Can't forget Highlander, that was fairly awesome.

Other than that . . . yeah, can't really think of much.

I was musing recently -- Ashton Kutcher is two for two on producing succesful shows. (Punk'd, which I don't like, and the Geeks And Hot Chicks reality show, which I did like although the real name escapes me.) That's a record the vast majority of producers can't match.

So is Ashton Kutcher a lot smarter than he seems (which is certainly possible) or is the rest of Hollywood that stupid?

The Untouchables

EricJ,

I added that before you reminded me. Can't imagine how that one slipped my mind.

I'll take Famous Titties for $200, Trebek.

Damnit, Ace, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Eddie Sakamura was FRAMED!

Have you no decency, sir? Have you no decency?

{cough} The Wind and the Lion {cough}.

Oh, and while realizing it's a B-grade space western (i.e. NOT a great movie), Outland always ropes me in every time.

"THERE ARE SPIDERS IN MY SUIT!!!"

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

The Great Train Robbery and The Name of the Rose were pretty good, if I remeber correctly. He did a lot of unusual movies for awhile.

"You're mother's a whore, Trebek!"

Damnit, Ace, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Eddie Sakamura was FRAMED!

That's your theory. I think that sonofabitch was behind it all.

At any rate, I stand by my statement that I don't give a shit if he was framed or guilty.

I did like when Connery punched that guard in the adam's apple at the party, though. That was good.

Sean Connery + throat punching = good scene

In the Presidio he throat-punches a guy and beats him down with his just his thumb. Just because he can.

The Hill. See it.

Agree, but 'Robin & Marion' would have been a quite different flick from 'Robin and Marian'.

Howzabout The Longest Day, with Mr. Paul Anka and some other people.

There hasn't been enough Anka around this site lately. That's what's missing.

BTW, the dude is gonna be 75 this month. 75. If James Bond decides he's had enough - for whatever reason - then okay. Had a damn fine run (and made everyone, everyone else in that role look like a skim-milk pansy ass.)

Speaking of ex-James Bond guys who went on to make like one good movie in thirty years of trying: Roger Moore in Ffolkes. Thought I'd hate it, ended up really liking it. Hijinks on a North Sea oil rig, and for once Moore acts like someone other than James Bond. Plus, how you can you not love a character named Rufus Excalibur Ffolkes?

Connery improved my opinion of him with The Untouchables, and then pissed it away on First Knight and Entrapment.

You know, Sir Sean is involved in a nasty lawsuit here in New York. It seems he is remodeling his aprtment (an entire floor) in a building on the Upper East Side and in doing so, the noise, dust and leaks is driving the neighbor underneath bonkers. She has confronted him and in her words he is "A nasty, foul mouth old man. Not the gentleman he appears to be in the movies".

Somehow, I'm still for him. The man could still be living in sunny Majorca, Spain and chose to move to New York. Godd bless him.

Monty, I thought Entrapment was pretty good and that cell phone girl is fine.

LXG was a better movie than you would expect, based on its premise. Admittedly, that leaves a lot of room.

Several years ago, I saw a list of various stars' top-grossing movies. Even the biggest stars had money-losers on their list. "Joe and the Volcano" made the top 10 of both Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. (Tom probably has pushed it out of his top 10 by now. Meg, I dunno.) So its not unusual for a star to have a surprisingly thin resume.

That might be a good operational definition of a real star: ten moneymakers on the resume. (Of course, the Harry Potter kids are going to have 7 without trying, so maybe sequels should be de-weighted.)

And ace: the move version of The Name of the Rose was shite; the Weaver translation of Umberto Eco's book is far, far better. (This is assuming that you didn't have some dipshit semiotics prof in college drain all the fun out of it by explicating away all the puzzles and wordplay.)

And you secretly dig that bald spot on the monks' heads, ace. Admit it. It's called a tonsure, and I'm sure you can find a fetish group on the intarweb dedicated to exploring the erotic mysteries of the tonsure. I don't judge you, ace. You're a filthy dog, but you can only be as God made you.

I read the book (I read all of Eco's books for a while) and yeah, I picked up it was called a tonsure, although I already knew that from Conan stories and D&D.

