Conference bookie::movies

    Costars Jamie Lee Curtis as Arnold's wife, who has no idea that hubby
    is a spy.  But apparently she finds out.  Read somewhere that she gets
    to kick a little butt, too.

    
    I figured that since Cameron is behind this movie. It may be in the same
    league as his others, ie T2, Aliens, Abyss.
    
    Maybe it's not one of those big budget, fx type movies though.
    
    Dave
    

    I believe the correct title is "True Lies", unless this is a very
    recent change....
    
    It is a very big budget movie, with rumors of the budget approaching
    $120 million. (according to Entertainment Weekly and other
    sources...Premiere, I think.)  Maybe it's *only* $100 million.
    
    kim

    I saw a preview with the title "True Lies" yesterday.
    
    Hopefully this one will not be such a flop as "Last Action Hero". I 
    don't think Arnie can afford a second one ;-)
    
    A.
    

    
    I'll be glad to change the title of this note, soon as somebody 
    advises how to do  it...set/ something this or that if I recall.
    
    Dave
    
    

> I'll be glad to change the title of this note, soon as somebody 
> advises how to do  it...set/ something this or that if I recall.

	Notes> modify note/title="....."

	or type:

	Notes> help modify note

	for more information.

    
    re. 7
    
    Thx for the instructions.
    
    Dave
    

    I saw the coming attractions of True Lies  this past weekend at
    the theatre and
    it looks pretty good!  Nothing like Last Actio Hero  that
    was just dreadful...
    Arnie may be back to his usual good stuff in this movie...hopefully

    
    One critic said last night this may be the greatest action movie
    ever made.
    
    I wonder if it's hype?
    
    Cameron is good, but I wonder if he can top his T2 movie.
    
    Dave
    

	This film opens tonight at the Milford [NH] Twin Drive-In
	(with co-feature "Mrs. Doubtfire" [already on video]).
	Should be fun to see on the big BIG screen.

	It's going to be a zoo there though as not only does this
	first run film open tonight there, on the other screen another
	first run film opens as well ("Angles in the outfield").

    > A must see in a THX theatre.
          
    Anyone know which, if any, of the Worcester (MA) area theaters have
    THX?
    
    Thx :-),
    Leslie

    562.11
    Bevin,
    
    I agree.  I liked Speed better.  Though True Lies was NOT the bomb
    that Last Action Hero was....I no longer think  Jamie Lee Curtis
    was the  best choice for that part.  
    
    Love Arnold but his last few movies haven't been the usual terrific
    stuff I've become accustomed to seeing. 
    
    

    
    Loved "Speed," but giving the nod to "True Lies."  "Speed" was a great
    B-movie flick (that's not a knock), in my opinion.  Didn't try to be
    any more than action/adventure, and it suceeded.  Cameron looked for 
    a little more than that, like a creative plot, and I think he hit it for 
    the most part (for bad summer action, see "Blown Away").
    
    Here's some other things I liked:
    
      o the best Arnie "lines" weren't "one-liners," i.e. the typical pun
        he uses as he's about to kill someone.  Oh, he had some, but his
        best lines weren't among them (one was in fact only an expression!)
      o Tom Arnold!  Surprise, surprise!
      o Cool explosions.
      o The James Bond feel.
      o The lack of that kinder, gentler Arnie we were starting to see too
        much of (some exec must have told him "Arnie, you will kill in this
        movie, and you'll do it a lot.  Got it?")
    
    The bad?
    
      o Plot holes.  I guess we give them a break in these movies, but
        it is Mr. Cameron.
      o Silliness 
      o inconsistent special FX.  Some great, some horrible.
    
    - Sean
      

	Well I saw Siskel & Ebert review this the morning of the day I
	saw this flick.  Siskel had given thumbs down and Ebert gave
	it a thumbs up, but both agreed (and the reason for Siskel's
	thumbs down) that it had a whole 1/2 boring hour in the middle
	that should of been edited out.

	Well they were right, the movie started out great, had a VERY
	boring 1/2 hour of so in the middle, then finished off the
	way it started.

	A must see for any Arnie fan, though I wish I had a remote in
	my hand to fast forward through the middle .....

	Oh yea, like others, surprise surprise, Tom Arnold can act
	after all (better than his wife ever has [any one remember
	"She Devil" :-)])!

    The movie gave me a headache. 
    
    Okay, maybe it was because there were so many bombs going off and loud
    noises and it wasn't the movie itself.  Maybe it was because I was
    thinking too hard about how, short of The Flintstones, this is the
    worst of the summer movies I've seen.
    
