Over-praised action movies

I like John Wick. John Wick is fine.

BUT MY GOD, IT IS NOT THE SECOND COMING, PEOPLE!

There is a second coming of John Wick, though. John Wick: Chapter Two is scheduled for release next February 10th, and people in my Flickcharters Facebook group can't stop jerking themselves off about it.

There are at least three or four people in the group who seem to define themselves cinematically by their love for John Wick. One guy who never shuts up about it listed movies he'd watch during a recent marathon weekend. John Wick made the list, and afterwards in parentheses he included the clarification "(Because of course I did.)"

Why of course? What's so great about this film?

Oh, it's definitely good. I'll give it that. But I think that's why people think it's great -- because it's good. Good action films are harder to come by these days than they once were, so people are eager to rally around any good action film and call it great.

I think this also explains the love for Jack Reacher, another favorite in that group that is getting a sequel, though that one's ready to hit theaters this month. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (terrible title) is coming out in the U.S. on October 21st, and in Australia a day before that, on my birthday.

Jack Reacher is not good. At least, I don't think it is. I was singularly disappointed by that film, especially since I usually like Tom Cruise movies. The best thing about it was an entertaining villain turn by Werner Herzog. Everything else was pretty much tied for the second best thing about it, which was also the worst thing about it. There might have been a clever set piece or two in there, I don't remember. Jack Reacher was not worth remembering.

Yet it comes up regularly in my Facebook group, and that must be a fairly mainstream opinion, else they wouldn't have consider the movie sequel worthy. "JACK REACHER YEAH!!!" Really? "YEAH"?!?

The consequence of Jack Reacher being considered a hit by individuals who are not very discerning is that its director, Christopher McQuarrie, was borrowed to make another over-praised action movie starring Tom Cruise: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. In this case I was more conscious of tight set pieces and polished filmmaking. But I thought the movie overall was just lackluster. Maybe I've finally had enough of Ethan Hunt.

I wonder if this whole thing first started when other people saw a brilliant series of action movies in the Jason Bourne movies and I just didn't. I found them diverting, but nothing more. There have now been three in a row that I haven't seen, as discussed here.

There are two things I can conclude about being out of synch with the level of enthusiasm other people have about these movies:

1) I am just not as young as they are, or as in touch with my inner testosterone-infused teenager as they are;

2) I'm an old grump, which may be the same thing.

But I don't think I'm an old grump. One of Tom Cruise's other most recent action movies, Edge of Tomorrow, was in my top ten for the year it came out, and I gave it five stars. And I've got an action movie in this year's top ten as well: Captain America: Civil War. I don't expect it will finish the year in my top ten, but it's there now, and I've ranked more than 80 movies so far this year.

I think the real difference is that my need for action movies to be good differs from theirs, and differs from that of the average movie fan. The average movie fan earns the adjective "average" before his title (an "average movie fan" also seems to be a he) because action movies are part of his DNA. When all else is equal, he'd rather watch an action movie by a margin of two to one over any other type of movie. That's because even though he says he is, he is not really a cinephile. He is a fan of being entertained, and even though I'm making it sound like that's a bad thing, it's a totally fine reason to watch movies. One of the primary reasons, to be certain.

Well, that's not me, at least not anymore. That might have been me when I was an actual teenager, and not just channeling teenage desires as many of these people with whom I differ on John Wick, Jack Reacher and the latest Mission: Impossible movie seem to be doing. But the reason I know I'm really a cinephile is that I want any type of movie to be good, be it an action movie, a costume drama, a hard-hitting documentary or an abstract art film. The people who think John Wick is the best movie of the past five years are not even seeing those last three types of film.

Which is okay. I'm not here today to tell you how much better I am than they are, even though I know it sounds like I'm doing that.

Really, I'm here today to try to stop scratching my head about why these people love the movies they love, and I don't.

And through the writing of this, I've decided it's the opposite of someone who tries to break up with you gently:

It's not me, it's them.

Django & Djack: My longest double feature

It was certainly a reach to see Jack Reacher on Thursday night.

That's because I'd already seen Django Unchained.

Django Unchained is 165 minutes long, something I knew coming in. I didn't know the running time of Jack Reacher, because that information was strangely absent from Moviefone.com, my primary resource for finding out when the movies I want to see are playing.

