6/2 - I rented and watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I don't usually like older movies, but I did enjoy this one. But maybe I don't have a sense of historical perspective because I don't think this movie is worthy of adding to the badass list. The only character that was anywhere close to a true badass was Angel Eyes. Clint Eastwood has some badass moments, but he also has some other moments that destroy any hope of him being a true badass.
5/11/06 - Special Note:
Today "NostalgiaDrag@gmail.com" chimed in to this thread with one of the all time great comments on this silly blog. I don't know who that is, but a Google search of that email address reveals 2 other top notch contributions he has made to society: Urban Dictionary definitions of badassdom and IBS. To quote Walter Sobchak: "not exactly a lightweight." This is a man who deserves to be taken seriously and respected.
Aside from his remarkable reputation, his contribution was excellent for 2 main reasons.
First, he clearly has put a lot of thought into his own list of top badass movies. And since he seems to be the internet's foremost authority on badassdom, his list should be given its due attention. And so here it is.
NostalgiaDrag's True Badass List
1. Sin City
2. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
3. For a Few Dollars More
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Payback
7. Tombstone
8. Kill Bill
9. Boondock Saints
10. Fistful of Dollars.
I haven't seen #2, 3, or 10, but that will have to change soon.
The second reason his contribution was excellent was the brief but powerful comment at the end:
"Sin City easily ranks at #1. Hell, Marv's story alone would qualify this movie at #1. If anyone disagrees with this list they can die."His point about Sin City is absolutely right, and his closing remark is truly in keeping with the badass spirit.
I should also note that his list brings attention to the glaring omission of Pulp Fiction from my own badass list up til now, in spite it being #3 on my favorite movies of all time.
Thanks and kudos to Nostalgia Drag, and without further ado, onto my latest revision of this list.
--------
Similar to the "action" genre, these are my favorite movies where the clear intention of the movie is simply to be badass. Kill Bill, Bourne and Die Hard movies count together. T2, Batman Begins, and Underworld stand alone from sequels/prequels/relateds.
- Sin City
- Pulp Fiction
- 300
- Kill Bill
- Tombstone
- Payback
- Terminator 2: Judgement Day
- Die Hard
- Gladiator
- Boondock Saints
- Bourne
- Underworld
- Batman Begins
- The Rock
Noteworthy Exclusions:
Bond - I have mostly only seen the Brosnan Bond movies, in which Bond is more about being suave and sneaky than a straight up badass. I'm told that Connery was more of a badass, but I haven't seen much of his.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - I enjoyed the movie, but I don't think it is worthy of this list, because only one character, Angel Eyes, was anywhere close to a true badass, and the main character (Clint Eastwood), despite having badass moments, was not a true badass.
And I haven't seen these suggested inclusions:
- Rocky
- Dirty Harry
- Scarface
- For a Few Dollars More
- Fistful of Dollars
Technorati tags:
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37 comments:
i think gladiator is a pretty good bad-ass movie, if you consider dominating everyone bad-ass.
After reading Brian's message I wrote this:
Gladiator - Although Maximus was definitely a badass, I don't think the whole point of the movie was to be badass. Its kind of grey area though. This movie is just under the badass movie line, and Tombstone is just above it, as I see it. Perhaps I could be convinced otherwise.
4 minutes later I realized how wrong that is. Brian is right, the whole point of the movie is to show this guy that dominated everyone. Pure badass.
I do agree that wasnt the point of the movie, so I could see why you might choose to not initially include it.
Then again, the guys name is Maximus... I think you ultimately made the correct decision.
Dirty Harry.
Wait, replete with Nick Cage's awful Southern accent jabbering Con Air still gets an honorable mention? It's because of Malcovich and Buschemi isn't it? "I byet iyt oahl."
Christian Bale was pretty badass in Equilibrium. He shot a lot of people and then sliced off Taye Diggs's face with a sword of some sort. The movie itself wasn't that awesome, though.