    
    True Lies was disappointing.  I haven't seen The Last Action
    Hero, so I don't know if True Lies suffered from some of the things
    that turned so many people off of Last Action... but both Arnie and
    James Camereon (the latter especially!) have done better.  The quickie
    review for Arnie fans who don't want to read a lukewarm review is that
    I found myself very glad I only paid $3.50 to see it.  
    
    (a fairly lengthy note follows.  Mild spoilers, too, for the spoiler
    sensitive)
    
    
    
    I'm always sort of disappointed in myself when I don't really like one
    of those big budget action movies.   I like brainless shoot 'em ups as
    much as the next low-brow theater-goer, but dammit, True Lies just
    managed to leave me cold about an hour into the movie and never
    redeemed itself.  
    
    Speed, for all its brainlessness and cigar-store Indian acting of its
    macho lead, was still a great ride.  Even with dorky special effects
    (the bus jump, the subway train, the airplane blowing up for no good
    reason save for the effects crew possibly having extra dynamite lying
    around).  Speed didn't pretend to be anything other than an action
    movie with lots of neat ka-booms.  And it worked.
    
    True Lies tries to be an action movie AND comedy (and an egg-beater, a
    pocket fisherman, and a snackwich maker....).  The trouble is, it's
    played too straight to be funny and too funny to be taken straight, and
    neither extremes are done well enough to make the end result anything
    any of the stars (except maybe Jamie Lee Curtis) should be proud of.
    I really don't get disgruntled at very many movies (having seen my
    share of real bad ones and sort of liking them in a perverse sort of
    way), so bear with me for a lengthy review.
    
    
    I got the feeling during the movie (and yes, there's a goodly amount of
    True Lies that should have ended up on the editing room floor, which
    gave me plenty of time to mull over why I wasn't having as much fun as
    the body count of this picture said I should be....), that prior to
    going into production, a conversation like this happened:
    
    "Hiya, Arnold."
    
    "Hey Jim."
    
    "I've touched up a screenplay for one of these blockbuster summer
    pictures.  I've been given a budget that's larger than the gross
    national product of oh, all of Europe, and Arnold, I'd like you to star
    it in."
    
    "I dunno, Jim.  You know, my last megapicture didn't go so well...."
    
    "We're talking BUCKS here, Arnold.  Now, would I want your name on the
    marquee if I thought it was a bad idea?"
    
    "Well, I could always use another Lear Jet.  What's it about?"
    
    "It's about this guy, see, who's really a super spy.  Bigger and badder
    than James Bond.  007 with muscles.  Only this guy, is married, has a
    nice, frumpy wife and alienated kid, and the catch is, wait, you'll
    love it, the guy has been *pretending* to be some schmoe computer
    salesman all this time.  His wife has *no idea* that he's really this
    big super spy!  He goes around and blows up things and shoots
    terrorists and things like that while *she* thinks he's at a sales
    convention.  We're going to call it, 'True Lies'.  What do you think?"
    
    "It sounds a lot like a big summer movie action picture.  Do people
    die?"
    
    "Oh yeah, people die.  Lots of people die. And things blow up.  See,
    here's the script here.  We've got every possible special effect known
    to man set up in there.  You want nukes, we got nukes.  You want
    terrorists, we got terrorists.  Building blowing up, we've got that,
    we've got a diving scene, an airplane scene--um, we had a bus scene,
    but I hear that 'Speed' movie is set on a bus, so we cut that out...."
    
    "Yeah, kinda like how Die Hard III was supposed to be on a ship, but
    Under Seige stole it's thunder."
    
    "Yeah, yeah, like that.  Anyway, if you can envision an action scene,
    we've got it.  Money is no object!  All we need is your drawing power. 
    What do you say?"
    
    "I dunno, Jim.  It's looks nice, but you know, to be honest, I'm a
    little tired of being the straight-faced action movie hero with no
    sense of humor.  I might get typecast.  That's why I did The Last
    Action Hero.  I wanted to be funny."
    
    [pause]  "Well, okay.  I tell you what.  We'll make this FUNNY.  We'll
    do action, big special effects, kill a lot of people, blow things up,
    and we'll make it FUNNY to boot!  A little over the top!  Kinda
    like Roger Moore's James Bond, only funnier!  I'll get, um, I got
    it--I'll get Tom Arnold as your funny partner!  I'll get Jamie Lee
    Curtis as your frumpy wife!  She's funny."
    
    "Yeah, I saw her in A Fish Called Wanda.  She was pretty funny...."
    
    "Let's see.  Bill Paxton looks available, so I'll get him.  He can be
    funny."
    
    "'Game over man'.  Heh heh. It's funnier already."
    
