Transcript: True Lies (1994)

70mm
34 min readSep 26, 2022

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Transcript of 70mm’s True Lies (1994) Episode.

SLIM Heeey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers just like you. Every Monday, I chat about recently watched movies with my close friend and artist, Danny Haas.

DANNY Oh my god, step on me.

SLIM And our spiritual advisor, and Movie Insider, Protolexus.

PROTO My bravery, right? No one wants to get near this movie after the press, after the reviews that were coming in for when this came out, people taking steamers.

SLIM Our featured prezzo later in this episode is not related to a theme, but it’s prep for future months down the line. And because it’s streaming for the first time in years, James Cameron’s True Lies starring Arnold and Jamie Lee. If you’ve been enjoying 70mm consider rating us on Spotify or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, as it helps new friends discover the show. Is this the ultimate marriage movie? Or is it never streaming because it’s a dud? Let’s find out… now.

[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]

SLIM [Slim in Schwarzenegger impression] Here’s my invitation… [Danny & Slim & Proto laugh] Been sitting on that all week! This is a very special episode of 70mm. I might have said all this junk in the intro, but I’m gonna say it again anyway. This is kind of like a teaser, we’re on vacation right now when we should be recording. So we recorded this early. We’re in the Vermont. We’re in the middle of the mountains. We’re looking at sunsets. We’re doing many things together as friends forever. But we thought that since this was streaming, this would be fun to tease October with Jamie Lee Curtis, we’re planning on doing the 18th Halloween movie, the final Halloween Ends film. And in December we’re planning on doing Avatar and Avatar 2. So let’s do some prep for Jim Cameron and Arnold. I mean, is this the Holy Trinity? The three of these folks?

DANNY Someone’s got to ask the questions.

SLIM Someone ask the questions!

PROTO Name a better trinity.

SLIM Someone ask the questions. So that’s why we’re doing True Lies this episode. And for folks that don’t listen live we have just moments ago recorded last week’s episode, so we might not have a lot to talk about before we get into, some people say Jim Cameron’s best movie.

PROTO Really?

SLIM Dann’ys head just went so far down in his eyes went so high up, I thought he was dead.

DANNY Excuse me.

SLIM I’m just saying people are saying that and there was a watch party in the Discord this week for True Lies. Reviews were piping in steaming hot on Letterboxd. They were steaming. So that’ll be our feature presentation. You can use the chapters to skip ahead to that chat. But while we’re here, we did save some movies that I want to hear about before we get into True Lies, before we reveal the theme for October. Should I say some of my names? They’re not super fun.

DANNY Let’s just stick to the theme.

SLIM I have Halloweenmageddon.

DANNY Okay…

SLIM I have Hauntober. I have Hauntvember — it’s not even the right month. I don’t even know why I wrote that.

DANNY Slim…

SLIM Like, Shocktober I think might be like trademarked, otherwise I’d just say Shocktober, you know? I don’t have any other —

DANNY That’ a beer.

SLIM Yeah, they can’t trademark Shocktober, by the way. I don’t feel like that’s fair.

PROTO They can’t just take two words and own them!

SLIM No!

PROTO Makes no sense.

SLIM So I don’t know, we’ll marinate on that. Otherwise it’s Halloween Month, which I think is pretty funny.

DANNY Maybe live chat can drop some too.

SLIM Halloween Month… [Slim laughs] I was about to do another Arnold impression but I can’t. Proto, I want to hear about House of Gooch. House of Gucci, you watched this movie!

PROTO My bravery right? No, no one wants to get near this movie after the press, after the reviews that were coming in for when this came out. People taking steamers on House of Gucci, the work of one Ridley Scott. But what people I think who haven’t given it a shot forget and I said this in my read my three star review for House of Gucci. This is still a Ridley Scott movie. Okay? And what I realized watching this is that Ridley Scott, he is, I think he’s like a director’s director. He is a craftsman. He is a, he’s like a mercenary filmmaker. He doesn’t like he doesn’t have maybe vision like George Lucas in terms of like he wants to tell a particular story or you know, he has some kind of like motivation for making movies. And he’s like, circulating on just similar themes. It’s like, give me a script. And I’m going to turn this into a triple A production, in terms of how it’s going to look, you’re going to get the Ridley production value. And this movie has that. This movie is I think it’s gorgeous like every scene that’s a thing like Ridley Scott doesn’t miss it a scene, everything looks good. You might not like what you’re seeing or like the story might fall flat and people thought like the you know, the acting is kind of goofy in this with all the Italian accents. But man, it looks so good. In terms of just like the visuals and the value that you’re getting from Ridley. The other thing, yeah, I mean, the acting I mean, you got you got Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Jared Leto starring in this.

DANNY Wait, Al Pacino is in this movie?

PROTO Al Pacino, yeah, yeah.

SLIM Who does he play? Mr. Gucci?

