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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB… T100 Style

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145 Responses to “BYOB… T100 Style”

  1. LYT says:

    T-1000 style? Does that mean that whatever we throw at this thread, it’ll always morph back into something about boners?

  2. LYT says:

    Oh, wait…you said T-100. That just makes it primitive machine style — easy to spot, but tough to destroy.

  3. Eric says:

    So I was playing a game with coworkers last night at the bar. One of us would toss out an actor’s name and the rest would have to name a movie in which that actor died. If you stump the crowd, you’re owed a drink.
    We were STUMPED by Sylvester freaking Stallone. I’ve seen pretty much everything he made in the 90s and much of the 00s, but my 80s Stallone is lacking. Can anybody help me out here?
    Haven’t seen Get Carter, D-Tox, or Spy Kids 3-D. Does he die in any of those? I checked IMDB today and found that he played a fictionalized version of Jimmy Hoffa in F.I.S.T.– that seems like the most likely candidate.
    Anyone?

  4. leahnz says:

    he dies at the end of F.I.S.T.

  5. Eric says:

    Thank you thank you thank you.

  6. leahnz says:

    de nada

  7. a_loco says:

    Just got back from a screening of T4. It’s pretty bad. I don’t have time to discuss now, but I’ll come back later.

  8. IOIOIOI says:

    It’s pretty bad? God damn it, Kevin.

  9. Hallick says:

    Didn’t Stallone die in Death Race 2000 too?

  10. chris says:

    Beg to differ on “T4.” Great? No, but mighty entertaining.

  11. Aris P says:

    I’ll take ‘good & mighty entertaining’. That’s just fine by me. It doesn’t look bad at all. These films need to stop being compared to Cameron’s films. Even T3 — I thought it was a fun, well-made and satisfying film.
    Like Star Trek. There, I said it.

  12. frankbooth says:

    I just took a peek at Rotten Tomatoes. Not looking good so far. Only 20 reviews up, but three-quarters are negative.
    The trailer actually had me thinking this one might be a pleasant surprise. Hmph.

  13. frankbooth says:

    …though Mick LaSalle, as usual, doesn’t get it:
    “…at one point in the film, Skynet comes up with a new creation that has human skin and can speak, and the company calls it the ultimate infiltration machine. But wait. All three previous “Terminator” villains looked human and were capable of speech. They could infiltrate human society, too. So how is this new model an advance? ”
    Uh — oh, forget it.

  14. Wrecktum says:

    I think that T4 is critic proof. People will go in with their own expectations and their experience will hinge on that.

  15. The Big Perm says:

    I thought T3 was pretty boring. Not even bad, just dull and fairly lifeless.
    And yep, Stallone bites it in Death Race 2000…that was the one I’d thought of.

  16. IHeartThatCurtis! says:

    Comparing T3 to Star Trek? Yep. That’s Aris P for you.

  17. a_loco says:

    I actually liked T3 when I saw it, albeit I was pretty young, but T4 has high ambitions and stinks of a director trying waaaay too hard to please the fanbase. The action is actually pretty spectacular, but the storytelling is terrible and the style is so grim that it’s hard to enjoy all the elaborate setpieces. It just comes across as a lot of loud and busy.
    And there’s more illogical plotholes than Star Trek. (Why would a moto-terminator have an external steering device?)

  18. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    T3 is better than T2. Yeah I said it.
    Mostow is one of the better US directors out there. He does Cameron without the pomposity and delusions of grandeur. He’s Jim fucking Cameron when Jimmy was hungry and sticking painted egg cartons with Bill Paxton to the wall in Galaxy of Terror, is what Mostow is.
    And A-Loco.. you were young when T3 came out!?$#? Just how old are you? Are you a the first hotblogging toddler?
    Is everyone here under 25 except Lex, DP and me?
    Can we all just call BOMB/ DOA on Sherlock Holmes right now?

  19. jeffmcm says:

    ^^^Now that’s crazy talk (claiming T3 is better than T2). T3 was servicable, but also just a rehash of its predecessors. Are we claiming that the ability to coordinate a big action sequence or three and not make too many mistakes in basic storytelling is what it takes to be considered ‘one of the better directors’? What a low bar.
    (I am also over 25).

  20. Blackcloud says:

    “Is everyone here under 25 except Lex, DP and me?”
    Actually, I think there are more people over 25 than under, at least in terms of those who have said how old they are.

  21. IOIOIOI says:

    JBD: Proving how out of touch he is since 2006!

  22. LYT says:

    The biggest problems with T4 are (a) its ending and (b) the fact that every trailer — and every aspect of the marketing — has given away a key plot surprise.
    Other than that, it’s fun.

  23. leahnz says:

    …though Mick LaSalle, as usual, doesn’t get it:
    “…at one point in the film, Skynet comes up with a new creation that has human skin and can speak, and the company calls it the ultimate infiltration machine. But wait. All three previous “Terminator” villains looked human and were capable of speech. They could infiltrate human society, too. So how is this new model an advance? ”
    that’s too funny, frankb, what a boob (this ‘lasalle’ character i mean, not you, obviously)
    ‘T3 is better than T2. Yeah I said it.
    Mostow is one of the better US directors out there. He does Cameron without the pomposity and delusions of grandeur. He’s Jim fucking Cameron when Jimmy was hungry and sticking painted egg cartons with Bill Paxton to the wall in Galaxy of Terror, is what Mostow is.’
    good lord, i nearly fell out of my chair clutching at my chest, my heart going into cardiac arrest when i read that, jbd! mostow isn’t fit to drive big jim’s golf cart imho
    which brings to mind my biggest beef with this new breed of so-called ‘action’ director like mcg, ratner, bay, etc., all perfectly capable of setting up/shooting huge set piece action and blowing shit up, but seemingly incapable of building the tension required to make the leap from ok ‘action flick’ to ‘great movie’ like the modern action classics of cameron, mctiernan, spielberg, donner, carpenter, etc, who make/made movies with character-driven action and stories that truly grip us, make us hold our breath, make us care, make us believe.
    the key to creating a kick-ass action flick is building tension by way of creating characters we care about and root for, so when they are in peril/on the back foot/fighting for their lives, we feel it. the action is more than just eye-candy, it serves and propels the story. mcg and his ilk appear to lack the understanding, deft hand and nuance required to take a film beyond just one eye-popping set piece spectacle after another connected by a weak story and tissue-thin characters.
    in T2 – particularly the longer, more developed director’s cut – i love to hate the T-1000, i care when miles dyson dies, and when the terminator is lowered into the molten steel with john and sarah looking on, i feel their pain at losing their protector/friend/father figure and even tear up like a big sap.
    in ‘machines’, i don’t care enough to hate the terminator chick, when kate brewster’s dad dies it doesn’t really faze me, and toward the end when arnold’s terminator bites the dust, i feel a mild stirring of regret at most. T3 has some great action sequences but has all the tension of a limp noodle, and therein lies one big diff between cameron and mostow.
    (and further, cameron tends to use complex women characters to drive his stories/action, making him that much more unique; T3’s lead female character kate brewster is about as complex and complicated as a cup of tea. i care a bit more about john connor but i credit nick stahl for that trick)

  24. LYT says:

    I think Bay created characters we root for in both the The Rock and the Bad Boys movies…but that is arguably due to the actors involved. He couldn’t do jack with Ben Affleck, but unfortunately kept trying.

