Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Our third contestant

The polls may never work, but I'm still going along with this little idea of mine to vote for The Greatest Living Director. I will never abandon this ship! Anyways, here's the third choice:

3. Renny Harlin
Renny hails from Finland, and obviously takes over for Bergman as The Greatest Living Scandinavian Director (is Finland considered part of Scandinavia? I really have no clue but it is now). Anyways, on to Renny's resume.
First off were a couple of sequels. The first was Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, in which Freddie Kruger kills some people and says some corny stuff while doing it. I've never actually seen this flick, but judging from Renny's future work, I'm sure it was very deep and touching. Renny then scored a big Hollywood sequel that would entrench him as one of the go to guys for studios with too much money to waste. That sequel was Die Hard 2. We all know this film, it's like the original Die Hard, but instead of a building it's at an airport. You know what that means... EXPLODING PLANES, BITCH! Yeah! Sweet.
Renny decided to move away from the sequel making to something more original. He chose to take on a film that would come to be the ultimate chronical of the entire decade of the 1980s. So, kids, if you really want to know how things were back then, just watch Renny's classic, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. That's right, the 80s were a time when a guy like Andrew Dice Clay (I like to refer to him as "The Dice Man") could be popular and actually get women (I think). Those were the days... I should know, I was 10.
Harlin then went from one 80s super star to the next with the movie Cliffhanger. The star? None other than the great John Lithgow. Oh, and I think that Stallone guy might have been in it, too. Anyways, this movie was nominated for 3 Oscars. I'm serious, look it up. 3 Oscars. Didn't win any, but still, it was nominated for 3 Oscars. Really. So, it is a multiple Academy Award nominated film, but didn't win one, which gives it the same distinction as Taxi Driver. Yes, that's right, Cliffhanger must therefor be at least as good as Taxi Driver. Three nominations...
Anyways, the next two movies Renny made both starred his future ex-wife, Geena Davis. The first was Cutthroat Island, in which Geena played a lady pirate. The character had so very much depth, just imagine the hooker with a heart of gold character in any crappy hooker movie you've seen, and now make her a pirate and send her after some treasure or something. Yup, a lady hooker/pirate with a heart of gold looking for gold. Great movie. Remmy and Geena's second movie was The Long Kiss Goodnight, which co-starred Samuel L. Jackson, who played an angry black man. Anyways, in this movie Geena wakes up from an accident and of course has amnesia, and soon starts to realize she was a trained assassin, then Sammy L. shows up and yells a lot, and there's some shooting and stuff and a happy ending, or something.
In his next film Renny once again calls on Samuel L. Jackson to fill the role of "angry black man" in the movie Deep Blue Sea. This time Sammy gets eaten by a super intelligent shark, though. And that's the premise for the movie. Super intelligent sharks eat scientists. It's obviously great.
Next! Renny calls on Sly Stallone this time for a movie about racing called Driven. This is a movie about people driving race cars on race tracks and there's some drama going on that I really can't speculate on because I haven't seen it, but I assure you that the ending is happy and therefor it's a great movie.
Renny has been busy this decade, making Mind Hunters, Exorcist: The Beginning and The Covenant. I have not seen any of these films, but judging him on his previous efforts, I think it's obvious that Renny belongs on this list.

2 comments:

kevthegreat said...

I thought I'd add that, if anyone cares, making this list of directors is killing me more than a little inside. One to go...

phishbone23 said...

Great nomination, but I think you could have dropped the "dirty pirate hooker" line in there somewhere.....

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