PROTO He plays Aldo Gucci, he’s one of the brothers of Rodolfo. So in this we got Maurizio Gucci played by Adam Driver. Listen, this is what I realized. Imagine this: actor fantasy draft, right? I’ve got last pic in the actor snake draft, round one. Chalamet’s off the board, we know it. Pugh, off the board before I get to my pick. Slim, he’s drafting Tom Cruise. Danny drafts Spielberg even though we told him it has to be an actor, he wants him anyway. [Danny & Slim laugh] Ismael in the village he’s taken Javier Bardem. Kev, he’s taking Mike Myers. Someone takes a dark horse pick round one, ATJ, no one saw that coming, who would pick her first round? Crazy. Disgraced producer Ian, he goes big brain, he’s drafted Daniel Day Lewis, not acting anymore, but he thinks he might come out of retirement. Traynor Philip Seymour Hoffman but no one tells him that he’s dead. [Danny laughs] It gets to me, I got the last pick in the draft. I’m taking Gaga and I’m taking Driver back to back.

PROTO These two. These two in this movie. I’m gonna tell you something. They are good. They are confident. They’ve got it. They might not know how to do an Italian accent. But they believe they do while delivering.

DANNY Man. I have to see this.

PROTO So man, I had a great time. I think you do and Jared Leto, I don’t know what he was. I had a ton of fun watching Jared Leto. It’s it’s fantastic. I think you’ll love it Danny. I think you’ll love seeing your boy in this. So goodness. It’s a fun movie. It’s a ride. You know what reminded me the most like Casino, you know? Casino was like a long movie. It kind of goes over like this whole history. It kind of felt like a Scorsese movie. Like you know a Scorsese all the stories might not be good, but you still get the Scorsese quality. And that’s what you get with Ridley Scott. Okay, so take a chance. Okay.

SLIM I’m just saying this didn’t sound like — for the record, Proto gave this movie three stars. Okay, this sounds like a five star review. I mean, you heard the to the lengths that Proto would go to. This is patented Proto snake oil that we’re hearing right.

PROTO Reverse snake oil. [Slim laughs]

SLIM In our former producer, now disgraced, if he wasn’t watching football right now he’d probably in chat say name one Ridley Scott movie that doesn’t start white person or doesn’t star an all white cast. So I just want to make sure everyone is heard right now guys. Speaking of in I didn’t mention that last week. So apologies. But you Danny, he did a little guest spot, on the Cinenauts podcast, our friends produced the journey through the Criterion Collection and you folks covered one of the best in the criterion Three Ninjas.

DANNY Yeah, Criterion graced us with the fork a release of Three Ninjas. And so we had to review it. I think it was years ago. I’ve only known him for a few years. We had we had wanted a bit over three ninjas in our childhood watching it. And the time was right for us to talk about this movie with Ctcher, while Boom’s away from recording for the month, she was on sabbatical. And it was a great time we laughed, we cried. And we talked about three ninjas which is one of our favorite childhood films and if you want to give it a listen listen to the Cinenauts, a dear friend of the show podcasts from the Tapedeck network.

SLIM Which is the one with Hogan?

DANNY That’s Three Ninjas, the fourth one. And that’s where all three original ninja actors come back for. The gang is back together and they work side by side with Hogan, baby.

SLIM Whaat? When are we doing a Hogan movie?

DANNY Name one other.

SLIM The Nanny? Wasn’t he in The Nanny movie or something? No Holds Bard. Remember when he plays a wrestler?

DANNY No, I don’t.

SLIM Suburban Commando in chat.

DANNY There we go.

SLIM No, we’re not doing it.

DANNY Wrestlers Month.

SLIM Oh… Okay. Should we cancel Shocktoberfest Hauntvember for Wrestlers Month? [Slim laughs]

DANNY That sounds like the worst craft beer, IPA nonsense.

SLIM Let’s see. Are there any movies that I watched two weeks ago that I want to talk about? Because we’re recording two episodes at once. Let me just peruse my diary.

PROTO Did we talk about The Barbarian already?

SLIM No, we didn’t.

PROTO Do I need to go to the theater to see this movie?

DANNY Someone has to besides Slim. We have to confirm this viewing.

SLIM There’s a lot of buzz. There was a lot of buzz about this movie. On the internet. People compared it to Malignant which I…

DANNY Hated.

SLIM Was just disgusted by, did not like. And I think it’s probably throwing people off because they’re like expecting some kind of wacky crazy Malignant like movie, like oh my god, it’s so weird. And I think the Malignant aspect is probably overblown. You’re just gonna have like a fun funny time at the theater. Maybe that should be like the hype. And we did so I went with Amanda we had a little date night at the theater. We what do we get? We got popcorn and some Buncha Crunch.

DANNY Buncha Crunch.

SLIM I need everyone to treat themselves this weekend to get themselves some Buncha Crunch.

DANNY I had to ask you what a Buncha Crunch was.

SLIM It’s not the frozen stuff.

DANNY No, I know. We talked about this. All I can think of is Crunch bar bites.

SLIM Hmm I have have had those. I don’t like sitting in a movie theater with like a cold bin in my hands, like the frozen Buncha Crunch. Anyway, Barbarian, we had a great time. Amanda walked out, she said it was almost a perfect horror movie. We were laughing a lot, it was fun.

DANNY Can you give a brief synops? I don’t know what it’s about.

SLIM Yeah. It’s about this gal that goes to a seedier part of Detroit for a job interview.

DANNY Which parts that?