  25. leahnz says:

    bay just makes me cringe at the heavy layer of cheesy hockum with which he coats everything, LYT, but if you and others feel him (lex luthor!), fair enough. he’s certainly a more wily and seasoned campaigner than the mcratners, i’ll give you that

  26. LYT says:

    I like Bay when he does R-rated stuff. The Pg-13 movies, less so, though that may be primarily due to Affleck. I do like the first Transformers, but always skip past the human stuff to the robot fights.

  27. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    I’m no Cameron hater at all Leahnz but I do think there is a ‘cult’ of Cameron that tends to overlooks his flaws in favour of artifice. Of course a statement like the one I made (re: T3vT2) seems contrarian and purposefully baiting but I do prefer Mostow’s direction and as stated before I think his BREAKDOWN is a near perfect film. I think Cameron’s use of empowering women is simply a subversion of action cliches and nothing more complex than that.
    Lumping Mostow in with hacks like McG and Ratner (Bay’s Rock Rocks) is as crazy a statement to me as the one you accuse me of. Cameron’s best films may have greater moments but they are all uneven for me (and yes I loved Titanic and thought the drowning scenes in The Abyss nearly too intense to handle) whereas Mostow’s films are solid complete works that always deliver more than the initial promise. Mostow reminds me of Carpenter in his peak and it’s a shame others don’t see it. When he becomes THE tiffany action director in two years time and is offered everything to cherry pick from I’ll gladly accept all apologies from the naysayers here. I used to champion dirs like Carpenter, Romero but those old men haven’t made a good film in two decades and I’m sick of their new films killing my nostalgia so now I’ll just get my kicks from guys like Mostow who not only fill their shoes, they kick your ass with them.

  28. I’m under 25 as if that wasn’t already blatantly obvious.
    I liked T3 a lot when I first saw it, but I think a lot of that just was just excitement to see a freakin’ Terminator movie on the big screen (I was 6 when T2 was released, but I grew up with it on VHS and TV – i didn’t even see the original until much later), but I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up as well today. I do remember it being fun though. That crane sequence (you know, the one that was very similar to the one in The Dark Knight but because it wasn’t the one in The Dark Knight it’s not as good) was excellent and that end was fascinating. Any movie that gives you the apocalypse it a-okay by me.
    Bummer to hear that the new one isn’t that good (lots of people have not been impressed). We’ll see though.

  29. Hey, what’s up with this Planet 51 movie? I saw a poster for it last weekend at Star Trek and couldn’t stop staring. It looks like an abomination. It’s being released in November in the states… huh?

  30. leahnz says:

    jbd, ‘breakdown’ is top-notch, but ‘u-571’ ain’t no ‘aliens’ and…i can’t actually think of any other mostow movies, are there others? if not it might be a while yet for mostow is a contender.
    i’d rate him before mcratner just based on ‘breakdown’, which is why i didn’t lump him in with mcratnerbay in my babble about action flicks, but at the same time i think measuring him against cameron is premature and i don’t agree with anything else that you said re: that comparison so i guess that makes it easy on my end

  31. leahnz says:

    oh, also about mostow, he did manage to build tension beautifully in ‘breakdown’ so he obviously has the insight and ability for it, it’s away curious to me how a director can do so well in one movie/medium and not so much another in succeeding at the basics. i guess mostow is the uneven one for me, but ‘breakdown’ does give one hope for more of the same

  32. leahnz says:

    and by ‘medium’ i mean ‘genre’. sorry i’m a bit fried

  33. Breakdown is amazing in so many ways.
    That is all that needs to be said.

  34. hcat says:

    I’d like to throw a little love U-571’s way, had plenty of tension and a nice old-timey feel to it (same reason I enjoy Men of Honor).
    But as with a lot of part 3’s T3 felt like a greatest hits compelation of the previous two films. I groaned when the psychiatrist popped up out of nowhere for his cameo.

  35. The Big Perm says:

    Breakdown is a movie we saw at the dollar theatre just because it was there and cheap and we had nothing better to do that night. It’s the type of movie you hope will be serviceable at best…then it turned out to be awesome.
    Mostow’s other movies, on the other hand, are exactly what you’d see at the dollar movies. Serviceable, mildly boring, okay. To say this guy is at the top level of directors based on the greatness of one of his movies…the one, by the way, with the type of premise that as long as you have good actors and keep the momentum should be pretty hard to truly fuck up…well, I’d disagree. Mostow seems like a fine journeyman director, no more, no less. And we need guys like that, so more pwoer to him. John Dahl has become one of those guys.
    I like the double feature of Breakdown and Joyride. And the you could go old school and add Duel. There’s something about desert road movies involving evil vehicles that just always works, even in crap. Like The Car! Which scared me as a kid.

  36. The four best movies about scary cars – Duel, Breakdown, and Joyride (and I guess The Hitcher, although it hasn’t aged all that well).

  37. Joe Straat says:

    Ah, Breakdown. That’s a movie I need to watch. I caught about 10 minutes on cable once, liked what I saw, but never got around to seeing the whole thing. I have a credit for a free rental. I should probably use it….

  38. LexG says:

    Whoa, Scott, you’re gonna put Joy Ride above CHRISTINE???? One of them has Buddy Fucking Repperton, Arnie Cuntingham, Robert Prosky, and JOHN GOD STOCKWELL GREATEST DIRECTOR OF BLUE WATER MOVIES WITH BIKINI CHICKS EVER…
    The other has Leelee Sobieski and that mugging fool Steve Zahn. Don’t get me wrong, Dahl is cool and Paul Walker IS the nouveau John Stockwell… but Christine is the greatest shit fucking ever. Yeah, ever.
    That aside, T4: It’ll be big, but does anyone have a SLIGHT suspicion maybe this “franchise” is just kinda cold and low-audience enthusiasm WITHOUT Arnold? I mean, he’s the fucking Terminator.
    That TV show is nice and all, but Arnold is almost the lone draw… All this franchise backstory about Cyberdine Systems and SKYNET is fanboy minutia and I don’t think Joe and Mary Bumpkin in Des Moines give a shit or remotely remember the time-travel lore of the earlier entries.
    Just strikes me as like making JURASSIC PARK 4, but without dinosaurs, without Jeff Goldblum, and instead just having Gerard Butler and Ioan Gruffoud hanging out in an underlit lab getting into gunfights over who gets the righrs to some DNA formula. In other words, all the scientific shit we all just basically kinda endured to get to the big oversized iconic action.

