The Other Movies I’ve Watched: Part 3

Here’s Part 1. Here’s Part 2. Onward!

Total Recall

True Lies

Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been a blind spot for me. Unless you count Jingle All the Way. But when being forced to stay at home, Arnold blowing shit up and dropping one-liners is the perfect catharsis. There’s only so many capital D dramas one can watch in a day. I decided to watch what I felt were the two biggest movies in the Arnold canon that I had not seen: Total Recall and True Lies.

Both movies are perfect. I first watched Total Recall, and I knew I was in for a good time when I saw Arnold working a jackhammer in one of the first scenes.

I’m glad this movie came out in 1990, before CGI had taken over everything in the movies. The makeup and cheesy special effects lend themselves well to everything that takes place on Mars. You get the sense that could can touch anything you see on screen, something that would have gotten lost 30 years later with computer-generated effects. Not that you’d want to touch anything, mind you. Take Kuato, the telepathic resistance leader that serves as this world’s Krang, for example.

Gloriously disgusting. Arnold unleashes three lines in this movie I can still remember off the top of my head several weeks later that are so good I’m mad at myself that I waited all these years to dive into his movies.

A few days later I watched True Lies, James Cameron’s last movie before deciding he wanted to break box office records with each new release. I prefer Total Recall, but how can you not appreciate a movie that delivers this villain death scene?

By the way, before Arnold fires the missile he says “You’re fired.” ::chef’s kiss::

RoboCop

Another action classic I hadn’t seen before. Like Total Recall, also directed by Paul Verhoeven. I read somewhere that David Cronenberg almost directed Total Recall. That makes sense. While watching it, the body horror elements — particularly Arnold’s bulging eyes when running out of oxygen — felt very Cronenberg-y. I’m glad Verhoeven directed it, though. While still interested in gore, Verhoeven’s movies are less punishing experiences for the viewer. Videodrome, by Croenberg, is the least fun I’ve had watching a movie.

The violence in RoboCop shocked me, especially for a 1987 movie. I wasn’t expecting a police officer to have his arm blown off in the first 15 minutes of the movie. But it’s still fun. I’ve never seen a Cronenberg movie and thought “fun” when the credits rolled.

The villains are gleefully evil. Some schmuck is accidentally murdered at a board meeting because of faulty tech, which felt like a prediction of something that has probably happened in real life in Elon Musk’s conference room. The fake commercials that air during news broadcasts are hilarious.

It’s everything I want from an action movie.

Extraction

This is a Netflix action movie starring Chris Hemsworth. I bristled at this movie when I first heard about it. I like Hemsworth fine as Thor in the Marvel movies, but I didn’t see him being able to take on Arnold’s mantle as action star.

I was wrong. This movie is a delight, full of wall-to-wall action. Vince Mancini at Uproxx put it better than I can so I’ll just link to his review, but Extraction has a little something for everyone. Martial arts, gun play, explosions, excellent fight choreography and the camera always giving you a sense of where you are in a scene.

Hemsworth isn’t doing the Arnold thing, which is good because nobody convincingly can. He’s a more dour, globe-trotting hero in the mold of Jason Bourne than one that gleefully kills people.

Four Lions

A comedy about four idiots trying to organize a terrorist attack in London. It features somebody firing a rocket launcher while holding it backwards, comedy catnip for me. There’s three interesting actor-related notes. First is this appears to be the breakout role for Riz Ahmed, proof that he has always been great. Second, Benedict Cumberbatch has a cameo as a hostage negotiator, but in 2010 I don’t think it was a cameo yet because he wasn’t a big enough star. It seems like the kind of role he would take now anyway because he’s intent on appearing in everything.

Lastly I want to give a shoutout to Kayvan Novak, who plays one of the bumbling terrorists. Novak plays Nandor the Relentless on the TV version of What We Do in the Shadows and it’s the funniest performance on TV now. A great actor and a wonderful show.

Bringing Out the Dead

Some think this is one of Martin Scorsese’s misunderstood masterpieces. I am not one of those people. That’s not to say it isn’t without it’s pleasures. In these parts, we support anything John Goodman does, and that includes the fucking Flintstones movie from the mid-90s. There’s a sequence sountracked to “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” (in case you forgot it was a 90s movie) featuring Tom Sizemore as his lunatic best that I quite liked.

Overall I just couldn’t get on its wavelength. “Nicolas Cage Goes Mad” is an acting choice I respect but don’t really like to watch for two hours. It’s also not a great movie to watch during this pandemic. EMTs lose their mind and we see an ER in chaos — in New York, no less. I often like Scorsese movies much more on second viewing. I suspect the same would go for this movie when we’re far removed from Covid-19.

The Wolf of Wall Street (rewatch)

This, however, is one of Scorsese’s masterpieces and possibly Leonardo Dicaprio’s greatest achievement. Leo is so good that the Academy knew they screwed up and rectified their mistake two years later by awarding him his first Oscar for The Revenant, a bottom-half performance in his career.*

*Trivia time. Who defeated Leo in 2013 in the Best Actor category? Time’s up, it was Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, a bad movie that nobody has thought about in six years. Just a reminder that the Oscars are mostly bad!

I remember when this movie came out that some people misread this movie, thinking it endorsed Jordan Belfort and his lifestyle. That’s…wrong. We are invited into glamorous aspects of his life. The money, cars, boats, women. But the film loathes Belfort and his cronies at Stratton Oakmont, especially Jonah Hill’s cousin-fucking Donnie. It’s also a critique of the desire to pursue wealth, which empowers people like Belfort in the first place. The last shot of the film looks out on a future army of Belfort clones that want to transition from the prey they currently are to those that prey on the weak.

Under the Shadow

Did you like The Babadook? If so, this is Iranian Babadook sans the hat. It still creeped me the hell out of me a few times. The first time we see Iranian Babadook in full I had a wave a goosebumps, which is how I measure if something is scary.

In a Valley of Violence

All hail Jumpy the stunt dog! This 2016 profile about Jumpy the dog is my favorite profile of an actor ever. Sadly, Jumpy died in 2018 but was considered something of a dog-acting legend if you read that MTV profile that I linked.

This movie is worth your time for three reasons: Jumpy (named Abby in the movie), Ethan Hawke playing western John Wick, and the Spaghetti Western homage opening credits. But really, watch it for Jumpy.

Good boy.