SLIM I can’t remember the name specifically but she gets to this Airbnb. And there’s someone in the Airbnb, and this is not a spoiler, everyone relax, but the dude has also rented it, you know? She walks in he says he’s rented at the same night it’s raining there’s no other houses nearby all the hotels are booked. She asked her to make a decision like is this guy normal? What am I gonna do? So that’s one one aspect of the film and there are some scary parts but it’s it’s a lot of fun. I kind of refer to it as like a fun horror movie. Justin Long is in it. Love Justin Long. Fantastic role for Justin.

PROTO Could we get more Justin in October?

DANNY Why don’t we do a Justin month?

SLIM Wait a minute.

DANNY We can do a Justin Long Month.

SLIM Justin Long Month. No, we’re not doing Jeepers Creepers. Jeepers Creepers is banned from this podcast.

PROTO Oh my!

DANNY You have a banning on Jeepers Creepers?

SLIM Everyone incognito Google the director of Jeepers Creepers.

PROTO Ohhhh.

DANNY Oh, that’s why.

SLIM And then you can find out why that’s banned.

DANNY No, no, no, no.

SLIM But yeah, Justin Long also in Drag Me To Hell. Fantastic in that movie.

DANNY Is he the king of horror movies?

SLIM I think he’s a Scream King.

DANNY Scream King!

SLIM I think it’s safe to say right now.

DANNY Make it a t-shirt.

SLIM Can we get to a lo-fi sci-fi shirt before Scream King? [Slim laughs] So Proto, when are you going to the movies to see a horror movie?

PROTO I want to but trying to find the, you know, get the camel through the eye of the needle is difficult. Does that make any sense?

DANNY Getting biblical on us.

PROTO Yeah, it’s really hard for me to get to the theater. But maybe I can make it happen.

DANNY You can make time for the things you love, so.

SLIM That’s why we’re making time for True Lies. Everyone here loves True Lies. Inarguably his best film, some say on Letterboxd. Have you read those reviews, Danny?

DANNY No, I don’t read reviews on Letterboxd. [Slim laughs]

SLIM Sicko. We need to get into this movie, True Lies. This is our feature presentation. We’re recording this in advance of a little break that we’re taking so it might be shorter than ours will be longer than normal. We’ll see how many notes people have for True Lies. 1994 Jim Cameron, Jamie Lee generous Arnold Schwarzenegger. Electric cast the holy trinity of filmmaking they’d been called 15 minutes ago. Part of what’s this movie about?

PROTO Perry Tasker works for the Omega Sector. The last line of defense against the bad guys, not the CIA, not the FBI, not IMF. While dealing with international threats, they choose to take cues from Austin Powers rather than James Bond. We all want to have fun at work right. But when Harry Tasker learns that his wife Helen is cheating on him, he needs to put down the hunt for possible nukes in the US and use taxpayer money to hide in the shadows while his wife thinks she’s on a spy mission to plan a bug and needs to give a dance in her lingerie not knowing that it’s actually hairy sitting there. But then he tries to kiss her. What was he thinking anyway? Things go wrong, and they end up stopping the nukes and they kiss and Harry saves his daughter while hovering in a jet for 10 minutes. And then Helen becomes a spy to True Lies.

SLIM I’m gonna quote a Letterboxd review before we get into this discussion: “I’m 40 minutes into this movie and I’ve come to the realization that Cameron kept this movie from streaming for so long because he didn’t want people to see the worst movie he’s ever created. We’ll deal with this soon on 70mm.”

PROTO That was Danny.

SLIM How about the comments you got here from Josh Dykstra: “Terrible take, might be his last good movie.” dash Josh days you’re on letterbox going hard against you. Josh was pissed. I’m shadow banning Josh for that,

DANNY Here’s here was this was my dilemma with True Lies. When I when I get 90s action Arnold and my brain directed by Jim Cameron, I’m thinking that this was going to be an over the top action movie that was going to take itself too seriously. And try to be something that it’s not what I was not prepared for. was for it to be a comedy. i i I had no idea what this movie was. And I’m 40 minutes in like, Tom Arnold is uh, I don’t know what he’s doing. And then and then you have Arnold cracking jokes and then you have the bits with his wife and and I was just so confused by this film. That’s when I had the right that review.

SLIM Press the button for the top floor please. saw the freaking horse. My last thing I’ll say about Josh on letterbox just protip don’t go to someone’s letterbox review and write terrible take it’s a little rude. Just some some, some comments or people who use letterbox of love letterbox. So, in this in this segment for the show. We’ll go roundtable we all wrote some things down we’ll give our top threes and then we’ll give a final rating. But before we do that, perto do you have any memories of this movie growing up? Do you remember this trailer?

PROTO I saw I’ve seen this movie. Okay, I’ve seen this movie before. I don’t know when I saw it. I’m assuming it was maybe like a TBS viewing. This seems like a movie that would have caught on TV at some point. So I had seen it and I had fond memories of watching this. I feel like it is one of those cable movies that I probably caught bits and pieces of it at different periods. So I had good vibes going into this feeling Yeah, I feel

SLIM like this was like a TBS movie for me too. You know, three hours on TBS, some Afghan movies on constantly every weekend or something.

PROTO How about this movie being over two hours long for an action-comedy? Are you kidding me?

SLIM It is long! It’s two and a half hours! Has Cameron ever made a movie under two and a half hours? Is it possible for him to do that? I don’t know.