I agree with Bob above - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a fine fantasy film. It quite aptly pulled off what films like Van Helsing tried to. While the role of Quartemain lacked a certain "depth," it was still a pretty decent role for Connery at this late stage of his career. I bought the DVD and loved it - my 7 year-old son thrilled to it and thought that Connery was the shizzle...

Dman:

You gotta be kidding me. Entrapment was monkey-puke. The whole idea of some chick as hot as Catherine Zeta-Jones knocking boots with some guy old enough to be her granddad is gross enough, but then to not show any naked boobie action is just perverse. I got into the movie for free and still felt cheated -- that's time out of my life I could have spent doing something more meaningful, like trimming my toenails or grooming the cat.

I rank Outland as a a guilty pleasure, but it certainly has a high "stupid quotient". Like: the hired gun who's after the space-sheriff is supposed to be some high-quality offworld badass. But then this supposedly top-quality assassin turns out to be a crappy shot (he misses the Sheriff like fifteen different times) and is so dumb he's willing to shoot out a vacuum-seal in a greenhouse (apparently forgetting he was in, you know, space). Or the part where Connery goes into the meatlocker where a corpse has been hanging for a day or two, jamming in a needle (into an upper extremity, mind you), and getting a nice bubbly red stream of "blood" out. Or...well, you can see where I'm going with this.

I will not speak of LXG because I really liked the comic and really (really really really) hated the movie. It would take too long to list all the ways in which that movie bit the big one.

Watching Captain Nemo spin around and do all that tricksy Indo-Eurasian ass-kicking was pretty cool. Otherwise, el-crappo.

I thought Nemo looked ludicrous doing that. I guess they had to make him a martial artist, or else his role in the group would be restricted to playing Captain Stubing.

I did like the villains M & Dorian, though. Especially Dorian. Loved how, asked what he was, he just responded: "I'm... complicated."

The whole idea of some chick as hot as Catherine Zeta-Jones knocking boots with some guy old enough to be her granddad is gross enough

Funny how life imitated art in this case.

I can't believe you left out the one with both Caine and Connry. "The Man Who Would Be King" is one of the best movies ever, yes, EVER! I said it and I stand by it.

I'll take The Rapists for $200, Trebek.

Brass, it's in there.

Yep, just reread the post and my eyes must have passed right over it. I'm the asshole.

Connery even used a brogue as a Russian (well...Lithuanian) sub Captain in The Hunt for Red October:

"We'll let those Americans listen to their rock and roll while we conduct missile drillsh!"

And casting him as Quatermain in LXG was just the fetid cherry on a truly toxic sundae. Had it been me, I'd have a) had Allan Moore write the script, b) hired someone like Bryan Singer to direct, and c) hired Peter Postlewaite to star as Quatermain. (He played the hard-ass big-game hunter in Jurassic Park II. Lousy movie but a good role.)

First with the Eddie Sakamura crap, now with the Nemo as Stubbing ...

I tell you, I'm like a race car in the red, and you don't want to push a race car to the red, 's all I'm sayin'.

You liked First Knight, admit it. Sure, you dress it all up in this "oh, it's so bad it's good" nonsense, but secretly, you're saying to yourself, "ooh, maybe I can stitch myself together one of those blue tunics with some fabric and extra gold piping." I can see you now, huddled in the dark in your apartment, with the special edition DVD and a sketch pad and your thumb on the pause button.

Just admit it, you Eddie-Sakamura-hating bastard.

I liked him in Marnie. But you're all too young and hypersexual for that film.

"Brave Heart"

I know it was just his speaking style and voice but it fit the dragon perfect.

Hoo boy.

The LEG is one of the worst pieces of crap Hollywood has puked out in the last 10 years. You LIKED D. Gray in that movie? Yikes.

First time through its just really bad. Upon further viewings it becomes offensive. Not even "so bad that it's good" like Starship Troopers, but "so bad I'm going to puke" like Star Wars Jar Jar Binks.

But, I have to say, the best MST3000 movie of the last year was "Hitch". My son and I rewound the teary - eyed fat guy scene like 10 times. Priceless.

LXG was bad in so many ways, but the CGI was the worst. I mean, Saturday-morning-bargain-basement-anime bad. Yugi-Oh! bad. There were scale problems all over the place (like where this huge submarine is somehow still able to fit in the twenty-foot wide Venetian canals), and the creature effects were just miserable. (The Jekyll-Hyde conversion scene is one bad example among hundreds.)

