Which movie are you?

A discussion with a few LAMBs the other day regarding favorite movie trilogies shot off into a tangent and along the way, an idea popped into my head. The topic was the qualification of certain sets of films being trilogies or not - when someone mentioned something a series like Indiana Jones or Die Hard, I felt compelled to mention that those no longer qualified.

This prompted DJ from Matte Havoc to ask the following question: "So can quadruplets be marked as a group of triplets if the first three kids were born two minutes apart from each other, but the fourth doesn't count because it was born thirty-two minutes after the third one was born? That would be funny if the parents would refer to the first three children as The Original Trilogy."

That made me think about my family, and brought me to the question of the day: In relation to your sibling(s), if you have any, which movie series is your family, and specifically, which movie are you?

At first, I was terrified that I was the Crystal Skull of my family. I'm the youngest of four, but thankfully, I have a brother that's 3 1/2 years older, and with Last Crusade coming out some 19 years earlier than Skull, that analogy certainly wouldn't work.

As it turns out, I think the closest comparison for my family is the Predator series, and I'm Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. With siblings 12, 10 and 3.5 years older, that ties closely with Requiem, which has a pair of "siblings" significantly older than it and another just a few years older.

Got a better one? Need help determining who you are? Let's hear it.

Oh, and if you're an only child, guess what? You get to be whatever movie you want to be. Not as much fun, but at least you have total freedom. May I suggest Problem Child?

And then...

Outlandish Statements #2

It's time for more outlandish statements. Feel free to disagree, call me crazy, or call me genius. Just don't call me Shirley. Here's the last installment of this feature.

"David Lynch's Lost Highway is intellectual masturbatory nonsense, full of images and plots that don't tell a story, but rather beat you into submission, leaving you begging for any sense of clarity."

"As good a movie as it is, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is only Arnold Schwarzenegger's third best film, trailing both Total Recall and Predator."

"Ocean's Twelve is a fine addition to the franchise and rewards repeat viewings."

"As much as I think him a loonbag nutjob and don't want to support his movies (financially), I miss Mel Gibson the actor."

"The guy that played Biff Tannen (Tom Wilson) in the Back to the Future movies is one of the most criminally underused and underappreciated actors of all time, capable of playing for comedy or drama, at any age."

Got some of your own?

And then...

Boo Movie Classification System...Hooray Beer!

(Editor's note: This post will most likely be deemed rambling and incoherent at times. If, at any point, you are wondering what the overall theme is, or if there is one, then I have done my job. Or vice versa. )

Recently, while perusing the normally-overpriced DVD section at my neighborhood Costco, I came across one of a series of collections that Fox Video is putting out. The collections are comprised of three movies featuring a given star. The quality varies from collection to collection. George Clooney's features One Fine Day, Solaris, and The Thin Red Line. I'm ashamed to say that the only one of those three that I've seen is the first, but in my defense, the others haven't exactly received stellar reviews, either. Michael Douglas's features War of the Roses, Wall Street and Don't Say a Word. As Meat Loaf would say, two out of three ain't bad. Denzel Washington's? Man on Fire, Courage Under Fire and The Siege. Nic Cage? Trapped in Paradise, Kiss of Death, and Raising Arizona. Even I'd say that Cage has made better films than those first two (though Kiss of Death wasn't his fault - he was actually quite good in that. But I digress.).

You get the point. The collections are all a part of a series called "The Celebrity Pack." (No, I didn't realize Martin Lawrence was still a celebrity, either.) Anyway, the one that I picked up, for $8.99, was Arnold Schwarzenegger's. It's made up of Commando, True Lies, and Predator. A strong collection by any measure, and probably the best in overall quality of any of the collections (Douglas's could make an argument as well). Commando's pretty good, and True Lies isn't the greatest movie that Arnold or Cameron has made, but it definitely has its moments.

However - Predator? That's one of the best action movies of all time. I would have bought that for $8.99 alone, if not more. So, um...sure, I'll take the other two movies for "free."

Having not watched Predator from start to finish (and uninterrupted by commercials) for at least a decade, I couldn't wait to watch it again. Which I promptly did. And though my purpose here today isn't to give a review, I'll give you some thoughts:

* It holds up exceptionally well. This film is timeless and does not look or feel like a 20-year old film.

* I don't know if I had ever seen the opening credits, or if I had, I completely lost the memory of the alien ship "dropping off" the Predator to earth. It's a little corny, but was nice to see nonetheless.

Anyway, after watching it, I wanted to consult with the Bible (IMDb) to read more about it. First off, I was shocked that its rating stands at just 7.6/10. Blasphemy. I promptly rated it a 9, and I wanted to see what "Action" movies were rated higher. The Top 10 stands as follows:

1. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly


2. Seven Samurai


3. The Empire Strikes Back


4. LOTR: The Return of the King


5. Star Wars
   
6. Once Upon a Time in the West


7. Raiders of the Lost Ark


8. LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring


9. LOTR: The Two Towers


10. Fight Club
    

Granted, there are surely flaws in the IMDb rating system - namely, the demographics of internet surfers comes into play (I'd guess that the largest group is males from 16-25). However, outside of Seven Samurai (which, admittedly, I have not seen), I don't see an action movie on that list - and that's supposed to be the Top 10! Numbers 1 and 6 are Westerns; numbers 3 and 5 are Sci-Fi; 4, 8, and 9 are Fantasy; 7 is Adventure, and 10 is hard to classify, but I would call it a Drama more than anything else.

I'm sure that my classification for films is just as wrong as anyone else's. Music and movies are often multi-dimensional and shouldn't be forced into one of six neat little genres. That said, I can't be the only one that sees something wrong with the above list. Just because something has "action" in it does not necessarily make it an action film. Would that qualify Schindler's List as an action movie? I hope not. The Action genre should be filled with films that are a) not Sci-Fi, b) not Fantasy and c) not Adventure. I realize that's a terrible definition, but it's almost easier to define it by what it's not than by what it is, and if a film is one of those things, it shouldn't be classified as Action.

Then again, Predator has an alien in it, and is probably defined by some as Sci-Fi. Told you I had no point.

Anyway, here are five of my "favored" Action flicks, using my definition of Action (which I never really defined):

* Predator (simple, concise, awesome)

* Die Hard (a standard bearer and original. Simplicity a strength as well.)

* Ronin (I'm not a big fan of car chases, but these blow me away. Bonus points for the stellar cast.)

* Top Gun (yeah, I said it!)

* Point Break (Vastly underrated due to the public's issues with its stars. Bullsh*t. It doesn't get much better than this.)

And then...