    "And Charlton Heston.  There you go Arnold.  *Charlton Heston*.  Here,
    I'll write the part in right now."  [scribble scribble]  "There, he's
    your crusty boss.  I even gave him an eyepatch.  Nobody takes Charlton
    Heston seriously anymore.  If he shows up, you know it's gotta be
    funny, or low budget.  And--"
    
    "You never do low budget, Jim, yeah, I know.  Still...."
    
    "Aw, c'mon Arnie.  It'll be a big hit.   A real confidence booster."
    
    "Oh, all right.  Just don't paint my picture on the sides of any
    rockets, okay?"
    
    "Ok! Deal!"
    
    "And no big inflatable Arnolds in Time Square."
    
    "Promise."
    
    "Do we get a tie in with Burger King?"
    
    "I tried, but they're doing that Lion King thing with Disney
    already...."
    
    [fade out as meeting is adjourned]
    
    
    As mentioned before, True Lies tries to be funny and serious, but
    lingers in the middle so much that neither really work.  The beginning
    of the movie is interesting, it's pretty much straight spy/action hero
    stuff, with dabs of humor.  Humor is not entirely out of place in an
    action movie -- we all love funny lines.  But then, the middle piece is
    taken up by a progressively more painful-to-watch subplot that
    basically involves the abject humiliation of our hero's wife (Helen,
    played by Jamie Lee) and her sleazy suitor, Simon (Bill Paxton).  The
    point of all this (besides supposably being funny) is that Simon and
    Helen are supposably carrying on an affair, which our hero thinks he
    finds out about.  He then enlists the movie equivalent of a CIA to
    extract his revenge and he does, despite the fact that he's been a
    total nincompoop as far as a husband goes.  No wonder she's hanging
    around with Bill Paxton.  
    
    The problem is this: Simon is a cartoon character.  We don't care what
    happens to him.  But Helen is a sympathetic character and for whatever
    reason, she's played pretty much straight through all this.  I lost 
    any and all desire to like Arnold's character (Harry, I think? I've
    forgotten his first name) especially after an "interrogation" scene that 
    was played for too straight (esp. by Jamie Lee Curtis) to be funny.  
    I half-expected Laurence Olivier to walk in, whip out a few dental 
    tools and ask, "Is it safe?".  By the end of this, my strongest desire
    was to see Harry Trasker strapped naked to an ant hill and eaten alive.
    
    The movie somewhat redeems itself towards the end as it moves back to
    action-plot heroics, but by then, I was put off.  Lest the reader think
    I'm a real sourpuss, yeah, I laughed a few times, and yeah, some of the
    things they did were cool.  However, like Demolition Man, I found
    myself thinking, "You know, for a flashy fight scene, this is kinda
    dull."  Maybe I've seen too many action movies.  Been there, shot that,
    blow that up.  Go fig.  It was overkill on the special effects scene. 
    Just because a sequence CAN happen doesn't necessarily mean you should
    put it in your film.
    
    Good points?  Yes, there were some.
    
    Jamie Lee Curtis proved she looks good in her underwear.  She also 
    shrieks reasonably well. Arnold is good when doing action-hero, not as 
    good when trying to play loving husband (ant hill, ant hill), so so at 
    comedy, but looks nice in a tux.  Tom Arnold plays, well, Tom Arnold
    and besides Bill Paxton, is the only relentlessly comedic (if not always
    funny) character in the film.  The special effects are generally well
    done and if you get too bored, you can always play "Find the
    computer-generated image".  There's Tia Carrere as the slinky, exotic
    babe.  There's flashy sets and big explosions and bullets and mayhem
    and scenic shots on location and cars and trucks and bombs and planes
    and fantacial terrorists.  Hey, and there's Charlton Heston.  With an 
    eyepatch.  (Now that's comedy.)
    
    
    If I knew the movie had cost, oh, only $40 million and the
    director/screenwriter was someone else other than the guy who put out
    "Terminator" and "Aliens" (two cool very cool action movies that were
    made for less than a bajillion bucks) and the "Abyss" (cost a bajillion
    bucks, but was a good "no-name stars" flick even with sappy ending), I'd 
    less disappointed and more forgiving of True Lies.  As it is, I'm not. 
    Folks who are inclined to go see it will regardless of what they read,
    but if you're on the edge, wait till video. 
    
    ** out of ****  
    
    kim 
    
    
    
    
    

> frumpy wife

Hahahaha!

Kim nice "story", though a bit drawn out on the character portrayal somewhat 
like the movie.