I'll bring this to light for those who missed the joke, "Maxwell".
goodfellas or casino?
whats says badass more than keeping your bitches and business in line
dont neglect the italians
While I love Goodfellas and Casino, and while they both have some badass characters and badass moments, I don't think either of them qualify. The point of those movies was to tell a story, paint a picture. Think about how it ends for everyone in them, no badass endings for anyone. The painting isn't badass, its kinda sad.
Raging Bull is probably badass, but I haven't seen it in years.
I believe you left out Scarface
I've never seen this all the way through. The parts I saw seemed good but not great. I actually had it saved on my tivo right now though so I'll give it another try soon.
does Batman Begins not get an honorable mention?
postscript: i can't believe you put underworld on the same list as tombstone. underworld is about as badass as other horrifying movies with kate beckinsale (e.g., van helsing, pearl harbor and serendipity). i dig the chick, but those movies suck and underworld does not have the clear theme of being badass for the following reasons:
a. while your lower ranked sin city shocks as a graphic novel turned movie and gladiator's hero is a tortured slave turned revolutionary, underworld's main gal barely manages to outsmart and fight a douchebag with the help of a really old dude brought back from the dead.
2. her character has no depth. players in kill bill are bound by duty and love. the tombstone boys are flawed but feared. the terminator USED to be the bad guy, now he's misunderstood. bruce willis is a renegade cop. jason bourne can't remember jack shit. stanley goodspeed is a loser turned prom-queen-fucker. but that girl in underworld is bor-ring...she's vampire going against mainstream vampire etiquette. i enjoyed that the first time when it was called Blade and featured Diesel Snipes.
And Lastly. she falls in love juliet capulet style with a werewolf.
Please.
Good call on Batman Begins. It will be added in at #9 for now. Both that movie and Sin City have potential to advance with reviewing, but now I've only seen them once so it is harder to tell where they stack up.
Re: Underworld
Underworld is fucking awesome. Anyone who says otherwise is a retarded monkey Philistine. Underworld is a badass movie.
Note that unlike Tombstone, it will never grace my "Top Movies" list, for many of the reasons you mentioned. But this category isn't soley about the main character, and hackneyed plot devices don't necessarily count against you here. All that matters is badassness.
-Underworld gets huge style points for that creepy black-and-white feel, which was stylistic badass.
-Kate Beckinsdale running around in tight black leather and firing automatic pistols is sexy badass.
-The old vampire they bring out of hybernation (Luscian, sp??) is fucking bad badass. He's the ultimate villian, or perhaps you missed that when you were busy whining about the douchebag, who is there just as a foil for the bad badass ubervillain. And he gets his head chopped in half.
-Also the weird looking Werewolf leader is badass in ways you don't see as much, in terms of his physical presence, and his character is badass in a way I've always appreciated (the surprisingly deep and cultured goon who turns out to have a benevolent cause that he carries out with ruthless badassness, stemming from a pain deep in his past, ala Johnny Ringo/Doc Holiday).
So in conclusion, Underworld = Badass. Step off, bitch.
stylistic badassness=you're a flamer
sexy badassness=you're a flamer in denial
fucking bad badassness=i'll agree with, ONE character in that entire movie was badass
badassness in obscure ways=NOT badassness
my suggestion would be to add boondock saints for the following reasons:
1. heavy cursing
2. gun fights
3. casting judgement in a hardcore seemingly justified religious way = controversial yet engaging (think k-spac as john doe in 7)
4. raging gun fights and titties
5. random shooting of innocent animals
6. cauterizing of GSWs given to you by your father
7. gaining the respect of a cross-dressing detective for vigilante action
8. the assassination of a crime boss in a court room = father-son bonding
9. this movie made saying prayers cool
10. no painfully forced love story (i.e., no chicks)
11. ...and TWIIINS!
I wholeheartedly agree with the Boondock Saints points... it should be a top 5 badass movie (top 7 at worst). Sin City is also easily top 10 (Bruce Willis plays the quiet, confident badass with a troubled past to near-perfection). Did I mention Jessica Alba is smoking in it (I wish she could actually act).
there was a FIREFIGHT!!!
OMISSIONS:
HEAT? (greatest gunfight ever)
SCARFACE?