But once I was seated for the trailers before Jack Reacher, whose 9:45 start time lined up perfectly with the ending of my 6:40 Django, I decided to use a different resource to see how long I'd be sitting there. I pulled up IMDB on my phone, and it told me that Jack Reacher was 130 minutes.

Uh oh.

So yeah, I watched 295 minutes of movies in the theater on Thursday night -- just five minutes shy of five hours. Has to be some kind of record, right?

Well, let's see.

I keep a list of all the theatrical double features I've seen, which includes the ones where I paid for both films (few) and those where I snuck into the second (many, including Thursday). I've seen movies as long as Django for a first movie in a double feature, but the second movie has always been comparatively brief, and definitely under two hours.

Or has it?

There are actually a couple others that come somewhat close to those 295 minutes. When I saw the similarly-titled movies 25th Hour and The Hours back in January of 2003, they totaled out at 249 minutes (135 and 114). Match Point and Cache (January 2006) came close to that at 241. The Lovely Bones and The Blind Side, in January of 2010, were a particularly long slog (considering the quality of the movies) at 264 total minutes.

But the greatest challenger to Django and Djack's possible future record came in the form of the January 2004 pairing of Big Fish and Cold Mountain, whose respective run times of 126 and 154 minutes make them the previous record holder at 280 total minutes. Which Django and Djack still eclipsed by a quarter of an hour.

Did you by any chance notice that all of the double features I listed occurred in the month of January, including the most recent one? That's because I'm always trying to cram in some extra movies this time of year before finalizing my list. The finalized list is coming next Thursday, and this past Thursday was probably the only opportunity I'll have for a double feature this cramming season. And since I'm often cramming prestige movies released during the holidays, the movies I'm cramming tend to be particularly long.

I wasn't actually intending to set any kind of personal length record Thursday night. My original plan had been to make my second movie Parental Guidance, a comparatively scant 105 minutes. And I considered even that to be pretty unlikely, since I was thinking Django would probably be plenty of cinema for me in one evening. But as I was wandering down the hallway of screening rooms and found myself with much more energy than I could have ever anticipated having, I saw that Reacher was starting only five minutes after Guidance. I'd heard bad things about both films, but I like Tom Cruise, and the trailers suggested it might have some of the nutty energy of Knight & Day. So into Jack Reacher I wandered. (Besides, if I'd seen Parental Guidance, it wouldn't have had a poster nearly identical to the Django poster. I mean seriously, that's uncanny.)

How did I stay awake for nearly five hours of movies?

Starting Django Unchained at 6:40 certainly helped. Since I'd both driven my son down to daycare that morning and picked him up, my wife had the whole day without him, and was more than willing to relieve me of some of my normal bedtime responsibilities so I could make the earlier showing.

During Django I ate the rest of a box of Mike & Ike's and the rest of a box of Hot Tamales my friend had brought over for a recent movie night, which I had combined together in a ziplock bag for easier transportation/concealment. Since those candies are all the same size and shape, it was a bit of a surprise each time I popped one in my mouth whether it would be fruit flavored or the sharp burn of cinnamon. And that sharp burn certainly kept me on my toes (though I probably should have saved it for the second movie). Unable to resist, I also ate most of the bag of Sweet & Sour Cherry Kick and Citrus Punch Twizzlers (yes, that's a mouthful). These have been an addiction of mine over the past six months, and I do not apologize for them, even though some people think they taste like household cleaner.

The good news is, I still had both of my smuggled drinks for the second movie, as well as about five Twizzlers. I gobbled through the Twizzlers in about the first five minutes of Reacher -- not necessarily a smart move, but once I pop, I can't stop, to paraphrase that famous potato chip commercial. But that still left me with the Diet Coke and Red Bull I'd snuck in (winter is great for sneaking things in). I drank the Diet Coke about halfway through, and the Red Bull got me through the final 30 minutes with only a minimum number of head droops.

The most remarkable thing about the whole experience? I had been more or less awake since 3:30 a.m. Having gone to sleep around 9:20 the night before, in part to rest up for my expected viewing of Django, I started tossing and turning at 3:30 and eventually relented to the fact that I just wasn't tired anymore. I was awake for sure from about quarter of 5 onward, and my attempt at a nap after coming home from work never took.

Sometimes, you just never know what the human body is capable of.

So what did I think of these movies? You know the rules. In less than a week you'll find out.

Now that I've established this new record length for a double feature, I wonder if it's something I will consciously shoot for in the future.

I just gotta get an early start and have plenty of Twizzlers.