  39. Joe Leydon says:

    Hey, what about The Car with James Brolin? OK, never mind….

  40. hcat says:

    And lets not forget that T2 drew a lot of people in with the ‘what the fuck is that?’ leap forward in special effects. I know they were used in the Abyss but having the liquid metal terminator created a unique must see factor for the second film.

  41. christian says:

    The audience for T2 was the most obnoxious I’ve ever been with. They would break into cheers as Ahnold snapped the bones of nurses and doctors (a nice future metaphor for his political career)…I think there are visual wonders but it’s such a bullying film. I was not moved. The first one however, still the best.

  42. jesse says:

    Lex, you make a really good point. Even T3, with Arnold, failed to make a truly compelling case for “continuing” the story — something that, actually, I think the TV show has done better (though it’s now been axed, and I haven’t gotten around to watching the last six or seven episodes yet). But yeah, look at that TV show: I know a lot of people who watch it, but I tend to run in pretty geeky/nerdy circles. It’s more of a cult thing than a storyline lots of people are really excited about, and they no longer have the big awesome effects hook.
    In fact, most moviegoers, I’d guess, are not that into mythology of ANYTHING. Maybe Star Wars, because, say what you want about the prequels, they did a good job of tying themselves to the old movies in that part of the *draw* was how they connected, rather than being a hinderance (the way that Star Trek used the brand name while sort of marketing around the franchise’s history). Or Lord of the Rings because it’s so clearly based on epic books. But look at the Matrix movies: yeah, people dug the story of the first one, but it was also sold on images and effects, and I can understand the disappointment people felt when the sequels “merely” continued the storyline from the first movie with equally good effects. I know some will say oh that’s just because they sucked, but I actually like them both, albeit substantially less than the original.
    So yeah, I find it pretty hard to picture any Terminator sequel having nearly the reach/impact/whatever of Terminator 2. Also, these movies are crazy expensive to make. Is the brand name that important? I bet if you made a really interesting sci-fi action movie *without* the Terminator name that nonetheless starred Christian Bale and was wildly promoted, it would do well (and wouldn’t necessarily have to cost as much as developing a Terminator movie that “lives up” to the effects, etc., of previous installments).
    Maybe that’s just naive, but not everything has to be trilogies begetting trilogies.

  43. hcat says:

    Is the brand name that important?
    It is since it is a cash grab. The Carolco guys still own this property right? Since this is the only major franchise they have left in their portfolio, they are going to keep bringing it out until interest is at absolute zero.

  44. hcat says:

    “The audience for T2 was the most obnoxious I’ve ever been with. They would break into cheers as Ahnold snapped the bones of nurses and doctors”
    Reminds me of when I saw Unforgiven and people were cheering in the end when Clint shoots up the bar.

  45. don lewis (was PetalumaFilms) says:

    I watched the French horror film “Inside” last night and sweet CHRIST….the French might be catching up to the Japanese in terms of fucked up psychology. Easily one of the grossest, terrifying films I’ve seen in a while. “Martyrs” is up next but I need to wait a few days and maybe watch some RomComs first.

  46. jeffmcm says:

    I’ve been curious about Martyrs and also Frontiere(s), anyone seen either of those?
    Christian, what you’re forgetting is that the doctors and nurses that get brutalized in Terminator 2 were The Bad Guys. Do we have you on record as condoning the facelicking of comatose female patients?

  47. christian says:

    I don’t recall all the doctors and nurses and cops being facelickers of comatose female patients. I just recall the glee from the dudes in the crowd as female bones snapped. The same glee I heard in the crowd from the also bullying TRUE LIES.

  48. jeffmcm says:

    Christian, my point is I think you’re taking it too seriously. One of the orderlies licked Linda Hamilton’s face in her room before her escape attempt and when she gives him a beatdown a few minutes later, it’s a more satisfying moment than anything Arnold does later on when he arrives. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single ‘female bone snapping’ in the entire movie except for what Hamilton receives.
    And since when does ‘doctor/nurse/cop’ automatically represent a character as a good guy?

  49. christian says:

    Jeff, I just didn’t like the film. I found it loud and bullying. That scene represented why. And knowing Arnie, his beating up of nurses there is ironic. TRUE LIES continued this quasi-fascist strain with the forced dance of Jamie Lee and the deification of spy-thugs. Cameron’s a genius, so I take it as serious as he asks me to.

  50. Aris P says:

    The brand name is everything in today’s mega-summer-tentpole-world. A really cool, sci-fi Bale-led extravaganza would not even get green lit anymore (I refer you to Riddick, Chronicles Of as one of the many reasons why)…
    Also, I never directly compared T3 and Star Trek — I just implied that they were both fun, well-made and enjoyable, IMO. That’s where their similarities end.

  51. jeffmcm says:

    Not sure about that last line of yours – Terminator 2 is not asking us to believe that all doctors/nurses/cops deserve to be beaten up any more than Titanic asks us to believe that Leonaro DiCaprio deserves to drown. Nurses and doctors get beaten up because it’s an action movie, and _somebody_ has to get beaten up (which is its own aesthetic concern), but the movie isn’t sneering at them or taking glee in their downfall (except for the facelicker).
    And you have to admit that Arnold beating up a nurse in that movie has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s happened in the last six years beyond metaphorical coincidence. That’s like suggesting that his Jingle All the Way performance has resulted in dangerous anti-reindeer policies.

  52. jeffmcm says:

    (that was to Christian, and I’m referring to his ‘I take it as serious as he asks me to’ line)

  53. jesse says:

    Well, Nolan was able to get a sci-fi movie of which no one seems to know the premise, Inception, green-lit for summer 2010, with DiCaprio leading a cast that’s more exciting to movie geeks than regular audiences… so I don’t know that a Bale-led sci-fi picture wouldn’t get greenlit without a Terminator brandname. I guess my point is, brandnames are important in part because studios insist that they’re important. Sort of like how Gossip Girl is a TV “hit” mainly because the CW just kept treating it like a hit until its ratings ticked up slightly.