RAMBO FIRST BLOOD?
BLOODSPORT?
no COMMANDO? no RUNNING MAN? no CONAN the BARBARIAN? Give Arnold his due. He deserves far more than one flick in the top 10.
I think your list has too much "hip, pop-culture, big-budget I am a sucker for Jerry Bruckheimer's over-hyped crap" flair to it. (i.e. putting new Batman over original Keaton Batman.) Perhaps this is a product of selective movie renting, but pretty much the whole list is big budget (sans #8 I guess). Sometimes thats fine as it can command a great ensemble cast like Tombstone - but being badass is not about cheesy blood splatters or ridiculous notions such as that Nic Cage could ever physically injure another man who is obviously bigger than him...
Whereas my above set of movies does not suck and they have proven to be timeless and full of cross-generational and pan-ethnic appeal.
I just watched Payback, and I feel it needs to be considered.
Speaking of Mel Gibson, how about Braveheart? Perhaps there is too much in that movie beyond the badassness.
100% right about Payback. I've been meaning to add it but keep forgetting.
Braveheart isn't right for this category, plus while I like it, I don't like it as much as everyone else.
Heat was cool, but I'm not convinced this is the place for it.
Haven't seen the other movies Chez mentioned, except for the original Batman. That movie was ok. The other Batmans weren't very good. Batman Begins was fucking awesome.
You n00bs forgot many classic badass movies...
This is the true badass list:
1. Sin City
2. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
3. For a Few Dollars More
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Payback
7. Tombstone
8. Kill Bill
9. Boondock Saints
10. Fistful of Dollars.
Sin City easily ranks at #1. Hell, Marv's story alone would qualify this movie at #1. If anyone disagrees with this list they can die.
-NostalgiaDrag@gmail.com
If you just google "NostalgiaDrag," you'll get hits for the IMDB posts of a user with that name, the list of which includes many badass movies. Perhaps NostalgiaDrag is like a virtual wandering kenpo master, disguised not by a simple brown robe but by a cryptic email address. I hope we will run into him again, so he can impart onto us further badass wisdom. However, I fear he is gone like the wind through the trees. . .
i recommend you watch oldboy. Oldboy makes Kill Bill look like teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Chez sounds like an indie twerp. And no freaking way does Keaton's Batman compare in badassness to Bale's Batman. NO WAY.
MAINSTREAM ALL THE WAY!
Have you ever given Unforgiven a try? The remake with Clint, that movie is awesome. Client during the movie is the anti-badass with a history of being a badass. Then the end of the movie happens and you realize why it won oscars.
I'm gonna go ahead and shake the boat with a rare comment.
Sin City is actually not a good movie, so that's to say that it is a bad movie. There's nothing novel about making a movie from a comic (see innumerable examples), there's nothing novel about making a movie from a comic in which the cinematopgraphy reflects the comic's style (see Dick Tracy), there's nothing novel about death-wishing characters who have seen it all (see Death Wish), and there's nothing novel about overblown graphic violence.
I wanted to lay that down to preempt the most common reflex responses I get to me not liking this movie.
So what's left? The plot? Oh. There's a plot? Really? Here's what the text-to-screen writer thought to himself: "Well, there seems to be multiple disparate stories written about characters within Sin City, so how about I loosely relate them by putting them all in a bar at some point in the movie, but not have them really be a part of each other's lives, and so create a confusing, oblique sense of flow and story for the viewer. Oh, and I'll hide this with excessive violence and maximum sensationalism per the comic, so it looks authentic and neat-o."
And I love a good action movie; I LOVE it. I love Die Hard I nd III, I love T2, I love Blade I and II, I love Payback, I love Tombstone. But, I truly hate Sin City, and I also truly hate Kill Bill. They're pretty much the same movie to begin with. Anyway, the action in Sin City really isn't that cool, it's overblown, but not so overblown as to be badass (see Blade).
Know what, let me summarize the goddamn plot for everyone:
1) A pitiless rhinocerous falls in love after fucking a dead gold hooker.
2) Spiderman's limbs get eaten by a dog.
