Old Enought To Know Better

Old Enought To Know Better


Sylvester Stallone, Sly has presided over a couple of the most successful movie franchises in history - Rambo and Rocky. Yet while Rocky still stumbles into the ring, conceding his own human frailty, Rambo seems to have barely noticed the passing years and can still take out most of the Burmese military with a quiver-full of arrows and a dirty look. Stallone was thirty when he hit paydirt with Rocky and it wasn't until six years later that John Rambo unleashed the dogs of gore. If it ain't broke don't fix it. seemed to be Sly's reasoning...and he stayed with his creations until they were ready for their complimentary Oyster cards. In fact, he was 61 when he made Rocky Balboa and 63 when Rambo strutted his stuff again. As the man himself admits, you need outside help to keep going: "Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older. Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life."


Arnold Schwarzenegger, he may have achieved a degree of respectability as Governor of California but there have been some narcissistic howlers along the way for "The Austrian Oak." In 1982 the youngest ever Mr Universe's buff biceps were just the ticket for the likes of Conan the Barbarian. His well muscled torso would go on to shine in Predator, Total Recall and True Lies. However, at 56, his third portrayal of the Terminator in Rise of the Machines was showing distinct metal fatigue. The previous year's Collateral Damage also suggested it was time to quit. After all, who wants to vengeful old codger causing mayhem in the South American jungle. Now blessed with a burgeoning political career, it's easy for the Californians - a discerning and worldly-wise type - to put their trust in a man who claims "cannabis is not a drug - it's a leaf". As far as youth is concerned, he won't be back.


Bruce Willis, the former welder was on a roll with his three appearances as New York detective John McClane in the Die Hard series. Vicious, sardonic and resourceful, he was thirty-three when he first donned the dirty vest. By Die Hard With A Vengeance he was pushing into his forties and the pipe and slippers were beckoning. There were even suggestions that he wasn't such a tough nut when the veteran of countless Hollywood shoot-outs didn't seem keen on boarding a flight to Blighty after the World Trade Center attack. The same year he said he would no longer be doing violent action or "save-the-world" movies. So it was with some surprise (and an awful lot of dollars) that he was tempted back at the grand old age of 53 to behave like a thirty-something in Live Free or Die Hard. It was a decent enough action flick...but you couldn't help thinking that Bruce needed a spell on a lounger.


Roger Moore, a 46-year-old was knocking on a bit when he picked up the Bond baton from George Lazenby. And 12 years later - at 58 - he was the actor to play Bond the longest. Even Rog admitted he was a bit long in the tooth to play the dynamic spy (he confided he felt embarrassed to be seen doing love scenes with beautiful actresses who were young enough to be his daughters). Indeed, by the time he made 1985's A View To A Kill it seemed it was only the starch in his safari suit holding him up (rumour has it that stuntmen had to do Roger's running for him). The onetime Saint did the decent thing. Well, actually he didn't - at 74 he played a flamboyant old queen in the execrable comedy Boat Trip. There's no fool like an old fool pretending to be gay. M would have been so proud.


Jackie Chan, you've got to give him credit - he just doesn't know when to say no. Known as "cannonball" as a youngster (because he would continually roll around. Weird.), Chan made his name as a stunt man in the Bruce Lee films and latterly as a fully-fledged leading man in Hollywood films such as Rumble in the Bronx and the Rush Hour series. Lithe, supple and supremely acrobatic, his brand of knockabout action found a ready audience in American martial arts fans. But he doesn't know when to stop. Over the years, Chan has dislocated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck and ribs on numerous occasions. Yet, despite being well into his fifties, he still insists on doing his own stunts. During shooting of his last Asian film San Wa he was stabbed and also couldn't move his legs for a day after falling off a horse. Word to the wise Jackie, sit it out.