PROTO And there’s some scenes in it. And you’re like, what is going on? Like, I could have counted like, I started counting the minutes. I’m like, I could cut 20 minutes out of this easy, easy!

SLIM Danny, so you don’t have the memories. As he said he didn’t even know there was some comedy aspects in that .

DANNY I have zero memories. I don’t have anything. I’ve never seen this film until now. And yeah, that’s not what I expected.

SLIM I did. Was this a Paperkeg episode? I shouldn’t know that before I checked my bag. Honestly. Last, so I think this might have been Yes, we did an episode. My old comics podcast, obviously did an episode on True Lies the movie at some point. radiate Image Comics a long, long time ago. I don’t remember my opinions back then. But

DANNY I’m sure there wasn’t anything problematic with those takes.

SLIM Don’t listen. That was fairly recent, I think within the last five years. So let’s start with proto. We’ll go around the room top three things proto kick us off. What’s your first note?

PROTO My favorite part of this movie? Bill Paxton. Oh, I thought he was dynamite in this role, right. So he plays this used car salesman who’s pretending to be you know, an undercover agent is international spy to get with Helen who is Arnold’s wife in this play by Jamie Lee Curtis. You know, so he’s calling her and he has this whole thing set up. But man, I thought all his comedy bits just his delivery. When him and Arnold are getting tacos when they take him for the ride in the car. Oh, my God. He is just like dynamite.

[clip of True Lies plays]

SLIM What a loss. What a loss.

DANNY You know what I was thinking was you know how in movies — the most recent would be like Lightyear, so I would love to have gotten like a Bill Paxton and movie where he’s the actual spy like where he’s pretending but he’s the real spy. I would love that bit.

SLIM Also, that’s it there’s so great opinions where’s there’s some great comedy in this in my opinion, like the quick like there’s so many scenes of Arnold staring something the patterns in hard stare to Paxton so often. I mean, the one that there’s a gift Megan posted in chat of him punching in his leg dreams. Paxson in the car. Oh my god, it’s so funny. This is something I remember pointing out and pay for Jake. I don’t know if this is gonna make the final show. But talking a while talking about Jamie Lee Curtis asked like a 10 year old boy settling cinema I don’t even 1994 I mean, is that a great line? I don’t think oh my god.

DANNY This set of dots. What of Ian’s jokes was that colt with the middle ninja like Jamie Lee Curtis. And so this whole time watching this movie, all I could think about was Jamie Lee Curtis big and 3d.

SLIM Because he looked exactly like a boy Danny what’s your number one note for True Lies.

DANNY I don’t even know where to begin with this movie. Honestly. I’ll start with Arnold. I was on my phone, incidentally googling his age. This movie because he looks incredible. Yeah. How will in that tux? He was 37. No, it’s gonna be 47

SLIM Oh, okay. Sorry. 47

DANNY He looked incredible. And that tucks when he gets out of the water pulling his James Bond. NIS out. I was. I wasn’t I was just shocked. He looks so good in this film. And he’s, I honestly forget how funny Arnold can be like he’s done so many comedy movies that I just forget about I think I honestly I automatically think of terminators automatically think of predator. What I think of Arnold I don’t think about his his comedic timing. And he it really shines in this. Yeah, especially the I mean, the stuff with Bill the stuff with Tom. Even the stuff with uh, with Jamie Lee. I mean, there’s so many funny things he’s doing in this film. I’m honestly, I honestly surprised this movies even. I don’t know why I feel like it was marketed as action. It is action, but it’s really as a comedy. This is a funny movie. And Arnold delivers.

SLIM I’m gonna bring up The Rock real quick.

DANNY Please.

SLIM So, trigger warning, if you want to skip ahead…

DANNY This is great. I love this.

PROTO Yeah, I like this.

DANNY Wrestling Month continues.

SLIM When I bash The Rock, it’s because of movies like this, that Arnold was in with an auteur. Like he’s in a movie with a talented director, like James Cameron, like he’s putting in the time. He has the business sense to like, realize that, you know, we can make something special here. And maybe that was lost at the time. And maybe just Jim’s camera was like a name. He didn’t know that some of those pictures would be so long lasting, et cetera, et cetera. But like, The Rock, he’s he’s putting slop out with, you know, people he’s friends with that are auteurs. They’re not, you know, visionaries. And that’s what I want for The Rock. I want the rock to be in movies like True Lies, that have funny spots that are going to stand the test of time and be gifs 40 years later, whatever. So that’s why I always like rag on The Rock. Like, I want him to partner up with some talented people at some point.

PROTO That’s a good comparison. Because you’re probably that is probably like the closest comparison to like, who is like Arnold and the rock has the best chance to be like him and fill that role. I mean, he you know, that is the kind of movies he’s making, right? Like Comedy Action movies that are similar to what Arnold does. Yeah, did.

SLIM Yeah. I mean, even like a terminator. Like that’s, I mean, I guess it’s rare. I mean, I guess it’s rare, but like, let’s try it’s trying to partner up with some Pino see what he could do?