How could you forget he was King Agamemmnon in Time Bandits? He was great in The Wind and the Lion, a terrific movie by John Milius who later won red-state fame with "Red Dawn" ("Go Wolverines!")

Connery made some great movies and some crappy movies but for all I care he can stand there and read the phone book; he's still one of the sexiest men on screen.

Actually, the movie looked like it was using bad CGI, and I guess there was some CGI, but a lot of those effects were done confentionally, with models and prosthetics.

Mr. Hyde was just the actor in a big bulky suit, but then enlarged through CGI and inserted into the shot.

The destruction of Venice looked like crappy CGI, but it was actually almost all model-work, which I usually prefer, but something about the compositing made it look like crappy CGI.

I cant read a quote by Connery without hearing that accent. kinda cool

I'll take "Things Nobody Knows" for $200, Trebek.

He apparently turned down the role of the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Can't say as I'd blame him.

Oh, and Vivi, I totally agree: "Connery made some great movies and some crappy movies but for all I care he can stand there and read the phone book; he's still one of the sexiest men on screen."

"Ad-ver-sary" (...sigh...)

not exactly a huge part in the film, but he was great in "The Longest Day" which I would also call a great film

You're picking on Zardoz? You do *not* mess with Zardoz: a worthy cult classic before they were trendy (and pre-fabbed).

SkyWatch, it was "Dragonheart," not "Brave Heart," and Connery's voice WAS perfect.

And I'm glad someone remembered his role in "Time Bandits."

His Scottish accent did seem out of place when he played King Richard during his 3-minute role in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," for which he was paid $8 million, I think. Sux to be him.

Later,
bbeck

PS: Ace, your flaming of POS "First Knight" made me fall in love with you all over again. :)

Later,
bbeck

Go watch The Wind And The Lion just for the bayonet charge. It's required viewing at several of the Marine leadership schools. Classic Teddy Roosevelt gunboat diplomacy movie, even if Brian Keith outshines Sean as this one. I just can't buy him as a Berber chieftain. A great early Jon Milius film.

Russia House showcased some of his best work on the quiet side. Rather talky and long, but he actually acts in this one. But the wind and The Lion was a very good film as well.

If only Hollywood would reunite Caine and Connery for an old - men adventure follow - up to The Man Who Would Be King. Those guys could've gone on forever.

Too bad Mst3k never did a take on Zardoz....http://www.badmovies.org/movies/zardoz/

What Connery did in the late 60's and early 70s to save himself from being typecast as Bond saved his ass. Even all-time stinkers like Zardoz and A Fine Madness. He got some good ones in like The Hill, The Molly McGuires, and Marnie. Did mystery, comedy, war, even did a Western called Shakalo.

(While Zordoz sucked, it did have Charlotte Rampling, though she wasn't naked or kinky enough).

Then the mid 70s came along with the Wind&Lion and the Man Who Would be King and he was a considered a Great Star outside Bond. With 7 Bond flicks remembered in his later years as adding to his Rep.

Great career management!

your flaming of POS "First Knight" made me fall in love with you all over again

You should see him in his homemade First Knight blue tunic. My guess is that he wears it with one of those Burger King paper crowns, and a "sword" made out of a length of broomstick that's been wrappen in aluminum foil vaguely in the shape of a longsword.

Hater.

... grumble grumble ... Eddie Sakamura never did anything to him ... 'cept banging hot chicks and doing all kinds of crazy sexual escapades in one of those Japanese loin cloths, and later flying through the air, blade flashing, like a death-dealing bad ass!

Ace,

A bit late here, but...

I liked Zardoz.

I mean, c'mon.

Charlotte Rampling!

Hot-t-t-t-t-t-t.

It was a weird but interesting movie.

Really.

...

OK, I am the only person who ever thought so, but I can live with that.

Did I mention Charlotte Rampling?

Hot-t-t-t-t-t.

LOL@Phinn.

You should see him in his homemade First Knight blue tunic. My guess is that he wears it with one of those Burger King paper crowns, and a "sword" made out of a length of broomstick that's been wrappen in aluminum foil vaguely in the shape of a longsword.

Sounds like he'd blend right in at a Ren Faire.

