Bad. Ass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a list aimed at most of our demographic – movies that you NEED to see if you’re a guy, no excuses.  In these movies, you will see spitting, smoking, punching, ass kicking, babes, explosions, mafia, drugs, heists, prison breaks, gladiator sports, car chases, kung fu, cop movies, adventures, weapons of many varieties, westerns, military, and how to survive like Bear Grylls.  There’s a few sci-fi thrown in there for good measure, but absent on this list is a ton of comic book movies.  Absent this list is an abundance of over emotional sap, talks of weddings, estrogen, and anything not manly.    Also, you had a bad week, a bad breakup?  Get your balls back and pop one or more of these in the DVD player.   Grab a pack of smokes, a six pack, and let the testosterone invade your soul!!!

Without further ado, check out the list..

Fight club – Brad Pitt, Edward Norton.  Ass kicking akimbo.   Plot twists galore.  Fun movie.

 

Band of Brothers – not a movie, but a miniseries on the Greatest Generation.  This is the definitive World War 2 masterpiece produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.  Explosions, tanks, boot camp, foxholes, smokes.

 

The good, the bad, the ugly – Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western.  Epic movie.  You feel like you are in the 1880’s or so.

 

Rocky – Dude is an average club fighter who knocks up a chick and trains by hitting frozen meat and running through the streets of Philly.  Look for lots of high socks in the 70’s.

 

The Dark Knight – the lone comic book movie here.  Heath Ledger makes a once in a generation performance, absolutely entertaining movie.

 

Die Hard – Hippy Ki-ya!  Bruce Willis locked in Nakatomi plaza in LA trying to connect with his estranged wife takes on 12 german terrorists and the dude from Matlock.  Ran around in a wife beater and glass in his foot.  This cemented Willis as a bona fide action hero.

 

Terminator 2 – I believe this was 1991 and took Arnold to the next Stratosphere of stardom.  The movie special effects 20 years ago are still state of the art and light years above the original.  John Connor is annoying, but his mom has more testosterone than him.

 

Snatch – fun movie, good music, Bullet Tooth Tony.  “Sit down and shut up you big bald fuck”, made famous by Dennis Farina in the movie.  Brad Pitt as a gypsy gives one of his best performances ever, the transporter guy shines in arguably his first leading role.  Desert Eagle .50, underground boxing, gangsters wanting to feed you to his pigs.

The Dirty Dozen – ok, so let me get this straight.  You’re going to take 12 guys in a military prison sentenced to life or death, you have a mission that requires specialties these guys have, and they are promised pardons if they complete the mission?

 

Godfather -  this is a much better movie than the ones above, but this drops because this is more of a dramatic movie.  However, this movie gave us Al Pacino taking over the Corleone family.   Assassinations, gangsters, explosions…

 

Catch Me If You Can – fun movie about Frank Abignale becoming a master forger and impersonator at the age of 16 which eventually led to being captured and working as an FBI consultant.   Hot flight attendants.  Check out Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio…

 

Heat – Great bank robbing movie and shootout.  Tale of two sides – you have the criminals planning the robbery pitted against the cops trying to catch a gang.   Violent robbery scenes with automatic weapons.

 

Ronin – car chase movie.  Cool scene where DeNiro calls out the wannabe IRA guy (Sean Bean).   Movie centers on a maybe retired CIA officer infiltrating a gang….or maybe he’s looking for a big score?

 

The Usual Suspects – Lots of murders, mysterious gangster, whodunit, major twist at the end.  Kevin Spacey knocks it out of the park which gives him a career for 5 years.

 

Indiana Jones – Han Solo plays with a whip chasing treasure with hotties and goes against Nazis.  You are just not American if you don’t dig this.

 

True Grit – just a good ol sawdust and dip movie to make you feel in the wild west.  Rent the old version or the new version, you still grow hair on your chest watching it.

Star Wars – a little sci fi here.  Adventure, lasers, mysterious powers, kick ass space ships, laser swords.

 

Escape From Alcatraz – I love prison break movies, this one stars Clint Eastwood.  Spoiler: he escapes.

 

The Matrix – another sci fi here.  This goes on for the kung fu scene, how hacking  sort of looks cool, and “lots of guns” with the ability to dodge bullets and punch someone 83 times in a second in case you want to rupture a spleen.