PROTO Yeah, because Danny what you’re saying about like Arnold in this like he he this Yeah, he makes this movie. I just, you know, someone else could play it. But he’s such a force of nature in the movies that he’s in. And I think he’s perfect in this. Like all of his his line delivery like he just he just doesn’t miss and I don’t know if that’s just because his personality and like who he is is larger than life that it like he can do no wrong. But when I watch him, I kind of feel like that way. Like he could have a terrible line reading or a perfect line reading. It doesn’t matter. It like works to me. Like anything he does works just because of who he is. So like having him in this movie just makes it

SLIM Yeah. My number one is probably about the structure of the movie itself. It’s like three movies. Like the movie starts out as like a J. American James Bond movie. And Reverend Mr. And Mrs. Smith at Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie. And so he’s getting like, deep into this, you know, this terrorist plot this Islamic terrorist plot or whatever, that does not hold up quite as well anymore.

DANNY And like a 10 year old ass.

SLIM I looked at my notes. I wrote down “thigh steam”, I think Paxton was talking about Jamie Lee Curtis’s thigh steam. Yes, my God. But that plot happens for maybe the first 2025 minutes. It’s like, action movie. family drama, like he’s hiding it from his wife. But then it changes for maybe 30 minutes where he goes to visit her and overhears a phone call that she might be going to see another man. And then minutes. It shifts like I won’t point I forgot I was like, Where are the terrorists at one thing investigating some nuclear bomb and he’s doing this side blot with his wife using resources from what are they called delta? What did you say earlier i omega omega cider sector. He’s using Omega Sector security resources to uncover if his wife is cheating on him and then eventually, using resources to like, fulfill her fantasies they eventually get to the terrorist plot. It’s just so wacky, that it is two and a half hours. There’s a lot in this. And it’s like two or three different movies.

PROTO Yeah, it just it’s so bizarre the way it goes through that. Yeah, because it does shit 40 minutes in, it’s like, alright, we’re chasing these terrorists now. detour to, you know, another 40 minutes of Jamie Lee Curtis being you know, with Bill Paxton Arnold being upset. And then yeah, the idea that they present this Omega Sector as more in the last line of defense, they have like unlimited resources. And Arnold is suddenly is there no oversight here. All of their whole entire team who were just trying to stop nukes from happening to to just, you know, use all the resources on his wife, which is I mean, it’s funny, in some ways, but it’s so ridiculous at the same time.

DANNY When they read the trailer, and they slice off the back of it. I was just dumbfounded that this was it was unreal.

SLIM Yeah, I’m, I’m so fascinated. I’d love to know the backstory about why this movie isn’t more readily available. And I’d also love to see a fork a release however, I think this movie looks gorgeous.

DANNY Yeah. Oh, yeah, I had that in my notes too. It looks incredible.

SLIM lt looks amazing. And I think that I feel like that’s all cameras movies. Like this movie. I was thinking that I was to it has like that Cameron bluish hue to it. Where everything is so well lit. Everything is like crystal clear like and no better than the scene where he’s being interrogated with the truth serum. And there’s like this weird fish I shot of like this dank space there and it looks so small. It’s like maybe like four feet by five feet. It looks dirty as hell. But every time they show Arnold and Jamie Lee it’s gorgeous. Like the way he can set up a shot. It is so well done. And I was like I’d love for cable like this looks pretty dang good for HD. Proto, number two?

PROTO So Tom Arnold in this you know Bill Paxton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are fantastic but then you got Tom Arnold who spit it out he was he was such a turn off and like every aspect there’s he’s given so many lines. You know, he’s kind of like the color guy these could be you know, jokes and they’re all terrible. Everything is bad everything out of his mouth. Like give me a super cut just removing him from the movie I don’t even care if it doesn’t make any sense anymore. I just do not want to see this this guy in it because he’s not funny at all. Like I did not find anything funny about him and it’s a shame because he’s in so much of this then it just kind of killed the movie for me.

SLIM I remember for years after this movie, that there was rumors of a sequel and Tom Arnold was always at like the forefront people ask him what’s another True Lies movie coming out like oh, it’s around the corner we’re working on it. But this his character feels like it was probably way edgy in 1994 and now in 2022 his his lines are just real bad. Like he can even be could be like the worst character in any Jim Jim Cameron movie like looking back.

DANNY Tom Arnold once hit on my wife. Did you guys know this?

SLIM Excuse me?

PROTO What?

SLIM I’m listening.

DANNY Someone she has a she has her podcast fun sexy bobble time. And apparently Tom has his name on like Google Alerts. So whenever host said something about it or heedless, maybe he listens to their show? I don’t know. But Tom added Casey online and said that she’d be happy to take case he has an open invite for going on date because she’ll laugh at any case he wasn’t sure if he was insulting her or himself but she has an open invite for a date with

SLIM fun sexy Tom sometimes. Wow. Tom again when the

DANNY eah, yeah, yeah, they’re going out soon.

SLIM Gonna see Top Gun 2 together. Tom, please, Tom, please.

DANNY I couldn’t get over how bad he wasn’t this movie that there’s so much good in this movie. And then it cuts to Tom Arnold. And I don’t it does not hold up right now. These jobs he’s making Danny number two. The horse scene is incredible stuff. Yeah, there’s two things that I love about this movie the horse scene and how many times they broad daylight showed Arnold stunt double his whole Yeah, I can’t get over how many times you see this guy’s face and it’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the horse scene when he gets in the elevator, when he goes to almost take the jump off the roof with the horse and the horse stops him like I honestly, at this point, you’re only like, how many minutes into this movie, and I honestly was believing that the horse was going to jump roof to roof at this far gone my brain was watching this film.

