Speak for yourself! I’ll take Armageddon’s ensemble cast – Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clark Duncan, William Fichtner, Billy Bob Thornton, Peter Stormare, Udo Kier! – over The Rock’s Connery/Cage focus any day and twice on Sundays.
Besides, there’s something about conquering space that taps into my adolescent thrill center far more effectively than a bunch of men with guns in prison chasing after balls of toxic poison or whatever. I suppose The Rock vs Con Air might be an interesting “would you rather…?”, but for my money, Armageddon is in a class by itself.
For me? The Rock stands up to the test of time better. When channel surfing and it’s on, I am FAR more tempted to watch it again than Armageddon, which never gets a second glance. (ditto Con Air. Saw it in the theaters, had some fun, snarked at some of the massive stupidity, and was never tempted to watch again.)
I have not seen The Sound of Music, so I’ll have to take your word for that. I believe it’s a musical about Nazis persecuting Swiss families or some such thing, so I imagine he’d have to be able to sing.
But I don’t think there’s room in The Rock for any character actors, certainly not to the degree there is in Armageddon. When you’re spinning a yarn about the world’s best deep-core drillers, you can expect a certainly quality of cast. Speaking of, I forgot Owen Wilson. And Jason Issacs.
Oh, I’m not offering up Liv Tyler or Ben Affleck, as Armageddon isn’t really concerned with its ingenues; they’re basically the “vegetables” of the movie. As for the young woman in that photo – Sarah Palin energy nails it! – I don’t really watch Michael Bay movies to perv out on his actresses. He does that just fine without my help! : )
Easily. The gravitas that Thornton adds to Armageddon cannot be overstated. He has no idea what a dumb movie he’s in and he acts accordingly. He is to NASA what President Bartlet is to the White House. Meanwhile, Ed Harris just looks badass in camo. Any actor can look badass in camo. It’s part of the job application process.
Well, that was mean! In the pantheon of movies where Nicolas Cage wears bad wigs, I would say it’s no more nothing than The Rock. But I’ll put you down for The Rock. I’m still mulling over my pick.
Man, I don’t think I’ve seen Armageddon since it was in theaters and while I do recall being highly amused at the time it didn’t really stick with me past the drive home, I think. Kind of cinematic cotton candy, if you will. Maybe I should see how it holds up these days.
I dunno if I’ve told this story, but when Armageddon came out, I was in Germany. I couldn’t check in to my hotel yet, and I’d been walking around all morning and I was tired and wanted to sit down, so I went to a movie theater and bought a ticket to Armageddon. In German. I took three years of German in high school, but that had been over a decade earlier, and I never was much good at it.
So I was very proud of myself for understanding one of the jokes in the movie. Steve Buscemi (yeah, Steve Buscemi is in that movie too) is talking to a girl in a bar, when he is approached by government agents. Steve looks at the girl and says “Wie alt bist du?”. I laughed!
Luckily the plot of the movie is not difficult to discern even without dialogue.
Whenever I think of Armageddon, I always associate it with Deep Impact since they infamously came out around the same time. While I think Bay demonstrates his crowd-pleasing bona fides in Armageddon, it always makes me a little sad that the movie about dunderheaded “riggers” drilling in space was the clear winner over the movie where the meteor actually hits Earth.
Deep Impact isn’t hard sci-fi at all, but Armageddon features a moon rover armed with machineguns for some reason.
I had to look this up, but by golly, you’re right! He’s the main military guy! I can’t believe I remembered Udo Kier was in Armageddon but not Keith David.
Now that’s an Armageddon story! Nice!
So that when one of the character catches space sickness and endangers the mission by wildly firing the machinegun – this is a thing that happens in Armageddon – one of the heroes can save the day by disarming him. Duh. Ask me a harder one!
By the way, have you seen Deep Impact recently, @Telefrog? I mean, say what you will about Armageddon and you’ll probably be right, but Deep Impact has got a dated and soggy made-for-TV feel to it, and I suspect it’s because it was made by Mimi Leder, who had pretty much only done TV up until then. And whose sister Geraldine worked in casting and was instrumental in getting me a couple of my early roles! In fact, I feel bad for not liking Deep Impact!
Yes! I watched it about a month ago on cable. It’s not great. Tea Leoni is just not that good in it and the story with her father is plodding and frankly a little boring. Out of the two movies, I’d much rather watch Armageddon on TV because Bay pulls out all his goofy tricks to keep an audience engaged and cheering along. I feel sort of guilty saying that because Deep Impact is obviously the more cerebral movie, but other than Frodo’s dirt bike escape from the mushroom cloud, Deep Impact has so very few fun moments.
So, we were at a campground last week and our TV (we were in a trailer) was able to get the Grit channel. We watched Johnny Ringo, a 1966 movie starring Dana Andrews and Jane Russell, with Lon Chaney as the sheriff.
The movie reminded me of an old John Wayne movie, Rio Bravo. But this one I hope to never see again.
Remember, this is a Michael Bay movie. His idea of a loving relationship involves either animal crackers or getting her to put on short shorts and lean over the open hood of a pickup truck.
Shatner and Lloyd Bridges? … Check
Trains? … Check
Ascot wearing? … Check
High tech computers? … Check
No idea how the streaming wizards recommended this to me today, but I watched and very much enjoyed it.
During the filming of the close-up shots of William Shatner on the outside of the train, the wind machine had to be turned down several times, because it would constantly blow off his toupée.