Later,
bbeck

All I really remember about Rising Sun was that scene with Eddie and his chopsticks, eating shrimp off of that hot babe's naked belly.

I leaned over to my wife, and said

"that, is conspicuous consumption".

While it is true that First Knight was a shitty movie, it had one line that came in handy pretty often in the run up to the invasion of Iraq (and thereafter): "There is a peace that lies only on the other side of war. " Or something like that. It seemed to work better when you prefaced it with the phrase "To quote Sean Connery as King Arthur,...".

The Molly McGuires is a film that keeps getting left out. Connery with the late Richard Harris.

The way I figure it, we owe the British Isles at least one movie where the President has some other kind of accent, and Connery's the right man to pay off.

After all, we owe them huge for giving the world "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves". Kevin Costner is an actual crime against humanity in that movie and his emotionless, accent-free Robin Hood sullied the legend forever. Since I personally blame Sean Connery for being in that movie and not beating Costner to death with the pommel of his sword, Connery can do penance by playing the American President with a brogue.

Fair is fair.

Prince of Thieves DID have a great soundtrack, the arrowhead camera shots, a good Little John, and Alan F'ing Rickman, who steals every movie he's in right down to THHGTTG.

"Why a spoon, cousin?"

"Because it's dull, you twit, it will hurt more!"

"You, my room, nine o'clock. You, 9:15, bring a friend."

God bless castle wenches.

But for the mythos without Errol Flynn tights, you have to go with the BBC series which starred Connery's son in later seasons.

Sounds like he'd blend right in at a Ren Faire

Ace has a version of Ren Faire.

Only, it's not really a "faire" in the technical sense.

It's more like Ace with his First Knight tunic, crown and "sword," verbally harassing subway communters with obscenities, demanding that they call him "Sir Belvedere," and using a transparently fake British accent that, in truth, sounds an awful lot like Foghorn Leghorn.

This is the side of Ace he doesn't want us to see.

A film about swordfighting should not de-emphasize the actual, you know, sword-play in its climactic fight in favor of lots of sparks shooting here and cool reflections on a wet warehouse floor . . .

Yeahp, mine are just like that. 'Cept its just one sword. And a scabbord. Typically imaginary.

Best line from LXG. After the attack that starts off the movie, the other survivor says "Automatic rifles! Who would make such a weapon?"

Connery replies, "Probably Belgians."

I remember the Barbara Walters interview with Sean a few years ago. It was right after his success with The Untouchables. Barbara asked him to comment on his much-rumored beating of his wife. He replied with, "It was all overblown. There are times when you tell your woman that's enough and they give you more sass anyway. And I only gave her my open hand, not a punch."

Barbara looked stricken. It was hilarious. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but it was worth it to see Barbara almost have an on-camera stroke.

If I can manage a passable Sir Bedevere, he can speaka de American on occasion.

I assume here Ace is referring to his "Mr. Belvedere" impression.

LOL@Jimmie. Yeah, I'll watch Connery as Prez, and he can speak any way he wants. The man is Pure Sex even at his age...which is just wrong, but I'll have to deal somehow. Someone above mentioned how it was wrong that he got to bone CZJ in "Entrapment" and I agree; he's WAY too good for her!

And Sgt Dan is exactly right about Alan Rickman. He's the ONLY reason to watch Costner's Robin Hood (and I'm in the process of copying one of his costumes for an SCA event). Rickman steals every scene in every movie he's ever in.

Log Cabin, I'm sorry I missed THAT interview. :)

Later,
bbeck

I loved Hunt for Red October, Alec Baldwin was the bad part of the movie.
I think his best movie in the past few years was "Finding Forrester" He was outstanding in this movie.
I can still remeber going to the Movies to see my first Bond Film, it was "Goldfinger" one of the best Connery Bond Movie.

Am I the only living person who saw "Wrong Is Right"?

A late 80's flick about suicide bombers who would arrange for the media to be there when the blew themselves up. A bad movie but the premise was absolutely dead-on and ahead of its time.

Joan, I remember "Wrong is Right." Robert Conrad was in uniform and was always telling the President to "push the button." Not much of a political parody but it had some good parts.

Later,
bbeck

Prince of Thieves also featured man-mountain Mike McShane.

(crickets)