  54. Dr Wally says:

    “But look at the Matrix movies: yeah, people dug the story of the first one, but it was also sold on images and effects, and I can understand the disappointment people felt when the sequels “merely” continued the storyline from the first movie with equally good effects. I know some will say oh that’s just because they sucked, but I actually like them both, albeit substantially less than the original.”
    Actually i think that Matrix Revolutions did at least TRY to broaden it’s universe beyond that of the characters and storyline of the first film, and it’s the kind of bold expansive step that i wish sequels would attempt more often (Keanu Reeves has less than 25 minutes of screen time in Revolutions, Fishburne even less).

  55. a_loco says:

    I can’t help but feel like the declining popularity of Tarantino is due to our society moving away from post-modernism.

  56. jeffmcm says:

    Since when did that happen (moving away)?

  57. CaptainZahn says:

    Did anyone see Glenn Beck get the crap beaten out of him on The View earlier? It was pretty rough.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbORYKko4Co

  58. Eric says:

    Everyone I know that really liked Matrix Reloaded was thrilled by the expansion of the mythos. I had a ton of heated discussions with people after Reloaded and before Revolutions, mostly focused on the mind-blowing implications of the Architect’s scene. Then Revolutions pretty much killed all our enthusiasm by sucking.
    On another note, I think the declining popularity of Tarantino is because he seems to think that AICN is representative of the audience as a whole. (That’s not to disparage either– Tarantino can do what he wants, and the AICN crowd is free to appreciate what they will. But a broader audience is not likely to care.)

  59. christian says:

    “And you have to admit that Arnold beating up a nurse in that movie has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s happened in the last six years beyond metaphorical coincidence.”
    Which was my obvious point, the irony between that and his famous “I kicked their butts” when refering to the Nurses Unions. Love ya Jeff, but I think your stoic literalness leads to some of your misunderstandings here.

  60. Kim Voynar says:

    “Is everyone here under 25 except Lex, DP and me?”
    Not hardly. I haven’t been under 25 for a long time — my oldest turns 24 this year. Pretty sure Don is over 25, and Joe is OLD, man. OLD. 🙂

  61. jeffmcm says:

    Christian, I like and respect you too, but you can be a tad too inflexibly ideological for your own good as well.
    Either way, his stint as Governor has nothing to do with the merits or lack of merit of Terminator 2 as a movie.

  62. The Big Perm says:

    I’ve seen T2 too many times than is probably healthy, so I can say that Arnold does not snap any woman’s bones in that movie. There was one female guard during the scene where he beats up the security guys (none of which were doctors or nurses, by the way…the only orderly to get beat up by a good guy was the face licker, beat up by the face lickee). Arnold throws the guards, each one seeming to smash through a window, and then the female guard hits him, and Arnold grabs her face and pushes her away. Seemed like the worse she got was rug burns on her ass.

  63. Joe Straat says:

    T2 was one of my favorite movies as an early teen (My parents were fine with it as long as they knew about it), and it still holds up today. I’m amazed at how the T-1000 is still one of the best digital creations in movies.
    T3 was technically a decent movie, but it never really proved to much of anyone that it was necessary. If you’re going to screw up the “fate is what we make for ourselves” message from T2 with “Oh wait, there IS destiny, but you have to rise to meet it,” you gotta’ do better than a few slick action sequences (I did like the crane sequence, but for awhile, I forgot all about it. Doesn’t say much when the viewers can’t even remember the movie’s flashiest action sequence).

  64. The Big Perm says:

    Yeah, even the good action scenes in that movie came off as sort of generic.
    By the way Jeff, I’ve seen Martyrs. It is really messed up, but what I liked about it is it never seemed to be nasty in order to be hip or whatever…like you can see Eli Roth straining to think of “fucked up” stuff to put in his movies, but with this one, it seemed like an effortless part of the story. The movie never winked, so you could take it seriously.

  65. storymark says:

    “Well, Nolan was able to get a sci-fi movie of which no one seems to know the premise, Inception, green-lit for summer 2010, with DiCaprio leading a cast that’s more exciting to movie geeks than regular audiences… ”
    Probably has more to do with Nolan getting to write his own ticket after TDK, and WB wanting to keep him happy, than anything else.
    Oh, and Christian… while it’s all well and good for you to hate T2, it’d make a hell of a lot more sense if the reasons you cite for hating it were things that, ya know, were actually IN the movie. Just a thought….

  66. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    T3>T2T2-4
    Martyrs is a stupid film. A stupid mean-spirited film that makes gore fans feel less guilty about their love of torture and cruelty onscreen. (thats you jeffmcm & big perm). If it wasn’t so laughably dumb it would be despicable, at present it’s simply ugly and amusingly retarded. Last year I screened it to a bunch of people to get early feedback on. Every arrested adolescent in their 20s and early 30s thought it “mindblowing”. Everyone else who used to be an arrested adolescent but grew the fuck up, detested it. Please draw your own conclusions.

  67. christian says:

    Never tangle with people who love T2. And the tone of the film was part and parcel of my dislike of it along with the aforementioned Roman crowd.

  68. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    some of my mathematical symbols disappeared above! leaving my ultimate terminator equation neutered. Basically T1 rules them all is what I was making out.
    @Kim – Joe is old. He even looks a bit like God might look like in a Golan Globus 80s Canon comedy. Speaking of our oyster munchin southern gent, I was sitting on the loo this morning reading about his old exploits and a secret Cannes pact he made with Jack Matthews and a few other critics… Joe and the rest stuck to their word, whereas Matthews broke his in 1991. He did write the best book on Brazil so I will let that slide.

  69. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    @Christian – True true. I saw T2 and someone two rows ahead of me was doing DeNiro from Cape Fear.. smoking a fucking cigar and laughing at all the violence. True story. I admired the film a lot but I don’t love it like one of my children (thats T1)

  70. christian says:

    THE TERMINATOR is Cameron’s best film next to ALIENS. Lookit that wit and imagination for around 8 million. And I like my Arnies evil.

  71. don lewis (was PetalumaFilms) says:

    BigPerm-
    I felt the same about “Inside.” It’s seriously fucked up, but it’s getting at something weird and subversive…I think. Not just being outrageous and gory to be like a 12 year old who found a copy of Hustler to show his friends which is Eli Roth’s M.O.
    Another smart but fuuuuucked up movie is Paul Solet’s “Grace.” It’s OUTSTANDING and has been circling the festival circuit. I hope it goes theatrical….it’s a great, smart and messy horror film.

  72. jeffmcm says:

    JBDoctor –
    Would you care to elaborate? I think I’ve explained in some detail where I’m coming from when it comes to my enjoyment of certain horror movies over others, and I take exception at your accusation. There are loads of movies that contain ‘torture and cruelty onscreen’ that I detest – the Saw series, 300, Rambo, I could go on forever. And I had mixed feelings on Inside.