3) The chick from The Rundown (starring Stifler and The Rock) falls in love with Colin Farrell's cousin
4) Bruce Willis bleeds for another 6 hours
Fortunately, none of these riveting storylines intertwine to any great degree except for a bar scene as pointless yet necessary as the coed shower scene in Starship Troopers.
Verdict: Pain.
i haven't seen oldboy...but i know i should
but i have seen of the same trilogy..."sympathy for lady vengeance" which is seriously badass. and amazing.
you should check it out. and don't fuck with that lady.
The Monitors said...
"Sin City is actually not a good movie, so that's to say that it is a bad movie."
You know, I really used to love Sin City. However, fundamentally the movie isn't that good. But that doesn't mean it's not completely badass. The movie Blade, little man, is not badass. Wesley Snipes is a joke. Not even the badass cliches can support this movie as being badass: big black daywalker, sunglasses, vampire killing, etc. The guy just doesn't have the badass spirit to him. Trust me, I know these things.
Lee Van Cleef, now that's a badass. Samuel L. Jackson, total badass. Bill Groundhog-day, Ghost-bustin'-ass Murray is a motherfuckin' badass. Wesley Snipes is not.
Moving on to other issues, due to my ineffable wisdom I have recently deduced that Boondock Saints isn't badass...at all. It is ridiculously contrived and stupid. My judgement was clouded before and I acknowledge my previous ignorance on the matter. That is all I will impart on you for now, my feeble worshippers. Maybe someday I will grace you all with a picture of my shadow, but perhaps that is being too generous.
-NostalgiaDrag@gmail.com
tsk tsk NostalgiaDrag.
"You know, I really used to love Sin City. However, fundamentally the movie isn't that good. But that doesn't mean it's not completely badass...Moving on to other issues, due to my ineffable wisdom I have recently deduced that Boondock Saints isn't badass...at all. It is ridiculously contrived and stupid."
Is Boondock Saints forced, akward, pointless and a bit unbelieveable? You yourself say quality can be considered moot when judging badassness. Whether contrived or stupid nothing changes the fact that, for reasons mentioned in a previous comment, Boondock Saints IS badass.
But thanks for mentioning Bill Murray.
sadly, your top ten movie list shows your lack of theology and geometry and taste.
Say what you will about my theology and my taste, Iggy, but don't you DARE deride my geometry!
ATTENTION:!!!!
Let us not forget the ones who started badass:
The notorious Toshiro Mifune in every Kurasawa movie.
The ever-present, (god rest his soul) Marlon Brando.
And for Pete's sake! You gotta go with Sean Connery! 007
Complete nods go to Eastwood, Willis, S. Jackson, Jet Li and De Niro
Sean Connery and the new bond in Casino Royale need to be in here. I thought Troy was good too.
ok this is my list
1.Opera - if you've seen this movie you are blessed
2.Thursday - great film watch it
3.vanishing point - Kowalski 'nuff said
4.hard boiled - woo mf'er woo
5.die hard - come on u know why
6.lock-stock and two smoking barrels - best of ritches works
7.boondock saints - great film nuff said
8.face-off - I would have made a better castor troy
9.el topo -strange ride worth watching
10.trainspotting - book is better but come on.
I could add way more or much more different material but this is my list take it or leave it.
watch full metal jacket if you have not seen it btw
1. American Psycho
2. Unforgiven
3. Die Hard
4. Scarface
5. Dirty Harry
6. Gladiator
7. Pulp Fiction
8. Road to Perdition
9. The Punisher
10. The Condemned
I haven't seen a single mentioning of the movie "Green Street Hooligans." Check it out, most definitely bad ass. You won't be dissapointed
What happened to Chronicles of Riddick? Also I liked Surviving the Game, Straw Dogs, and Bugsy. A top ten list is hard to compile with all the badass stuff out there. I thought Kurt Russell was badass in Death Proof, at least up until he got his ass kicked. Also, King Arthur has some great moments, but the real badass was the Saxon King. Anyways thanks for all the suggestions. A lot of these movies I haven't seen, so looks like I got s'more to watch!
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