action movies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Last week, I was scanning through my RSS feed and came across the following title at Bust: "Watch This: Empowering Girls Through Parkour!" Being a huge parkour fan and loving the idea of it empowering young women, I hurried over and check out a video of young girls getting taught the basics of David Belle's sport. (Check it out at the end of the post.) The clip got me thinking of girls and action, and well, off the parkour track.

There was a time when it was believed that macho test fests full of steroid-enhanced muscles and dumb man mayem were making way for "action babes" -- the Lara Crofts and Charlie's Angels. But as we've seen over the last few years, the boys are back in town -- especially Sly Stallone. The Italian Stallion went back to his old Rocky/Rambo formula, and it worked like a charm. Now muscles are, once again, in ... on the men.

Gentlemen, do you drag your dates / girlfriends / wives along to see testosterone-fueled action epics? Ladies, do you force your significant romantic partners to watch chick flicks with you at the theater? These thoughts are prompted by a list compiled by our cousins at Asylum: "Summer Chick Flicks No Man Should Be Forced to See." Their reasoning is that no woman should be forced to see a junky action movie (hello, Man with Adamantium Claws!), so why should a man be dragged along to "potentially dreadful rom-coms and weepy dramas"?

Among others, they cite Julie & Julia (with Meryl Streep), The Ugly Truth (with Katherine Heigl), The Proposal (with Sandra Bullock), and two titles starring the once-beloved Nia Vardalos. Oddly enough, these same titles popped up in a recent article by our own Monika Bartyzel. Monika was trying to look on the bright side, but acknowledged: "We might have a sadly plentiful dose of sadly typical romcoms."

I'm between relationships right now and have become accustomed to solo moviegoing. Thus, I never have an argument about what movie to see. But in the past, I can recall delicate -- and sometimes tense -- negotiations. (Which reminds me of that Star Trek / Borg tag line: "Resistance is futile.") Of course, when you compromise and see something you're not inclined to enjoy, you demonstrate your maturity and willingness to 'give and take' in an adult relationship. On the down side, you might be throwing your money away and spending a miserable two hours. So, back to the question: do you drag your mate to see what you want to see? Do you go your separate ways at the multiplex? Or are you completely simpatico about everything you watch?

Ah, Dane Cook. He's the guy many have been loving to hate recently -- or just love, I guess, if Waiting..., Employee of the Month, and Good Luck Chuck are your cup of tea. He's also taken stabs at playing Roman Polanski, and more recently, co-starring in the crime drama Mr. Brooks. Now he's taking the big step into the territory that many men have boldly gone before him. Dane Cook wants to be an action star.

During a recent interview with MTV, Cook said that he's getting ready to fight crime in Dead Already -- a buddy cop movie "in the vein of Lethal Weapon." Wait... Is Cook the next Mel Gibson? Will we get a collection of huge, mainstream flicks before Dane jumps behind the camera for some heavy, religious, and controversial fare? According to the comedian, this flick has a "really interesting take-off" from the usual buddy cop flicks: "This definitely had an element that was like, 'Wow, I've never seen that before.'" He doesn't explain how it's different, and instead goes on to say that the film has "crazy stunts" and action along with comedy.

As for the flick's ties to Lethal Weapon, Cook seems really interested in bringing a mixture of "being really funny and silly to really tragic" to the big screen, Lethal-style: "I forgot how many scenes in this movie are dealing with suicide and all kinds of insane, heavy topics. Then, all of a sudden, he's being wacky and doing Three Stooges. I haven't seen anything like that in an action movie since. I'd love to see, or be part of, a movie that pulls that off again."

But that's not all, action fans. Cook says this is one of several action flicks he's looking at, since action is on "the game plan next." Are you all ready for Dane Cook: Action Hero?

Don't the heroes and villains in action movies ever, well, actually watch action movies? If they did, good guys would always check to make sure the people they "killed" were really dead, bad guys would never stop to explain what they were doing, and no one would ever, EVER trust a super-helpful government official. (Especially one who acts as a father figure, or is played by Jon Voight. Shady!)

Unfortunately, heroes and villains in action movies must not have access to movie theaters or TVs, because they keep doing the same things, over and over and over again. We've compiled 16 of the worst action movie cliches we could think of, from the kidnapped daughter to the "whoops, my gun is out of bullets" moment -- but we barely touched the tip of the iceberg. Take a look at our list and then let us know: What's your favorite (or least favorite, as it were) action movie cliche?