  73. storymark says:

    Christian – Feel free to tangle, just try to do so without making shit up.

  74. christian says:

    Relax, storymark. In my memory from 1990, I recall Arnie beating up a few hospital folk, including a woman. Instead, he smashes some orderlies and tosses a woman down the hall. Huge difference. After I made all that shit up.

  75. chris says:

    Count me in on “Joyride.” Weirdly, John Dahl seems not to be a fan of his own movie — he’s not happy with the ending it ended up with (I like it, although the DVD does have one alternate ending that’s pretty good, too).

  76. jeffmcm says:

    “They would break into cheers as Ahnold snapped the bones of nurses and doctors”
    So Christian, just to get things straight – this above-mentioned memory can be described as ‘hyperbolic’, right?

  77. christian says:

    They did cheer every time Arnie pushed or broke anybody or anything. Including the hospital staff. Which did happen in the film. I’ll have to rewatch it again so I can give you the exact body count and sound effect. I’ll have a lawyer notarize the statement. Then…I’ll be back.

  78. Stella's Boy says:

    I’m a horror fan and I loved Inside but didn’t care much for Frontiers. The latter is just absurdly gory, gleefully rubbing your face in it for no reason other than showing off.

  79. jeffmcm says:

    I think your Arnie-hatred is coloring your perception of the movie.

  80. christian says:

    No, Jeff, otherwise I wouldn’t love THE TERMINATOR or COMMANDO or PREDATOR. And I didn’t “hate” Arnie when I saw T2 on opening night back in the day. But I did dislike the film and audience. I think your love of the movie is coloring your perception of my perception. BOO YAH!

  81. jeffmcm says:

    Touche!
    I still don’t comprehend your exact reasoning though – to label a film as ‘bullying’ would imply that there’s some unfairness involved, which I don’t see. Was it the audience that exacerbated your feelings toward the movie, or vice versa?

  82. The Big Perm says:

    Christian, I’m sure the audience cheered when Arnold killed and maimed people in those other movies too. Think of those poor guerillas he killed in Predator and Commando…they were just following orders, and he left thousands of orphans and widows after those massacres!

  83. The Big Perm says:

    And JBD, you make me laugh…”enjoy torture?” Man, you sound like one of the blue hairs who would have said the same thing about Night of the Living Dead in the 60s, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Excorsist in the 70s. What could be more torture porn than having a little girl do all of those horrible things?
    Besides, you love T1…did you get off when Terminator slaughtered all of those cops? You must have, what other reason could you have loved that movie? That’s fucking sick, man.
    By the way, I don’t recall saying I “liked” Martyrs. I said I liked something about it. Please draw your own conclusions!

  84. christian says:

    Arnie was the bad guy in the first one. Nobody cheered when he killed those cops. And you’re right Big Perm. All movie deaths are the same. In every way. If you don’t like one, you can’t like any.

  85. jeffmcm says:

    So Christian, I’m asking you to explain what was acceptable about Arnie killing bad guys in Commando or Predator that was unacceptable in T2.
    Tone?

  86. christian says:

    It’s not about killing bad guys. Tone indeed. The same tone that separates TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE from BLOODSUCKING FREAKS or what have you. Cameron’s films, technical brilliance aside, have a proto-authoritarian vibe, from ALIENS to the loathsome TRUE LIES (and he did write RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2). This “bullying” does reach a nadir in TRUE LIES, when Arnie forces his wife at gunpoint to dance for him while Bill Paxton’s pathetic salesman is humiliated endlessly by the powerful government spies. It’s ugly and I don’t like it. And that is my inflexible ideology at work;]
    The other films I take far less serious since one can’t take COMMANDO seriously. Can one?

  87. leahnz says:

    ‘THE TERMINATOR is Cameron’s best film next to ALIENS. Lookit that wit and imagination for around 8 million.’
    i hear that, christian, and i totally agree. ‘terminator’ is a true classic for the ages, perhaps the best example of a hard-out in-camera relentless action flick ever, made on a wing and a prayer and the whiff of gasoline, with virtually all the exposition handled by micheal biehn during intense action sequences, which also serves to build the character of kyle reese before our eyes, an absolutely genius trick (perhaps the only film to rival ‘terminator’ for hard-out in-camera road action would be ‘mad max deux’).
    all achieved by the genius combo of baby genius cameron, genius winston and a genius cast and crew. and to top it all off, at its core ‘terminator’ is a LOVE STORY (big jim’s own words) about a soldier who comes back through time to save the woman he loves simply based on an old photograph and his love for her son (HIS son), an ordinary woman who, as cam describes her, represents how the least of us can be pissed of incredible strength and monumental importance, and rise up to become the guardian of the future. profound stuff.

  88. leahnz says:

    i meant, ‘represents how the least of us can be ‘possessed’
    (pissed? don’t know how i managed that one)

  89. jeffmcm says:

    We’re getting into diminishing returns now, but I don’t see what’s ‘proto-authoritarian’ about Aliens, a film in which the hero is the one who upends the chain of command when the established authorities are revealed as incompetent and out of their league. Ditto T2 and Titanic. I can’t really argue with Christian’s appraisal of True Lies, except that I apparently take that movie as seriously as he does Commando.

  90. The Big Perm says:

    Yeah, so if a movie isn’t presented “seriously,” then any amount of disgusting carnage is okay? Arnold chopping off arms and throwing saws into guy’s faces is fun? I gotta agree with Jeff…you take True Lies seriously and not Commando? And yeah, Aliens isn’t authoritan at all…Ripley finally takes charge ignoring the superiors, and the big business guy is corrupt and evil. It’s a hippie movie!
    This was my point in terms of JBD getting off on Arnold murdering cops. It’s because he presented the argument that to like (or even just admire, which is closer to the way I see it…I didn’t “like” it) Martyrs is to enjoy torture. It can’t be because the story is intense and scary or suspenseful, and that you want the lead characters to get away and don’t enjoy their torture…you want to see them figure a way out and survive and hopefully kill the bad guy if possible. So his argument is disingenuous.
    So, I can say that if he loves Terminator, it can’t be because the story is exciting and the performances and action are riveting. He must get off on cops being killed. Because that’s all that movie is about, just like that’s all Martyrs is about, right?

  91. The Big Perm says:

    Hey, who here thinks RoboCop is torture porn? Peter Weller gets tortured for a few minutes there…and in the director’s cut gets it even worse. Were we supposed to get off on that? Because I didn’t.