SLIM Arnold has more charisma with this horse than the rock has had with anyone in any movies ever made.

PROTO It was he say You embarrassed me

SLIM that scene is so nuts. He rides a horse up an elevator. Yeah. And the the terrorist has a motorcycle in the other elevator and they’re looking at each other the whole time. And they go to the roof. Like I don’t know. The terrorists should have just gotten back in the elevator just going back down. Like right the big that’s probably a safer bet. No, I’m gonna drive it off the roof. I

DANNY know that. Yeah, he jumps the roof with the bike. Incredible style. But seriously, every fight scene after that. I was looking for the stunt double and you could clearly see this man. He was also his stunt double and T two I believe

SLIM I wrote down specifically remember stunt men. Like oh, there was a time where this was kind of like commonplace with some of these like name actors. You could see stunts with like, another dude, there were a woman. And now I feel like how often does that happen? Ever? Let’s just use CGI or whatever to clean it up.

DANNY Incredible. Religions put masks on people.

SLIM God bless that horse. That horse out today. Do some research. My number three.

DANNY That was my number 3?

SLIM I’m sorry. I’m third my number two. Um, the bridge scene. The bridge scene is maybe the most American action scene I’ve ever witnessed. Like you have these terrorists in a truck like these prototypical character characters. Driving these trucks on this bridge. Arnold is in a chopper. There’s amazing stunts happening. There’s big explosions. Jamie Lee, gorgeous. A vision in this movie, in my opinion, very formative for my youth. Oh, and she’s in the limo. She’s like climbing out. They do that big stunt another big stunt, like a real stunt of, of someone pulling someone out of a car that’s going off a bridge and will explode and soon it’s stunning. Like, that whole scene is stunning to me. I love it. I don’t I don’t know we jokingly say this a lot. Like, they don’t make it like this anymore. But like, I don’t remember seeing unless it’s Tom. Outside of Tom. We’re not seeing this kind of thing. Really in movies.

DANNY Tom Arnold. Tom Arnold does his own you saw that?

SLIM He does. Searches too, I think sounds like part of what do you think of the bridge?

PROTO Um, I was kind of disappointed in I found that kind of anticlimactic in the way that they’re just like in the chopper and these jets blow up the bridge. And it’s just like, oh, well, we got him. You know, it’s over. You know, just the fact that like Arnold didn’t get to like punch anybody or you know, find anybody like to win the movie. You know, when when against the terrorists and that point, I just felt kind of like, okay, well, okay. And then it looks like the movie is over. And it’s like, oh, wait the daughter and he jumps in the jet and flies away. So even that felt weird. It was like, Oh, we got an ending. Oh, wait, no, there’s there’s actually more to this movie. We have another 15 minutes. Sit tight.

SLIM I mean, how about their kiss as that nuclear blast is going off?

DANNY You put it in your review. You gotta talk to us about it.

PROTO What did you feel?

SLIM Extremely romantic, sexual, sensual.

DANNY Your thighs are steaming. [Slim laughs]

SLIM I mean, they’re, I jokingly put this is like one of my points. I’ll just bring out an alpha like, is this the best marriage movie in history? It has to be! This is one of the things I love about it. Like he thinks she’s just saying wow, I know everyone’s probably gonna disagree with me, but she thinks she’s cheating. She is obviously missing out. This is I love this subplot. Full disclosure. She she’s missing out on essentially an exciting marriage. And she has it though, but he has just been hiding it this whole time so she tries to find it. and elsewhere. And then he discovers that like what she has been missing, and he tries to give it to her in the most insane way possible with this like undercover Omega Delta sector scheme. Like he tries to let her fulfill her fantasies or what she’s been missing out. I love it. I thought, I think it’s very fun and hilarious.

DANNY I didn’t realize you were pro-nuclear war just for a kiss.

SLIM If I get to kiss my wife, then maybe nuclear war needs to happen.

DANNY Oh my God. You’re gonna get some one stars for the

SLIM Okay, proto. What’s your number three? Wow, we have three.

PROTO Number three. I guess we have to talk about that scene. Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah, she’s gone to spy mission. She’s got to impersonate a sex worker, but she’s just gonna have to dance for a man sitting in the dark who happens to be her husband? She doesn’t know that. So she you know, I mean, this is great. Here’s Arnold with a tape recorder of a you know, one of his co workers voice. And he’s playing that. And you know, try not to fumble and screw it up. And then here’s Jamie Lee stripping down and giving them a dance. I was not. I did not remember this scene. And maybe it was cut out of the cable TV Saturday morning. Yeah. This was something else. I mean, Jamie looks great. She looked nailed on

SLIM reel in this scene. Oh, she slips back

PROTO her hair.

DANNY Oh, my God. All I saw was called from three ninjas. So I was being screwed

SLIM on cultural set.

DANNY Also, Arnold should be in jail for what he did. This is Arnold, please.