Sean Connery, the title Never Say Never Again really says it all about the 53-year-old Connery's decision to play James Bond after he quit the role. Carrying extra poundage and a wig that now seems to have a natural home with Bruce Forsyth, Sean basically revisited Thunderball in one of the most ill-advised movie comebacks ever. It was twelve years after his last appearance as Bond in Diamonds Are Forever and the lithe predator of yore was now a distant memory. Fortunately, he subsequently sidestepped similar embarrassments although his film relationship at sixty-nine with a young Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment does strike one as a bit icky. Still, he does seem to have learned his lesson. When asked if he was appearing in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he replied "retirement is just too much damned fun".


Clint Eastwood, is one of the few action anti-heroes to shuffle into his twilight years with his dignity if not his hearing intact. Once upon a time a young, loose-limbed Clint shone as the dusty righter of wrongs in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti Westerns, and as Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry movies. Knocking on a bit and with his springy years behind him, he wisely went down the self-mockery route, particularly in the Oscar-winning Unforgiven where he made a virtue of his advancing years. Basically, he hasn't made a show of himself and can hobble into the twilight safe in the knowledge that The Man With No Name will never find himself in a high-backed plastic chair with the central heating turned on full playing gin rummy.


Pierce Brosnan, it's 1982 and from the pages of a mail order catalogue (or so it seems) strides a Brylcreemed young Pierce Brosnan. Two years before he'd played a young IRA man in The Long Good Friday. Now he was the dashing Remington Steel in the US TV series. No-one knows precisely how old James Bond is meant to be but at 37 - when he made GoldenEye - Brosnan couldn't have been far off. The trouble was he retained his licence to kill until his mid-40s with the abominable Die Another Day. Truth be told, Brosnan's 007 was hardly going to be able to keep up with villainous whippersnappers likes Toby Stephens and his plans to take over the world. Realising the folly of his age, Brosnan subsequently mocked his advancing years in the likes of Matador and the Western Seraphim Falls.

Harrison Ford, watching Harrison Ford engage in gravity-defying stunts in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a bit like seeing your dad struggling to climb over a fence. Ford was approaching 40 when he made Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was probably around the right age for an intelligent archaeology professor with a sideline in facing up to the Third Reich. With Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a 64-year-old Ford had to work out a groaning body and embrace a vegetable and fish diet to face the demands of Steven Spielberg's fearless adventurer. Heaven knows it's not ageist, but sometimes our venerated heroes have to concede the ravages of the flesh, sit down, put their feet up and knock back a Sanatogen on the rocks.


Chuck Norris, the very name strikes fear into those who haven't got time for no-budget martial arts romps where Chuck does unspeakable things to people who were horrid to the Americans during the Vietnam War. Chuck's early appearance as Bruce Lee's nemesis in Way of the Dragon and the subsequent Missing in Action series reached a violent high with the Delta Force movies ("They don't negotiate with terrorists... they blow them away!") and then gradually gave way to video store filler. In his dotage, the 65-year-old Chuck's latest outing is The Cutter as a private eye who creaks into action to defy Nazi war criminals. Chuck has now found God and wants a Day of Silence in American schools to show his disapproval of homosexuality. He votes Republican.


Michael Douglas, the celebrity sex addict still can't quite come to terms with the fact that he's no longer the hip young gunslinger that wowed the world in the likes of Wall Street. A marriage to a Welsh Valley girl 104 years his junior suggests a man anxious to hold onto his youth. Yet he was in his mid-40s when he made Romancing The Stone. To be scrupuluosly fair, you have to give him his due: when asked if was on board for Basic Instinct 2, the wily old bird replied "There were age issues, you know." The bad news is that industry rumours claim he's about to vacate his comfy chair to reprise the role of corporate raider Gordon Gekko in a prequel to Wall Street. Would that make him the only Manhattan CEO to have been present during the original goldrush?