  92. christian says:

    Jeff, not sure how old you are, but I saw ALIENS opening day and at the height of the Reagan 80’s, the deification of military folk wiping out a foreign species (deserved or not) smacked of the era’s rampant jingoism (Cameron’s RAMBO opened the same summer with a similar story). And I love ALIENS. Even Harlan Ellison, who had his own legal issues with Cameron over The Terminator story, noted that in his favorable review. I’m just sayin’ the subtext is often there in his films: Might Makes Right.

  93. The Big Perm says:

    Isn’t that the subtext of most action films? The guy who kills everyone else is the guy in the right.
    And in Terminator 1 and 2 and Aliens, it’s never the mighty that wins. The heroes are the scrappy underdogs who defy authority and win. Not the case in True Lies, of course.

  94. christian says:

    I thought the otherwise cool ROBOCOP reveled in excessive violence the way almost every single Verhoven film does (TOTAL RECALL was a great sci-fi script that didn’t need exploding machine gunned bodies or melting eyeballs…did it?) And Big Perm, I think Verhoven gets off on Weller’s torture.
    Can I go home now Teacher?

  95. jeffmcm says:

    See, this gets back to what I was saying before about ideology. ‘Might makes Right’ is _not_ a theme in Cameron’s films, if it’s anything so simplistic it might be ‘competence makes right’. Arnold in The Terminator, the T-1000 in T2, the Queen Alien are all certainly more ‘mighty’ than their smaller, weaker, good guy opponents, who succeed through a combination of scrappiness, flexibility, and raw humanity. The military aren’t ‘deified’ in Aliens, half of them are incompetent losers (Hudson being the most obvious example). The role model in that movie is Ripley, not Hicks or even Vasquez.
    Christian, you do have a point about xenophobia as a thread within sci-fi movies, and it’s certainly present in Aliens, but it’s not exactly something unique to Cameron. Let’s give Howard Hawks some shit for a change.

  96. christian says:

    One for the road Big Perm: whose body of work do you take more serious, James Cameron or Mark Lester?

  97. The Big Perm says:

    What difference does that make make, padawan?

  98. jeffmcm says:

    Oh man…I missed the ‘Verhoeven gets off on Weller’s torture’ comment until just now. Man does that strike me as way off – the movie gives us no reason to dislike Murphy or enjoy, in any way, his torment, and every reason to hate Kurtwood Smith and the other goons and fear and loathe what they’re doing – that scene is pure masochism.

  99. christian says:

    I said Verhoven does — not the script. If you’ve read any interviews with the man you’d see he thinks movie violence is funny. He’s seen the real deal and so he thinks of this as either “In your face” or “It’s fun.” Didn’t you see SHOWGIRLS?

  100. leahnz says:

    ripley says to newt of the badass marines: ‘these people are here to protect you, don’t you think you’ll be safer with them?’ to which newt shakes her head sadly and wisely, and opines, ‘it won’t make any difference’. and indeed it doesn’t.
    sometimes might is just stupid arrogance. for my money that’s the subtext of ‘aliens’. just my half-cent anyway

  101. The Big Perm says:

    Agreed with Jeff. I do think Verhoeven is having some fun with the scene, mind you…the guy doesn’t make movies with a dour face and cry about the plight of the hero…he DOES revel in guts and blood. BUT, the point of that scene is entirely to make Weller’s death so horrific that when he comes back in the end, you absolutely root for his justice. That’s the best kind of action movie to me…stack the deck so unfairly against our hero and then let him win.
    What I love about Die Hard is that McClane gets the HIT beat out of him for the whole movie and by the end he’s just one big blood covered wreck, but he presists and wins. I like my heroes to suffer a bit, I hate the easy win.

  102. christian says:

    Big Perm, the difference is that of any director, who they are and what they represent. Cameron’s a cinematic technical visionary and Lester made INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS. By your logic, if somebody loves one action film they can’t critique or compare another? I’m throwing down Ebert’s LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT review in defense…

  103. jeffmcm says:

    Christian – movie violence is often funny, such as the exploding eyeballs in Total Recall or the impale-a-thon that is Starship Troopers. But the scene in Robocop is deadly serious, just like the riverboat attack scene in Black Book or any given scene of violence in Soldier of Orange. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but these are scenes with obvious, blatantly different valences.
    And extrapolating some argument out of Mark Lester’s craptacular career is silly. That’s like saying that the guy who made 1941 and Temple of Doom is disqualified from winning any Oscars, because we’re not meant to take his movies seriously, right?

  104. christian says:

    Damn, I wish there was a Hot Blog STOP IDIOT button…Lester made TRUCK STOP WOMEN is what I meant. And I love Lester’s exploitation films. But I don’t take them as serious as Cameron, who I think is an artist asking to be taken seriously. So I do.
    And FYI, Jeff, I saw THE LAST ACTION HERO opening day over JURASSIC PARK. I’m one of the few who liked the film for at least daring to be different.

  105. christian says:

    And I’ll be there opening day for AVATAR.

  106. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    @bigperm, jeffmcm – I think I have to apologise to you both because I misread that you both dug Martyrs somehow. I’m not lumping other violent scenes into the mix and whether I ‘get off’ on cops being killed. I’m specifically referring to that french fart of a film. It’s stupid and loathsome and its logic is flawed and dumb. btw I loved loved INSIDE and thought it pitch black wicked fun.

  107. jeffmcm says:

    Christian, Cameron is a serious artist, but he wasn’t asking to be taken seriously in True Lies, his lightest, frothiest, most inconsequential movie (as opposed to The Abyss, which is pretty inconsequential, but also kind of heavy and pretentious). I don’t see why we have to take his James Bond pastiche ‘seriously’. True Lies is intellectually hard to defend, which is why I don’t try to. But as a piece of entertaining junk, it’s definitely on the same level as Commando.
    Unless you’re making some other argument re: Lester than I’m not following.
    And I don’t know what Last Action Hero has to do with anything. It does dare to be different. It also dares to be a huge mess.

  108. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    @Christian – I saw Last Action Hero opening day and thought it was remarkable and a clever and subversive romp. If they had recast that awful kid lead it would be more fondly regarded. He utterly derails the film. The film was ahead of its time in more ways than one and its surprising how of its signature nods have been lifted into other films.

  109. jeffmcm says:

    JB Doctor: No problemo. I was asking about Martyrs simply because the box caught my eye at Amoeba.

  110. christian says:

    I was throwing out TLAH there after being j’accused of “Arnie Hatred.” Nobody who hates him would have seen that over JURASSIC PARK.
    TRUE LIES is based on a French film, not so much Bond. And its sexual politics are more provocative. There was some controversy when it came out. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called for a boycott for its truly wretched portrayal. So somebody took it more serious than you. That’s okay.