SLIM I feel like his plan was to reveal himself like baby it’s me. I was you wanted this whole time. And then like they embrace that use the bed. And their marriage is all the better for now. They’d be honest with each other. But then they got kidnapped. You know, and it didn’t work out. Also, how about him using that tape recorder? Perfectly? Can you imagine? I mean, how are you doing that? You have international spy, you have clips, you have like a 32nd file that you’re rewinding and knowing when to hit play. It’s not possible. He messes

DANNY up and he drops it

SLIM drops. But also that was some great lighting and that seem to Arnold like in the shadows. Oh, yeah, the dance was happening earlier.

DANNY Oh, monster avatar.

SLIM Absolutely. Yeah, I’m trying to see I wrote I took more notes on this movie than I think any episode we’ve ever done. Wow. I’m trying to see if there’s anything related to

DANNY when we’re listening.

SLIM We didn’t even there. I’ll go through them. Later. The article mentions her dancing lol. How can even use the tape player to do the right lines. I wrote that they’re still staying true to their spouse for the most part. Like he’s trying to get her to feel good. She beats him up. Like she never purposefully has an affair. Really. She like pulls back various points and it’s been really confirmed that Arnold has ever it’s probably assumed he probably did at some point for work, but you never really see that happen on students are

DANNY desperate James Bond is messing with your brain. Do y’all know that Arnold cheated on her

SLIM in the movie? It’s not clear and I am ashamed that it doesn’t happen. Gregor acts in chat no one wants to mention that PacSun and Jamie Lee had the same haircut and they both look fantastic. Danny number 317 $1,000

DANNY for that 50s Corvette Are you care? 60s? Are you kidding? My

SLIM god,

DANNY that was a steal? How much not my next rant

SLIM was probably like $200 a month back. That’s true. While we’re as a society, we’re still getting screwed. Minimum Wage hasn’t gone up. housing costs have. Think about it. Don’t leave an iTunes review, please.

DANNY There’s a socialism. I won’t stand for it. The airplane sequence that Arnold getting into the jet and taking off. All I wanted to hear was the Top Gun riff. But I couldn’t believe how good it looked. Yeah, this is this is still looking good. And so I of course I had to look into it. And the scene where they’re flying it around and shooting out the windows is all practical. It’s a miniature. It’s a miniature plane blowing up that I’m like, come on. This is cinema, please. This is exactly what I want. It looks incredible on film because it’s actually being done. I was shocked at how much practicality was in this movie. Yeah, I mean, that whole jet sequence. It looks incredible. Nothing looked fake.

PROTO Yeah. Couldn’t get over it.

SLIM It looked great. I mean, you Eliza, Eliza. Well done. Sound like Chris. You’re walking there. Present it I mean, you look back at the special edition of NASA bringing up Thx 113 That was not just talked about that was done eight years later after this and you do the math How about her getting the key like the key to the nuke and she is climbing that giant crane trying to avoid the terrorist gets gets dicey in that scene,

DANNY man when his when he gets stuck on the rocket. I’ve literally said fire the rocket. Yeah, I was so excited when that happened. Our helicopter is good. That was an

article in Arnold’s i Yeah. I mean

SLIM how many dudes are signing up for Omega Sector after this movie? They’re signing up to fight terrorists. This is like the jingoism we talked about in other movies Independence Day. My final point the MMR I mentioned there’s the one line I wrote where he’s like she’s ripping me off. If your daughter was stealing from me would you consider being ripped off? Like it sounds like someone is like a salesman is like giving you a bad dealers. Yeah, like snake mill. Very strange. Charlton Heston. We haven’t really mentioned

DANNY that. He looked great Nick Fury. You kidding me?

SLIM She took it from Tom Arnold. Mike Scott’s I thought it was known as Arnold while it wasn’t it?

DANNY You know Tom Arnold’s wallet.

SLIM It was Tom miles. Well, yeah, she was still Arnold said the line. She’s ripping me off. She’s ripping you off. Oh, she’s ripping you off.

DANNY Okay. Say it again.

SLIM Pause reading she’s ripping you off the here’s my invitation line that is good. That is so good. The truth serum seen Megan mentioned. So fun. So those are all I’m just collecting those into my three the truck on the bridge when it finally then a seagull The Seagull lands on the front of the truck. And then it like crashes into the water and like immediately disintegrates in the explosion that was cracking me up too. All right, proto FINAL THOUGHTS rating for True Lies.

PROTO Final thoughts? How about Jamie Lee Curtis is up barefoot on on the woman’s face in the limousine Oh,

DANNY my God. Step on me toes in the

SLIM mouth

PROTO you hate to see

SLIM turning off the show right now.

PROTO The Hobbit why would the Jets land on the highway? Like that’s it’s I mean, of course it makes sense because Arnold needs to jump in there. But there’s this idea that like Hey, guys, just just land them here. Yeah, we want to just celebrate that. We’ve got the nuke off. Yeah, it was. I wish I liked this more. I thought someone was funny. I love Arnold and this I love Bill Paxton. I mean, it was long. I can’t Yeah, I kind of just like wasn’t totally vibing with this. So I’m at two stars. Oh my god. I’m sorry. He

SLIM wanted the Arnold and unfortunately he got it in the true

DANNY stars. I was not prepared for that.

SLIM Can we recover from that rating? Daddy, final thoughts?

