This includes Chris Nolan, IMHO.

 

62 posts and no one mentioned Top Gun? The plethora of quotes alone makes it a must have.

 

Sex and the City
Desperate Housewives
Hannah Montana
Charmed
Oprah

Special mention goes to:

Thirtysomething

Try the veal.

 

Manly movies? How about John Millius'
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Or John Boorman's
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Or Chuck Heston in
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On the funny side, there's Tony Curtis in
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Reading the list, it is clear it is quickly devolving into a list of "favorite movies" versus "most manly-man movies." There were several movies I love that didn't make my list because they don't meet the criteria of the thread title.

I mean seriously: Serendipity?

 

One reason I like 300 is because it's told in the over-the-top herioc style that a Greek stryteller of the time WOULD have told it.

 

This is usually the gist of the opposition to this movie. For me, it's part of why I like it so much. The movie 300 is not about the battle itself. What we're seeing on screen is a soldiers interpretation of these events as it is being described to him, by an eye witness who is trying to prepare the soldier for battle. Maybe the storyteller is embellishing some or maybe the imagination of the soldier is running wild, but as a story told by an ancient soldier I believe that this movie is the tits. I find that it rings true for someone in that era in that situation.

 

I think if you re-read the post by the gentle person who suggested "Serendipity", I think you'll find that his other suggestions were not quite made in good faith.

 

Blazin' Saddles.

 

I get what you and Alpha are saying. As some kind of Homeric tale - like the story of Odysseus - it could work.

But the battle of Thermopylae was remarkable, much like the Charge of the Light Brigade, because it was futile. Regular human beings doing extraordinary things - sure they may have been the best soldiers man-for-man that the world had yet seen, but they were men.

However, the romanticized Spartan supermen I saw on screen weren't that impressive to me - I expect supermen to kick Persian ass, and they did, and it was cool. Yawn.

That's what I've been trying to say. I like it, it just doesn't hit any of my buttons as superior on any level other than graphic comic come to life. On those grounds it was special, I'll agree. But not as a movie with any particular impact. It was as cartoonish as Speed Racer (albeit without the pretty colors), which denigrates Thermopylae for me. As I mentioned in my first comment, I assume it flows from some snobbishness.

 

Gotta add the 1940s "The Mark of Zorro" with Tyrone Power. I'm told by a guy that knows a thing or two about fencing that the dual between Power and Basil Rathbone at the end is some of the finest, most authentic saber fencing you will ever see in a film.

Besides, the film inspired Batman.

Speaking of which...the Burton Batman films. The first Nolan one, and the 1978 Superman. I might hide all those behind the other manly man films, but they belong in the library.

 

Did I say Pulp Fiction already? I must've. Although the judges would also accept Reservoir Dogs.

Oh, and the original Night of the Living Dead.

Hell, and Shaun of the Dead as well.

 

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

 

Others have probably said them but...

Red Dawn
Rocky
First Blood

And if I didn't catch it before, I'm gonna add The Untouchables. And The Hunt for Red October.

 

And Planet of the Apes.

 

Has anyone listed that Kurt Russell movie "Soldier," yet?

I always liked that scene where he's trying to teach that kid to protect himself by killing a snake with a boot.

 

Only saw Soldier once, but, yeah.

 

I also liked the scene where he defeated Jason Scott Lee's physically superior character by fighting dirty and hacking him up with a propeller blade.

 

There was a loose rumor, or fanfic rumor, that the Soldier universe could be the same as the Bladerunner universe. Not entirely farfetched.

But yeah a good movie, in the classic "old warrior redemption" mold. It's basically Shane up until the very end.

 

I hate when that happens!

 

When you really want to fuck someone up, you go propeller blade.

 

The Deer Hunter

 

Magnum Force
The Cross of Iron
The Blue Max
Tora Tora Tora
Star Trek III, TSFS
Hell in the Pacific
The Wild Bunch
National Lampoons Animal House.

 

Apocalypse Now and Bullitt.

Both are kind of slow going in parts, but I think they need to be there.

 

Watched Weismuller's "Tarzan and His Mate" last night, and would like to submit it for consideration. Anybody who kills a rhino, alligator and lion hand-to-hand, and bags Maureen o'Sullivan in the same film (not to mention catching her when she swan-dives out a 30-foot tree), gets my respect.

There were two other guys vying for Jane's attention in the film (including Comissioner Gordon!). I think she could have shut them both up by saying "Can you catch me in your arms when I swan-dive out of a 30-foot tree? No? Can you save me from a charging rhino by jumping on its back and stabbing it to death? No? Can you wrestle a 30-foot aligator to death underwater? NO? Then STFU."

 

Ah...them old Tarzan movies. Fond memories of childhood. Sundays, before church, we'd watch old Little Rascals and Laurel & Hardy shorts. Then we'd drive over to Grandma's, where we'd watch Star Trek and Batman reruns and an old Tarzan movie. Maybe run around and build a fort in the woods or something before coming in to catch The Six Million Dollar man.

 

I watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a long time last night, and I have decided that if you put this movie on your list, you might very well be a woman.

It is shockingly crappy compared to what I remember. Overly sentimental nonsense that paces like a chick flick minus the romance. Lots of awed looks on the faces of bad actors, a ridiculous hippy wife, and daddy issues everywhere. Pretty much everything I don't want in a sports movie.

Even my mother was confused as to how it could ever be considered a guy movie. I was ashamed that I ever mentioned it.

 

...although I would submit that another contemporary Costner baseball flick, Bull Durham, could be on it.

 

The funny thing about that is that Bull Durham is a more traditional chick flick at it's core. However, Bull Durham is actually about baseball and the relationship is a subplot. Field of Dreams is completely about a relationship and baseball is a subplot. Also, Bull Durham has good quotes and it's funny watching Tim Robbins throw a ball like a 12 year old girl.