Friday, September 23, 2011
A Fistful of Versus! (Brad's Picks)
With the release of The Killer Elite this weekend hopefully we'll get a pretty stellar celebrity battle between Jason Statham and Clive Owen (and not a boring suckfest battle like we saw between The Stath and Jet Li in WAR). Fingers crossed we get some Spidey/Wolverine action like we did with these other great Vs. movies. Sorry, no Predators, Aliens, Freddys, or Jasons can apply.
5. Mel Gibson vs. Kurt Russell (Tequila Sunrise): This was the first film in which I felt the presence of Badass vs Badass. Ten year old Brad loved The Road Warrior. Ten year old Brad loved Big Trouble in Little China. And here was a film that smashed both Mad Max and Jack Burton against each other!??!?!? It didn't quite live up to my self-inflicted hype, but Tequila Sunrise is still a fine bit of neo-noir.
4. Clint Eastwood vs. John Malkovich (In The Line of Fire): This was a scary battle. Eastwood's Secret Service agent is to ooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllldddddddddddd for this shit but only he can stop Malkovich's madman from snuffing out POTUS. As a kid, Malkovich scared the hell outta me. Anarchy, man! Nothing can stop a bad guy from doing bad things! Except Dirty Harry. Watching it now, it's only okay. But back then this was an epic Versus.
3. Liam Neeson vs. Pierce Brosnan (Seraphim Falls): A wonderful, underrated weird Western that sees the neverending battle between North vs South stomp all over the American West. Seraphim Falls marks the beginning of Liam Neeson's new action hero career and I am thankful. He's is an absolute beast as the death wishing Carver and Brosnan's job is just to not fall pray to his rage-fueled shadow.
2. Al Pacino vs. Robert De Niro (Heat): These (former) acting titans had never appeared on screen together, despite sharing The Godfather Part II on their CV. Michael Mann decided that injustice could not stand and pit the two hams against each other in this epic Cat & Mouse thriller. The film is monumental for a number of reasons, but my favorite might actually be Pacino's scream, "SHE'S GOT A GREAT ASS AND YOU GOT YOUR HEAD ALL THE WAY UP IT!"
1. Lee Marvin vs. Gene Hackman (Prime Cut): Not enough people talk about this movie. As much as I love Lee Marvin flicks like Point Blank and The Dirty Dozen, it's the vile heart of Prime Cut that crawls to the top of the Frazetta-like mound of celebrity mashup corpses. Lee Marvin's mob enforcer is sent to Kansas City to settle a debt with Gene Hackman's sausage enthusiast. Ground up goons and boodles of female commodity will not get in the way of the epic throwdown between these two monsters of the underworld.
--Brad
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