Steven Seagal, bodyguard duties for Desmond Tutu, guardian to Tibetan nippers, alleged bigamy, moonlighting for the FBI, champion of baby elephants, defender of Native Americans... Yes, this arch-fantasist is the guv'nor when it comes to ageing gracelessly. It's no surprise that one of the roly-poly chop-sockey merchant's first jobs was in Burger King. Some uncharitable souls have alleged that the balding martial arts maestro married his Japanese wife to dodge the draft for the Vietnam War. Shame on them. After flipping burgers and holing up in the Far East, SS literally kicked off his action career in the 1988 flick Above The Law. Unfortunately, 20 years on the girthmeister's still at it. Straight to video...but still at it. But don't believe everything he says, kids. After claims that he took on the Japanese Yakuza mafia, his ex-wife claimed: "he yelled at some drunks, but never fought anyone". Our hero.


Jean-Claude Van Damme, the kickboxing cinematic heyday of the "Muscles from Brussels" lasted from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s and encompassed head-battering fare like Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Double Impact, Universal Soldier, Nowhere to Run and Hard Target. While shooting his most successful movie - Timecop - he was thirty-four and at the top of his game. Since then, however, it's been a steady trundle downhill with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, drug addiction and a welter of straight-to-landfill titles such as Narco, The Hard Cops and Until Death. Yet, the self-styled "abstract thinker" keeps plugging away despite the debilitations of the ageing process. JCVD was actually a rather decent exercise in knowing self-mockery. Surely there will always be a place for this former sparring partner of Chuck Norris who "can crush a walnut with his butt". If not, the world is a poorer place.


Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver. Goodfellas. The Godfather, Raging Bull. The Untouchables. Cape Fear. Meet The Parents. These are the noble body of work of an acting collossus. one whose challenging roles dovetail persuasively with his advancing years. And then comes Righteous Kill. Oh dear, Righteous Kill. Hooking up with wizened buddy Al Pacino, the two old duffers - last united in the seminal Heat - play a couple of long-in-the-tooth homicide cops. So far, so good. But of course Bob can't be seen to be too decrepit. So he gets a couple of knee-trembling rough sex scenes with Carla Gugino's sado-masochistic colleague. What? With those knees...and that dodgy ticker. Someone ought to have a word. "You talking to him, eh?" Because if you are...it may pay to see if he can hear what you're saying.


Al Pacino, after a glittering career ranging from the all-conquering Godfather to the deranged, cocaine-vacuuming of Scarface to the crumpled brilliance of the Alaskan whodunnit Insomnia, few would begrudge little Al the privilege, nay, the right, to grow old gracefully. But did he listen? No, he went staight out and signed up for 88 Minutes. Aah yes, 88 Minutes. Al played a forensic psychiatrist whose Ken Dodd hairstyle, shambling charm and hooded eyes were positive girl bait. Leelee Sobieski and Deborah Kara Unger gave him the glad eye and Alicia Witt rather more...despite the millennia age difference between them. The only filly who resists him is Amy Brenneman (and she prefers to pardee with the laydeez). Al would go on to do his irresistible ageing romeo shtick in Righteous Kill (posing on the back of a Harley, no less). Pipe and slippers, amigo, pipe and slippers.


Mickey Rourke, what's it like when the ageing process slowly but surely mutates you into Donatella Versace without the blonde fright wig? It must be particularly galling if you were the macho hunk who spent all those lost afternoons with Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 weeks. Now those long spells between lunch and teatime seem to be spent rekindling his boxing career when he should really be kicking back with a plate of custard creams and a steam train jigsaw. With his Oscar-nominated turn in The Wrestler, the frazzled old pugilist was reborn. However, the passing of the years have provided him with scant insight into life - he's got an IRA tattoo and loftily maintains "This sh*t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it?" Look out for him on Newsnight.

naunsa naman nang akong idol na si Pierce oi..dghan namang baby fatz..hehhe..la namn cyay abzz..hehheee...

maing-ana gyud ang paingnan kung magka edad na zuls..

di makita ang ubang picture bah pero nadani q sa image ni Al Pacino in his younger days..

naunsa naman nang akong idol na si Pierce oi..dghan namang baby fatz..hehhe..la namn cyay abzz..hehheee...

Naa gihapon Zuls...natabunan lang. hehehe