  111. jeffmcm says:

    (Rolling eyes) Yes, I know, Christian. It’s a remake of a French film but the iconography – the movie opening with Arnold popping out of a wetsuit to reveal a tux underneath – is a blatant Bond pastiche, as in ‘what if Bond was a family man’ as the movie’s premise. It can be both at the same time.
    And yeah, the representation of Arabs is, shall we say, problematic. That’s why, as I just said, I only say that I approve of the movie as a guilty pleasure. I watch Tom & Jerry cartoons too, but I don’t torture cats in my free time.

  112. christian says:

    I think a remake of THE LAST ACTION HERO — using Zak Penn and Adam Leff’s original scrip mind you — would be great. Arnold has perhaps his best thespic moment when he tells the irritating kid about his empty life outside his films as they sit in his dingy room.

  113. frankbooth says:

    I must have gone through some kind of time warp.Am I looking at a really old thread?
    This is all about movies and shit.

  114. christian says:

    “I watch Tom & Jerry cartoons too, but I don’t torture cats in my free time.”
    Where did I imply that you did? But Arab-Americans who face racism every day did have big problems about TRUE LIES which you saw as pop nothingness. One man’s guilty pleasure can always be another’s problematic film.
    Oh, and about the cats…you don’t really…never mind.

  115. christian says:

    Sorry Frank.
    It just happened. It was just one of those things that happened. Can you understand that?

  116. frankbooth says:

    …and Christian, it’s obvious that Mark Lester takes his work VERY seriously:
    http://www.screenjunkies.com/movienews/commando-best-film-ever-pt-1

  117. jeffmcm says:

    Christian, by definition a guilty pleasure is a problematic film. No film is a monolith. I admire True Lies for its narrative propulsiveness, for the action sequences, for the comedy (yes, I said it), and for the performances (including Jamie Lee Curtis, who takes what could have been a hapless, annoying, unlikeable character and makes her strong and interesting). When the cartoon Arabs come up, I wince a little. But (and this is where my Tom & Jerry comparison came up) I also then don’t go out on the street to the nearest Arab and spit in his face. Watching a stereotype in a film and being aware that it’s a stereotype is a reasonable inoculation against spreading the stereotype. I don’t blame you for hating that movie, but I also refuse to discard it altogether.

  118. Eric says:

    I don’t want to get in the middle of this argument but I will point out that the striptease in True Lies was coerced but it definitely was not done at gunpoint.
    I was fifteen when I got my VHS copy of the movie, if you get my drift. I’ve probably seen the scene, oh, nine or ten thousand times.

  119. christian says:

    Frankbooth, that was amazing and I stand humbly corrected. Lester might just be right…

  120. The Big Perm says:

    Well thanks JBD, but I think you’re apologizing for the wrong reason…better to apologize for saying anyone who would love a movie like Martyrs must do so because they love torture. That’s just a pretty disingenuous thing to say, in my opinion.
    While I didn’t “like” Martyrs, I still admire it for going all the way and I would defend it. Even the director said he doesn’t liek the movie. I don’t think anyone could!
    I don’t remember Inside real well, but I do remember thinking about it the way you did about Martyrs. Incredibly stupid and just as “torture porny.” But I wouldn’t say you liked it because you enjoy watching pregnant women get cut up.

  121. The Big Perm says:

    Oh yeah, Last Action Hero…I hate that movie. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Because it SHOULD have been great. There was a limitless amount of possibilities in that movie, so why didn’t they try anything? How cool would it have been for the bad guy to actually unleash a herd of dinosaurs on the city, or grab a gangster black and white James Cagney to help him, or grab the mummy? And they could have had the final climactic battle at Dracula’s castle. I don’t know, there was so much they could have done so they decided to simplify and just go for the lamest, easiet jokes about action movies possible. Leo the Fart? Someone should have been FIRED for that shit.

  122. don lewis (was PetalumaFilms) says:

    Good gravy, what’s next?!? You guys going to start arguing the “Star Trek” reboot -vs- “Star Wars?”
    Oh…wait….

  123. christian says:

    Good Grief Don. I don’t know what we were thinking debating film subtext here…Who won American Idol?

  124. IOIOIOI says:

    Christian… the kid who had Arkansas vote for him as much as Ruben had Alabama vote for him… won. Yeah, Kris, get ready to have a short career.

  125. I know we’ve gone off of this path, but just wanted to say something in regards to T2/Matrix. I’ve always thought that The Matrix Reloaded should have been exactly as the name suggested: Reloaded. Someone flicked the switch and changed the game so now, ala T2, a good guy is the Agent Smith and Smith is a good guy and the world is different. But that’s neither here nor there anymore.
    Also, look at the original Terminator and think back to the discussion we had about Equilibrium. You can go a long with a small-budget action flick. The latter didn’t go anywhere.

  126. don lewis (was PetalumaFilms) says:

    I was joking christan, sheesh.
    I’ll respond to that in the other thread…

  127. storymark says:

    “Relax, storymark. In my memory from 1990, I recall Arnie beating up a few hospital folk, including a woman. Instead, he smashes some orderlies and tosses a woman down the hall. Huge difference. After I made all that shit up. ”
    Didn’t even “toss her down the hall”, he gave her a shove and she fell on her ass.
    Just sayin’ – when your point is about how you couldn’t like the film because Arnold beats up doctors (he didn’t) and a woman (he didn’t), and the audience cheered at the sounds of her bones breaking (they didn’t because it didn’t happen), it makes it kinda hard to take your critisism seriously.
    I mean, I could say I hated the Brady Bunch movie because of the knife fight in the middle…

  128. christian says:

    Storymark, I just watched a clip of the scene. He throws one orderly through the glass and another hard against a wall (so no bones breakin’ huh?). Then he grabs the woman’s face, shoves her, then the shot CUTS TO HER BODY FLYING DOWN THE HALL. Not falling on her ass.
    Go watch it again since your memory is faulty too. You are wrong. Now get over yourself.

  129. jeffmcm says:

    One orderly hits a wall but we don’t hear bones breaking or see them like in Watchmen. Therefore, you may presume that a rib might have cracked or something, but it’s not a detail that Cameron insists on, or it would have been in the movie. = No bones breaking for an audience to cheer for.
    “Body flying down the hall” is hyperbolic. The way you phrase it makes it sound like she was picked up and hurtled at great force. No, she gets a pretty major shove. Probably enough to cause some pretty big bruises. Maybe a broken finger or wrist if she were to land funny. Not enough to kill, or maim.
    The movie does not revel in the violence inflicted on these people, except the facelicker, like I said yesterday. Maybe the audience you saw it with in 1991 were a bunch of gibbering baboons, Christian. But that doesn’t change the content of the scene.

