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TOP TEN MOVIES FOR MEN

By Jeremy Knox | October 7, 2006

This is an oldie but goodie that I posted on the wwwboard when I first came to Film Threat years ago. I thought it was worth sharing again. Enjoy. -JK
 

This is my list of the top 10 movies that appeal to only the manliest men. No turtlenecks and metrosexuality here. I mean the type of man that drinks beer and eats anything from a BBQ, the type of man who pees on the side of the road in full view of other motorists. The type of man who thinks Animal House is a documentary, the type of man who sees marriage and child rearing as being on par with getting kicked in the crotch for an hour or two. The type of man who says stuff like: “I don’t need an umbrella. I’ll just run really fast!” or “I don’t need to stop at the rest area, I have a jug in the car.”

Let’s examine the following ten choices and I’ll review why each movie is indeed made for a man.

Conan The Barbarian
Need I say more? Eternally quotable man dialogue; Arnold stealing, flexing and screwing every woman he sees. All the bad guys get killed and Conan is such a tough m**********r that he makes OTHER people cry for him. If you’re still not convinced here’s my favorite quote. Conan is asked what is best in life and responds: “To crush your enemies! To see them driven before you! And to hear the lamentations of the women!” Yes. That IS best in life.

The Road Warrior
Notice how no one actually TALKS in either Conan or Road? Blessed be the silence eh? Again we have the perfect man movie. Fast cars that look cool as hell. Lots of post-apocalyptic anti-hero fighting and though as nails babes that will kill you if you so much as look at them crooked. Add to that a huge car chase that was probably as dangerous to film for the crew as it was for the characters in the story and you have the makings of classic man film. Hell, want more proof of the innate man-fest this is? Even the GAY guy in the movie is tough as nails and terrifying. When’s the last time you heard “ENOUGH TALK! We go in! We kill them! We kill! KILL! KILL!!!!!!!!!!!” on Queer Eye For The Straight Guy?

Blade Runner
Ahhhhh… Now we’ve entered the male intellectual arena. Again (in the special edition) there is little dialogue and what’s there is existential pondering in the sad, defiant yet resigned way that only real men can express. It’s not any kind of coincidence that this movie takes every 40’s film noir cliché and mixes them up with the sci-fi genre. Deckard is the perfect man (maybe even literally) because he talks only as much as he has to and he gets the dame. Not to mention that he waxes poetically about killing people, something Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg never touched upon, the p*****s.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
There’s a reason why Clint Eastwood’s nickname was never “Clit”. That’s because he’d have ripped your balls off with his bare hands. We’re talking about a man who used to be able to make women orgasm and men have heart attacks with just a squinty stare. He is arguably the first real tough guy. Sure Brando and Dean played anti-heroes before, but those characters were soft whiny little cuntheads. The man with no name always walked away triumphant at the end. That’s another rule in the man code “No one admires a narcissistic loser no matter how much of a rebel he is.”

Fight Club
Who says men aren’t philosophical? Yet another smart film that’s also made just for men. It deals with male fears, male angst and male views about the world. Men really really REALLY do see women as castrating mother figures. Men also really do resolve a lot of stuff using violence. If you look at fight club really closely you’ll notice that it’s about a guy who externalizes every single inner conflict he ever had. Instead of wrestling with where his life is going, he physically wrestles with himself. Real men don’t talk about their feelings; they punch each other in the face and THEN talk about their feelings. Men don’t bond unless they’ve fought, drank or done something illegal together. I mean the whole film is a rant against pretty things. No man has flowers and decorative rocks and bibelots in his place. We have movie posters and tour T-shirts and guns on the wall. Fight Club touches upon the fear of women and the fear of responsibility in the most realistic way I’ve ever seen. It’s also telling that once the hero has wrestled with these things and won the battles, he’s able to accept the girl in his life at the end. Awwwwwwwww”¦ isn’t that sweet?.

Jackass: The Movie
Okay, enough of this intellectualizing. We were getting a little fruity there. Jackass is a man’s show. It’s the type of stuff that only men understand. Like maps and guns and Nascar.  When I was a kid I would jump off the roof with the patio umbrella as a parachute. It says a lot about me that I did this more than once and that each time the umbrella failed to act as any kind of deterrent to me crashing to earth like a meteor. Why did I do it again and again? Meh”¦

The guys in Jackass also don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Don’t ask. Primitive men used to do the most brain dead of things to prove their bravery. Wrestle a tiger with their bare hands. Jump off huge a*s cliffs into the water. Chase hundred ton whales while riding a dinky little boat. My guess is that they were trying to look cool and impress girls. Because, face it, that’s why the guys in Jackass do this stuff. Because it impresses people, even the people who think it’s retarded to walk a tightrope over a crocodile pit (when you don’t know how to tightrope) think it’s pretty damn impressive. Women have never been able to accept that guys do stupid things. They’ve tried for centuries to reign in that mad energy and they’ve never been able to. Feminists say that women can do anything a man can do. Fine… let’s see Gloria Steinheim drive her car while lying on the hood and having to reach inside the car with her right arm to steer (after she flicked on the cruise control of course). No. Only men can do, and think up, s**t like this. Women think it’s crazy, men think its fun. This is why Jackass is a movie for men. No girls allowed.

