My Favorite Action Flicks – and then some!

Last Friday, I talked about why I love action movies. Over on my Facebook Fan Page one of my writer buddies asked me what my favorite action flicks were. She asked me to show her mine and then she’d show me hers. I’m holding her to that promise. 😉

I have to credit my parents with my initial love of movies. I grew up around them. Heck, my parents met at a movie theater. The love of movies was destined to be in my blood. My dad was a huge John Wayne fan. I think we owned every movie he ever made. And back then, it was not DVDs that you could run down to the local WalMart and buy. Back then, we had the old VCR with the popup tapes (does anyone remember those?). My dad would sit and record his favorite movies off TV, pause button at the ready. To cut out the commercials, of course! Now we just use our DVR to fast-forward. I’m pretty sure he would have loved having a DVR. 😆

To qualify for the list, the movie has to be (a) one I own or would purchase and (b) one that I would want to watch more than once. So here, in no particular order, are my favorite action/adventure movies.

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw this movie in an old theater in Casa Linda Plaza way back in 1981. I was nine years old. My older siblings took me to see it. I remember the melting faces were totally disgusting. But that’s not all I remember about the movie. When I walked out of that theater, I was madly in love with the swashbuckling archeologist (who wasn’t?). It sparked my interest in history and ancient relics. It was the first movie that really impacted me and made me love the entire movie experience as well as action movies in general.
2. Die Hard. One of my favorites with Bruce Willis. The other Die Hard movies weren’t my favorite or nearly as much fun as this one. Yippee-ki-ay!
3. Empire Strikes Back. Han gets frozen. Luke loses a hand. It’s all very dramatic and exciting and action-packed! We are introduced to Yoda and the big giant walker-things. This movie has some of my very favorite lines I love to quote. “Laugh it up, fuzzball.” My love of Star Wars began back in 1977. I had the action figures, the movie storybook (which I cut out all the pictures of Han Solo for my Harrison Ford scrap-book), the movie soundtrack, I wrote fan fiction. This is my favorite of all the Star Wars movies.
4. Terminator and Terminator 2. I didn’t see the first Terminator movie until it was out on video, but I thought it was cool. I mean, how was that going to work out with her surviving with this big robot after her? And then we got T2 where Arnie was supposed to be the “good” cyborg and a new horrible liquid dude was after them. I loved the liquid dude. He was cool. Too bad he had to die. But as in all the Terminator movies…he’ll be back.
5. Lord of the Rings Trilogy. What can I say? Lots of man candy in this series that includes Viggo Mortensen, Karl Urban and Sean Bean. Plus there are elves, hobbits, walking trees, lots of ugly orcs, not to mention a wizard or two. I love this series and I love that my son is now old enough to watch them and enjoy them.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean Series. Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. ‘Nuff said.
7. X-Men. Wolverine. *purr*
8. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man. Do I need to continue to explain why? I didn’t think so.
9. Aliens. I hated those alien thingies so much. They are so gross. I remember watching this on video, gripping a pillow so tight my knuckles turned white. It was intense. I’m making a mental note to get the orignal Alien and Aliens on DVD and make the hubby watch them–he’s never seen them! Classic sci-fi action flicks that definitely need to be on the list of movies you should see.
10. Inception. It’s so visually cool, you can’t not watch. I’m not much of a DiCaprio fan, but I did enjoy this movie and it is one that I would watch more than once so on the list it goes.

So what are YOUR favorites?