  130. christian says:

    I disagree. The movie does revel in violence inflicted on those people. It’s the fucking TERMINATOR folks. And the body flying down the hall is WHAT’S ONSCREEN. I never said they were killed. The audience I saw it with wishes they woulda been.
    Gads, T2 fans are worse than FIGHT CLUB fans…

  131. jeffmcm says:

    Explain to me how the filmmaking in T2 revels in violence against bystanders and the filmmaking in Commando doesn’t? I think there’s a pretty clear difference between the two.
    Don’t blame me if you raise a contention and then are not able to provide supporting evidence.

  132. christian says:

    I already made my argument Jeff, like it or not. T2 cost 100 million dollars by a major American filmmaker that I take seriously. COMMANDO was an 80’s exploitation film without delusions.
    I am large, I contain film multitudes.
    And T2 is trying to tell an epic about saving mankind so the audience bloodlust was doubly ironic. I think it’s a bullying film, and my take stands. I gave you more evidence from other Cameron films on this subtext that does exist, like it or not. You didn’t acknowledge this at all. And you wrote off my example with TRUE LIES because YOU didn’t take it seriously, whereas Arab and Women’s groups certainly did. Are they wrong? No, they have their take. Life goes on.

  133. jeffmcm says:

    You’re still not doing it. Commando being a cheesy exploitation movie means that its violence is more full of bloodlust – that’s the point!!! We’re actively urged to cheer when Arnold mows down the bad guys. In T2, we’re not, they’re doing their jobs as they understand them instead of just being cardboard bad guys. This is an added layer of dramatic complexity, which is why it’s a superior film. You should take it more seriously, but you’re misreading the text and misapplying your ‘seriousness’. The budgets are meaningless and irrelevant. You did not prove your case re: other Cameron films. I addressed that argument and provided counterexamples, and _you_ ignored them. True Lies is a different ball of wax and you ignored that argument too.
    I don’t mind you having a different emotional reaction to the film than me, but you have to admit that intellectually your argument is baseless.

  134. christian says:

    Jeff, your stoic literalness is showing again. No, I don’t have to admit my argument is intellectually baseless just because you say so. This isn’t a mathematical equation here.
    If you think that Cameron is trying to add a “dramatic layer of complexity” by having Arnie beat up hospital and police staff, that is nowhere presented in the scene. Those scenes are filmed as gag action bits — hence the shot of Arnie smiling after his glasses get bent. Then he shoves the woman down the hall. What dramatic complexity is that? That’s your justification. And just as intellectually baseless.
    I argued that Cameron’s films have a bullying subtext. I presented my examples. You disagree.
    That’s all she wrote at this point. My defense rests. Take the last word and run with it.

  135. jeffmcm says:

    My point is that your argument is intellectually baseless, not because I say so, but because you haven’t succeeded in saying to.
    Is your argument somehow that the victims in this scene being police and hospital workers is problematic somehow? My statement on the elevated dramatic complexity is this: drama works better when both sides in a conflict have good justification for their actions. Arnold vs. cardboard terrorist henchmen is less dramatically interesting than Arnold vs. a bunch of cops and other people who believe that they’re acting in a justified and appropriate manner. This is basic stuff. It isn’t ‘presented’ in the scene because it permeates the scene.
    The defense rests. Case not proven, as they say in other countries.

  136. storymark says:

    “Then he grabs the woman’s face, shoves her, then the shot CUTS TO HER BODY FLYING DOWN THE HALL. Not falling on her ass.
    Go watch it again since your memory is faulty too. You are wrong. Now get over yourself. ”
    Flying down the hall? Hmm, I recall her sliding across a tile floor (on her ass), but perhaps I am wrong. I shall check later.
    But still…, which part with Arnie breaking a woman’s bones was your audience cheering for?
    Between this, and your “dance at gunpoint” bit about True Lies, you may want to re-think questioning anyone’s memory.

  137. storymark says:

    But I guess you’re right Christian. The film is bullying. Would have been much better if while escapeing a hig-security mental insitution, the guards just let them leave… or the Terminator could have noticed the guards wanted Sarah to stay, and let them be….or maybe Arnie should have killed them all.
    But his mildly injuring guards and orderlies in a non-lethal way while rescuing a woman from a machine that really was trying to kill her (and had killed other staff already) is just beyond the pale.

  138. leahnz says:

    hey, at least john taught the terminator not to kill, so he just maims and mauls everyone! happy day

  139. Martin S says:

    IMO – T2 is junk because Cameron simply remade his original pre-Arnold draft of The Terminator. Small, inconspicuous guy as the android, Arnold as the hero…and Furlong was a shrieky bitch.
    I just realized that Sam Worthington of T:Salvation and Avatar is the same Sam Worthington of that Aussie (or was it Kiwi) remake of MacBeth from ’06. WOW. Is there a SAG agreement I’m not aware of that says the U.S must launch one Tasmanian career every few years or the studios will lose access to Victoria and Queensland?

  140. jeffmcm says:

    I’m going to start sounding like a broken record, but I don’t see how repurposing an abandoned concept makes something ‘junk’. There must be another reason, right?

  141. LexG says:

    T3 is sort of awesome because it has KRISTANNA LOKEN. BONER TIME YAAAAAAAAY!
    That’s an actress chick who seems cool and would probably be REALLY into me.
    YEP YEP.

  142. IOIOIOI says:

    Martin: yes there is. The papers were signed around 1988. Why I am telling you this is beyond me, but you should know. YOU SHOULD KNOW!
    Lex: she may even bring other broads to “HANG OUT” with you.

  143. Martin S says:

    IO – that’s pretty good.
    Jeff – Because it’s lazy. Cameron is by fat the smartest when it comes to sequels because he’s able to wrap the beats and iconic moments of the original in a new shell that doesn’t feel like a reiteration. If you started Alien and Aliens side-by-side, muted, it resembles Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. The same movie, but expanded upon visually.
    I don’t mind that for Alien/Aliens because he didn’t create the property, so it comes across as deference to Ridley’s work who as said as much about the sequel. But – Cameron made the damn Terminator, (Harlan Ellison aside), so he could so whatever he wanted. Why waste your time rehashing the same shit? IMO, his interest lie in what he could do CGI pre-Abyss, and needed a hit to offset the former.
    …and Worthington is also the star of Titans. God I hate it when someone who has zero proven value suddenly becomes the hot commodity. Now no matter how bad Worthington might be in T:Sal, we’re never going to get away from him for at least three years.

  144. jeffmcm says:

    Martin, that’s fair.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon