These are MAN movies !!!

I agree pretty much, but a decade earlier for me. Post 1960s work for me. The fifties don’t work at all for me though I’m sure I’ve enjoyed some fifties movies though I can’t think of any at the moment.

I do love GWTW from 1939, but it’s a period piece & never looks dated. Also I love Rebecca from 1940.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Likewise. There are exceptions, I do love Psycho, and a few old films, but I think the general rule still applies to me.

This is the MAN movie thread! All this talking and thinking does not belong in here!

I can't help but think that, if I'm a real man, I can sit in the tool shed, with a cooler full of beer and a stale pizza, watching Brokeback Mountain if I want to and anybody that doesn't like that can **** ********** or **** ** ***.

My one-letter-off fellow poster may body slam me for suggesting this, but what are some good "anti-man" movies? By that, I mean ones that show what happens when a pure masculine approach is either ineffective or doesn't exactly pay off for anyone.

Besides the already-mentioned Predator, here are some examples:

Falling Down
La Strada (if I understood it correctly)
Raging Bull
The Dead Zone

What Women Want, perhaps?

I haven't seen it, but I heard that all the women in it want Mel Gibson's character. It makes you wonder if he wrote it himself.

Dr. Strangelove and Days of Heaven also qualify, I think.

You could make an argument that many "manly man" movies, which often feature gunfight deaths in saloons and being stampeded by cattle (westerns), death in gang wars, "real" wars leading to lots of death, death in jail, cop stories leading to death all have one thing in common, which is that they make setting in the tool shed with a cooler and a pizza and a movie, even if it IS Brokeback Mountain, look pretty darn good.

Some are attracted to him but despise him for his sexist ways, whic leads him to discovering how much of a schmuck he had always been.

It’s good, for what it is, but I never cared for the ending much.

Many. All the movies where the bully is ridiculed (Back to the Future, etc). All the Droopy cartoons featuring Spike. All the Chaplin movies. All the satires of gung-ho action movies (Hot Shots, OSS117, etc). Also, many feminist movies, from the best (Thelma and Louise) to the worst (the Ghostbusters reboot thingy).

Still, if I had to elect one, that would be Cube. Because it has a marvelous way to turn the action hero mythology on its head (like, woah, the qualities that make you a hero in action movies would kinda make you a dick in real life).

And of course, all of this, taking "man" in the sense that classic action movies establish, that is, "total schmuck" (which would be a more accurate terminology for this discussion). Which is completely unrelated to manhood. There's an argument to be made for "real men" being the ones who don't need to overcompensate so much.

Depends on what one prefers to "own" as legitimate "masculinity" or "manliness." If masculinity, in one's mind, is pure primitive aggression channeled into coercion, then a simple "bully" being ridiculed is "anti-man." However, this is like talking about "pure femininity" being representing by hysterically fainting damsels. It's ill-advised to treat masculinity or manliness as a univariate (and negative) concept. If so, the more authentically male one is, the more deplorable on is. And that's simple misandry.

Like you, I tend to think of these films as being anti-schmuck than anti-man, per se. There are, of course, some films which take a simple and low view of men, but I think most of these feature competing styles of masculinity. In Back to the Future, for example, Marty is cunning and inventive and knows when to run, but he also knows how to win. He is like Lysander, patching it out with the skin of the fox, when the skin of the lion won't reach.

I haven't commented because I wanted to see how this would (predictably) play out. The idea of man movies is a simple and harmless one, but in this day and age there always has to be pushback and dissection. It's interesting to see.

Movies with Lots of M&M (Machismo and Masculinity)?
Mine include some sci-fi, because that's my favourite genre.

1. 300
2. Total Recall
3. Rocky
4. Real Steel
5. Django Unchained
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. Iron Man
8. Dark Knight Rising
9. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
10. Die Hard
11. Raiders of the Lost Ark
12. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
13. True Lies
14. Back to the Future
15. First Blood
16. Dredd
17. Meet The Parents
18. Speed
19. Jack the Giant Slayer
20. Troy

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Boldly going.

But it is the case, for both. The more "über-feminine" or the more "über-masculine", the more deplorable in both cases. That's my point.

This thread is meaningless as a conversation, because it assumes we can spare ourselves an agreement on the definition. Actually, it requires to spare ourselves the definitions, because it would become quite dumb and nasty as soon as one would seriously start to list "real women have these qualities/flaws" versus "real men have these qualities/flaws". And to naturalize them through some "real scotsmen" fallacy. But even if we put aside the too heated nurture/culture discussion that would stem of it, after having established an arbitrary list reflecting, let's say, a shared, consensual system of belief, there would be this :

Every each trait, every each "quality", pushed to an extreme, would be a grotesque caricature. Any one-upmanship about "that character being even more [this trait] than the other" would spiral to ridicule, no matter the trait. The logic through which "it is always admirable to be even more your own sex (it is a value in itself)" and therefore "it is always admirable to be even more of that gendered trait (it is a value in itself)" would lead to praise for something eventually laughable (deplorable, if you will). An overbloated trait.

Because there is no stop, no asymptotic "authenticity" where to converge (what would you do of those who display "even more" of that manly quality ? they overshoot and become less manly ?). These are axes. The stronger the manlier, therefore the weaker the more womanly ? Therefore Superman is even manlier than men, he's the über-male. And if Darkseid (or whatever) is stronger, then he's even more "man". Woot. Grunt. Chestpound.

Out-performing gender out of gender fetishism to doomed to be comedic. And that's why parodies have nothing else to do than to take the traditional characters' "gendered traits" and turn them to eleven. That's also why so many earnest movies cross the boundaries to self-parody without realising it.

Not all can appreciate the raw power of a MAN Movie...

One of my favorite lines (and so manly!)...

"Bite down on this, son. It helps. I know."

I appreciate the clarification. It seems to me that there are varieties of both which are deplorable, but also varieties which are commendable. I do not conceive of some Aristotelian Golden Mean by which humanity should neither be too feminine or too masculine.

My objection is that of thinking of gender as being somehow pejorative independent of precise definitions. That, whatever it is, pure masculinity is somehow "bad." Ditto for femininity.

You are quite correct that a precise list is rather pointless (and men and women overlap quite a bit), however, we I am not sure that we need a precise list so much as a list of "family resemblances" which are not essential, but rather typical. And so long as we don't think of men or women as being typically "bad" we're not doomed to misanthropic caricatures (either misogynist or misandrist).

Many qualities would be so, but not all. Pushed to an extreme we're either talking about Gods or beasts, but the former is more of a flattering lie, where the latter is that which is grotesque repudiation.

On the other hand, if we're merely speaking of a cluster of family resemblances of gender (the typical), we might have a very "manly" movie which features both virtues and vices.

At any rate, as pointless as this conversation may be, I found your response to be well worth reading.

Cool Topic Here's my Top Ten, rules are simple...1 a decade 1 a genre

It's a Gift (1934)....but really any WC Fields film



Fields work is hilarious...his boozing gambling wisecracks and just generally misanthropic nature is what every man should aspire to. If I'm picking a comedy I would go with It's A Gift but all of his work is solid.

Pride of the Yankees(1942)



40's have a lot of good options but I was thinking about sports movies and while later decades had perhaps better options I think for pure sports you gotta go with Pride of the Yankees. Plus you want Gary Cooper on a man's list.

12 Angry Men (1957)





Moving onto to the 50's courtroom dramas don't get much better than 12 Angry Men.

The Wild Bunch (1969)



I know a lot of people think you gotta go with John Wayne when it comes to westerns...but which one to pick? But if you go Peckinpah and the 60's you got really one option. The Wild Bunch.

Hardcore (1979)
1970's had a lot of good options but I was thinking that didn't have a horror film and when thinking of masculinity what is the most horrifying thing a man can experience...losing his daughter to drugs and porn.

Outland (1981)


One of the best remakes of all-time, Outland tells the High Noon story in space.Connery is so good in this I think more people need to check it out.

Con Air (1997)

Con Air is a great action film, a high concept premise exercised with humor and an ensemble cast. Likely the most masculine 90's action film so Con Air gets the pick.

Zodiac (2007)


Drama is a little tricky because what makes a manly Drama film. Well a futile hunt for a Serial killer which moves through several different individuals.

Lone Survivor (2013)


This was a close one, Mark Wahlberg and Josh Brolin have some pretty good entries for this last decade. Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, Everest, Only the Brave...but I felt like I needed a war film..so I went with Lone Survivor.

Another Round (2020)


And if you are going to finish it up...go with the closing option of Another Round (2020). A foreign film that is also a bromance and this is the bar...that some other film will need to pass.

This has to be one of the most quotable movies ever made. The scene where he's trying to sleep outside on his balcony is especially hilarious.

"Open the door for Mr. Muckle!"

"I'd like to tell you both where to go."

"Do you know a man by the name of LaFong? Carl LaFong? Capital L, small a, Capital F, small o, small n, small g. LaFong. Carl LaFong."
"No, I don't know Carl LaFong - capital L, small a, capital F, small o, small n, small g. And if I did know Carl LaFong, I wouldn't admit it"

"I'd say you were a man about 50."
"You would say that."

I agree, it's one of the best Fields' movies. My personal favorite is Million Dollar Legs (1932). Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote it, as well as my favorite Marx Brothers', Duck Soup.

Hey, I saw you in a movie the other night, He Walked by Night (1948)....