 

Pulp fiction – Movie with some funk, some grit, some style, and lots of interesting dialogue.   Dance scene is cool and still manly somehow without doing jazz hands.  One of my top 5 movies ever for the range of scenes and how well done the movie is.

 

Cinderella Man – this is on the list because it’s a feel good story of a man taking care of his family during the depression by working the docks and swinging his fist into someone’s jaw to keep the lights on at his house.  This movie makes you appreciate work.

 

Shawshank Redemption – rated one of the top movies of all time, but drops on this list because it’s a prison break, with a twist, but lacks a lot of fighting or T&A factor.  On this list, it ranks lower!

 

Independence Day – a little sci fi.  You get some cool alien space ships, dogfights (in the air, not Vick style), milfs, cigars, massive explosions, near earth extinction event.

 

Gladiator – Russell Crowe kicks gladiator ass.  As a former Roman General of Legions, he’s stabbed in the back, left for dead, and demonstrates what Roman times may have been like under the gladiator coliseum days of past.

 

Ocean’s Eleven – style, style, and more style.  On this list because of the heist factor, coolness factor, twist, and star power.

 

The Sting – another heist with some twists starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.   I haven’t seen this in a decade.

 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – a western starring…the two guys above.  Lots of robberies and shooting and an escape to south America.

 

The Departed – A crook joins the state police to infiltrate the cops, and a good guy goes undercover to infiltrate a gang?  They end up looking for each other but don’t know who it is…add a love triangle…with a therapist and them.  Add Jack Nicholson and this one was definitely a guy movie that is up there.

 

Three Kings – let’s go to Iraq in 1991 and when shit is sort of over, let’s go look for Saddam’s millions in gold he stole from Kuwait.  Add lots of guns, some cool cars, and a stellar cast.

 

Dirty Harry – “make my day”.  Clint Eastwood walks around with an anti-aircraft gun in his holster.  People make him pissed off.  He gets angry a lot and grunts.  People die.

 

The Green Berets – War movie starring a tough guy named Marion….errr…John Wayne.  More guns, and watching John Wayne movies with a six pack is just damn cool.

 

Cast Away – care to go fishing with a stick?  Pull a tooth while on a deserted island? Survive, and thrive….and build a boat to make your way back, using space aged trigonometry on a rock?  Tom Hanks made hundreds of millions of dollars talking to a volleyball and the world saw that America loves survivalists.

 

Escape from New York – a bad guy named Snake Plissken is recruited to rescue the president in a prison colony.  Tons of guns and a real bad ass Kurt Russell.  Kind of 80’s like in the not so cool way,  so this drops a bunch.

 

The Way of the Dragon – get this.  At the end of the movie, Bruce Lee fights Chuck Norris for like 20 minutes.  Who gives a shit about the rest of the movie.  Once in a lifetime thing.

 

Nowhere to Hide (Korean movie starring Joong-Hoon Park) – this movie is a Korean movie with subtitles.  I saw this movie late night one night on like HBO or something at like 2AM.  Couldn’t stop watching it.  The beginning has a real arsty beginning with rain…something every aspiring cinematographer needs to see.  The movie is a cop movie, but they play by different rules over there than here, so there’s a lot of cops just beating the tar out of suspects, great fight scenes, and a pretty interesting look to what south korea looks like.

 

Blow – Johnny Depp with a few hundred million dollars, Penelope cruz, tons of drugs, nice cars, guns, parties….ending was tough to watch, but it pretty much shows you why you shouldn’t get into that life.

 

Blues Brothers – I need a beer and a smoke just thinking of this movie.  Pretty cool, car chase through Chicago, being a blues musician, Carrie Fisher with a machine gun.  Cab Calloway.

 

Wake Island/Tora Tora Tora – 4 hours of your life in each movie that give you a real in depth look of the Pacific theatre from a naval perspective.  “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”

 

The Outlaw Josey Wales – Here’s another 3 hour plus opus to the wild west with Clint Eastwood.   This one follows the life of Josie Wales right after the Civil War.

 

Fried Green Tomatoes – Just kidding…seeing if you made it this far.  Did I miss one that you like?  Comment below!