DANNY Yeah, I mean, like I said, I was 30 minutes on this movie and I couldn’t get over that this was a James Cameron movie. It was blowing my mind how bad it was but my problem was it was a me problem. I didn’t realize this was a comedy that this was going to be so funny. I laid in bed watching this with Casey I was yelling at the screen laughing and honestly by the end of it I had an incredible time. I am at four and a half stars.

SLIM The Danny curveball. We didn’t gas we talked about it I think in the T two episode but the projector technology and in aliens that Cameron was like famous for around this era. My room like us just use a big screen and project something on on happening there and they’d film in front of it. I love that. I still love it. Before anyone brings up the dome, this is very different. Okay, this isn’t the sinuses don’t even bother doing that. Don’t bother. What can I say? I’m a spy. She says it would like to tilt his head at Jamie Lee cracks me up. True Lies. True Lies. I had another great time watching this movie. It’s long. Tomorrow Arnold kind of blows chunks in this 100% but there’s a lot of quote unquote problematic elements of this movie in this day and age. Arnold is so damn good. Jim Cameron is so damn good. Jamie Lee. Let’s talk about this movie together. Let’s go get milkshakes. Okay, well reminisce ahead of Halloween ends. Oh, which we’ll be covering, by the way in Hauntvember.

DANNY No October.

SLIM So I think I’m also in four and a half stars for chili. Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. In this day, in this moment of my life, I’m four and a half stars July’s had a great time. And there’s just something about Arnold in this era. And Jim Caron, like a top of their game, you know, doing something like this. We talked about Lucas, like not doing other IP. And I, there’s a part of me that would really love Cameron. To go back to just making stuff like this, or anything else. Like besides avatar, you know, he’s like, he’s gonna be doing avatar for the next 15 years. Yeah, until he dies. But I’d love for him to. Maybe he doesn’t want to, but I would love it if he would do something else. We’ll see. So next week, we’re recording this right after our THX episode. So we’re going right into next week’s Peck for October. We’re still trying to iron a name,

DANNY you know, hot vendors grog on me for an October theme.

SLIM Got a lot hot and vember officially kicking off October and we’re talking about curveballs Pro was if you check in the tapes pro technically will be kicking off on November but there was a late game trade that someplace happens in the Dina’s reaching

DANNY out for to pro just to you know, check in on my boy, making sure he’s okay. If he needed more time, because I’ve been locked on this pick. I haven’t wanted to do it in the past. Have hasn’t felt right for us. So I proto needs more time. And I’m giving them more time so find the right pick for haunt vember and so yeah, this one, this one I’m pulling it back up again real quick to get my pull it up. Don’t read in my glasses. Yes. I’m not picking the horror that is Pinocchio. For our pic at streaming on HBO, Max 3.6 on letter box. We’re doing 1980 twos. stretched by Stevens. I mean, excuse me, Tobe Hooper, poltergeists

whoa Holter guys

DANNY to doing it. I have never seen it and I’ve been sitting on it for the show for almost three years now to watch it for the show. And it’s time oh my Yes.

PROTO I was one I wanted to see to this month.

DANNY Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Kicking it off.

SLIM Guard I can’t wait to do an invitation and Craig T Nelson in this.

DANNY I’m excited. I knew you had a team house.

SLIM Scenes in my mind I want to do right now.

DANNY Did I see a review from you on it? I haven’t even seen you have not logged I know you’ve seen it. But

SLIM this is logged in 2017 though. I give it a rating so I can’t trust this rating. 2017

DANNY No one can trust the rating. So I’m excited to watch this. I’ve really been wanting to watch this one. Especially after watching some light magic. I was like yes this it’s time to watch this movie.

SLIM Guys. 4k. What is the 4k with those terrible covers come out and Google on that. I

DANNY don’t want to talk about this covers. Poltergeist call me. twos.

SLIM Are you sitting down?

DANNY Excuse me? Is it this week?

SLIM Tuesday, September 20 F it will be out by the two for Caleo I have the chills through guys. I’m chilled. I

DANNY remember does it again.

SLIM I need to do a cleanse and that’s how I need to wake up Amanda. I needed to get on her witchy Facebook pages and we need to burn some incense in his basement. We did it in chat form producer poltergeist is one of the first movies that effed me up as a kid.

PROTO My calf to hear it What about October or?

SLIM We’ll circle back on that. There’s also a 4k The Return of the Living Dead. I preorder this I can’t remember this October 18 Oh my god what a pic that would be but I’m already locked in my Peck. Oh my god. lockjaw. We’re all I think well, except for Portal we’re all locked. Locked jobs.

DANNY is gonna marinate we gotta let the man marinate. Thank you anytime.

SLIM We did it special episode of True Lies. I hope everyone had fun at the very least watching alongside of us. I know that discord had some, quote unquote fun watching True Lies. And we’re drifting into our next themed month for October. Proto, closing thoughts before that happens.

PROTO I would say maybe watch True Lies while it’s available to stream. But I don’t feel in confidence that I can really tell anybody to watch this movie. You guys did like it, it crossed the Dune line.

DANNY It’s all we can ask for.

PROTO Maybe, maybe people should check it out. I don’t know…

SLIM It’s 11:30, it’s been a long night. [Slim laughs] Let’s get Proto to bed. Let’ get him to bed everybody. We’ll see you next time for Poltergeist streaming on HBO Max.

[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]

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70mm

A podcast for film lovers, inspired by Letterboxd.