However, I disagree about renting it on video.  For action type movies, I
highly recommend going to a good theater with a phenomenal sound system.  Most
renters don't have a true surround sound set-up, let alone a THX system in their 
house.  Yeah, yeah this might be a primative masculine urge in wanting to hear 
thundering bass that will stop your heart... but can you blame me?  :-)


Bevan

    
    I saw this film yesterday and can in a short and simple kinda way...
    
    
    I liked it... It did have stupid moments but overall I liked it. 
    
    I liked Tom Arnold and thought he did a good job in his part 
    I liked most of the special effects. 
    I loved Jamie Lee Curtis in the black push-up and thong 
    
    And any half hour that immediately follows Jamie dirty dancing in that 
    outfit would be boring. 
    
    Rp
      

> And any half hour that immediately follows Jamie dirty dancing in that 
> outfit would be boring. 

	The boring 1/2 hour does not *follow* the scene, but *precedes* it!

    At least they gave us something worth waiting for! (leer)
    
    Michael

I will preface this review with the fact that my wife and I *love* both
James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies: we don't remember one
from either person that we didn't like, and their combined movies (T1, 
T2) are among the best action/adventure movies we know of.  We think 
that "Last Action Hero" was not Arnie's best, but it was still good.

My wife and I saw this yesterday, and *loved* it.

The plot was good, the effects were good (the Harrier shots were wonderful),
the humor worked, and the plot holes weren't that bad.  Tom Arnold was
surprisingly good.  And I didn't find the "boring half hour" to be boring:
it had a very low body count, true, but I thought it showed that there
are personal sides to even spies like Harry.

Several people earlier mentioned some pretty poor effects shots.  I didn't
notice that many, but saw something that may have contributed to the "look"
of a poor shot, when in actuality it was realistic: the Harrier jet exhaust
was blowing straight down for much of the time it was in the city scenes.
This means that extremely hot air was surrounding the aircraft, with heat
waves disrupting everything you saw around the bottom of the aircraft.  
They looked very similar to the poor matte shots in earlier movies, but
were in fact the way it really looks!  Could that be an explanation?

And any movie that has Tia Carrera and Jamie Lee Curtis is not too bad...
When Jamie started ripping up her black dress in the hallway, several very
audible gasps rolled through the audience.  Wow.

-- Ken Moreau

    Re: .23
    
    >When Jamie started ripping up her black dress in the hallway, several
    >very audible gasps rolled through the audience.
    
    The females were probably stunned at the poor construction of a dress
    that pulls apart like that....
    
    
    Re: in general
    
    This is a solid entry in the summer blockbuster action genre.  Arnold
    is Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis is convincing in all the phases of Helen
    (mouse, novice vamp, sidekick), Tom Arnold is fun as the motormouth
    buddy, and Tia Carrere seems to be having fun with her bad-Bond-babe 
    role.  The special effects look great and lots of laughs throughout.

RE: .24

>    The females were probably stunned at the poor construction of a dress
>    that pulls apart like that....

First, the gasps came *after* the dress was pulled apart, and came when she
looked in the mirror after most of the dress was crumpled in her purse.

Second, the dress was *very* well constructed: it split along even seams,
the rips came only where they were supposed to be, and the final effect
was very, umm, effective...

-- Ken Moreau

    We saw this last week, too.  I really loved it!  More action than
    Blown Away, (haven't seen SPEED, yet).  And some very funny lines.  I
    think Tom did a great job.  Looks like he's Arnie's buddy...I saw them
    both on ET the other night as working with the LA Games (summer
    olympics/activities for the LA area kids).
    
    -s
    

>                   -< It was a nice outfit... wasn't it? :) >-
>
>    At least they gave us something worth waiting for! (leer)

You people do know that Jamie is genetically a male, but her body is
insensitive to male hormones so she developed as a female outside.

this is true.

/scott

> You people do know that Jamie is genetically a male, but her body is
> insensitive to male hormones so she developed as a female outside.

	Does that mean she has no (or low) sex drive?

>	Does that mean she has no (or low) sex drive?

um... I'd say she must have some sort of sex drive... Just because one
aspect of her body is insensitive to the hormone, doesn't mean the brain
is insensitive...

but, if she doesn't have a sex drive, then I feel real bad for Christopher
Guest... (her husband)

/scott

    I thought this movie was excellent!  Best Arnold movie ever (I think).  
    (with Terminator 2 being close behind.)
    
    
    Ken
    

    Arnold's redemtion after Last Action Hero.  LAH was horrible. I was
    reluctant to see this becuase I thought it would be a similar attempt
    to combine comedy and Action.  It did attempt to do this, but this time
    it worked, especialy becuase a strong supporting role by Tom Arnold. 
    The action was not lost in the comedy.  I still would like to see a
    straight action shoot em up film soon from Arnold.  I miss the Arnold
    of Commando, Running Man, T1 and T2. He does well in a commedy setting,
    but he is an action hero.
    