Rambo: First Blood Part II
I think it’s telling that the girl’s good luck charm is a necklace and Rambo’s is his knife. This says a lot about the values of men and women as a whole. Women like frilly cute useless things and men like dangerous items that can kill or explode. This is also why Rambo is a guy film. Think about it… RAMBO WON THE VIETNAM WAR! Something that no President or Country or Army was ever able to achieve. That’s how f*****g tough he is. This movie is so full of testosterone that it started a whole bandanna and big knife craze. When’s the last time you saw people dressing up like a character in a movie as a fashion statement? I’m not talking sunglasses or a haircut or *shudder* a Star Trek costume convention. I’m talking black tank top, camo pants and bandanna with optional BIG A*S KNIFE latched to the belt in everyday life here. Men love Rambo almost as much as they like peeing their name in the snow. That’s how much Rambo means to us. Sly 4 Ever.

Escape From New York
Guys like prison movies and guys like action movies. So what better way to attract guys than to combine the two? Kurt Russell kicks a*s as the Nihilistic Snake Plissken. He doesn’t say much, but when he does speak it’s as a real man should. He doesn’t say “I don’t give a f**k about your war… or your president.” like some lameoid Hippy. He says it like a MAN says it. Like a man whose only wish is to live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with no rules. Driving around all day in his hopped up V8 Mustang and… but wait, that’s another movie. No, Snake is a true nihilist. All real men are nihilists. We don’t have causes and we don’t believe in the future that will never come. If we fight it’s only to show off how tough we are. Women plan for tomorrow, men blow s**t up today!

Enter The Dragon
Men love Bruce Lee because, unlike almost every other action hero, the man could actually DO the things you saw him do in the movies. Let’s see Ahnuld Schwarzenegger get shot by a SWAT team like in T2. Let’s see Sylvester Stallone take on the Vietcong. Let’s see what Sean Connery REALLY does when that laser gets too close to his crotch. Nope, those guys are p*****s backed by movie magic. However, Bruce Lee really could do all the things we saw. Send an army of men after him? THEY’RE DEAD! Know why? Because he’s Bruce F*****g Lee, that’s why. That’s all you need to know. KIAAAAAAAA!!! is the last sound many men heard around Bruce. Assassin for the CIA? Of course, but don’t tell anyone. Bruce was a man’s man. He was the type of guy that men like so much that if they ever turned gay he’d be their first masturbation fantasy. Bruce was the ultimate real man and Enter the Dragon is his finest film.

James Bond Movies (Any)
Occasionally, guys like to act sophisticated. When we do, it’s not because we read it in a book or are using the manners that our mama’s taught us. Nope, we’re just spending the whole evening thinking WWJBD. What Would James Bond Do? That’s right. When a girl flirts with us and we’re on a date with a different girl… WHAT WOULD JAMES BOND DO? It’s a serious question, but the answer is always obvious. He’d shag “˜em both. That’s what he’d f*****g do. Sophistication, wry humor, sports cars, money, fine wine and taste. Those were all sissy things to do until James Bond made them cool. Ladies, when your guy isn’t acting like a monkey, when he opens doors for you and pulls you a chair. You get on your knees that night and give your man a b*****b and after you’ve done that you stay on your knees and pray to Ian Fleming and thank him for inventing James Bond! Otherwise there’d be a lot of Monster Truck rallies and Wrestling matches in your future babe. James Bond is a real man. There are several songs attesting to his macho-ness. We, as men, dig that. In fact, when we want to be smooth with the ladies we pop in our tape of Living Daylights or something and play s**t like “If There Was a Man”. You girls love that and we get laid. ALL HAIL JAMES BOND! He’s a real man.

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  1. Steve says:

    Can I just point out that in most guys film collection there are going to be more than a sprinkling of martial arts movies. The more violent the better and often starring guys who really can kick-a*s in an expertly nasty way. And these always seem to end up with hero and villain taking their shirts off. Lee was a bad-a*s, but upper body clothing was not his style.

  2. Jeremy Knox says:

    bi·be·lot (bb-l, b-bl)
    1. A small decorative object; a trinket.

    …and Stin, Brokeback Mountain was just too damn manly for this list. Everything that’s manly is homoerotic, except sports… they’re just gay.

  3. Stina says:

    mike, you have serious homoerotic issues to sort through. it’s okay to watch sweaty men wearing tight fitting pants pummel each other. it’s okay to watch that kind of imagery and not be gay.

    Felix, every western is a brokeback mountain …only without obligatory offspring to make things narratively less easily gay.

    fundamentally, the western is all about a bunch of guys looking at each other.. ^_^

  4. Felix Vasquez Jr. says:

    Top Gun.

    Now THAT’S a homo erotic movie. Sort of like 80’s Brokeback.

    Yes, I made a Brokeback joke! Cut me some slack!

  5. Don Lewis says:

    You forgot SPARTICUS too…

  6. Michael Ferraro says:

    There are no sports films listed because this isn’t a list of Top Ten Film For Gay Men.

    I’m just kidding you jocks. While I think hot sweaty men climbing all over each other for balls is a little odd, I do like me some sports films. Like Rocky.

  7. cloud says:

    fight club is ok but id prefer firstblood part 1 to part 2

  8. Felix Vasquez Jr. says:

    Yes, yes, yes, yes, hell no, hell no, hell no, yes, yes, and not a Bond fan.

  9. Mark Bell says:

    It is a top ten, not a top twenty or thirty so a great deal was going to be left out. No sports films!?! But what can you do…

  10. Mitch says:

    What’s a bibelot? Is it good to eat?

    Anyway, real men are protectors, not berserkers; their urge to smash things and kill people is properly channeled into keeping women and kids safe, preferably by smashing things and killing people. I find it significant that you left all the Die Hard movies off your list, plus the Star Wars movies, even the ones without annoying aliens or too-cute-for-words aliens. And where is Robert Mitchum in all this? Or John Wayne? Or the Three Stooges? Cool Hand Luke? The entire Adam Sandler oeuvre is missing. Sheesh.

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