    I guess I'm a dissenting voice on this one.  IMO, they had a decent
    action movie setup for the first hour, then stuck an icredibly long
    and boring side plot about Arnold's wife that simply didn't belong.
    This took at least 45 minutes, and if you took that section completely
    out and stuck with the Middle East terrorist story, you would have had
    a tight 1 hr 40 min action movie.  Instead, you get a 2 hr 25 min hack
    job with a scene so humiliating to Jamie Curtis (behind the one way
    mirror) as to be unbearable.
    
    Perhaps they could have made the Curtis-Arnold marriage plot into its
    own movie; it certainly didn't belong in this one.
    
    NAZZ
    
    PS - Why is it that Middle East terrorists have an unlimited supply of
    ammo but are incredibly poor shots?  Go out to the target range, guys!!

    ... And I'd be pretty worried if I was the one who had to better
    Arnie's "True Lies" with the next James Bond movie !
    
    Ps:  Arnie gets pregnant in his next movie....
    
    Reargards,
    
    Stephen

    I thought there were a couple of serious problems with true lies, in
    fact a major problem in all Action/comedies.  Why are these people
    dieing what have they done to deserve it?  The poor shot highly equiped
    arab terrorists maybe one thing but how about all those "guards" near
    the beginning of the film?
    
    And, of course pain is rarely funny so people don't die slowly, no
    wounded anywhere just lots of corpses. - No collateral, and as I
    remember it no women or children.  
    
    Why English villains, are we the only county with villainious acting
    training schools?
    
    I prefered LAH.  Funnier, dafter, no Tom Arnold. (still an English
    villain though.)
    
    Michael. 

    seeing Jamie lee half naked was worth admission.

    Re -2 
    
    I'm not really sure what English villain training school you're
    referring to. 
    
    However, we saw this last night and I LOVED it. Rather than a true
    action film, I think of this as a romantic comedy, with a cartoon
    action plot thrown in. As such, it worked fantastically well.
    
    Arnold, Jamie Lee and even Tom Arnold were great. I only hope they do a
    series of these, or at least a sequel. I haven't liked a movie this
    much all year.
    
    If you like: fun, romance, comedy and action, SEE IT!
    
    
    Marilyn

    Re: .36
    
    >I'm not really sure what English villain training school you're
    >referring to. 
    
    Must be Eton....

    
    :^)
    
    
    

    RE: .35  by 8269::MARLAND 
    
    >seeing Jamie lee half naked was worth admission.
    
    Which half?
    

    Went to this last night.  I'm not a fan of Arnold or of action movies
    in general so, predictably, I didn't like it.  I thought the only
    performance that was better than mediocre was from Curtis.  Paxton's
    sub-Dan Aykroyd used car salesman was funny for about 30 seconds;
    the Tom Arnold sidekick character didn't amuse me at all.  
    
    One thing I liked was the beginning of the 1st big action sequence in
    Switzerland, when the 2 dogs jump at Arnold and he grabs them and bangs
    their heads together.  It signals immediately:  "Arnold is a superhero;
    what follows is a comic book" to anybody not already aware of what
    they're in for.  
    
    Lots of killing, incredibly stupid, evil middle-eastern terrorists for
    villains (treated as Italians or Japanese might have been treated in a
    war-time comic book), and a very strange role for Jamie Lee Curtis, as
    a frumpy housewife who is humiliated, required to masquerade as a
    whore, and then somehow with Arnold's help finds her true vocation as a
    superhero/spy.
    
    Previous notes testify that to fans of Arnold or of the action genre
    this is entertaining.  I thought it was pretty poor.  
    
    -Stephen 

    Re: .40
    
    >a frumpy housewife who is humiliated, required to masquerade as a whore
    
    I was feeling uncomfortable about all this -- until she got to the
    phone.  _That_ made me feel better.

    
    
    It's entertaining, didn't get bored with it. Special effects were
    very good. Never enjoyed Tom Arnold until this movie. Overall worth 
    the fee.
    
    Dave

Spoiler alert  -  plot given away:


The story-board should have been: 1) narrow escape from Swiss villa,
2) beautiful antique dealer really terrorist, 3) wife kidnapped to island, 
4) rescue/shootout at island, 5) shootout/finale Miami.

But where on earth did they come up with: 2a) jealous husband teaches naughty
wife lesson she won't forget?  That's nearly as bad as Bubba Bazooka storming
the wrong beach and wasting some tourists.  But I shouldn't be giving
Schwarzenager any bright ideas.

Brian